Reviews

Quad Cortex mini amp modeler: All the power, half the size

amp modeling, machine learning, Neural DSP, Quad Cortex mini, Reviews / Rejus Almole / March 9, 2026

A warehouse of guitar gear in the palm of your hand.

At this January’s massive NAMM music tech show in Los Angeles, six products won “best of show” awards. Several of them went to major music and electronic brands like Yamaha and Boss, but one of the six went to Neural DSP, a much smaller company started in 2017 by Chilean immigrants to Finland.

From its base in the Helsinki area, Neural has made itself an expert in the use of machine learning, robots, and impulse response technology to automate the construction of incredibly lifelike guitar amp modeling software. It quickly jumped into the top ranks of an industry dominated by brands like Universal Audio, Kemper, Line 6, and Fractal. For a hundred bucks, you could buy one of the company’s plugins and sound like a guitar god with a $10,000 recording chain of amps, cabinets, effects pedals, and microphones.

In 2020, Neural branched out into hardware, putting its tech not in your computer but in a floor-based box covered with footswitches and called the Quad Cortex. While the company’s plugins could each replace one entire pedalboard of gear—plus a few amps and cabs—the Quad Cortex could replace a Guitar Center-sized warehouse of devices, offering hundreds of amps, cabs, and effects.

How was this possible? High-quality gear models used to take much longer to build; the best were often built by modeling every single component of the underlying circuit. Machine learning offered a faster way, one that didn’t care about the circuit at all. What it cared about was the input signal (which was known) and the output signal (which contained all the changes imposed on the signal by the circuit, the speaker, the cabinet, and/or the mic in question). A computer could then calculate what the device was doing to the signal without knowing anything about “how it worked.”

But this kind of modeling still took time, because each “capture” was a static picture of one particular setting. When you imagine the millions of possible setting combinations (tone, bass, treble, drive, EQ, etc.) on even a single guitar amp, you can see that building complex models of beloved gear could be slow.

In 2024, Neural announced that it had sped up this process using a robot called TINA. The company hooked TINA’s robotic actuators up to the various controls on some piece of gear it wanted to model, and TINA would do the tedious work of spinning the knobs and recording a new capture at each knob position. (Neural claimed that it typically recorded “thousands of control positions” per device this way.)

A neural network then built a model of how the target device behaved at each recorded setting, though the model would “also generalize and precisely infer the sound of the device in any unseen control setting and input signal.” The result was not a single model of a static setting but a dynamic model that could act on parameter changes just like the original device.

Neural has now modeled a massive library of gear, much of which comes with the Quad Cortex. That device sounds great, though it is still relatively chunky and nearly $2,000.

This year, Neural built on that success with the Quad Cortex mini, which shrinks the device size in half, cuts the footswitches to four, and lowers the price to $1,400—but still offers the full processing power of its larger sibling. This is the device that won a “Best in Show” award at NAMM.

As an enthusiastic amateur guitarist for many years, I got my start with digital amp sims through a Digidesign RP-6 pedalboard from the 1990s. And though it had “S-DISC PROCESSING!” it never sounded particularly realistic, especially with distortion effects. More recently, since I record rather than gig, I’ve spent my time getting to know the software side of the amp modeling business.

But when Neural offered to loan me a review unit of the Quad Cortex mini, I was quite curious to see just what top-tier hardware units can do today.

Photo of the Quad Cortex mini. — The Quad Cortex mini in its natural habitat: surrounded by cables. Credit: Nate Anderson

The hardware

The glass, metal, and steel Quad Cortex mini is about the size of two bricks laid side by side (8.9×4.6×2.5 inches or 22.8×11.8×6.5 cm), and its 3.3 lbs (1.5 kg) give it a satisfying heft. It looks and feels premium—this is a well-built piece of gear.

Though it is meant to operate a bit like traditional analog stomp boxes that guitar and bass players have long used, it may be more helpful to think of the Quad Cortex mini as a chunky handheld computer that you can just so happen to use on the floor.

It runs its own operating system (CorOS), takes a whopping 45 seconds to boot, has Wi-Fi for over-the-air updates and cloud service connectivity, features a 7-inch touchscreen, and comes with a “CPU monitor” to show you just how unhappy its chipset is about that third reverb you added to a patch. It even contains a full-on monosynth that you can add to guitar patches, providing control over four full pages of synth parameters, including the raw oscillators.

So finger-focused is the unit that you can tweak just about any parameter on the device with either the touchscreen controls or the footswitches, which double as twistable rotary encoders.

If the top face of the Quad Cortex mini is devoted to a screen and switches, the sides are all about inputs and outputs. You get a “locking” power connector (so the cord doesn’t pull out on stage, prematurely ending your soaring 10-minute guitar solo mid-note) along with a whole host of audio connectors: guitar/bass input, XLR input with phantom power, balanced XLR outputs, TRS send/return ports, stereo line outs, MIDI in and out, an expression pedal port, a USB-C port, and a headphone jack.

Finally, there’s the “capture out” port, which is used to send a series of test signals through various kinds of audio gear to generate a machine learning-based model of various amps, cabinets, and pedals.

The “capture” port is another reminder of the way in which this kind of modern modeling gear is not just an updated version of old-school stomp boxes. The Quad Cortex mini does let you plug in your guitar and rock out, sure, but it also performs and processes hardware captures (both on the device and—for more sophisticated modeling—in the cloud) and can operate as a 16-channel USB-C audio interface to your computer. And though it’s largely designed for guitars and basses, you can use it on anything. The unit even has a few voice presets, which sound pretty wild with some of the real-time pitch-shifting and reverb effects.

While you can model your own gear collection with the Quad Cortex mini, the device itself comes with more than 90 amp models, more than 100 effects, and over 1,000 cabinet impulse responses. It can also run versions of the company’s desktop plugins (assuming you’ve purchased them already). It also comes with “over 2,000 high-quality factory Neural Captures” of other gear—these are static captures—and it can connect to the free “Cortex Cloud” service to download even more, including those uploaded by other users.

In other words: This one box holds digital representations of several hundred thousand dollars of gear. And given that you can mix and match cabs, captures, amps, and effects in wildly complicated chains that can even split and merge… the possibilities are functionally limitless.

Whether that excites or paralyzes you may depend on your own psychology, but it’s quite a change from how Neural DSP has approached its plugin offerings. Neural has generally offered curated (read: limited) collections of amps, cabs, and effects bundled into plugins that represent the tone of, say, John Mayer. You might get 3 amps, a few cabinets recorded with various mics, a few pedals, and an EQ, reverb, and delay, all in a gorgeous interface with some great presets.

But boxes like Quad Cortex mini take a “more is more” approach, with unlimited gear-mixing potential, captures, and storage for thousands of presets. Curation? Bah, who needs it? Here’s everything!

Rectangular

This much gear also means that “gorgeous bespoke interface graphics” are out the window; you will get no pictures of sexy amps sitting in sexy studios with sexy lighting, as you do in the company’s gorgeous plugins. Instead, you will get flat rectangles. So many flat rectangles.

CorOS is one of those places where skeuomorphism goes to die. The Quad Cortex mini interface is extremely “functional”—I am trying to avoid more negative terms, because it has a certain “alpha phase before we put the final art in” charm—and is based entirely around grids of flat rectangles.

The main screen is called, in fact, “the grid.” It shows your current effect chain as a series of small squares, each filled with often impenetrable line art. (A disturbing number of these are some variation on a squiggly line. Fortunately, they are color coded by effect type.)

Each square represents a different effects processor, and you can have four lines of eight effect squares each. That might sound like a lot (and it is), but the processors can be distributed across the grid in creative ways.

Preset 47B, for instance, is called “Annoying Flute,” and it makes use of all four grid lines by running the input signal through a VCA compressor, a gate, an octave pitch shifter, an envelope filter, an EQ, the “Neural Capture” of an amp called “Custom 3SE 2,” and then a “112 US DLX Black C12K 00s (M)” speaker cabinet. (The names of these things are often hard to read at a glance, especially when picking from a list of a hundred items.)

This accounts for only “line 1” of the grid. In the case of Annoying Flute, the signal chain branches right after the speaker cabinet. Half of it continues on to line 3 of the grid, while the other half is routed down to line 2, where it passes through a pair of tape delays before also heading off to line 3. Line 3 receives this re-combined signal and splits it again, this time passing half of it through a poly octaver and another digital delay on line 4 before everything runs through a modulated reverb on line 3 and then onwards to the outputs.

Does this sort of craziness sound good? Well, it sounds better than anything featuring three delays, two pitch shifters, and the name “Annoying Flute” has any right to! But I bring this example up to illustrate the creative routing and effects decisions that the grid makes possible.

And things get even crazier when you use the built-in looper, trigger analog send/return effects, and set up your effects chain with other units meant to be switched on and off during a song.

So much for assigning effects rectangles to the rectangular grid. How to control all of these virtual gadgets? When you tap on any effects unit, up pops an overlay containing (you guessed it) lots of rectangles.

Every controllable parameter gets a rectangle, which is usually filled with a dial or a switch. You can change the values of these dials and switches by touching the screen or by twisting the lower-right rotary footswitch.

Sometimes there are multiple pages of such parameters; the blossom reverb, for instance, has two pages of options and lets you control everything from ducking to pre-delay to modulation to the length of the early reflections. Configuring an entire audio chain from scratch can therefore take a while if you’re a detail freak.

Gig Mode. Yup, it’s rectangles! Credit: Nate Anderson

When you have your grid setup exactly how you like it—or you’ve customized one of the many built-in presets—you can save your own custom presets and organize them in all sorts of performance-oriented ways.

There’s PRESET mode, which lets you stomp each of the four footswitches to select a completely different preset.

There’s SCENE mode, which lets you use the footswitches to instead choose different parameter sets within the same preset—such as adding a hall reverb, upping the amp gain, and boosting the delay mix level when you come to your big solo.

Then there’s STOMP mode, which operates most like a traditional pedalboard; you step on the various footswitches to turn different effects units in the preset on or off completely.

Finally, there are hybrid modes, which make things even more complex (and can probably be ignored by many users).

To make all this a little easier to grok, there’s something called “Gig View,” which is unintuitively accessed by swiping up from the bottom of the screen. (There is no visual clue that this mode exists or that this is how you access it.) Gig View is essentially four flat—and extremely large—rectangles that take over the entire screen. They show you at a glance what each footswitch will do given the current mode setting.

Creating presets, assigning scenes, and setting up the STOMP mode and Gig View settings can quickly get intricate—even downright confusing (multiple items can sometimes be mapped to the same switch, for instance). I confess that the thought of doing all this through tapping the good-but-not-instantly-reactive touchscreen brought me to despair, until I realized that Neural has built an entire (free) desktop app for Mac and Windows called Cortex Control. Plug in your device over USB and suddenly you can use a nice and very responsive desktop app to do the donkey work of creating and organizing scenes and presets and settings.

I hate downloading stupid one-off apps that clutter up my computer and appear to provide more value to the company making them than they do to me—a serious problem in the current audio engineering world—but Cortex Control is genuinely useful. Indeed, if you’re going to be more than a presets player, I’d call it essential unless you have far more patience than I do. Which you might!

Stomp it

All of this rectangle talk reminds me that the interface largely… works. It may not be gorgeous, but the job gets done, and the desktop app makes the grunt work easier. But I still found the Quad Cortex mini somewhat confusing to navigate after a couple of weeks of intermittent use (though no doubt it gets easier with time).

The device has so many ways of doing things that it can be hard to remember what is needed in each situation. For instance, to make a change, you might use the rotary encoders. You might tap. You might long-tap with different results. You might swipe, drag, or toggle. You might use the footswitches—but results there might vary by mode. Even then, you might need to tap two footswitches at once, while at other times you only need to step on one. And sometimes you need to “long-press” (long-stomp?) two footswitches at once to get the desired result.

Making things worse, numerous items—sometimes quite important items like the Gig View—are not visible or even discoverable.

For instance, the key settings panel that lets you control all the various inputs and outputs on the device does not appear to be accessible from within the overall “settings” menu or anywhere else. Instead, you have to swipe down from the top of the grid screen—again, with no indication that this is where that information lives.

(You have to read the manual to figure out some of these things, which is fine, but the manual also has big gaps, such as not describing what any of the gear actually does nor what any of the settings mean nor how they might be used. For the actual “audio engineering” aspect of the Quad Cortex mini, you’re on your own.)

Something as simple as moving between presets can also be more hassle than you’d expect. Because the Quad Cortex mini only has four footswitches, you can only access four presets at once with a direct stomp. Switching to anything else from the main grid while in PRESET mode appears to require—unless I am missing some obvious shortcut—that you:

“Long-stomp” the right two footswitches, after which the preset name starts blinking.
At this point, you can tap the left two or the right two footswitches together to move up or down through four-item “banks” of presets.
But within each bank, you can only see that bank’s four different presets by tapping on each of the various footswitches.
To exit blinking mode and actually select that preset, you need to press its corresponding footswitch again.

This feels like a lot of hassle when you just want to whip through some presets! (Gig View is marginally easier because it at least displays the four presets in each bank at once. Making this whole process more confusing is that it differs depending on which mode you are in.)

While the processing power and options on offer here are incredible, I do think interface navigation and the modes assignment system could benefit from a rethink and simplification.

The sound

These quirks can be dealt with, and time (plus the Cortex Control app) should make them easier to manage. The more important question is: How does the Quad Cortex mini sound?

Neural DSP has been one of the leaders in the field of amp and effects modeling for some years now, and it shows. There’s no possible way I could compare all of the models to the original hardware, and I’m not actually interested in doing so. The question for me is simply whether the models sound good when jamming solo or when placed into a mix. On both counts, the answer is a definite yes. This is just a remarkable set of tones to have on hand.

(People as diverse as Dave Mustaine and John Mayer appear to agree, at least for a live rig.)

Once you get over its navigation, playing with this thing is like being a kid in a proverbial candy shop. (Though I, too, love candy shops!) Almost every amp you can imagine is a tap away, and they sound wonderful—though do be aware that what you are getting here is the sound of a recorded amp through a mic and not necessarily an “amp in the room with you.”

Nearly every time I booted it up to test something new, I lost myself in the sound and played far longer than I had intended.

Neural has published a massive and quite helpful list of all the gear on offer here. Bogner Shiva? Marshall? Mesa Boogie? Matchless? Soldano? Vox? Fender? Hiwatt? Amps from all these companies are included. Need a bass amp? There are 13 of those, too. What about a bass overdrive? You get five. A general reverb? How about 17? You get the idea.

You can loop, filter, distort, EQ, delay, and compress to your heart’s content, though there seems to be a bit more emphasis here on rock and metal styles (which Neural DSP is most known for) than on other offerings. Still, there’s enough variety to offer great tools for funk, blues, jazz, and country players. You can even add in a version of the monosynth found in the company’s Rabea plugin.

To illustrate some of the sounds on offer, I wrote a little song about a dirtbag billionaire who makes rockets, gets chased off the Earth by angry locals, and ends up crashing his ship into the Moon out of despair. It’s called “Master of the Universe.”

More to the point, it features 10-plus electric guitar tracks recorded through the Quad Cortex mini using shimmer reverb, the poly octaver, and various crunchy rhythm and lead sounds. (I avoided the metal tones so common in Neural DSP demos.) Bass guitar was likewise recorded through one of the mini’s bass presets.

(For those new to audio production and curious about the other sounds in the track, the drums are the Abbey Road 70s kit, while the rocket-sounding “riser” comes from the Rise and Hit collection, both from Native Instruments. The piano is the recently upgraded “studio piano” that comes in Logic Pro and now sounds surprisingly good! There’s also a Hammond organ emulation and a Rhodes piano emulation from Universal Audio buried in the mix. The double-tracked acoustic guitars during two of the choruses were recorded live in my home studio with a single condenser mic. For room ambience throughout, but especially on the drums, I used Universal Audio’s excellent Sound City Studios plugin.)

I’ve generally found Neural’s plugin tones to be pretty “mix-ready,” and that’s true here as well. Though I often needed to roll off some low end or make an occasional EQ boost or add a bit of reverb to blend the guitars spatially with the drum ambience, little else was required but panning and fader moves.

Frankly, there are probably too many parts in the song, but the Quad Cortex mini was just such a playground of sounds that I kept finding new little bits I wanted to work in. Just be grateful that I talked myself out of using all of the insane pitch-shift effects on my vocal for “special” moments.

“Master of the Universe,” my demo song showing some of what the Quad Cortex mini can do.

Captured

When it comes to recording, you don’t have to worry about wiring this thing up to your audio interface; just connect it to your computer with a USB-C cable, and it becomes a 24-bit, 48 KHz interface. (On Macs, this is class compliant and needs no driver; it even works with iOS devices. Neural makes the necessary driver for Windows.)

The Quad Cortex mini shows up with a host of inputs, making it simple to record, say, both a dry electric guitar track and a heavily effected one at the same time. If you change your mind about the sound later, you can always “re-amp” the dry signal by routing it back out to the device and recording it with different settings. You can even track mics through this thing, thanks to an XLR input and (for condenser mics) support for phantom power.

The Quad Cortex mini can also make its own captures of gear you either own or happen across. This can happen in two ways: 1) on the device or 2) in the cloud.

The device-based system, which the company calls “Neural Capture Version 1,” requires you to hook up your gear to both an output (to play the system’s test tones) and an input on the mini. (Note: Do not, under ANY circumstances, connect the actual speaker outputs from a tube amp directly to the mini. The power level is far too high.)

Various known sounds are then played through this loop, and the mini’s software analyzes the differences between the sound it sent and the sound it received. The machine-learning algorithms for this run locally on the device. Neural says that the Capture 1 system can handle overdrive pedals, amps, and cabs.

The newer system, called Neural Capture Version 2, is “an advanced evolution of Neural Capture trained via Cortex Cloud,” says the company. “This option provides even higher-resolution Captures, making it especially powerful for touch-sensitive devices like fuzzes, compressors, and certain styles of amps.” Capture 2 is said to be capable of modeling “subtle behaviors like volume-knob cleanup, amp sag and bloom, fast transients, and blend controls.”

As the name suggests, the more powerful algorithms behind this system require cloud-based servers instead of the local device. Users are allowed to run 40 Neural Capture 2 sessions per day, and each takes around 10 minutes.

The resulting captures, along with any presets you want to share, can be uploaded to Neural’s cloud-based system for sharing them. Once you log in, any captures or presets you choose to download from the site will automatically show up in your Quad Cortex mini.

Look for a follow-up article on what the actual process of making a capture is like; it’s similar across many different modeling devices these days, though the sound of the resulting models can vary by company.

Screenshot of The Cortex Cloud website. — The Cortex Cloud website.

Options

The Quad Cortex mini is a powerful tone platform that is both versatile and expandable. It’s good for solo jamming at home without needing to 1) buy amps, cabs, and effects and 2) crank them to ruinous volume levels. It’s good for playing live, once you have configured its fairly deep control system in a way that works for your particular songs. And it’s good for recording, letting you fiddle with endless gear combinations without running a single patch cable or digging up a 9V battery.

At $1,400, though, it’s bad for your wallet. Whether it’s worth the cost depends on your use case. If you don’t need a screen and are happy with fewer ports and options, you might consider Neural DSP’s smaller and cheaper Nano Cortex ($570) or other devices like the Tonex pedals from IK Multimedia. On the other hand, if you want a larger unit with more footswitches, you can plonk down an extra $400 for the full-fat Quad Cortex or look into various options from Fractal, Kemper, Line 6, etc.

One way of thinking about the financial calculus here would be to try out the device (or listen online) and see how well the sound works for you. Some amp purists believe that nothing beats the sound of real tubes and real speakers in a real room, cost and weight and volume be damned. Many others can’t hear a difference between the models and the originals.

If you’re in the former group, these kinds of devices are unlikely to fully satisfy you, at least when it comes to gigging and recording. So you might decide whether they are “worth it” based solely on their value as easy, light, and quiet practice platforms.

If you can’t tell (or don’t care about) the difference between the models and the real hardware, then these modeling sims start to look like a far better value. When individual amps can go for $1,500 to $2,000 or more, a massive gear collection like the one in the Quad Cortex mini is practically saving you money. You’d be a fool not to buy! (To paraphrase an explanation my son once gave me for a purchase he wanted to make.)

But even those in this group may not need an actual hardware pedal unless they really enjoy practicing without needing to use their regular computer—or unless they gig regularly. If you’re simply a recording guitarist who tends to work “in the box,” you might just pick up some cheaper Neural DSP plugins instead. Or you can buy a more comprehensive software suite like the new Paradise Guitar Studio from Universal Audio or one of the offerings from PolychromeDSP—all of which sound excellent.

If you’re content with software but want a free alternative, take a look at NAM, the Neural Amp Modeler. It’s open source modeling tech that also offers a community tone-sharing website and has been racking up lots of great reviews for its sound quality. (Though note that most of the NAM models are static captures; they sound great but represent only that exact setup and knob positioning, though the developers are working on more complex, adjustable models.)

All types of users can probably admit, though, that hardware and software modeling tech has made this a great time to be a guitar or bass player. Even if you don’t want to use them on a record, just being able to play around with and get to know this much gear with this much accuracy is a huge win for the home hobbyist and small-time gigging musician, who would otherwise never even set eyes on most of this stuff.

The key thing is just to get whatever works for you… and then to go forth and rock.

Quad Cortex mini amp modeler: All the power, half the size Read More »

Google Pixel 10a review: The sidegrade

Features, Google, Google Pixel, pixel 10a, Reviews, smartphones, Tech / Paul Patrick / March 4, 2026

Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.

The camera now sits flush with the back panel. Credit: Ryan Whitwam

Google’s budget Pixels have long been a top recommendation for anyone who needs a phone with a good camera and doesn’t want to pay flagship prices. This year, Google’s A-series Pixel doesn’t see many changes, and the formula certainly isn’t different. The Pixel 10a isn’t so much a downgraded version of the Pixel 10 as it is a refresh of the Pixel 9a. In fact, it’s hardly deserving of a new name. The new Pixel gets a couple of minor screen upgrades, a flat camera bump, and boosted charging. But the hardware hasn’t evolved beyond that—there’s no PixelSnap and no camera upgrade, and it runs last year’s Tensor processor.

Even so, it’s still a pretty good phone. Anything with storage and RAM is getting more expensive in 2026, but Google has managed to keep the Pixel 10a at $500, the same price as the last few phones. It’s probably still the best $500 you can spend on an Android phone, but if you can pick up a Pixel 9a for even a few bucks cheaper, you should do that instead.

If it ain’t broke…

The phone’s silhouette doesn’t shake things up. It’s a glass slab with a flat metal frame. The display and the plastic back both sit inside the aluminum surround to give the phone good rigidity. The buttons, which are positioned on the right edge of the frame, are large, flat, and sturdy. On the opposite side is the SIM card slot—Google has thankfully kept this feature after dropping it on the flagship Pixel 10 family, but it has moved from the bottom edge. The bottom looks a bit cleaner now, with matching cut-outs housing the speaker and microphone.

Pixel 10a in hand — The Pixel 10a is what passes for a small phone now. Credit: Ryan Whitwam

Traditionally, Google’s Pixel A-series always had the same Tensor chip as the matching flagship generation. So last year’s Pixel 9a had the Tensor G4, just like the Pixel 9 and 9 Pro. The Pixel 10a breaks with tradition by remaining on the G4, while the flagship Pixels advanced to Tensor G5.

Specs at a glance: Google Pixel 9a vs. Pixel 10a
Phone	Pixel 9a	Pixel 10a
SoC	Google Tensor G4	Google Tensor G4
Memory	8GB	8GB
Storage	128GB, 256GB	128GB, 256GB
Display	1080×2424 6.3″ pOLED, 60–120 Hz, Gorilla Glass 3, 2,700 nits (peak)	1080×2424 6.3″ pOLED, 60–120 Hz, Gorilla Glass 7i, 3,000 nits (peak)
Cameras	48 MP primary, f/1.7, OIS; 13 MP ultrawide, f/2.2; 13 MP selfie, f/2.2	48 MP primary, f/1.7, OIS; 13 MP ultrawide, f/2.2; 13 MP selfie, f/2.2
Software	Android 15 (at launch), 7 years of OS updates	Android 16, 7 years of OS updates
Battery	5,100 mAh, 23 W wired charging, 7.5 W wireless charging	5,100 mAh, 30 W wired charging, 10 W wireless charging
Connectivity	Wi-Fi 6e, NFC, Bluetooth 5.3, sub-6 GHz 5G, USB-C 3.2	Wi-Fi 6e, NFC, Bluetooth 6.0, sub-6 GHz 5G, USB-C 3.2
Measurements	154.7×73.3×8.9 mm; 185g	153.9×73×9 mm; 183g

Google’s custom Arm chips aren’t the fastest you can get, and the improvement from G4 to G5 wasn’t dramatic. The latest version is marginally faster and more efficient in CPU and GPU compute, but the NPU saw a big boost in AI throughput. So the upgrade to Tensor G5 is not a must-have (unless you love mobile AI), but the Pixel 10a doesn’t offer the same value proposition that the 9a did. Most of the other specs remain the same for 2026 as well. The base storage and RAM are still 128GB and 8GB, respectively, and it’s IP68 rated for water and dust exposure.

Camera bump comparison — The Pixel 10a (left) has a flat camera module, but the Pixel 9a camera sticks out a bit. Credit: Ryan Whitwam

This is what passes for a small phone these days. The device fits snugly in one hand, and its generously rounded corners make it pretty cozy. You can reach a large swath of the screen with one hand, and the device isn’t too heavy at 183 grams. The Pixel 10 is about the same size, but it’s much heavier at 204 g.

At 6.3 inches, the OLED screen offers the same viewable area as the 9a. However, Google says the bezels are a fraction of a millimeter slimmer. More importantly, the display has moved from the aging Gorilla Glass 3 to Gorilla Glass 7i. That’s a welcome upgrade that could help this piece of hardware live up to its lengthy software support. Google also boosted peak brightness by 11 percent to 3,000 nits. That’s the same as in the Pixel 10, but the difference won’t be obvious unless you’re looking at the 9a and 10a side by side under strong sunlight.

Pixel 10a and keyboard glamor shot — Google isn’t rocking the boat with the Pixel 10a. Credit: Ryan Whitwam

There’s an optical fingerprint scanner under the screen, which will illuminate a dark room more than you would expect. The premium Pixels have ultrasonic sensors these days, which are generally faster and more accurate. The sensor on the 10a is certainly good enough given the price tag, and with Google increasingly looking to separate the A-series from the flagships, we wouldn’t expect anything more.

The new camera module is the only major visual alteration this cycle. The sensors inside haven’t changed, but Google did manage to fully eliminate the bump. The rear cameras on this phone are now flush with the surface, a welcome departure from virtually every other smartphone. The Pixel 10a sits flat on a table and won’t rock side to side if you tap the screen. The cameras on the 9a didn’t stick out much, but shaving a few millimeters off is still an accomplishment, and the generous battery capacity has been preserved.

The Tensor tension

Google will be the first to tell you that it doesn’t tune Tensor chips to kill benchmarks. That said, the Tensor G5 did demonstrate modest double-digit improvements in our testing. You don’t get that with the Pixel 10a and its year-old Tensor G4, but the performance isn’t bad at all for a $500 phone.

Pixel phones, including this one, are generally very pleasant to use. Animations are smooth and not overly elaborate, and apps open quickly. Benchmarks can still help you understand where a device falls in the grand scheme of things, so here are some comparisons.

Google builds phones with the intention of supporting them for the long haul, but how will that work when the hardware is leveling off? Tensor might not be as fast as Qualcomm’s Snapdragon chips, but the architecture is much more capable than what you’d find in your average budget phone, and Google’s control of the chipset ensures it can push updates as long as it wants.

Meanwhile, 8 gigabytes of RAM might be a little skimpy in seven years, but you’re not going to see generous RAM allotments in budget phones this year—not while AI data centers are gobbling up every scrap of flash memory. Right now, though, the Pixel 10a keeps apps in memory well enough, and it’s not running as many AI models in the background compared to the flagship Pixels.

The one place you may feel the Pixel 10a lagging is in games. None of the Tensor chips are particularly good at rendering complex in-game worlds, but that’s more galling for phones that cost $1,000. A $500 Pixel 10a that’s mediocre at gaming doesn’t sting as much, and it’s really not that bad unless you insist on playing titles like Call of Duty Mobile or Genshin Impact.

You don’t buy a Pixel because it will blow the door off every game and benchmark app—you buy it because it’s fast enough that you don’t have to think about the system-on-a-chip inside. That’s the Pixel 10a with Tensor G4.

Pixel 10a from edge in hand — The Pixel 10a is fairly thin, but it has a respectable 5,100 mAh battery inside. Credit: Ryan Whitwam

The new Pixel A phone again has a respectable 5,100 mAh battery. That’s larger than every other Pixel, save for the 10 Pro XL (5,200 mAh). It’s possible to get two solid days of usage from this phone between charges, and it’s a bit speedier when you do have to plug in. Google upgraded the wired charging from 23 W in the 9a to 30 W for the 10a. Wireless charging has been increased from 7.5 W to 10 W with a compatible Qi charger. However, there are no PixelSnap magnets inside the phone, which seems a bit arbitrary—this could be another way to make the $800 Pixel 10 look like a better upgrade. We’re just annoyed that Google’s new magnetic charger doesn’t work very well with the 10a.

Some AI, lots of updates

Phones these days come with a lot of bloatware—partner apps, free-to-play games, sports tie-ins, and more. You don’t have to deal with any of that on a Pixel. There’s only one kind of bloat out of the box, and that’s Google’s. If you plan to use Google apps and services on the Google phone, you don’t have to do much customization to make the Pixel 10a tolerable. It’s a clean, completely Googley experience.

Naturally, Google’s take on Android has the most robust implementation of Material 3 Expressive, which uses wallpaper colors to theme system elements and supported apps. It looks nice and modern, and we prefer it over Apple’s Liquid Glass. The recent addition of AI-assisted icon theming also means your Pixel home screen will finally be thematically consistent.

Pixel 10a on leather background — Material 3 Expressive looks nice on Google’s phones. Credit: Ryan Whitwam

There’s much more AI on board, but it’s not the full suite of Google generative tools. As with last year’s budget Pixel, you’re missing things like Pixel Screenshots, weather summaries, and Pixel Studio—Google reserves those for the flagship phones with their more powerful Gemini Nano models. You will get Google’s AI-powered anti-spam tools, plenty of Gemini integrations, and most of the phone features, like Call Screen. If you’re not keen on Google AI, this may actually be a selling point.

One of the main reasons to buy a Pixel is the support. Pixels are guaranteed a lengthy seven years of update support, covering both monthly security patches and OS updates. You can expect the Pixel 10a to get updates through 2033.

Samsung is the only other Android device maker that offers seven years of support, but it tends to be slower in updating phones after their first year. Pixel phones get immediate updates to new security patches and even new versions of Android. If you buy anything else that isn’t an iPhone, you’ll be looking at much less support and much more waiting.

Google also consistently delivers new features via the quarterly Pixel Drops, and while a lot of that is AI, there are some useful tools and security features, too. Google doesn’t promise all phones will get the same attention in Pixel Drops, but you should see new additions for at least a few years.

Pixel camera on a budget

Google isn’t pushing the envelope with the Pixel 10a, and in some ways, the camera experience is why it can get away with that. There’s no other $500 phone with a comparable camera experience, and that’s not because the Pixel 10a is light-years ahead in hardware. The phone has fairly modest sensors in that new, flatter module, but Google’s image processing is just that good.

Pixel 10a camera — The Pixel camera experience is a big selling point. Credit: Ryan Whitwam

In 2026, Google’s budget Pixel still sports a 48 MP primary wide-angle camera, paired with a 13 MP ultrawide. There is no telephoto lens on the back, and the front-facing selfie shooter is also 13 MP. Of these cameras, only the primary lens has optical stabilization. Photos taken with all the cameras are sharp, with bright colors and consistent lighting.

Google’s image processing does a superb job of bringing out details in bright and dim areas of a frame, and Night Sight is great for situations where there just isn’t enough light for other phones to take a good photo. In middling light, the Pixel 10a maintains fast enough shutter speeds to capture movement, something both Samsung and Apple often struggle with.

Outdoor overcast. Ryan Whitwam

Pixel phones don’t have as many camera settings as a Samsung or OnePlus phone does—in fact, the 10a doesn’t even get as many manual controls as the flagship Pixels—but they’re great at quick snapshots. Within a couple of seconds, you can pop open the Pixel camera and shoot a photo that’s detailed and well-exposed without waiting on autofocus or fiddling with settings. So you’ll capture more moments with a Pixel than with other phones, which might not nail the focus or lighting even if you take a whole batch of photos with different settings.

Without a telephoto lens option, you won’t be able to push the Pixel 10a with extreme zoom levels like the more expensive Pixel 10 phones. You’re limited to 8x zoom, and things get quite blurry beyond 3-4x. Google’s image processing should be able to clean up a 2x crop well enough, but the image will look a bit artificial and over-sharpened if you look closely.

Video can be a weak point for Google. Samsung and Apple phones offer more options, and the quality of Google’s phones isn’t strong enough to make up for it. The videos look fine, but the stabilization isn’t perfect, and 4k60 can sometimes hiccup. It’s more what we’d expect from a $500 phone, whereas the 10a punches above its weight in still photography.

Running unopposed

It’s easy to be disappointed in the Pixel 10a when you look at the spec sheet. The hardware has barely evolved beyond last year’s phone, and it even has the same processor inside. This is a departure for Google, but it’s also expected given the state of the smartphone market. These are mature products, and support has gotten strong enough that you can use them for years without an upgrade. Smartphones are really becoming more like appliances than gadgets.

Pixel 10a vs. Pixel 10 — The Pixel 10 has a much larger camera module to accommodate a third sensor. Credit: Ryan Whitwam

Google’s Pixel line has finally started to gain traction as smaller OEMs continue to drop out and scale back their plans in North America. Google is not alone in the mid-range—Samsung and Motorola still make a variety of Android phones in this price range, but they tend to make more compromises than the Pixel does.

The latest Google Pixel is only marginally better than the last model, featuring the same Tensor G4 processor, 8GB of RAM, and dual-camera setup. The body has modest upgrades, including a flat camera module and a slightly brighter, stronger display. We’d all like more exciting phone releases, but Google has realized it doesn’t need to be flashy to dominate the mid-range.

Pixel 10a, Pixel 10, and Pixel 10 Pro XL — The Pixel 10a (left), Pixel 10 (middle), and Pixel 10 Pro XL (right). Credit: Ryan Whitwam

Even with a less-than-impressive 2026 upgrade, Google’s A-series Pixel remains a good value, just like its predecessor. The Pixel 9a was already much better than the competition, and the 10a is slightly better than that. With no real competition to speak of, Google’s new Pixel is still worth buying.

Of course, the very similar Pixel 9a remains a good purchase, too. Google continues to sell that phone at the same price. In fact, that’s true of the Pixel 8a in Google’s store, too. So you can have your choice of the new phone, the old phone, or an even older phone for the same $500. Google is clearly not concerned with clearing old stock. We expect to see at least occasional deals on last year’s Pixel. If you can get that phone even a little cheaper than the 10a, that’s a good idea. Otherwise, get used to spending $500 on Google’s mid-range appliance.

The good

Great camera experience
Long battery life
Good version of Android with generous update guarantee
Lighter and more compact than flagship phones

The bad

Barely an upgrade from Pixel 9a
Gaming performance is iffy

Ryan Whitwam is a senior technology reporter at Ars Technica, covering the ways Google, AI, and mobile technology continue to change the world. Over his 20-year career, he’s written for Android Police, ExtremeTech, Wirecutter, NY Times, and more. He has reviewed more phones than most people will ever own. You can follow him on Bluesky, where you will see photos of his dozens of mechanical keyboards.

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Rubik’s WOWCube adds complexity, possibility by reinventing the puzzle cube

puzzles, Reviews, Rubik's Cube, Tech, Toys / Kris Guyer / February 19, 2026

Technology is a double-edged sword in the $399 Rubik’s Cube-inspired toy.

There’s something special about the gadget that “just works.” Technology can open opportunities for those devices but also complicate and weigh down products that have done just fine without things like sensors and software.

So when a product like the beloved Rubik’s Cube gets stuffed with wires, processors, and rechargeable batteries, there’s demand for it to be not just on par with the original—but markedly better.

The Cubios Rubik’s WOWCube successfully breathes fresh life into the classic puzzle, but it’s also an example of when too much technology can cannibalize a gadget’s main appeal.

Rubik's WOWCube with hearts screensaver — The WOWCube showing off one of its screensavers. Credit: Scharon Harding

The WOWCube is a modern take on the Rubik’s Cube, an experiment from Hungarian architecture professor Ernő Rubik. Rubik aimed to make a structure composed of eight cubes that could move independently without the structure collapsing. The Rubik’s Cube became a widely distributed toy, an ’80s craze, and, eventually, a puzzle icon.

The Rubik’s Cube did all that without electronics and with a current MSRP of $10. The WOWCube takes the opposite approach. It’s $399 (as of this writing) and ditches the traditional 3×3 grid in favor of a 2×2 grid that can still do the traditional Rubik’s puzzle (albeit on a smaller scale) and perform a host of other tricks, including playing other games and telling the weather.

A smaller puzzle

The WOWCube’s 2×2 grid will disappoint hardcore puzzlers. There’s no way to play the traditional 3×3 version or even harder modified versions of the 2×2 grid. With only 24 squares, compared to the traditional 54, solving the WOWCube is significantly easier than solving a standard Rubik’s Cube. Although skilled players might enjoy the challenge of trying to solve the WOWCube extra rapidly.

For people who are awful at the original Rubik’s Cube, like this author, a more accessible version of the puzzle is welcome. Solving the new Rubik’s Cube feels more attainable and less frustrating.

The WOWCube is made up of eight modules. Each module has its own PCB, processor, gyroscope, and accelerometer. That may explain why Cubios went with this smaller design. The predicament also begs the question of whether electronics really improve the Rubik’s Cube.

Games and other apps

Once I played some of the WOWCube’s other games, I saw the advantage of the smaller grid. The 2×2 layout is more appropriate for games like White Rabbit, which is like Pac-Man but relies on tilting and twisting the cube, or Ladybug, where you twist the cube to create a path for a perpetually crawling ladybug. A central module might add unneeded complexity and space to these games and other WOWCube apps, like Pixel World, which is like a Rubik’s Cube puzzle but with images depicting global landmarks, or the WOWCube implementation of Gabriele Cirulli’s puzzle game, 2048.

At the time of writing, the WOWCube has 15 “games,” including the Rubik’s Cube puzzle. Most of the games are free, but some, such as Space Invaders Cubed ($30) and Sunny Side Up ($5), cost money.

Unlike the original Rubik’s Cube, which is content to live on your shelf until you need a brain exercise or go on a road trip, the WOWCube craves attention with dozens of colorful screens, sound effects, and efforts to be more than a toy.

With its Widgets app open, the cube can display information, like the time, temperature, and alerts, from a limited selection of messaging apps. More advanced actions, like checking the temperature for tomorrow or opening a WhatsApp message, are unavailable. There’s room for improvement, but further development, perhaps around features like an alarm clock or reminders, could turn the WOWCube into a helpful desk companion.

Technology overload

The new technology makes the Rubik’s Cube more versatile, exciting, and useful while bringing the toy back into the spotlight; at times, though, it also brought more complexity to a simple beloved concept.

Usually, to open an app, make a selection, or otherwise input yes, you “knock” on the side of WOWCube twice. You also have to shake the cube three times in order to exit an app, and you can’t open an app when another app is open. Being able to tap an icon or press an actual button would make tasks, like opening apps or controlling volume and brightness levels, easier. On a couple of occasions, my device got buggy and inadvertently turned off some, but not all, of its screens. The reliance on a battery and charging dock that plugs into a wall presents limitations, too.

The WOWCube showing its main menu while sitting next to its charging dock. Credit: Scharon Harding

The WOWCube’s makers brag of the device’s octads of speakers, processors, accelerometer, and gyroscopes, but I found the tilting mechanism unreliable and, at times, frustrating for doing things like highlighting an icon. Perhaps I don’t hold the WOWCube at the angles that its creators intended. There were also times when the image was upside down, and main information was displayed on a side of the cube that was facing away from me.

Rubik's WOWCube with pomodoro timer — One of my favorite features: WOWCube’s pomodoro-like timer app. Credit: Scharon Harding

The WOWCube has its own iOS and Android app, WOWCube Connect, which lets you connect the toy to your phone via Bluetooth and download new apps to the device via the dock’s Wi-Fi connection. You can also use the app to customize things like widgets, screensavers, and display brightness. If you don’t want to do any of those things, you can disconnect the WOWCube from your phone and reconnect it only when you want to.

I wasn’t able to use the iOS app unless I agreed to allow the “app to track activity.” This gives me privacy concerns, and I’ve reached out to Cubios to ask if there’s a way to use the app without the company tracking your activity.

New-age Rubik’s Cube

Cubios attempted to reinvent a classic puzzle with the WOWCube. In the process, it added bells and whistles that detract from what originally made Rubik’s Cubes great.

The actual Rubik’s Cube puzzle is scaled back, and the idea of spending hours playing with the cube is hindered by its finite battery life (the WOWCube can last up to five hours of constant play, Cubios claims). The device’s reliance on sensors and chips doesn’t always yield a predictable user experience, especially when navigating apps. And all of its tech makes the puzzle about 40 times pricier than the classic toy.

IPS screens, integrated speakers, and app integration add more possibilities, but some might argue that the Rubik’s Cube was sufficient without them. Notably, the WOWCube began as its own product and got the rights to use Rubik’s branding in 2024.

We’ve seen technology come for the Rubik’s Cube before. The Rubik’s Revolution we tested years ago had pressure-sensitive, LED-lit buttons for faces. In 2020, Rubik’s Connected came out with its own companion app. Clearly, there’s interest in bringing the Rubik’s Cube into the 20th century. For those who believe in that mission, the WOWCube is a fascinating new chapter for the puzzle.

I applaud Cubios’ efforts to bring the Rubik’s Cube new relevance and remain intrigued by the potential of new software-driven puzzles and uses. But it’s hard to overlook the downfalls of its tech reliance.

And the WOWCube could never replace the classic.

Scharon is a Senior Technology Reporter at Ars Technica writing news, reviews, and analysis on consumer gadgets and services. She’s been reporting on technology for over 10 years, with bylines at Tom’s Hardware, Channelnomics, and CRN UK.

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The Splay is a subpar monitor but an exciting portable projector

Monitors, Projectors, Reviews, Tech / Tim Belzer / December 23, 2025

Splay can be a monitor and takes a lot of the stress out of projectors, too.

The Arovia Splay in monitor mode. Credit: Scharon Harding

Since I’m fascinated by new display technologies and by improving image quality, I’ve never been a fan of home projectors. Projectors lack the image quality compared to good TVs and monitors, and they’re pretty needy. Without getting into the specific requirements of different models, you generally want a darker room with a large, blank wall for a projector to look its best. That can be a lot to ask for, especially in small, densely decorated homes like mine.

That said, a projector can be a space-efficient alternative to a big-screen TV or help you watch TV or movies outside. A projector can be versatile when paired with the right space, especially if that projector makes sure the “right space” is included in the device.

The Splay was crowdfunded in 2021, and its maker, Arovia, describes it as the “first fully collapsible monitor and projector.” In short, it’s a portable projector with an integrated fabric shroud that can serve as a big-screen (24.5 or 34.5 inches diagonally, depending on the model) portable monitor. Or, you can take off the fabric shroud and use the Splay as an ultra-short-throw projector and cast a display that measures up to 80 inches diagonally onto a wall.

At its core, the Splay is a projector, meaning it can’t compete with high-end LCD-LED or OLED monitors. It costs $1,300; the device is currently sold out, but an Arovia representative told me that it will be restocked this month.

Here’s how the device works, per one of Arovia’s patents:

The … collapsible, portable display device, has a housing member having a sliding member aligned on the exterior of the housing member, and sliding along the exterior of said housing member between two operating positions, a collapsible screen containing one or more sheets of flexible, wrinkle resistant silicone or rubber materials containing optical enhancing components and capable of displaying an image when in an expanded operating position, and multiple collapsible members connected to said screen …

Arovia’s representative pointed to the Splay being used for mobile workspaces, gaming, and enterprise use cases, like trade shows.

Because it uses lightweight and springy fabric materials and bendable arms, the whole gadget can be folded into an included case that’s 4×4 inches and weighs 2.5 pounds. Once extended to its max size, the device is a bit unwieldy; I had to be mindful to avoid poking or tearing the fabric when I set up the device.

Still, it can be rather advantageous to access such large display options from something as portable as the collapsed Splay.

Splay as a monitor

The Splay isn’t what people typically picture when thinking of a “portable monitor.” It connects to PCs, iOS and Android devices, and gaming consoles via HDMI (or an HDMI adapter) and is chargeable via USB-C, so you can use it without a wall charger. But this isn’t the type of display you would set up at a coffee shop or even in a small home office.

Compared to a traditional portable monitor, the Splay is bulky. That’s partly because the display is bigger than a typical portable monitor (around 14 inches). Most of the bulk, however, comes from how much the back of the “monitor” protrudes (about 19 to 21 inches from the front of the display).

A profile view of the Splay in monitor mode.

Credit: Scharon Harding

A profile view of the Splay in monitor mode. Credit: Scharon Harding

When extended, the device is mostly fabric, but its control center, where there is a power button, sharpness adjuster, and controls for brightness, and the integrated speakers go back pretty far (about 6.25 inches) even before you insert an HDMI or USB-C cable.

You will also want to use the Splay with a tripod (a small, tabletop one’s included) so that it’s at a proper height and you can swivel and tilt the display.

The Arovia Splay's control center. — The Splay’s control center. Credit: Scharon Harding

That all makes the Splay cumbersome to find space for and, once opened, to transport. Once I set it up, I wasn’t eager to pack it away or to bring it to another room.

Still, the Splay is a novel attempt at bringing a monitor-sized display to more areas. Despite its bulky maximum size, it weighs little and doesn’t have to be plugged into a wall.

Splay claims the monitor has a max brightness of 760 nits. When I used the display in a well-lit room or in a sunny room, it still looked sufficiently bright, even when perpendicular to a window. All colors were somewhat washed out compared to how they appear on my computer monitor but were still acceptable for a secondary display. If I look closely enough, though, I can see the subtle texture of the fabric in the image.

Arovia Splay showing an image. — The Splay also supports portrait mode. Credit: Scharon Harding

The Splay struggles mightily with text. It’s not sharp enough, so trying to read more than a couple of sentences on the Splay was a strain. This could be due to the projector technology, as well as the lower pixel density. With a display resolution equivalent to 1920×1080, the 24.5-inch “portable monitor” has a pixel density of 89.9 pixels per inch.

Arovia Splay with text on it — The Splay displaying an Ars Technica article. Credit: Scharon Harding

Considering there are portable monitors that are in the 24-inch size range and easier to set up, it’s hard to see a reason to opt for a Splay—unless you also want a projector.

Splay as a projector

To use the Splay as a projector, you have to unzip the fabric shroud and pull the device out of its four-armed holster. Once set up, the Splay works as an ultra-short-throw pico projector with automatic keystone projection, which helps ensure that the display looks like a rectangle instead of a trapezoid or parallelogram.

The Splay as a portable projector. Credit: Scharon Harding

Arovia claims the projector can reach up to 285 lumens and display an image that measures up to 80 inches diagonally.

Now, we start to see the Splay’s value. Unlike other projectors, the Splay remains useful in tight, crowded spaces. Not only does the Splay wrap up neatly for transport, but the integrated screen means you never have to worry about whether you’ll have the right space for the projector to work properly.

There’s always a need for portable displays, and different use cases warrant exploring new approaches and form factors. While there are simpler 24-inch portable monitors with better image quality, the Splay brings remarkable portability and independence to portable projectors.

The Splay is niche and expensive, which is probably why the product’s website currently focuses on more B2B applications, like sports coaches and analysts using it to review footage and data. Similar to the big-screen tablets on wheels that more companies have been making lately, for now, the Splay will probably find the most relevance among businesses or public sector entities.

However, I’m inclined to think about how the Splay’s unique properties could apply to personal projectors. The Splay is a subpar “portable monitor,” but its duality makes it a more valuable projector. There are still too many obstacles preventing me from regularly using a projector, but the Splay has at least shown me that projectors can pack more than I expected.

The Splay is a subpar monitor but an exciting portable projector Read More »

FDA slows down on drug reviews, approvals amid Trump admin chaos

drug approvals, fda, health, Reviews / Mike M. / October 21, 2025

Amid the chaos of the Trump administration’s haphazard job cuts and a mass exodus of leadership, the Food and Drug Administration is experiencing a slowdown of drug reviews and approvals, according to an analysis reported by Stat News.

An assessment of metrics by RBC Capital Markets analysts found that FDA drug approvals dropped 14 percentage points in the third quarter compared to the average of the six previous quarters—falling from an average of 87 percent to 73 percent this past quarter. In line with that finding, analysts noted that the delay rate in meeting deadlines for drug application reviews rose from an average of 4 percent to 11 percent.

The FDA also rejected more applications than normal, going from a historical average of 10 percent to 15 percent in the third quarter. A growing number of rejections relate to problems at manufacturing plants, which in turn could suggest problems with the FDA’s inspection and auditing processes.

With the government now in a shutdown—with no end in sight—things could get worse for the FDA. While the regulatory agency is still working on existing drug applications, it will not be able to accept new submissions.

FDA slows down on drug reviews, approvals amid Trump admin chaos Read More »

M5 iPad Pro tested: Stop me if you’ve heard this one before

Apple, Apple M5, ipad, ipad pro, Reviews, Tech / Tim Belzer / October 21, 2025

It’s a gorgeous tablet, but what does an iPad need with more processing power?

Apple’s 13-inch M5 iPad Pro. Credit: Andrew Cunningham

This year’s iPad Pro is what you might call a “chip refresh” or an “internal refresh.” These refreshes are what Apple generally does for its products for one or two or more years after making a larger external design change. Leaving the physical design alone preserves compatibility with the accessory ecosystem.

For the Mac, chip refreshes are still pretty exciting to me, because many people who use a Mac will, very occasionally, assign it some kind of task where they need it to work as hard and fast as it can, for an extended period of time. You could be a developer compiling a large and complex app, or you could be a podcaster or streamer editing or exporting an audio or video file, or maybe you’re just playing a game. The power and flexibility of the operating system, and first- and third-party apps made to take advantage of that power and flexibility, mean that “more speed” is still exciting, even if it takes a few years for that speed to add up to something users will consistently notice and appreciate.

And then there’s the iPad Pro. Especially since Apple shifted to using the same M-series chips that it uses in Macs, most iPad Pro reviews contain some version of “this is great hardware that is much faster than it needs to be for anything the iPad does.” To wit, our review of the M4 iPad Pro from May 2024:

Still, it remains unclear why most people would spend one, two, or even three thousand dollars on a tablet that, despite its amazing hardware, does less than a comparably priced laptop—or at least does it a little more awkwardly, even if it’s impressively quick and has a gorgeous screen.

Since then, Apple has announced and released iPadOS 26, an update that makes important and mostly welcome changes to how the tablet handles windowed multitasking, file transfers, and some other kinds of background tasks. But this is the kind of thing that isn’t even going to stress out an Apple M1, let alone a chip that’s twice as powerful.

All of this is to say: A chip refresh for an iPad is nice to have. This year’s model (still starting at $999 for the 11-inch tablet and $1,299 for the 13-inch) will also come with a handy RAM increase for many buyers, the first RAM boost that the base model iPad Pro has gotten in more than four years.

But without any other design changes or other improvements to hang its hat on, the fact is that chip refresh years for the iPad Pro only really improve a part of the tablet that needs the least amount of improvement. That doesn’t make them bad; who knows what the hardware requirements will be when iPadOS 30 adds some other batch of multitasking features. But it does mean these refreshes don’t feel particularly exciting or necessary; the most exciting thing about the M5 iPad Pro means you might be able to get a good deal on an M4 model as retailers clear out their stock. You aren’t going to notice the difference.

Design: M4 iPad Pro redux

The 13-inch M5 iPad Pro in its Magic Keyboard accessory with the Apple Pencil Pro attached. Credit: Andrew Cunningham

Lest we downplay this tablet’s design, the M4 version of the iPad Pro was the biggest change to the tablet since Apple introduced the modern all-screen design for the iPad Pro back in 2018. It wasn’t a huge departure, but it did introduce the iPad’s first OLED display, a thinner and lighter design, and a slightly improved Apple Pencil and updated range of accessories.

As with the 14-inch M5 MacBook Pro that Apple just launched, the easiest way to know how much you’ll like the iPad Pro depends on how you feel about screen technology (the iPad is, after all, mostly screen). If you care about the 120 Hz, high-refresh-rate ProMotion screen, the option to add a nano-texture display with a matte finish, and the infinite contrast and boosted brightness of Apple’s OLED displays, those are the best reasons to buy an iPad Pro. The $299/349 Magic Keyboard accessory for the iPad Pro also comes with backlit keys and a slightly larger trackpad than the equivalent $269/$319 iPad Air accessory.

If none of those things inspire passion in you, or if they’re not worth several hundred extra dollars to you—the nano-texture glass upgrade alone adds $700 to the price of the iPad Pro, because Apple only offers it on the 1TB and 2TB models—then the 11- and 13-inch iPads Air are going to give you a substantively identical experience. That includes compatibility with the same Apple Pencil accessory and support for all the same multitasking and Apple Intelligence features.

The M5 iPad Pro supports the same Apple Pencil Pro as the M4 iPad Pro, and the M2 and M3 iPad Air. Credit: Andrew Cunningham

One other internal change to the new iPad Pro, aside from the M5, is mostly invisible: Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and Thread connectivity provided by the Apple N1 chip, and 5G cellular connectivity provided by the Apple C1X. Ideally, you won’t notice this swap at all, but it’s a quietly momentous change for Apple. Both of these chips cap several years of acquisitions and internal development, and further reduce Apple’s reliance on external chipmakers like Qualcomm and Broadcom, which has been one of the goals of Apple’s A- and M-series processors all along.

There’s one last change we haven’t really been able to adequately test in the handful of days we’ve had the tablet: new fast-charging support, either with Apple’s first-party Dynamic Power Adapter or any USB-C charger capable of providing 60 W or more of power. When using these chargers, Apple says the tablet’s battery can charge from 0 to 50 percent in 35 minutes. (Apple provides the same battery life estimates for the M5 iPads as the M4 models: 10 hours of Wi-Fi web usage, or nine hours of cellular web usage, for both the 13- and 11-inch versions of the tablet.)

Two Apple M5 chips, two RAM options

Apple sent us the 1TB version of the 13-inch iPad Pro to test, which means we got the fully enabled version of the M5: four high-performance CPU cores, six high-efficiency GPU cores, 10 GPU cores, a 16-core Neural Engine, and 16GB of RAM.

Apple’s Macs still offer individually configurable processor, storage, and RAM upgrades to users—generally buying one upgrade doesn’t lock you into buying a bunch of other stuff you don’t want or need (though there are exceptions for RAM configurations in some of the higher-end Macs). But for the iPads, Apple still ties the chip and the RAM you get to storage capacity. The 256GB and 512GB iPads get three high-performance CPU cores instead of four, and 12GB of RAM instead of 16GB.

For people who buy the 256GB and 512GB iPads, this amounts to a 50 percent increase in RAM capacity from the M1, M2, and M4 iPad Pro models, or the M1, M2, and M3 iPad Airs, all of which came with 8GB of RAM. High-end models stick with the same 16GB of RAM as before (no 24GB or 32GB upgrades here, though the M5 supports them in Macs). The ceiling is in the same place, but the floor has come up.

Given that iPadOS is still mostly running on tablets with 8GB or less of RAM, I don’t expect the jump from 8GB to 12GB to make a huge difference in the day-to-day experience of using the tablet, at least for now. If you connect your iPad to an external monitor that you use as an extended display, it might help keep more apps in memory at a time; it could help if you edit complex multi-track audio or video files or images, or if you’re trying to run some kind of machine learning or AI workflows locally. Future iPadOS versions could also require more than 8GB of memory for some features. But for now, the benefit exists mostly on paper.

As for benchmarks, the M5’s gains in the iPad are somewhat more muted than they are for the M5 MacBook Pro we tested. We observed a 10 or 15 percent improvement across single- and multi-core CPU tests and graphics benchmark improvements that mostly hovered in the 15 to 30 percent range. The Geekbench 6 Compute benchmark was one outlier, pointing to a 35 percent increase in GPU performance; it’s possible that GPU or rendering-heavy workloads benefit a little more from the new neural accelerators in the M5’s GPU cores than games do.

In the MacBook review, we observed that the M5’s CPU generally had higher peak power consumption than the M4. In the fanless iPad Pro, it’s likely that Apple has reined the chip in a little bit to keep it cool, which would explain why the iPad’s M5 doesn’t see quite the same gains.

The M5 and the 12GB RAM minimum help to put a little more distance between the M3 iPad Air and the Pros. Most iPad workloads don’t benefit in an obvious user-noticeable way from the extra performance or memory right now, but it’s something you can point to that makes the Pro more “pro” than the Air.

Changed hardware that doesn’t change much

The M5 iPad Pro is nice in the sense that “getting a little more for your money today than you could get for the same money two weeks ago” is nice. But it changes essentially nothing for potential iPad buyers.

I’m hard-pressed to think of anyone who would be well-served by the M5 iPad Pro who wouldn’t have been equally well-served by the M4 version. And if the M4 iPad Pro was already overkill for you, the M5 is just a little more so. Particularly if you have an M1 or M2 ; People with an A12X or A12Z version of the iPad Pro from 2018 or 2020 will benefit more, particularly if you’re multitasking a lot or running into limitations or RAM complaints from the apps you’re using.

But even with the iPadOS 26 update, it still seems like the capabilities of the iPad’s software lags behind the capabilities of the hardware by a few years. It’s to be expected, maybe, for an operating system that has to run on this M5 iPad Pro and a 7-year-old phone processor with 3GB of RAM.

I am starting to feel the age of the M1 MacBook Air I use, especially if I’m pushing multiple monitors with it or trying to exceed its 16GB RAM limit. The M1 iPad Air I have, on the other hand, feels like it just got an operating system that unlocks some of its latent potential. That’s the biggest problem with the iPad Pro, really—not that it’s a bad tablet, but that it’s still so much more tablet than you need to do what iPadOS and its apps can currently do.

The good

A fast, beautiful tablet that’s a pleasure to use.
The 120Hz ProMotion support and OLED display panel make this one of Apple’s best screens, period.
256GB and 512GB models get a bump from 8GB to 12GB of memory.
Maintains compatibility with the same accessories as the M4 iPad Pro.

The bad

More iPad than pretty much anyone needs.
Passively cooled fanless Apple M5 can’t stretch its legs quite as much as the actively cooled Mac version.
Expensive accessories.

The ugly

All other hardware upgrades, including the matte nano-texture display finish, require a $600 upgrade to the 1TB version of the tablet.

Andrew is a Senior Technology Reporter at Ars Technica, with a focus on consumer tech including computer hardware and in-depth reviews of operating systems like Windows and macOS. Andrew lives in Philadelphia and co-hosts a weekly book podcast called Overdue.

M5 iPad Pro tested: Stop me if you’ve heard this one before Read More »

Google Pixel 10 Pro Fold review: The ultimate Google phone

android, Features, Foldables, Google, Reviews, smartphones, Tech / Rejus Almole / October 8, 2025

Google delivers another phone that is slightly better than its predecessor—is that enough?

The Pixel 10 Pro Fold is a sleek piece of hardware. Credit: Ryan Whitwam

When the first foldable phones came along, they seemed like a cool evolution of the traditional smartphone form factor and, if they got smaller and cheaper, like something people might actually want. After more than five years of foldable phones, we can probably give up on the latter. Google’s new Pixel 10 Pro Fold retains the $1,800 price tag of last year’s model, and while it’s improved in several key ways, spending almost two grand on any phone remains hard to justify.

For those whose phones are a primary computing device or who simply love gadgets, the Pixel 10 Pro Fold is still appealing. It offers the same refined Android experience as the rest of the Pixel 10 lineup, with much more screen real estate on which to enjoy it. Google also improved the hinge for better durability, shaved off some bezel, and boosted both charging speed and battery capacity. However, the form factor hasn’t taken the same quantum leap as Samsung’s latest foldable.

An iterative (but good) design

The Pixel 10 Pro Fold doesn’t reinvent the wheel—it looks and feels almost exactly like last year’s foldable, with a few minor tweaks centered around a new “gearless” hinge. Dropping the internal gears allegedly helps make the mechanism twice as durable. Google claims the Pixel 10 Pro Fold’s hinge will last for more than 10 years of folding and unfolding.

Specs at a glance: Google Pixel 10 series
	Pixel 10 ($799)	Pixel 10 Pro ($999)	Pixel 10 Pro XL ($1,199)	Pixel 10 Pro Fold ($1,799)
SoC	Google Tensor G5	Google Tensor G5	Google Tensor G5	Google Tensor G5
Memory	12GB	16GB	16GB	16GB
Storage	128GB / 256GB	128GB / 256GB / 512GB	128GB / 256GB / 512GB / 1TB	256GB / 512GB / 1TB
Display	6.3-inch 1080×2424 OLED, 60-120 Hz, 3,000 nits	6.3-inch 1280×2856 LTPO OLED, 1-120 Hz, 3,300 nits	6.8-inch 1344×2992 LTPO OLED, 1-120 Hz, 3,300 nits	External: 6.4-inch 1080×2364 OLED, 60-120 Hz, 3,000 nits; Internal: 8-inch 2076×2152 LTPO OLED, 1-120 Hz, 3,000 nits
Cameras	48 MP wide with Macro Focus, F/1.7, 1/2-inch sensor; 13 MP ultrawide, f/2.2, 1/3.1-inch sensor; 10.8 MP 5x telephoto, f/3.1, 1/3.2-inch sensor; 10.5 MP selfie, f/2.2	50 MP wide with Macro Focus, F/1.68, 1/1.3-inch sensor; 48 MP ultrawide, f/1.7, 1/2.55-inch sensor; 48 MP 5x telephoto, f/2.8, 1/2.55-inch sensor; 42 MP selfie, f/2.2	50 MP wide with Macro Focus, F/1.68, 1/1.3-inch sensor; 48 MP ultrawide, f/1.7, 1/2.55-inch sensor; 48 MP 5x telephoto, f/2.8, 1/2.55-inch sensor; 42 MP selfie, f/2.2	48 MP wide, F/1.7, 1/2-inch sensor; 10.5 MP ultrawide with Macro Focus, f/2.2, 1/3.4-inch sensor; 10.8 MP 5x telephoto, f/3.1, 1/3.2-inch sensor; 10.5 MP selfie, f/2.2 (outer and inner)
Software	Android 16	Android 16	Android 16	Android 16
Battery	4,970 mAh, up to 30 W wired charging, 15 W wireless charging (Pixelsnap)	4,870 mAh, up to 30 W wired charging, 15 W wireless charging (Pixelsnap)	5,200 mAh, up to 45 W wired charging, 25 W wireless charging (Pixelsnap)	5,015 mAh, up to 30 W wired charging, 15 W wireless charging (Pixelsnap)
Connectivity	Wi-Fi 6e, NFC, Bluetooth 6.0, sub-6 GHz and mmWave 5G, USB-C 3.2	Wi-Fi 7, NFC, Bluetooth 6.0, sub-6 GHz and mmWave 5G, UWB, USB-C 3.2	Wi-Fi 7, NFC, Bluetooth 6.0, sub-6 GHz and mmWave 5G, UWB, USB-C 3.2	Wi-Fi 7, NFC, Bluetooth 6.0, sub-6 GHz and mmWave 5G, UWB, USB-C 3.2
Measurements	152.8 height×72.0 width×8.6 depth (mm), 204 g	152.8 height×72.0 width×8.6 depth (mm), 207 g	162.8 height×76.6 width×8.5 depth (mm), 232 g	Folded: 154.9 height×76.2 width×10.1 depth (mm); Unfolded: 154.9 height×149.8 width×5.1 depth (mm); 258 g
Colors	Indigo Frost Lemongrass Obsidian	Moonstone Jade Porcelain Obsidian	Moonstone Jade Porcelain Obsidian	Moonstone Jade

While the new phone is technically a fraction of a millimeter thicker, it’s narrowed by a similar amount. You likely won’t notice this, nor will the 1g in additional mass register. You may, however, spot the slimmer bezels and hinge. And that means cases for the 2024 foldable are just a fraction of a millimeter from fitting on the Pixel 10 Pro Fold. It does fit better in your hand, though.

Pixel 10 Pro Fold side — The Pixel is on the thick side for 2025, but this was record-setting thinness last year.

Thanks to the gearless hinge, the Pixel 10 Pro Fold the first foldable with full IP68 certification for water and dust resistance. The hinge feels extremely smooth and sturdy, but it’s a bit stiffer than we’ve seen on most foldables. This might change over time, but it’s a little harder to open and close out of the box. Samsung’s Z Fold 7 is thinner and easier to fold, but the hinge doesn’t open to a full 180 degrees like the Pixel does.

The new foldable also retains the camera module design of last year’s phone—it’s off-center on the back panel, a break from Google’s camera bar on other Pixels. The Pixel 10 Pro Fold, therefore, doesn’t lie flat on tables and will rock back and forth like most other phones. However, it does have the Qi2 magnets like in the cheaper phones. There are various Maglock kickstands and mounting rings that will attach to the back of the phone if you want to prop it up on a surface.

Pixel 10 Pro Fold and Z Fold 7 — The Pixel 10 Pro Fold (left) and the Galaxy Z Fold 7 (right) both have 8-inch displays, but the Pixel is curvier. Credit: Ryan Whitwam

The power and volume buttons are on the right edge in the same location as last year. The buttons are stable and tactile when pressed, and there’s a fingerprint sensor in the power button. It’s as fast and accurate as any capacitive sensor on a phone today. The aluminum frame and the buttons have the same matte finish, which differs from the glossy look of the other Pro Pixels. The more grippy matte texture is preferable for a phone you need to fold and unfold throughout the day.

Thanks to the modestly slimmer bezels, Google equipped the phone with a 6.4-inch external screen, slightly larger than the 6.3-inch panel on last year’s Fold. The 120 Hz OLED has a respectable 1080p resolution, and the brightness peaks around 3,000 nits, making it readable in bright outdoor light.

Pixel 10 Pro Fold and Pixel 9 Pro Fold — The Pixel 10 Pro Fold (left) has a more compact hinge and slimmer bezels compared to the Pixel 9 Pro Fold (right).

The Pixel 10 Pro Fold has a big 8-inch flexible OLED inside, clocking in at 2076×2152 pixels and 120Hz. It gets similarly bright, but the plastic layer is more reflective than the Gorilla Glass Victus 2 on the cover screen. While the foldable screen is legible, it’s not as pleasant to use outside as high-brightness glass screens.

Like all foldable screens, it’s possible to damage the internal OLED if you’re not careful. On the other hand, the flexible OLED is well-protected when the phone is closed—there’s no gap between the halves, and the magnets hold them together securely. There’s a crease visible in the middle of the screen, but it’s slightly improved from last year’s phone. You can see it well from some angles, but you get used to it.

Pixel 10 Pro Fold keyboard glamor — The Jade colorway looks great. Credit: Ryan Whitwam

While the flat Pixel 10 phones have dropped the physical SIM card slot, the Pixel 10 Pro Fold still has one. It has moved to the top this year, but it seems like only a matter of time before Google removes the slot in foldables, too. For the time being, you can move a physical SIM card to the Fold, transfer to eSIM, or use a combination of physical and electronic SIMs.

Google’s take on big Androids

Google’s version of Android is pretty refined these days. The Pixel 10 Pro Fold uses the same AI-heavy build of Android 16 as the flat Pixels. That means you can expect old favorites like Pixel Screenshots, Call Screen, and Magic Compose, along with new arrivals like Magic Cue and Pixel Journal. One thing you won’t see right now is the largely useless Daily Brief, which was pulled after its launch on the Pixel 10 so it could be improved.

Google’s expanded use of Material 3 Expressive theming is also a delight. The Pixel OS has a consistent, clean look you don’t often see on Android phones. Google bundles almost every app it makes on this phone, but you won’t see any sponsored apps, junk games, or other third-party software cluttering up the experience. In short, if you like the vibe of the Pixel OS on other Pixel 10 phones, you’ll like it on the Pixel 10 Pro Fold. We’ve noted a few minor UI glitches in the launch software, but there are no show-stopping bugs.

Pixel 10 Pro Fold split-screen — Multitasking on foldables is a snap. Credit: Ryan Whitwam

The software on this phone goes beyond the standard Pixel features to take advantage of the folding screen. There’s a floating taskbar that can make swapping apps and multitasking easier, and you can pin it on the screen for even more efficiency. The Pixel 10 Pro Fold also supports saving app pairs to launch both at once in split-screen.

Google’s multi-window system on the Fold isn’t as robust as what you get with Samsung, though. For example, split-screen apps open in portrait mode on the Pixel, and if you want them in landscape, you have to physically rotate the phone. On Samsung foldables, you can move app windows around and change the orientation however you like—there’s even support for floating app windows and up to three windowed apps. Google reserves floating windows for tablets, none of which it has released since the Pixel Tablet in 2023. It would be nice to see a bit more multitasking power to make the most of the Fold’s big internal display.

As with all of Google’s Pixels, the new foldable gets seven years of update support, all the way through 2032. You’ll probably need at least one battery swap to make it that long, but you might be more inclined to hold onto an $1,800 phone for seven years. Samsung also offers seven years of support, but its updates are slower and don’t usually include new features after the first year. Google rolls out new updates promptly every month, and updated features are delivered in regular Pixel Drops.

Almost the best cameras

Google may have fixed some of the drawbacks of foldables, but you’ll get better photos with flat Pixels. That said, the Pixel 10 Pro Fold is no slouch—it has a camera setup very similar to the base model Pixel 10 (and last year’s foldable), which is still quite good in the grand scheme of mobile photography.

Pixel 10 Pro Fold cameras — The cameras are unchanged from last year. Credit: Ryan Whitwam

The Pixel 10 Pro Fold sports a 48 MP primary sensor, a 10.5 MP ultrawide, and a 10.8 MP 5x telephoto. There are 10 MP selfie cameras peeking through the front and internal displays as well.

Like the other Pixels, this phone is great for quick snapshots. Google’s image processing does an admirable job of sharpening details and has extraordinary dynamic range. The phone also manages to keep exposure times short to help capture movement. You don’t have to agonize over exactly how to frame a shot or wait for the right moment to hit the shutter. The Pixel 10 Pro and Pro XL do all of this slightly better, but provided you don’t zoom too much, the Pixel 10 Pro Fold photos are similarly excellent.

Medium indoor light. Ryan Whitwam

The primary sensor does better than most in dim conditions, but this is where you’ll notice limitations compared to the flat Pro phones. The Fold’s smaller image sensor can’t collect as much light, resulting in longer exposures. You’ll notice this most in Night Sight shots.

The telephoto sensor is only 10.8 MP compared to 48 MP on the other Pro Pixels. So images won’t be as sharp if you zoom in, but the normal framing looks fine and gets you much closer to your subject. The phone does support up to 20x zoom, but going much beyond 5x begins to reveal the camera’s weakness, and even Google’s image processing can’t hide that. The ultrawide camera is good enough for landscapes and wide group shots, but don’t bother zooming in. It also has autofocus for macro shots.

The selfie cameras are acceptable, but you don’t have to use them. As a foldable, this phone allows you to use the main cameras to snap selfies with the external display as a viewfinder. The results are much better, but the phone is a bit awkward to hold in that orientation. Google also added a few more camera features that complement the form factor, including a split-screen camera roll similar to Samsung’s app and a new version of the Made You Look cover screen widgets.

The Pixel 10 Pro Fold can leverage generative AI in several imaging features, so it has the same C2PA labeling as the other Pixels. We’ve seen this “AI edited” tag appear most often on images from the flat Pixels that are zoomed beyond 20x, so you likely won’t end up with any of those on the Fold. However, features like Add Me and Best Take will get the AI labeling.

The Tensor tension

This probably won’t come as a surprise, but the Tensor G5 in the Pixel 10 Pro Fold performs identically to the Tensor in other Pixel 10 phones. It is marginally faster across the board than the Tensor G4, but this isn’t the huge leap people hoped for with Google’s first TSMC chip. While it’s fast enough to keep the phone chugging, benchmarks are not its forte.

Pixel 10 Pro Fold in hand — Pixel 10 Pro Fold hinge has been redesigned. Credit: Ryan Whitwam

Across all our usual benchmarks, the Tensor G5 shows small gains over last year’s Google chip, but it’s running far behind the latest from Qualcomm. We expect that gap to widen even further when Qualcomm updates its flagship Snapdragon line in a few months.

The Tensor G5 does remain a bit cooler under load than the Snapdragon 8 Elite, losing only about 20 percent to thermal throttling. So real-world gaming performance on the Pixel 10 Pro Fold is closer to Qualcomm-based devices than the benchmark numbers would lead you to believe. Some game engines behave strangely on the Tensor’s PowerVR GPU, though. If mobile gaming is a big part of your usage, a Samsung or OnePlus flagship might be more your speed.

Day-to-day performance with the Pixel 10 Pro Fold is solid. Google’s new foldable is quick to register taps and open apps, even though the Tensor G5 chip doesn’t offer the most raw speed. Even on Snapdragon-based phones like the Galaxy Z Fold 7, the UI occasionally hiccups or an animation gets jerky. That’s a rarer occurrence on the Pixel 10 Pro Fold.

One of the biggest spec bumps is the battery—it’s 365 mAh larger, at 5,015 mAh. This finally puts Google’s foldables in the same range as flat phones. Granted, you will use more power when the main display is unfurled, and you should not expect a substantial increase in battery life generally. The power-hungry Tensor and increased background AI processing appear to soak up most of the added capacity. The Pixel 10 Pro Fold should last all day, but there won’t be much leeway.

The Pixel 10 Pro Fold does bring a nice charging upgrade, boosting wired speeds from 21 W to 30 W with a USB-PD charger that supports PPS (as most now do). That’s enough for a 50 percent charge in about half an hour. Wireless charging is now twice as fast, thanks to the addition of Qi2 support. Any Qi2-certified charger can hit those speeds, including the Google Pixelsnap charger. But the Fold is limited to 15 W, whereas the Pixel 10 Pro XL gets 25 W over Qi2. It’s nice to see an upgrade here, but all of Google’s phones should charge faster than they do.

Big phone, big questions

The Pixel 10 Pro Fold is better than last year’s Google foldable, and that means there’s a lot to like. The new hinge and slimmer bezels make the third-gen foldable a bit easier to hold, and the displays are fantastic. The camera setup, while a step down from the other Pro Pixels, is still one of the best you can get on a phone. The addition of Qi2 charging is much appreciated, too. And while Google has overloaded the Pixels with AI features, more of them are useful compared to those on the likes of Samsung, Motorola, or OnePlus.

Pixel 10 Pro Fold and Pixel 10 Pro — Left: Pixel 10 Pro Fold, Right: Pixel 10 Pro. Credit: Ryan Whitwam

That’s all great, but these are relatively minor improvements for an $1,800 phone, and the competition is making great strides. The Pixel 10 Pro Fold isn’t as fast or slim as the Galaxy Z Fold 7, and Samsung’s multitasking system is much more powerful. The Z Fold 7 retails for $200 more, but that distinction hardly matters as you close in on two grand for a smartphone. If you’re willing to pay $1,800, going to $2,000 isn’t much of a leap.

Pixel 10 Pro Fold back in hand — It’s the size of a normal phone when closed. Credit: Ryan Whitwam

The Pixel 10 Pro Fold is the ultimate Google phone with some useful AI features, but the Galaxy Z Fold 7 is a better piece of hardware. Ultimately, the choice depends on what’s more important to you, but Google will have to move beyond iterative upgrades if it wants foldables to look like a worthwhile upgrade.

The good

Redesigned hinge and slimmer bezels
Huge, gorgeous foldable OLED screen
Colorful, attractive Material 3 UI
IP68 certification
Includes Qi2 with magnetic attachment
Seven years of update support
Most AI features run on-device for better privacy

The bad

Cameras are a step down from other Pro Pixels
Tons of AI features you probably won’t use
Could use more robust multitasking
Tensor G5 still not benchmark king
High $1,800 price

Google Pixel 10 Pro Fold review: The ultimate Google phone Read More »

Reviewing iOS 26 for power users: Reminders, Preview, and more

AI, Apple, generative ai, iOS, Reviews, Tech / Kris Guyer / September 25, 2025

These features try to turn iPhones into more powerful work and organization tools.

iOS 26 came out last week, bringing a new look and interface alongside some new capabilities and updates aimed squarely at iPhone power users.

We gave you our main iOS 26 review last week. This time around, we’re taking a look at some of the updates targeted at people who rely on their iPhones for much more than making phone calls and browsing the Internet. Many of these features rely on Apple Intelligence, meaning they’re only as reliable and helpful as Apple’s generative AI (and only available on newer iPhones, besides). Other adjustments are smaller but could make a big difference to people who use their phone to do work tasks.

Reminders attempt to get smarter

The Reminders app gets the Apple Intelligence treatment in iOS 26, with the AI primarily focused on making it easier to organize content within Reminders lists. Lines in Reminders lists are often short, quickly jotted-down blurbs rather than lengthy, detailed complex instructions. With this in mind, it’s easy to see how the AI can sometimes lack enough information in order to perform certain tasks, like logically grouping different errands into sensible sections.

But Apple also encourages applying the AI-based Reminders features to areas of life that could hold more weight, such as making a list of suggested reminders from emails. For serious or work-critical summaries, Reminders’ new Apple Intelligence capabilities aren’t reliable enough.

Suggested Reminders based on selected text

iOS 26 attempts to elevate Reminders from an app for making lists to an organization tool that helps you identify information or important tasks that you should accomplish. If you share content, such as emails, website text, or a note, with the app, it can create a list of what it thinks are the critical things to remember from the text. But if you’re trying to extract information any more advanced than an ingredients list from a recipe, Reminders misses the mark.

iOS 26 Suggested Reminders — Sometimes I tried sharing longer text with Reminders and didn’t get any suggestions. Credit: Scharon Harding

Sometimes, especially when reviewing longer text, Reminders was unable to think of suggested reminders. Other times, the reminders that it suggested, based on lengthy messages, were off-base.

For instance, I had the app pull suggested reminders from a long email with guidelines and instructions from an editor. Highlighting a lot of text can be tedious on a touchscreen, but I did it anyway because the message had lots of helpful information broken up into sections that each had their own bold subheadings. Additionally, most of those sections had their own lists (some using bullet points, some using numbers). I hoped Reminders would at least gather information from all of the email’s lists. But the suggested reminders ended up just being the same text from three—but not all—of the email’s bold subheadings.

When I tried getting suggested reminders from a smaller portion of the same email, I surprisingly got five bullet points that covered more than just the email’s subheadings but that still missed key points, including the email’s primary purpose.

Ultimately, the suggested Reminders feature mostly just boosts the app’s ability to serve as a modern shopping list. Suggested Reminders excels at pulling out ingredients from recipes, turning each ingredient into a suggestion that you can tap to add to a Reminders list. But being able to make a bulleted list out of a bulleted list is far from groundbreaking.

Auto-categorizing lines in Reminders lists

Since iOS 17, Reminders has been able to automatically sort items in grocery lists into distinct categories, like Produce and Proteins. iOS 26 tries taking things further by automatically grouping items in a list into non-culinary sections.

The way Reminders groups user-created tasks in lists is more sensible—and useful—than when it tries to create task suggestions based on shared text.

For example, I made a long list of various errands I needed to do, and Reminders grouped them into these categories: Administrative Tasks, Household Chores, Miscellaneous, Personal Tasks, Shopping, and Travel & Accommodation. The error rate here is respectable, but I would have tweaked some things. For one, I wouldn’t use the word “administrative” to refer to personal errands. The two tasks included under Administrative Tasks would have made more sense to me in Personal Tasks or Miscellaneous, even though those category names are almost too vague to have a distinct meaning.

Preview comes to iOS

With the iOS debut of Preview, Apple brings an app for viewing and editing PDFs and images to iPhones, which macOS users have had for years. As a result, many iPhone users will find the software easy and familiar to use.

But for iPhone owners who have long relied on Files for viewing, marking, and filling out PDFs and the like, Preview doesn’t bring many new capabilities. Anything that you can do in Preview, you could have done by viewing the same document in Files in an older version of iOS, save for a new crop tool and a dedicated button for showing information about the document.

That’s the point, though. When an iPhone has two discrete apps that can read and edit files, it’s far less frustrating to work with multiple documents. While you’re annotating a document in Preview, the Files app is still available, allowing you to have more than one document open at once. It’s a simple adjustment but one that vastly improves multitasking.

More Shortcuts options

Shortcuts gets somewhat more capable in iOS 26. That’s assuming you’re interested in using ChatGPT or Apple Intelligence generative AI in your automated tasks. You can tag in generative AI to create a shortcut that includes summarizing text in bullet points and applying that bulleted list to the shortcut’s next task, for instance.

An example of a Shortcut that uses generative AI. Credit: Apple

There are inherent drawbacks here. For one, Apple Intelligence and ChatGPT, like many generative AI tools, are subject to inaccuracies and can frequently overlook and/or misinterpret critical information. iOS 26 makes it easier for power users to incorporate a rewrite of a long text that has a more professional tone into a Shortcut. But that doesn’t mean that AI will properly communicate the information, especially when used across different scenarios with varied text.

You have three options for building Shortcuts that include the use of AI models. Using ChatGPT or Apple Intelligence via Apple’s Private Cloud Compute, which runs the model on an Apple server, requires an Internet connection. Alternatively, you can use an on-device model without connecting to the web.

You can run more advanced models via Private Cloud Compute than you can with Apple Intelligence on-device. In Apple’s testing, models via Private Cloud Compute perform better on things like writing summaries and composition compared to on-device models.

Apple says personal user data sent to Private Cloud Compute “isn’t accessible to anyone other than the user—not even to Apple.” Apple has a strong, yet flawed, reputation for being better about user privacy than other Big Tech firms. But by offering three different models to use with Shortcuts, iOS 26 ensures greater functionality, options, and control.

Something for podcasters

It’s likely that more people rely on iPads (or Macs) than iPhones for podcasting. Nevertheless, a new local capture feature introduced to both iOS 26 and iPadOS 26 makes it a touch more feasible to use iPhones (and iPads especially) for recording interviews for podcasts.

Before the latest updates, iOS and iPadOS only allowed one app to access the device’s microphone at a time. So, if you were interviewing someone via a videoconferencing app, you couldn’t also use your iPhone or iPad to record the discussion, since the videoconferencing app is using your mic to share your voice with whoever is on the other end of the call. Local capture on iOS 26 doesn’t include audio input controls, but its inclusion gives podcasters a way to record interviews or conversations on iPhones without needing additional software or hardware. That capability could save the day in a pinch.

Reviewing iOS 26 for power users: Reminders, Preview, and more Read More »

iOS 26 review: A practical, yet playful, update

Apple, Features, iOS, ios 26, IPhone, Reviews, Software, Tech / Kris Guyer / September 17, 2025

More than just Liquid Glass

Spotlighting the most helpful new features of iOS 26.

The new Clear icons look in iOS 26 can make it hard to identify apps, since they’re all the same color. Credit: Scharon Harding

iOS 26 became publicly available this week, ushering in a new OS naming system and the software’s most overhauled look since 2013. It may take time to get used to the new “Liquid Glass” look, but it’s easier to appreciate the pared-down controls.

Beyond a glassy, bubbly new design, the update’s flashiest new features also include new Apple Intelligence AI integration that varies in usefulness, from fluffy new Genmoji abilities to a nifty live translation feature for Phones, Messages, and FaceTime.

New tech is often bogged down with AI-based features that prove to be overhyped, unreliable, or just not that useful. iOS 26 brings a little of each, so in this review, we’ll home in on the iOS updates that will benefit both mainstream and power users the most.

Table of Contents

Let’s start with Liquid Glass

If we’re talking about changes that you’re going to use a lot, we should start with the new Liquid Glass software design that Apple is applying across all of its operating systems. iOS hasn’t had this much of a makeover since iOS 7. However, where iOS 7 applied a flatter, minimalist effect to windows and icons and their edges, iOS 26 adds a (sometimes frosted) glassy look and a mildly fluid movement to actions such as pulling down menus or long-pressing controls. All the while, windows look like they’re reflecting the content underneath them. When you pull Safari’s menu atop a webpage, for example, blurred colors from the webpage’s images and text are visible on empty parts of the menu.

Liquid Glass is now part of most of Apple’s consumer devices, including Macs and Apple TVs, but the dynamic visuals and motion are especially pronounced as you use your fingers to poke, slide, and swipe across your iPhone’s screen.

For instance, when you use a tinted color theme or the new clear theme for Home Screen icons, colors from the Home Screen’s background look like they’re refracting from under the translucent icons. It’s especially noticeable when you slide to different Home Screen pages. And in Safari, the address bar shrinks down and becomes more translucent as you scroll to read an article.

Because the theme is incorporated throughout the entire OS, the Liquid Glass effect can be cheesy at times. It feels forced in areas such as Settings, where text that just scrolled past looks slightly blurred at the top of the screen.

Liquid Glass makes the top of the Settings menu look blurred. Credit: Scharon Harding

Other times, the effect feels fitting, like when pulling the Control Center down and its icons appear to stretch down to the bottom of the screen and then quickly bounce into their standard size as you release your finger. Another place Liquid Glass flows nicely is in Photos. As you browse your pictures, colors subtly pop through the translucent controls at the bottom of the screen.

This is a matter of appearance, so you may have your own take on whether Liquid Glass looks tasteful or not. But overall, it’s the type of redesign that’s distinct enough to be a fun change, yet mild enough that you can grow accustomed to it if you’re not immediately impressed.

Liquid Glass simplifies navigation (mostly)

There’s more to Liquid Glass than translucency. Part of the redesign is simplifying navigation in some apps by displaying fewer controls.

Opening Photos is now cleaner at launch, bringing you to all of your photos instead of the Collections section, like iOS 18 does. At the bottom are translucent tabs for Library and Collections, plus a Search icon. Once you start browsing, the Library and Collections tabs condense into a single icon, and Years, Months, and All tabs appear, maintaining a translucence that helps keep your focus on your pictures.

You can still bring up more advanced options (such as Flash, Live, Timer) with one tap. And at the top of the camera’s field of view are smaller toggles for night mode and flash. But for when you want to take a quick photo, iOS 26 makes it easier to focus on the necessities while keeping the extraneous within short reach.

Similarly, the initial controls displayed at the bottom of the screen when you open Camera are pared down from six different photo- and video-shooting modes to the two that really matter: Photo and Video.

iOS 26 camera app — If you long-press Photo, options for the Time-Lapse, Slow-Mo, Cinematic, Portrait, Spatial, and Pano modes appear. Credit: Scharon Harding

iOS 26 takes the same approach with Video mode by focusing on the essentials (zoom, resolution, frame rate, and flash) at launch.New layout options for navigating Safari, however, slowed me down. In a new Compact view, the address bar lives at the bottom of the screen without a dedicated toolbar, giving the web page more screen space. But this setup makes accessing common tasks, like opening a new or old tab, viewing bookmarks, or sharing a link, tedious because they’re hidden behind a menu button.

If you tend to have multiple browser tabs open, you’ll want to stick with the classic layout, now called Top (where the address bar is at the top of the screen and the toolbar is at the bottom) or the Bottom layout (where the address bar and toolbar are at the bottom of the screen).

On the more practical side of Safari updates is a new ability to turn any webpage into a web app, making favorite and important URLs accessible quickly and via a dedicated Home Screen icon. This has been an iOS feature for a long time, but until now the pages always opened in Safari. Users can still do this if they like, but by default these sites now open as their own distinct apps, with dedicated icons in the app switcher. Web apps open full-screen, but in my experience, back and forward buttons only come up if you go to a new website. Sliding left and right replaces dedicated back and forward controls, but sliding isn’t as reliable as just tapping a button.

Viewing Ars Technica as a web app. Credit: Scharon Harding

iOS 26 remembers that iPhones are telephones

With so much focus on smartphone chips, screens, software, and AI lately, it can be easy to forget that these devices are telephones. iOS 26 doesn’t overlook the core purpose of iPhones, though. Instead, the new operating system adds a lot to the process of making and receiving phone calls, video calls, and text messages, starting with the look of the Phone app.

Continuing the streamlined Liquid Glass redesign, the Phone app on iOS 26 consolidates the bottom controls from Favorites, Recents, Contacts, Keypad, and Voicemail, to Calls (where voicemails also live), Contacts, and Keypad, plus Search.

I’d rather have a Voicemails section at the bottom of the screen than Search, though. The Voicemails section is still accessible by opening a menu at the top-right of the screen, but it’s less prominent, and getting to it requires more screen taps than before.

On Phone’s opening screen, you’ll see the names or numbers of missed calls and voicemails in red. But voicemails also have a blue dot next to the red phone number or name (along with text summarizing or transcribing the voicemail underneath if those settings are active). This setup caused me to overlook missed calls initially. Missed calls with voicemails looked more urgent because of the blue dot. For me, at first glance, it appeared as if the blue dots represented unviewed missed calls and that red numbers/names without a blue dot were missed calls that I had already viewed. It’s taking me time to adjust, but there’s logic behind having all missed phone activity in one place.

Fighting spam calls and messages

For someone like me, whose phone number seems to have made it to every marketer and scammers’ contact lists, it’s empowering to have iOS 26’s screening features help reduce time spent dealing with spam.

The phone can be set to automatically ask callers with unsaved numbers to state their name. As this happens, iOS displays the caller’s response on-screen, so you can decide if you want to answer or not. If you’re not around when the phone rings, you can view the transcript later and then mark the caller as known, if desired. This has been my preferred method of screening calls and reduces the likelihood of missing a call I want to answer.

There are also options for silencing calls and voicemails from unknown numbers and having them only show in a section of the app that’s separate from the Calls tab (and accessible via the aforementioned Phone menu).

iOS 26's new Phone menu — A new Phone menu helps sort important calls from calls that are likely spam. Credit: Scharon Harding

You could also have iOS direct calls that your cell phone carrier identifies as spam to voicemail and only show the missed calls in the Phone menu’s dedicated Spam list. I found that, while the spam blocker is fairly reliable, silencing calls from unsaved numbers resulted in me missing unexpected calls from, say, an interview source or my bank. And looking through my spam and unknown callers lists sounds like extra work that I’m unlikely to do regularly.

Messages

iOS 26 applies the same approach to Messages. You can now have texts from unknown senders and spam messages automatically placed into folders that are separate from your other texts. It’s helpful for avoiding junk messages, but it can be confusing if you’re waiting for something like a two-factor authentication text, for example.

Elsewhere in Messages is a small but effective change to browsing photos, links, and documents previously exchanged via text. Upon tapping the name of a person in a conversation in Messages, you’ll now see tabs for viewing that conversation’s settings (such as the recipient’s number and a toggle for sending read receipts), as well as separate tabs for photos and links. Previously, this was all under one tab, so if you wanted to find a previously sent link, you had to scroll through the conversation’s settings and photos. Now, you can get to links with a couple of quick taps. Additionally, with iOS 26 you can finally set up custom iMessage backgrounds, including premade ones and ones that you can make from your own photos or by using generative AI. It’s not an essential update but is an easy way to personalize your iPhone by brightening up texts.

Hold Assist

Another time saver is Hold Assist. It makes calling customer service slightly more tolerable by allowing you to hang up during long wait times and have your iPhone ring when someone’s ready to talk to you. It’s a feature that some customer service departments have offered for years already, but it’s handy to always have it available.

You have to be quick to respond, though. One time I answered the phone after using Hold Assist, and the caller informed me that they had said “hello” a few times already. This is despite the fact that iOS is supposed to let the agent know that you’ll be on the phone shortly. If I had waited a couple more seconds to pick up the phone, it’s likely that the customer service rep would have hung up.

Live translations

One of the most novel features that iOS 26 brings to iPhone communication is real-time translations for Spanish, Mandarin, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, and Portuguese. After downloading the necessary language libraries, iOS can translate one of those languages to another in real time when you’re talking on the phone or FaceTime or texting.

The feature worked best in texts, where the software doesn’t have to deal with varying accents, people speaking fast or over one another, stuttering, or background noise. Translated texts and phone calls always show the original text written in the sender’s native language, so you can double-check translations or see things that translations can miss, like acronyms, abbreviations, and slang.

iOS 26 Translating some basic Spanish. — Translating some basic Spanish. Credit: Scharon Harding

During calls or FaceTime, Live Translation sometimes struggled to keep up while it tried to manage the nuances and varying speeds of how different people speak, as well as laughs and other interjections.

However, it’s still remarkable that the iPhone can help remove language barriers without any additional hardware, apps, or fees. It will be even better if Apple can improve reliability and add more languages.

Spatial images on the Home and Lock Screen

The new spatial images feature is definitely on the fluffier side of this iOS update, but it is also a practical way to spice up your Lock Screen, Home Screen, and the Home Screen’s Photos widget.

Basically, it applies a 3D effect to any photo in your library, which is visible as you move your phone around in your hand. Apple says that to do this, iOS 26 uses the same generative AI models that the Apple Vision Pro uses and creates a per-pixel depth map that makes parts of the image appear to pop out as you move the phone within six degrees of freedom.

The 3D effect is more powerful on some images than others, depending on the picture’s composition. It worked well on a photo of my dog sitting in front of some plants and behind a leaf of another plant. I set the display time so that it appears tucked behind her fur, and when I move the phone around, the dog and the leaf in front of her appear to move around, while the background plants stay still.

But in images with few items and sparser backgrounds, the spatial effect looks unnatural. And oftentimes, the spatial effect can be quite subtle.

Still, for those who like personalizing their iPhone with Home and Lock Screen customization, spatial scenes are a simple and harmless way to liven things up. And, if you like the effect enough, a new spatial mode in the Camera app allows you to create new spatial photos.

A note on Apple Intelligence notification summaries

As we’ve already covered in our macOS 26 Tahoe review, Apple Intelligence-based notification summaries haven’t improved much since their 2024 debut in iOS 18 and macOS 15 Sequoia. After problems with showing inaccurate summaries of news notifications, Apple updated the feature to warn users that the summaries may be inaccurate. But it’s still hit or miss when it comes to how easy it is to decipher the summaries.

I did have occasional success with notification summaries in iOS 26. For instance, I understood a summary of a voicemail that said, “Payment may have appeared twice; refunds have been processed.” Because I had already received a similar message via email (a store had accidentally charged me twice for a purchase and then refunded me), I knew I didn’t need to open that voicemail.

Vague summaries sometimes tipped me off as to whether a notification was important. A summary reading “Townhall meeting was hosted; call [real phone number] to discuss issues” was enough for me to know that I had a voicemail about a meeting that I never expressed interest in. It wasn’t the most informative summary, but in this case, I didn’t need a lot of information.

However, most of the time, it was still easier to just open the notification than try to decipher what Apple Intelligence was trying to tell me. Summaries aren’t really helpful and don’t save time if you can’t fully trust their accuracy or depth.

Playful, yet practical

With iOS 26, iPhones get a playful new design that’s noticeable and effective but not so drastically different that it will offend or distract those who are happy with the way iOS 18 works. It’s exciting to experience one of iOS’s biggest redesigns, but what really stands out are the thoughtful tweaks that bring practical improvements to core features, like making and receiving phone calls and taking pictures.

Some additions and changes are superfluous, but the update generally succeeds at improving functionality without introducing jarring changes that isolate users or force them to relearn how to use their phone.

I can’t guarantee that you’ll like the Liquid Glass design, but other updates should make it simpler to do some of the most important tasks with iPhones, and it should be a welcome improvement for long-time users.

iOS 26 review: A practical, yet playful, update Read More »

Google Pixel 10 series review: Don’t call it an Android

Features, Google, pixel 10, Reviews, smartphones, Tech / Kris Guyer / August 29, 2025

Google’s new Pixel phones are better, but only a little.

Left to right: Pixel 10, Pixel 10 Pro, Pixel 10 Pro XL. Credit: Ryan Whitwam

After 10 generations of Pixels, Google’s phones have never been more like the iPhone, and we mean that both as a compliment and a gentle criticism. For people who miss the days of low-cost, tinkering-friendly Nexus phones, Google’s vision is moving ever further away from that, but the attention to detail and overall polish of the Pixel experience continue with the Pixel 10, 10 Pro, and 10 Pro XL. These are objectively good phones with possibly the best cameras on the market, and they’re also a little more powerful, but the aesthetics are seemingly locked down.

Google made a big design change last year with the Pixel 9 series, and it’s not reinventing the wheel in 2025. The Pixel 10 series keeps the same formula, making limited refinements, not all of which will be well-received. Google pulled out all the stops and added a ton of new AI features you may not care about, and it killed the SIM card slot. Just because Apple does something doesn’t mean Google has to, but here we are. If you’re still clinging to your physical SIM card or just like your Pixel 9, there’s no reason to rush out to upgrade.

A great but not so daring design

If you liked the Pixel 9’s design, you’ll like the Pixel 10, because it’s a very slightly better version of the same hardware. All three phones are made from aluminum and Gorilla Glass Victus 2 (no titanium option here). The base model has a matte finish on the metal frame with a glossy rear panel, and it’s the opposite on the Pro phones. This makes the more expensive phones a little less secure in the hand—those polished edges are slippery. The buttons on the Pixel 9 often felt a bit loose, but the buttons on all our Pixel 10 units are tight and clicky.

Pixel 10 back all — Left to right: Pixel 10 Pro XL, Pixel 10 Pro, Pixel 10. Credit: Ryan Whitwam

Specs at a glance: Google Pixel 10 series
	Pixel 10 ($799)	Pixel 10 Pro ($999)	Pixel 10 Pro XL ($1,199)	Pixel 10 Pro Fold ($1,799)
SoC	Google Tensor G5	Google Tensor G5	Google Tensor G5	Google Tensor G5
Memory	12GB	16GB	16GB	16GB
Storage	128GB / 256GB	128GB / 256GB / 512GB	128GB / 256GB / 512GB / 1TB	256GB / 512GB / 1TB
Display	6.3-inch 1080×2424 OLED, 60-120Hz, 3,000 nits	6.3-inch 1280×2856 LTPO OLED, 1-120Hz, 3,300 nits	6.8-inch 1344×2992 LTPO OLED, 1-120Hz, 3,300 nits	External: 6.4-inch 1080×2364 OLED, 60-120Hz, 2000 nits; Internal: 8-inch 2076×2152 LTPO OLED, 1-120Hz, 3,000 nits
Cameras	48 MP wide with Macro Focus, F/1.7, 1/2-inch sensor; 13 MP ultrawide, f/2.2, 1/3.1-inch sensor; 10.8 MP 5x telephoto, f/3.1, 1/3.2-inch sensor; 10.5 MP selfie, f/2.2	50 MP wide with Macro Focus, F/1.68, 1/1.3-inch sensor; 48 MP ultrawide, f/1.7, 1/2.55-inch sensor; 48 MP 5x telephoto, f/2.8, 1/2.55-inch sensor; 42 MP selfie, f/2.2	50 MP wide with Macro Focus, F/1.68, 1/1.3-inch sensor; 48 MP ultrawide, f/1.7, 1/2.55-inch sensor; 48 MP 5x telephoto, f/2.8, 1/2.55-inch sensor; 42 MP selfie, f/2.2	48 MP wide, F/1.7, 1/2-inch sensor; 10.5 MP ultrawide with Macro Focus, f/2.2, 1/3.4-inch sensor; 10.8 MP 5x telephoto, f/3.1, 1/3.2-inch sensor; 10.5 MP selfie, f/2.2 (outer and inner)
Software	Android 16	Android 16	Android 16	Android 16
Battery	4,970 mAh, up to 30 W wired charging, 15 W wireless charging (Pixelsnap)	4,870 mAh, up to 30 W wired charging, 15 W wireless charging (Pixelsnap)	5,200 mAh, up to 45 W wired charging, 25 W wireless charging (Pixelsnap)	5,015 mAh, up to 30 W wired charging, 15 W wireless charging (Pixelsnap)
Connectivity	Wi-Fi 6e, NFC, Bluetooth 6.0, sub-6 GHz and mmWave 5G, USB-C 3.2	Wi-Fi 7, NFC, Bluetooth 6.0, sub-6 GHz and mmWave 5G, UWB, USB-C 3.2	Wi-Fi 7, NFC, Bluetooth 6.0, sub-6 GHz and mmWave 5G, UWB, USB-C 3.2	Wi-Fi 7, NFC, Bluetooth 6.0, sub-6 GHz and mmWave 5G, UWB, USB-C 3.2
Measurements	152.8 height×72.0 width×8.6 depth (mm), 204g	152.8 height×72.0 width×8.6 depth (mm), 207g	162.8 height×76.6 width×8.5 depth (mm), 232g	Folded: 154.9 height×76.2 width×10.1 depth (mm); Unfolded: 154.9 height×149.8 width×5.1 depth (mm); 258g
Colors	Indigo Frost Lemongrass Obsidian	Moonstone Jade Porcelain Obsidian	Moonstone Jade Porcelain Obsidian	Moonstone Jade

The rounded corners and smooth transitions between metal and glass make the phones comfortable to hold, even for the mammoth 6.8-inch Pixel 10 Pro XL. This phone is pretty hefty at 232 g, though—that’s even heavier than Samsung’s Galaxy Z Fold 7. I’m pleased that Google kept the smaller premium phone in 2025, offering most of the capabilities and camera specs of the XL in a more cozy form factor. It’s not as heavy, and the screen is a great size for folks with average or smaller hands.

On the back, you’ll still see the monolithic camera bar near the top. I like this design aesthetically, but it’s also functional. When you set a Pixel 10 down on a table or desk, it remains stable and easy to use, with no annoying wobble. While this element looks unchanged at a glance, it actually takes up a little more surface area on the back of the phone. Yes, that means none of your Pixel 9 cases will fit on the 10.

The Pixel 10’s body has fewer interruptions compared to the previous model, too. Google has done away with the unsightly mmWave window on the top of the phone, and the bottom now has two symmetrical grilles for the mic and speaker. What you won’t see is a SIM card slot (at least in the US). Like Apple, Google has gone all-in with eSIM, so if you’ve been clinging to that tiny scrap of plastic, you’ll have to give it up to use a Pixel 10.

Pixel 10 Pro XL side — The Pixel 10 Pro XL has polished sides that make it a bit slippery. Credit: Ryan Whitwam

The good news is that eSIMs are less frustrating than they used to be. All recent Android devices have the ability to transfer most eSIMs directly without dealing with the carrier. We’ve moved a T-Mobile eSIM between Pixels and Samsung devices a few times without issue, but you will need Wi-Fi connectivity, which is an annoying caveat.

Display sizes haven’t changed this year, but they all look impeccable. The base model and smaller Pro phone sport 6.3-inch OLEDs, and the Pro XL’s is at 6.8 inches. The Pixel 10 has the lowest resolution at 1080p, and the refresh rate only goes from 60–120 Hz. The 10 Pro and 10 Pro XL get higher-resolution screens with LTPO technology that allows them to go as low as 1Hz to save power. The Pro phones also get slightly brighter but all have peak brightness of 3,000 nits or higher, which is plenty to make them readable outdoors.

Pixel 10 MagSafe — The addition of Qi2 makes numerous MagSafe accessories compatible with the new Pixels. Credit: Ryan Whitwam

The biggest design change this year isn’t visible on the outside. The Pixel 10 phones are among the first Android devices with full support for the Qi2 charging standard. Note, this isn’t just “Qi2 Ready” like the Galaxy S25. Google’s phones have the Apple-style magnets inside, allowing you to use many of the chargers, mounts, wallets, and other Apple-specific accessories that have appeared over the past few years. Google also has its own “Pixelsnap” accessories, like chargers and rings. And yes, the official Pixel 10 cases are compatible with magnetic attachments. Adding something Apple has had for years isn’t exactly innovative, but Qi2 is genuinely useful, and you won’t get it from other Android phones.

Expressive software

Google announced its Material 3 Expressive overhaul earlier this year, but it wasn’t included in the initial release of Android 16. The Pixel 10 line will ship with this update, marking the biggest change to Google’s Android skin in years. The Pixel line has now moved quite far from the “stock Android” aesthetic that used to be the company’s hallmark. The Pixel build of Android is now just as customized as Samsung’s One UI or OnePlus’ OxygenOS, if not more so.

Pixel 10 Material 3 — Material 3 Expressive adds more customizable quick settings. Credit: Ryan Whitwam

The good news is that Material 3 looks very nice. It’s more colorful and playful but not overbearing. Some of the app concepts shown off during the announcement were a bit much, but the production app redesigns Google has rolled out since then aren’t as heavy-handed. The Material colors are used more liberally throughout the UI, and certain UI elements will be larger and more friendly. I’ll take Material 3 Expressive over Apple’s Liquid Glass redesign any day.

I’ve been using a pre-production version of the new software, but even for early Pixel software, there have been more minor UI hitches than expected. Several times, I’ve seen status bar icons disappear, app display issues, and image edits becoming garbled. There are no showstopping bugs, but the new software could do with a little cleaning up.

The OS changes are more than skin-deep—Google has loaded the Pixel 10 series with a ton of new AI gimmicks aimed at changing the experience (and justifying the company’s enormous AI spending). With the more powerful Tensor G5 to run larger Gemini Nano on-device models, Google has woven AI into even more parts of the OS. Google’s efforts aren’t as disruptive or invasive as what we’ve seen from other Android phone makers, but that doesn’t mean the additions are useful.

It would be fair to say Magic Cue is Google’s flagship AI addition this year. The pitch sounds compelling—use local AI to crunch your personal data into contextual suggestions in Maps, Messages, phone calls, and more. For example, it can prompt you to insert content into a text message based on other messages or emails.

Despite having a mountain of personal data in Gmail, Keep, and other Google apps, I’ve seen precious few hints of Magic Cue. It once suggested a search in Google Maps, and on another occasion, it prompted an address in Messages. If you don’t use Google’s default apps, you might not see Magic Cue at all. More than ever before, getting the most out of the Pixel means using Google’s first-party apps, just like that other major smartphone platform.

Pixel 10 AI — Google is searching for more ways to leverage generative AI. Credit: Ryan Whitwam

Google says it can take about a day after you set up the Pixel 10 before Magic Cue will be done ingesting your personal data—it takes that long because it’s all happening on your device instead of in the cloud. I appreciate Google’s commitment to privacy in mobile AI because it does have access to a huge amount of user data. But it seems like all that data should be doing more. And I hope that, in time, it does. An AI assistant that anticipates your needs is something that could actually be useful, but I’m not yet convinced that Magic Cue is it.

It’s a similar story with Daily Hub, an ever-evolving digest of your day similar to Samsung’s Now Brief. You will find Daily Hub at the top of the Google Discover feed. It’s supposed to keep you abreast of calendar appointments, important emails, and so on. This should be useful, but I rarely found it worth opening. It offered little more than YouTube and AI search suggestions.

Meanwhile, Pixel Journal works as advertised—it’s just not something most people will want to use. This one is similar to Nothing’s Essential Space, a secure place to dump all your thoughts and ideas throughout the day. This allows Gemini Nano to generate insights and emoji-based mood tracking. Cool? Maybe this will inspire some people to record more of their thoughts and ideas, but it’s not a game-changing AI feature.

If there’s a standout AI feature on the Pixel 10, it’s Voice Translate. It uses Gemini Nano to run real-time translation between English and a small collection of other languages, like Spanish, French, German, and Hindi. The translated voice sounds like the speaker (mostly), and the delay is tolerable. Beyond this, though, many of Google’s new Pixel AI features feel like an outgrowth of the company’s mandate to stuff AI into everything possible. Pixel Screenshots might still be the most useful application of generative AI on the Pixels.

As with all recent Pixel phones, Google guarantees seven years of OS and security updates. That matches Samsung and far outpaces OEMs like OnePlus and Motorola. And unlike Samsung, Google phone updates arrive without delay. You’ll get new versions of Android first, and the company’s Pixel Drops add new features every few months.

Modest performance upgrade

The Pixel 10 brings Google’s long-awaited Tensor G5 upgrade. This is the first custom Google mobile processor manufactured by TSMC rather than Samsung, using the latest 3 nm process node. The core setup is a bit different, with a 3.78 GHz Cortex X4 at the helm. It’s backed by five high-power Cortex-A725s at 3.05 GHz and two low-power Cortex-A520 cores at 2.25 GHz. Google also says the NPU has gotten much more powerful, allowing it to run the Gemini models for its raft of new AI features.

Pixel 10 family cameras — The Pixel 10 series keeps a familiar design. Credit: Ryan Whitwam

If you were hoping to see Google catch up to Qualcomm with the G5, you’ll be disappointed. In general, Google doesn’t seem concerned about benchmark numbers. And in fairness, the Pixels perform very well in daily use. These phones feel fast, and the animations are perfectly smooth. While phones like the Galaxy S25 are faster on paper, we’ve seen less lag and fewer slowdowns on Google’s phones.

That said, the Tensor G5 does perform better in our testing compared to the G4. The CPU speed is up about 30 percent, right in line with Google’s claims. The GPU is faster by 20–30 percent in high-performance scenarios, which is a healthy increase for one year. However, it’s running way behind the Snapdragon 8 Elite we see in other flagship Android phones.

You might notice the slower Pixel GPU if you’re playing Genshin Impact or Call of Duty Mobile at a high level, but it will be more than fast enough for most of the mobile games people play. That performance gap will narrow during prolonged gaming, too. Qualcomm’s flagship chip gets very toasty in phones like the Galaxy S25, slowing down by almost half. The Pixel 10, on the other hand, loses less than 20 percent of its speed to thermal throttling.

Say what you will about generative AI—Google’s obsession with adding more on-device intelligence spurred it to boost the amount of RAM in this year’s Pro phones. You now get 16GB in the 10 Pro and 10 Pro XL. The base model continues to muddle along with 12GB. This could make the Pro phones more future-proof as additional features are added in Pixel Drop updates. However, we have yet to notice the Pro phones holding onto apps in memory longer than the base model.

The Pixel 10 series gets small battery capacity increases across the board, but it’s probably not enough that you’ll notice. The XL, for instance, has gone from 5,060 mAh to 5,200 mAh. It feels like the increases really just offset the increased background AI processing, because the longevity is unchanged from last year. You’ll have no trouble making it through a day with any of the Pixel phones, even if you clock a lot of screen time.

With lighter usage, you can almost make it through two days. You’ll probably want to plug in every night, though. Google has an upgraded always-on display mode on the Pixel 10 phones that shows your background in full color but greatly dimmed. We found this was not worth the battery life hit, but it’s there if you want to enable it.

Charging speed has gotten slightly better this time around, but like the processor, it’s not going to top the charts. The Pixel 10 and 10 Pro can hit a maximum of 30 W with a USB-C PPS-enabled charger, getting a 50 percent charge in about 30 minutes. The Pixel 10 Pro XL’s wired charging can reach around 45 W for a 70 percent charge in half an hour. This would be sluggish compared to the competition in most Asian markets, but it’s average to moderately fast stateside. Google doesn’t have much reason to do better here, but we wish it would try.

Pixel 10 Pro XL vs. Pixel 9 Pro XL — The Pixel 10 Pro XL (left) looks almost identical to the Pixel 9 Pro XL (right). Credit: Ryan Whitwam

Wireless charging is also a bit faster, but the nature of charging is quite different with support for Qi2. You can get 15 W of wireless power with a Qi2 charger on the smaller phones, and the Pixel 10 Pro XL can hit 25 W with a Qi2.2 adapter. There are plenty of Qi2 magnetic chargers out there that can handle 15 W, but 25 W support is currently much more rare.

Post-truth cameras

Google has made some changes to its camera setup this year, including the addition of a third camera to the base Pixel 10. However, that also comes with a downgrade for the other two cameras. The Pixel 10 sports a 48 MP primary, a 13 MP ultra wide, and a 10.8 MP 5x telephoto—this setup is most similar to Google’s foldable phone. The 10 Pro and 10 Pro XL have a slightly better 50 MP primary, a 48 MP ultrawide, and a 48 MP 5x telephoto. The Pixel 10 is also limited to 20x upscaled zoom, but the Pro phones can go all the way to 100x.

Pixel 10 camera closeup — The Pixel 10 gets a third camera, but the setup isn’t as good as on the Pro phones. Credit: Ryan Whitwam

The latest Pixel phones continue Google’s tradition of excellent mobile photography, which should come as no surprise. And there’s an even greater focus on AI, which should also come as no surprise. But don’t be too quick to judge—Google’s use of AI technologies, even before the era of generative systems, has made its cameras among the best you can get.

The Pixel 10 series continues to be great for quick snapshots. You can pop open the camera and just start taking photos in almost any lighting to get solid results. Google’s HDR image processing brings out details in light and dark areas, produces accurate skin tones, and sharpens details without creating an “oil painting” effect when you zoom in. The phones are even pretty good at capturing motion, leaning toward quicker exposures while still achieving accurate colors and good brightness.

Pro phone samples:

Outdoor light. Ryan Whitwam

The Pixel 10 camera changes are a mixed bag. The addition of a telephoto lens for Google’s cheapest model is appreciated, allowing you to get closer to your subject and take greater advantage of Google’s digital zoom processing if 5x isn’t enough. The downgrade of the other sensors is noticeable if you’re pixel peeping, but it’s not a massive difference. Compared to the Pro phones, the base model doesn’t have quite as much dynamic range, and photos in challenging light will trend a bit dimmer. You’ll notice the difference most in Night Sight shots.

The camera experience has a healthy dose of Gemini Nano AI this year. The Pro models’ Pro Res Zoom runs a custom diffusion model to enhance images. This can make a big difference, but it can also be inaccurate, like any other generative system. Google opted to expand its use of C2PA labeling to mark such images as being AI-edited. So you might take a photo expecting to document reality, but the camera app will automatically label it as an AI image. This could have ramifications if you’re trying to document something important. The AI labeling will also appear on photos created using features like Add Me, which continues to be very useful for group shots.

Non-Pro samples:

Bright outdoor light. Ryan Whitwam

Google has also used AI to power its new Camera Coach feature. When activated in the camera viewfinder, it analyzes your current framing and makes suggestions. However, these usually amount to “subject goes in center, zoom in, take picture.” Frankly, you don’t need AI for this if you have ever given any thought to how to frame a photo—it’s pretty commonsense stuff.

The most Google-y a phone can get

Google is definitely taking its smartphone efforts more seriously these days, but the experience is also more laser-focused on Google’s products and services. The Pixel 10 is an Android phone, but you’d never know it from Google’s marketing. It barely talks about Android as a platform—the word only appears once on the product pages, and it’s in the FAQs at the bottom. Google prefers to wax philosophical about the Pixel experience, which has been refined over the course of 10 generations. For all intents and purposes, this is Google’s iPhone. For $799, the base-model Pixel is a good way to enjoy the best of Google in your pocket, but the $999 Pixel 10 Pro is our favorite of the bunch.

Pixel 10 flat — The Pixel 10 series retains the Pixel 9 shape. Credit: Ryan Whitwam

The design, while almost identical to last year’s, is refined and elegant, and the camera is hard to beat, even with more elaborate hardware from companies like Samsung. Google’s Material 3 Expressive UI overhaul is also shaping up to be a much-needed breath of fresh air, and Google’s approach to the software means you won’t have to remove a dozen sponsored apps and game demos after unboxing the phone. We appreciate Google’s long update commitment, too, but you’ll need at least one battery swap to have any hope of using this phone for the full support period. Google will also lower battery capacity dynamically as the cell ages, which may be frustrating, but at least there won’t be any sudden nasty surprises down the road.

These phones are more than fast enough with the new Tensor G5 chip, and if mobile AI is ever going to have a positive impact, you’ll see it first on a Pixel. While almost all Android phone buyers will be happy with the Pixel 10, there are a few caveats. If high-end mobile gaming is a big part of your smartphone usage, it might make sense to get a Samsung or OnePlus phone, with their faster Qualcomm chips. There’s also the forced migration to eSIM. If you have to swap SIMs frequently, you may want to wait a bit longer to migrate to eSIM.

Pixel 10 edge — The Pixel design is still slick. Credit: Ryan Whitwam

Buying a Pixel 10 is also something of a commitment to Google as the integrated web of products and services it is today. The new Pixel phones are coming at a time when Google’s status as an eternal tech behemoth is in doubt. Before long, the company could find itself split into pieces as a result of pending antitrust actions, so this kind of unified Google vision for a smartphone experience might not exist in the future. The software running on the Pixel 10 seven years hence may be very different—there could be a lot more AI or a lot less Google.

But today, the Pixel 10 is basically the perfect Google phone.

The good

Great design carried over from Pixel 9
Fantastic cameras, new optical zoom for base model
Material 3 redesign is a win
Long update support
Includes Qi2 with magnetic attachment
Runs AI on-device for better privacy

The bad

Tensor G5 doesn’t catch up to Qualcomm
Too many perfunctory AI features
Pixel 10’s primary and ultrawide sensors are a slight downgrade from Pixel 9
eSIM-only in the US

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Video player looks like a 1-inch TV from the ’60s and is wondrous, pointless fun

Reviews, Tech, TVs / Paul Patrick / August 29, 2025

TV static and remote included.

The TinyTV 2 powering off. Credit: Scharon Harding

If a family of anthropomorphic mice were to meet around a TV, I imagine they’d gather around something like TinyCircuits’ TinyTV 2. The gadget sits on four slender, angled legs with its dials and classic, brown shell beckoning viewers toward its warm, bright stories. The TinyTV’s screen is only 1.14 inches diagonally, but the device exudes vintage energy.

In simple terms, the TinyTV is a portable, rechargeable gadget that plays stored videos and was designed to look and function like a vintage TV. The details go down to the dials, one for controlling the volume and another for scrolling through the stored video playlist. Both rotary knobs make an assuring click when twisted.

Musing on fantastical uses for the TinyTV seems appropriate because the device feels like it’s built around fun. At a time when TVs are getting more powerful, software-driven, AI-stuffed, and, of course, bigger, the TinyTV is a delightful, comforting tribute to a simpler time for TVs.

Retro replica

Tom Cruise on the TinyTV 2. — The TinyTV’s remote and backside next to a lighter for size comparisons. Credit: Scharon Harding

TinyCircuits makes other tiny, open source gadgets to “serve creativity in the maker community, build fun STEAM learning, and spark joy,” according to the Ohio-based company’s website. TinyCircuits’ first product was the Arduino-based TinyDuino Platform, which it crowdfunded through Kickstarter in 2012.

The TinyTV 2 is the descendant of the $75 (as of this writing) TinyTV DIY Kit that came out three years prior. TinyCircuits crowdfunded the TinyTV 2 on Kickstarter and Indiegogo in 2022 (along with a somehow even smaller alternative, the 0.6-inch TinyTV Mini). Now, TinyCircuits sells the TinyTV alongside other small electronics—like Thumby, a “playable, programmable keychain” that looks like a Game Boy—on its website for $60.

“This idea actually came from one of our customers in Japan,” Ken Burns, TinyCircuits’ founder, told Ars via email. “Our original product line was a number of different stackable boards [that] work like little electronic LEGOs to allow people to create all sorts of projects. We had a small screen as part of this platform, which this customer used to create a small TV set that was very cute …”

Even when powered off, the TinyTV sparks intrigue, with a vintage aesthetic replicating some of the earliest TV sets.

The TinyTV was inspired by vintage TV sets. Scharon Harding

Nostalgia hit me when I pressed the power button on top of the TinyTV. When the gadget powers on or off or switches between videos, it shows snow and makes a TV static noise that I haven’t heard in years.

TV toned down

Without a tuner, the TinyTV isn’t really a TV. It also can’t connect to the Internet, so it’s not a streaming device. I was able to successfully stream videos from a connected computer over USB-C using this link, but audio isn’t supported.

With many TV owners relying on flat buttons and their voice to control TVs, turning a knob or pressing a button to flip through content feels novel. It also makes me wonder if today’s youth understand the meaning of phrases like “flipping channels” and “channel surfing.” Emulating a live TV, the TinyTV syncs timestamps, so that if you return to a “channel,” the video will play from a middle point, as if the content had been playing the whole time you were watching something else.

When the TinyTV powers off, the display briefly shows snow that is quickly eaten up by black, making the static look like a shrinking circle before the screen is completely black.

The TinyTV comes with an infrared remote, a small, black, 3D-printed thing with a power button and buttons for controlling the volume and switching videos.

The TinyTV with its remote. Credit: Scharon Harding

But the remote didn’t work reliably, even when I held it the recommended 12 to 18 inches away from the TinyTV. That’s a shame because using the knobs requires two hands to prevent the TinyTV from toppling.

Adding video to TinyTV is simple because TinyCircuits has a free tool for converting MP4 files into the necessary AVI format. Afterward, conversion you add files to the TinyTV by connecting it to a computer via its USB-C port. My system read the TinyTV as a USB D drive.

Image quality is better than you might expect from a 1.14-inch panel. It’s an IPS screen with 16-bit color and a 30 Hz refresh rate, per Burns. CRT would be more accurate, but in addition to the display tech being bulkier and more expensive, it’s hard to find CRT tech this size. (The smallest CRT TV was Panasonic’s Travelvision CT-101, which came out in 1984 with a 1.5-inch screen and is rare today.)

One of my biggest challenges was finding a way to watch the TinyTV at eye level. However, even when the device was positioned below eye level, I could still make out images in bright scenes. Seeing the details in dark images was hard, though, even with the TinyTV at a proper distance.

I uploaded a trailer for this summer’s Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning movie onto the TinyTV, and with 223.4 pixels per inch, its screen was sharp enough to show details like a document with text, the edges of a small airplane’s wing, and the miniscule space between Tom Cruise and the floor in that vault from the first Mission: Impossible.

A video of white text on a black background that TinyCircuits preloaded was legible, despite some blooming and the scrolling words appearing jerky. Everything I uploaded also appeared grainier on TinyTV, making details harder to see.

The 0.6×4-inch, front-facing speaker, however, isn’t nearly loud enough to hear if almost anything else in the room is making noise. Soft dialogue was hard to make out, even in a quiet room.

A simpler time for TVs

We’ve come a long way since the early days of TV. Screens are bigger, brighter, faster, and more colorful and advanced. We’ve moved from input dials to slim remotes with ads for streaming services. TV legs have been replaced with wall mounts, and the screens are no longer filled with white noise but are driven by software and tracking.

I imagine the TinyTV serving a humble mouse family when I’m not looking. I’ve seen TinyCircuits market the gadget as dollhouse furniture. People online have also pointed to using TinyTVs at marketing events, like trade shows, to draw people in.

“People use this for a number of things, like office desk toys, loading videos on it for the holidays to send to Grandma, or just for fun,” Burns told me.

I’ve mostly settled on using the TinyTV in my home office to show iPhone-shot footage of my dog playing, as if it’s an old home video, plus a loop of a video of one of my favorite waterfalls.

TinyTV 2 — The TinyTV’s 8GB microSD card is supposed to hold “about” 10 hours of video. Burns told me that it’s “possible” to swap the storage. You’d have to take the gadget apart, though. Credit: Scharon Harding

As TVs morph into ad machines and new display tech forces us to learn new acronyms regularly, TinyTV’s virtually pointless fun is refreshing. It’s not a real TV, but it gets at the true spirit of TVs: electronic screens that invite people to gather ’round, so they can detach from the real world and be entertained.

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Corsair’s PC-dockable screen helped me monitor my PC components and news feeds

corsair, Monitors, Reviews, Tech / Kris Guyer / August 27, 2025

Corsair’s Xeneon Edge is the best at what it does but is software-dependent.

Corsair’s Xeneon Edge touchscreen monitor. Credit: Scharon Harding

Finding a cheap secondary PC monitor is pretty easy. But if you want one that looks good, is built well, and is easily customizable, you won’t find those qualities in a budget screen from a no-name brand on Amazon. Instead, Corsair’s Xeneon Edge is a premium alternative that almost justifies its $250 price tag.

Corsair first announced the Xeneon Edge at the CES trade show in January. It’s a 5-point capacitive touchscreen that can live on your desk and serve as a secondary computer monitor. If you’re feeling fun, you can download Corsair’s iCUE software to use customizable widgets for displaying things like CPU temperature and usage, the time and date, and media playing. More adventurous users can attach the screen onto their desktop PC’s fan mounts or side panel.

I used Corsair’s monitor for a couple of weeks. From its build to its image quality and software, the monitor is exemplary for a screen of this kind. The flagship widgets feature needs some work, but I couldn’t ask for much more from a secondary, PC-mountable display.

PC-mountable monitor

Corsair Xeneon Edge — The monitor is set to 50 percent brightness, which was suffient in my sunny office. Maxing out brightness washed out the display’s colors. Credit: Scharon Harding

PC builders may be intrigued by the Xeneon Edge’s ability to attach to any 360 mm fan mount. There are four corner machine screws on the back of the monitor to attach the screen to a fan mount. Corsair also sells “Frame Series” PC cases that support attaching the monitor onto the side panel. You can see a video of the different PC mounting options here.

If you don’t have a desktop or want to pair Corsair’s screen with a laptop, the screen comes with a tiny plastic stand that adheres to the monitor’s four corners via the display’s 14 integrated magnets. This minimalist solution meant I could use my Xeneon Edge within minutes of opening it.

Corsair Xeneon Edge's backside and stand — The included stand (top) and the monitor’s backside (bottom). Credit: Scharon Harding

Yet another option is to use the Xeneon Edge’s two standard female 1/4″-20 mounts to connect the monitor to a stand, giving it more height and, depending on the arm, the ability to rotate.

Widget drawbacks

While cheaper monitors similar to the Xeneon Edge are out there, they’re always just missing the mark. This $160 (as of this writing) option, for example, specifically names Corsair compatibility in its keyword-stuffed product name. Some of these rivals—which often have similar specs, like size and resolution—also emphasize their ability to display information from the connected system, such as CPU and GPU temperature. However, I haven’t seen these cheaper screens come with dedicated software that simplifies configuring what the monitor displays, while ensuring its image looks clean, sophisticated, and easily digestible.

This monitor’s product images, for example, show a screen with a lot of information (potentially too much) about the connected PC’s CPU, GPU, RAM, and storage, accompanied by Dragon Ball Super anime graphics. But in order to get that on the display, you’d need to download and customize Aida64 and Wallpaper Engine, per the listing. iCUE is a simpler alternative and will require less time to set up.

To use widgets on the Xeneon Edge, iCUE must be running. Whenever I stopped the app from running in the background, the widgets disappeared, and the Xeneon Edge would work as a widget-free secondary monitor. Corsair’s manual reads: “Monitor settings are saved directly on the device and will remain consistent, even when iCUE is not running.” Once I re-opened iCUE, my widget layouts were accessible again. This limitation could mean that you’ll never want to use Corsair’s widgets. For some people, particularly those building PCs and buying dedicated screens for monitoring PC components, requiring iCUE to run is counterproductive.

If peripheral companies like Corsair and Razer have broken you down to where you don’t mind proprietary software using computing resources in perpetuity, you’ll be happy with iCUE’s simple, sensible UI for tweaking things like the size and color of widgets.

But I thought there’d be more widgets—namely calendar and weather ones, as Corsair teased in January promotional images for the Xeneon Edge.

A promotional image of the touchscreen from January shows calendar and weather widgets.

I asked Corsair about this, and a company spokesperson said that the weather and calendar widgets will be available in Q1 2026. Wanting more and improved widgets is a good reason to hold off on buying this monitor (the monitor could potentially be cheaper in the future, too), which just came out today.

A screenshot of Corsair iCUE configuring the Xeneon Edge. — I’d like to see timer and alarm widgets added to the companion app. Credit: Scharon Harding/Corsair

Occasionally I had trouble navigating websites within the monitor’s URL widget. It was fine for leaving my favorite website up, for example. But the widget sometimes cut off certain areas, such as menu bars, on other websites. When I used the widget to display the website for an RSS feed reader, I sometimes got logged out when exiting iCUE. When I reopened iCUE, the widget wouldn’t let me type within the widget in order to log back in, unless I had iCUE up on my other screen. Scrolling through the Ars Technica website looked choppy, too. Notably, iCUE emphasizes that “some websites do not permit their content to be displayed in an iFrame.

Corsair’s rep told me that the URL widget uses a “customized flavor of Chromium.” Of course, the widget doesn’t offer nearly the same functionality as a standard browser. You can’t store bookmarks or enter new URLs within the widget, for example.

If the monitor is using widgets, you can’t use it like a regular monitor, so you can’t drag or view windows on it. This was limiting and prevented me from displaying widgets and other apps fit for a secondary screen, like Slack, simultaneously. As of my writing, the only dedicated chat widget is for Twitch Chat.

Corsair’s rep told me that the company is currently “working on more features and widgets, so things should open up pretty soon.” He pointed to upcoming widgets for Discord, stocks, a virtual keyboard and mouse, and SimHub, plus a widget builder.

I think most users will end up choosing between having the display typically run widgets or serving as a monitor. For Team Widget, there’s a handy feature where you can swipe left or right on the screen to quickly toggle different widget layouts that you’ve saved.

As good as it gets, with room for improvement

Corsair’s Xeneon Edge isn’t the only 14.5-inch touchscreen monitor out there, but it certainly has an edge over its nondescript rivals. The Xeneon Edge is more expensive than most of its competition. But during my testing with the display, I never felt like I was looking at something cheap. The IPS panel appeared bright, colorful, and legible, even in bright rooms and when displaying smaller text (very small text was still readable, but I’d prefer to read small lettering on something sharper).

Many will completely forego Corsair’s widgets. They’ll miss out on some of what makes the Xeneon Edge expensive, but the display’s mounting options, solid build, and image quality, along with Corsair’s reputation, help it make sense over cheaper 14.5-inch touchscreens. Corsair gives the monitor a two-year limited warranty.

Some might consider the software burdensome, but if you choose to use it, the app is modern and effective without making you jump through hoops to do things like adjust the monitor’s brightness, contrast, or sensor logging or set an image as the screen’s background.

More widgets would help this monitor come closer to earning the $250 MSRP. But if you’re looking for a small, premium touchscreen to add to your desk—or mount to your PC—the Xeneon Edge is top of the line.

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