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GE Café Specialty Drip Coffee Maker Review: Only So-So

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In my mind, GE is a manufacturer of big, boxy appliances. They’re the folks for reliable and relatively affordable stoves and the manufacturers of the monolithic silver Monogram-line fridge  that I once carted across town with my brother-in-law. That kind of thing.

I don’t usually think of them as Mr. Coffee’s competitors, yet their new coffee maker is. Part of the company’s artsy, tech-savvy Café line, it’s also one of a small group of coffee makers to have Specialty Coffee Association (SCA) approval, a sort of Good Housekeeping Seal for coffee nerds that fairly guarantees a good cup for consumers. It’s a fairly attractive coffee maker, but for the price, it just doesn’t make a very interesting cup.

Worn Off White

At first glance, the GE Café Specialty Drip Coffee Maker is easy to like. Pop it out of the box and you’ll be able to make a pot without looking at the instructions. The GE Café has an app, and you can connect it to your Wi-Fi network, but all of the key features are accessible on the machine, so you can leave the app in the App Store if you’re not interested.

There are four brew strength options: Light, Medium, Bold, and Gold, the latter being set to SCA specs. The water temperature for the non-Gold settings can be adjusted between 185 and 205 degrees Fahrenheit, allowing you to dial in your brew. (In the GE, the Gold setting is the same as the Medium setting, but the temperature is locked in at 200 degrees.)

It’s good-looking thing, available in stainless, matte black, and what I might call “Tatooine kitchen” white. My review unit was one of the matte white models, and while that finish looks cool, it’s a peculiar option considering coffee’s ability to stain.

Plus, with a rectangular footprint and controls on the long axis, it forces you to position it on your countertop in a way that hogs space, a trap that my personal favorite, the OXO 8-Cup Coffee Maker (9/10, WIRED Recommends) avoids. And while the OXO has dishwasher-safe parts, the GE has none.

White coffee maker with tank and panel of buttons on the right and container and coffee pot on the right.

Photograph: Amazon

Tinkering With Taste

Good coffee is the result of a host of factors like bean and roast quality, grind size, brew time, water temperature, and water quality, to name a few. Start from a good base and you can tweak your way to perfection, one variable at a time.

In my test kitchen, comparing it to nothing but itself, that base felt solid—the SCA approval at work! The coffee was good, but I wanted to go deeper with my friends from Olympia Coffee in their Seattle lab. I met co-owner Sam Schroeder and retail trainer Reyna Callejo, who had brought her Breville Precision Brewer Thermal coffee maker (7/10, WIRED Review) from home, which was a big help. It’s an excellent machine and direct competition for the GE Café, perfect for head-to-head testing.

Sam and Reyna immediately did the thing coffee nerds do around a new gadget, hovering over it, enthusiastically pressing all the buttons, opening and closing anything that could be open and closed, marveling at the little replaceable water filter, appreciating the nice, wide shower head—the part where the hot water emerges above the grounds—and wondering aloud if it would actually distribute the water evenly. Looking back, it was about here where tiny metaphorical cracks in the matte plastic began to show.

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Rad Power Bikes Radster Road Review: Safety First

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There’s eight gears, five levels of assistance, a twist throttle, and also a zero assist mode. Rad now has a new torque sensor which makes it feel infinitely better and so much more natural to pedal. It’s also much quieter. I previously put Lectric’s bikes in a similar category of affordable direct-to-consumers, but my husband rides a Lectric and became angry when he realized how smoothly and quietly I was pedaling, while he buzzed along.

It also has hydraulic disc brakes, front suspension with 80 millimeters of travel (feels great! feels comfy!), and a ton of features that make it seem way more expensive than it is. For example, you may have noticed I did not mention what class of ebike it is. While it ships as a Class 2 ebike, you can scroll through the menu and change which class it’s in, and thus what the legal top speed is, depending on whether you’re in the city or the country. It is very cool. In the menu, you can also do things like wipe trip data or set a passcode to lock the display.

Closeup of the display on an ebike with the screen showing speed gear and distance traveled

Photograph: Adrienne So

It also has a bell! And signal buttons! What people I know have reported is that I often turn the signal on and forget to turn it off, or accidentally turn it on when I’m switching the assistance, and then my hand flies up to the point where I’m going automatically because I’ve been signaling with my arms for 30 years. That’s fun. Rather than turn signals, I would’ve preferred a brighter front headlight. Two hundred lumens is brighter than forgetting your front light, but I would really prefer 400 or even 1,000 when biking at night in the rain, which I often do.

A big reason why people often buy direct-to-consumer bikes is the proprietary accessories. Cars don’t ship without lights or storage options, so car substitutes have to have them too. The Radster Road does ship with fenders, a chain guard, and a rear rack with a 55-pound payload. It fit my Po Campo backpack pannier without issue. As compared to other direct-to-consumers, Rad Power Bikes has a whopping array of accessories; I would be remiss if I did not admit that as I was biking around with my children and spouse, I did think about attaching some locking storage and a pet trailer so that my elderly dog could come along too.

I do think $2,000 is the sweet spot for electric commuter bikes. It’s enough to cover some very solid components, but not so expensive that it deters you from biking because you’re worried about it getting stolen or damaged. It slots nicely into regular bike racks, and I can use a regular U-lock on the head tube, although I did feel more comfortable double-locking it on multiple parts of the frame. Unlike the Santa Cruz Skitch (9/10, WIRED Recommends), I did grab the Radster Road and hop on it when I had to run to the Grocery Outlet. Not every ride needs to be so dazzlingly fun that you can’t stop giggling—sometimes you just need to get somewhere, and you hate parking your car, and you’re super late.

I was wary of Rad Power Bikes for many years—it’s hard for a gear tester to set things aside like a bike arcing on you, or multiple lawsuits. However, it is clear that very many lessons have been learned over the past few years. The Radster Road does that well, for miles and miles.

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What If Your AI Girlfriend Hated You?

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It seems as though we’ve arrived at the moment in the AI hype cycle where no idea is too bonkers to launch. This week’s eyebrow-raising AI project is a new twist on the romantic chatbot—a mobile app called AngryGF, which offers its users the uniquely unpleasant experience of getting yelled at via messages from a fake person. Or, as cofounder Emilia Aviles explained in her original pitch: “It simulates scenarios where female partners are angry, prompting users to comfort their angry AI partners” through a “gamified approach.” The idea is to teach communication skills by simulating arguments that the user can either win or lose depending on whether they can appease their fuming girlfriend.

The central appeal of a relationship-simulating chatbot, I’ve always assumed, is that they’re easier to interact with than real-life humans. They have no needs or desires of their own. There’s no chance they’ll reject you or mock you. They exist as a sort of emotional security blanket. So the premise of AngryGF amused me. You get some of the downsides of a real-life girlfriend—she’s furious!!—but none of the upsides. Who would voluntarily use this?

Obviously, I downloaded AngryGF immediately. (It’s available, for those who dare, on both the Apple App Store and Google Play.) The app offers a variety of situations where a girlfriend might ostensibly be mad and need “comfort.” They include “You put your savings into the stock market and lose 50 percent of it. Your girlfriend finds out and gets angry” and “During a conversation with your girlfriend, you unconsciously praise a female friend by mentioning that she is beautiful and talented. Your girlfriend becomes jealous and angry.”

The app sets an initial “forgiveness level” anywhere between 0 and 100 percent. You have 10 tries to say soothing things that tilt the forgiveness meter back to 100. I chose the beguilingly vague scenario called “Angry for no reason,” in which the girlfriend is, uh, angry for no reason. The forgiveness meter was initially set to a measly 30 percent, indicating I had a hard road ahead of me.

Reader: I failed. Although I genuinely tried to write messages that would appease my hopping-mad fake girlfriend, she continued to interpret my words in the least generous light and accuse me of not paying attention to her. A simple “How are you doing today?” text from me—Caring! Considerate! Asking questions!—was met with an immediately snappy answer: “Oh, now you care about how I’m doing?” Attempts to apologize only seemed to antagonize her further. When I proposed a dinner date, she told me that wasn’t sufficient but also that I better take her “somewhere nice.”

Screenshot of a conversation with the AngryGF chatbot in which the first user writes Alright honestly this is annoying...

DATING APPS ONLINE LTD via Kate Knibbs

It was such an irritating experience that I snapped and told this bitchy bot that she was annoying. “Great to know that my feelings are such a bother to you,” the sarcast-o-bot replied. When I decided to try again a few hours later, the app informed me that I’d need to upgrade to the paid version to unlock more scenarios for $6.99 a week. No thank you.

At this point I wondered if the app was some sort of avant-garde performance art. Who would even want their partner to sign up? I would not be thrilled if I knew my husband considered me volatile enough to require practicing lady-placation skills on a synthetic shrew. While ostensibly preferable to AI girlfriend apps seeking to supplant IRL relationships, an app designed to coach men to get better at talking to women by creating a robot woman who is a total killjoy might actually be even worse.

I called Aviles, the cofounder, to try to understand what, exactly, was happening with AngryGF. She’s a Chicago-based social media marketer who says that the app was inspired by her own past relationships, where she was unimpressed by her partners’ communication skills. Her schtick seemed sincere. “You know men,” she says. “They listen, but then they don’t take action.”

Aviles describes herself as the app’s cofounder but isn’t particularly well-versed in the nuts and bolts of its creation. (She says a team of “between 10 and 20” people work on the app but that she is the only founder willing to put her name on the product.) She was able to specify that the app is built on top of OpenAI’s GPT-4 and wasn’t made with any additional custom training data like actual text messages between significant others.

“We didn’t really directly consult with a relationship therapist or anything like that,” she says. No kidding.

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13 Best Coffee Grinders (2024): Conical, Flat Burr, Blade, and Hand Grinders

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It’s all in the beans. Nothing will improve your morning coffee like grinding the beans right before you brew. It doesn’t matter whether you’re rocking a fancy liquid-cooled-quantum-AI-powered espresso machine or a $30 Mr. Coffee—making the switch to whole beans will transform your coffee-drinking experience. We have advice at the end of this article on finding good whole beans (you might want to read our Best Coffee Subscriptions guide). Once you have your beans, it’s time to grind ’em up fresh each day. These are the best coffee grinders we’ve tested.

Be sure to check out our other coffee-related buying guides, like the Best Latte and Cappuccino Machines, Best Portable Coffee Makers, Best Espresso Machines, and Best Portable Espresso Makers.

Updated April 2024: Added the Eureka Mignon Filtro, Fellow Tally Pro scale, an Honorable Mentions section, and an Avoid section.

Special offer for Gear readers: Get WIRED for just $5 ($25 off). This includes unlimited access to WIRED.com, full Gear coverage, and subscriber-only newsletters. Subscriptions help fund the work we do every day.

What Is a Conical, Flat, or Blade Grinder?

Pattern made of cup of fresh coffee on pastel pink background.

Photograph: Iryna Veklich/Getty Images

Our list consists mostly of conical-burr grinders. In a conical grinder, coffee beans are crushed and ground between two rings of burrs. They deliver a finer, much more consistent grind than you’d get with a traditional blade grinder, even the nicest ones.

Flat-burr grinders are similar, but they’re typically more expensive. In these, the burrs are laid on top of each other, and the beans pass through them as they grind. The grinder action pushes the grounds out of one end, instead of relying on gravity like a conical-burr grinder, and the beans spend more time in contact with the burrs. This results in a more consistent grind, but for home brewers, conical-burr grinders are just as good—even if they require more maintenance and don’t result in consistent down-to-the-micron-scale grounds.

Blade grinders have a chopping blade that spins around like a food processor. But blades don’t produce even results. Some of your coffee will be fine powder at the bottom, and at the top you’ll have bits too large for even French press. The result is an inconsistent, unpredictable brew. These grinders are cheap, and yes, using fresh beans in a blade grinder is far better than buying ground coffee. (You can learn how to shake the beans to even your grind just a little. See world barista champion James Hoffmann’s video for some more blade grinder hacks.)

If you can afford it, we highly recommend going with one of the burr grinders we’ve listed. There’s a reason why they cost a little more than a budget burr grinder. The machinery in a high-quality burr grinder is a bit more complicated, and it’s built to withstand greater wear and tear. In cheap burr grinders, the burrs will typically get blunt from regular use, and the flimsier motors may burn out in a matter of months.

PSA: Do not put pre-ground coffee into a burr grinder. Logically, it makes sense. It’s too coarse, so you put it through again, right? No! With a burr grinder, the preground coffee gets stuck inside the burrs, and you’ll have to do some disassembly to set them to rights again.

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Milo Action Communicator: Hassle-Free Comms Without Your Smartphone

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As a group, we were all of similar ability and speeds, so range rarely became an issue while skiing. When someone did fall back from the group, stop for a couple of minutes, or even turn a particularly big, rocky corner, we would get a “Jeremy is out of range” alert. The Milos work best with a straight line of sight, and for our resort riding needs were more than capable. They didn’t always work from the resort bar though, which meant drinks orders were missed, but we’re not blaming Milo for this. Not much, anyway.

We were also impressed by Milo’s Proximity Mute, which turns down the microphones when you’re close enough for a normal volume conversation. This worked well, with anyone not close enough still able to communicate through the speakers to the gathered group.

Recent software updates have also added some voice commands to Milo, with more expected soon. We weren’t able to test these, but they include one-on-one side chats, allowing you to talk to individuals in the group with a simple “OK Milo, speak with Chris” prompt.

Milo founder and CEO Peter Celinski also told WIRED they’re about to launch a Long Range Messaging Mode that will allow you to use voice commands to record and send messages to specific individuals in your group. You get a confirmation when your message has been received and recipients can play back messages at their leisure, including multiple times. This will be a handy extra, and another reason to keep your phone safely in your pocket.

Hardest Button to Button

Milo is intuitive and, once you appreciate its limitations, extremely useful. But it’s not without issues. With the exception of the massive main mute/unmute button, the rubber controls are bafflingly difficult to use wearing gloves, especially considering skiing is cited by the company as a prime activity for Milos (alongside kayaking, surfing, hiking, and surfing).

Using the main button also requires accuracy—we estimated an 70 percent first time hit rate, although this did improve with practice. It’s very irritating, too, that the volume of each Milo gets reset to low when powered down.

Curiously, Milo doesn’t give a specific battery life duration, but, for the most part, our devices survived a long day on the slopes, though that did require each person to power down their units at lunch to make it through to the last lift.

Selfie of 4 people riding a ski lift

In a group, the Milos create a secure mesh network so comms are more stable.

Photograph: Wired

A maximum of six Milos can be linked in a group, which seems a little limited, but given the high price of buying multiple units it might be a blessing. At $249 a pop, can you persuade your mates to invest? Milo does offer group deals—great for families—with four units plus armband and action clips costing $925 instead of $1,120.

We’ve not tested Milo on bikes or water, but in the mountains we quickly learned to appreciate how useful they can be. Chatting as you ski, sharing tips, and generally enthusing about being in the mountains is fun—and being able to keep tabs on a group and help as necessary is a real bonus. And, remember, the free alternative of phone communication isn’t possible when surfing and the like.

If you’ve got cash to spend, we’re happy to recommend Milo, especially as the brand rolls out more voice- and AI-based features. If the price were a little lower, the battery life a little longer, and the fiddly volume buttons a little bigger, Milo’s modern take on walkie-talkies would be a clear win.

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LG MyView Smart Monitor (32SR85U-W) Review: A Fun 2-In-1 Screen

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you might think a “smart monitor” might have some tie-in to the smart home, but it’s more akin to modern-day smart TVs. LG’s MyView 4K Smart Monitor has a smart TV built into it, complete with a homepage of apps, just like your Roku or Google TV.

“Can’t I just use a web browser?” you might ask. Yes, you can. This led me to wonder why I’d need a smart TV interface on a device that can typically surf any corner of the web, including directly accessing streaming services. To my surprise, I liked using my desktop monitor as both a normal PC monitor and a smart (albeit imperfect) TV. I often preferred the built-in streaming apps over a browser page. It created a nice separation between my work and relaxation time, offering some peace at the end of a long day.

Screen Time

The 32-inch MyView is fairly well rounded for its $600 price, considering it’s a 4K (3,840 x 2,160 resolution) monitor with a large and bright IPS screen. It has already dipped as low as $500, making it an even better value. It comes with a remote, which is how you navigate the TV interface.

There’s a selection of picture modes accessible through the remote’s Settings button, ranging from a dim power-saver mode to ones calibrated for watching movies and sports. They all do something different—Cinema and Sport modes both raise the brightness to 100 percent but choose different levels of contrast, while Auto Power Save cuts down on brightness but uses a high amount of local dimming to respond to your space. These modes are pretty standard fare on monitors and TVs.

The screen was bright enough that I usually chose the Power Save mode, and the local dimming usually landed on around 10 to 15 percent brightness. I also toggled on Eye Care Mode—which reduces blue light on the screen—whenever a yellow-toned screen wasn’t an issue for my tasks. All of this was so much easier to access via the remote compared to the usual buttons you’d find on some corner (or the back) of a monitor. No more guessing what button does what!

White flat screen monitor on desk with 2 speakers on either side neon lighting behind and picture of sky and leaves...

Photograph: Nena Farrell

You’ll see fewer options if you connect the monitor to your PC using a USB-C cord with display-out support instead of an HDMI—Vivid, Standard, Game Optimizer, and a couple of movie-related modes. There’s no Auto Power Save option, and I ended up manually dimming the brightness to replicate the mode I used when I was connected via HDMI.

The 60-Hz refresh rate is a bit of a bummer but unsurprising on monitors that don’t specifically cater to gamers. Whether you’ll notice it depends on what you play; Baldur’s Gate 3 still looked beautiful onscreen, particularly with the Game Optimizer picture mode. I also liked playing Stardew Valley on it, though I found it better to play with the Standard or Auto picture modes, since the art style isn’t as dynamic. If you have a hefty gaming PC and often play fast-paced games, you’ll want to look elsewhere for a monitor that can handle higher refresh rates.

Streaming is where this monitor shines. The large 32-inch screen feels immersive and cinematic when you’re perched right in front of it. It’s big enough that even if you’re sitting slightly farther away, it works OK, but sit more than 5 feet away and it’ll look too small. I spent a good amount of time watching Queen Charlotte: A Bridgerton Story, and the Cinema mode did a lovely job of improving the picture quality. (It looked good even on the Auto mode.)

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Nothing Ear and Nothing Ear (a) Review: Third Time, Still Charming

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Not everything needs to reinvent the wheel. Iterating on products year over year has produced some of the best wireless headphones money can buy, and that’s precisely the route Nothing is going with its latest earbuds, the Nothing Ear and Nothing Ear (a). Sure, at its founding the company vowed to do so much more than make headphones and smartphones—it hasn’t quite followed up on that promise yet—but at least we get affordable earbuds that don’t look the part.

The new Ear and Ear (a) are Nothing’s third generation of AirPod clones, resulting in a pair of mature products with competitive sound, pricing, and user experience. From good-looking cases that easily fit in your pocket to smaller, more thoughtful design touches, these are some great wireless earbuds to consider if you’re hunting for a pair under $150.

Neither are groundbreaking audio products—there are better headphones if you spend a little more and plenty of comparable models—but they’ll more than satisfy just about anyone. They work well and look great; what more can you ask for?

What’s the Difference?

The Nothing Ear costs $150 and the Nothing Ear (a) is $100—following the “a” designation Nothing uses on its cheaper Nothing Phone (2a) versus the Nothing Phone (2). The company started with the Nothing Ear (1) in 2021 and followed up with the Nothing Ear (2) last year, so why the latest Nothing Ear isn’t called the Ear (3) is confusing.

The biggest physical difference between the Nothing Ear and the Nothing Ear (a) is the size of the earbuds, and the pricier model includes wireless charging support in its carrying case. The Ear is identical in looks to 2023’s Ear (2), but they’re a tiny bit larger and heavier. The Ear (a) are smaller and lack some of the fancy processing in its pricier sibling, but it comes with fun bright yellow accents (or white or black, depending on your preference) on the case and headphones.

Left Two yellow inear buds on a wooden surface. Right Hand holding one inear bud showing the panel that extrudes.

Nothing Ear (a)

Photograph: Parker Hall

Both wireless earbuds come with three sizes of ear tips, with the medium installed as standard. They fit me just fine for my extremely average ear size, with the Ear feeling a bit snugger and probably less suited for anyone with smaller ears. The Ear (a) reached Goldilocks’ porridge territory in size, stability, and long-term comfort. I don’t dislike wearing the larger, more feature-rich Ear, but if I had to choose based on comfort alone, the Ear (a) would get my money.

Inside the Ear (a) you get a less powerful chipset, but the earbuds still boast the same level of noise canceling, the same driver, and the same number of microphones for better calls as the Ear. The weaker chipset does have one benefit—longer battery life. The Ear (a) can hit up to 5.5 hours with active noise canceling turned on, whereas the pricier Ear lasts 5.2 hours. One other change? The Nothing Ear employ a different driver material—a form of ceramic, which is unusual for earbuds— whereas the Ear (a) have more traditional polymers. I go into more detail on what this entails further below.

Left Two white inear buds on a wooden surface. Right Hand holding one inear bud showing the panel that extrudes.

Nothing Ear

Photograph: Parker Hall

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Sony’s TV Lineup 2024: New TVs, New Direction

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“It’s time to reintroduce HDR,” according to Sony’s chief distinguished engineer, Toshiyuki Ogura, who has been working with and developing HDR (high dynamic range) technology since its inception. Speaking at Sony’s home theater spring showcase in March, Ogura was referring in part to the company’s latest LED TV tech, which Sony hopes will help reshape the future of HDR and bring viewers closer to the intent of creators.

Through a whirlwind of demos across the sprawling Sony Pictures production lot, the event provided reviewers like me an unprecedented look behind the scenes, and behind the actual screens, of Sony’s new 2024 home theater creations. Highlights included Sony’s blazing new flagship mini LED TV—the Bravia A9—alongside three other new 2024 TVs that represent a subtly different approach over last year’s lineup.

We also got a peek at other new gear, from Sony’s updated soundbar fleet to its powerful new professional monitor, the HX3110, designed to set the standard for movie and TV mastering for years to come. Here are some first impressions of the latest from Sony Home Theater.

What’s in a Name?

Sony told us part of its goal this year was to streamline and simplify its 2024 home theater lineup. As part of that process, Sony’s best OLED and LED TVs will no longer be separated by their A-series and X-series naming conventions respectively. Instead, all of the new TVs—OLED and LED—will have the A-series moniker.

The new flagship A9 mini LED TV sits at the top of the new lineup, replacing last year’s X95L. Below that is the update of last year’s A80L OLED TV, now called the Bravia A8. Next is the Bravia A7, another new mini LED TV, and finally the cheapest of the new brood, the A3 LED TV. In a surprise move, Sony’s flagship A95L OLED TV (8/10, WIRED Recommends) won’t get an update, but will remain available as an A9 alternative.

I’m all for simpler names, but I’d argue the new system is actually more confusing for buyers, with no easy way to differentiate between OLED and LED. I even got the A7 mini LED and the A8 OLED TVs confused in one demo, naturally expecting the step-down LED TV to come directly after the A9 in the batting order. The A95L, meanwhile, seems adrift with no numeric connection.

While I can’t speak to Sony’s intent, the jumbling of the opposing panel technologies comes as the brand seems to be leaning away from its outsourced OLED TV panels and into the brightness wars with its housemade LED and mini LED panels. We’ll have to see how it all plays out—the new mini LED TVs look quite impressive so far—but I expect some head-scratching from shoppers this year.

The New Hotness

Sony’s latest mini LED TVs offer multiple improvements over last year, including increased brightness and more dimming zones for better backlight control. But before we saw the end result, Sony gave us a look behind the curtain to show that its new backlights are not only brighter, but also better at understanding content.

Slim flat screen tv on brown credenza with abstract red artwork on screen small speakers on stands on either side and a...

Bravia A9 mini LED TVPhotograph: Ryan Waniata

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Samsung Galaxy Book4 Ultra Review: A Powerful Laptop

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It’s been a long time since I’ve used a laptop with a screen larger than 13 or 14 inches for any length of time. It’s so refreshing to have the room to spread my apps out … even if the machine no longer fits in my backpack. Maybe being able to fit your bag under the seat in front of you is overrated.

Compared to the cavalcade of 13- and 14-inch laptops that cross my desk, the Samsung Galaxy Book4 Ultra, with its 16-inch touchscreen (2,880 x 1,800 pixels), is a behemoth. Weighing in at 3.9 pounds (but only 19 mm thick), it has a heft that’s backed up by its top-shelf specs, which include 32 GB of RAM, a 1-terabyte SSD, and an Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070 graphics card. The centerpiece is the new Intel Core Ultra 9 185H processor, the current top-of-the-line processor in Intel’s Core Ultra CPU lineup.

Front view of silver laptop opened at 90 degrees with diagram of processing chips on the screen

Photograph: Samsung

As benchmarks go, the Galaxy Book4 ran rings around all the other Core Ultra laptops I’ve tested in the last few weeks since the new chips launched, though none of those had an Ultra 9 or a discrete graphics processor. On some CPU-based tests, the system doubled up on the performance of the Lenovo X1 Carbon, and on graphics-based tests, I was regularly able to get three to five times the frame rates I saw on machines that used the Core Ultra integrated graphics processor. The Book4 is certainly credible for use as a gaming rig if desired. Plus with 12 hours and 43 minutes of battery life, as tested via my full-screen YouTube rundown test, you need not fret about being away from an outlet all day.

The larger chassis gives Samsung room to squeeze a numeric keypad into the picture, though I longed for full-size arrow keys when working with the device. The responsive keyboard is paired with one of the largest touchpads I’ve ever seen on a laptop. At 6 x 4 inches, it’s considerably bigger than a standard passport—arguably too big, as there’s barely room on the left side of the touchpad for your palms to rest. I generally disliked working with this touchpad, as I found it both missed clicks and inadvertently registered unintended taps much too often.

Side view of partially opened laptop

Photograph: Samsung

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The New Hot Handset Is a Cute and Transparent Dumb Phone You Can’t Buy

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We’re only spending more and more time staring at our smartphones, and over the past few years, tech companies have tried to offer salves to this very problem they created. Apple and Google launched tools within their respective mobile operating systems to curb screen time. Devices like the Light Phone, designed to act as a secondary phone with limited features so you’re not staring at Instagram when you’re at a social gathering, are enjoying some popularity. This kind of digital-detox mentality is also behind a wave of AI-powered gadgets like the Humane Ai Pin, which promises to offload some smartphone-native tasks to voice controls on a screenless interface.

The latest to hop on the trend is The Boring Phone, announced today ahead of Milan Design Week. The company manufacturing it is Human Mobile Devices (HMD), better known as the company making Nokia-branded phones since 2017 thanks to a licensing partnership. The Boring Phone is cute, transparent, and retrolicious. But it is not a phone you can buy.

Front view of a closed flip phone that is clear showing the internal parts and a simple exterior screen. On the right is...

The Boring Phone is all retro vibes. Even the Heineken ad is lo-fi.

Courtesy of HMD

At Mobile World Congress in February 2024, the Finnish company announced it was leaning in on the Human Mobile Devices branding versus the acronym HMD and that it would broaden its scope by collaborating with other brands outside of Nokia as a white-label phone manufacturer. The big announcement at the time was the Barbie flip phone—stemming from a partnership with Mattel—coming this summer. We don’t have any new details about that device, but The Boring Phone hails from a collaboration with Heineken (yes, the beer brand) and fashion brand Bodega.

This feature phone (colloquially referred to as “dumb” phones) can only text and make phone calls. There’s a camera, Dual SIM support, 4G connectivity, a headphone jack, and a Micro USB port for charging. The battery can last a week in standby time, but there are no apps. Except Snake. Yes, you can play Snake on this gadget.

Bodega is behind the design, citing the rise of “Newtro” (new and retro) as inspiration with Gen Z—the modernization of popular gadgets from the 1980s and ’90s. That has resulted in a transparent flip phone with holographic stickers and green accents in a nod to the Heineken partnership. Honestly, the look of this handset is half the reason I’m writing this piece. It’s gorgeous.

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