Technics’ AZ80 earbuds have superb sound and one truly unique feature
With sound quality worthy of Technics’ name and unique three-way multipoint, the EAH-AZ80 are a comprehensive package worth their $300 price.
When you’re shopping for new earbuds, it’s easy to live with blinders on and fix most of your attention on the heavyweight brands like Sony, Apple, Samsung, Bose, Sennheiser, and others. That means missing out on some appealing budget options like those from EarFun, Soundpeats, and Anker’s Soundcore division. But it also can lead to you glossing right over some premium earbuds that are worth serious consideration. Over the last few weeks, I’ve been reviewing one such product — the Technics EAH-AZ80 — and it’s become clear to me that these have earned a spot in the “best wireless earbuds” conversation.
For $300, you’d hope that Technics (a brand of Panasonic) would be able to deliver something worthwhile. This is a price tier where mediocrity in any one category can doom your prospects. But I’ve yet to run into anything about these earbuds that feels middling or second rate. They sound terrific, offer lengthy battery life, and include genuinely unique capabilities like three-way multipoint; you can pair the AZ80 to three devices at the same time — typical multipoint-capable buds have a limit of two — seamlessly hopping between them as you pause music on one gadget and play something on another.
The buds themselves, available in silver or black, look sharp and would feel at home next to one of Technics’ venerable turntables. There’s aluminum trim on the outer surface, with the Technics logo engraved in concentric circles. But the side that fits into your ear concha has been designed for comfort for extended listening, and I’ve never noticed any soreness or fatigue when using the AZ80. There are seven different sizes of silicone ear tips in the box, which is far more generous than what you’d get from, say, Sony or Apple. Technics is really paying mind to those of you with smaller ears; the tip sizes include XS1, XS2, S1, S2, M, L, and XL. The buds have a water resistance rating of IPX4 — par for the course among flagship earbuds — but the case, which supports Qi wireless charging, lacks any such protection against rain or sweat, so you’ll want to keep it dry.
Jumping right into sound, the AZ80 hold their own against the very best of what’s on the market today, such as Sennheiser’s Momentum 3 Wireless and Sony’s WF-1000XM5. The 10-millimeter drivers produce rich, enveloping audio with a natural warmth to the sound signature even if you never bother touching the EQ sliders or hopping between the presets. Boygenius’ “Not Strong Enough” is a good example of this, with each of the three voices coming through distinctly with excellent clarity during the “always an angel, never a god” bridge. These earbuds shine with multilayered tracks, whether it’s pop (Olivia Rodrigo’s “Vampire”) or rock (Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit’s “Death Wish”), the AZ80 produce a detailed and spacious soundstage. These are about as consistently pleasing as wireless earbuds get in terms of dynamics and overall presentation.
Technics sent a leather case for the case to reviewers, but unfortunately, it doesn’t come with the earbuds.
Technics also offers active noise cancellation that’s more than respectable. It falls short of the best contenders, like Sony’s latest 1000XM5 or Bose’s QuietComfort Earbuds II, but isn’t drastically behind. And the audio fidelity quality makes up for being a step behind in ANC. The gap is wider when it comes to transparency mode. I feel like a broken record at this point, but the ambient sound passthrough here isn’t as natural-sounding as Apple’s AirPods Pro 2. It’s worth adjusting the level of outside noise that comes through via Technics’ mobile app for the best results. You can choose the standard ambient sound mode or another option that focuses on voices — useful if you want to hear an announcement at a train station or airport.
These aren’t the tiniest earbuds around, but their shape makes all the difference for comfort.
Battery life is more than sufficient at around seven hours with noise cancellation enabled and upward of eight hours if you’re somewhere quiet and can leave it off. That longevity can shrink if you’re listening at loud volumes or frequently streaming at LDAC quality, but even in those cases, I didn’t feel shortchanged, and the AZ80 never cut out unexpectedly. Voice calls proved satisfactory, and Technics’ JustMyVoice isolation technology can help eliminate a noisy background so other people can hear your voice even if you’re in a loud environment. Your speech can sound a bit clipped when using JustMyVoice at full strength, but it’s a handy tool to have when needed.
The three-way multipoint, which Panasonic claims is an industry first for earbuds, works surprisingly well. I don’t have a tablet currently, so I tested it with my laptop and two phones. The Technics earbuds had no trouble following me along to whatever device had my attention at that moment. The only tradeoff that comes with triple multipoint is that you can’t use the higher-bitrate LDAC Bluetooth codec at the same time; you can stream over LDAC by sticking to regular two-way multipoint or, if you want maximum audio fidelity and connection stability, the AZ80 can be configured to connect only to a single device at a time.
The AZ80 can pair with up to three devices at the same time.
All of these settings are available in the companion mobile app, which is stuffed to the gills with features and adjustments for a range of the earbuds’ functions. The app can let you hear a preview of how your voice sounds on calls with Technics’ JustMyVoice filtering active. You can optimize the noise cancellation for the best performance wherever you are by adjusting a slider that makes it target different frequencies. There’s a slew of EQ options; I stuck with the default, but “dynamic” also sounded very nice to my ears. And the app lets you dial in exactly how much ambient sound you want to pipe through whenever transparency mode is engaged.
The Technics Audio Connect app does... a lot. Some might say too much.
Cramming this much into an app can quickly prove detrimental if the software is buggy or has connection issues, but I didn’t run into any problems with the Technics Audio Connect app when testing across both Android and iOS. The deluge of preferences can feel a little overwhelming, but it all works, which is the important part. Still, there’s no denying that just as with other standalone earbud makers that lack a hardware ecosystem, Technics can’t match the seamless cross-device tricks of Apple and Samsung.
Dropping $300 on a pair of earbuds is no small investment. But if you’re looking for something off the beaten path and aren’t feeling enticed by the big-name brands, Technics has produced a worthy set of flagship buds with the EAH-AZ80. They sound wonderful, have ample noise cancellation, and come with enough ear tips that I can’t imagine anyone being left without the right fit. And the three-way multipoint is a wholly unique selling point that not even Sony, Apple, Bose, and other major competitors can match. If you’re a heavy-duty multitasker, that might be reason enough to try something new.
Meta’s new shooter game is the most fun I’ve ever had in the metaverse
POV: You’re being attacked by someone much better than you at Super Rumble. | Image: Meta
What are the ethics of repeatedly targeting an eight-year-old in a video game? What if that eight-year-old is demonstrably better than you at the game but is currently being forced to talk to his mom and isn’t really paying attention, and this is your best and probably only chance to mount a comeback? How much trash can you talk after you kill the eight-year-old a few times? What if that eight-year-old has been talking trash to you for the better part of the last hour while gleefully shouting “Expecto Patronum” every time they fire their shotgun?
But against all odds and historical precedent, Super Rumble is actually quite a lot of fun. It’s not the Quest’s best game or even its best Fortnite clone (that would be Population: One), but it’s the best — and maybe first? — signal I’ve seen so far that Meta might eventually be able to make a digital world that’s actually fun to be on.
It’s a really simple game, which helps: you’re dropped into a simple arena filled with seven different weapons, which you use to try and take out the other players in the arena. Every round is a few minutes long, you respawn a few seconds after you die, and it’s just a total free-for-all until the buzzer sounds. As you play, you level up, and new levels unlock new in-game skills and gear.
I’m still not good at the game, per se, but after a few hours inside it, I’ve got the hang of the one- and two-handed shooting mechanics and have figured out which weapons and “Super Powers” are the best. (Grenade launcher, Super Ammo, trust me.) I know where the good hiding spots are, and I’m finally getting the hang of moving with the controller and my body simultaneously. Super Rumble won’t rival Fortnite or Apex Legends for shooting-game supremacy anytime soon, but it’s a surprisingly good time.
Super Rumble is actually the confluence of a few important things that could all help make the metaverse a little better. Meta’s internal game studio, Ouro Interactive, built the game using entirely new tools that allow developers to bring outside elements and assets into Horizon Worlds rather than just using the built-in libraries. “We’ve really raised the ceiling on what can be built in Horizon in terms of visual complexity, interactivity and fun gameplay,” Meta’s metaverse head Vishal Shah told Lowpass. It’s a deeper, more replayable game than anything Meta has built before, and not for nothing, it actually works pretty well.
But most of all, Super Rumble gives you something to do in the metaverse. So many supposedly immersive experiences amount to standing around and looking at things or watching something happen on a screen inside the screen. That’s why you see those screenshots of a bunch of people standing around looking lonely in Decentraland and why all the experiences you hear about are mostly just tech demos. It’s cool and fun to be dropped into a 360-degree place you can explore, but that novelty wears off fast, and too often, there’s nothing underneath.
Even in the rest of Horizon Worlds, there’s not much to do other than look at all the animation and wonder why your avatar doesn’t have any legs. Ultimately, Meta seems to think that’s fine; it sees the metaverse as a place you’ll eventually just hang out with your friends, more like a virtual coffee shop than a virtual arcade. Personally, I don’t see myself kicking back and relaxing in my Quest headset anytime soon.
Super Rumble is, in many ways, just a pretty good VR game that happens to exist inside of Horizon Worlds. The sense of presence is real, for one thing. Super Rumble’s arena is fairly blocky and rudimentary but still felt fun to explore because I could actually move around inside this 360-degree space. That’s why I play games like Superhot and The Climb, too: they may not be as deep or developed as other games, but there’s something about being inside them that no other system can match.
Image: Meta
Super Rumble is a game, but it’s also a place, which feels smart and metaverse-y.
There are some big-picture metaverse things going on here, too. Your character in the game is your Meta avatar, for one thing, and it’s sincerely fun to play as yourself. When you’re in a game, you can hear everyone else competing, so it was like we were all in the arena together with headsets on. (Listening to a bunch of preteens trash talk has been hands-down the best part of my experience so far — one kid told another, “Your hairline is like a pineapple,” and I’m still trying to sort through that one.) When a round ends, a new one begins a minute later with the same contestants, so you could theoretically play all day with your friends or get to know your new opponents instead of getting a new crew every time. Super Rumble is a game, but it’s also a place, which is a clever maneuver from Meta.
The challenge for Meta will be to continue building on Super Rumble, adding new levels and weapons and power-ups that make it a world worth continually coming back to. It also has to convince people that the game is fun enough to be worth finally diving into Horizon Worlds, painstakingly customizing their avatar, and learning how Meta’s universe works. So far, the game seems to be a hit for the people who play it but not much of a draw to Horizon Worlds — every time I’ve launched the app, Super Rumble has somewhere in the range of 1,000 people playing. That’s not nothing, but it’s also not much.
Even more than that, Meta has to continue to find ways to prove that Super Rumble is more than just a VR game. I’m bullish on VR and AR gaming in general but still unconvinced that “the metaverse” will be a place where people want to spend their days. Super Rumble is a leap in the right direction, both as a technical achievement and as a virtual activity, but there’s still a long way to go.
In the meantime, I’ll just be here, trash-talking the legless avatars of preteens from around the world. That’s the metaverse, baby.
Elon Musk’s X can’t send Blue subscribers their ad revenue-sharing payouts on time
Image: The Verge
In news that isn’t very surprising given the recent history of Twitter, which Elon Musk is currently rebranding to X, the company won’t be able to make some promised payments on time. The X Support account says that because its “Ads Revenue Sharing” program is so popular, “We need a bit more time to review everything for the next payout and aim to get all eligible accounts paid as soon as possible.”
August 4, 2023 update: The volume of people signing up for revenue sharing has exceeded our expectations. We previously said that payments would occur the week of July 31st. We need a bit more time to review everything for the next payout and hope to get all eligible accounts paid as soon as possible.
Thank you for your patience!
The number of people signing up for ads revenue sharing has exceeded our expectations. We need a bit more time to review everything for the next payout and aim to get all eligible accounts paid as soon as possible.
That’s not exactly what you’d want to hear from a program touting itself as “part of our effort to help people earn a living directly on X,” and the key to Elon Musk’s X dream for an app that handles banking, stock trading, and other vital financial features.
Musk announced the revenue-sharing plan in February, and the company sent out the first round of payments for eligible accounts (with paid verification via Twitter Blue or Verified organizations, 15 million “organic” impressions in the last three months, and at least 500 followers) a couple of weeks ago before opening up registration to more people.
However, hearing that payments aren’t arriving is familiar news to a number of people and organizations involved with X / Twitter since Musk’s takeover. That includes landlords of buildings used by Twitter in San Francisco and London or former employees of Twitter Africa who complain they were “ghosted” and left without promised severance payments. The list also features several former employees that filed a lawsuit against the company in May, saying “Twitter’s new leadership deliberately, specifically, and repeatedly announced their intentions to breach contracts, violate laws, and otherwise ignore their legal obligations,” while leaving rent, vendors, and severance unpaid.
A Wall Street Journal article in February counted nine lawsuits covering $14 million in unpaid bills at the time.
In July, Musk tweeted about Twitter / X’s financial situation, saying, “We’re still negative cash flow, due to ~50% drop in advertising revenue plus heavy debt load.”
But hey, Twitter’s unpaid Google Cloud bill reportedly got paid eventually, so maybe everyone who shelled out $8 (or $84 annually) in the hope of cashing in on Elon’s revenue sharing will get paid too — and soon.
How the ‘Spider-Verse’ Movies Have Changed Animation for the Better The new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie and other C.G.I. cartoons are taking a looser, imperfect approach. The style represents a shift made possible by Spidey’s success.
Google’s Pixel Watch and Pixel Buds Pro are $60 off for Verge readers
The Google Pixel Watch is a terrific smartwatch for Android users, with Fitbit integration and a beautiful display. | Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge
Yes, there’s a new and improved Android smartwatch in town: the Samsung Galaxy Watch 6. It’s a good wearable, but because certain features like EKGs are limited to Samsung phone owners, it’s not the best option for everybody. Thankfully, if you’re looking for a terrific Android watch that doesn’t require you to chain yourself to Samsung’s ecosystem, the Google Pixel Watch is on sale in the base configuration at Wellbots for $289.99 ($60 off) when you use offer code VERGEPIX60.
Google’s first-gen wearable can’t measure body composition, skin temperature, or irregular heart rhythms like Samsung’s can; however, unlike Samsung’s newest watch, the Pixel Watch offers health and fitness-tracking features powered by Fitbit. As a result, you can enjoy all the perks Fitbit wearables offer, including access to FDA-cleared EKGs. You also get access to various Google features, from Google Assistant and Google Wallet to YouTube Music and Google Maps. We might see a second-gen Pixel Watch in the fall, but if you can’t wait until then, the first-gen model is perfectly capable.
Just in time for back-to-school season, Apple’s latest 13-inch MacBook Air has dropped to its all-time low price. Right now, you can buy the M2-powered machine with 8GB of RAM and 256GB of storage on sale at Best Buy and B&H Photo for $949 ($150 off).
The 13-inch Air is the perfect laptop for the average person’s everyday needs — one that even made a cameo in our back-to-school gift guide. That’s because it’s a terrific performer, one that’s powerful enough to handle daily work, streaming, and even some light gaming or editing in Photoshop. It’s also relatively thin and lightweight, making it easy to carry with you on the go, and it provides enough juice to last you an entire day. Other perks include a sharper 1080p webcam, Touch ID, and MagSafe charging.
We have another great Google deal for you, but this time, it’s on a pair of the company’s excellent wireless earbuds. Right now, Verge readers can buy the Google Pixel Buds Pro for $139.99 ($60 off) at Wellbots when they use the promo code VERGEPIX60 at checkout.
In addition to solid active noise cancellation and impressive sound quality, Google’s latest earbuds support Google Assistant and carry an IPX4 water resistance rating. They also offer multipoint Bluetooth connectivity, unlike rivals such as the second-gen AirPods Pro and Bose’s QuietComfort Earbuds II, so you can pair them with two devices simultaneously. Plus, if you’re a Pixel phone user, you get some extra perks, including support for head-tracking spatial audio.
If you’re looking for an affordable home security camera, Best Buy and Target are currently taking 50 percent off of the Blink Mini, dropping the price to $17.50. The low-cost camera records in 1080p and easily mounts to the wall. The wired camera also integrates well with Amazon Alexa, and you can easily view footage from your phone or an Echo Show device. However, be aware that cloud storage will cost you extra, assuming you don’t already have a Blink subscription.
Crutchfield is offering up to $250 in digital gift cards when you buy the LG G2 TV. Right now, for example, you’ll get a $100 gift card when you buy the 55-inch model for $1,496.99 ($400 off), which is the same sale price that’s available at Amazon and other retailers. The 4K OLED isn’t as bright as the newer G3 series and lacks support for QMS-VRR, but it’s still plenty bright and shares many of the same specs, including a 120Hz refresh rate and support for Dolby Vision.
Anker’s 30W 511 Charger is on sale for $18.39 instead of $22.99 at Amazon when you clip the on-page coupon for 20 percent off. The compact single-port USB-C charger comes in a number of fun colors and features foldable blades, which are a nice touch if you’re someone who plans to take it with you on the go.
TikTok’s algorithm will be optional in Europe
Illustration by Nick Barclay / The Verge
TikTok users in Europe will be able to switch off the personalized algorithm behind its For You and Live feeds as the company makes changes to comply with the EU’s Digital Services Act (DSA). According to TikTok, disabling this function will show users “popular videos from both the places where they live and around the world” instead of content based on their personal interests.
These changes relate to DSA rules that require very large online platforms to allow their users to opt out of receiving personalized content — which typically relies on tracking and profiling user activity — when viewing content recommendations. To comply, TikTok’s search feature will also show content that’s popular in the user’s region, and videos under the “Following” and “Friends” feeds will be displayed in chronological order when a non-personalized view is selected.
Another change is that European users between the ages of 13 and 17 automatically won’t be targeted with personalized ads based on their online activities, rather than having to opt out with a toggle.
TikTok is one of 19 companies beholden to the DSA’s rules — alongside other services like YouTube, Instagram, and Twitter (which Elon Musk is currently rebranding to X) — so it likely won’t be the only platform to make similar changes in Europe. TikTok hasn’t provided a release date for any of these changes, but it says that it’s aiming to meet the required obligations by the DSA’s deadline of August 28th.
Fisker shows off ambitious EV lineup, starting at $29,900
Image: Fisker
Fisker showed off a series of prototype vehicles at its first “Product Vision Day” event, outlining the EV startup’s wide-ranging roadmap for the coming years. These included the sub-$30,000 Pear SUV, the Ronin sports car, Alaska pickup truck, and a new off-road package for the Ocean SUV that Fisker just started delivering a few short months ago.
Although the company had teased a few of these vehicles beforehand (and even opened reservations for the Pear last year), TechCrunch notes the event marked the first time they were all shown off in prototype form. Fisker hopes to put more than one of the cars into production within the next couple of years — an ambitious target given, as Reuters notes, the supply chain disruptions the small company has been facing.
Image: Fisker
From left to right: the Ocean SUV with Force-E offroad package, the Pear, the Alaska, and the Ronin.
The most affordable vehicle in the lineup is scheduled to be the Pear (which stands for “Personal Electric Automotive Revolution”). Fisker hopes to eventually sell the SUV for $29,900 when it goes on sale in mid-2025, which Electrek notes should bring its price down to $22,400 after tax credits. Fisker hopes to hit this relatively affordable price point by producing the Pear in large quantities and with a simplified design process that it says results in it needing 35 percent fewer parts than comparable models. The car will be assembled by contract manufacturer Foxconn in Ohio, where it has a plant it acquired from Lordstown Motors.
Other interesting features of the Pear electric SUV include a so-called “Houdini Trunk” that slides down into the rear bumper to be more space efficient in cramped parking spots, the option to have a bench seat in the front of the car so it can seat up to six people, and a front trunk that Electrek notes slides out from behind the car’s front grille.
Photo by FREDERIC J. BROWN/AFP via Getty Images
Photo by FREDERIC J. BROWN/AFP via Getty Images
Photo by FREDERIC J. BROWN/AFP via Getty Images
Photo by FREDERIC J. BROWN/AFP via Getty Images
The Fisker Ocean with its Force-E offroad package.
Next up is the Alaska, an $45,400 electric pickup truck that Fisker hopes to start delivering in 2025. In a press release, Fisker outlined its ambition for the Alaska to be the “world’s lightest EV pickup truck” and the “world’s most sustainable truck” to boot, and is targeting a maximum range of between 230 and 340 miles. It also has a Houdini-branded element; a bed divider that can retract to turn the cargo bed and rear cabin into a single surface up to 9.2 feet in length. TechCrunch reports it’ll be built by a contract manufacturer in Europe in the same plant that has produced its Ocean SUV.
Meanwhile, the Ocean SUV is getting a new Force-E offroad package that’s scheduled to be available in the first quarter of next year at a price that’s yet to be announced. The package includes higher ground clearance, 33-inch tyres on 20-inch wheels, a roof basket, and a more durable underbody plate.
Finally there’s the top-of-the-line Ronin, a fiver-seater grand tourer sports car that Fisker hopes will one day offer over 600 miles of range per charge. It’s a hard-top convertible with four butterfly doors with ambitions to do 0 to 60 in two seconds. Fisker’s press release doesn’t offer any firm pricing information on the Ronin beyond saying that it “will be ultra-luxury priced and built in limited quantities.”
The Google Inbox email successor is finally ready for Android
Great news for Android users who are still mourning the loss of Google Inbox. | Image: Shortwave
Shortwave — an email app for iOS and the web that serves as the spiritual successor to Google Inbox — has fully arrived on Android devices following 18 months of beta testing. Version 1.0 of Shortwave is available to download via Google Play. The basic version is free to use, though you’ll need to pay a $9 monthly subscription to unlock premium features.
Shortwave was specifically developed by a group of former Google employees to fill the gap left after Google shut down its innovative Gmail alternative in 2019. Inbox was fairly radical for its time compared to rival email clients, providing features like Bundles (which automatically organized your email by type) and Delivery Schedules to control when those Bundles would arrive in your inbox. Its demise was mourned by many.
Image: Shortwave
Shortwave 1.0 resurrects Inbox for Android users.
Shortwave provides many of these same Inbox features, in addition to a sweep button for marking emails en-mass, AI-powered smart replies, and options to quickly pin, snooze, archive, and delete emails. The free version has some limitations (like restricting users to 90 days of searchable email history), which can be unlocked with the $9 monthly subscription. A full list of Shortwave for Android’s features can be found on the company’s blog.
As noted by Android Police, this latest release appears to be a web application rather than a native Android app but the overall 1.0 experience is closer to what you’d find on its iOS counterpart, compared to the previous beta.
The Chip Titan Whose Life’s Work Is at the Center of a Tech Cold War At 92, Morris Chang, the founder of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, can no longer stay in the shadows.
‘Every single’ Amazon team is working on generative AI, says CEO
Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge
“Every single one” of Amazon’s businesses has “multiple generative AI initiatives going right now,” Amazon CEO Andy Jassy said on the company’s Q2 2023 earnings call on Thursday. The company offers infrastructure and services via AWS that can help power many generative artificial intelligence applications, which Jassy did discuss on the call, but he also stressed just how important AI is across the company as a whole.
Here’s more from Jassy about those generative AI initiatives:
They range from things that help us be more cost-effective and streamlined in how we run operations and various businesses, to the absolute heart of every customer experience in which we offer. It’s true in our Stores business, it’s true in our AWS business, it’s true in our advertising business, it’s true in all our devices — and you can just imagine what we’re working on with respect to Alexa there — it’s true in our entertainment businesses... every single one. It is going to be at the heart of what we do. It’s a significant investment and focus for us.
Jassy wasn’t the only CEO to hype up AI this earnings season. Apple CEO Tim Cook said that AI and machine learning are “virtually embedded in every product that we build.” Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai calledGoogle’s new Search Generative Experience “the next major evolution in search.” And Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg discussed how the company is working on “a number of new products,” including creative tools and AI agents, that it’s building using its LLaMA LLM.
Samsung’s new ‘flagship’ repair centers will provide more types of phone fixes and faster
Faster repairs and more walk-in repair types? Music to our ears. | Image: Samsung
Samsung and its repair provider, Asurion, have announced that certain uBreakiFix locations will be getting an upgrade, helping them turn around Galaxy phone repairs faster. By the end of the year, 50 existing repair centers across the US will be designated as Samsung flagship locations, equipped with specialized tools and larger parts inventory for Galaxy devices. It’s a helpful step toward making phone repairs less painful, which remains a deeply uncomfortable process — just ask anyone who’s cracked a phone screen in the past, oh, decade or so.
Some repair centers in parts of Texas, Orlando, and Los Angeles have already been upgraded to flagship status, and Samsung says that the program will continue to roll out throughout 2023. Staff at these stores will get special training for Samsung repairs and will help implement new repair types before they’re used more widely at standard uBreakiFix locations. Samsung also says that upgraded locations will be able to handle certain types of repairs not previously available at a walk-in repair center.
Parting with your phone for any amount of time while it’s being repaired is tough. Personally, it still sends a shiver up my spine thinking of the four hours I spent wandering phone-less through the Bellevue mall, and that was over four years ago. Samsung and iFixit sell self-repair kits if you want to maintain possession of your phone, but not all models or repairs are supported — and the hands-on approach isn’t for everyone. But when the other option is shipping your phone out for repairs, suffering through a few hours without your device doesn’t sound so bad. Better integration between an OEM and its repair partner is something we like to see and will hopefully result in more — and faster — fixes for Galaxy phone owners.
LG’s ‘wireless’ and wildly expensive 97-inch OLED TV sees first global release
LG’s eye-catching 97-inch Signature OLED M TV, which is almost completely free of wires save for a single power cord, finally has a price and release date outside of South Korea.
The TV is notable for its “Zero Connect Box,” that you plug your set-top boxes, games consoles, and Blu-ray players into and which beams content wirelessly to the TV at up to 4K 120Hz. So aside from power, you’re not plugging anything into the TV itself.
LG says the 97-inch OLED Signature (model 97M3) will be available in the UK from September priced at £27,999.99 (about $35,400). It’ll be joined by two other TV sizes, the 83-inch OLED evo for £7,999.99 (about $10,000) and the 77-inch OLED evo for £5,999.99 (about $7,600), which are equipped with the same “Zero Connect technology” for an (almost) wire-free experience. US pricing and availability is yet to be announced — LG’s press release notes that the 97-inch Signature OLED M will be available in North America and Europe “later this year.”
I don’t quite buy LG’s “world’s first wireless OLED TV” marketing for the Signature OLED M because of the aforementioned power cord, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t a cool piece of kit. The Zero Connect Box offers three HDMI 2.1 ports that you plug devices into, which theoretically means all your equipment can be placed as much as 30 feet away from the TV itself without the need for a cabinet placed directly beneath the screen.
At any rate, going fully wireless means relying on batteries like competitor Displace is trying to do, and that comes with significant trade-offs. The dream of a completely wireless TV goes back years, with companies like Sony and Haier having shown off various attempts at trade shows.
The Signature OLED M supports Dolby Atmos audio, Dolby Vision HDR, and has G-Sync to offer variable refresh rates with Nvidia hardware. There are three 4K 120Hz HDMI ports on the TV’s Zero Connect Box, alongside two USB-A, Ethernet, and optical audio. Aside from its wireless connectivity, FlatPanelsHD notes that the TV is all-but identical to LG’s G3 OLED.
LG says its proprietary AV transmission technology offers up to three times the speed of Wi-Fi 6E, but I’ll nevertheless be very interesting to see what kind of latency this wireless solution offers. OLED TVs are often recommended for gaming thanks to their nearly-instantaneous pixel response times, but it will be a tall order to minimize input lag wirelessly.
LG’s 27-inch OLED is ushering in a new age for monitors
The LG 27GR95QE-B is a tantalizing taste of what’s to come.
We’ve come so far. In a year or three, I wouldn’t be surprised if OLED supplants IPS, VA, and high-refresh-rate TN panels as the PC gamer’s screen of choice.
Because the 27-inch panel inside a wave of new monitors, including the LG 27GR95QE-B I’m reviewing today, is almost — nearly — not quite — the best of all worlds.
For years, buying a gaming monitor has meant huge tradeoffs. You couldn’t get amazing color, deep blacks, competitive refresh rates, high resolution, and excellent viewing angles all in a single screen. The rule of thumb was IPS for bright rooms, VA for dark ones, and TN only if you absolutely, positively needed the highest refresh rates — or a budget panel.
But OLED panels can theoretically do it all if you’ve got the cash. They’ve already taken over high-end phones because their true blacks and brilliant organic colors say “premium” like nothing else. I swear by my OLED TV. But as I saw when I tried turning a 48-inch LG OLED television into my desktop monitor for work and play, there’s been plenty holding them back. They need a monitor-like size, controls, and a way to address desktop PC burn-in fears without so much auto-dimming that I want to claw my eyes out.
The $999 LG 27GR95QE-B and friends are most of the way there. These screens are 100 nits of sustained brightness, a warranty update, and a decent sale away from winning me over for good.
The LG 27GR95QE-B, specifically, is a 26.5-inch, 2560 x 1440 OLED screen with a 240Hz refresh rate over DisplayPort 1.4 or either of its twin HDMI 2.1 ports. It supports Nvidia G-Sync, AMD FreeSync Premium, and generic 48–120Hz VRR at up to a downscaled 4K resolution for your PS5, Xbox, or streaming gadget. (I fired up The Touryst, one of the few native 4K 120Hz games for PS5, and it worked smoothly downscaled to 1440p.)
LG’s “hexagon lighting” includes these vents and a single LED for underglow.
No USB-C here, but all three video inputs can do 240Hz with VRR.
Keep the remote handy: the monitor itself only has a single button for the entire OSD.
The monitor has a simple USB hub with two 5Gbps USB-A ports; it raises, tilts, swivels, and pivots on its included click-in stand; and it comes with a miniature TV remote to switch inputs, brightness, and adjust volume for its 3.5mm headphone jack. There’s no USB-C port for single-cable docking, I’m afraid — laptop users will need to charge them elsewhere.
The LG 27GR95QE-B is most definitely not the only monitor with this screen inside. In fact, I keep hearing this Asus PG27AQDM, with the same exact LG OLED panel, has a slight edge in brightness and creature comforts (like a built-in joystick to control the OSD). But after replacing my regular 27-inch 1440p IPS screen with LG’s 27-inch 1440p OLED for three whole months, I feel like I need to share with you how few compromises are left.
Until April of this year, my daily driver desktop monitor was a 27-inch Asus TUF VG27AQ. I picked it because Rtings rated it one of the very best all-around monitors at the time — save for crummy HDR and the “IPS glow” that makes blacks look gray in a dark room. It’s long been flanked by two ancient Dell U2412M monitors I stand vertically so I can keep an eye on Slack and Discord and Facebook Messenger and... well, whatever’s replacing Twitter next.
Before, adding OLED meant dismantling that entire setup to fit at least a giant 34-inch monitor on my desk, if not a 42- or 48-inch TV. But with this LG, it’s finally a direct replacement: 27-inch monitor out, 27-inch monitor in. I just had to shove my Synology NAS and mousepad a bit further away to fit LG’s large V-shaped stand.
The first test: would I notice a deal-breaking difference? Could I truly drop this monitor into my Verge-editing, game-blasting battlestation without missing a beat — and without babying the screen to avoid burn-in? I decided I’d never turn off the monitor manually, or hide my taskbar, or any of the things you’re theoretically supposed to do to protect an OLED screen. I would rely entirely on the monitor’s built-in protections and see what would happen.
There was one hitch. A few hours into my very first workday, LG’s auto-brightness-limiting anti-burn-in techniques were already driving me up the wall. I’ll point you to this good TFTCentral explainer if you want to read about ABL, ASBL, and TPC because I’m pleased to say they aren’t as relevant to this review as I feared. The short version is that the more of the screen that’s covered in bright white objects, the more the screen dims — an utter travesty for desktop work because most websites and applications are white even if you enable dark mode in your OS.
A little video from Asus that illustrates one form of auto-dimming.
But after I installed a firmware update (via LG’s OnScreen Control app), that irritation disappeared. For the past three months, I’ve been working on an OLED screen that never abruptly, infuriatingly dims!
I understand that isn’t the case for every monitor that uses LG’s 27-inch OLED panel. With the Asus PG27AQDM, it’s actually optional: you have to turn on a setting called Uniform Brightness in a settings menu. But with the firmware update, LG made Uniform Brightness the default on the LG 27GR95QE-B, and it’s the key to making OLED the one screen to rule them all.
Here’s the thing: Uniform Brightness means, by definition, that LG is turning down the brightness of the entire screen to a set level... and you may have heard correctly that these LG panels are relatively dim! I’ll lean on reviewers with professional equipment to tell you we’re talking around 200 nits of brightness, a far cry from the 1,000-nit peak you might have seen advertised. (More on that peak in a sec.)
The bundled remote. The DTS button is for the monitor’s headphone jack, though the screen also has an optical audio output for your HDMI video sources.
During work hours, this actually didn’t bug me much! I never run my desktop monitors at anything close to their peak — my old IPS screen is set closer to 100 nits as I write these words late into the evening, and I’ll boost the screen to around 200 during the day. But when my wife occasionally opens up the curtains, it’s true that the LG OLED doesn’t have any extra oomph to power through the sheen on its anti-glare screen. And when it’s time to game or watch Netflix, I would often find myself stabbing the bundled remote’s “raise brightness” key only to find out it was already maxed.
There is one other potential wrinkle for desktop work: LG’s WOLED subpixel arrangement, which doesn’t perfectly line up its red, green, blue, and extra white subpixels, can lead to slightly less crisp, occasionally color-fringed icons and text compared to traditional RGB stripe panels. But that was never a problem for me. It wasn’t until I switched back to my IPS screen three months later that I noticed documents were slightly crisper. And frankly, a 27-inch 1440p monitor less than two feet from my face is no Retina display — neither OLED nor IPS can keep me from seeing rough pixel edges at that pixel density (110ppi) and distance, so it feels like a minor tradeoff.
Color-fringed icons. I had to get really close to truly notice them.
But the OLED was clearly superior in almost every game I played. And when I say “clearly,” I literally mean the clarity. It feels slightly more like looking through a window into another world and slightly less like looking at a screen.
As you probably know, OLED screens have incredible contrast because of their true black levels. Their pixels generate light and can turn off that light entirely; there’s no backlight here, which means less haze in dark scenes. They’re also incredibly responsive, leading to glassy, clear motion that’s beyond all but the fastest LCD screens. (I used Blur Busters’ popular UFO test to check, but any well-engineered game with a high enough frame rate works.) That was true even of the 120Hz OLED TV I tried to use as a monitor; this one runs at 240Hz, and it’s such a smooth experience.
What can amp up that clarity even further is HDR, which I’ve often described as removing a haze from whatever you’re looking at, letting dark be dark and light be light instead of compressing all the colors in between. HDR is also where you can actually access the panel’s nearly 1,000-nit peak. But HDR still has issues on Windows — and some additional ones on this monitor, I’m sorry to say.
Gears 5. It’s impossible to show you HDR with an SDR camera and screen, but you can imagine.
With the right game, it’s phenomenal. Gears 5 begins with chrome-covered soldiers rappelling down from a helicopter through a rainbow and past a sunlit waterfall to explore dark caves by the light of a drone with glowing blue repulsors for levitation. Every part of that looks amazing because the majority of the scene is dark, with only those lights I just described — the glint of armor, ripples of sunlight in the moving water, flying sparks from a chainsaw — bursting through the scene.
On my old IPS monitor, those lights simply don’t look real; I can barely see in the dark caves because my old screen makes them muddy gray.
Ori. He just... bursts with light. It’s widely considered one of the best HDR games.
Ori and the Will of the Wispssimilarly sees light and dark collide, only here, Ori himself is a being of light whose every action is a flash of blue. But I started to notice that every time Ori’s powers flared, everything else on the screen got slightly darker. And when I started playing HDR games that were mostly already bright like Forza Horizon 5 or The Touryst or Genshin Impact on PS5, it was clear that LG’s 27-inch OLED panel didn’t have nearly enough sustained full-screen brightness to make, say, an island paradise feel properly lit. Firing off a Genshin Impact ultimate attack immediately dimmed the entire screen in a way I’ve never seen on my 65-inch LG OLED television.
(I even had a weird experience in Halo Infinite where throwing a grenade too close to my feet black-screened the entire monitor until I unplugged it and plugged it back in, but I couldn’t reproduce it more than twice, and it might have nothing to do with the monitor or HDR. Perhaps a video driver glitch? I’m only sharing it here in case you have the same experience — I’ve never, ever seen this happen with a monitor before.)
I took a macro shot of Ori for the hell of it.
Still, on balance, I’d rather play games on this monitor than even my LG OLED television. It’s just so immersive to have such a clear image so close to my face.
Movies and TV shows are a slightly different story, but that’s not really LG’s fault. Almost every streaming service is still arbitrarily nerfed on Windows. I couldn’t even get my Vudu copy of Blade Runner 2049 to play in HDR, much less 4K, and Netflix was stuck at 1080p HDR during my Windows tests regardless of which browser (or app) I used. Same with Amazon Prime Video. Same with Disney Plus. And 1080p on a 1440p monitor is, well, not the best streaming quality. YouTube works great at 1440p HDR, 4K HDR, and even 8K HDR on this monitor (slightly aliased due to downscaling), so there’s no particularly good reason why the paid subscriptions can’t (it’s because of DRM).
4K HDR YouTube is your best bet to see what this screen can truly do. (And there, I highly recommendJacob and Katie Schwarz.)
But thankfully, the LG 27GR95QE-B twin HDMI 2.1 ports meant I could easily plug in my Chromecast or PS5 and stream 4K HDR video from there. The Witcher’s latest candlelit season looks mighty fine on this monitor in downscaled 4K, even if it’s a slightly better experience in native 4K on my living room OLED.
It’d be nice if I didn’t have to switch devices and modes so often with this monitor, though. I wound up adding a Windows HDR toggle button to my Stream Deck because I never want to deal with the HDR mode’s auto-dimming when I’m using the desktop. I’d probably want to rig up an Nvidia G-Sync toggle, too; I’ve played a few games, like Diablo IV, where the monitor keeps flickering in its variable refresh mode. (LG’s monitor menu actually warns about the flicker, and you can toggle off VRR there, too.)
But these are nitpicks. My only real hesitations are brightness, price, and that LG doesn’t stand behind this screen when it comes to burn-in. Bear with me, because this is going to get a little weird.
This screen pops.
Theoretically, we’re at a turning point for OLED desktop monitors. These 27-inch panels will maintain a fixed brightness, if a little low, indefinitely. LG must have figured out they won’t burn-in at that 200-nit mark, right?
But the company wouldn’t confirm that to me. And though LG third-party spokesperson Jordan Guthmann originally told me that the standard two-year warranty does cover image retention “except in very certain use cases,” the actual warranty document that shipped alongside this monitor disagrees. There, LG specifically wrote that “burned-in images resulting from improper usage as described in the user manual” aren’t covered under warranty.
Speaking of improper and proper usage, the user manual doesn’t actually contain those phrases — but it does point out that static desktop icons, fixed windows, menus, and web browser bars are things that could put your monitor at risk of image retention. It sure sounds like normal desktop use is not recommended!
When I brought that up with Guthmann, he told me that LG was in the process of updating its warranty — and that a new version will specifically call out normal desktop features like static images and fixed menus as “not being a misuse case.” Similarly, although the user manual recommends turning Screen Move on, Guthmann says it’s okay that it’s off by default. “The warranty still applies even if it isn’t turned on.”
That new warranty language was supposed to be final in a few days. But 48 days later, the only change LG has made is removing that line about “burned-in images” from the warranty. Today, it’s not clear whether burn-in is covered at all.
Frankly, a two-year burn-in warranty might be the bare minimum. My 65-inch OLED TV didn’t start showing signs of it for closer to four years. After 5,700 hours of use, I mostly only notice it in animated movies and games with lots of color gradients.
Desktop work monitors, meanwhile, can easily be on for many more hours in a row than your average TV. So far, I’ve only put in about 700 hours on the LG 27GR95QE-B, and I haven’t yet found a test image that shows any burn-in at all.
If LG wants my money for a desktop OLED monitor, here’s what I’d like to see: first, 100 extra nits of sustained brightness across the entire screen, something Samsung has mostlymanaged with the QD-OLED panel you’ll find in the 34-inch ultrawide Alienware AW3423DWF. Second and more importantly, a warranty that actually sets my mind at ease. When those things arrive in a future wave of OLED, I’ll be lining up to put my money down.
Zelda and Mario boost Nintendo to record profit
A profitable pair of plumbers. | Image: Illumination
Nintendo just had a bumper quarter thanks to the release of The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, as well as the Super Mario Bros. Movie. “Both sales and profits were notably large for a first quarter” the company noted in today’s earnings release, which covers the three months through June 30th.
Net sales stood at ¥461.3 billion (around $3.2 billion), a 50 percent increase versus last year, while operating profit rose 82.4 percent to ¥185.4 billion (around $1.3 billion). Bloomberg notes that it’s the highest first-quarter profit recorded by the company, beating its previous 2020 high set in the the first year of the pandemic just after the release of Animal Crossing: New Horizons.
The benefits of the release of Zelda and the Mario movie were felt directly and indirectly. Tears of the Kingdom sold 18.51 million units during Nintendo’s first quarter and is now the ninth best-selling Nintendo game for the console. Meanwhile, the Mario movie helped increase Nintendo’s “mobile and IP related income” by 190.1 percent versus last year. TheSuper Mario Bros. Movie has been a huge success, taking over $1 billion at the box office worldwide. Nintendo’s earnings release adds that the movie helped promote sales of its existing Mario games.
While sales of Switch consoles were still up compared to the same quarter last year (3.91 million units versus 3.43 million units), the consensus is that this hardware is nearing the end of its life, and Nintendo’s release calendar for the rest of the year is looking significantly leaner. The big question is when Nintendo might announce a Switch successor. Earlier this week VGC reported that a new console is planned for the second half of 2024, and that some of Nintendo’s software partners have already received development hardware for the forthcoming device.
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Alienware’s new Aurora R16 desktop sheds gobs of plastic for a 40 percent smaller build
Alienware has clearly heard the feedback. Its prebuilt Aurora desktop PC needs work, particularly in the cooling department. So the new Alienware Aurora R16 is laser-focused on fixing that — to the point the company is largely ditching its trademark out-of-this-world look.
The new Aurora R16 has largely the same basic steel chassis inside, with the same 25.2 liters of space for your components. But its boxy new design ditches multiple pounds of plastic to make the entire computer 40 percent smaller in volume — shrinking all the way down from 60.7 liters to 36 liters in total.
Image: Alienware
Alienware R15 vs. Alienware R16. They have the same internal volume.
The goal of not being “impeded by plastics” was specifically for increased airflow, Alienware told journalists.
Image: Alienware
The new R16’s layout. Blue tabs mean toolless removal.
The result is “up to” 10 percent lower CPU and 6 percent lower GPU temperatures, and a 20 percent quieter system on average. It’s the quietest Aurora that the company has ever built, says long-time Alienware vet Eddy Goyanes.
Image: Alienware
Suit of armor not included.
The PC now pulls its air in through the “Stadium Loop”: large looped vents on both sides of the front of the rig, with a single 120mm intake fan behind them. The window-side of the loop is covered in 44 distinct LEDs for lighting, one of three RGB LED zones in the computer. (The 120mm rear exhuast fan and the alienhead logo in the front also have RGB LEDs inside; there’s also an optional 240mm liquid cooling radiator with twin 120mm fans up top. The other side of the PC has no lighting.)
The side of the chassis is also covered in hexagonal vents, the front of which it expects to intake air, while the rear ones exhaust it too — likely depending on your GPU.
Image: Alienware
An image illustrating the Aurora R16’s cooling with wavy lines showing where the air goes in and comes out.
The new R16 comes standard with Intel AX210 Wi-Fi 6E, a 500W 80+ Platinum power supply and 12-phase voltage regulation, and two memory slots and two M.2 SSD slots for up to 64GB of DDR5-5600 RAM and up to 8TB of PCIe Gen 4 storage. (Aftermarket storage and memory prices are currently at historic lows, by the by.)
You can fit a 3.5mm spinning hard drive in there as well. There’s also an optional 1000W 80+ Platinum power supply depending on your CPU and GPU.
Image: Alienware
Here’s what the default air cooling will look like.
The 33.8 pound (maximum weight) chassis also has quite a few ports: just around front is a USB-C port running at 10Gbps, three 5Gbps USB-A ports and a 3.5mm headset jack, and the rear offers a 20Gbps USB-C port, a 10Gbps USB-C port, two 5Gbps USB-A ports, and a pair of USB 2.0 ports as well as 2.5Gbps ethernet and an array of audio out.
Image: Alienware
There’s no cover for the front ports — they’re merely recessed. Image: Alienware
Proprietary motherboard has lots of USB and audio ports. Also 2.5Gbps ethernet.
It’s available today starting at $1,750 in the United States (or $2300 CAD in Canada) with an air-cooled Core i7 13700F and Nvidia RTX 4070 graphics. You won’t get much higher in the GPU department for a bit: Asia and Europe can start with a RTX 3050 or upgrade to a RTX 4080 if you like, but in the United States the only other GPU option is the RTX 4070 Ti until later in the year. A 13th Gen i9 13900F is also available, though, and the company says the R16 will become its most powerful desktop by the end of the year.
Also missing from this new model is proper upgradability: the power supply and Z690 motherboard are still proprietary. Alienware lead Matt McGowan tells me that’s down to focus and time: “It was more efficient for us to move forward with this architecture and iterate on that than it was for us to completely redesign the product.”
Image: Alienware
Liquid cooling does not come standard, but those neat honeycomb vents do.
McGowan told journalists the team iterated around the previous-gen Alienware R15 to focus on space savings, complexity, and airflow before it potentially considers upgradability for future models — but no promises there. “We’ve obviously talked about how much upgradability we want to have with this product given all the other advantages it provides,” he says.
The company’s also not commenting on whether it will offer an AMD version of the R16. “We’re looking at that for future roadmap but not commenting on that at this time.”
Image: Alienware
A better look at the liquid cooling module. Image: Alienware
One loop is RGB-lit, the other is not. Image: Alienware
Wi-Fi antenna. Image: Alienware
Cable management. Image: Alienware.
Feet. Image: Alienware
A last look.
In the UFC zone, you’ll be able to watch 4K, 180-degree streams of fights, socialize with other players about UFC, see a virtual recreation of the Octagon, and compete in in-world games to get “exclusive unlockable rewards” and eventually become “a UFC Hall of Famer.” It’s set to launch sometime in November.
I’m not a UFC fan, so I don’t think I’ll be spending much time in the zone. But the dedicated UFC space in Horizon Worlds is just one of a growing number of tailored experiences from Meta to try and get people to hang out on the platform. (It’s reportedly struggled to keep users.) Last week, for example, Meta launched an in-Horizon first-person shooter called Super Rumble, and in a blog post discussing the game, the company said that it was “the first of many Worlds experiences to come that will showcase improvements like better graphics, deeper gameplay, and a variety of quests and rewards.”
Meta’s Wednesday blog post also included a schedule of upcoming UFC fights you can watch in VR on Quest headsets through the Xtadium app with a UFC Fight Pass subscription. I’m guessing Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, who has competed in Jiu-Jitsu, might be tuning in — that is, if he’s not training in the octagon in his backyard.
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Twitter Blue subscribers can now hide their blue checks
Image: The Verge
Twitter Blue, which Elon Musk is currently rebranding to X Blue, now includes the option to hide the notorious blue checkmark. Twitter Blue subscribers recently started noticing the “hide your blue checkmark” option on the web and in mobile apps, offering the ability to hide that they’re paying for Twitter and avoid memes about how “this mf paid for twitter.”
“The checkmark will be hidden on your profile and posts,” notes a Twitter support article. “The checkmark may still appear in some places and some features could still reveal you have an active subscription. Some features may not be available while your checkmark is hidden.”
Screenshot by Tom Warren / The Verge
The new hide blue checkmark option.
Twitter previously used a blue checkmark verification system for account recognition or credibility, but when Elon Musk started allowing anyone to be “verified” through a Blue subscription it briefly descended into chaos with fake accounts. Then everyone soon realized who was paying to be verified on Twitter before Twitter eventually removed blue checkmarks from legacy verified accounts and changed how verified checkmarks were displayed multiple times. Blue checkmarks are also assigned to users with one million or more followers.
If you subscribe to Twitter Blue the service will now add an optional blue checkmark to your profile with a “verified since” date attached. Legacy verified accounts include the date an account was originally verified on Twitter before the Blue subscription system.
Twitter owner Elon Musk is currently rebranding the service to X in a bid to create an “everything app” that will likely include some form of a payments system in the future. The little blue bird disappeared last week, replaced with an “interim” X logo that briefly appeared on top of Twitter’s San Francisco office building in the form of an extravagant flashing and strobing X sign. There are still plenty of places where X refers to Twitter, and even the X Blue subscription page mentions Twitter Blue plenty of times.
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