Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 5 review: the flip phone we’ve been waiting for

Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 5 review: the flip phone we’ve been waiting for

It’s a big update year for Samsung’s flip-style foldable — and a much larger cover screen makes all the difference.

Being able to declare an absolute category winner is rare in the smartphone space. But in the case of the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 5, it’s actually quite easy: this is the best flip-style folding phone you can buy.

It’s a small category, so that helps. It’s even smaller if you’re looking at options available in the US since your choices are basically the Flip 5 or Motorola’s Razr Plus. They have a lot in common, including the fact that they both offer a much bigger, much more useful cover screen than their predecessors. They share the same $999 price tag, too. But Samsung’s flip phone is more durable, its cover screen widgets are more useful, and its camera system is better overall.

That’s not to say that the Flip 5 is the perfect flip-style phone or the best phone you can buy for a thousand bucks. It’s durable for a foldable, but that big “X” in its IPX8 rating means there’s no guarantee against dust intrusion — and dust in a folding phone spells real trouble. You’ll find better camera hardware on most other $999 slab-style phones, including a telephoto lens, and you’ll struggle to get through a full day of heavy use with the Flip 5 on a single battery charge. If any of the above is a major concern, then a flip-style phone might not be for you. But if you are willing to put up with these tradeoffs, then the Galaxy Z Flip 5 is an excellent device.

The flip form factor is particularly good for someone who wants to get more of the basic chores done on their phone without getting sucked into mindlessly checking app notifications and scrolling through news feeds unintentionally. The bigger, improved cover screen on the Flip 5 makes it possible to respond to a text quickly, glance at walking directions, or check the weather without coming face-to-face with absolutely everything on your phone. It’s a powerful tool in the fight for your attention, and the Z Flip 5 is hands-down the best option in its class.

Hooray for widgets!

Let’s start with the main attraction: that 3.4-inch cover screen (excuse me, Flex Window, according to Samsung). That may not sound like much, but it’s more than 3.5 times bigger than the 1.9-inch screen on the Z Flip 4. It’s like getting out of a Smart Car and into a sedan — buckle up because you can go places now. Rather than just checking notifications, you can use a full QWERTY keyboard to respond to texts. You can see your daily schedule alongside a monthly calendar in the same view.

Samsung provides a bunch of handy widgets you can enable, disable, and rearrange to your liking. They’re excellent and take great advantage of the available screen real estate; the weather widget shows you current conditions at a glance, and you can scroll down for the next week’s forecast. Tapping on a calendar event brings up all the details. It’s all as the good lord intended — and a much better experience than on the Motorola Razr Plus.

In no particular order, here are some things I used the cover screen to do in the past week:

• Respond to text messages
• Sign my kid out of daycare
• Check arrival times at my bus stop and note that I am definitely missing the next bus
• Read my Threads notifications (all four of them)
• Dismiss approximately 2,000 spam calls

Widgets are great, but part of the appeal of a flip phone — at least for me — is the ability to run certain apps on the cover screen. You need a bit of a sense of adventure here because lots of apps are unequivocally awful on a small screen. But I’ve discovered a few of the apps I use for quick tasks are actually fine on the cover display. It’s a hassle many Flip 5 owners probably won’t want to go through, but for the adventurous few, it’s a big benefit to owning a flip phone.

For reasons mentioned above, Samsung makes it very difficult to run just any old app on the cover screen. You can enable a handful of preselected apps through the Labs menu, but for anything outside of messaging apps, Google Maps, or YouTube, you need to download Good Lock (and an additional module called MultiStar) from the Galaxy App Store. Then you can add additional apps to the cover screen.

You don’t want to scroll through Instagram posts on a screen this small

You don’t want to scroll through Instagram posts on a screen this small, but it’s totally suitable for quick-hit tasks like checking transit arrival times or translating an unfamiliar Spanish word to English. Placing a mobile order for your neighborhood Starbucks is a stretch, but I’m happy to report that it can be done.

Some apps don’t work quite as well on the Flip 5’s cover screen as they do on the Razr Plus’ slightly bigger display. I had trouble typing in certain apps since Samsung’s cover screen keyboard doesn’t give you a persistent text input box, and whatever you’re writing is liable to get covered up by other UI elements. But on either phone, there’s a very experimental vibe to using a full app, so proceed at your own risk.

Can you run Spotify on the cover screen? Yes. Should you? Maybe not.

The Flip 5’s cover screen itself isn’t the nicest screen I’ve ever used, but it does the job. It’s a 720 x 748 60Hz panel — not as sharp or smooth as the Razr Plus’ screen. But it does get bright enough for use even in direct sunlight, and it’s not a screen you want to look at a lot of photos or play games on, anyway. One thing it has over the Razr Plus? An always-on display. You can see the time, date, battery percentage, and app notification icons without having to tap the screen. Quite literally, you love to see it.

Heavy users will want to work in a midday battery top-off

On the downside, the AOD does seem to drag down battery performance noticeably. The Z Flip 5 has a small 3,700mAh battery, so that’s a legitimate concern. With the AOD enabled, I was able to get through a full day of heavy use with 4.5 hours of screen-on time — but only with a nail-biting 5 percent left in the tank as I was calling an Uber at the end of the night.

On a more typical day with three hours of screen-on time, I had 40 percent left by the end of the night. It’s good enough to get most people through a full day, but heavy users will want to work in a midday top-off to avoid going to phone battery jail.

Look, no gap.

The Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 For Galaxy chipset is just as snappy here as in the S23 series. It seems to run a little warmer in the Flip 5, maybe because there’s less space for cooling mechanisms, but it never got too toasty in my pocket. The base model Z Flip 5 comes with 8GB of RAM and 256GB of storage — a bump up from the Flip 4, which started at 128GB. There’s 25W wired charging (BYO charging brick, of course) and 15W wireless charging with 4.5W reverse wireless charging to top off your earbuds. I have to open the phone and set it juuust so on my stand-style Belkin Qi charger, but it works.

The Z Flip 5 and its bigger Fold 5 sibling are the first Samsung foldables that close flat — previous versions had a visible gap between the two halves near the hinge when closed. The gap is gone, a new droplet-style hinge is in, and there has been much rejoicing. It makes the Z Flip 5 a bit sleeker-looking, though it feels just as chunky as ever in the pocket of my joggers.

The side rails are a flat, polished aluminum that looks nice and feels sturdy. Samsung says that the new hinge’s design can withstand impacts better, but the phone’s IPX8 rating is the same as last year’s. That means it’s resistant to full immersion in water, which is no small feat on a phone with moving parts, but there’s no guarantee against dust intrusion. Samsung’s apparently working on that, but in the meantime, it’s a bad idea to take the Flip 5 to the beach.

The Z Flip 5 provides a healthy amount of lock screen customization.

The Flip 5’s new cover screen provides a bigger canvas for lock screen customization, and Samsung provides a lot of personalization options. It’s a lot like customizing a smartwatch face — you pick a basic wallpaper style, select your favorite fonts and colors, and save it. From the cover screen itself, you can long press to view and switch between your customized lock screens. As a lock screen enjoyer, I’ve wasted plenty of time trying to get the background color framing a photo of my kid just right. You got me, Samsung.

New to the Flip and Fold this year is an updated flex mode panel — that’s the set of controls that you can enable when you use the phone in an L-shaped laptop mode. You don’t need it in an app like YouTube that’s already optimized for folding phones, but it’s handy for the physical therapy video I follow every day most days that’s only available embedded in a browser window.

The Flex Mode panel looks a little less beta now.

I can tap the screen to move the video to the top half of the screen, and the flex mode panel now includes a thumbnail image and customizable controls. This is a very minor update in the grand scheme of things, but it makes the experience of using the phone in this way feel a little more polished and a little less “beta.”

More important than minor software tweaks, the Z Flip 5 continues to come with a strong software support policy: four years of OS updates and five years of security patches. Motorola, on the other hand, is offering three years of OS updates and four years of security patches — and it doesn’t exactly have a great track record for timely updates. Of all the reasons to consider the Flip 5 over the Razr Plus, that’s a strong one.

Flip phone photography is fun.

Generally speaking, folding phones don’t come with the latest camera hardware. That continues to be true of the Flip 5 — same as last year, it comes with a 12-megapixel f/1.8 stabilized main camera and a 12-megapixel ultrawide. There’s a 10-megapixel selfie camera on the inside screen, but one of the nice things about the flip form factor is that it’s easy to use the better rear-facing cameras for selfies, so it’s kind of just there for video calls.

The imaging hardware is run-of-the-mill, and so are the Z Flip 5’s photos. The main camera does just fine in good lighting and turned in a few shots I really dig — give it ample indirect lighting and some vibrant colors, and you’ll be impressed. Portrait mode is good, if not class-leading, like the S23 cameras.

Overall, though, it’s a fairly mediocre camera system for a $1,000 phone. There’s no telephoto lens, and I’m not impressed with Samsung’s digital zoom. Photos from the ultrawide in good lighting are a little flat, and colors look off in dim lighting with plenty of smoothed-over noise. Even low-light selfies with the main camera are hit-and-miss — it chose a shutter speed of just 1/35sec in a dim arena that left me with just one sharp photo out of a handful.

Above all, it’s fun shooting photos and video with a flip phone

Video clips are fine overall. Samsung says it’s using AI to improve low-light video quality, and I think my low-light video clips look alright. But above all, it’s fun shooting photos and video with a flip phone. You can fold the phone into an L shape and set it down on a table for an instant tripod and hands-free video. You can hold it up camcorder style or move the image preview to the bottom half of the screen like an old-school twin-lens reflex camera and shoot from the hip.

I seem to get the most natural reactions in photos and videos of my toddler when my phone isn’t right in front of my face using any of those methods. I feel a little more engaged in the moment, too. In any case, I’m hoping Samsung upgrades the cameras on the Z Flip 6 so we can get the best of both worlds: good hardware and all that flip phone fun.

Not a perfect flip phone, but a much better one.

There are plenty of ways that the Galaxy Z Flip 5 could be a better flip phone — the cameras could use an upgrade, I’d like to run apps more easily on the cover screen, and dustproofing would be a welcome addition. It’s a bit sleeker with the new fold-flat hinge but still a chunky device that would benefit from some trimming down.

Even though it could be better, it’s easily the best widely available flip phone option right now. For the same price as the Motorola Razr Plus, you get a more consistent camera, robust water resistance versus splash resistance, an extra year of software updates, and much better cover screen widgets. That’s really no contest. The Oppo Find N2 Flip is another option outside of the US, but its cover screen is smaller and less useful, and its durability is uncertain since it lacks any kind of IP rating.

The cover screen isn’t just a neat party trick — it’s a genuinely useful tool

If you’re considering jumping from a traditional slab-style phone to a flip phone, the Z Flip 5 is a great entry point. The cover screen isn’t just a neat party trick — it’s a genuinely useful tool that made my life a little easier in numerous ways while using the phone. It’s a device best suited for someone with a sense of adventure and curiosity when it comes to technology — someone willing to try a new way of doing things and able to roll with it when you inevitably hit a snag. For that kind of person, the Z Flip 5 is a truly rewarding experience.

Photography by Allison Johnson / The Verge

A Zoom Call, Fake Names and an A.I. Presentation Gone Awry

A Zoom Call, Fake Names and an A.I. Presentation Gone Awry A.I. start-ups are competing fiercely with one another as a race to get ahead in the technology intensifies.

With No Date Set, Musk and Zuckerberg Trade Barbs on ‘Cage Match’

With No Date Set, Musk and Zuckerberg Trade Barbs on ‘Cage Match’ Elon Musk, in an early-morning post, said he planned to livestream the event on his own platform. Mark Zuckerberg called for a “more reliable” platform, adding, “I’m ready today.”

The PlayStation 5 is on sale for $50 off this weekend

The PlayStation 5 is on sale for $50 off this weekend

Amazon, Best Buy, and Walmart are all slashing the price of the next-gen console for a limited time. | Image: Sony

Earlier this week, we saw a rare deal drop on the PlayStation 5 — only for it to disappear as quickly as it arrived. If you missed out on the Monoprice deal, however, you now have another chance at saving $50 on Sony’s next-gen gaming console.

Right now, the disc-equipped PS5 is on sale at Amazon, Best Buy, Walmart, and GameStop starting at $449, the lowest price we’ve seen on the standalone console since it launched at the tail end of 2020. Typically, we only see discounts on various bundles, which save you from having to purchase titles such as God of War Ragnarök and Final Fantasy XVI but rarely dip below $500 or so.

The PlayStation 5 is a fast, powerful console that’s capable of playing games at up to 4K resolution with a 120Hz refresh rate and HDR support. The large entertainment device also comes with a single DualSense Wireless Controller, which features excellent haptics and adaptive triggers for a more immersive experience. That said, if you’d like an extra controller for playing with friends, you can also pick up a second one on sale at Amazon, Walmart, Best Buy, and GameStop starting at $49 ($21 off). That discount applies not only to the base white and black colorways but also to the purple, red, and camo models, making now a great time to pick up a controller for co-op play.

Zuckerberg says he gave Musk an August 26th fight date but he’s ‘not holding my breath’

Zuckerberg says he gave Musk an August 26th fight date but he’s ‘not holding my breath’

Laura Normand / The Verge

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg says he’s “ready today” to fight Elon Musk, who owns Twitter (currently rebranding as X), and that although he had suggested August 26th as the date for their cage match, Musk hasn’t confirmed and he’s not holding his breath. Zuckerberg included a screenshot of Musk tweeting about lifting weights to prepare.

In response to Musk’s announcement that the fight would be “live-streamed on X” with proceeds going to a charity for veterans, Zuckerberg suggested they “use a more reliable platform that can actually raise money for charity.” The Meta CEO also said he loves the sport and “will continue competing with people who train no matter what happens here.”

Meta itself has declined to comment beyond Zuckerberg’s posts. This of course doesn’t mean the fight is confirmed for August 26th, which is just shy of three weeks away at this point.

Thieves stole $300,000 in gaming trading cards at Gen Con 2023

Thieves stole $300,000 in gaming trading cards at Gen Con 2023

Image: Gen Con

A pair of thieves waltzed into Gen Con 2023 and stole as much as $300,000 of gaming cards in Indianapolis (via IndyStar). The cards, which were sitting in boxes on a pallet, were stolen using a pallet jack while vendors were setting up for the long-running yearly gaming convention that Dungeons and Dragons co-creator Gary Gygax started.

As for what cards were taken, that’s unknown. IndyStar reported that a worker at a local Indianapolis board game store thought the packaging resembled that of Magic: the Gathering, Pokémon Trading Card Game, and the unreleased Disney Lorcana. Ravensberger, the company that makes Disney Lorcana, tweeted that all of its product is accounted for. Convention-goers waited for as much as 16 hours for the card game, which Ravensberger used Gen Con 2023 as a pre-release venue for.

Indianapolis Police issued a pair of tweets Friday and Saturday asking for help from the public in identifying two people caught on surveillance video taking the pallet:

***Update*** two additional photos have been added. Detectives are still seeking help in identifying both individuals. https://t.co/s7mMPbcR6I pic.twitter.com/nB9uVGaCT1

— IMPD (@IMPDnews) August 5, 2023

This isn’t the only recent card game theft in the Indianapolis area. In May, local media reported a thief broke into a gaming store in Indianapolis suburb Brownsburg and shoved an estimated $15,000 worth of Magic: the Gathering cards into a pizza delivery bag.

The cards can be incredibly valuable — see that time Post Malone, who is known for his spendy MTG habits, bought the “One Ring” card, which is probably worth somewhere between $1 million and $2 million. That’s quite a bit more than the paltry $615,000 that an autographed Black Lotus recently commanded.

Apple may be testing an M3 Mac Mini

Apple may be testing an M3 Mac Mini

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge

Apple could have a Mac Mini powered by its new M3 chip in the works for 2024, according to Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman in his Power On newsletter today. Gurman says Apple is now testing a computer at its campus under model identifier Mac 15,12, but whether it's a Mac Mini is his speculation.

Gurman says the company is testing an eight-core CPU and a 10-core GPU Mac with 24GB RAM that’s running macOS Sonoma 14.1. Those specs are similar to the base model M2 Mac Mini, except for the memory installed — so far, entry-level Apple silicon Macs have started at 8GB RAM. (I wouldn’t read anything into that though; it would be very surprising if Apple jumped to 24GB for the base model.)

Gurman points out that in Apple’s earnings call, the company said it expected a double-digit decline in Mac revenue in the fourth quarter of this year, and Gurman reiterates that he doesn’t expect any M3-powered Macs to come before the first fiscal quarter of 2024 begins in October.

That brings the total expected M3 Macs up to six and covers all of the company’s primary desktops and laptops, including the iMac, which is expected to see its first refresh since 2021 soon. Unsurprisingly, Gurman doesn’t yet seem to expect M3 versions of the Mac Studio and Mac Pro, both of which only made the jump to Apple’s M2 silicon this year at WWDC. If you haven’t yet, check out our reviews for the 2023 Mac Studio and 2023 Mac Pro.

The cage match is back: Musk says Zuck fight will ‘be live-streamed on X’

The cage match is back: Musk says Zuck fight will ‘be live-streamed on X’

Illustration by Kristen Radtke / The Verge; Getty Images

Elon Musk and Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s cage match will be livestreamed on Musk’s Twitter, currently rebranding as X, according to a tweet from Musk posted early this morning. Musk says the proceeds will go to charity for veterans.

Twitter CEO Linda Yaccarino reposted Musk’s tweet with a comment that she is clearing her calendar. On Zuckerberg’s side, though, things appear to be quiet for the moment, as he has not commented on Threads or Instagram so far this morning.

The cage match goes back to June, when the two billionaires agreed to the fight via a series of social media posts on their respective platforms (Musk on Twitter, Zuckerberg on Instagram). Talk of the fight has been relatively quiet since the end of June though, and in late July, a Reuters story quoted the Zuck as saying he wasn’t sure if the fight would “come together.”

Zuck v Musk fight will be live-streamed on .

All proceeds will go to charity for veterans.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 6, 2023

Prior to that, Musk was seen training with Lex Fridman, a computer scientist versed in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, as well as UFC champion George St-Pierre. UFC president Dana White has apparently been mediating between the two. Meanwhile, talk of the fight follows an apparent attempt by Zuckerberg to rehabilitate his image to win over Musk stans, even as his new social network, Threads, mounts the biggest challenge to Twitter’s dominance of short-form posting yet.

Whether this actually means the fight will happen is still up in the air, especially given Zuckerberg’s comment last month. If it does, Zuckerberg, who has been seen training heavily and even winning MMA fights, remains favored to win on Sports Betting.

We’ve reached out to both Meta and Twitter about Musk’s tweet, and will update if we hear more.

Schumer Wields Political Heft in Bid for New York Chips Funds

Schumer Wields Political Heft in Bid for New York Chips Funds The Senate majority leader helped deliver billions of dollars in federal funding for semiconductors. Now he’s pushing for his state to reap benefits.

Striking writers met with Hollywood studios for the first time in months

Striking writers met with Hollywood studios for the first time in months

Image: The Writers Guild of America

The Writers Guild of America (WGA) met yesterday with representatives of the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP) to confidentially discuss resuming talks, but the meeting ended without a definite agreement to resume negotiations (via Deadline). After the AMPTP withdrew to “consult with their member studios,” the WGA sent an email to its members disclosing the particulars of the discussion, saying studios had leaked details of the meeting to the press.

In the Friday talk, according to WGA’s letter to its members, the AMPTP said it was willing to offer more for “a few writer-specific TV minimums,” and was willing to discuss studio AI use, but wouldn’t consider success-based residuals or preserving writers’ rooms. (Disclosure: Vox Media’s editorial team, which includes The Verge, is also unionized with the Writers Guild of America, East.)

Update on today’s meeting with the AMPTP https://t.co/Fl32DgwC0Z #WGAstrike

— Writers Guild of America West (@WGAWest) August 5, 2023

The WGA also said in its email that the AMPTP didn’t seem willing to address several other proposals from its demands, such as establishing minimum streaming residuals. According to the letter, WGA representative Ellen Stutzman made clear to the AMPTP that “all the fundamental issues” raised by the strike must be addressed in a new contract, including health care with better funding, strikiing writers’ reinstatement, and the “right for individual WGA members to honor other unions’ picket lines.”

Even so, talks are expected to continue soon, according to “a source close to the situation” who spoke with Variety, which reported that the two sides expect to resume communications “in the coming days” once leadership from each has talked over the Friday meeting with their membership. Variety reports that the mood in the meeting room was “a little stiff,” but “not so tense that near-term negotiations are impossible.”

Hollywood writer and actor strikes mounted this year over several issues, including the use of AI by studios. Writers are increasingly concerned studios may train AI to replace them, while actors worry that studios will use generative AI to alter their performances or even synthesize them entirely.

Update August 5th, 2023, 10:38AM ET: Embedded a WGA West social media post and included a direct link to its published letter about the meeting.

Technics’ AZ80 earbuds have superb sound and one truly unique feature

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.

Photography by Chris Welch / The Verge

Meta’s new shooter game is the most fun I’ve ever had in the metaverse

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?

These are the kinds of questions you’re forced to answer in Super Rumble, the new game for the Meta Quest. (They’re the same kinds of questions you’ll find anywhere in the metaverse and on most multiplayer online games, really.) Super Rumble lives inside Horizon Worlds, the virtual universe system that Meta has tried hard to make the centerpiece of the universe… to essentially no success. Meta hasn’t even been able to get its employees to spend time in Horizon Worlds.

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.

Super Rumble is actually the confluence of a few important things that could all help make the metaverse a little better

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

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.”

From the linked support page:

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.

Thank you for your patience!https://t.co/5n4lo5H2yf

— Support (@Support) August 5, 2023

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

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

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.

Read our Google Pixel Watch review.

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.

Read our MacBook Air M2 (2022) review.

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.

Read our Google Pixel Buds Pro review.

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.

Read our Blink Mini review.

A few more deals before we take our leave

• The Amazon Smart Thermostat is on sale for $55.99 ($24 off) at Best Buy and The Home Depot. The Alexa-enabled smart thermostat offers a lot of bang for your buck and is capable of adapting to your habits and preferences. Read our review.
• 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

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

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

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

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

‘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.

We could see something from these initiatives soon; I wouldn’t be surprised if Amazon announced some generative AI-based improvements for Alexa at its upcoming devices event on September 20th. (Perhaps those will be powered by the improved large language model (LLM) it’s working on for Alexa, which is something Jassy discussed in April’s earnings call.) And job listings from earlier this year indicated that Amazon was hiring to help improve Amazon Search with an “interactive conversational experience.”

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 called Google’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

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 ‘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.”

The TV was first announced back at CES in early January and is already available in South Korea for 45,800,000 won, which works out to roughly $35,168 — a price that includes tax.

Image: LG

The back of LG’s Zero Connect Box.

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.