News

• Polar is launching a screenless band, confirmed in a recent press release
• It's a distraction free wearable set to launch on September 3
• Very few details are available, but it will definitely be subscription-free

I first learned about Polar when searching for alternatives to the best Garmin watches, but Polar as a company has been around for a long time: Polar Electro actually developed the world's first wireless heart rate monitor, filing the patent in 1980.

While the company may have slipped behind some of its competitors in the smartwatch popularity stakes since then, Polar does make solid, reliable devices that regularly rank on our best running watches and best heart rate monitor lists.

Now, though, Polar is moving into a new category: eating Whoop's lunch by releasing a screenless wrist band.

However, what excites me isn't just a new challenger in the screenless wearable space; it's the fact that this is a Whoop alternative that's completely subscription-free.

I haven't yet published my review for the Whoop MG, the latest high-end wearable to be released by Whoop, but to cut a long story short: there's a lot to love, especially the detailed analytics. While it's not ideal for runners, it's probably the most useful wearable for hybrid athletes and gym bunnies I've tested in a very long time, thanks to its Oura-style tagging system, workout builder, and advanced recovery tools.

However, it's not perfect: the clasp system frequently comes apart when taking the band off, and the subscription cost is very steep: the Whoop MG comes in at a staggering £349 / $359 / AU$629 per year, with the cheapest tier coming in at £169 / $199 / AU$299 per year. For this cost, you get the device along with an annual subscription to the Whoop app.

Polar does have a premium subscription tier in its app, but it's specifically for its Fitness Program feature, an adaptive training plan generation tool. The base analytics collected by Polar devices are free, which makes its devices a pretty good value: once a device has been purchased, it can be used without spending more money.

I'm really excited about the prospect of a budget Whoop alternative without the costly annual subscription. Polar's running watches, such as the Polar Grit X2 Pro, and heart rate monitors, like the Polar H10, are usually very well-reviewed, which bodes well for the wearable.

Although a price point hasn't been released for the screenless band – we don't even know its name – we do have a launch date for it: September 3, as mentioned in a Polar press release.

The release states that: "The upcoming Polar wearable will not only be the brand’s first screen-free wrist device, but it will also be a subscription-free alternative to other health bands and fitness trackers on the market.

"By eliminating the need for a screen, this new category of wearables captures accurate insights and data in the background without intruding on users’ daily lives, blending seamlessly into their routines as they go about their day.

"Users can then check their stats and progress whenever it suits them, staying connected to their sleep, activity, health, and fitness – without it demanding their attention."

It certainly sounds a lot like a cheaper Whoop, but we'll know more for sure closer to the launch date. Expect a detailed comparison when it drops, along with my full Whoop MG review soon.

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• Solidigm’s 122.88TB SSD may not be the fastest, but it wins on density and design
• At $12,400, this SSD isn’t cheap, but it could slash rack space and energy waste
• Solidigm already has rivals with competing 122.88TB SSD products

With a staggering capacity of 122.88TB, the Solidigm D5-P5336 currently holds the title for the world’s largest SSD.

Launched in late 2024, it became available for purchase at $12,400, a figure which may seem steep, until one considers the operational cost savings from reducing physical rack space and energy usage.

As Solidigm aims to lead the market in high-capacity enterprise storage, the company may soon face competition, not just in performance, but in scale.

Reports now suggest that a 246TB SSD could be introduced before the end of 2025, potentially doubling today’s storage ceiling.

Solidigm’s drive has been positioned as a density-first product, with read speeds up to 7GB/s and write speeds of 3GB/s via PCIe Gen4.

It is optimized for workloads that benefit from high sequential read performance, such as AI pipelines, CDN services, and object storage.

Solidigm’s D5-P5336 122.88TB SSD packs a decent capacity into a single U.2 drive and sets a new benchmark in SSD storage density.

Yet despite the scale, real-world benchmarks indicate that performance doesn't scale linearly.

It often matches or slightly trails its 61.44TB predecessor in high-concurrency workloads, and lags behind Gen5 drives like Micron’s 61TB 6550, particularly in write-heavy operations.

The 122.88TB model offers modest endurance at 0.6 DWPD, which equates to 134.3 PB written over its five-year warranty period.

That makes it a fit for read-heavy environments, but less ideal for mixed or write-intensive deployments.

Still, Solidigm’s strategy is clear: focus on maximizing storage per watt, per rack unit, and per dollar.

As such, this drive may not be the best SSD in raw performance terms, but it plays a critical role in modern data centers where density and efficiency drive infrastructure design.

The competitive landscape is also shifting, and little-known Chinese brand DapuStor has released its own 122.88TB SSD, joining the race toward high-capacity flash.

While details on its long-term reliability and support remain limited, this signals growing interest in ultra-dense enterprise SSDs beyond established players.

That said, the possibility of a 246TB SSD raises important questions. Can NAND technology and controller efficiency keep up with this growth?

And will such capacity jumps continue to deliver meaningful performance improvements?

As data centers brace for AI-driven demand, the answer may define not only the best external SSD for hyperscalers but the trajectory of the largest SSD and hard drive technologies overall.

Via StorageReview

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Look, I get it: there’s not much else more special in the gaming or tech world than the smell of a new console freshly unboxed.

Add in that the new console of the moment is the Nintendo Switch 2, and with it all the promise of new exclusive games and hours, days, nights spent in Mario Kart World, and it’s not surprising that tracking down new stock of the Nintendo Switch 2 isn’t easy.

But I’m not fussed.

Well, okay, I’m a little fussed; I have a decent dose of FOMO tickling my gaming synapse as I see others on social media with their box-fresh Switch 2 consoles, while I remain flopped on my sofa with my aged original Nintendo Switch.

However, I’ve resisted the urge to splurge my hard-earned cash on the Switch 2. In part because I’m probably one of the few people who doesn’t get all giddy at Mario Kart (at least not since Mario Kart 64). On the other hand, there’s not yet a glut of big new first-party exclusive games for the console.

Yet my big reason to wait is all about bundles.

Alongside looking after the phones and tablets vertical at TechRadar, I also manage the site’s deals team, so I spend a good bit of time tracking sales events and chewing over deals from the likes of Amazon, Best Buy, Currys, Argos, Walmart and more.

While I don’t expect the Switch 2 to drop in price in the next couple of years, let alone anytime soon, I think we could see some compelling Switch 2 bundles as the inevitable march towards the winter (at least in the Northern Hemisphere) holiday season.

With said season comes an Amazon October sales spree and Black Friday, which is far less of a day of sales and more like weeks of bargains for the discerning shopper to pursue. And a good suite of those deals falls on games and gaming hardware.

So I’m forecasting that come November time we’ll see more varied Nintendo Switch 2 bundles, specifically from major retailers; I doubt these will add up to a discounted Switch 2, but instead could bundle the console with a new game or two, or a Switch 2 Pro controller, all at a price that's notably cheaper than buying each part separately.

I’m calling it now: there’ll be a Donkey Kong Bananza Switch 2 bundle.

As such, I think I’ll kick my FOMO to the curb for now and hold out for a handful of months before I seek out the new Switch.

I have previous form on this, as I remember holding out for an original Switch bundle, which I snapped up during the Black Friday period of 2017. I think this snagged me the console and Super Mario Odyssey for a decent price, leaving me with some change to snap up Breath of the Wild; don’t ask me for specifics as we’re talking the best part of a decade ago, though.

Now the gaming landscape has changed a little in that time, with the likes of the PS5 and Xbox Series X even increasing in price as they age. So compelling console bundles might be a thing of the past.

Yet I’m willing to cling to hope and wait for a Switch 2 bundle that catches my eye. If nothing else, there should be more exclusive games for the new console as 2025 marches on.

In the meantime, I’ll take the money I could have splurged on the Switch 2 and see if I can get any gaming bargains in the early Prime Day deals; wish me luck, or come and join me.

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• The Trump Organization says a new T1 Phone will launch in August
• It will apparently be "designed and built in the United States"
• But experts say the phone is more likely to have Chinese origins

The Trump Mobile T1 Phone is undoubtedly one of the strangest phones ever made, mixing odd specs (a 3.5mm headphone jack) with ones that make no sense ("5000mAh long life camera"). However, it also comes with a big claim that it'll be "designed and built in the United States."

Given that analysts recently told us that "the idea of making iPhones in the US is a stretch", is this really possible? Or will the manufacturing reality of the "sleek, gold smartphone" be a bit more complicated?

We asked smartphone supply chain experts for their verdict on the Trump Mobile T1 and whether it really can meet those lofty "made in the USA" goals.

With the T1 arriving in August for $499, it could theoretically steal some thunder from the rumored iPhone 17 – but there are good reasons to suspect that Apple won't be losing any sleep over its unexpected, gold-colored rival from Trump Mobile...

The Trump Organization has made some typically bold claims about the T1 – it's been billed as the phone that will spark a new era in US phone manufacturing.

In a press release, the Trump family business stated that the T1 is "proudly designed and built in the United States for customers who expect the best from their mobile carrier". Elsewhere, the site claims it has been "built for patriots by patriots".

Expanding on the claims, Eric Trump stated on "The Benny Show" podcast that "eventually, all the phones can be built in the United States of America".

Yet the Trump Mobile site is short on specific details about how and where the Trump T1 phone will be made. According to experts, there are good reasons to suspect that this will be ambitious at best...

• Experts agree the Trump phone won't meet its "made in the USA" claims
• It will likely be a modified Android phone from a Chinese manufacturer
• But the Trump Mobile T1 could theoretically still be assembled in the USA

The Trump Mobile T1 won't meet the strict definition of "made in the USA" for a few reasons, experts say – and these also explain why moving iPhone manufacturing to the USA is unlikely in the near future.

Firstly, "made in the USA" has a high bar. Professor Tinglong Dai, who teaches at the Johns Hopkins University Carey Business School, told us: "The FTC [Federal Trade Commission] has a strict standard for “Made in USA”: all or almost all parts and processing must be domestic. Judging by that standard, the claim is unrealistic."

But there could be ways around that. "The Trump Organization’s “built in America” language isn’t an official designation, so there’s plenty of wiggle room for them to make that claim," Dai added.

Ben Hatton, market analyst at CCS Insight, agrees. "Our expectation is that the T1 Phone will work around this by virtue of assembly in the US using parts from elsewhere," he told us.

On that subject, TechRadar's Editor at Large, Lance Ulanoff, also noted: "There's just one company that builds phones in the US, Purism. Its specs don't match up. Even if it is assembled somewhere in Trump Castle, they're still almost certainly sourcing components outside the US."

So, what phone will the T1 be based on? That's still something of a mystery. "The phone will probably be a custom-modified Android smartphone from a Chinese manufacturer," Ben Hatton from CCS Insight told us. That seems highly likely – we tried putting the T1's specs into GSMArena's phone finder for existing phones, and it came up blank.

So what does all this mean for the grand ambition of manufacturing phones in the US? And why isn't it possible?

"The main challenge is that we don’t have an end-to-end tech supply chain, and the U.S. lacks the manufacturing capacity for several key components. Even if we do, the lack of skilled workers would be a main bottleneck," Dai explained.

Ben Hatton from CCS Insight agrees that a true "made in the USA" phone is unlikely to happen for a long time, if ever. "The US is unlikely to have enough labor with the right skills for this to be achievable in anything other than the long-term. The costs of labor would then go through the roof due to this skills shortage," he added.

"Upending 50 years of supply-chain evolution by making companies move facilities would also mean totally reshaping these chains by making the US the ‘focal point’ rather than China," he concluded. In other words, it's completely unrealistic and not compatible with the complexities of smartphones or our globalized tech world.

To sum that up, Professor Tinglong Dai concluded: "A bigger issue is that there’s really no such thing as a fully domestic supply chain.” You may have read the classical essay, “I, Pencil” – even for something as simple as a pencil, you’re talking about dozens of countries behind it, and that’s before the current global supply chain era," he noted.

To see the equivalent for an iPhone, check out the excellent 'Mapping the iPhone' infographic from ArcGIS StoryMaps, which shows just how complex smartphone supply chains are.

So while The Trump Mobile T1 may carry the "made in the USA" boast, experts agree it'll be at best "assembled in the USA" – and even that hasn't yet been officially confirmed ahead of its August launch.

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