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Right now, you can get the Bose QuietComfort Headphones at Amazon for $179 (was $359). That's the lowest price yet for the excellent headphones and a continuation of the same deal we saw during the recent Prime Day sale.
Sales are cyclical, and it's already halfway through the year. Since this is the lowest price we've seen for the Bose QuietComfort Headphones, once it expires, I wouldn't count on seeing it again until a major commercial holiday like Black Friday or Cyber Monday.
Today's best headphones dealThe Bose QuietComfort Headphones are the manufacturer's flagship pair of headphones — and they still hold up three years later. These budget-friendly wireless headphones offer great ANC, comfort, and portability for less than the average competitor. At 50% off the launch price, these are unlikely to go lower than this record-low price before Black Friday or Cyber Monday season.View Deal
The QuietComfort are some of the best Bose budget headphones, even if the word "budget" is more comparative to the price of the QuietComfort Ultra. They are intentionally designed to be light, offer a comfy fit and focus on active noise-cancellation for an affordable price.
Overall, these cover the basics well and keep the noise out for much less than the pricier but more powerful QuietComfort Ultra counterpart. These have stayed a popular, fuss-free choice if you're looking for a reliable brand with ANC and aesthetics.
In our Bose QuietComfort Headphones review, we rated it four out of five stars for the ANC, comfort, portability, and ease of use. Our reviewer clocked up to 26 hours of battery life during testing, which is lower than many other competitors but still acceptable given the specs.
For more, see our best headphones (for more than just wireless) and best wireless headphones. We even have a list of best wireless earbuds for those who prefer in-ear listening.
- The Withings BodyFit scale finally lands in the UK and Europe after its US launch
- Its body composition scanning feature is said to be 'DEXA-level' implying pinpoint accuracy
- The scale is also allegedly ideal at GLP-1 drug users who are prioritising keeping muscle while losing fat
Health technology company Withings announced it will be launching the Withings BodyFit smart scale in the UK and Europe, priced at £229.95. Said to be a "segmental body composition scale", the smart scale will calculate your ratio of fat, muscle and bone using a technique called Bioelectrical Impedance Spectroscopy (BIS).
Similar to Biometric Impedence Analysis used by more of the best smart scales, BIS tech sends a harmless electrical current through your body, which moves through fat, muscle and bone at different speeds. Using this information, the Withings BodyFit can calculate how much of each material is in your body. Clever.
The Withings BodyFit uses a retractable handle for more contact points, said to provide body composition measurement as accurate as a medical-grade DEXA scan, calculating fat mass with up to 99% accuracy and muscle mass with up to 98% accuracy. The scale provides fitness goals, a calorie tracker, cardiovascular insights, nutrition logging and lots more. It's essentially a fitness tracker you can stand on, taking you on a 'personalised body composition health journey' with tips accessible in the Withings app.
The GLP-1 connectionThe interesting bit is Withings is recommending its scale to a group of people who are most concerned about maintaining muscle mass, and no, it's not bodybuilders. It's GLP-1 users, who are taking drugs like Wegovy (the UK's most common GLP-1, equivalent to the more famous Ozempic in the US) to help dramatically curb weight loss. Wegovy contains the same active ingredient as Ozempic — semaglutide — which stabilizes blood sugar and signals to the brain that you're full.
With muscle analysis based on six 'zones' in your body, Withings says 'For GLP-1 users, Withings BodyFit provides the precise, actionable insights to ensure weight loss targets fat while actively protecting crucial muscle mass'.
The idea is that while taking these drugs and dramatically losing weight, you can maintain functionality in your body by doing workouts that prioritise maintaining and gaining muscle mass, and check you're on track with the scale's advanced muscle-scanning tech.
Muscle and fatBuilding and maintaining muscle is an important part of any healthy weight loss journey. While some people will welcome the aid of GLP-1 medications, especially those that are unable to burn calories with intense exercise due to joint or disability issues, others will want to do it the way it's always been done — sweat equity.
Muscle weighs more than fat, so a reliable smart scale like the BodyFit can help shift the goalposts of weight loss (and weight gain) success from a simple number on a scale to adjusting your body's percentages of fat and muscle.
While such detail can in some extreme cases create obsessive behaviour, for most people it's going to make getting healthier easier long-term, as it's more about having some functional muscle than it is about how much you weigh.
- Planning permission isn't usually required unless you're in a conservation area or listed building
- Cooling-only systems aren't covered by permitted development rules
- If in doubt, speak to your council
If you're looking for a way to avoid the sweltering heat of yet another heatwave arriving soon, air conditioning looks awfully tempting – so much so that in the UK, portable AC units are sold out almost everywhere or going for silly money on eBay, while air con installers are booked far into the future.
With future summers expected to get even hotter, many of us are now looking into fully installed AC as a long-term investment for our homes and our health, and that means we're likely to encounter a lot of confusion and misinformation about what you can and cannot do under UK planning and building regulations.
That confusion has been partly fuelled by social media and very misleading newspaper headlines suggesting that Net Zero-crazed councils are demanding innocent homeowners 'RIP OUT' their expensive installations.
The UK government's ministry of housing, communities and local government (MHCLG) says that such coverage is incorrect. "In most cases, planning permission is not required to install [air con] for a small home if it would not materially effect the appearance of the building from outside."
The most sensational headlines have been about air con in London and reference the London Plan, a city-specific rule that prioritises passive cooling and discourages extensive use of air con due to the heat it emits outside, which can contribute to heat islands in built-up areas.
As a spokesperson for the Mayor of London told The Telegraph: "The current London Plan does not rule out air conditioning — its policy is only applicable to major developments and requires new developments to address overheating risk from the outset — through measures such as shading, ventilation and other cooling design features."
If you look at the detail of the newspaper stories you'll typically find that the problem wasn't the air con itself, but how and where it was installed.
The problem is that even the the Government's press release above saying "Air conditioning units are not banned" also then says "However, there is no blanket rule. People should speak with their local council to check the rules, and councils should take a common-sense approach." So that' doesn't exactly totally clear things up — but there are basic rules that apply broadly, which are then changed depending on the local council situation.
So here's an overview of what rules you need to know about when you're considering investing in permanent air conditioning, so you at least know where you're starting from, and you can look into your area's circumstances from there.
In this article we'll be focusing exclusively on adding domestic air con to an existing residential home that you own. If your home is a leasehold in England you may need to obtain the freeholder's consent in addition to the other criteria.
What kind of home you have mattersThe rules depend very much on what kind of home you have. If you're in a listed building you'll definitely need to apply for listed building consent; if you're in a conservation area, there will be restrictions on changing the appearance of your home, so there will be limits as to where you can place the external unit on the outside of your home.
If your home is neither listed nor in a conservation area, then the rules are largely common sense: under the rules for 'Permitted Developments' you don't need planning permission provided your air con meets some reasonably straightforward technical and location criteria.
The specific criteria are similar across the UK and I've linked to them here:
If you're not sure if your system meets the permitted development criteria, we'd strongly recommend a chat with your local council's planning department: get it wrong and the council can make you remove the system at your own expense. You don't want to make what could be a very expensive mistake.
What are the core rules for home air conditioners in the UK?The basic rules (before you get into conversation areas, and so on) differ depending on the kind of air conditioning you're thinking of installing.
If your air conditioner can heat as well as cool then it's generally allowed under Permitted Development rules under their Class G permissions, which are enforced by your local council on a common-sense basis.
Provided your external condenser unit (the part of an installed air con that goes outdoors) or heat pump isn't too big, too loud, too visible or too close to your neighbours, you don't usually need planning permission.
That's not the case if the air conditioner cools but doesn't also have a heating element. You need planning permission for that, and councils are keen to discourage such installations.
How big can your aircon be in the UK?The Class G permissions allow you to install air con on your property or its "curtilage", which is the land associated with and immediately surrounding it including additional buildings. If you live in a castle the curtilage is anything inside the castle walls; if you're in a semi-detached the curtilage usually means your garden, driveway and garage, if you have one.
Most modern air con systems are Air Source Heat Pumps (ASHP), which means they can both cool and heat the air they take in and expel.
The Class G permissions were revised in 2025 to specifically include the exterior units of ASHPs, and they state that in a permitted development:
- You can have up to two ASHPs on a detached house or bungalow
- If you live in a semi-detached or terraced house, you may only have one ASHP
- If you live in a block of two flats or more, that also limits you to one ASHP
For a terraced, semi-detached or detached house the ASHP must not be bigger than 1.5 cubic metres. For flats the limit is 0.6 cubic metres.
A cubic metre is 1m wide, 1m tall and 1m deep. That's bigger than a freestanding fridge: sizes differ by manufacturer and product, but as an example the outdoor units for Toshiba's current RAS multi-split air conditioners range from 0.12m³ to 0.25m³ with the very largest model coming in at 890 x 900 x 320mm — that fits easily within the house regulations.
What kind of air conditioner can I install?Under Class G your equipment must comply with the Microgeneration Certification Scheme, or MCS for short. The regulations are a bit odd here because while an air source heat pump must comply with the MCS, it doesn't need to have a certificate. The details of the MCS are online here.
Where can I install my air conditioner?The rule preventing you from installing your external unit within 1m of neighbouring properties has been scrapped. However, your installation must not negatively impact your neighbours with noise: the noise level of your external unit cannot exceed 42 decibels measured at one metre from your nearest neighbour's front door or window. MCS-compliant units will not exceed that limit.
You can't install the external unit on a pitched roof, or within a metre of the edge of a flat roof.
If you're not in a conservation area or listed building, you may install the external unit on the front wall provided it's on the ground floor.
If you're in a conservation area you cannot install an external unit on any elevation that faces a highway.
The location of your external unit is where the common-sense criteria come in: the external unit, its cabling and any ducting must be sited in such a way that it is "so far as practicable, sited so as to minimise its effect on the external appearance of the building" and sited "so as to minimise its effect on the amenity of the area".
If you have a wind turbine in your garden you're out of luck: Class G doesn't give permission for any air con installation for properties with a turbine within their curtilage.
Your air con installer will be well aware of the regulations and should be able to ensure that your air con meets all the relevant requirements, but if you have any doubts please do talk to your local council's planning officers, because again you really don't want them to actually have cause to force you to remove it.
What do I do to make sure there aren't special rules in my area?Your council will likely have a whole website dedicated to helping with planning information, including potentially a map showing whether your home is included in any conservation areas, and what the specific orders around those areas are, so you can work out whether they'd affect air con installation.
If not, or if it's still unclear, you council will have a system for enquiries around planning permission, so you can ask if what you're planning needs a permit without going through the process — and it means that if you need one, they can tell you exactly what's needed.
Star Wars: Galactic Racer is utter joy in racing game form, and its depth, run-based structure, and deep vehicle customization options are going to keep me occupied for hours on end.
It was the game that made me grin from ear to ear the quickest out of all that I saw at Summer Game Fest 2026, and I am so excited for it. As soon as I took control of a racer and was on the starting grid, I was immediately smiling, and soon after, laughing to (or at?) myself — it really was that quick.
Blending some really excellent Burnout-style racing game features, with a level of depth and customisation that can get frankly mind-boggling, with the excellence that is Star Wars lore and settings, it has all the ingredients to be a hit this year.
Feel the burn(Image credit: Fuse Games)At the core of Galactic Racer is its Burnout-inspired racing experience, and let me tell you, this is fantastic.
The racers, be they landspeeders, speeder bikes, or podracers, on offer all have their own style, way of handling, and moves to master, and the team at developer Fuse Games has even added a brand-new vehicle to the roster — a whole new addition to the Star Wars universe — the Skim speeder.
Races feel intense and can get very enjoyable and chaotic very quickly. Collisions are not only a danger to you but can be of great benefit, allowing you to muscle your way through for track position or remove them from the equation entirely, so there’s always a balance to be had between taking evasive action or just going on the charge to create havoc.
The courses I tried were absurdly fun too, full of different routes to take, and plenty of opportunity for overtakes or other ways to try and gain an advantage over your competitors, crashing into your foes, and deploying skills. From inputting a series of button presses to get a bonus off the starting grid, which is a satisfying mini-game, to perhaps what is one of the best in-race features of slow-mo crashes of one of your foes — or yourself, which is amusing every time — each race is filled with moments of fun and a high overall level of sheer excitement.
It’s also incredibly beautifully realized, both on the track and off it: characters and cars look excellent, and the environments and race tracks, even though they’re passing at a high speed, are wonderfully detailed and evoke the style of Star Wars’ planets brilliantly.
The options are endless(Image credit: Lucasfilm / Secret Mode)Where Star Wars: Galactic Racer offers depth, however, is in, well, everywhere else: from in-race synergies between your vehicle and the environment, to the narrative, and to the amount of customisation and part combinations you can engage with, the game looks to be as deep as a Sarlacc is long.
The story here is about your racer’s rise through the ranks and is implemented in a runs-based, branching way where you pick the route of your races that are the map of your and the story’s progress. You can pick a route that’s higher risk-reward, or pick something safer to progress.
When it comes to how you can build, craft, augment, and customize your racer, we get into some serious depth. I was told by the devs at SGF that they think there are a number of vehicle part combinations that are in the order of ‘trillions’ in the game simply due to how many different things you can combine with other different things, from durability to boosts, from handling to abilities.
(Image credit: Fuse Games)This gets further augmented by the fact that you can build specific racers for specific worlds, tracks, and conditions. Need a racer that won’t get slowed down by water? Check. Want to sacrifice durability to perhaps invest in a build which runs extremely hot for speed, but then rely on a racetrack’s water courses to cool it down? Absolutely.
The synergies between a racer’s parts and between a racer and the environments make the build possibilities seemingly endless.
As a result, Star Wars: Galactic Racer has shot up my list of anticipated games for the rest of the year, and I can’t wait for lights out when the game releases on October 6 this year, on PS5, Xbox Series X and Series S, and PC to dive further into everything it offers.
- A user got bugged to verify their identity on their new iPhone
- They shouldn’t have needed to, as their local laws didn't require this
- The culprit was their iPhone, which was imported from the UK
Apple has just jacked up its prices across the board, and while the iPhone is safe for now, many users are wondering if it’s only a matter of time before Apple’s best iPhones feel the weight of price rises. If that sounds familiar, you might have snapped up a second-hand iPhone in a bid to get ahead of the game — but that could leave you falling foul of an annoying, unforeseen consequence.
That’s exactly what happened to Reddit user, who said that their new iPhone was forcing them to verify their age, despite the fact that they live in Bulgaria, an EU country where age verification is not required by law.
Understandably, they were reluctant to upload their ID documents, describing the process as a “huge privacy black hole.” But due to their refusal to do so, they were unable to access “certain types of content, social apps, GTA games and other things I paid for.” As they put it, “Content and privacy restrictions, scanning my chats, FaceTime calls and photos in gallery are forced upon me without my will and consent.”
The case seems to be a confusing one, as Bulgarian users are not subject to ID verification laws that mandate them to confirm their age before accessing certain apps and services. But there is one nearby country that does have laws like this, and it proved to be the key to unlocking the mystery.
Check the model number(Image credit: Future | Alex Walker-Todd)The UK has enacted laws that necessitate users to verify their identities in order to access certain apps and services on their devices, with the stated aim of protecting children from online harms. But the regulations — specifically the Online Safety Act — has caused much controversy among privacy advocates and has resulted in a surge of angry users downloading the best VPNs to protect their identities and sidestep the requirements.
Back on Reddit, the age verification mystery was solved when the Redditor discovered where their iPhone originally came from. This is something you can find in the Settings app by going to General > About and looking in the Model Number section.
The iPhone's model was MFYP4QN/A and this contains several clues about its origin. For example, "MFYP4" refers to the iPhone 17 Pro Max in Deep Blue with 256GB of storage. The “QN” part of the code, meanwhile, relates to the regions where this model is sold: “Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Iceland, United Kingdom, Israel.”
In other words, although the Redditor bought their iPhone in Bulgaria, the device was likely imported from the UK. As a fellow Redditor noted, there is no official Apple presence in Bulgaria, making an import the probable answer. As they put it, “If it is a UK model, it will behave like a UK model” — which would explain why the device was asking the user to verify their identity, even though local Bulgarian laws did not require that to be done.
With different regions enforcing different privacy and age verification laws, the risk — as demonstrated on Reddit — is that you can buy a second-hand iPhone in a country that doesn’t compel you to confirm your identity, yet still get forced to do so by an imported iPhone. It’s all a bit of a mess.
If you’re thinking of buying a used iPhone and you’re at all able to check it in person, make sure you note down its model number first in the Settings app. As explained by The Apple Wiki, if the code contains the letters B, KN, QN, Z, ZD, ZF or ZM just before the forward slash — for example, MFYP4ZD/A — then it might be a UK device and therefore might act as if it is governed by UK laws, regardless of where you bought it. And that could have big consequences if you’re not prepared.
- Reacher season 4 is coming to Prime Video in mid-August
- All episodes of new spin-off show Neagley will drop after the former's finale, too
- Many fans had assumed it would arrive prior to Reacher 4
Reacher season 4 finally has a release date on Prime Video — and we don't have long to wait for its debut. Indeed, the hugely successful Amazon TV Original's next entry will premiere on Wednesday, August 12, which is a little over a month away at the time of publication.
We don't have a trailer for the forthcoming installment yet, but we've received some other exciting news alongside Reacher 4's launch date in the form of new spin-off series Neagley, which is also arriving soon.
Focusing on fan-favorite character Frances Neagley, the off-shoot's story is set after the events of Reacher season 3, so you'd think it would drop prior to Reacher's next season, wouldn't you? Not so, because Neagley won't released until Wednesday, September 16 — i.e. the day that the Reacher season 4 finale also comes out.
We're really jumping around the timeline here, but I'm sure long-time fans of the show will be happy to get a double dose of Reacher goodness anyway.
What do we know about Reacher season 4?(Image credit: Amazon Prime Video)Plot-wise, Reacher season 4 adapts the 13th novel in Lee Child's Jack Reacher book series, which is titled Gone Tomorrow. In it, the eponymous all-action hero witnesses a suicide that pulls him into a huge, multi-layered conspiracy. We can expect undercover terrorists, local police, the FBI, and more when the show returns for a gripping new story.
The forthcoming season won't be this series' last, either, because Reacher season 5 was renewed by Prime Video last month. So, we can expect even more from the hugely popular thriller series down the road.
Reacher season 3 became Prime Video's biggest returning show last year and has quite the dedicated fanbase. It will be interesting to see how Neagley performs in comparison, then, especially if Amazon has ambitions on making even more off-shoots.
Early last month, when I was planning this half-year look at the best laptops that have so far been released in 2026, it was easy for me to pick the number one spot: the MacBook Neo.
Launched in March for $599 / £599 / AU$899, it was a shot across the bows of other laptop and Chromebook makers, as Apple showed that you could have a stylish and well-built budget laptop that didn’t have to feel cheap.
Sure, there were compromises, such as the 8GB of memory and slow USB ports, but those were easily forgiven thanks to such an affordable price — especially when so much of the MacBook Neo puts similarly priced budget laptops to shame.
However, at the end of June, Apple announced a Neo price increase, taking it up to $699 / £699 / AU$1,049. While that’s not the biggest price rise in a world that, at the moment, seems to be full of them, it’s enough to make the MacBook Neo less of an easy recommendation. Suddenly, all those compromises are harder to accept.
The MacBook Neo still earns a spot in this list, however, due to the huge influence it’s had on the laptop market. Since its launch, I’ve seen numerous laptop makers, including Acer and Dell, release products directly aimed at challenging the MacBook Neo; offering slim and stylish designs, strong performance and screens, all for around the Neo's original $599 / £599 / AU$899 price. While Apple has raised the price of the MacBook Neo, many of those new challengers haven’t — yet — done the same, which makes them even better value in comparison.
Now, it’s probably inevitable that those new MacBook Neo rivals will eventually increase in price too (thanks, AI, for gobbling up all the RAM and making price rises an everyday reality for a lot of tech). However, due to the variety of Windows 11 laptops available and where they’re sold compared to MacBooks, if you shop around you should find prices remain relatively competitive.
So, Apple might have just inspired its rivals to make better, and cheaper, alternatives. That might not be great for Apple, but for us consumers, it certainly is. So, as we’re at the halfway point of the year, let’s look at the five best — or most influential — laptops that have been released so far in 2026.
5. HP OmniBook 7 Aero- Reviewed: February 2026
- Rating: 4.5/5
The HP OmniBook 7 Aero is a brilliant example of how Windows laptops are looking to beat Apple at its own game. The HP OmniBook 7 Aero is a thin, light and stylish laptop, with a capable AMD AI 5 or AI 7 CPU, integrated graphics, and a starting RAM configuration of 16GB, plus a 512GB SSD.
It launched at $949.99 / £649 (around AU$1,420), undercutting the MacBook Air and even (in the UK) the MacBook Neo after the price rise. For such a nicely designed laptop, this price is incredibly good value.
In our review we were impressed with the clear, bright, and vibrant screen and huge 26 hour battery life. Depending on the tasks you use it for, this laptop could go for multiple work or school days on a single charge, which is seriously impressive. It even manages to play games, such as Cyberpunk 2077, and while you certainly wouldn’t want to buy it as a gaming laptop, it shows how far Windows laptops, and the mobile components they use, have come in recent years.
4. Razer Blade 18 (2026)- Reviewed: June 2026
- Rating: 4.5/5
This year’s Razer Blade 18 is another hit from the gaming laptop pros, which my colleague Christian Guyton, in his review, claimed "annihilates the competition". It features cutting edge mobile components such as an Intel Core Ultra 9 275HX or Intel Core Ultra 9 290HX Plus, Nvidia RTX 5070 Ti – RTX 5090 laptop GPUs, up to 128GB of RAM and a stunning 18-inch Dual UHD+ 240Hz / FHD+ 440Hz screen, which allows you to switch between resolutions to get even higher refresh rates. All of this is packed into a slim and stylish body that once again proves that gaming laptops don’t need to be big and bulky these days.
Gaming-wise, it’s a beast, hitting up to 160fps when playing Cyberpunk 2077, and 218fps with Shadow of the Tomb Raider. Basically, it’ll handle any modern game you throw at it, and allow you to play at 4K resolution and the highest of settings. Its battery life — often the Achilles’ heel of gaming laptops — is pretty impressive, hitting almost eight and a half hours in our tests.
What’s the catch? Well, there’s the price, starting at a whopping $3,499.99 / £3,299.99 (around AU$4,870), but going up to $6,999.99 (around £5,200 / AU$9,735) for the highest specification. Ouch.
Razer’s devices are premium products, and when you combine that with some of the most powerful components you can get, and the ongoing memory crisis driving up prices, you end up with a brilliant laptop that’s wildly expensive. It’s a brilliant investment if you can afford it, it’s just a shame so few of us can.
3. Apple MacBook Neo- Reviewed: March 2026
- Rating: 4.5/5
As I mentioned earlier, if I’d written this article before Apple’s price rises, the MacBook Neo would probably be number one in this list. When it launched, it really was a game-changer. It proved that affordable laptops could still feel premium, with exceptional build quality, modern features and solid performance.
Unlike other recent MacBooks, the Neo is powered by the A18 Pro chip (which powered the iPhone 16 Pro), rather than Apple’s more powerful M-series chips. Compared to chips found in budget Windows 11 laptops and Chromebooks, the A18 Pro proved impressive on test, handling regular macOS apps with ease.
It's possible to use an iPad as a second screen, and see your iPhone’s messages and answer calls all from the desktop — features we’ve come to expect from more expensive MacBooks. The bright and vibrant screen makes a mockery of other cheap laptops that often feature dim, low resolution screens, to keep down prices.
When it first launched, this budget laptop (from a brand that’s more associated with luxury devices), which undercut and outperformed the competition, was a surefire hit. Apple has commented about how well the Neo sold, and even more importantly, it seemed to light a fire underneath many of its competitors. Not only was the MacBook Neo one of the best laptops of 2026, it was one of the most impactful.
What a difference $100 / £100 makes. While the new price doesn’t completely undermine the MacBook Neo’s value proposition, it makes it harder to recommend to everyone.
It makes some of Apple’s compromises to keep the price down, particularly the rather paltry 8GB of memory, slow USB speeds (it has two USB-C ports, but uses older USB 3.0 and the practically ancient USB 2 technology) and lack of a backlit keyboard, much harder to justify as well.
Worse, those competitors that Apple ‘inspired’ are fighting back. Acer’s Swift Air 14 (2026) will launch at the same original price of the Neo, with a great-looking display, and an Intel Core Series 3 processor. An Acer employee I spoke to at Computex 2026 was particularly pleased to point out that the Swift Air has faster USB-C ports than the Neo, an extra USB-A port and is thinner and lighter as well. The fact that it’s also now cheaper spells trouble for Apple, and it’s why the MacBook Neo has slipped down in my ranking.
2. Samsung Galaxy Book6 Ultra- Rating: 4.5/5
- Reviewed: February 2026
I’ll be honest: I was torn between putting the Samsung Galaxy Book6 Ultra or the MacBook Air (M5) in this spot. The reason I went for Samsung’s ultrabook in the end is that while the latest MacBook Air is undoubtedly a fantastic device (it sits atop our best laptops list for a reason), it’s also a bit… well… boring. It’s a simple spec update to the M5 chip, with no new design flourishes, but a new, higher price (which has since risen even higher after Apple’s price hikes).
The Samsung Galaxy Book6 Ultra, on the other hand, feels a lot more ambitious. Samsung's laptops have never particularly impressed me, but with the Galaxy Book series, that’s changed.
As with Samsung's Galaxy phones and tablets, Galaxy Book laptops are high-end, premium devices, and as the name suggests, the Samsung Galaxy Book6 Ultra is the pinnacle of this. It’s thin, light and powerful (especially if you go for the option with a dedicated Nvidia RTX 5070 GPU), and with a strong battery life of over 15 hours, this is a great choice for anyone seeking a stylish workstation laptop that can handle heavy duty tasks such as 3D modeling.
Its AMOLED screen is also stunning, and easily one of the best displays you can get on a laptop (another category that Apple was once untouchable in).
What I really like about the Galaxy Book6 Ultra is how Samsung has been working on integrating its ecosystem of devices, so its laptops, earbuds, smartphones, and tablets can all work nicely together. It leads to some very Apple-like features, such as the ability to use a Samsung Galaxy Tab tablet as a second screen for the Samsung Galaxy Book6 Ultra, simply by moving the devices close together.
It’s not quite as seamless as Apple’s implementation, mainly because Samsung doesn’t make the software its products run on (Windows and Android), but it’s come a huge way. If you have a few Samsung devices, the Samsung Galaxy Book6 Ultra is particularly great, then, but even if you don’t, this is still a brilliant laptop that’s doing new things, not just resting on its laurels.
1. Dell XPS 16 (2026)- Rating: 4.5/5
- Reviewed: May 2026
The Dell XPS 16 is a remarkable laptop for many reasons. It’s a beautifully crafted device with a stunning OLED screen, as well as premium — and powerful — components, and it’s a great showcase for how good Windows 11 laptops can be.
It’s also noteworthy for bringing the XPS lineup back with a bang. Last year, Dell made the baffling decision to drop its XPS branding. It was one of the few product names outside of Apple that had mainstream recognition, and had long been associated with Dell’s most premium laptops. Thankfully, Dell realized its mistake and has resurrected the XPS brand for 2026, and the new Dell XPS 16 makes a fantastic statement: XPS is back, and it’s better than ever.
In our review, we gushed over this laptop's slimline design and high resolution OLED display, whilst also praising its performance. Powered by an Intel Core Ultra X7 358H, which has an Arc B390 integrated GPU, the Dell XPS 16 can handle demanding tasks, and even a spot of gaming. Battery life is also superb, with the Dell XPS 16 (2026) lasting well over 17 hours in our tests.
It’s pricey, but the quality on offer helps justify the investment. Welcome back, XPS. You’ve been missed.
We are officially halfway through 2026 — how did that happen??? — but the world's best streaming services aren't letting up on the new movies and TV shows front.
Indeed, this week's selection might be on the smaller side, but every entry we've rounded up below is definitely worthy of your time. Quality over quantity, and all of that jazz. So, what are you waiting for? Read on to find out what your next must-see film or TV series is. — Tom Power, senior entertainment reporter
X-Men 97 season 2 (Disney+)Get ready to hum and air-drum along to that iconic theme tune, Marvel fans, because X-Men 97 is back for its sophomore season on Disney+.
Picking up directly after X-Men 97 season 1's finale, the highly-rated animated X-Men TV show finds the world-famous mutants scattered across time as they all attempt to avert the same crisis. That being, the world falling under the totalitarian rule of the immortal superhuman known as Apocalypse.
X-Men 97 season 2's first three episodes are out now, and you'll be able to see one new entry of this Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) adjacent project every week for the foreseeable future. So, grab a bowl of cereal, throw on your favorite pajamas, and settle in for some more Saturday morning cartoon-style fun... well, in-between all of the weeping that X-Men 97 season 2 will make you do, anyway. — TP
Enola Holmes 3 (Netflix)Who's ready for another round of Victorian era whimsy and detectiving (yes, that's a word, look it up)? If you raise your hand, you'll be happy to know that Enola Holmes 3 has made its debut on Netflix.
This time around, a spanner is thrown in the works of the titular character's impending wedding to Lord Tewkesbury. The reason? Her more famous cousin Sherlock has been kidnapped. Way to spoil her upcoming nupitals, Mister World's Greatest Detective...
Millie Bobby Brown, Henry Cavill, Helen Bonham Carter, Louis Partridge, and Hamish Patel are among the movie's starry returning ensemble. So, don't delay — load up Netflix because the case is afoot! — TP
Elle (Prime Video)Fictional lawyer Elle Woods is a pop culture sensation and now she's got her own Prime Video series.
Before Legally Blonde comes Elle, a prequel set in 1995 where our upbeat, pink-loving protagonist tries to navigate the tumultuous waters of high school. A tagline for the Amazon TV Original teases that it's even harder than law school was, and we'll soon learn why across this eight-part season.
Here, Lexi Minetree steps into the eponymous character's glamorous shoes, following on from Reece Witherspoon in the original movie. Our entertainment reporter Jasmine Valentine gave Elle a glowing review, but what will you think of the prequel? — Lucy Buglass, senior entertainment writer
Lee Cronin's The Mummy (HBO Max)Not to be confused with the Brendan Fraser-led movie of the same name, Lee Cronin's The Mummy is one of a few new horror movies arriving on HBO Max this month.
In it, we follow a family who is reunited with Katie, their long-missing and now mummified daughter. They soon realize something's wrong with her and what follows is a jump scare heavy, incredibly bloody, and divisive supernatural flick.
You may need to suspend your disbelief for this one, but if you're in need of a good scare this weekend, it definitely does the job. — LB
Ready or Not 2 (Hulu/Disney+)Ready or Not 2: Here I Come was not a sequel I had anticipated and, in my Ready or Not 2 review, I was certainly on the fence about it.
The sequel, which is out now on Hulu (US) and Disney+ (everywhere else), is fortunately saved by its star power, and it's particularly great to see Sarah Michelle Gellar loving every moment of the character she plays. Here, she's part of an aristocratic group of individuals with murder on their minds, who hunt down Grace (Samara Weaving) and her sister Faith (Kathryn Newton) as part of a high-stakes ritual. — LB
- Watch Ready or Not 2: Here I Come on Hulu (US) and Disney+ (internationally)
It's time to literally unearth more secrets at the heart of this critically-acclaimed Apple TV Original.
Indeed, with Silo back for its third and penultimate episode, the Rebecca Ferguson-led dystopian drama must start giving viewers the answers that they seek. Thankfully, Silo season 3 does just that, with its separate timelines — one of which is set centuries before the Earth's surface became uninhabitable — starting to pull back the curtain on its wider mystery.
This season's first episode has gone live on Apple's streaming platform. New episodes will air weekly, too, so prepare yourself for nine more weeks of twists, turns, betrayals, and other shocks aplenty. — TP
Worst Neighbor Ever (Netflix)Finally, Netflix has a new spin-off for their Worst Ever documentary series. We've seen worst exes and worst roommates, and now we're taking a look at the neighbors from hell.
There's harassment, paranoia and, even murder across its four episodes, which features insights from local law enforcement and those involved in the neighborly disputes that got way out of hand, often ending in irreparable hurt and damage.
You won't believe some of these stories, but they're 100% true and among the most shocking you'll find in Netflix's true crime library. — LB
- SAP is cutting travel spend on refocusing on AI-related hiring
- Company shares are down 46% in 12 months over software concerns
- Redeploying existing workers is a priority over laying off more employees
SAP is reportedly revising how it spends money to free up more money for its AI strategy, with a new internal memo seen by Bloomberg seemingly confirming the company's intentions to restrict new hiring, pause internal travel and reduce other spend related to suppliers.
It's believed the company will still continue hiring across certain AI roles, showing a shift toward AI engineers, researchers and other specialists, but other roles will likely see a slowdown or pause.
The company told employees that AI is reshaping enterprise software, so targeting investment to keep it competitive long-term would be crucial.
SAP redirects internal spend to focus on AIAccording to the report, citing an internal email, company travel unrelated to AI projects and customer relations has been suspended. The company also wants to redeploy existing workers to plug new gaps, rather than firing and rehiring. SAP laid off around 12,000 workers between 2023 and 2024.
"We are prioritizing investments in AI-related capabilities, talent, and technologies while applying greater discipline to hiring, external spending, and internal travel," a company spokesperson said.
"I don’t expect to operate with a smaller work force, but with a very, very different work force," CEO Christian Klein had previously told the New York Time (via Investing.com), implying that jobs would continue to evolve.
Despite posting a 6% increase in its most recent quarter's revenue, SAP shares have dropped around 46% over the past 12 months amid concerns that its software business might face longevity struggles amid the ongoing AI boom.
The business case for running things on-premise has always started with control.
Host it yourself, keep the data in your environment, avoid vendor lock-in. It's a reasonable instinct, and for a long time it was a reasonable answer.
The gap between what you could run internally and what was available externally was manageable. On-premise was a defensible choice.
AI is changing that.
The build-it-yourself case ignores almost everything that comes after: the people required to keep things running as AI models evolve, the license fees and compute costs that compound as the landscape shifts, the upgrade cycles that never quite arrive on schedule, and the work required to unpick decisions made against a technology landscape that looked completely different six months ago.
None of these costs are hidden, exactly. They're just easy to ignore when the initial business case is about build cost.
You can run AI on-premise - just not the best AIThe frontier models - the ones getting most of the headlines - can't be self-hosted. Their providers don't make them available for private deployment.
What you can license and run internally is constantly improving, but so is the frontier. Anthropic alone released over a dozen Claude models in under two years, and they're far from the only provider.
Self-hosting means slow release cycles. Upgrades are expensive and disruptive, so firms stay on versions longer than they should. The same is true of the hardware underneath.
Specialized AI chips go out of date fast. New GPU generations arrive every couple of years, each meaningfully better than the last, and each requiring fresh capital investment. Your model is behind, the silicon it's running on is behind, and upgrading either is a major project.
Models, licenses, infrastructure, tooling, people - none of it follows a predictable refresh cycle. In the current environment, "out of date" can mean within months. Each round of investment is made under pressure, with limited time to evaluate options properly.
The talent drainTo build and run AI tools on-premise, you need engineers who aren't working on what actually differentiates your business. They're keeping up with the AI. Tweaking tools as models evolve. Troubleshooting when things break. Managing the infrastructure. Evaluating new model releases as they come out.
When it comes to data processing and reconciliation, these things are required but they're not differentiating. They need to work, but significant engineering time spent on them won't give you an edge. It's expensive maintenance of something that isn't your business.
As the internal environment expands and the technology ages, the headcount required to manage it grows. These are expensive specialists, and most of what they do doesn't move the business forward.
Why AI belongs in a cloud-native worldThe argument for cloud-native AI isn't really about cloud computing. It's about whether your architecture can keep pace with a technology that's moving faster than any internal release cycle can match.
In a cloud-native world, new model capabilities arrive as features, not projects. When something better appears at the frontier, the platform absorbs it. The compliance conversation doesn't restart. The security review doesn't go back to zero. The engineering team doesn't have to rebuild anything. The capability lands, and your operations team can use it the same day.
The control argument that drove firms to on-premise in the first place still matters - but it's no longer in tension with cloud-native deployment. Permissions, audit trails, governance, data sovereignty: all of it can be enforced just as rigorously in a properly architected cloud-native platform, often more so. The trade-off has shifted. Control no longer requires standing still.
The firms that recognize this early get a head start. Their engineers focus on what differentiates the business. Their operations teams get better tooling every quarter without a procurement cycle. The question of "are we keeping up?" stops being one anyone has to ask.
What changes when you work with a trusted partnerShifting the burden of building, maintaining, securing and testing to a specialist partner means your resources stay focused where they should be, and your capability evolves with the market.
Platforms built on infrastructure like AWS Bedrock are designed to absorb new model capabilities as they emerge - including the frontier models that can't be self-hosted at all. The underlying architecture keeps pace so the firms using it don't have to.
When a better model becomes available, the platform adapts. No new project, no additional engineers, no unravelling months of integration work. Operations teams focus on what they're there to do.
Engineers focus on the things that differentiate the firm. And the question of "are we running the right model?" stops being a quarterly investment committee discussion and starts being a setting someone flips.
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- Sony is already repurposing its Austrian disc-making factory
- It's the only physical media plant of Sony's that's left
- Existing staff will be retained to work with micro optics
We're still reeling from Sony's announcement earlier this week that it will stop releasing PlayStation games on physical discs from the start of 2028 — and now there's news that Sony's last remaining physical media factory is already being repurposed.
According to ORF Salzburg (via The Verge and Google Translate), production at the Austrian plant is going to drop to around 10% of its current levels by 2028. The factory currently makes 600,000 blank Blu-rays every day (half of which are used for PlayStation games), and Sony has made some 26.4 billion discs in total across its sites.
The existing 300 staff are going to be kept on though, as per Dietmar Tanzer, CEO of Sony DADC (Digital Audio Disc Corporation). They'll be retrained in micro optics — squeezing optical components into the smallest spaces possible.
Instead of discs, the plant's assembly lines will be producing optical microlenses instead. One of the uses of these elements mentioned in the report is for projecting car turning signals on to the street surface, but there are a multitude of potential applications.
'We own nothing now'This will become an increasingly rare sight (Image credit: Future)The report also quotes Markus Streibl, head of Micro Optics at Sony DADC, who says that the company recently invested €30 million (about $34 million / £26 million / AU$49 million) in the tech as it looks to develop this part of its business.
As spotted by The Verge, there's evidence that the plant in Austria has been making microlenses since at least as far back as 2024. These small components are actually produced on discs, so there'll be some crossover in terms of equipment and processes.
While Sony seems immediately ready to move on and look to the future, many of us are having a less easy time moving on: gamers are promising to quit the PlayStation platform over concerns about what these means for game ownership ("we literally own nothing now" was a comment left by one disgruntled user).
The news has tempered some of the excitement around the opening up of GTA 6 pre-orders, and it also means the PlayStation 6 is highly unlikely to have a disc drive built in. Sony has also announced the closure of the PS3 and Vita stores at the same time.
- India is reportedly working on new VPN regulations
- Companies could be forced to establish an office in the country
- VPNs found workaround to previous restrictions
India is working on an expansive new legal framework to clamp down on virtual private networks (VPNs), with proposals reportedly including mandatory local offices, designated compliance officers, and even prison terms for non-compliance.
According to The Indian Express, the upcoming rules aim to make VPN providers legally liable when citizens use their tools to circumvent government-mandated content blocks.
"In the last few months, we have been observing that users are able to bypass content, accounts, and online services that have been blocked by the government on various grounds by using VPN services," an anonymous senior government official told reporters.
This new set of rules is also seen as necessary, officials admitted, as the controversial data retention law enforced in 2022 by the Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In) has proved to be unsuccessful.
The directive legally requires VPN firms, data centers, and cloud providers to log sensitive user information — including real names, verified IP addresses, and usage patterns — for up to five years, and surrender it to authorities upon request.
Yet, major VPN companies, including the likes of ExpressVPN, NordVPN, Hide.me, Surfshark, and Proton VPN, found a simple way to avoid compliance — removing their physical servers from the country.
"They have simply refused to comply. So, the need for a full-fledged law is being felt," the senior official told The Indian Express.
What's at stake for India's VPN users?Beyond encrypting user data to boost privacy and security, virtual private networks (VPNs) spoof IP addresses, allowing users to bypass local, state-enforced geo-restrictions.
This capability has become critical for local internet users. Last month, India experienced a massive spike in VPN downloads after the government temporarily blocked the messaging app Telegram due to concerns over exam fraud.
Just weeks earlier, the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) ordered VPN firms to actively block access to the decentralized prediction platform Polymarket, threatening legal repercussions if they refused.
The proposed framework aims to hand New Delhi the necessary legal teeth to force VPN providers into enforcing these content bans on the government's behalf. Digital rights groups frequently criticize India's aggressive approach to censorship; according to data trackers, the country consistently leads the world in government-imposed internet shutdowns.
While specific details of the draft framework remain scarce, leaked proposals suggest that offshore VPN companies will be required to establish a physical corporate presence in India and appoint local compliance officers to act as direct government liaisons.
Criminal penalties for non-compliance are also on the table, including potential prison sentences for local employees if an order is ignored.
(Image credit: Shutterstock)However, serious questions remain over how authorities plan to enforce these rules. For many global VPN providers, simply keeping their physical servers outside of Indian borders has previously been enough to circumvent local jurisdiction.
It is also unlikely that premium, strict no-logs services will fundamentally alter their server infrastructure to comply with New Delhi's demands — especially after resisting a similar ultimatum four years ago.
Dr. Pete Membrey, Chief Research Officer at ExpressVPN, pointed back to the company's 2022 decision to become the first major provider to pull its physical servers from India, confirming that its stance remains.
"We’ll evaluate when a proposal is published," Membrey told TechRadar, adding that "ExpressVPN will continue to work hard to keep users connected to the open and free internet, no matter where they are located."
A Surfshark spokesperson also said that the company remains committed to upholding the privacy of its users.
TechRadar reached out to India's Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) and CERT-In for further clarification on the draft framework and an expected enforcement timeline. Neither agency responded prior to publication.