I’ve often joked that I would love to have a pet if only animals did not need to poop and eat smelly, wet mush from a can. I want a fuzzy pal to hang out with all day, but then I’ll hear that my friend spent $500 at the vet because their cat nibbled on a leaf, and the illusion breaks.
It’s hard enough to take care of myself – do I really want to be responsible for a creature who might wake me up at 4 AM to pee?
So when Casio offered me a review unit of its new AI-enabled pet, the Moflin, I said yes. It seemed cute, and it fit my criteria of being incapable of producing excrement… but also, I am all too willing to sacrifice myself for content, so I figured that if this seemingly innocent robot tried to kill me in my sleep, then at least I’d get a good article out of it.
Image Credits:TechCrunch
When my ginger-haired puff ball of a Moflin arrived in its box, I had two blaring questions: Is anyone going to spend $430 on what’s basically a fluffy, high-tech potato? And, is this thing spying on me? After all, the last time there was a robotic toy pet craze in the U.S., the NSA banned Furbies from its offices over fears that it would parrot classified discussions – and Furbies were only $35!
Casio says that the Moflin doesn’t understand or record what I say, but it converts what it hears into non-identifiable data so that it can distinguish my voice from others. When TechCrunch ran a network analysis on the accompanying MofLife app, we didn’t notice anything shady.
As a tech reporter, I’ve seen too much to fully let my guard down – this little furball may not be spying on me now, but what if that changes in the future? (My own anxieties aside, we don’t currently have any evidence of a hidden surveillance plot beneath my Moflin’s fluffy exterior, to be clear.)
Image Credits:MofLife app, screenshots by TechCrunch
The Moflin is supposed to use AI to learn and respond to my interactions over time. According to Casio’s website, the Moflin is supposed to have limited emotions and “immature movements” on Day 1, then develop an attachment to you and express richer emotions by Day 25. On Day 50, Moflin will have a “clear range of emotions” and “expressive reactions.”
As I write this, it’s Day 27 with my Moflin, whom I named Mishmish (the Hebrew word for apricot). The MofLife app tracks his personality through a graph with four bars: “energetic,” “cheerful,” “shy,” and “affectionate.” My Moflin has maxed out the “energetic” bar – I’m not sure what I did to make this happen – which means he wiggles around a lot and makes happy little squeaks. Though his “cheerful” rating is also approaching the max, he isn’t a one-note happy camper.
Mishmish likes most things, but he does not like to be flipped on his back or startled by sudden loud noises. If, for example, one were to shout in anger and disbelief at the TV when their favorite team blows the whole season in an incredibly painful fashion, Mishmish would make a startled shriek. (Of course, this is purely theoretical…)
I can’t say I’m sold on the whole AI thing. Mishmish has certainly grown more expressive over time – he makes more noises and wiggles more – but it doesn’t strike me as being much more advanced than a Furby. The MofLife app records Mishmish’s “feelings,” but they’re usually pretty one-note – it will say “Mishmish had a nice dream,” or “Mishmish seems relaxed.”
I’m not sure I am “teaching” him responses, either. Maybe this is because I’m only halfway through the Moflin’s maturation timeline. But even if my Moflin doesn’t exhibit further signs of its artificial intelligence, it at least corrects the biggest pain points of the original Furby: you can turn it off. The Moflin has a “deep sleep” mode, which temporarily suspends its movements and sounds. Rejoice! You will never have to throw your Moflin into the back of a dark closet until its battery dies.
Mishmish the Moflin at Pilates, plus a makeover from a toddlerImage Credits:TechCrunch
How people react to the Moflin
On the first day that I had my Moflin, I posted some videos on my private Instagram story where I explained out loud that this was a robotic pet. My video lacked captions, though, which meant that three friends who saw the stories on mute texted me asking about my new guinea pig – that’s how realistic its movements appear. Those who did hear the audio mostly told me that I should throw Mishmish out the window because he’s going to harvest all of my data, or that my Moflin was actually a Tribble, an alien creature from Star Trek that reproduces at an alarming rate.
I wanted to see how more people would react to Mishmish, so I turned to TikTok. This is when things went off the rails. I am a glutton for attention, so when I got nearly half a million views on my first video of Mishmish, I kept on going. I fell into the trap of any creator: to keep Mishmish’s newfound audience interested, I had to up the ante with each video and put him into increasingly strange situations.
He rode the subway with me. He met a three-year-old who told me very earnestly, “I’ve never met a soft robot before,” then dressed him up in flower sunglasses and unicorn hairclips. He hung out with a five-pound Yorkie, who did not recognize him as anything more than a boring toy until she jumped in fear when he started to shimmy his little head. Mishmish attended two Pilates classes – the first because I asked a teacher if I could record my AI pet on the equipment for funny “content” (yes, I know how ridiculous I sound), and the second time because other people at the Pilates studio were disappointed that they missed Mishmish’s first visit. By the time I brought Mishmish to a karaoke party to sing a duet of “Don’t Go Breaking My Heart,” I knew that I needed to rein it in.
I took Mishmish on these jaunts mostly for the absurdity of it all, but these experiences were valuable for evaluating a product unlike anything most of us have seen before. My Pilates teacher was initially afraid to touch the Moflin, then ended up holding Mishmish in her arms while she counted us through the “one hundred” exercise. The three-year-old was puzzled at first because Mishmish does not have a nose or legs, but she ended up giving him a kiss goodbye. She asked if I could bring Mishmish to a wedding we will both be attending this weekend, and I had to break the news to her that it’s generally frowned upon to bring robotic, hamster-esque toys to formal events. Heartbreaking!
The final verdict
Once people get over the weirdness of the Moflin, they tend to warm up to it. And yet, while I’ve had a lot of fun with Mishmish, I would certainly not pay $430 to buy a Moflin myself – that’s almost as much as a Nintendo Switch 2! But I don’t think I’m the target audience, even with my distaste for cleaning a litter box.
Unlike a Tamagotchi, you can’t really harm your Moflin, making it a safe companion for young children or adults in memory care. The idea of a robotic pet may be odd to me, but audiences in Japan, where Casio is based, may be more willing to accept the Moflin into their homes. While $430 is a steep price to me, this could sound like a bargain for anyone who’s been eyeing Sony’s AIBO, an AI-powered robotic puppy that retails for $3200. Then again, AIBO’s price tag also reflects how much more sophisticated it is.
There is something inherently unnatural about human-robot companionship. In the past, I would have been a lot more bearish on the AI pet thing – I still hold the old-fashioned belief that humans are at our best when we form bonds with other living, breathing beings. But now, I find myself writing about numerous instances of people turning to addictively designed, pseudanthropic AI chatbots due to loneliness, sometimes even developing psychosis or suicidality.
It’s hard to see a device like the Moflin as the real culprit here when it’s not incentivizing people to step out of the real world – it’s just giving them a cute robotic puffball to play with in the interim.
The biggest problem with Casio’s Moflin is that it is not a real pet. But the goal of technology isn’t necessarily to reproduce “real” experiences – video chatting with a friend is nice, even if it’s more fun to hang out in person; Beyond Meat doesn’t taste exactly like a burger, but it’s still pretty good.
The Moflin will never bring the same comfort as curling up on the couch with your dog after a long day, but it’s brought a bit more joy into my life this month, which is worth something.
There are so many times when you’re just running and pass something beautiful. It’s so easy to just say, “Hey Meta, start taking video” and just get a quick clip as you happen to be zipping past. You can also customize the Action button to pick different filming modes, like slow motion or hyperlapse.
The Garmin integration is also designed to address your social media needs. Yes, it syncs with Meta AI, allowing the glasses to tell you if you’re hitting your target pace or HR zones—something I don’t think you really need if you’re already wearing a beeping, buzzing Garmin on your wrist. What you’re really wearing the watch to do is to trigger the camera’s autocapture at key moments in your workout, so you can put together highlight reels and overlay your Garmin stats on top of it afterwards.
That this is a device for social media fitness is also reflected in the fact that you’re limited in your filming to 30-second, 1-minute, 3-minute, and 5-minute clips. Meta informs me that most people usually just keep it to 30-second video clips, all the better for TikToks and Reels. You can also set the clips to auto-import, so it’s just in your Photos library when you think back to check and post on Instagram.
I’m private on Strava; I don’t really need anyone to witness my leisurely 10-minute mile trail runs. But every running influencer who is filming “Mile 1!” all the way through “Mile 26.2!” of their latest marathon is going to love these.
Outside of the fitness stuff, I do think the Meta AI assistant is kind of fun. I have a few friends who can identify plants and animals as we’re hiking. Meta AI can do that on a basic level, even if it’s not up to pinpointing specific varietals. I do think it’s a bit of a superpower to be able to identify if you’re not sure if those flowers are zinnias or dahlias as you pass. Nota bene: I would not ask Meta AI or any other chatbot super personal questions. I would also go into Settings, Data & Privacy, and Remove All Public Vibes (ew!) because I find everything about Meta AI as a social media platform to be (double ew!) gross, but that’s just me.
Once the settings are properly adjusted, though, this keyboard performs incredibly well. The actuation distance of each switch can be manually adjusted, meaning it can register a key-press anywhere from the very top of the key-press to the very bottom, and multiple inputs can even be mapped at different distances. The keyboard is responsive, with an 8,000-Hz polling rate, and the low latency barely produces any significant input lag.
This keyboard is wired-only, which might be a dealbreaker for some. It’s a fairly dense, all-metal keyboard that has a significant focus on high-speed use, none of which is necessary for a portable keyboard. While wireless would be nice, it would increase the price of this keyboard and its complexity.
The RGB lighting has over 20 built-in presets, and all of them work well, but the color isn’t perfect. When adjusting the lighting settings, nearly all of them seem to skew heavily toward a cyan/blue tint. This is presumably because of the Magnetic Jade switches’ light blue housing, which is unavoidable without using different switches, but even without switches, the LED diodes seem to be slightly cooler than a true neutral white.
These effects combine to make a keyboard that struggles to have a pure white color even with serious tweaking, especially since the RGB adjustments easily get overwhelmed and start to lag when moving your cursor around on the color wheel. The closest I could get to a pure white was with an RGB setting of [255, 60, 90], which still had a slightly cool tint to it. When set to the “breathe” setting at a low speed with this color, the lighting was choppy as it faded out, and slowly shifted to be red as it became darker instead of maintaining the preset color. When set to a faster speed and using a more standard color setting (like solid blue or green), these quirks disappeared.
Internal Assembly
Photograph: Henri Robbins
The internal assembly is rather simple: The printed circuit board (PCB) and switch plate are screwed together, sandwiching a sheet of silicone between them. This silicone fills the empty space between the plate and PCB, and extends past on the outside edge to create gaskets that the two halves of the case hold in place. With this, the internal assembly is held in place without making direct contact with the outside case, reducing vibration and excess noise.
Do you remember the first time you used a robot vacuum? I remember mine. It was one of iRobot’s early Roombas. I was transfixed, watching this chunky black disc whiz noisily around, bashing into walls and furniture before zipping off in seemingly random directions like a hockey puck slapped haphazardly across the ice. It wasn’t good at its job, but in a way, its clumsy sort of chaos made it charming.
Nothing is charming about most robot vacuums, now. In fact, most of them are boring as hell. Don’t get me wrong, they can be nice to have. But it feels like manufacturers have made a collective decision to ignore the R2-D2 of it all in their quest to turn their products into Very Serious Appliances. Why that might be is anyone’s guess, but I suspect either it hasn’t occurred to them to make a robot vacuum fun or they want people to see their products as sophisticated, advanced technology. Or maybe it’s just very hard to nail fun.
Whatever the reason, it has led us to this place where robot vacuums all look about the same: the friendly, rounded curves of the early models have been replaced with harder edges and sheer, flat design. Many have sensor clusters jutting out of the top so they actually know where they’re going, unlike my freewheeling Roomba of old. They’re also smarter and less likely to get trapped under your couch, and they’ve got robotic parts that let them get to more places. (See the independently lifting wheels from the Roborock Saros 10R or the periscope-like sensor cluster of the new Dreame Aqua10 Ultra Roller.) And in recent years, their docks have become much more than a place to recharge and maybe empty dustbins—now, they can swap out mopping solutions and even cleaning parts of the robots themselves.
The problem is: Too many of them still suck (pun intended) at basic cleaning tasks. Some are better than others, but generally speaking, they’re still prone to being disabled by misplaced trinkets, leaving obvious trash behind on carpets, or creating a moat of dirt around the edge of a rug. Their automated docks are impressive, but they’re also a constant source of noise. To many of these companies, “better” seems to be synonymous with “busier and more complicated.”
Enter Matic, founded by former Nest engineers who set out to create a robot vacuum, also called the Matic, that can “mimic human perception and self-learning through cameras and Neural Networks” to clean more like a human being—and that does its job locally, no cloud connection needed. The home robotics company has since put out a device that both looks and works better than the vast majority of its competition, albeit for a high price. But it does so with an irresistible charm that I haven’t seen in a gadget in years.
Matic Robot Vacuum
It’s disarmingly charming robot vacuum with great performance and very few minor quibbles.
Stellar vacuum performance
Solid mopping
Immensely charming
Quiet operation
Detailed map
No internet connection required
It ain’t cheap
Ongoing costs can rack up
Form factor limits where it can go
The Matic is a spectacle right from the get-go. It starts with the shipping box: Instead of slicing through packing tape and lifting out a device hugged by styrofoam and wrapped in plastic, you release four tabs on the bottom of the packaging and lift the top to reveal the Matic sitting on a little cardboard platform with a ramp that flops down. It’s not zip-tied or secured in any way, and when you long-press the start button on top, it drives itself off the platform. A display near the button lights up with a message, festooned with digital balloons and ticker tape, that reads (in my case), “Hello, Davis Family.” It feels like a fake robot made for some early-2010s TV show about the near future.
Inside the box’s upper portion, you’ll find replacement parts, like dust bags and an extra mop roller. But Matic also love-bombs you with a tiny 3D-printed Matic robot vacuum key chain, a sticker sheet full of things like dog ears and a name tag (my child took the liberty of naming it “Martie”), a pair of googly eyes, and a set of friggin’ Legos with instructions to build a miniature Matic. The Lego kit doesn’t come with every Matic delivered—Matic CEO Mehul Nariyawala told me in an interview that the company had included them with early orders, but that it’s hard to get the individual pieces at scale, as it had to special order some. I think the company should try, though, because this was a delightful little build:
The Matic itself beguiles you the moment you look at it. Instead of being a giant, squat hockey puck, the Matic’s curvy, blocky cuboid body stands 7.8 inches tall. The easy comparison is Pixar’s Wall-E, although I kept thinking it looked more like M-O, a black-and-white floor-cleaning robot that, driven by an obsession with cleaning Wall-E’s filth, defies its programming by leaving its predefined course.
To that end, the Matic has a clear cartoonish face, made up of two RGB cameras up top and a broomy mustache-looking cleaning head—the part with the brush and mop rollers—below. When it’s in mopping mode, it drives backwards, and there’s a face there, too, in the form of two more cameras above an air vent that gives it a Wallace and Gromit-esque smile. The Matic uses those four cameras, along with a fifth mounted on top and several infrared sensors hidden around its body, to navigate and map its world, as well as to identify and avoid obstacles.
The Matic’s charming cartoonishness continues when you send it off on an initial mapping run that I can only describe as delightful. It doesn’t just creep around your house, slowly taking stock of boundaries and building a virtual layout, as most vacuums would. Instead, it seems to dash excitedly from place to place, pausing here and there for whimsical pirouettes. It’s collecting data like any other robot vacuum would, but it feels like a Pixar character awash in wonder at every detail of its new home. It’s a marvelous bit of design excess that’s it’s really hard not to get swept up in.
When the mapping is done, you’re treated to what may be the best robot vacuum map in the business. Rather than expressing your home’s layout as a cluster of generic rectangles, the Matic app creates a full-color image from stitched-together pictures of your flooring. It’s almost what it would look like if a giant lifted my roof and snapped a picture of my house (which, again, just makes me think of cartoons), minus the tops of the furniture the robot is too short to see. You can rotate and tilt the map or drive the robot around with an onscreen joystick as if you’re playing a mobile game, and because the details you see in real life are represented so well on the map, it’s always easy to tell where the Matic is and direct it precisely where you want it to go.
This is all extremely handy when the Matic gets stuck—which this robot is definitely wont to do, if perhaps less so than other robot vacuums. In cases where it just can’t get out of a tight spot, you can go into remote control mode to drive it out of trouble. There’s a little latency between your action and the robot’s, but I found that I could still drive it around and be reasonably sure I wouldn’t run it into walls, even if I couldn’t physically see it.
Is this map’s detailed rendering of my home a bit of a creepy reminder that I’m letting a little mobile camera drive around your house? Absolutely, yes. But Matic has uniquely positioned itself to get away with that by being almost entirely self-contained, only requiring an internet connection for software updates. Other robot vacuum companies, like iRobot, might ask you to submit pictures from inside your home so they can train the models that drive their object avoidance features. Whereas the Matic is equipped with an Nvidia Orin Jetson Nano, a miniature computer made for AI and robotics, to handle object identification and navigation on-device.
Connecting the Matic to your home Wi-Fi network does make the act of controlling it easier, but the company doesn’t punish you for using Bluetooth instead. Apart from not getting software updates, you might never know the difference unless some robot-killing software bug rears its head. The app works exactly the same over Bluetooth; it’s just a bit slower, and the connection gets iffy from one room over and nonexistent any farther than that—at least, in my very old house, which has wireless signal-crushing plaster-and-lathe walls. Or, if youlike the way the robot works as-is and don’t mind never getting software updates, you could easily set the Matic to a schedule, disconnect it from Wi-Fi, and then delete the app forever.
The top-mounted display also gives you enough information that you almost always know what it’s up to or why it might be stuck. And, as a bonus, you’ll never have to worry about the Matic collecting and phoning home with pictures of you on a toilet that then end up on Facebook. Matic, the company, could go belly up, and this robot could potentially run and be useful for as long as its parts allow—which, to be fair, wouldn’t be long if you can’t buy the vacuum bags anymore, but we’ll get to that soon.
Okay, okay, so it’s an adorable little Wall-E with good maps. That doesn’t matter, even a little, if the Matic is just as mediocre at cleaning as so many other robot vacuums. Thankfully, it’s actually very good; I run my Roomba J7 nightly, and even then, the Matic was able to gather enough dust and hair in one day of testing to fill its dust bag, which Nariyawala told me has a 1-liter capacity. After that first day, I went through roughly a bag a week over two weeks of nightly runs and one or two spot cleans a day. My carpets and hard floors looked cleaner and felt nicer to walk on than they ever do with my Roomba J7 or Eufy L35 Hybrid.
The Matic accomplishes this with little suction—it only pulls air at 3,200 Pa, about a tenth of the 30,000 Pa promised by the Dreame Aqua10 Ultra Roller or the 19,500Pa of the Ecovacs Deebot X11, some of its most expensive recent competitors. Part of that is thanks to its roller brush, which has chunkier fins that dig deeper into your carpet and are angled in such a way that hair and string are shunted to the side instead of wrapping around the roller. It might also be down to how it cleans; rather than just sort of dumbly driving back and forth across a room in rows, navigating around furniture as needed, like my Roomba J7 or Eufy L35 Hybrid, it seems to detect when it has missed something, and it often goes back to try again from different angles. (Here, I thought again of Wall-E’s M-O leaving its prescribed route.)
The Matic even docks well, gliding smoothly over its metal charging contacts, although it can hesitate if there are objects too close to either side. (Matic recommends a foot of clearance beside and above the dock.) Also, it’s quiet—Matic puts it at 55 decibels when vacuuming, or around the volume of normal human speech—although it’s definitely still noisy if something too big to easily get sucked into the vacuum tube finds its way into the cleaning head and bangs around inside until it’s finally sucked up or ejected.
The Matic’s vision-based object avoidance is excellent; it never bumps into walls or furniture, sometimes turning with such tight clearance that I often thought, “Ah ha! This time it will smack that wall,” and was proven wrong. It does a good job ignoring things it shouldn’t suck up—I never once caught it dragging a dangling USB-C cable or a blanket around. You can still get it to run into you if you jam your foot right in front of it while it’s rolling, but otherwise, it’s almost gentle when it comes to living things, slowing if it sees a dog or a person in its path and either going around them or just stopping and waiting patiently for the path to clear.
Its object avoidance isn’t perfect, though; the Matic will still grab things like hair ties, Lego bricks, and other small objects while going around larger bits of paper. And it got stuck once when the handle of a foldable cloth laundry basket that had been left flat on our living room floor got jammed in the cleaning head. But those sorts of jam were rare, and I wasn’t being especially careful to keep them from happening.
When it comes to mopping, the Matic is better than a lot of older mop-bots that just smear plain water across your floor. It actually uses a floor-cleaning solution, though Matic only endorses those made by Aunt Fannie’s. My floors feel and look better after a few scheduled cleans. The Matic has a spot-cleaning feature that lets you give special attention to dried stains or fresh spills, driving slower over them and taking multiple passes. It did a fine job cleaning ketchup I squirted all over the ground and took care of a crusty stain I found under my kitchen trash can. But don’t expect miracles: it didn’t make a dent in a mysterious substance stuck to my dining room floor. In the Matic’s defense, I’m pretty sure the substance was gum mixed with a bit of paint—did I mention I have a child?—and I couldn’t get it up with my manual mop, either.
Matic says one water tank refill is good for about 1,300 square feet of floor. I don’t have nearly that much moppable surface in my home—I’ve got maybe 100–200 square feet—but I’d say it managed close to that across several scheduled and one-off mopping runs during my testing period. You can configure the Matic to go wait by your kitchen sink (or anywhere, really) when it runs out of water, which I find both adorable and convenient. If it takes longer than 15 minutes for someone to help out, the device docks itself, and the app lets you know the thing’s thirsty.
Nariyawala told me the company wanted to design something that, if sent back to the 1960s, would be recognizable as a robot designed to vacuum. It’s a nice idea and the right instinct. In particular, its height enables those big ol’ wheels that make high rugs or the chunky transition between my dining room and kitchen a nonissue. The taller vantage point of its sensors both keeps them clean longer and gives the robot more information about the stuff it sees on the ground. Those are all intentional parts of its design, Nariyawala said.
But those unorthodox design choices do have their shortcomings. Primarily, the Matic’s height means it may not go under furniture that’s less than 12 inches off the ground, a big limitation compared to most puck-shaped robots. Mostly, that means it’s not cleaning under my couches and chairs as most others can. (Although, it did start going under one of my dining room chairs that’s only slightly higher its top following a software update near the end of this review.) I actually think that’s a fine trade-off, considering how well it cleans everywhere else. The other thing is that without that tried-and-true circular shape, its boxy body can’t spin freely to pick up dirt in very tight spaces. For instance, the Matic won’t even attempt to clean a small nook next to my fridge that my circular robot vacuums handle just fine. It fits, but barely—I suspect its reticence to even try is part of its aversion to touching walls and furniture.
As much as I like the Matic app, its cleaning history section could also give a bit more information than it does. The device stopped mid-clean on a couple of occasions, and I didn’t see specific reasons why. In one of those cases, my partner found a blob of yarn sitting just in front of the Matic, keeping it from leaving its dock, where it had presumably stopped to recharge mid-clean before continuing. The app’s cleaning history said it hadn’t cleaned all of the rooms but didn’t clarify the reason; my Roomba J7’s cleaning history might’ve informed me that the device had stopped cleaning because it was stuck. Another time, I found the Matic sitting still in the middle of my dining room, its display reading “Paused.” I knew I hadn’t paused it, and everyone besides my cat had been asleep when it started cleaning, so a few more details about the proceedings up to that point would’ve helped me figure out if I needed to report a software bug (or just scold my cat.)
The Matic also lacks any sort of smart home integration. Nariyawala told me that the company is looking into implementing that down the road, but admitted that doing so is “at the bottom of the list.” That mainly means no voice control and no access to automations that could incorporate your other smart home devices like, say, turning the lights off when the Matic finishes its job (although it does a fine job cleaning in the dark). Still, the Matic robot vacuum and its app are so good—and Matter’s vacuum support so limited besides—that it doesn’t feel like smart home integration would add much anyway.
The biggest caveat, to me, is the Matic’s ongoing costs, particularly those of its disposable dust bags. I do like the convenience of its 1-liter onboard one, which holds both wet and dry material and has a built-in HEPA filter. That’s more than twice the capacity of my Roomba’s plastic dustbin. But a four-pack of these also costs $12 (and a 12-pack is $36). The company says one bag should last about a week, depending on your usage, which was roughly what I got out of it while cleaning around 900 square feet of my main floor every night. Going through a four-pack every month costs basically as much as an ad-supported streaming plan, and comes on top of the less-frequent replacement of other wearable parts, like the mop, dust rollers and side brush. That’s to say nothing of how much it costs just to buy the thing.
By comparison, a three-pack of 3-liter dustbags for the Eufy Omni E28 costs just $16.99. That’s an expensive robot when bought at its street price of $1,399.99, but as I write this, Eufy is discounting it by $649.99, making it more affordable than the $1,095 Matic.
Whether the Matic is a better buy may come down, at that point, to vibes. The Omni E28 might clean just as well as the Matic; I haven’t tested it, so I can’t say. But thanks to its heavily automated multipurpose dock, it takes up a lot more space and is likely to be a much noisier presence in your home. The Matic, on the other hand, is easy to place, works very well, and is quiet enough that I’m hardly aware it’s even working if we’re not in the same room.
The Matic is the best robot vacuum I’ve ever used. Its friendly-looking chassis and vibe are enough of a hit in my house that my kid now keeps a clean bedroom floor just so the Matic can come in and vacuum it every night before bedtime. To me, that alone is almost worth the $1,095 price tag.
For others who are willing to fork over that amount of money, the Matic offers top-tier carpet cleaning, solid mopping performance, and an uncommonly well-thought-out app. I’m willing to clean up under low furniture myself if I have a robot that does such a great job everywhere else.
There’s also the fact that, at least according to Nariyawala, when we spoke, the Matic is engineered for longevity and privacy. Build quality is solid, and the fact that it doesn’t need an internet connection to do its job is a huge asset. One of my biggest criticisms of robot vacuums has always been that most of them require the internet to get the full experience, and Matic has shown that’s not necessary: your robot can work great without Wi-Fi if you’re okay with the range and speed limits of a Bluetooth connection.
But it’s the elements of surprise and delight that really push the Matic robot vacuum over the top. I haven’t found a gadget this endearing in a long time. Matic approaches home robotics in a way that others have recognized is necessary—see Samsung’s Ballie, or that Apple Pixar-style robotic lamp research project—but which I’m not convinced anyone has really nailed. I went into this review curious, above all else, how an all-on-device robot vacuum with a funny design would work, and I was surprised to find something legitimately and unabashedly fun. More of that, please.
A series of shallow grooves line either side of the case’s bottom half. These seem to mimic the side sculpts of some limited-run custom keyboards, and they have a functional purpose, making it easier to lift the keyboard. The design is mirrored in the aluminum knob in the top right corner, which has a similar motif. I really like that these designs are not only ornamental but actually have a functional purpose during regular use.
Going further into the aesthetic choices of this keyboard, it loses me a bit with the keycaps. I’m not a big fan of the camouflage design. The shapes don’t always line up across keycaps, and it overall seems tacky. However, the print quality is top-notch, with no fuzziness or discoloration, consistent even along the keycaps’ sides. Because the keycaps are white with multicolored printing on top, the RGB lighting is able to bounce between the white plastic plate and the white undersides of the keycaps, appearing brighter and diffusing more evenly across the keyboard.
With a polling rate of 1,000 Hz (meaning the keyboard sends 1,000 messages to the computer every second), the DeltaForce 65 feels snappy and responsive. This combines with the relatively light Gateron Red switches to make a keyboard that’s effective for gaming while still being comfortable to type on. It doesn’t compare to high-end gaming keyboards with Hall effect switches and 8,000-Hz polling rates, which are going to be faster and more customizable, but for casual gaming, it’s more than enough.
The compact size of the keyboard is ideal for gaming, saving a significant amount of space compared to a full-size keyboard. This allows for more mouse space and lets your hands sit closer together for more rapid movement between the mouse and keyboard. To make up for the loss of the function row up top, you can hold the FN key and press the corresponding number key (i.e., FN+1 = F1), and the FN key can be used with some other keys for the Home, Pause, Print Screen, and other removed keys. The knob in the top right is easy to reach and has a satisfying notchiness to it. It’s programmed to adjust volume by default, but can be remapped to nearly anything else.
Software Quirks
Photograph: Henri Robbins
As far as programmability, VIA is the star of the show here. The DeltaForce65 uses an open source system known as QMK for its programmability, and VIA is an in-browser interface based on QMK that allows for seamless, rapid customization of the keyboard’s layout. The system is incredibly powerful and intuitive to use, and a common capability of many modern mechanical keyboards.
The trailer for Lionsgate comedy “Good Fortune” starring Aziz Ansari, Seth Rogen, Keanu Reeves and Keke Palmer. In theaters now.
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Who said money can’t buy you happiness? In this economy, it sure as hell can.
In Lionsgate’s new comedy “Good Fortune,” Aziz Ansari stars as Arj, a freelance documentary editor who sleeps in his car as he struggles to get by in Los Angeles’ gig economy. He works part-time at Hardware Heaven and hustles as a “task sergeant,” doing various work for-hire through an app service. He lives off of tips and five-star ratings. Anything short of them is pure agony.
Arj gets hired by tech bro venture capitalist Jeff (Seth Rogen) to organize the garage of his luxurious home at the top of the hill. Arj convinces Jeff to hire him as an assistant. Unfortunately, the cushy gig lasts only so long before Jeff fires him over an earnest mistake.
The film also follows Gabriel (Keanu Reeves), an unfulfilled guardian angel stuck in a menial job saving people who text while driving, with only tiny wings to show for it. Gabriel longs for something enriching, like fellow angel Azrael (Stephen McKinley Henderson), who’s in charge of saving lost souls and flaunts large, beautiful wings, a higher status symbol in the angel community.
Arj and Gabriel’s paths collide after Gabriel saves Arj’s life, though the angel couldn’t help but notice the text Arj was going to send, suggesting he had given up on life. Gabriel urges his boss, Martha from angel management (Sandra Oh), to allow him to save Arj’s soul. Martha tells Gabriel to stay in his lane (perhaps literally), but he can’t resist.
Aziz Ansari as Arj and Keanu Reeves as Gabriel in “Good Fortune.”(Eddy Chen/Lionsgate)
Just when things couldn’t get any worse for Arj, Gabriel introduces himself with hopes of convincing Arj that his life is worth living. In doing so, Gabriel offers glimpses into Arj’s future, which involves using a “pee bottle” as a delivery driver, living in a crowded home, and not being able to afford treatment for his own sick dog. Arj wasn’t exactly impressed by what was in store.
Gabriel then presents Arj an alternative: switching his life with Jeff’s for a week. However, he warns Arj that Jeff’s life “is not all that it’s cracked up to be.” Except Arj quickly learns that it is, in fact, all that it’s cracked up to be. Who could complain about pool parties, fancy dinners, and having Jeff being your assistant without him having any memory of his past life?
Enraged that he disobeyed her orders, Martha asks why Gabriel did what he did.
“I tried to show him that wealth wouldn’t solve all of his problems… It seems to have solved most of his problems,” Gabriel tells Martha. She takes his wings as punishment, telling him he can only earn them back if Arj voluntarily switches back to his old life.
Keanu Reeves as Gabriel and Sandra Oh as Martha in Good Fortune.(Eddy Chen/Lionsgate)
Deterred by the wrong lesson Arj has taken from the life swap, Gabriel gives Jeff his memory back, fueling him with rage that Arj had stolen his life. Arj challenges Jeff that he can’t last living in his shoes. Gabriel brokers an agreement that Arj could maintain Jeff’s rich lifestyle for a few more days before the two switch back. Of course, it doesn’t exactly pan out that way.
Living Jeff’s life, Arj has to again win over his former Hardware Heaven co-worker Elena (Keke Palmer), who he had wooed in his previous life but has no memory of him after the switch. Like Arj, Elena also struggles in the gig economy, taking the job at Hardware Heaven to get discounted lumber to pursue her passion for making furniture. But instead of wallowing in misery like Arj did, she strives to change to the poor working conditions by urging her co-workers to unionize.
However, the longer Arj keeps living the high life, the more disconnected he becomes from Elena’s struggles he once identified with. Meanwhile, Gabriel has to adapt to human life and the ups and downs that come with it while he tries to undo the mess he made.
“Good Fortune” examines the lives of the haves and the have nots in the 21st century and how not everyone is lucky, like Jeff, to come from a privileged background. That said, it doesn’t demonize the rich the way progressives often do. Jeff isn’t evil. Is he too pampered and maybe out of touch with the working class? Sure. That’s a far cry from being a Mr. Potter or a Mr. Burns.
Ansari, who also wrote and directed “Good Fortune,” rose to fame in the comedy world with his breakout role as Tom Haverford in the popular NBC sitcom “Parks and Recreation” and later created and starred in the Netflix series “Master of None,” which earned him two Emmys for writing.
His career was derailed during the height of the #MeToo movement after an anonymous woman claimed he was a bad date, insinuating he committed sexual misconduct for not picking up on her “non-verbal clues” that she was uncomfortable with the physical intimacy. Ansari was unfairly lumped with the worst Me Too offenders like Harvey Weinstein and outcasted as a result.
Ansari has been slowly rebuilding his career, largely through stand-up. He was among the high-profile comedians who recently performed at the Riyadh Comedy Festival in Saudi Arabia — an event that has divided Hollywood.
I welcome Ansari’s return to the limelight. He’s a funny guy. His talent is really on full display during the first two seasons of “Master of None.” “Good Fortune” isn’t exactly at the same level of his genius, but it’s still a solid entry to his IMDB page.
Rogen essentially plays himself and serves his purpose as the wealthy, shaman-seeking Jeff. Palmer has a particular warmness that shines through her performances and is able to keep Elena grounded — a role that could easily have turned preachy amid the unionizing subplot.
The laughs are rather inconsistent in “Good Fortune,” but Reeves truly gives it its wings as Gabriel, an angel desperately yearning for meaning, and expressing a childlike innocence as he navigates human life, like his discovery of “chicken nuggies.”
Keanu Reeves as Gabriel, Seth Rogen as Jeff, and Aziz Ansari as Arj in “Good Fortune.”(Eddy Chen/Lionsgate)
The Verdict:
A mix of “It’s a Wonderful Life” with “Trading Places,” “Good Fortune” may fall short on consistent laughs, but it makes up for it with heart. It’s a commendable directorial debut by Ansari, who will hopefully have more opportunities to make us laugh in the years ahead.
★★★ — STREAM IT LATER
“Good Fortune” is rated R for language and some drug use. Running time: 1 hour, 38 minutes. In theaters now.
I don’t know about you, but for me, there’s something infinitely appealing about compact gadgets. I loved the iPhone Mini (RIP) and love (present-tense) the very much still-existent Samsung Galaxy Z Flip (not RIP). And don’t even get me started on tiny gaming handhelds like Panic’s Playdate. Seriously, take one look at that thing and tell me it’s not the cutest goddamn handheld you’ve ever seen. If I could, I’d pinch its Simpons-yellow cheeks.
But as much as I love compact gadgets, there’s something that loses me once portable Bluetooth speakers come into play. Maybe I’m just too much of an audio snob to fully enjoy a portability-focused speaker, but sometimes bigger is better in the audio space, and with speakers, that’s partly just a matter of physics. Bigger speakers move more air, which in turn equates to more bass, higher volume, and often, less distortion. Nevertheless, you’re not going to catch me walking around with a car-sized boombox any time soon, which means some level of compromise in the audio department is always inevitable.
But how much s appropriate at $129? Bose’s latest tiny Bluetooth speaker may have just answered my question.
Bose SoundLink Micro (2nd gen)
Bose’s tiny Bluetooth speaker has great sound and a much-improved battery life.
Great sound for a portable speaker
Much-improved battery life
Upgraded strap
IP67 water and dust resistance
Not easy to stand up
Strap can feel a bit useless
Sound is good but limited at times
SoundLink Micr-oh, damn, this thing sounds pretty good
Bose’s $129 SoundLink Micro (2nd gen) is maybe the first ultra-portable Bluetooth speaker that I’ve felt like I could use on a regular basis, and it’s thanks in large part (no pun intended) to its big emphasis on sound quality. Like the recent SoundLink Plus, which I reviewed this year, the SoundLink Micro sounds great, but does so in a form factor that’s about a third of the size, if not less.
Don’t get me wrong, you’re not going to get anywhere near as much bass or volume from the SoundLink Micro (2nd Gen) as you will out of the SoundLink Plus, but you’ll still get a lot more than you might expect. I carried the SoundLink Micro (2nd Gen) around Washington Square Park in Manhattan and was pleasantly surprised by not only the volume, but also the quality of the sound it was putting out.
It’s not as loud as competitors like the recently released JBL Grip, the unofficial tall boy of Bluetooth speakers, but that’s more than okay in my book, because it sounds a heck of a lot nicer. I played a few different genres on the SoundLink Micro (2nd Gen), including jazz/funk, ambient, and rock, and all three had the nuance you’d expect from Bose. Bass was punchy and natural, but not overpowering, which means you can still hear mid and high frequencies where vocals and guitars live.
This isn’t going to contend with bigger speakers in terms of sound quality, nor should you ever expect a speaker of this size to do so, but if you’re looking for audio that doesn’t suck, the SoundLink Micro (2nd gen) has it. There are inevitably moments where its limitations come into focus, particularly at higher volumes, or in the speaker’s handling of treble sometimes (in some songs I listened to, higher frequencies sounded almost a little too sharp and snappy), but its faults weren’t enough to change my overall impressions. This speaker sounds pretty good and even better next to competitors from JBL.
I’m not often in a position where I need to emphasize portability above all else (usually an average-sized speaker like Soundcore’s Boom 3i or one of JBL’s Charge line is small enough to fit into a bag), but if I were at a premium for space, the SoundLink Micro (2nd Gen) would easily be among my first picks for which speaker I grab before I go backpacking in the Carpathian Mountains or whatever; and believe or not, there’s more than one reason for that.
In the second-gen SoundLink Micro, Bose ups the durability, giving it an IP67 rating. That means it’s able to deal with dust but also withstand pretty much any water that you may encounter in a normal, non-biblical flood setting. To test that out, I have the SoundLink Micro, a little rinse in the sink after getting some dirt on it, and sure enough, it worked just fine afterwards. Bose says the SoundLink Micro (2nd Gen) is also more durable, though I don’t do any intensive drop testing, so on that front, you’ll have to take Bose’s word. Anecdotally, the speaker feels solid and sturdy enough to withstand some drops.
Mico improvements make for a macro upgrade
Another area in which Bose’s second-gen SoundLink Micro improves is battery life. I’ve not tested the first-gen version of this Bluetooth speaker, but from what I can tell, the battery life was, well… bad. Even by Bose’s official estimate, it’s only rated for 6 hours of audio playback, which is more than enough in the context of one sitting, but annoying when you consider that almost no one remembers to charge their Bluetooth speaker every day. Those 6 hours are going to be all used up before you know it.
This time around, Bose doubled the battery life, and based on my testing, its estimates are pretty accurate. After over an hour of listening at about 50% volume, the SoundLink Micro (2nd Gen), which was at 60% when I started, didn’t budge. Obviously, battery life is contingent on lots of things, particularly the volume you’re playing music at, so your exact mileage may vary, but in my experience, Bose’s speakers seemed to hold up well. To be clear, 12 hours isn’t the longest battery life in the world, but it feels like a good amount for a speaker this size, especially when considering competitors like JBL’s Grip, which is also rated for 12 hours on a full charge.
Another notable tweak from the last generation is the velcro strap, which, this time around, is both removable and replaceable. There’s not much to say here, really. I strapped the SounLink Micro (2nd Gen) to the belt loop on my pants and walked around, which made me feel like a dork, but it didn’t fall off. Being able to remove and replace the band feels like a welcome change, given the fact that it’s just a piece of fabric. If it should get torn or tarnished in any way, you may want to swap it out.
One thing you will not get this time around is a microphone. Bose’s SoundLink Micro (2nd Gen) does away with an integrated mic that could be used for talking via speakerphone, as well as activating a voice assistant. I guess it’s a bummer to lose a feature, but I’m not sure that will be a major drag for most people, since the vast majority of us aren’t itching to yell into a tiny Bluetooth speaker for calls (or, really, for any other reason.)
One other nice-to-have this time around is the switch from microUSB to USB-C, which is more a matter of timing than anything else, since the first-gen SoundLink Micro was released all the way back in 2017. There’s also more functionality with the Bose app that lets you do more granular stuff, like three-band EQ. That upgrade is augmented further by a new “shortcut” button on the speaker that can be programmed to do various things. By default, the button is used to link two Bose speakers so they can play at the same time, but it can also be programmed to play Spotify on your device with a single press. There’s also your typical array of buttons that let you skip tracks, play/pause, power off/on, and connect to Bluetooth.
If there’s one gripe I have with the SoundLink Micro (2nd Gen), it’s the same one I have with most speakers of this size, which is that the ability to hitch it to things just doesn’t make a ton of sense for a front-firing device. Sure, you could strap the product to your bike or belt, but then your music is blaring rather than at you. That can feel a little silly, or obnoxious at worst, but it’s just a fact of any speaker meant to be used in this way. One thing I can nudge Bose for, though, is not having a way to stand the SoundLink Micro up. The JBL Grip, which I recently tested, can stand upright, making positioning the speaker so that it actually plays toward you much easier. I would’ve loved to see a kickstand or something similar here, but I guess precariously perching the speaker upright works well enough of the time.
Should you make a microtransaction?
Tiny Bluetooth speakers aren’t for everyone. They serve a specific type of person in a specific type of scenario. But if you’re looking for something very portable, Bose is holding that category down well. The latest SoundLink Micro costs $30 more than JBL’s Grip, but given the difference in sound quality and the parity on battery life, I think the Bose premium is worth it here. If you want something on the louder side, JBL still has the SoundLink beat, but Bose will be the better pick for most people.
You should never expect the world out of a Bluetooth speaker this size, but Bose has also proven that you can expect a solid package. Coupled with other quality of life improvements over the last generation, this is firmly the only SoundLink Micro speaker worth buying at this point, and one of the most appealing I’ve used so far.
The four environmental modes can be of some help here, but the best in my experience was the default Comfort mode, which “reduces the sharpness of high-frequency sounds and overall intensity, creating a more comfortable, balanced listening experience.” The Atom X’s Conversation mode was too sharp for much use, while the Crowd and TV modes didn’t make a big impact in comparison to the Comfort mode.
Photograph: Chris Null
I immediately noticed that there was a much lower level of hiss on the Atom X than on previous Audien hearing aids, but the overall experience still wasn’t all that effective. By blasting out lower frequencies I didn’t need amplified, I found I often heard worse with the hearing aids in than with them out—and this was exacerbated the louder I pushed the volume. At very low levels of amplification (10 or 20 percent at most), the hearing aids were at their most effective for me. Anything beyond that threatened to get painful.
At $389, the Atom X is a tough sell compared to the $249 Apple AirPods Pro 3, which have a tuning system, app control, outstanding noise cancellation, and overall better-quality hearing support. Yes, they are much larger and more visible than the Atom X aids, but if you never actually wear your hearing aids because they don’t provide a great experience, how much does discretion even matter?
So what is it about the Enhance Select 700 aids that makes them 200 better than the Select 500? The big sell is a new audio feature called SoundScape Auto Focus. This technology is designed to improve speech clarity in noisy conditions, filtering out background sounds and automatically prioritizing human voices. Auto Focus is integrated into the hardware and can’t be toggled off or tweaked; Jabra describes the technology as non-directional and dynamic, able to pick out voices even if they aren’t being generated directly in front of you.
I struggled a bit with Auto Focus when I first started using the Enhance Select 700, as I had trouble hearing my wife in a restaurant playing loudish music over the PA—exactly the scenario Auto Focus was designed for. I requested a programming change from Jabra to mitigate this issue, and new tuning was promptly pushed to the hearing aids through Jabra’s app. I’ve had better luck with them since, but technologies like this always tend to provide variable results from one environment to the next.
Overall, audio quality is otherwise up to Jabra’s high standards, but I wasn’t able to tell any dramatic difference between the 700 and their predecessor.
Tiny Filters
Photograph: Chris Null
The only other change of note is a minuscule feature on the hearing aid hardware. The microphones on the Select 700 are now covered with tiny filters that can be changed the same way the wax guards on the hearing aid receivers are changed, in the event they become dirty. Since the microphones are located on the backs of the hearing aid instead of inside the ear canal, chances are you won’t need to change those filters very often, but active users (or anyone who wears a lot of hair product) may find this a helpful way to streamline maintenance. To Jabra’s credit, tons of replacement filters are included in the box, along with a copious number of ear tips in multiple sizes.
The bottom line is that if you’re happy with your Enhance Select 500 (or 300), there is absolutely no need to rush to upgrade to the Select 700. The same calculus that applied to the decision of whether to purchase the 300 or 500 models also still applies: At $1,695, the Select 300 are $300 cheaper than the Select 700’s MSRP, and most users with mild or moderate hearing loss probably won’t be able to tell the difference between the two experiences. For that reason, the Jabra Enhance Select 300 remains my top pick for over-the-counter hearing aids, with the 700 making for a compelling product if price is no object.
Looks aren’t everything, but they ain’t nothin’ neither. Or, I guess they are Nothing in that the U.K.-based tech company often makes appearance a defining part of its gadgets, and not in an entirely superficial way. Nothing’s products are fun to look at, but their appearance, which incorporates elements of ’90s tech (specifically, a transparent design), also mean something symbolically: that the company is down to Try Things.
What those things are depends on the category. In phones, it’s custom software and flashy lights on the back, which are both meant to wean you off staring at your screen all the time. Nothing has tried lots of other stuff with its earbuds, including open-ear design, ChatGPT integration, and—most recently, with the Ear 3—a novel microphone feature that is better in theory than it is in practice. Sometimes those ideas work, and sometimes they don’t, but there is one category where they have hit more than they miss, and that’s headphones.
Nothing’s Headphone 1 aren’t just a more affordable alternative to high-end competitors like AirPods Max. They also hold their own in the field, delivering on aesthetics, functionality, and more practical features like active noise cancellation (ANC) and sound. Because of those high marks, I was excited to get my hands on the Headphone Pro, which are an even more affordable alternative to the Headphone 1 made by CMF, a subbrand of Nothing. Like the Headphone 1, the CMF Headphone Pro take some chances—and the hit rate is higher than I expected.
CMF Headphone Pro
The CMF Headphone Pro give you a good amount for an affordable price.
When it comes to budget devices, the question is always: What are you sacrificing, and to what degree? With personal audio products like wireless earbuds and headphones, the answer is usually sound quality, features like ANC, or maybe battery life. The name of the game is whether those sacrifices are acceptable at the price point in question, and in the Headphone Pro’s case, they generally are.
The first thing you’ll notice about the CMF Headphone Pro when you’re actually holding them in your hand is that they feel a lot cheaper than the Headphone 1. This is to be expected given the $200 price difference between the two, and if you’re willing to accept budget build quality (which I am, though I can’t attest to the comparative durability of the two devices), then you’ll likely get past that difference pretty quickly.
Do these headphones look as cool as the Headphone 1? That’s subjective, but also no, definitely not. The Headphone 1 crush the design part of things, and as someone who’s worn them out in public fairly often, I can tell you that they’re likely to turn heads (I’ve had more than one person ask where I got them). The CMF Headphone Pro have a look all their own, but the vibe isn’t quite as bold. CMF does get points for including a light green color that, especially when coupled with orange earcups, looks different from the rest of the crowd.
In the spirit of uniqueness, CMF also lets you buy additional earcups in different colors. In my case, CMF sent along orange earcups that I paired with the light green headphones. The color combination won’t be for everyone, but I actually like it. It brings a “look-at-me” spirit that makes Nothing’s product design fun, and in addition to aesthetics, also adds a dose of modularity, which is great for longevity. Earcups are often one of the first parts of a pair of headphones to deteriorate, and replacing them is much cheaper than buying a whole new pair. As an added plus, swapping the earcups out couldn’t be easier; just twist them off and then twist different ones back on.
Ultimately, though, the look is really just a first impression and, like all first impressions, subject to change. That’s a point in the Headphone Pro’s favor.
Budget isn’t always bad
If you’re willing to adorn your head with a big pair of over-ear headphones, you’re probably expecting bigger sound than your average pair of wireless earbuds. While the Headphone Pro don’t match the Nothing Headphone 1 in sound quality, they did exceed my expectations at a price that undercuts most headphones and even some wireless earbuds.
I listened across a few different genres and found the Headphone Pro most at home with electronic music. Their quite round-sounding bass worked well with electronic sound-scape-y music from Kitty Ray and groovier, disco-forward electronic tracks from Daft Punk. That round bass, however, is a bit less suited to grunge-y, folk-y tunes from my favorite newer bands like Wednesday.
Even if the bass tuning feels slightly out of place in rock genres, the Headphone Pro still performed better than I expected them to on a fairly wide soundstage, presenting guitars and other midrange frequencies as distinct elements. I would have liked to see the same attention to higher-frequency vocal ranges in rock songs, but premium headphones these are not. As always, I used the companion app, Nothing X, to tune the CMF Headphone Pro to my hearing, and while the hearing test definitely improved the sound a bit (especially vocals), that wasn’t enough to change my mind about the tuning.
If there’s one thing of which these headphones are guilty in the sound department, it’s putting a little too much oomph on the low end and not as much love on the other frequencies, which is funny given what I’m about to touch on next.
Buttons, buttons, buttons
One bit of carryover from the Nothing Headphone 1 to the CMF Headphone Pro is an emphasis on buttons. Like the Headphone 1, there’s a roller for volume that can also be pressed for pause/play and (unlike the equivalent button on the Headphone 1) double-pressed to skip tracks. There’s also a button on the underside of the right earcup for power and Bluetooth pairing, and a red dot button on the left earcup activates a voice assistant on your phone by default.
Those aren’t the buttons I really want to talk about, though; the tactile control I find most interesting is what CMF calls the “energy slider.” In normal person parlance, it’s an adjustable slider that controls the amount of bass. As someone who’s very specific about how headphones and wireless earbuds handle bass in particular, a slider is something I might actually use.
For others like me, I have good and bad news. The good news is that the thing works: Sliding that bad boy up definitely cranks the bass to 11, as a member of the fictional band Spinal Tap would say. The bad news? Well, it’s probably a bit redundant given how bass-heavy the Headphone Pro’s tuning already is. Maybe you’ll use it if you’re a bass junkie that just needs more, but I didn’t end up seeing a need to crank the low end on any song I listened to.
While we’re being honest about the buttons of the CMF Headphone Pro, it’s worth noting that the volume roller feels significantly cheaper than that of Nothing’s Headphone 1. While the Headphone 1’s has a nice pop when you press it, the Headphone Pro’s has a gritty, almost flimsy feel. Though it does work, it’s not what I would call a superb tactile experience. But again, this is the type of compromise you’re signing up for when you buy a budget pair of headphones.
CMF Headphone Pro: Everything else
One thing that caught my eye when CMF was leaking news about its headphones before their release was the battery life. The manufacturer claimed that the Headphone Pro would deliver 50 hours of battery life with ANC on and a whopping 100 hours with ANC off. ANC-enabled listening is the more important figure here, and while 50 hours wouldn’t break any records (companies like Sennheiser and Marshall have gone into the 60-hour and 70-hour mark with ANC on), it’s still a lot of longevity for a pair of headphones that only costs $99.
I’m happy to report that after testing the CMF Headphone Pro for hours, those battery life estimates seem like the real deal. As I’m writing this, I’ve been listening to the CMF Headphone Pro for two hours straight at 75 percent volume with ANC on, and they haven’t budged from the 30% battery mark. I was listening on the train for about 45 minutes before that, and they were on 30% battery then, too. If battery life is a priority for you, these headphones will give you your money’s worth and more.
As long as we’re talking about ANC, it’s also worth noting that CMF does a solid job in that department. These aren’t the most advanced ANC headphones I’ve ever used (Bose’s QuietComfort Ultra take that award), but they hold their own, and if you’re upgrading from an older pair of budget or midrange earbuds, you’ll probably feel the improvement. I still get some noise bleed on the train and when I’m walking down the streets of New York, but the passive and active noise cancelling definitely add up to a decent listening experience.
Like other Nothing and CMF products, there are also some app-enabled software features to take advantage of, including new spatial modes. One of them, Concert Mode, is meant to simulate a more live sound, but I can’t really notice a huge difference when I turn it on. That’s more than I can say for its companion mode, Cinema Mode, which actively makes the sound of movies and TV shows worse. I’m not really sure what CMF was going for here, but when I activate Cinema Mode, which I did while watching Jujutsu Kaisen on my phone, it sounds like I’m watching the show inside a person-sized tin can.
Having just used a spatial audio feature in Bose’s new QuietComfort Ultra (2nd Gen) headphones that feels like it genuinely augments immersion, CMF’s stab at the same effect feels extra off the mark. If you were thinking about watching things with Cinema Mode activated, I would recommend… not. The headphones are perfectly serviceable for listening to movies, TV, podcasts, and YouTube without trying and failing to compound the effects with software.
Am I pro-Headphone Pro?
To many audiophiles, a $99 pair of headphones might sound like a deal that’s too good to be true. But CMF has put forth a very compelling package for that price. The battery and sound aren’t mind-blowing, but they’re both better than I’d normally expect to receive for a third of the price of their ritzy cousin, Nothing’s Headphone 1.
CMF’s Headphone Pro also take some risks here, and some of them pay off. I love the modular earcups, and while the buttons aren’t super practical all the time (I probably won’t be using the energy slider often), they’re still nice to have. If you’re expecting an AirPods Max or Sony WH-1000XM6-level experience for under $100, you may be in for a rude awakening. But if you’re okay with sacrificing some sound quality and ANC, and if you don’t mind touching cheap plastic on a regular basis, the Headphone Pro aren’t a bad pick at all.
However, because the X-ROGs are fundamentally regular PCs, they’re a lot more versatile than Nintendo or Valve’s efforts. Not only can you play media, web browse, or do anything else you might do on a PC (even Office tasks, if you hate joy), but you can install any other PC gaming client—Steam, Epic, GOG, and more are all available. Better still, the Xbox app aggregates all games installed on the system into one library view, regardless of where they originate. You can even turn your Xbox ROG into an ersatz Steam Deck by running Steam in Big Picture mode (although some of its controller keybindings may not work).
The big win—pardon the pun—is that you can install mods with ease. While I’ve gotten a few mods running on my Steam Deck over the years, its Linux underbelly makes things trickier. On the X-ROGs, I’ve been able to use mods as easily as on my main gaming desktop, with no second guessing if they’ll actually work. It’s a great feature that’s facilitated by having standard Windows as the base.
Soft Where?
But wait, there’s a third UI player in the mix: Asus’ own Armoury Crate SE software. Broadly, this is more of a device manager, with a dedicated button on both consoles to bring up a Command Center quick menu. This allows you to instantly switch power profiles, create custom control inputs, or set frame rate limits. It also offers a real-time monitor displaying useful system information like temperature, CPU and GPU performance, battery level and power drain, and the current frame rate.
However, fully open Armoury Crate and you’ll find an array of far deeper controls, from granular system settings to tweaking color profiles of the LED rings that sit under each thumbstick. It also has its own Update Center—yet another to check—and its own unified library, distinct from the Xbox app’s. After a week with the X-ROGs, I’m finally familiar with where functions live, but the learning curve is steep, and having essentially three central interfaces—Xbox, Windows, Armoury Crate—for a single device is ridiculous.
Benchmark scores were unsurprising, turning in slightly above-average numbers across the board when compared to other Snapdragon X Plus laptops. Even its battery life of just over 17 hours when playing a full-screen video via YouTube (over Wi-Fi, not HP Go) is about in the middle of all Qualcomm-based systems I’ve encountered—though that’s admittedly still an excellent mark compared to all laptops.
The industrial design is utilitarian, though just shy of being completely boring. The silver machine, crafted from partially recycled aluminum and plastic, has a look that feels dated, and at 24 mm thick and 3.2 pounds, it’s also very heavy for a 14-inch system. (It feels heavy in the hand and on the lap as well.) Props, however, for the textured surface on the keyboard caps, which makes for a more pleasant typing experience than most laptops provide—though note it does not offer any backlighting. The trackpad is spacious without being obtrusive in size.
Port selection is also solid, including two USB-C ports with USB4 support, two USB-A ports, a full-size HDMI jack, and a drop-jaw Ethernet port. The SIM card slot is also accessible from the side of the device; users can bring their own data plan if they don’t want to use the multicarrier HP Go, which works via eSIM.
Poor Value
Photograph: Chris Null
The G1q is a Copilot+ PC and, as with more general workloads, it turned in perfectly acceptable scores on AI-based jobs like image generation and computer vision tests. It’s plenty stable in daily use; in fact, the only trouble I encountered was during initial setup, when it lost its internet connection midway and forced me to start over from scratch—annoying, but a one-time problem that never cropped up again.
The first thing that surprised me about Lenovo’s 2025 16-inch Legion Pro 7i was the size of the box. I dig through a lot of laptops here at Gizmodo, and Lenovo’s 16-inch laptop seemed like an 18-incher judging by the packaging. By its heft, it felt like it too. Then I opened it up and learned what it was.
The 16-inch Legion Pro 7i itself isn’t overly large, though good luck slipping it into your backpack’s laptop pouch. The overt weight was intensified by the 400W power brick used to give this beast of a laptop enough juice to play all your favorite games. I’m not about to throw the baby out with the bathwater. The brick and the laptop are inextricably linked, making a big thick device bigger and thicker.
The power brick is the size of my two fists put together. You could stick it in a wall and hold up a structure that may imminently collapse. It’s heavy enough that anybody who drops it on their foot runs the risk of flattened toes, as if a Looney Tunes character dropped an anvil on their southern digits. I could go on about the weighty power brick because it’s indicative of what kind of device the 16-inch Legion Pro 7i is. This gaming laptop will stay at home, where its loud fans have enough runway to blast the back wall with warm air. In exchange, it offers a truly delectable OLED display that helps set it apart from some other expensive laptops at its roughly $3,600 price (though you’ll find the device going for between $2,700 and $3,000 depending on storage options) with these top-end specs.
Lenovo Legion Pro 7i (16-inch, 2025)
The Legion Pro 7i (16-inch, 2025) is not the kind of device to take with you, but if you want a stay-at-home laptop with a bright, beautiful display and performance to boot, this is a great choice.
Bright OLED display
Solid I/O
Full-featured keyboard
Performance for days
Too large for backpacks
That massive 400W brick
Reflective screen
Poor battery life
The last Legion Pro 7i I reviewed back in 2024 was one of my favorites of the year. It had everything I wanted, and it felt comfortable to boot. In 2025, Lenovo redesigned the chassis and added even more RGB lighting facing the desk and on the rear thermal shelf. The company also inexplicably replaced the “O” key with the Legion logo, and I’m not sure I need any more branding to remind me this is a Legion device than with that pretty screen. With a new Intel Core Ultra 9 275HX CPU and an Nvidia GeForce RTX 5080 mobile GPU, benchmarks prove the 16-inch Legion Pro 7i is a step above its last iteration. That’s necessary, considering the gaming laptop costs a little over $300 more than its predecessor.
Is it still my everything laptop? Yes, though only for a very specific use case. Lugging this beast to and from my office was a chore. The laptop lid became a mess of scuffs and thumbprints as I manhandled it. The thought of carrying a 400W power brick with me is enough to make me wish I could live a hermetic lifestyle and never leave the house again.
Lenovo’s penchant for pretty OLED displays on its gaming devices enchanted me enough with the ultra-expensive Legion Go 2. Having it here, again, makes suffering through any small pain points of a big, thick laptop worth the hassle. Organic light-emitting diode display (OLED) technology allows for deeper black levels—often described as “inky”—and excellent contrast. Like the $3,300 HP Omen Max 16’s OLED display, the 16-inch Legion Pro 7i goes up to 2,560 x 1600 resolution and tops out at 240Hz refresh rate with Nvidia GSync support.
Lenovo’s screen is extra glossy, which enhances the OLED’s pretty features at the cost of reflections from a sunny room. The Legion Pro 7i is already not travel-friendly, and taking it outside won’t offer anywhere close to a premium experience when you’re struggling to see anything between the glare. In the right environment, like my room with the shades pulled down, the 16-inch Legion Pro 7i is bright enough to offer enough glow during daytime, though you need to be careful positioning the screen facing windows.
The dual 2W speakers have very clear, balanced sound thanks to dual subwoofers. There’s a small hint of spatial audio as well, though you’ll need to turn up the volume to get a sense of the directional sound. It’s barely loud enough to eclipse the noise of the fan blowing, which seems to kick in even if the gaming laptop is plugged in. The 16-inch Legion Pro 7i can be your all-in-one suite for making your games look and sound good, as they should for this price.
Though the new 16-inch Legion Pro 7i appears very different from the 2024 version, they feel very similar once you start clacking on its keys. That’s not a bad thing. The laptop’s keys and their 1.5mm of travel have a nice bounce to them that makes it easy to type on. Even though the keyboard features a full numpad, there is enough separation between the keys that I never got my fingers twisted when flexing my WASD instincts.
The off-center trackpad is nothing to write home about, but since you’ll likely be keeping this laptop at home, you’ll end up using a mouse most of the time anyway. Though I don’t hate the feel of the palm rests, I wish Lenovo paid a little more attention to the overall structure of the laptop. There’s a slight keyboard flex toward the center of the device you’ll feel if you start to lean your weight down during an intense match.
It’s not enough to make me concerned about breaking the laptop, though, for the price I expect more. The 16-inch Legion Pro 7i weighs in at 5.67 pounds, which is less than last year’s model but will still feel heavy if you hold it aloft in one hand. It’s thicker than other gaming laptops with an RTX 5080 GPU from 2025, such as the Razer Blade 16, but if you plan to make this laptop your main creative suite, you won’t be too disappointed considering that bright, beautiful screen. There are two USB-A ports and a headphone jack on the right-hand side, plus one more on the left alongside two USB-C and an HDMI port on the left. There’s one additional electronic switch to turn the 5-megapixel webcam on and off. The only thing missing is a dedicated SD card port to help creators avoid a dongle.
The proprietary power cable port also hangs out on the left, and with my home setup, it meant wrapping the power brick down and around the back of my desk. The two USB-C ports are Thunderbolt 4, meaning they can supply up to 100W of power to the PC. That’s not nearly enough to top off the PC when running games, even if that’s overkill for what’s necessary on a mobile RTX 5080 GPU. The 400W power brick would be more necessary for an RTX 5090 GPU variant. There are some versions of the laptop with an RTX 5090 and 64GB of RAM that I saw floating around on Amazon for the same MSRP.
The real kicker for all this is just how strong a performance I got from the 16-inch Legion Pro 7i compared to other 16-inch laptops. My review unit came with 32GB of RAM and 1TB of storage to go along with the Intel Core Ultra 9 275HX CPU and RTX 5080 GPU. In multiple synthetic benchmark tests, the 16-inch Legion Pro 7i slightly outperformed other gaming laptops like the HP Omen Max 16 and Alienware 16 Area-51. In Geekbench 6 CPU tests, the laptop managed to squeak out a few hundred points more in multi-core tests compared to other laptops.
For gaming, you just need to remember this laptop may still not do everything you want it to do, even with its RTX 5080 GPU strapped in with that obtuse power brick. In a game like Cyberpunk 2077, when pushing tracing to ultra settings, you’ll need DLSS on “balanced” settings to achieve 60 fps when playing at the full 2,560 x 1,600 resolution. In games like Black Myth: Wukong, where the expectation is you’re using Nvidia’s AI upscaling, you’ll easily attain more than 76 fps with all the ray tracing options enabled.
Alan Wake 2, which tanks performance once you start enabling ray tracing options, ran at around 40 to 45 fps on the highest settings with some path tracing. That was with DLSS on “balanced settings.” Other games that can hurt performance, like Marvel’s Spider-Man 2, manage to equalize around a stable 60 fps when you stop yourself from maximizing path tracing. As much as you may hope an RTX 5080 will hit the peak performance, you’ll inevitably have to accept some trade-offs for a steady frame rate. With the excellent display, games look crisp and detailed in a way that few machines can match, though only in just the right conditions.
Big gaming laptops don’t have good battery life. It’s a fact of the necessary power used for the GPU, but when you start stacking on RGB lights, bright OLED screens, and all the other fixings, you can’t expect anything more than three hours of battery life on a good day. The 16-inch Legion Pro 7i is no exception. When doing my basically daily grind, with several Chrome windows open plus Slack, I can barely make it past 2.5 hours before the PC is throwing a tantrum and won’t be satisfied until I plug in its massive 400W sippy cup.
The 16-inch Legion Pro 7i is not the kind of laptop to run around town with, even if you intend to use a smaller 100W charger plugged into one of its Thunderbolt 4 ports. That may be enough for some light gaming, but you’ll then have to accept you’ll mar your big, beautiful laptop with whatever junk you have swimming in your bag.
After enough time with the 16-inch Legion Pro 7i, I started to admire its qualities and ignore its deficiencies. Its bright OLED screen has enough to help smooth over lingering wrinkles. If I truly wanted something more portable, I’d have to look at devices like the Razer Blade (and spend the extra premium on a Razer product, not to mention deal with their less-than-stellar support) or opt for a 14-inch gaming laptop. An 18-incher like the Asus ROG Strix Scar 18 may be better as a true desktop replacement. Still, I never felt like I was missing anything from Lenovo’s all-in-one laptop, except for a baby carrier to lug this laptop and its power brick around with me.
Inside a desk drawer next to me lives a collection of wired earbuds I can never bring myself to toss out. Although I’ve mainly used Bluetooth wireless earbuds for many years now—usually AirPods Pro—sometimes it’s nice to just plug in a cable and listen, without the fiddliness of a wireless connection. The one thing that’s missing? Active noise cancellation, or ANC.
I check in from time to time on the state of wired earbuds with ANC, and I’m usually disappointed. ANC needs to be powered, and you can’t get that from a 3.5mm headphone jack, so the solutions—like embedding a battery pack in the earbuds’ cable, or adding the feature via a separate USB-C-powered dongle—ditch the battery-free advantage of wired audio. Same goes for using Bluetooth over-ear wireless headphones with ANC as wired headphones. Yeah, you can do it with most wireless over-ears, but they still need power for their sound filtering, and some won’t even work as normal headphones once their battery is kaput.
Finally, in early September, Belkin unveiled almost exactly what I’d been searching for: its $29.99 SoundForm ANC Wired Earbuds (USB-C). I previewed them at IFA 2025, where I found them comfortable, lightweight, and they sounded decent, but that was based on using them on a noisy show floor, which wasn’t enough to actually evaluate them. Thankfully, Belkin sent me home with a pair to review.
Belkin SoundForm ANC Wired Earbuds (USB-C)
Belkin’s new SoundForm ANC Wired Earbuds don’t have the best noise cancellation, but they’re convenient, cheap, and sound great for what they are.
They’ll never run out of battery
Decent, balanced sound
Comfy
Great for phone calls
Cheap!
Weak ANC
Wires make a lot of noise when bumped
Only works with devices that support audio over USB-C
I’ve always really liked AirPods Pros, from the first generation to the latest AirPods Pro 3. But as good as they are, their wireless connection can still be flaky, especially after years of battery and physical wear and tear, not to mention the occasional mandatory firmware update that makes them act weird. Like when mine identified themselves as “Not Your AirPods Pro” every time I opened the case for months on end, only returning to normal after a firmware update release that coincided with the release of the AirPods Pro 3. It’s been nice to go back to just plugging in a thing and having it work—no recharging, no Bluetooth pairing, no secret, software-breaking firmware updates. Just music or podcasts when I want them.
Belkin’s SoundForm ANC Wired Earbuds are chunky—roughly the size of my aforementioned AirPods Pro—but, for me, lightweight enough that I don’t really notice them in my ears. They’re also IPX5-rated, which means they aren’t dust-tight, but they should withstand sweat and splashes of water—AirPods Pro 2 were IPX4 or IP54, depending on whether you bought the Lightning or USB-C version. The SoundForm ANC Wired Earbuds come in both black and white color options, and they use a flat cable that’s pliable and tangle-resistant.
Their in-ear tips are made of a soft silicone that’s much more resistant than Apple’s AirPods to the creeping horror that is my earwax. (Sorry if that’s gross to read, but I know this happens for plenty of you, too.) They come with three pairs of tips, and they don’t attach to the earbuds in any special, proprietary way, so picking up a set of universal fit earbud tips is doable if the included ones don’t feel good.
Belkin’s wired earbuds are clunky in some ways. The volume and play/pause buttons on the small, inline control module work like you’d expect, but it’s awkward as hell to hold down both volume up and down to cycle through the three included EQ presets: bass boost, balanced audio, and Belkin Signature Sound. And I’m not sure I like the way ANC and transparency mode are activated, by long-pressing a button on the side of the module, despite not minding a long squeeze to do the same thing on AirPods Pro. Something about it being a physical button makes me want it to work differently. But those are minor complaints, and I found I didn’t really want to change the EQ preset once I set the bass boost one.
The biggest compromise is right in the name: they connect with USB-C, rather than a 3.5mm headphone plug. That means you can’t use them with older devices like MP3 players or pre-USB-C handheld game consoles. I did confirm that they work with my iPhone 15 Pro, Google Pixel 6, both of my Apple silicon Macs, and my Nintendo Switch 2. Asterisk on Nintendo’s latest handheld: the Switch 2 Pro controller, which has a 3.5mm audio jack that lets you use headsets for GameChat, doesn’t support USB-C headphones. And just so we’re clear, neither does the first-generation Switch, including the OLED model, much to my disappointment.
Still, it’s good to know that of everything I would want to use wired headphones with, Belkin’s earbuds work fine with most. USB-C also introduces another issue: longevity, or the potential lack thereof. The Belkin SoundForm ANC Wired Earbuds seem to have a hardy USB-C plug, but I’ve only tested them for around a month. As often as they could be plugged and unplugged over time, the mechanism that clips them into a USB-C port is bound to wear out eventually. I hope Belkin did a good job with these and that they’ll last for years, but only time will tell whether that’s the case.
So how do they sound? Belkin outfitted the SoundForm ANC Wired Earbuds with 12mm drivers, putting them right between the AirPods Pro 2 and 3. Driver size isn’t everything, and Belkin only charges $30 for these earbuds, so I didn’t expect miracles—and they didn’t give me any! But they did outrun my expectations with punchy bass that’s not too boomy, and midrange and treble that are clear without being muddy or ear-piercingly tinny, respectively. Compared to the AirPods Pro 3, their sound profile is far cooler, with thinner low-end. It’s not a fair comparison, though (the AirPods Pro 3 are pretty widely praised, after all). Overall, they’re quite decent, putting out much better sound than I would expect from similarly priced wireless earbuds.
It’s when you start to pay attention to the details that the price tag shows. The bass gets fuzzy and weak when you turn the SoundForm ANC Wired Earbuds up to around 80 percent or so. And they lack definition in songs that need it; Belkin’s earbuds didn’t do any favors for tracks like Tom Waits’ “Green Grass,” overly emphasizing its crackling audio and making it sound more amateurish than an intentionally ragged stylistic choice. The earbuds also have a pretty narrow sound stage, leaving audio you listen to very much confined to the area between your ears. I tend to actually like the intimate feel of that when I’m listening to something like that Tom Waits song, but it’s not ideal for a bombastic track like “Through the Fire and the Flames” by DragonForce. There’s also a lot of cable noise that vibrates its way up into the earbuds. I could hear rustling every time I turned my head and the cable scraped against my facial hair, and a loud thump when I reached up and grabbed the wire or tapped it with my fingertips.
The SoundForm ANC Wired Earbuds only mildly cancel noise—they’ll block the small desktop fan I have in my office, but generally speaking, they only deal well with certain droney sounds. Walking around near a busy street in my neighborhood, the ANC quieted other sounds well enough to listen to music and podcasts or take a phone call, but these would be your last resort on, say, an airplane or a city bus. The earbuds also have decent voice isolation. A friend I called while on that walk said that while they could tell there were cars around, my voice came through loud and clear. Turning off ANC compromised the voice isolation, such that my friend could suddenly hear way more wind and car noise. Either way, though, they said I was clear and intelligible throughout the call. That’s not always the case with my AirPods Pro 2, which tend to cut out a lot and require me to constantly repeat myself when outdoors on a phone call.
I genuinely didn’t expect to like the Belkin SoundForm ANC Wired Earbuds as much as I do. My AirPods Pro 3 are in no danger of being replaced by them, but during the testing period, they were my go-to, anytime I was playing my Nintendo Switch 2, and I found I even liked using them while sitting and working at my laptop. I’d still rather use wireless earbuds if I’m up and about, mostly because I find all the noise from the cable bumping or rubbing, well, anything at all is just too distracting.
I liked the experience, which resembled a past time when I never had to mess with Bluetooth pairing and my earbuds worked with anything that output sound. It’s not the exact same, since I couldn’t use these with, say, my Sony PS Vita or my old Apple iPod nano, but most of the devices I use in my daily life have a USB-C port these days, and almost all work with Belkin’s earbuds the way I want them to. The one exception was with my Switch 2 Pro Controller, which only outputs audio through its 3.5mm audio jack. I didn’t actually expect it to do so with the USB-C port on top, but wouldn’t it have been neat if it did?
If you’ve been missing wired earbuds, or you want something that’s close to a modern Bluetooth audio experience but without the tiny, easy-to-lose earbuds and no fear of running out of battery, these are an easy recommendation for less than $30. Belkin’s SoundForm ANC Wired Earbuds (USB-C) will be available Oct. 17 on Belkin’s website, and soon thereafter on Amazon.
You can build your own PC. It isn’t that hard. The time commitment may be too much for some people, but the end result is normally more compelling since you know what went into it and what may inevitably be upgraded. Custom PC makers like Maingear have to dig up some compelling reasons to sell a more expensive tower. You can already tell by the photo above there’s a big reason you might opt for the Maingear Apex Rush before another PC. Your ultra-expensive tower could look like a piece of art, as long as you treat it right.
The last Maingear desktop I reviewed, the MG-1, was a conscientiously built, customizable PC that looked too much like something I could have pieced together, at least judging from the exterior. Inside, the tower was far better than that thanks to its screw-in GPU bracket and cable management that would leave even the most demanding IT professionals nodding in approval. The interior was inlaid with a strip of RGB lights that offered a subtle internal glow. It was the kind of slapdash DIY project anybody building their own PC could have easily accomplished.
Maingear Apex Rush Artist Series
You could spend way less just by building a PC yourself, but I doubt it would be nearly as pretty and well-put together as a Maingear Apex Rush
Artwork makes the PC truly unique
Stable build
Excellent cable management
Performance for high-end gaming
Premium on top of PC parts
Glass art can be scuffed
Not a lot of front or rear I/O
When Maingear first announced its Rush PCs at CES 2025, the company’s CEO, Wallace Santos, told Gizmodo they attempted to create a desktop that truly looked unique, hence the special “Artist Series” designs that push a unique case while offering an internal design with everything gamers have come to expect. This design doesn’t come cheap. My review unit, packed with the top-end AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D CPU, the Nvidia GeForce RTX 5080 GPU, 32GB of RAM, 2TB storage, and all the special cooling apparatus blaring RGB lights in and around the case, costs $4,325. That’s $1,000 more than the previous generation MG-1 which contained a high-end Intel 14th-gen CPU and an Nvidia RTX 4080 Super. GPU The Artist Series costs an extra premium above the units without the unique art.
If I try and create a very similar PC using ordered parts, I can build something for closer to $2,600, and that’s without seeking discounts. You’re paying Maingear for the hassle-free experience. At that price, the Apex Rush should be the last PC—for gaming or not—you’d buy for a long, long while. The MSI Pro B850-P motherboard has enough RAM and PCI-E slots to make upgrading easy. But then, you can find many other, far cheaper desktops with similar components for under $3,000, like a specced-out version of the Cyberpower PC Gamer Supreme. Will the beauty of your case last that long? Depends on whether you’re willing to shield your case from any blunt instruments or cats who would use your PC as a launchpad for your windowsill.
Just look at this thing. The Grand Theft Auto: Vice City vibes are almost enough to get me in the gaming mood by themselves. The fishbowl sides on the front and left of the tower are coated with a vinyl artwork and ringed with RGB LED strips. There are three different artworks to chose from, including a cyberpunk-esque “Machina” version and a pan-Asian “Good Fortune” edition, though I found the “Night Drive” version I got to review fit the internal glow of the RGB fans, RGB RAM sticks, and RGB liquid cooling CPU unit much even better. The only thing marring the visage is the overt “gamer” neon signage on the front. Its also bears a giant “Maingear” logo that’s more distracting than fun.
Maingear is so confident about its build quality, it ships its units without foam inserts inside the case itself. The GPU is held tight with a printed bracket screwed into the case. The Apex Rush is a heavy unit, as you may expect from a mid-sized desktop tower full of high-end PCs. It’s probably a good thing you’re not dragging the unit from room to room, since the artwork painted on the glass is liable to get chewed up if you graze it during transit. I’ve hung onto the Apex Rush for long enough; I’ve had to move it from desk to desk, and in that time, I’ve managed to scratch the paint on the top part of the glass and on the lip of the desktop’s top panel. The case’s metal parts fare much better. Still, you’re better off treating the Apex Rush with more care than your normal black aluminum towers.
Too many PC towers stick their front ports on top of the unit. This not only looks ugly with the tumors of several peripheral dongles sticking out, it means you need to plug wired connections up and over the PC if, for instance, you need to connect a headset or mouse. The Apex Rush sets its front I/O right next to the right-hand tower foot. You’ll have access to just one USB-C, two USB-A, and a headphone jack. I would have preferred more USB-C and perhaps placing it on the side closer to the user.
As for the rear, there’s a similar lack of USB-C, something I appreciated about Alienware’s utterly massive Area-51 desktop tower. There’s an HDMI port, four USB-A 2.0 ports, plus the two USB-C 10G sockets. With the number of peripherals I’m regularly plugging into my desktop, I quickly ran out of USB.
Inside, the Apex Rush’s motherboard isn’t capped with any covers to make the components look “clean.” I’m in the camp that would rather a PC look like a PC. There’s a unique elegance to soldered silicon on a mainboard surrounded by heatsinks and wires. Maingear’s versions look more elegant than other PCs I’ve used thanks to their expert eye with component selection and cable management. All the motherboard, CPU, and GPU wiring exits stage right through several hatchways just behind the mainboard. If you remove the Apex Rush’s back panel, you’ll find all the cabling running in neat packs down to the side-mounted PSU, or power supply unit. Behind a metal panel set on a hinge, you’ll find all the wires are bundled up with velcro strips that make it easy to find the right component connected to the power supply. You won’t have to do any finger gymnastics to reach each port.
My review case came with the 850W MSI MAG A850GL, which is enough juice for the RTX 5080 GPU but is barely enough wattage if you ever wanted to plug in an RTX 5090. It’s not an overly large unit that will offer more upgrade paths, but there is one 16 PIN PCIe connection for the Nvidia GPU and enough connection options if you ever want to turn to an AMD in some apocalyptic future where the RTX 5080 doesn’t cut it anymore.
With these specs, of course, the Apex Rush runs well
If Alienware’s absolutely ginormous Area-51 desktop PC was all about girth while offering expected performance, the Apex Rush pre-built lineup offers a more subtle beauty without the promise of getting the most out of every possible game.
AMD’s Ryzen 7 9800X3D is considered one of the top-end CPUs for a reason. In benchmarks against an Intel Core Ultra 9 285K, AMD’s chip is simply better for gaming purposes. Intel’s Arrow Lake CPUs got a bad rap on release with poor performance even compared to the top-end 14th-gen consumer chips. Intel dropped numerous fixes over the months to push gaming performance back to expected levels, but it wasn’t enough to make a case against Intel’s top-end chip. AMD’s X3D chips use a special layered cache for extended memory within the CPU. This mainly benefits gaming scenarios, and it’s why gamers seek out these chips first and foremost while Intel’s Arrow Lake fell by the wayside.
It’s been long enough since the RTX 50-series launch that Nvidia’s drivers have cleared the way to eke a few more frames from most games compared to months before. I first tested the RTX 5080 Founders Edition on an Origin PC Neuron 3500X build, and after many moons I can say the platform is relatively bug-free and stable enough to enjoy your games without the hassle of reinstalling drivers or messing with your BIOS. With AMD’s top gaming CPU, I can blow past older systems in 3DMark Speedway tests by a little more than 200 points. In 3DMark Steel Nomad, the difference is closer to 500 points. Gaming scenarios can look like I can get around five more average frames in Cyberpunk 2077 benchmarks running with ray tracing on and DLSS balanced settings on Maingear’s build than I could on the Neuron 3500X’s Core Ultra 9 285K with the same GPU. CPU-heavy games like Total War: Warhammer III benefit even more.
You really can’t expect the world from a PC like this, despite its price. If you have any hope of topping out games without any AI upscaling like Nvidia’s deep learning super sampling (DLSS), you’ll need to opt for a RTX 5090 and spend even more. Even then, you’ll come away disappointed. I’m still of the opinion that the RTX 5080 is what a demanding player will need for 4K gaming. If you want an Apex Rush with the highest-end GPU, you may end up spending more than $7,000.
The premium price on top of an already expensive PC is hard to swallow. Again, building a PC yourself can be less expensive and more fun. However, Maingear promises lifetime product support and free repairs. The company doesn’t funnel the PC full of bloatware you need to delete. The build quality on the Apex Rush is, per usual, on point.
The next ride was on singletrack from my house to Spirit Mountain, Duluth’s downhill lift-accessed park with 24 trails ranging from easy to expert. Lacking a full-face helmet and the landing skills to tackle double-black runs like the one called Calculated Risk, I instead rode Candyland. The machine-built flow trail has some nice high, snaky berms where the bike’s chunky tires kept me upright and stable. I had so much fun tooling around in the bike park, riding up steep inclines like The Puker to get one last flowy downhill ride in, that I had to hurry home for dinner in the dusk.
On the way home, I chickened out while riding a chunky, steep, and extended rock bridge in Trail mode and experienced the only moment of fear in my entire 50-plus miles of testing thus far—I had already committed to forward momentum but chickened out at the last second, so the bike surged forward while I bailed sideways into the bushes. It was more user lack of confidence than bike glitch, but also a good reminder of two things: how powerful the bike is and how it’s only as competent as its rider.
At home, I checked the Specialized app and found that I had climbed 3,451 feet over 22 miles in about two hours, primarily in the bike’s Auto mode. I still had 44 percent battery power and energy in my legs.
Smart Ride
Photograph: Stephanie Pearson
After subsequent rides, what stands out the most about the Turbo Levo 4 is how intuitive it is. The bike’s high-performance torque sensors can instantly “feel” the rider’s output and amplify it, while maintaining control, traction, and precision at higher speeds. This is especially evident in Auto mode, which is the most natural feeling of the four Eco, Auto, Trail, and Turbo modes, all of which are easy to read on the bike’s Master Mind computer on the top tube.
I was a little on the fence about the Turbo Levo’s ability to jump from a Class I to a Class III electric mountain bike. On US versions of the bike, riders can tweak the speed limit by toggling through Master Mind and upping the Class I limit of 20 mph to the Class III 28 mph limit. It’s an easy process designed for mountain bikers who ride along city streets to the trails.
But it also raises a question: What ripper is going to want to toggle back down to a Class I bike—the max limit on most trails throughout the US—unless the speed police are in hot pursuit? By allowing this work-around into a higher speed-limit category, Specialized puts the onus on the rider to follow the rules, which opens a Pandora’s box—especially on trails inhabited by mostly nonmotorized mountain bikers where safety is a greater concern.
Other than the ethical conundrum, my one small beef with the S-Works Turbo Levo 4 is that it’s so much fun that it suspends time. I’m so in the flow that I forget to go home and make dinner.
“If you really care about your health – and the specifics of it – then Field Doctor is well worth trying. They’re a new player in the meal prep services arena, aiming to create amazing food that feeds your health. And by that, I don’t just mean food to help you lose weight or build muscle. Field Doctor lets you choose your meals to manage allergies and intolerances, reduce inflammation, improve gut health, optimise menopause or peri-menopause… the list goes on. Their website is incredibly thorough, which encouraged me to put huge amounts of trust into what they have created.
“Everything on my tailor-made plan (centred around eating more plants and reducing inflammation) sounded delicious. Chickpea masala curry, Italian meatballs, Malaysian tofu curry and red pesto and roasted vegetable penne were just some of the concoctions it threw up to me.
“When my meals arrived, although totally not important when it came to the meals themselves, the first thing I noticed was the branding. It appeals to the minimalist in me, with meals boxed up in Tiffany-blue packaging. Very chic.
“Inside, the meals included 100% whole ingredients – nothing processed round these parts – and they came frozen for freshness. I was a little worried about whether I’d need to defrost them before cooking, but you can actually reheat them from frozen – mostly in around five minutes.
“I sometimes find that frozen meals can go a tad water-y when you reheat them – which can lead to them losing some flavour. And sadly, this was the case with some of the Field Doctor meals I tried. They were all still delicious, don’t get me wrong, but just a bit less flavourful than other services I’ve tried.
“That aside, I would order from them again. You can pick a regular delivery day, there’s loads of choice, and they’re a great healthy option to ensure you avoid too many takeaways.”
Tested by: Sophie Cockett.
Pros: Very aesthetic, meals tailored to specific health concerns, no processed ingredients.
Cons: Not as full-of-taste as some of the other meal prep services I’ve tried.
Star dish: Malaysian tofu curry.
Cost: Single serve from £6.99 to £7.29. Double serve: from £10.39 to £10.79.
Delivery: Delivery charge varies depending on your location. It can range from £5.50-£23.
Offline routing is supposed to be one of the banner features of this watch. You should be able to just pick a point in the Maps app on the watch, then choose Straight-Line Navigation or Route Navigation. Unless you’re in a wide-open field, Straight-Line won’t help you much, but Route Navigation should parse the watch’s ability to read roads and trails to get you where you’re going.
Then you choose between Outdoor Running, Walking, or Outdoor Cycling. Why isn’t hiking included? Who knows, but it doesn’t really matter because 90 percent of the time I tried it, the watch would just say, “Route Creation Failed. Try Again.” I only managed to get it to work a couple of times, and only for extremely short distances, and one of those times it advised me to run on Interstate 405, which is one of the largest, busiest highways in the country. I would not rely on this feature.
There’s just a general sense of unfinishedness to the whole thing. Questionable translations abound. It missed waves while I was surfing. It still doesn’t recognize the types of strength training that you’re doing, which is a feature that was promised earlier this year and is readily available on all other sports watches at this point.
Finish the Job
Photograph: Brent Rose
It’s not all bad news. I love that this watch has an LED flashlight, which is a feature that I think every sports watch should have because it’s so useful. The speaker and microphone aren’t great quality, but they’re also nice to have. The watch does a pretty good job of displaying notifications from your smartphone, and if you’re an Android user you can even quickly reply to incoming texts, or initiate texts through Zepp Flow, even though it doesn’t draw distinctions between types of notifications and it will just start buzzing incessantly while you’re driving.
We shouldn’t expect any Windows laptop with a powerful discrete GPU to truly replicate what the MacBook Pro does. Yes, there are more powerful systems out there, but efficiency is just not what those systems are about. Even with the improvements Nvidia has made in Advanced Optimus (automatic switching between discrete GPU when needed), the battery life suffers, especially while running heavier applications. On a local video playback test, the Yoga Pro 9i 16 lasted for around 12 hours. Despite using the same 84-watt-hour battery, this appears to be a slight improvement over last year’s model, though it’s hard to get an apples-to-apples comparison. I do know that its battery life diminishes quickly under heavy load, as it died in just 45 minutes while running a benchmark. You’ll want to be plugged in if you’re doing anything too serious.
Regardless of the task, you’ll get over twice the battery life on an M4 Max MacBook Pro. Not until we get ARM-based systems with powerful integrated graphics that rival the M4 Pro and M4 Max will there be competition for Apple. The closest thing we’ve seen so far is AMD’s unique Ryzen AI Max+ processor, which showed up on the Asus ROG Flow Z13 and used a massive integrated graphics chip to challenge traditional discrete graphics. But we’ve still got a long way to go.
The only other Windows laptop that could be better is the Asus ProArt P16, which I’ve yet to test. It now even comes with an RTX 5070 or 5090 option, which could make it significantly more powerful than the Yoga Pro 9i. However, it’s also a much more expensive laptop, configured with a 4K OLED screen and only higher-end GPUs. The Yoga Pro 9i is also hundreds of dollars cheaper than the Dell 16 Premium when similarly configured.
The Lenovo Yoga Pro 9i 16 gets a lot of things right—plenty enough to make it worth a recommendation as a valid MacBook Pro competitor. Ultimately, it’s the performance, display, and premium quality that make it a worthy content creation machine, and the Yoga Pro 9i succeeds on all those fronts, perhaps better than any other Windows machine I’ve tested.
