Samuel Gibbs

Samsung’s Galaxy Z Fold 8 introduces a squat, passport-like design that opens into a 7.6-inch tablet-style display. The shape improves portrait-oriented websites, apps and multitasking, while the phone offers strong performance, good battery life, water resistance and Samsung’s highly adaptable folding-phone software. However, its wide closed form is awkward for one-handed use, the keyboard leaves little visible content, landscape video is barely larger than on squarer rivals, and the device lacks a telephoto camera. At £1,699, its high price, fragile display and costly repairs make the Fold 8 an intriguing but compromised alternative to the narrower book-style foldables that dominate the market.

Honor’s Magic V6 is a thin, light book-style foldable with excellent battery life, strong performance, capable cameras, good displays and IP68/69 water resistance. Its hardware makes it a compelling alternative to Samsung, but the visible crease, costly repairs, very high price and limited improvement over the previous V5 weaken its appeal. MagicOS 10 includes useful foldable and AI features but remains outdated and suffers from bugs, awkward app behavior and conflicts between Honor’s and Google’s app stores. The phone is therefore impressive but lacks a compelling advantage over more polished rivals from Samsung and Google.

Criminals are sending convincing fake Spotify payment emails that direct recipients to cloned websites designed to steal login, personal and payment details. A victim avoided major losses after noticing suspicious card transactions and cancelling a virtual card. Warning signs include an unknown sender, a lower-case subject line, missing subscription information and links that do not use the spotify.com domain. Users should access Spotify directly, report fraudulent messages, reset compromised passwords and contact their bank immediately if payment details may have been exposed.

Fraudsters are sending convincing fake X login-alert emails to steal users’ passwords or trick them into authorizing malicious apps. The messages closely imitate genuine X notifications but may use suspicious sender addresses, vague locations, omit the account handle, or redirect to fraudulent websites. Users should avoid clicking email links, verify account alerts through the official app, inspect URLs and headers, and change their password and enable two-factor authentication if credentials or one-time codes were entered. Compromised accounts may be used for cryptocurrency scams, phishing and misinformation campaigns.

The Surface Laptop 8 delivers strong performance, long battery life and a high‑quality keyboard and haptic trackpad, backed by efficient Snapdragon X2 chips that run quietly and stay cool. Windows 11 on ARM offers a clean experience with broad app compatibility, though some emulated programs and games remain limited. The laptop’s build quality, screen and battery‑focused features are notable, but a significant price increase due to component costs and a limited port selection reduce its value. Despite modest upgrades over its predecessor, it stands out as a well‑rounded premium Windows notebook.

Sennheiser’s Momentum 5 headphones deliver high-quality sound, improved noise cancellation, extensive connectivity, and exceptional 57‑hour battery life, aided by a user‑replaceable battery and strong app support. Comfort, build quality, and audio performance are standout strengths, though noise cancelling lags behind Sony and Bose rivals and the headphones do not fold compactly. The model offers meaningful upgrades while maintaining the series’ established sound profile, resulting in a capable and long‑lasting pair of premium Bluetooth headphones that narrowly miss class‑leading status.

The Oura Ring 5 is a substantially slimmer and lighter replacement for the Ring 4, weighing about 2g and offering roughly six to nine days of battery life. It tracks a broad range of sleep, activity, stress, heart and women's health metrics, with the Oura app providing especially strong analysis, explanations and personalized advice. Its AI Advisor and proactive health features add useful interpretation, although workout and running tracking remain dependent on a phone and less capable than dedicated sports watches. The ring is expensive, requires a monthly subscription for most features, and cannot be repaired or have its battery replaced, but its comfort, discreet design, durability and software make it one of the strongest smart-ring and health-wearable options available.

The Ring Video Doorbell Pro 3 delivers major improvements over previous models, led by a sharper 4K camera, better digital zoom, substantially improved mixed- and low-light performance, Wi-Fi 6 and faster live views. Wired versions add higher-quality pre-roll recording and optional continuous recording, while the battery model is easier to install. Ring's subscription plans unlock video storage, smart notifications and advanced AI features; the unusual-event and alert-filtering tools significantly reduce notification fatigue, but the most capable plan is expensive. The doorbell has no local recording, no Ethernet option and works best within Ring's ecosystem, making the product a strong upgrade despite ongoing subscription costs and privacy considerations.

Oura has launched the Ring 5, a 2.28mm-thick smart ring that is 40% smaller than the Ring 4, offers longer battery life and tracks sleep, stress, readiness and heart health. It will cost from £399 and requires a monthly subscription when it ships on 4 June. The Finnish-American company has sold 5.5 million rings, generated $1bn in revenue in 2025 and is valued at $11bn ahead of a planned IPO. Oura is also expanding its health software with alerts for potential blood-pressure and sleep-breathing issues and features for monitoring GLP-1 weight-loss treatments.

Apple’s Studio Display XDR is praised as a superb 27-inch 5K professional monitor, offering exceptional brightness, accurate color, strong HDR performance, a 120Hz refresh rate, and useful built-in speakers, microphones, webcam and Thunderbolt 5 connectivity. It is particularly well suited to Mac-based photo and video professionals, although it requires a modern Mac to unlock its full capabilities, has limited PC compatibility, lacks HDMI and standard DisplayPort inputs, and has a very high starting price of £2,599. The review concludes that it is an excellent premium prosumer display but unlikely to replace specialist reference monitors used in broadcast and film production.

Sony’s 1000XX The Collexion is a £549 anniversary edition of the company’s 1000X headphones, emphasizing luxurious materials, slimmer styling and exceptional comfort. Its sound quality is the standout feature, offering detailed, natural and spacious audio, while its noise cancellation is very good but falls short of Sony’s cheaper WH-1000XM6. Battery life reaches 24 hours with noise cancellation enabled, and the headphones support Bluetooth multipoint, LDAC, spatial audio and repair-friendly features. The main drawbacks are the exceptionally high price, lack of water resistance, inability to fold, no USB-C audio and weaker noise cancellation than Sony’s flagship model.

The Nothing Phone 4a Pro is a distinctive mid-range Android smartphone with a premium aluminium body, huge 144Hz OLED display and an unusual rear dot-matrix LED screen. Its slick, customizable Nothing OS 4.1, two-day battery life, fast charging, and strong main and telephoto cameras are offset by weaker ultrawide photography, limited HDR support, only three Android version updates, and a relatively high £499 price. The cheaper Phone 4a offers better value, while rivals provide stronger cameras or performance, though they lack Nothing’s distinctive design and software character.

Google has announced a series of free Android upgrades rolling out over the coming year, including Gemini Intelligence for automating tasks across phone apps, Chrome auto browse for website actions, improved autofill and AI-enhanced dictation. New tools will help users limit distracting apps, while Quick Share will expand compatibility across Samsung and other Android phones and Apple devices. Instagram is adding on-device editing and video features, Android Auto is receiving a redesigned interface with immersive 3D Google Maps, and Google plans to launch Googlebooks laptops with Android apps and Gemini features in the autumn.

A shortage of memory chips driven largely by artificial-intelligence data-centre expansion is pushing up the cost of laptops, smartphones, games consoles and other electronics. Manufacturers including Apple, Microsoft, Sony, Meta and Samsung are raising prices or discontinuing lower-end models, while memory and storage production is being redirected toward higher-margin AI components. Analysts estimate that mainstream laptop prices could rise by up to 40% in 2026 and that sub-$500 PCs could disappear by 2028. New manufacturing capacity is not expected to substantially relieve pressure until 2027 or later, so consumers are advised to consider older or refurbished devices and repair existing products.

The Samsung Galaxy S26 is a compact, lightweight flagship with a bright 6.3-inch display, strong performance, useful AI features, reliable everyday battery life and software support through February 2033. Its design and rear cameras have changed little in several years, and photo quality—especially in low light—falls behind similarly priced rivals. The phone also lacks Qi2 magnetic accessory support and is less suitable for intensive gaming, but remains one of the best small Android flagships and Samsung’s most affordable top-tier model.

Apple’s MacBook Pro M5 range combines workstation-level performance with unusually long battery life in a portable laptop. The M5 Pro model is presented as the best choice for most professional users, while the M5 Max targets demanding creative and technical workloads; the base M5 offers less advanced connectivity and may overlap with the cheaper MacBook Air. The laptops retain an excellent mini-LED display, keyboard, trackpad, speakers, webcam and port selection, but remain expensive, lack user-upgradable memory and storage, and represent only a modest upgrade over the M4 generation.

The £299 Sonos Play combines Wi-Fi 6, Bluetooth 5.3, multi-room integration, 24-hour battery life, IP67 water resistance and a replaceable battery in a compact but relatively heavy speaker. It delivers expansive, detailed sound with strong vocals and bass, though it lacks the deep low end of the Move 2, loses quality above 80% volume and is not ideal for hiking or large parties. The much-improved Sonos app has regained key features and reliability after its damaging 2024 redesign, but some usability problems remain. The Play is recommended as a versatile home-and-garden speaker, particularly for existing Sonos users, but its high price, lack of a charger and limited portability reduce its wider appeal.

The M5 MacBook Air retains Apple’s premium design while gaining a faster processor, faster storage, Wi-Fi 7, Bluetooth 6 and at least 512GB of storage. It delivers pro-level performance and more than 17 hours of office-use battery life, although it still has a 60Hz display and only two USB-C ports. Starting at £1,099, it remains the strongest all-round premium consumer laptop, but Apple’s much cheaper MacBook Neo now offers serious competition for light computing.

Apple’s £599 MacBook Neo delivers unusually strong value, pairing an iPhone-derived A18 Pro chip with a bright 13-inch display, excellent keyboard and trackpad, solid speakers and roughly 13 hours of battery life. It handles everyday work, photo editing and light video editing smoothly, but cuts costs through 8GB of memory, limited USB-C connectivity, no Thunderbolt, no MagSafe, no backlit keyboard, no True Tone, and restricted external-display support. The Neo is recommended for students and general users, while the more expensive MacBook Air remains preferable for buyers needing greater performance or advanced features.

Apple’s iPhone 17e adds the A19 chip, 256GB of base storage, automatic portrait photography and MagSafe while retaining the older iPhone 14-style design and slower 6.1-inch display. It delivers strong performance, long battery life, USB-C, Face ID and extended software support, but lacks an ultrawide or telephoto camera, macro mode, camera control button, always-on display, Wi-Fi 7, Thread and Ultra Wideband. Starting at £599, it is a better-value upgrade over the iPhone 16e and the cheapest new iPhone, but the review recommends it mainly for buyers who specifically want the least expensive new Apple handset; others may find the iPhone 16 a better alternative.