Combining 55 years of audio expertise with a fresh, contemporary design, the SL-40CBT delivers iconic Technics performance with new features designed for modern vinyl enthusiasts. Read...

At a glanceExpert`s Rating Pros Far more powerful than most robot mowers Outstanding app Fast, efficient cut even at its default speed Cons Unreliable Bluetooth connectivity during manual mapping Poor navigation through narrow passageways Some slope and cliff detection issues Our Verdict While the Ecovacs Goat A3000 excels in a few areas, its shortcomings are disruptive enough to give us pause. Price When Reviewed This value will show the geolocated pricing text for product undefined Best Pricing Today Best Prices Today: Ecovacs Goat A3000 Retailer Price $2,999.99 View Deal Price comparison from over 24,000 stores worldwide Product Price Price comparison from Backmarket Best Prices Today: Check today’s prices Robot lawn mowers are very similar to robot vacuum cleaners, at least in principle. So, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that a leading robot vacuum manufacturer—namely, Ecovacs—should try its hand at building them. But I can’t get past the naming convention Ecovacs chose for this series: The acronym GOAT stands for “greatest of all time” and is commonly used to describe generational figures: Tom Brady in football, Willie Mays in baseball, Richard Petty in NASCAR, and so on. Ecovacs has set an extremely high bar for its entry into an entirely new market, and it doesn’t quite clear it. Specifications There are three models in the Ecovacs Goat series, with the model A3000 reviewed here at the top of the line. Capable of mowing lawns up to 3/4 acre (32,000 square feet or 2,973 square meters), it features a dual-LiDAR navigation system with a 360-degree LiDAR sensor on top of the mower, and a second forward-facing LiDAR with an AI camera for smoother operation in complex environments. This eliminates the need for a GPS antenna. The A3000 has dual cutting blades with a combined cutting width of 12.9 inches and an electronically adjustable cutting height with a range of 1.2- to 3.6 inches. The 5Ah lithium-ion battery powering its 32-volt motor can be fully charged in just 45 minutes, but that motor only drives the mower’s rear wheels. Set up and installation The Ecovacs Goat A3000’s charging contacts are located on the top of the mower and its charging station, which led to more reliable docing and charging. This could go double if you struggle to contain weed growth where you locate the dock. Ed Oswald/Foundry The Goat A3000 was mostly assembled when it arrived, which made the initial setup—with the app walking me through the entire process—very easy. The mower’s charging interface snaps onto its charging base, and the two-prong plug at the other end of the cord can be plugged into any available outlet. I let the mower create its own map of the level portions of my yard, and it did so more quickly than any other machine I’ve tested—by a significant margin. The map was fairly accurate, too, although too sensitive to “passable” obstructions such as overgrowth. Ecovcacs recommends using the manual navigation function to map a yard’s sloped portions. I followed that advice but still ran into significant trouble. The mower’s Bluetooth connection to my smartphone was unstable, disconnecting dozens of times over the 30 or so minutes it needed to map the yard. Fortunately, this was the only major problem I had with the mower. When Bluetooth works, the controls are easy to use. And since the Goat is a 32V mower, you’ll notice a significant amount of get-up-and-go compared to robot mowers with 18V or less motors. One feature the Goat A3000 lacks is any form of lighting, but that doesn’t mean you’re limited to mowing only during the daylight hours. Watching this mower efficiently navigate my oddly shaped yard in low-light conditions was an amazing experience. While you might worry about it hitting pets or other animals while mowing at night, the noise of the approaching mower should scare them off. Using the Ecovacs Goat A3000 The Ecovacs Goat A3000 is impressively maneuverable for its size, and it was able to mow much closer to obstacles in its path. Ed Oswald/Foundry The Ecovacs Goat A3000 performed well throughout my tests, exhibiting only the typical problems rear-wheel-drive models encounter in my yard. One thing I did notice with the A3000 is that it is slightly louder (by a matter of a few decibels) than most robot mowers. This is likely due to the Goat A3000’s cutting power: Its twin disc blades spin at 3,000 rpm. If you’re cutting moderately tall grass, the Goat will leave behind trails of clipped grass much like a traditional mower will—it will shoot some grass clippings out its rear deck, too, which most robot mowers won’t. Those trails will disappear within a day or two as the mower mulches those past clippings (you can also prevent this by cutting your yard down to less than 3 inches or so before your first mow). Like the Segway Navimow X350 robot mower I reviewed in July, the Goat A3000 cuts at a default speed much closer to a human (although there’s also a faster speed). Gone are hours-long mowing sessions: on our 0.28 acre yard, it was done in about 40 minutes, with plenty of battery power left. The Goat A3000’s extra power will come in handy if the mower gets into trouble, too. I’ve tested quite a few that just don’t have enough torque to get themselves unstuck. Fair warning, however; with that torque, this mower can also rip up your yard if things go haywire. The Goat A3000 struggled when navigating through the tight spots in my yard that are just a bit wider than the mower itself. And it would sit and think for several seconds about how to tackle my grass median strips before it finally determined that the best—and only—way to handle them was to run parallel to the longest edge. But those medians have posed problems for every AI-powered mower I’ve tested. And median strips are everywhere. To date, the Sunseeker Orion X7 has been the only robot mower capable of mowing mine without issue on a consistent basis. Using the Ecovacs app If you also use an Ecovacs robot vacuum, you’ll control the Ecovacs Goat A3000 with the same excellent app. Ed Oswald/Foundry As does Anker with its Eufy E18 robot mower, Ecovacs uses the same app for operating its mower as it does with its robot vacuum cleaners. That saves you from needing to download yet another app on your phone—provided, of course, you also use an Ecovacs robot vac. And the app works well, although I could do without the cutesy animations. The Ecovacs app has an uncluttered user interface, putting only the most important features on screen and with thought and consideration given to where buttons and switches are placed. You’ll rarely need to adjust  the mower’s cutting height, for instance, but you’ll want to check the mower’s location frequently, so prominently displaying the mower’s camera button in the app is the best use of screen real estate. Should you buy the Ecovacs Goat A3000? The Ecovacs Goat A3000 has a second LiDAR camera on its top, giving the mower a 360-degree of its surroundings as well as excellent low-light vision.Ed Oswald/Foundry As I said at the beginning, putting the word “Goat” in this mower’s name leads one to expect top-tier performance. The Goat A3000 is a very good robot lawn mower, but it’s certainly not the “greatest of all time.” That’s not to say it never will be: It has awesome navigation skills, and its cutting performance is at the top end of my experience. The right firmware updates could put it over the top. Steady Bluetooth connectivity, so essential during setup and initial mapping, is crucial. Ecovacs needs to fix that as soon as possible. It might seem like a minor bump in the road, but that bump is nearly the first thing you’ll encounter in your experience with this mower. AI is the second area in which Ecovacs needs to improve. So far, Sunseeker is the only robot lawn mower manufacturer to successfully implement AI. The Orion X7 didn’t need to make several mistakes to learn the most efficient mowing method; it was able to determine that ahead of time, even if it meant the robot had to sit and “think” about it. Ecovac’s AI isn’t among the worst I’ve seen, but it’s also not the best. The Ecovacs Goat A3000 is a very good robot lawn mower with the potential to be much better. It’s up to Ecovacs to see just how close to great it can be. This review is part of TechHive’s in-depth coverage of the best robot lawn mowers. Read...

It’s never been easier–or less expensive–to build out a state-of-the art smart home. We have other roundups that name the best smart home components–everything from the best smart bulbs to the best smart speakers, but in this story, we name the best hubs–the central controllers–that make home living more convenient. While the lines are becoming increasingly blurred, we see two basic types of smart home systems: Those focused on convenience first–the hubs listed here–and those focused on home security first (and here are our top DIY home security system picks). Decide first what is your primary goal–convenience or security–and then shop accordingly. The best smart home systems Samsung SmartThings Station – Best DIY smart home hub for most people Pros Wi-Fi, Zigbee, and Thread radios onboard Stuffed with bonus features, including a wireless phone charger Matter support adds immense flexibility Cons Won’t work without a broadband connection No Z-Wave radio No battery backup or cellular backup Best Prices Today: Retailer Price $94.99 View Deal Price comparison from over 24,000 stores worldwide Product Price Price comparison from Backmarket Who should buy the Samsung SmartThings Station While it has lost the ability to control Z-Wave devices, the Samsung SmartThings Station it has been transformed into a powerful Matter-certified smart home hub. It’s a big step up from the simpler Ikea Dirigera hub in that it will control virtually any Matter-certified product, and it’s very easy to use. If you already have a non-Matter SmartThings hub, such as the Aeotec Smart Home Hub, you can easily transition everything but your Z-Wave devices to this hub. Samsung SmartThings Station: Further considerations If you’re looking to build out a Matter-compatible smart home, the Samsung SmartThings Station is the smart home hub you’re looking for. While Samsung also integrates SmartThings hub features into its smart TVs, smart monitors, and even its high-end refrigerators, this stand-alone hub is at least as powerful as those, and it’s much easier to work with. It also features an integrated inductive charging pad for your smartphone and other compatible devices. If you do want to control Z-Wave devices, stick with Aeotec’s hub (see below). Read our full Samsung SmartThings Station review Amazon Echo Hub — Best smart home hub with a display Pros Supports Wi-Fi, Matter, Zigbee, Thread, Bluetooth LE Mesh, and Sidewalk Easy to set up, customize, master, and use on an everyday basis Supports advanced connectivity options such as Power over Ethernet Cons No Z-Wave radio, battery backup, or cellular backup Only responds to Alexa voice commands Pricey overkill for those with just a few smart home devices to control Best Prices Today: Retailer Price $179.99 View Deal Price comparison from over 24,000 stores worldwide Product Price Price comparison from Backmarket Who should buy the Amazon Echo Hub A wall-mounted control panel is one of the characteristic features of a high-end smart home system. Most every professionally installed system–Vivint Smart Home, Crestron, Savant, etc.–has one, with a touchscreen that can display your security camera feeds, control your lights and other components, and arm/disarm your home security system. Amazon’s Echo Hub is an affordable panel that can do all that, and it’s especially great when paired with Alexa-compatible smart home devices, Ring security cameras and a Ring Alarm or Ring Alarm Pro system. Amazon Echo Hub: Further considerations The Amazon Echo Hub will be of most interest to hardcore Alexa users–it’s also an Echo smart display–and people who use Ring home security products. While it’s functional right out of the box, you’ll want to spend time customizing its layout to take full advantage of everything it has to offer, including displaying feeds from your compatible security cameras (while you’re not limited to Ring cameras, they will deliver the best experience). The display is designed to be hung on the wall–there’s no desktop stand–but it supports Power over Ethernet (data, video, and power are carried over the same low-voltage cable). Run an ethernet cable through your wall, and you won’t have an unsightly power cord dangling from it. Read our full Amazon Echo Hub review Ikea Dirigera – Best DIY smart home hub for newbies Pros Inexpensive Easy to use Supports Amazon Alexa, Apple Home, and Google Home Works as a Matter bridge and Thread border router (after a firmware update) Cons Must be hardwired to your router No Z-Wave radio, battery backup, or cellular backup Limited feature set Best Prices Today: Retailer Price Check Price comparison from over 24,000 stores worldwide Product Price Price comparison from Backmarket Who should buy the Ikea Dirigera smart home hub The Ikea Dirigera is a great choice for newcomers to the smart home market who just want things to work without having to muck about. Ikea’s companion app is supremely easy to use and offers plenty of handholding to step you through getting it set up and adding smart home devices. A recent firmware update makes the hub a Matter bridge, meaning you’re no longer limited to controlling Ikea’s own products with it, and it activated the hub’s Thread radio as well, enabling it to perform as a Thread border router. It’s compatible with Amazon Alexa, Apple Home, and Google Home, so you can use voice commands to control everything. Ikea Dirigera smart home hub: Further considerations The simplicity of the Ikea Dirigera smart home hub and the Ikea Home app makes for a great smart home onramp. Ikea has lots of its own smart home accessories–ranging from basic smart plugs to motorized window shades–and the recent activation of the hub’s Thread radio and Matter certification open the door to lots of third-party devices. Read our full Ikea Dirigera review Other notable smart home hubs we’ve tested We’ve evaluated lots of other DIY smart home systems. If none of our top picks check all the boxes for you, take a look at these other products. Aqara Hub E1 is very similar to Aqara’s Hub M3 system, except it plugs into a USB power adapter and doesn’t have its stablemate’s infrared blaster feature. And like the Hub M2, the Hub E1 controls only Aqara Zigbee devices. Aqara Hub M3 is mostly about the convenience aspects of the smart home. It’s very easy to set up; it has Wi-Fi, Thread, and Zigbee radios; and it’s Matter-compatible. It can’t control third-party Zigbee directly, however; it can only control Aqara’s own Zigbee products. Homey Bridge is a SmartThings-like smart home hub that supports Wi-Fi, Zigbee, Z-Wave, Bluetooth, 433MHz, and infrared devices. Like SmartThings, it’s focused primarily on convenience versus home security. But you’re limited to just five devices unless you pay for a subscription. Hubitat Elevation (model C7) is a powerful smart home hub favored by many hardcore enthusiasts. It supports Matter and has , and unlike the Aeotec Smart Home Hub we like so much, Hubitat’s product isn’t reliant on a connection to the internet. Less-experienced users, however, will encounter a steep learning curve. SwitchBot Hub 2 is primarily a gateway for other SwitchBot smart home products, but it can also serve as a Matter bridge for a host of third-party products. It has been replaced by the SwitchBot Hub 3, so look for our review soon. How we test smart home hubs PCWorld’s TechHive team reviews smart home hubs in real-world conditions by setting them up in our own homes. We connect them to our own routers and then link a variety of compatible smart home devices to them (lights, sensors, smart locks, and more, from disparate brands). We use every smart home technology the hub supports: Matter, Thread, Wi-Fi, Zigbee, Z-Wave, et al). Why you should trust PCWorld’s TechHive for smart home hub reviews and buying advice TechHive’s staff editors and freelance contributors have decades of collective experience testing and living with smart home hubs and all the classes of devices that connect to them. But our enthusiasm is not unbridled, and we give no quarter to buggy products or anything that’s unnecessarily difficult. Every product listed above has been personally and rigorously tested and vetted by our experts. We won’t recommend anything that we wouldn’t be happy to have in our own homes. Who curates this article? Christopher Null is an award-winning tech journalist with more than 25 years of experience who frequently reviews the latest smart home products for TechHive. He’s a frequent contributor to Wired, This Old House, and AAA’s Via Magazine. Michael Brown, TechHive’s lead editor, has been writing about home technology for more than 30 years and built a custom smart home from the ground up in 2007. Following a relocation to the Pacific Northwest in 2023, he’s been busy converting an 1890 bungalow into a modern smart home. During his career, Michael has held staff editor positions at CNET, PCWorld, Electronic Musician, and Maximum PC, and he wrote a book about desktop video production. How to choose the best DIY smart home system As we mentioned earlier, smart home systems come in a dazzling array of shapes and sizes, from brain-dead simple to vastly complex. Features vary just as widely, so you’ll need to pay more attention than usual when you’re narrowing down the field to find the product that’s right for you. Here’s a look at some of those key decision factors. To see how each system on the market measures up to those promises, drill down into our reviews. Which smart home standards does the hub support? This might be your most important consideration, because it will dictate which smart home devices you can install in your home. Some security-focused smart home hubs, such as SimpliSafe, only work with their own accessories. Some others, such as the Ring Alarm series, have certification programs for third-party products. This is less of a problem with smart home hubs that focus on convenience. Matter has long promised to be the standard that will tie all the leading smart home ecosystems together: Amazon Alexa, Apple Home, Google Home, Samsung SmartThings, and more. While it’s not quite there–principally because Matter doesn’t take every aspect of the smart home into account (e.g., security cameras), it continues to make solid progress toward that goal. While Matter puts an umbrella over Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, Zigbee, and Thread, it ignores Z-Wave, a technology that offers some features none of those other platforms do. If your smart home is already filled with smart home devices, you won’t want to replace them for the sake of a new hub. Fortunately, Matter and Z-Wave are not mutually exclusive, and several smart home hubs support both standards, including Homey, Home Assistant, and Hubitat Elevation. If you already have, or you intend to buy smart speakers, make syre the hub you buy is compatible. Amazon Echo and Google Nest smart speakers are almost universally supported; Apple’s HomePod speakers much less so. Wired vs. wireless hub connection Many smart hubs must connect to your wireless router via an ethernet cable, which limits their placement and, of course, requires a free ethernet port on your router (if all your router ports are occupied, buy an inexpensive switch). A smaller number of hubs are wireless and can be placed anywhere in range of the router, increasing your flexibility. Local control vs. cloud dependent Some smart home hubs depend on a connection to the cloud (i.e., the internet) to operate. Even with a fast broadband connection, you might notice a delay as your commands go up to the internet, are processed by a server in the cloud, and then come back down to the hub and out to the device the command is intended for. And if your broadband connection should fail, your smart home instantly turns dumb. That won’t be a problem with a smart home hub that processes everything locally. Broadband backup Smart home hubs that are focused on home security should have a backup means of connecting to the internet should your regular broadband connection fail. This is typically handled by a cellular radio on the device. If it doesn’t have a backup, and you’re paying for professional monitoring that can dispatch first-responders in the event of a break-in or other emergency, the hub will have no way to reach that call center. The cost for this type of backup is usually included in the subscription fee for professional monitoring. Battery backup If the power goes out, your smart lights won’t be useful anyway; but other smart home features, such as security sensors, rely on a hub that’s always powered on. Some smart home hubs feature battery backups (thanks to rechargeable or disposable cells). Even a short power outage can cause a significant delay while the hub reconnects, so a battery backup makes sense in many home environments. If you like everything else about a particular hub that lacks a battery backup option, consider investing in an uninterruptible power supply to plug it into. Sensor range If your home is large or spread out, you’ll need to pay attention to the range that the hub’s sensors support. Hubs may support a wide array of connection protocols, including Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, Z-Wave, and Zigbee, all of which have very different ranges. As with a wireless router, smart hub range can also be impacted by interference and device placement, and smart home devices themselves have different specs, as well. Take the time to look into the detailed specs to be sure sensors and third-party devices will work with your home’s infrastructure. Mobile app usability You’ll probably be interacting with your hub primarily through its mobile app, so you’ll want one that’s intuitive and powerful, with all the key features you use front and center. Our reviews cover this topic and include app screenshots to give you a sense of what you’ll be dealing with on the app side of things. Overall complexity This is a companion consideration to the mobile app, relating primarily to the audience for whom the smart home system was developed. Is the system geared toward everyday users with limited customization needs? Or is it built with extreme flexibility in mind, to the point where the configuration decisions might overwhelm a novice user? Again, close attention to our reviews can help you gauge how comfortable you’re likely to feel with any system. Subscription plan costs Subscription plan costs vary widely from system to system, and many vendors offer a range of plans to choose from. Some systems–particularly those that aren’t focused on home security–will work with no service plan at all. Study any subscription plan options carefully before you pull the trigger on a smart home hub. Frequently asked questions about smart home hubs and systems 1. What is a smart home hub? Strictly speaking, you don’t need a smart home hub if all your all smart home devices operate over Wi-Fi. But doing that will put a big load on your Wi-Fi router. You’ll have a better experience if you can offload that command and control work to a dedicated piece of hardware; namely, smart home hub that has at least a Zigbee radio. Also having Thread and Z-Wave radios onboard will give you additional flexibility, although the latter is not required for Matter support. 2. What are the most important smart home hub features? The smart home hub you choose should be compatible with whatever smart home devices you already own, including any existing smart speaker or smart display. A Matter-certified hub will be compatible with any of them–a later-model Amazon Echo, Google Nest, or an Apple HomePod, for example. A versatile smart home hub will have Bluetooth, Thread, Zigbee, and perhaps Z-Wave radios onboard (Z-Wave is not part of the Matter standard, but TechHive’s editors still value it). If you’re centralizing your smart home around Matter, you’ll want to make sure your hub has a Thread border router onboard (although you can also use a separate device for that purpose). A Thread border router coordinates all your smart home devices that communicate over Thread 3. Where should I install a smart home hub? A smart home hub will connect to your Wi-Fi router, either wirelessly or–more commonly–via an ethernet cable. Ideally, both those components will be in a central location inside your home, to provide the best coverage. The router will provide the broadband connection you’ll need to control your smart home devices, some of which will need to connect to servers in the cloud. Some smart home hubs, such as the security-focused Ring Alarm Pro, have a router integrated with the rest of their hardware. 4. How much do smart home hubs cost? You can buy a smart home hub for as little as $30 or as much as $300, depending on its processor power and feature set. The very basic Aqara M100 hub, plugs into a user-supplied USB power supply has Zigbee and Thread radios inside. It supports Matter and can perform as a Thread border router, but you can only connect Aqara’s own Zigbee devices (and you’re limited to 20 of these and 20 Thread devices). Moving up to something like Ikea’s Dirigera hub ($109) or 4th-generation Amazon Echo ($100) will give you all those features with fewer limitations as well as well as an integrated smart speaker. The Amazon Echo Hub and Google’s Nest Hub incorporate displays along with their smart speakers. If you can tolerate a learning curve in exchange for setting up an even more powerful smart home hub, consider something like the Hubitat Elevation or an even more DIY-oriented Home Assistant. Read...

As much as we love Windows laptops here at PCWorld, we have to give credit where credit is due… and MacBooks can be pretty awesome in their own right. The M3 MacBook Air, for example, is pretty darn slim, light, and powerful—and right now it’s on sale for $1,199 at B&H. That’s a rare $300 discount you won’t want to pass up. The M3 chip in this MacBook Air is uber-fast, delivering outstanding performance whether you’re working through spreadsheets or juggling dozens of Chrome tabs. When our friends at MacWorld reviewed this laptop, they praised its excellent battery life and its price-performance, ultimately giving it a fantastic 4.5-star rating. Paired with a solid 24GB of Unified RAM and a 512GB SSD, you have an excellent everyday driver laptop that’s perfect for work, fun, hobbies, streaming, and even photo editing. The 15.3-inch Liquid Retina Display makes everything look crisp and high-def, while also being easy to work with in all lighting conditions. The M3 MacBook Air features two USB4 ports plus Wi-Fi 6E and Bluetooth 5.3 for connectivity. The ports allow you to hook up an external 6K@60Hz display, or you can connect two 5K@60Hz displays (but you’ll have to close the laptop lid for the latter). No other ports means it’s a bit lacking for external storage and other peripherals, but you can get around that by getting a USB-C hub or docking station. Deals like this are few and far between for relatively new Apple products, so take this opportunity to get an M3 MacBook Air for $1,199! Save $300 on a brand-new M3 MacBook Air while you canBuy now from B&H Read...

Microsoft’s AI Manager Mustafa Suleyman recently unveiled in a social media post a new feature called “Scripted Mode” in Copilot Labs for turning written scripts into text-to-speech. Copilot Labs is an experimental platform where you can try out Microsoft’s newest AI features that are still in development. You asked, we shipped! Scripted mode just dropped for audio generation in Copilot Labs (c/o our new MAI-Voice-1 model).Scripted mode: reads your input verbatimEmotive: riffs a bit for max dramaStory: performs multiple voices/charactersTry out all 3 ?? https://t.co/9hL81LTFwF pic.twitter.com/rOVZKGbDjX— Mustafa Suleyman (@mustafasuleyman) September 10, 2025 Specifically, the feature is part of Copilot Audio Expressions, which is the actual tool that turns text into spoken audio. Previously, Copilot Audio Expressions only had two modes: Story Mode (which weaves together multiple vocal styles and characters for a storytelling experience) and Emotive Mode (which uses a single, distinct voice that matches a particular mood with some improvisation). With Scripted Mode, Copilot Audio Expressions can now take text and read it aloud with a fast and direct take, making sure to read the content verbatim without any riffing or creative changes. You can still select which voice and style to use for the reading. Copilot Audio Expressions is still only available in English, but Microsoft is exploring ways to support more languages. Read...

Greetings from Maryland, where I’m currently visiting family and using one of the best impulse buys I’ve made in recent memory. I’m taking about those cheap portable monitors that go on sale for about $50 on Amazon, available under a variety of unrecognizable brand names. The one I got is made by BIGASUO (a name I can’t stop saying), but you can find seemingly identical models from the likes of FANGOR and MNN. They all serve the same basic purpose as a travel-friendly way to add an extra screen to your laptop, and they all have the same basic features: 15.6-inch 1080p display USB-C or Mini HDMI input Built-in speakers Audio jack for headphones or external speakers A detachable folio stand Some variants, such as this one by the unfortunately named Dopesplay, have actual built-in kickstands instead of folio cases that double as makeshift stands, but otherwise appear identical. Are these monitors great quality-wise? Of course not. But they’re cheap, light, and versatile. They’re also refreshingly free from a lot of modern tech baggage. I’ve had a great time finding ways to use mine. Allow me to convince you why you should get one of these, too. This column first appeared in Advisorator, Jared’s weekly tech advice newsletter. Sign up to get tech advice like this every Tuesday. How does a portable monitor work? These portable screens work a little differently than full-sized monitors, mainly because they don’t have regular HDMI, DisplayPort, or VGA inputs. To connect these monitors, you have a couple options: USB-C to USB-C data cable. This provides power and video to the portable monitor through a single cable, but requires your computer to support video output through a USB-C port. (Modern Macs can do this, and many recent Windows laptops are catching up.) Mini HDMI to HDMI. For computers with HDMI outputs, you can send video to the portable monitor via Mini HDMI, but you’ll need a separate USB-C cable to power the monitor as well. A single USB-C data cable can provide video and power, or you can use the Mini HDMI and USB-C power ports instead.Jared Newman / Foundry Note that these travel-friendly displays don’t have built-in batteries, so they must draw power from either your laptop or an outlet. The lack of a battery makes the monitor lighter, but if you’re using the USB-C to USB-C connector, you’ll likely want to keep your laptop plugged into its own power source for lengthy computing sessions. My BIGASUO monitor included all the necessary cables, but they’re on the short side. To lengthen the connection distance, you’ll either need an HDMI extender or a USB-C to USB-C cable with 10 Gbps transfer speeds. (A basic USB-C charging cable won’t suffice for video connections.) What is a portable monitor good for? The most obvious use for a portable monitor is the main one: while using a laptop on the go, you can attach the portable monitor, prop it up with a stand, and have two screens instead of one. If you’ve never used a dual monitor setup before, this can be a revelation in itself. It’s nice being able to reference a document on one screen while writing on the other, or use one screen just for things like email and Slack while freeing up the main screen for more important tasks. I’ve also managed to prop up my BIGASUO monitor in portrait mode, which can be a bit precarious at times but does make my mobile workspace a bit more compact. (You can rotate the monitor orientation in system settings on both Windows PC and Mac.) Beyond the dual-screen setup, I’ve also experimented with: Turning a phone into a computer: Paired with a Bluetooth mouse and keyboard, your phone can become a makeshift portable desktop. Samsung’s Galaxy phones are especially well-suited with Samsung DeX, which launches a desktop-like environment when the phone connects to an external display. (You can even use the phone screen as a touchpad.) Plugging a separate USB-C charging cable into the monitor will send a charge back to the phone so you don’t waste battery life. A Samsung Galaxy Fold7 running DeX mode on the monitor, with the phone as a touchpad.Jared Newman / Foundry An extra (or alternate) desktop display: You don’t have to use a portable monitor on the road. I’ve been plugging mine into my desktop gaming PC in the basement while my son occupies the TV with the PlayStation 5. (We have plans to play Fortnite together this way but haven’t gotten around to it yet.) A bigger portable video screen: I’ve connected the portable monitor to my Steam Deck for a bigger view of the action, and I can envision plugging it into a phone or tablet to watch movies in bed or on a plane. A portable monitor just works In the past, I’ve written about using a tablet as an external monitor—and that’s still a viable option. Portable monitors are larger than most tablets, though, and they’re also less finnicky to set up. Not to get overly philosophical here, but portable monitors also remind me why I get excited about technology to begin with. Unlike so many other tech products today, a portable monitor is a no-fuss device that just works when you plug it in, asking nothing of you in exchange. There’s no pairing process, no login procedure, and no privacy policy to accept. I often hear folks pining for a dumb alternative to modern smart TVs—if you ask me, that idea is alive and well in portable monitors. But the biggest endorsement I can offer is this: my wife, after borrowing my portable monitor a couple days ago, now wants one of her own. This column first appeared in Advisorator, Jared’s weekly tech advice newsletter. Sign up to get tech advice like this every Tuesday. Read...

Welcome to The Full Nerd newsletter—your weekly dose of hardware talk from the enthusiasts at PCWorld. Missed the burning topics on our YouTube show or fresh news from across the web? You’re in the right place. Want this newsletter to come directly to your inbox? Sign up on our website! It turns out a lot of people don’t understand passkeys.  I learned this after last week’s show, when people on our Discord server began chatting about our recap of best practices for online security.  Our group brought up plenty of technical points, being the awesome nerds they are. But as the conversation unfolded, misconceptions cropped up about passkeys and how they work. That surprised me—as did learning more than one of my colleagues doesn’t quite get them, either. I ended up following up on the topic this week, in one of my longest-ever responses during a Q&A segment. I spent a lot of time preparing the breakdown, which covers a very simple overview of asymmetrical public-private encryption keys (aka public-key encryption), then dives into nuances of what passkeys do and don’t protect against. This deeper look got me thinking. Typically, more tech knowledge simplifies problems. You can figure out solutions faster and more efficiently. The familiarity helps you know which details to prioritize and which to disregard. This instance is a rare occurrence of the opposite—where familiarity breeds a demand for perfection. One common criticism of passkeys is their inability to mitigate all security weaknesses. For example: Passkeys don’t protect against session hijacking. Another is the perceived lack of universal use. “Passkeys lock you into a single ecosystem” can be found in multiple comments in Discord, Reddit, and forum discussions. I find these arguments specious, to be honest. Session hijacking is outside the realm of authentication. And the restrictions around passkey portability are part of the original design, balanced by the ability to generate multiple passkeys for a single account. I get where they come from, though. People with technical knowledge have lived in a world with passwords for so long—and they know the ins and outs of the security weaknesses—that it’s hard to think outside that space. We’re all tired of the constant breaches, password rotations, and time spent minimizing damage to our daily lives. A perfect solution would be really nice. A password + 2FA via a security key is as good as a passkey, but let’s be realistic about how many people use hardware keys.YubiKey But let’s not miss the forest for the trees. Many people do not use secure passwords. Fewer still use two-factor authentication. And yet even a slimmer portion bother with third-party password managers. Why? Good password security takes effort. Two-factor authentication adds an extra layer to the complexity. Passkeys eliminate much of that mental overhead. They require no memorization, hook into the ecosystems most users are already committed to, and lean on understandable systems (e.g., using a fingerprint to approve passkey use). And users won’t need to cycle their credentials whenever a breach happens.  Can passkey implementation be improved? Absolutely. Do you need to change your system of password + 2FA if you already have an established system you trust? Not at all. Should that stop the recommendation of passkeys by the tech savvy to others, particularly everyday users? Hard no. I believe that when we look at tech, we need to be evaluating products, services, and standards on how well they achieve their intended function—not just how well they execute it. Sometimes, making this call will require us to see the world in ways completely opposite from our viewpoint. In this episode of The Full Nerd In this episode of The Full Nerd, Alaina Yee, Brad Chacos, Will Smith, and Michael Crider chat about the possible reason behind Windows 11’s recent SSD issues, tech products that disappoint us (and why), and more. I also slipped in that, uh, thorough overview of passkeys during the Q&A segment. We also learned that Will just “doesn’t like to feel.” (Is this the natural result of earning more life experience?) Despite the lack of positivity on feelings, he spread delight when telling us about a Twitch streamer who plays games on unexpected makeshift controllers. Pomegranates. How to play Overwatch with bananas?Willis Lai / Foundry Missed our live show? Subscribe now to The Full Nerd Network YouTube channel, and activate notifications. We also answer viewer questions in real-time! Don’t miss out on our NEW shows, too—you can catch episodes of Dual Boot Diaries and The Full Nerd: Extra Edition now! And if you need more hardware talk during the rest of the week, come join our Discord community—it’s full of cool, laid-back nerds. This week’s scintillating nerd news Here’s how I know I had holiday brain last week: I forgot to mention Will & Adam’s livestream of building in Teenage Engineering’s nifty transparent plastic case! Good thing I realized my error, because this week’s boatload of news almost flooded it right out of my brain. By the way, I’m really crossing my fingers on the first-gen Lenovo Go dropping in price this fall. Please please please. ????????R?? Wait, I can fix my lack of skill with free software? I’m all ears about this Mouse Pointer Crosshair tool, Microsoft, especially since I’m already a PowerToys fan. (I’m pretty sure I won’t get to use this in games, but a gal can dream.) Wide handheld is wide: My PCWorld colleague Mike Crider nails the standout feature for this custom handheld gaming PC. I can see why he wants one. I still have clickwheel iPods. Hmmmm: Digital preservationists are performing such important work. It’s not just about nostalgia—having tangible, interactive evidence of what came before keeps our history so much alive. I love this Pinball coding goof: Technically, developer Dave Plummer didn’t make a true mistake, since we never can predict what changes will make our projects suddenly act wonky. But this Windows NT-era game accidentally running for a time at 5,000 fps on multicore processors is pretty great. How much can we trust encrypted messaging? If this accusation against Meta about WhatsApp’s security is true, the answer appears to be ‘not as much as we believe.’ (Remember folks, never share things in writing if you want to be sure they can’t come back to haunt you.) Please alert my coworkers that I’m not weird: At least, not for thinking 64GB of memory is a reasonable upgrade. If the base is now 32GB, doubling it isn’t that much of a stretch. Google says the open web is in “rapid decline”: Anyone else find this concerning? (Also, hmm, just whose focus on AI could be causing this?) Lenovo I’ve wanted the Legion Go 2 for ages: OK, I didn’t want the actual Legion Go 2, which only just got announced. But I have waited with fortitude for a successor to the affordable 8-inch Windows 8 tablets of yore. And while I’d love an OLED screen and 32GB of DDR5 RAM, what I’m truly eager for is the first-gen Go dropping below $500 on Black Friday. (Fingers crossed.) Windows license resellers might get slapped down: A lawsuit in the UK could have ramifications for those cheap licenses some DIY builders like to use. Uh oh. Passkeys could’ve possibly stopped this disastrous phish: Malicious JavaScript code popped up in a set of trusted packages with more than two billion downloads per week—and it happened because the maintainer of the code had his credentials (including 2FA code) successfully phished. A security key could have helped stop the attack—but so too a passkey, were it an option. Anthropic got hit with a $1.5 billion fine for stealing: I’m glad for copyright law, because using pirated works to train AI was appalling. (Hiss.) Just $5 for this incredible thrift store find: In this week’s installment of, “We love thrift stores,” someone found a RTX 3060 12GB card for just $5. And it works. (Redditor satviktyagi’s comment in this thread is perfection, by the by.) I’m a simple person. You put sparkly effects in Portal, I play it again: I wouldn’t say I’m in the “farm-to-table frames” camp (i.e, Team Raw Raster Performance), but I don’t yet stan Nvidia’s RTX features. But seeing the Portal screenshot with remix particles caught my attention. It’s shiny. (Sparkly.) Catch you all next week—I’ll be eagerly awaiting the arrival of my Lemokey X0 gaming keypad upgrades. PC gamers need to work their marketing campaign, for real. I would have switched ages ago if the slogan had been “Bend games to your will.” Though I guess “Console players suck” does redirect attention from needing customized gear to land headshots. ~Alaina This newsletter is dedicated to the memory of Gordon Mah Ung, founder and host of The Full Nerd, and executive editor of hardware at PCWorld. Read...

At a glanceExpert`s Rating Pros Terrific performance Synapse utility app is fantastic Smartly designed, comfortable keyboard Thunderbolt 5 Light and quiet (for a gaming notebook, anyway) Cons Battery life is abysmal Windows doesn’t accommodate dual-mode screen well Boot sequence could be more responsive Ports could and should be labeled Our Verdict Razer’s Blade 18 outperforms basically everything else out there, with an exception or two. This relatively quiet gaming notebook does suffer from the short battery life of its rivals, and the default 4K screen is so good that the cool dual-resolution mode will probably go underused. Price When Reviewed This value will show the geolocated pricing text for product undefined Best Pricing Today Best Prices Today: Razer Blade 18 (2025) Retailer Price Razer $4599.99 View Deal Check Price comparison from over 24,000 stores worldwide Product Price Price comparison from Backmarket Best Prices Today: Check today’s prices Razer’s Blade 18 is the limo you take to the airport: probably way too much laptop for your daily needs, sure. But why not simply enjoy it? Someone who buys an 18-inch laptop simply wants the best and biggest laptop around, a desktop replacement capable of playing any game at maximum frame rates. That’s fine for most people. Smart buyers, however, will consider the Blade 18 since its aesthetics have a purpose. For 2025, the laptop brings several notable updates: Intel’s latest Arrow Lake architecture, Nvidia GeForce GPUs up to the RTX 5090, and a new dual-mode screen that combines a 4K creator-class display with a high-resolution esports monitor. Fantastic performance, smart design, even weight that won’t burn out your biceps. There’s very little I didn’t like about the Razer Blade 18. Overall, the Razer Blade 18 excels where performance matters most, combining thoughtful design and powerhouse hardware, though its battery life and minor quirks remind you this is a premium desktop replacement, not a portable workhorse. Razer Blade 18: Configuration options Razer’s 2025 update of the Razer Blade 18 steps up to Intel’s Arrow Lake Core Ultra 9 275HX, whose mobile performance impressed me. But there’s also Razer’s first use of the Nvidia GeForce RTX 5000 lineup, memory that jumps to 64GB, and up to 4 TB of storage. Razer has returned to using a dual-mode screen, first seen on the 2023 version of the Blade 16. That model offered a less robust version of what’s in the 2025 Blade 18. During the day, you can edit on its 4K, 240Hz display. By evening, switch to a 1080p, 480Hz mode for esports gaming. Razer’s RGB logo adorns the back of the Razer Blade 18.Mark Hachman / Foundry Razer used to sell its Blade laptops on Amazon as well as its own site. At the moment, however, most models have been pulled from Amazon. The only place to buy the Blade 18 appears to be Razer’s website. If the Blade 18 is simply too much, Razer also ships the Blade 16 and Blade 14, though the components step down a bit. A larger notebook allows for more cooling, which means more power can go through the CPU and GPU. Both the Blade 16 and Blade 18 offer an RTX 5090 option, but the Blade 18 supports 175W of GPU power versus 160W on the Blade 16. That usually translates to higher performance. At Razer, your choices are limited: every version ships with an Intel Core Ultra 9 275HX. Otherwise, you can downgrade the GPU from an Nvidia GeForce RTX 5090 with 24GB of VRAM to an RTX 5080 (16GB VRAM) or to a 5070 Ti option. The way Razer phrases it seems like simply dropping down to an RTX 5080 will save you $1,100, period. But Razer ties your GPU selection to other RAM and storage options, so that there are essentially four versions of the Blade 18 to choose from: Razer Blade 18 with RTX 5090, 4 TB (2TB + 2TB) SSD, 64GB RAM: $4,599.99 (as tested) Razer Blade 18 with RTX 5090, 2TB SSD, and 32GB RAM: $4,199.99 Razer Blade 18 with RTX 5080, 1TB SSD, 32GB RAM: $3,499.99 Razer Blade 18 with RTX 5070 TI, 1 TB SSD, 32GB RAM: $2,999.99 Razer also tosses in some “gifts” — at press time, Borderlands 4, Battlefield 6, and a month’s worth of Game Pass Ultimate PC — with the purchase of the Blade 18, as well. Mark Hachman / Foundry Razer Blade 18: Specifications Display: 18-Inch dual-mode IPS display: 3840×2400, 240Hz; 1920×1200, 440Hz (non-touch) Processor: Intel Core Ultra 9 275HX (5.4GHz turbo, 24 cores/24 threads) Graphics: Nvidia GeForce RTX 5070 Ti, 12GB GDDR7 VRAM/RTX 5080, 16GB GDDR7 VRAM/RTX 5090 (150W + 25W dynamic boost), 24GB GDDR7 VRAM (5090 as tested) NPU: No Memory: 32GB-64GB DDR5-5600 (64GB as tested) Storage: 1TB-2TB M.2. NVMe PCI 4.0; 4TB (both M.2. slots filled) (4TB as tested) Ports: Thunderbolt 5 (DP 2.1, 100W charging), Thunderbolt 4 (DP 2.1, 100W charging), HDMI 2.1, RJ45 (2.5Gbps Ethernet), UHS-II SD, 3.5mm headphone jack Security: Windows Hello (camera) Camera: 1440p, 30 Hz (user facing) Battery: 99Wh Wireless: Wi-Fi 7, Bluetooth 5.4 Operating system: Windows 11 Home 24H2 Dimensions: 15.74 x 10.84 x 0.86-1.1in. Weight: 7.06 pounds Color: Anodized black Price: $$2,999.99 – $4,599.99 ($4,599.99 as tested) Razer Blade 18: Out of the box Most ultra-premium gaming laptops that I’ve seen tend to prioritize the internal components over the external chassis: throw in a bit of RGB bling and spend the rest of your engineering talent worrying about keeping the components cool. Take the rival Maingear Ultima 18: it’s just a big black slab. Stick it on its end, and you can imagine a tribe of apes worshiping it while “Also sprach Zarathustra” plays. Razer’s Blade 18 is different. Instead of extending the laptop’s underside the length of the laptop, there’s a “bump” that protrudes from the underside, housing the cooling module. A small cutout “exposes” some of the components behind a clear Mylar plastic window, lit by user-adjustable RGB lighting. Mark Hachman / Foundry Add to that the existing RGB-lit Razer logo that’s already mounted on the top/rear of the laptop itself, and that’s a healthy dose of RGB right there. Fortunately, it’s out of sight, and at least the vapor chamber lighting can be disabled, if necessary. All this isn’t totally unique; the Alienware 16 Area 51 includes a similar cooling bump and light-up logo. But it’s still an interesting twist that attracts the eye. (Note to Razer: if you’re going to leave the logo lighting on at all times, an Ambilight mode might be a neat addition.) Unlike other gaming laptops I’ve tried, the Blade 18 doesn’t feel ungainly. At 7.06 pounds, it’s surprisingly manageable. The chassis is made from CNC-milled aluminum and features a fingerprint-resistant coating. (That’s technically true. Fingerprints might not stick, but the chassis will pick up oil and dust, and I had to spend a few minutes polishing the chassis for photos.) You’ll find a couple of fun quirks right off the bat: the first is the dual-mode display, which we’ll talk about in a bit. The second is the keyboard, which not only offers a number of adjustable RGB lighting effects, but also assigns two RGB LEDs to selected keys. Put another way, when you hit the SHIFT key, the RGB lighting will illuminate only the “%,” “^,” and “&” keys, not the numbers themselves. Notice how when the SHIFT button is depressed, only the punctuation lights up, not the numbers. And yes, the chassis attracts fingerprints.Mark Hachman / Foundry One of the few things I didn’t like about this laptop is that the relatively uninspired boot sequence. Hit the power button, and the Blade just sits there — or seems to. While there’s a small green light on the front of the keyboard tray that lights green during the boot sequence, the rest of the laptop seemingly doesn’t respond. Only after the Windows boot sequence appears on the screen does the laptop respond with a “ripple” of RGB lighting across the keyboard, a visual signal that you’re ready to go. The power cord might be a bit polarizing, too. I’ve used Maingear laptops and bemoaned the jiggly, rear-mounted power cord. Razer uses a side-mounted power cord (connected to a 400W charger) and it’s quite stiff to work it in and out of the charging port. Some of you might like that (how often do you remove a gaming laptop’s power cord, anyway?) but I found it slightly annoying. Note that while this laptop does include a Thunderbolt 5 port, that port doesn’t support the full 240W charging spec — just 100W instead. Of course, even TB5 couldn’t supply the nearly 400W that the Blade 18 demands under full load. The fan noise on the Razer Blade 18 certainly does get loud under load, as expected from a gaming notebook. It’s not overwhelming, just a bit unpleasant. There’s minimal coil whine, but it’s there. Razer says that it’s expanded the vapor chamber to its largest ever, combining triple fan blades and 0.075mm exhaust fins to generate 280W across the package. Our thermal tests (more in the performance section, below) detected no thermal throttling under prolonged CPU and GPU testing. That’s the result Razer was designing for. I like to put my laptops on my desk’s keyboard drawer, and the Blade 18 is a bit too big for that. You’ll need a flat desk, or risk the laptop supporting itself on its cooling bump. That’s probably fine, but still. (I did all my testing on a flat surface.) One note on the ports, which are listed above: this is the first laptop I’ve seen with both a Thunderbolt 5 and a Thunderbolt 4 port on it, neither of which are labeled. The TB5 port is on the right, and the TB4 port is on the left. The left side of the Razer Blade 18 includes a Thunderbolt 5 port, which is unlabeled, as well as the HDMI and USB port.Mark Hachman / Foundry I found myself repeatedly returning to the hyper-detailed Razer Synapse application, which contains controls for adjusting the lighting, laptop performance, and display. Razer includes several performance profiles, (Balanced, Silent, Performance, and Turbo), which I bounced in and out of depending on the application. Unfortunately, the “Silent” mode wasn’t entirely silent, even when simply writing this review, and I would have liked it to shut down the fan entirely. Synapse also failed to launch the “Razer” module for adjusting the performance when I rebooted the laptop without an internet connection. Turning on the Wi-Fi reinstated the module and the performance settings, which were still there after turning off the Wi-Fi. I don’t know if it was a glitch or not, but I wasn’t impressed. That’s one of the few things I didn’t like about Synapse, which is about as well-thought-out as utility software goes these days. I’m a little surprised that Razer shipped the laptop with Windows 11 Home, not Pro, but PCWorld’s software store features some killer Windows 11 Pro deals — at press time, a Windows 11 Pro license is just $13. On this side, there’s a Thunderbolt 4 port as well as Ethernet, more USB-A, and the power port and 3.5mm jack.Mark Hachman / Foundry Razer Blade 18: Display A major change for the 2025 Blade 18 is the display. Previous models offered either a QHD+ mini LED panel (2560×1600) at 300Hz or a 4K screen at 300Hz, both stretched to 18 inches diagonally. That’s the traditional way of buying a laptop; you choose one or the other. With the 2025 version of the Razer Blade 18, you get a dual-mode display — both for the price of one, basically. The price, if there is one, is that there’s no touchscreen. You can use the incredibly handy Razer Synapse application to switch between display modes.Mark Hachman / Foundry Specifically, the Blade 18 offers a 3840×2400 240Hz display, switchable to a 1920×1200, 440Hz option after rebooting the laptop. The idea is that creators will spend all day designing using the 4K option, then swap to the super-high-refresh-rate option for after-hours fun. In reality, I actually never wanted to switch to the 1200p mode, since playing games at 4K+ resolutions at 240Hz is pretty damn cool all by itself. Since the Consumer Electronics Association considers 4K to be 3840×2160, you’re getting a bit better than a 4K screen just to begin with. Ditto for the 1080p-ish 1200p mode, too. The drawback is that both share the same IPS panel, which some might consider a downgrade compared to the miniLED panel of yesteryear. The Razer Blade 18 (2024)’s miniLED panel boasted 2,000 “dimming zones” that can be turned off and on to approximate the elite contrast of an OLED panel. IPS doesn’t really offer the same visual contrast. Another issue is that Windows didn’t automatically adjust the scaling when switching from 4K to 1200p resolution. The scaling became enormous, and in some applications, I couldn’t access menu items at the bottom of the window without connecting to an external display. Windows, unfortunately, thought that the new resolution was a minimum, so that the only adjustment to be made would be to make the text and windows even larger. The Razer Blade 18 color gamut, as measured under the 4K (left) and 1080p) settings (right). That only seemed to happen with the laptop display, however, under Windows. The games I tried adjusted for the new settings. And when connected to an external display the text on that display rendered normally. Still, if you’re going to buy a laptop with a premium display, it should work correctly. Otherwise, the color gamut on the Blade 18’s display wasn’t quite as good as a creator-class notebook, but it put out a hefty 532 nits of luminance whether it was in the 4K or 1080p mode. That’s enough for working outside, though the abysmal battery life of this laptop will mean that you won’t be working long before you hunt down a power outlet. Razer Blade 18: Keyboard and trackpad Razer’s purchasing department obviously bought the Blade 18’s trackpad at the warehouse store, with an enormous touchpad that’s nearly 6-inches wide and 3.75-inches long, reaching nearly from the edge of the keyboard tray to the spacebar. Unfortunately, only about half was easily clickable, with an additional quarter or so clickable after applying substantial pressure. That gives the trackpad a bit of a vestigial feel. After all, Razer would be happy to sell you one of its branded mice. Mark Hachman / Foundry The keyboard, however, is far better. The Blade 18’s keys depress with 1.5mm of key travel, which is about where I like it. Keep in mind that I typically use a business keyboard, where 1.25mm of key travel is common — I welcomed the additional travel distance. If you’re looking for a truly mechanical keyboard with far more key travel, however, something like the Alienware X16 R2 might be more your style. Each key is configurable via the Synapse key to configure it for a keypress, macro, mouse movement, or more, and there are even four dedicated “memory keys” to store specific configurations. Using the Synapse application, you can adjust each key’s function in eight different ways! As mentioned above, many of the keys have dual RGB LEDs inside them, all configurable from the Synapse application. Depress the SHIFT key, and specific keys light up; that goes for the function (FN) keys as well as the NUMLOCK keys. That’s hella cool, and I was unreasonably happy that Razer included that function. The Razer Blade 18 in a darkened room.Mark Hachman / Foundry When playing a game, the WASD (and R and C) keys light up by default (or at least by a setting that I didn’t recall tweaking). Given that I’m a left-handed gamer and use the keypad instead, that’s actually a little insulting. However, there’s a full 10-digit number pad to the right, an important concession to lefty gamers who use that instead of WASD keys. Razer Blade 18: Webcam, microphone speakers The Razer Blade 18’s webcam is passable. Supposedly it allows for 1440p video captures at 30 Hz, but I suspect that it’s using some of that additional resolution to crop in and “zoom” in on your face using Windows Studio Effects. In any event, the image is somewhat soft, and my face looked a bit too ruddy under artificial light and too washed out under natural lighting. This isn’t necessarily a plug for PCWorld’s recommendations of the best webcams, though if you can afford a $4,000 gaming laptop, what’s an additional $50 or so? What Razer is primarily concerned with, however, is the laptop speakers, especially when playing back movies and playing games. Razer’s speakers are passable, and a bit bass-heavy; that’s not surprising for a laptop with four woofers and a pair of tweeters, all enhanced via THX. Nothing stood out in my mind as something I’d prefer listening to, and that was while the laptop’s fans were set to “Silent.” Mark Hachman / Foundry Typically, gameplay on a gaming laptop is accompanied by roaring fans. While Razer’s Blade 18 doesn’t overwhelm you with noise, the fans are loud enough to drown out the small nuances. A game like Expedition 33, for example, demands headphones to ensure you hear the full range of the score. Put another way, the typical Blade 18 customer will be using headphones anyway. The noise filtering on the two dual- array microphones, though, is nearly perfection — some of the best I’ve (not) heard, ever. I usually hold up my phone and move it behind my head and off to the side, playing back rock music and then some white noise at a loud volume. The Razer Blade 18 filtered it all out — every bit — perfectly. I couldn’t really find any built-in controls for this, so it must have done it by default. Just be sure and adjust the Windows settings for the mic (System > Sound > Properties > Test mode for microphone audio processing) to the Communications drop-down setting, or else your voice will sound somewhat hollow. Razer Blade 18: Is it a Copilot+ PC? No. As we segue into our performance testing, it’s worth pointing out that most of the Intel Core Ultra Series 2 processor family does include an NPU with the requisite 40 TOPS requirement to earn the Copilot+ designation. The Intel Core Ultra 9 275HX does not. But the 275HX does include an NPU with 36 total TOPS. And Nvidia’s 5090 GPU — basically the most powerful mobile GPU on the planet at the moment — will absolutely chew through AI tasks while just falling short of earning Microsoft’s AI badge of honor. Crazy! Razer Blade 18: Performance Spend $4,500 on an 18-inch notebook, and you probably have one requirement: that it play any game you’d like, at full resolution. We can’t say this with certainty, but the Blade 18 will certainly get you almost all of the way there. Note: in the performance tests below, frame generation and upscaling are off. Some gamers call these “fake frames.” The results here are “farm-to-table” frames, rendered directly by the notebook itself. You can turn on these upscaling features for additional performance, though some people notice a small drop in visual quality as a result. In almost all cases, the laptop is good enough to deliver more than playable framerates without any AI enhancements. In the high-end “Turbo” mode, the Blade 18 pulls close to its rated 400W at full load.Mark Hachman / Foundry For a laptop like this, you want to take the best gaming laptops out there, lock them in a room, and don’t let them out until one survives. The only fair thing to do is to put the $4,599 Razer Blade 18 up against other industry heavyweights. We chose the $3,599 Maingear Ultima 18, the $5,099 MSI Raider A18 HX A9W, the $4,199 MSI Stealth 18AI Studio A1V, the $3,700 Gigabyte Aorus 17X, and the $3,349 Alienware 16 Area-51 AW30. All of these except for the last two include 18-inch displays, which gives the chassis more than enough room for sizeable cooling options. We plugged in last year’s $3,549.99 Alienware m18 R2 with a Core i9 14900HX and an RTX 4090; how does that compare with 2025’s newest CPU and GPU? We also added Razer’s own 16-inch, which offers a different CPU but a similar RTX 5090 GPU (at 175W) and at a very comparable $4,499 price. I tested the Razer Blade 18 in both of its “4K” and “1080p” configurations, because I wasn’t sure if the performance would differ. As it turned out, they do not. But it’s a question I didn’t know the answer to with certainty, so it was worth investigating. Likewise, I tested the Razer Blade 18 in both its default “Performance” configuration as well as the top-end “Turbo” mode. Turbo kicks the power consumption up a notch, from a peak of 380W to 392W — close to the rated 400W charger limit. In some cases, performance increases. I tested using this setting as well, and the “Turbo” results are designated using the black outline around the red bar indicating the Razer Blade 18’s score. We can generate a general level of CPU performance using the Cinebench benchmark, which pushes all of the laptop’s CPU threads to their utmost to render a scene. Mark Hachman / Foundry On the desktop, AMD’s Ryzen AI processors have bested Intel’s Arrow Lake architecture. In mobile, it’s much closer, and the Ryzen 9 9955HX3D squeaks by a tiny margin, even above the “Turbo” setting. We’ve used older Cinebench benchmarks in the past; the R2024 test takes longer and works the system harder. In general, however, all of these 18-inch (and even one 16-inch) notebooks are very close where synthetic CPU performance is concerned. Handbrake takes this approach and extends it. This is an open-source conversion tool, originally designed to allow you to shrink down movies to store on a tablet for use on a long airplane flight. It asks the CPU to run at its fastest speeds for a long duration — this test could take over an hour to run on a Celeron a decade ago, but this now requires just minutes to complete (6.78 minutes, for the Razer Blade 18) to convert an entire 90-ish minute movie. We measure the time in seconds it takes Handbrake to complete the job. Mark Hachman / Foundry The one test we were not able to run was UL’s PCMark 10, which according to UL’s support staff has a known issue with Nvidia’s latest GPU driver and the RTX 5090. That’s disappointing, as PCMark still uses a representative swathe of applications, from web browsing to video chats to light gaming and CAD work, and generates a score. While I’d like to include these numbers to provide a complete picture, I think I can safely say that the Razer Blade 18 will handle all of your office tasks with ease. We can move on, then, to the GPU performance. We’ve used the UL 3DMark test to evaluate synthetic 3D performance, specifically the Time Spy test for compatibility’s sake. You’d expect the RTX 5090 inside the Razer Blade 18 to perform well, and it does. Mark Hachman / Foundry Gaming, of course, is a big reason why you’re buying this laptop. We use a representative series of three games as a benchmark across generations of laptops and desktops. Shadow of the Tomb Raider, published by Square Enix, doesn’t feel especially old, yet it was released in 2018. We push the graphics quality to its highest setting and turn off frame-generation, ray tracing, and various effects. You can see the massive generational jump from gaming notebooks that use CPUs and GPUs just a generation old and what the latest laptops like the Razer Blade 18 can achieve. For reference, most gamers may tolerate 30 frames per second in some games, but 60 fps is usually considered the minimum, with 90 fps preferred. All of our gaming benchmarks are expressed in frames per second (fps), and you’ll have no issue here. Remember, this laptop has a dual-mode screen. But while I ran these benchmarks on the 4K as well as the 1080p, high-refresh-rate settings, I saw no difference. Mark Hachman / Foundry Here we see that, well, there are games and settings that will push the Blade 18 to its limits. Deep Silver’s 2019 game, Metro: Exodus, certainly does. Here, we use the game’s “Extreme” settings, which does leave ray tracing off, but turns on other effects to give the game a more dynamic look. While all of our test laptops can play this game, there’s a definite spread between the most powerful devices on the top of this chart, and those below. Mark Hachman / Foundry It’s hard to believe that Cyberpunk: 2077 is almost five years old, too. This game has been a phenomenal benchmark, with a wide variety of available settings. This is a game which would like you to turn on ray tracing. For this test, I do — both the 1080p Ultra settings are tested, as well as the “Ray Tracing Overdrive” setting which really asks everything of the laptop. Remember, we turn off upscaling and frame generation to help generate consistent scores. But after turning on frame generation and upscaling, Cyberpunk delivered 130 fps (minimum 118 fps) on the Ray Tracing Overdrive setting at the native settings of the panel, 3840×2400. In other words, you can push Cyberpunk, at maximum settings, to deliver playable frame rates at the native panel resolution. (At 1080p, the result was 269 fps.) All of this subsample of tests dialed up the laptop to its maximum Turbo settings. Mark Hachman / Foundry Although Razer doesn’t market its Blade 18 as an AI workstation, the fact that it includes an RTX 5090 GPU with a hefty 24GB of VRAM automatically qualifies it for AI use. I recently reviewed the Framework Desktop, which includes AMD’s “Strix Halo” Ryzen AI Max chip, with gobs of memory. That allows it to load large AI LLM and image models, which gives it a leg up in terms of AI capabilities. It’s also much quieter. But the fact remains that most AI apps take full and best advantage of a GPU. These are test workloads, so the models used by UL’s Procyon test are going to be smaller and more outdated than the state of the art. But they’re also standardized. In this context, there’s simply no content between an “AI workstation” and the gobs of GPU compute power than an RTX 5090 can generate: four times the Framework Desktop. The same holds for AI chatbots or LLM text generation, too. Here, I’m much more sympathetic toward AMD’s processors. One of the measures of LLM performance is simply how quickly the response can be generated, in both the time to the first token (or word) and how quickly the entire answer is generated. In my book, speed matters a bit less if you can’t read as quickly as the AI generates its response. The Framework Desktop can allocate up to 96GB of VRAM for AI in our review unit. By comparison, the 5090 GPU in the Blade 18 allows only 24GB. This means the Blade 18 is much faster at calculating AI responses, though you might prefer the quality of results it produces. So there’s a subjective as well as an objective angle to this particular test. The weak spot? Battery life, naturally. For whatever reason, gaming laptops simply don’t last longer than a few hours in terms of battery life unless they’re tweaked. And this is just video playback. Just become accustomed to bringing your charger in case you want to game on the road. And remember, the Thunderbolt port doesn’t supply enough juice to keep the Blade 18 running for long. Mark Hachman / Foundry The chart above ranges from awful to rather good, actually. You might not be impressed with how the Razer Blade 16 performs on all of the gaming benchmarks, but it won’t conk out as quickly as the Razer Blade 18 will, that’s for sure. All told, the Razer Blade 18 delivers 4.9 hours of battery life while playing back video. But it’s a gaming laptop, right? So how long does it last while gaming? On battery, looping the Time Spy gaming benchmark, the laptop’s uptime was just one hour, six minutes. That is really bad. Synapse does come with numerous adjustments and configurations that can be made while on battery, but you’re still trying to draw blood from a stone. Razer Blade 18: Conclusion Of all the gaming laptops we’ve tested, I think that the $3,349 Alienware 16 Area-51 AW30 offers the most bang for your buck, though it’s a smaller 16-inch machine. But aside from the truly abysmal battery life — which, to be fair, is typical of most gaming laptops anyway — the Razer Blade 18 shines. I wondered whether Razer’s goal of a thin, “light” gaming laptop would fall short. A typical 18-inch gaming laptop weighs about eight pounds, while the Blade 18 comes in just above seven pounds. As our performance tests indicate, it certainly doesn’t fall short. My main gripe is that Windows doesn’t smoothly handle shifting between the two screen modes, which means near-constant UI adjustments. The stiff charger and quirky boot sequence add minor annoyances, though Synapse remains an exceptionally well-thought-out piece of software. Overall, the Razer Blade 18 excels where performance is concerned, which certainly is the key metric. But it’s also clear how much thought and care went into the design, and that won me over early on. In all, the Blade 18 easily earns PCWorld’s Editor’s Choice award. Read...

It was nearly four years ago that Spotify touted its next big feature for music lovers: lossless streaming, aka Spotify HiFi.  Finally, Spotify Premium users would get the chance to “upgrade their sound quality” from Spotify’s lossy 320Kbps Ogg Vobis codec to lossless CD-quality audio, with Billie Eilish and Finneas extoling the virtues of lossless Spotify HiFi streaming in a promotional video. The launch date for Spotify HiFi: “later this year,” meaning sometime before the end of 2021. Left unsaid but implied in Spotify’s February 2021 announcement was that Premium subscribers would be charged extra for lossless streaming. How much extra wasn’t clear, but the whole “upgrade” wording sure made it sound like you’d have to pay more for Spotify HiFi, thus helping Spotify inch its way toward profitability. The plan made perfect sense. After all, in early 2021, lossless and high-resolution music streaming was still a niche market occupied by the likes of Deezer, Qobuz, and (most of all) Tidal, with rates as high as $20 a month. (Spotify had already been testing a lossless add-on as early as 2017 at various price points.) So why shouldn’t Spotify charge extra for lossless music streaming too? Three months later, Apple and Amazon came along and ruined everything.  Separately but on the same day, the two companies rolled out their own lossless streaming offerings. Effective immediately, both Apple and Amazon said they would go the lossless way, topping Spotify HiFi with support for not just CD-quality tunes but also high-resolution audio tracks all the way up to 24-bit/192kHz (CD-quality audio is limited to 16-bit/44.1kHz), with spatial audio to boot.  The capper? Apple and Amazon’s paid music streaming subscribers would get all those lossless tunes for no extra charge.  It was a clever move that neatly undercut Spotify’s HiFi ambitions while also blowing up the business models of the niche lossless streamers (all of whom had to drastically overhaul their pricing plans in the ensuing years). All of a sudden, Spotify didn’t want to talk about Spotify HiFi anymore.  It wasn’t until January 2022 that Spotify finally broached the subject of Spotify HiFi again, saying it was “excited to deliver a Spotify HiFi experience to Premium users” but that “we don’t have timing details to share yet.” A month later, Spotify CEO David Ek blamed “licensing” issues for the delay.  Then followed months of stubborn silence, punctuated by rumors and leaks about Spotify HiFi’s fate. There was chatter in late 2022 about a supposed “Spotify Platinum” plan that would offer lossless audio along with “limited-ad” podcasts and other features. By June 2023, the rumored Spotify Platinum plan morphed into a rumored “Supremium” tier with lossless tunes and “expanded” access to audiobooks. Nearly a year later, word had it that “Supremium” had been replaced by a “Music Pro” add-on that packed lossless audio with “advanced mixing tunes.”  Finally in July 2024, Spotify’s Ek floated the idea of a “deluxe version of Spotify” with “all the benefits” of a standard Premium membership plus “a lot more control, a lot higher quality across the board, and some other things that I’m not ready to talk about yet.” Ek suggested the new “deluxe” Spotify (which has yet to arrive) might cost “something like $5 above the current premium tier.”   Behind the years-long delay, the rumors, and the trial balloons, it seemed like Spotify was casting about for a reason to charge extra for lossless music streaming—an argument that was tough to make given that Apple, Amazon, and others weren’t charging more for lossless tracks. (I’ve reached out to Spotify for comment.)  At last—perhaps for lack of a better idea—Spotify relented, announcing Wednesday that it would offer gratis lossless audio to its existing Premium subscribers, similar to what Apple and Amazon have been doing since mid-2021.  “The wait is finally over,” said Spotify VP Gustav Gyllenhammar in a press release. “We’ve taken time to build this feature in a way that prioritizes quality, ease of use, and clarity at every step, so you always know what’s happening under the hood. With Lossless, our premium users will now have an even better listening experience.”  Spotify Lossless (the “Spotify HiFi” moniker has apparently been banished) still has some drawbacks compared to lossless listening on Apple and Amazon; audio quality on Spotify is capped at 24-bit/44.1kHz, versus full-on 24-bit/192hHz for its competitors (good luck telling the difference, to be fair), and there’s no mention of native spatial audio support.  In any event, Spotify wound up singing Apple’s and Amazon’s tune when it came to lossless audio, folding it into its standard subscription plans for no extra charge. What else could it do? Read...

Microsoft generally releases one major Windows update every year. And now that Windows 10 is riding off into the sunset, all eyes are on the upcoming Windows 11 update, version 25H2. We’ve seen a long list of features, but now the update is available via ISO download. You can install it manually; though it’s not yet available via Windows Update. This version of Windows 11 was already available via the Windows Insiders testing system, and the ISO files are still gated behind it, but Windows Central reports that this should be the “production ready” version of the operating system. That means it’s ready to head out to PC manufacturers for installation on brand new machines. The full version will be available to download for most users in the near future. Windows 11 25H2 isn’t a huge change over the current version, 24H2, which has already implemented many of the changes versus older releases. Changes to the Start Menu are probably the most visible aspect, which now shows more controls and folders by default. Microsoft’s Phone Link software also gets a more central view, there are new widgets on the lock screen, and tweaks have been made to File Explorer and Search, among dozens of smaller changes. That said, Windows updates have been causing some headaches lately, especially if you’re unlucky enough to own a small selection of SSDs. Weeks of investigation found that some drives running pre-production Phison controller firmware could be rendered useless under extremely specific circumstances. Some teething troubles are expected with all operating system updates…but I’ve been checking my backups a little more frequently as of late. Read...