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Product Reviews

I tested a bunch of gaming laptops and these are the best
Product Reviews

I tested a bunch of gaming laptops and these are the best

by admin


Gaming laptops come in various shapes and sizes, though many of the heavy hitters remain thick and beefy machines that maximize cooling to get the most out of their powerful chips. Most are awash in RGB lighting and edgy designs geared towards capital-G Gamers, but there are also thinner, lighter options that are more portable and less showy.

Our go-to recommendation that checks the boxes for most people is, and has been for a while, the Asus ROG Zephyrus G14. It’s a gaming laptop that doesn’t forget the “laptop” part. The G14 is a versatile machine for both play and work, and it travels exceptionally well.

Other great, though pricey, recommendations include the big and heavy Asus ROG Strix Scar and Lenovo Legion Pro 7i, or the Razer Blade 16 for lots of graphics power in a thin and sleek design.

The most important part of any gaming laptop, just like desktop PCs, is the graphics card. Laptop GPUs can’t stack up to full-size cards that reach much higher wattage in desktops, but that doesn’t stop the likes of Nvidia from making things a little confusing with the naming scheme on its RTX brand of GeForce cards. So keep in mind that, for example, an RTX 5090 laptop card doesn’t come anywhere near the performance of a desktop 5090. Desktops may always win out in raw performance, but gaming laptops are a simpler turnkey solution that can easily go places (yes, even the ones that feel like you’re toting around a cinderblock).

Even more confusing: the same GPU in one laptop may not perform as well in another if it’s throttled by thermal constraints. We try to test a wide range of gaming laptops, as well as regular laptops, and these are the ones we confidently recommend.

What we’re looking for

How we test gaming laptops

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Our gaming laptop testing involves a mix of synthetic benchmarks and experiential testing (playing a bunch of graphically-intensive games). We run benchmark tests like Geekbench, Cinebench, and 3DMark; as well as in-game ones from titles such as Cyberpunk 2077 and Black Myth: Wukong. We also use the laptops in our day-to-day work to see how they fare with multitasking productivity apps and real-world battery life.

Value

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A gaming laptop is a pricey purchase, but we want to ensure you’re getting a good, capable machine for the money. If it has a super-high cost, it should offer something special.

Frame rates

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Some people may be fine with a baseline of 30 frames per second, but we expect a gaming laptop to achieve a smoother 60 fps, or much higher, at high resolutions.

Screen

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The higher the resolution and higher the refresh rate, the better. Games look their best when they’re crisply sharp and buttery smooth, as long as the laptop’s chips are up to the task.

Port selection

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Gaming laptops usually range from having a handful of ports to being littered with lots of I/O for external monitors, a mouse, keyboard, and other accessories. A thinner, more portable model may not have as many ports as a giant desktop replacement, but it should still offer much more than something like a MacBook.

Storage

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Some gaming laptops still start with a 512GB SSD, but with how big modern games can be, you really want 1TB or more. Thankfully, most have user-replaceable drives, so you’re not limited to what’s configured from the factory. Some even have extra M.2 slots, so adding storage is easy.

CPU: AMD Ryzen 9 270, HX 370 / GPU: Nvidia GeForce RTX 5060, RTX 5070, RTX 5070 Ti, RTX 5080 / RAM: 16GB, 32GB / Storage: 1TB / Display: 14-inch OLED, 2880 x 1800, 120Hz, 500 nits / Dimensions: 12.24 x 8.66 x 0.63 to 0.64 inches / Battery: 73Whr / Weight: 3.31 pounds

Asus’s ROG Zephyrus G14 has been a favorite among Verge staffers for years now, and it remains our go-to pick for its balance of power and portability. It can be your full-time gaming machine as well as your commuter-friendly everyday laptop. Asus redesigned it in 2024 and toned down its more playful aesthetics for a sleeker, refined look, and for 2025 it just got a modest chip bump with RTX 50-series graphics and the ability to charge via USB-C on either side (but you still need to use its proprietary charger for max wattage).

It now starts at $1,799.99 instead of $1,699.99. But you get a little more for your extra money since even the base Zephyrus G14 comes with a lovely, high-res OLED display capable of a 120Hz refresh rate, and it still has a great keyboard and trackpad. Games play well on high settings, though due to the thin chassis, the G14 — and even its 16-inch sibling, the Zephyrus G16 — are known to get a little hot to the touch, and their fans are quite noisy.

Zephyrus laptops are never going to offer quite the same performance as much thicker models, like the Asus ROG Strix or other chunkers running equivalent GPUs — they just don’t have as much thermal headroom. But if you want a jack-of-all-trades notebook that puts gaming at the forefront, the G14 (or G16, if you want to go bigger and have the budget) is unlikely to steer you wrong.

The most powerful gaming laptop

$4999

The Good

  • Top-tier gaming performance in a laptop
  • 4K Mini LED screen is massive, looks great, and gets very bright
  • Mechanical keyboard is loud but feels awesome to type on

The Bad

  • Astronomically expensive
  • Battery drains very fast, even during regular tasks
  • Fans get loud
  • 120Hz refresh is half the speed of cheaper laptops with 2.5K OLEDs

CPU: Intel Core Ultra 9 285HX / GPU: Nvidia Geforce RTX 5090 / RAM: 64GB, 96GB / Storage: 6TB / Display: 18-inch Mini LED 4K (3840 x 2400), 120Hz display, 1,000 nits, 100 percent DCI-P3 / Dimensions: 15.9 x 12.08 x 1.26 inches / Battery: 99.9Whr / Weight: 7.93 pounds

The MSI Titan is your pick if budget isn’t a concern. It starts at a ridiculous $5,799.99 with Intel’s flagship Core Ultra 9 285HX CPU and Nvidia’s most powerful GPU, the RTX 5090. The Titan pairs its punchy hardware with a massive 18-inch 4K / 120Hz Mini LED screen that gets incredibly bright, along with 64GB of RAM and a 6TB SSD.

It’s loaded with RGB (including an illuminated haptic trackpad), a mechanical keyboard by SteelSeries, five USB ports (two of which are Thunderbolt 5), and a four-speaker / dual-woofer sound setup. It can tackle most games you throw at it on ultra settings. The screen may not be as fast as other laptops with 2.5K / 240Hz panels, but 4K at 18 inches looks so crisp. You have to pay out the nose for this no-holds-barred experience, but the nearly eight-pound behemoth is about as powerful as laptops get right now.

In the past, our choice for this tier of laptop was Asus’s ROG Strix Scar 17 using one of AMD’s X3D chips. That model was especially unique since it was significantly cheaper (under $4,000).

The best mid-to-high-tier gaming laptops for most people

$3030

The Good

  • Great graphics performance in the latest high-end games
  • Lots of ports and easy access to RAM / SSDs
  • Animated lid and wraparound RGB are fun
  • Very good QHD / 240Hz Mini LED screen

The Bad

  • Typical gaming laptop issues (pricey, hefty, and not great battery life)
  • Competition offers OLED screens
  • Customizing lid animations is a pain

CPU: Intel Core Ultra 9 275HX / GPU: Nvidia GeForce RTX 5080 / RAM: 32GB / Storage: 2TB / Display: 16-inch Mini LED 2560 x 1600, 240Hz display / Dimensions: 13.94 x 10.55 x 0.9 to 1.21 inches / Battery: 90Whr Weight: 6.17 pounds

You don’t have to spend Titan money to land somewhere in the ballpark of excellent gaming performance. There are a few great options in the mid-to-high tier of gaming laptops, sporting RTX 5080 graphics (or the RTX 5070 Ti if you need to save a bit more). My top pick is the Asus ROG Strix Scar 16, followed closely by the Lenovo Legion Pro 7i.

$2970

The Good

  • Great performance at 2.5K and even at 4K on an external monitor
  • Beautiful OLED screen
  • One of the best keyboards in this class of gaming laptops

The Bad

  • No face or fingerprint unlock
  • Numpad makes things slightly cramped, with off-center trackpad
  • Lenovo’s apps are slightly more invasive with notifications than others

The 16-inch ROG Strix Scar is decked out with a wraparound RGB light bar that creates a colorful underglow and a dot-matrix LED lid for adorning fun illuminated animations. The Strix Scar’s game performance is exceptional, with its RTX 5080 nearly matching the 5090 in the much thinner Razer Blade 16 — and for $1,200 less.

The Lenovo Legion Pro 7i is a similarly specced 16-incher, offering the same CPU and GPU in a better, metallic build. It’s got its share of RGB lighting, but it’s done a little more tastefully than the Asus. Meanwhile, the Strix Scar’s 2.5K / 240Hz screen is a Mini LED display that’s bright, colorful, and visually pleasing. It matches the resolution and refresh rate of the OLED on Lenovo’s Legion Pro 7i, but the OLED on the Lenovo is even better, with a punchier look.

It’s a bit of a toss-up between these two: the Lenovo has the better screen and build quality, yet it lacks face or fingerprint unlocking. But the Asus is $200 cheaper, and I prefer the trackpad and better key spacing of its numpad-less design. You can’t go wrong here, so picking one based on small nuances like that or just whatever you can get a deal on is fair.

The best budget gaming laptop

$1050

The Good

  • Good pricing
  • AMD or Intel CPU options
  • RTX 4050 is fine for 1080p gaming

The Bad

  • 16:9 aspect ratio is outdated
  • Not a ton of ports, and only one of them is USB-C

CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 7445HS, Intel Core i5-13420H / GPU: Nvidia GeForce RTX 4050 / RAM: 16GB / Storage: 512GB / Display: 15.6-inch IPS, 1920 x 1080, 144Hz, no touch option / Dimensions: 14.09 x 10.04 x 0.93 / Battery: 70Wh Weight: 5.06 pounds

Our previous pick among budget gaming laptops was the HP Victus 15 with an RTX 3050 GPU, which cost around $800 in 2022 when it wasn’t on a steep sale for less. It had a 60Hz screen and just 8GB of RAM, which feels a little paltry for gaming on Windows 11 in 2025. Now, you can get the same chassis with a 1080p / 144Hz screen, a newer RTX 4050 GPU, and either AMD Ryzen 7 7000-series or Intel 13th-Gen CPU for around $850 to $900.

Nvidia announced its RTX 5050 laptop GPU in June, which is set to slowly trickle out into new laptops for about $999. We’ll have to see how that stacks up in future testing.

The last-gen HP Victus 15 (pictured) looks just like the current one, but with an RTX 4050 GPU inside instead of the older 3050. Photo by Monica Chin / The Verge

The Victus isn’t going to wow you with the best screen or highest-quality components for a keyboard or trackpad, but it does emphasize a solid graphics card in an affordable package. It’s the kind of laptop that will excel with live service games like Minecraft or Fortnite, as well as indie titles. Just don’t expect high or ultra settings on the latest AAA games. With the right expectations, a more inexpensive gaming laptop like the Victus can treat you well.

A sleek 16-inch gaming laptop

$2000

The Good

  • Great fit, finish, and build
  • Slim and sleek design for a gaming laptop
  • Excellent OLED screen comes standard
  • Very good performance, especially in DLSS 4 supported games

The Bad

  • Starts expensive and gets expensive-er
  • Middling battery life
  • Thinness aside, minimal improvements over last year’s model
  • A cheaper 5080 laptop may be money better spent
  • The matte black finish smudges easily, and the Razer lid logo is still a little cringe

CPU: AMD Ryzen AI 9 365, Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 / GPU: Nvidia Geforce RTX 5060, 5070, RTX 5070 Ti, RTX 5080, RTX 5090 / RAM: 16GB, 32GB, 64GB / Storage: 1TB, 2TB, 4TB / Display: 16-inch OLED, 2560 x 1600, 240Hz / Dimensions: 13.98 x 9.86 x 0.59 to 0.69 inches / Battery: 90Wh / Weight: 4.71 pounds

The Razer Blade 16 has long been touted as the MacBook Pro for gamers, and after thickening up for a few years, it’s back to an ultra-thin chassis without much compromise to performance. It’s flush with ports, has a great keyboard and massive trackpad, and its AMD chips can be paired with a variety of Nvidia GeForce RTX GPU — ranging from the 5060 for $2,399.99 to the top-tier 5090 for a much steeper $4,499.99. The high-end model is hard to find right now, but we still recommend any configuration you can afford.

The Blade sports a lovely 16-inch OLED display with 2560 x 1600 resolution and 240Hz refresh, even for the entry-level configuration. The look of its stealthy matte black design and green Razer logo may not be to everyone’s liking, but pair that with its thinness, and you’ve got something that can travel and blend in almost anywhere.

The latest Blade 16 is a whole lot thinner than its main gaming laptop competition. Photo: Antonio G. Di Benedetto / The Verge

I tested the RTX 5090 version in our review, and while it’s impressive, it can be a little hard to justify spending $4,500 without getting the maximum capabilities of that flagship GPU, since the Blade 16’s thinness throttles the 5090. But it’s such a nice overall package if you want your gaming laptop to do it all. The Blade also comes in 14- and 18-inch sizes, but I think the 16 is the sweet spot.

Read our Razer Blade 16 (2025) review.

The best convertible gaming laptop

$2100

The Good

  • Impressive game performance for an iGPU on a tablet
  • Capable 2.5K performance
  • Laptop-quality keyboard and trackpad
  • Battery can get through a day of work (with no gaming breaks)
  • Play games on your lap without heating up your legs
  • Excellent kickstand

The Bad

  • Still a pricey, niche device
  • Wish the keyboard cover had Bluetooth like the latest Surface Pro
  • Power / sleep button is too flush
  • No auto-brightness
  • Keyboard case sometimes not detected after waking from sleep
  • Single-zone keyboard RGB looks basic

CPU: AMD Ryzen AI Max 390, Ryzen AI Max Plus 395 / GPU: Integrated / RAM: 32GB, 64GB, 128GB / Storage: 1TB SSD / Display: 13.4-inch IPS, 2560 x 1600, 180Hz, touchscreen / Dimensions: 11.81 x 8.03 x 0.51 to 0.59 inches / Battery: 70Whr Weight: 2.65 pounds

Asus’s ROG Flow Z13 gaming tablet has always been a niche device, but the latest generation with AMD’s new Strix Halo APU is the best version yet. That’s right, Asus switched from a discrete GPU to integrated graphics, but surprisingly, the chunky “Surface Pro for gamers” is actually better for it.

It may sound a little reckless to spend $2,100 or more on a gaming tablet, but the Z13 and its new Ryzen AI Max chip offer enough graphical prowess to make most games look great on its 2560 x 1600 / 180Hz IPS display. And it even has the battery chops to squeak through an eight-hour work day, making it an impressive multi-purpose device.

You just can’t do this on other gaming laptops, and it’s part of what makes the ROG Flow special.

A regular clamshell laptop may make more logical sense for most people, but the ROG Flow’s form factor just makes it kinda fun. Being able to remove the keyboard entirely allows you to comfortably plop it on your lap and game away without feeling like you’re going to set your legs on fire. And if you’re a mechanical keyboard nerd like me, you can connect your favorite board without the bottom half of a laptop in your way (this is surprisingly useful for using the Z13 as a second screen below a big monitor.

Read our Asus ROG Flow Z13 (2025) review.
  • Lenovo announced its upcoming Legion Pro 7 gaming laptop at IFA. The machine’s base configuration costs $2,399, but it can be configured with an AMD Ryzen 9955HX3D processor and Nvidia’s GeForce RTX 5080 graphics card, which will increase its gaming performance — and its price.
  • Acer also introduced its new slate of gaming laptops at IFA 2025. Its high-end Predator Helios 18P has a 4K display and starts at 4,999 euros (US pricing and availability haven’t been announced). Its premium configuration features an Intel Core Ultra 9 825HX processor and an Nvidia RTX 5090 GPU. The laptop has a proprietary power port, two Thunderbolt 5 ports, an HDMI 2.1 port, a full-sized SD card slot, an ethernet port, and a 3.5mm audio jack.
  • Acer’s entry-level Nitro V16 gaming laptop will launch in October and starts at $999.99. The slightly upgraded Nitro V 16S will be released in November and starts at $1,099.99 (it’s a little thinner and lighter than the Nitro V 16, but has the same assortment of ports). The starting configuration of both machines feature a 1920 x 1200 display, but you can upgrade to a 2560 x 1600 panel. You can spec either laptop with up to an Intel 270H processor and Nvidia RTX 5070 GPU. They feature one Thunderbolt 4 port, three USB-A ports, one HDMI 2.1 port, a microSD card slot, an ethernet port, a power port, and a 3.5mm audio jack.

Monica Chin and Joanna Nelius also contributed to previous versions of this buying guide.

Update, September 11th: Adjusted pricing and availability. Added information about Lenovo’s Legion Pro 7 laptop, and Acer’s upcoming gaming laptops announced at IFA 2025.

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Borderlands 4
Product Reviews

Borderlands 4 review: Gearbox’s looter shooter gets its groove back

by admin



Why you can trust TechRadar


We spend hours testing every product or service we review, so you can be sure you’re buying the best. Find out more about how we test.

Looter shooter Borderlands 4 is the first mainline game in developer Gearbox’s series that I’ve genuinely loved playing since 2012’s Borderlands 2.

While The Pre-Sequel, Borderlands 3, and spin-off Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands all had their own strong elements, something always felt like it was there to hamper overall enjoyment – be that poor pacing, agonizingly bad writing, or a lack of compelling endgame elements.

Review information

Platform reviewed: PC
Available on: PS5, Xbox Series X and Series S, Nintendo Switch 2, PC
Release date: September 12, 2025 (October 3 for Switch 2)

  • Borderlands 4 (PS5) at Amazon for $69

In many ways, Borderlands 4 feels like a fresh start for the series, and it’s packed with the kind of confidence that made the first two entries so endearing to me.

Chiefly, Borderlands 4 greatly tones it down on dated meme humor. It still doesn’t take itself too seriously, but characters know to read the room during the story’s more dramatic turns, while much of its comedy actually does land, and I had far more hearty laughs than I was expecting during my playthrough.

But of course, Borderlands’ story and style of humor are just the foundations, and I couldn’t recommend Borderlands 4 if its lootin’ tootin’ and shootin’ gameplay loop wasn’t up to code. And if you come to the series for the near-constant changeup of your guns, augments, grenades, and such, you’ll still find that superbly enjoyable loot chase here.

The biggest divergence in Borderlands 4 is its move to an open world. Outside of dedicated instances like vaults and end-of-chapter fortresses, the map is almost entirely seamless – the planet Kairos’s three major biomes connected in circular fashion. It’s impressive, even if the reduction in load screens leads to its own performance hitches, but I’ll get to that in a bit.

With a well-paced main story and plenty of side missions and activities on offer, there’s loads to do on your first Borderlands 4 playthrough. And while I did find the juice wasn’t always worth the squeeze with its optional diversions, I had a Torgue-sized blast with the game, and I feel the series has regained much of its edge and personality with this latest entry.

Killing time

(Image credit: 2K)

Borderlands 4 takes place on the planet Kairos. Following the events of the third game, the planet has been thrown into disarray after the Siren Lilith forcibly transported the moon of Elpis into Kairos’s orbit. This completely shattered the flow of time and has allowed a dictatorial figure known as the Timekeeper and his underlings to seize control and keep the populace firmly under his control.

As one of four Vault Hunters, we’re captured by the Timekeeper but promptly escape from one of his facilities. From here, we travel to each of Kairos’s three biomes to free the people from his clutches and fold them into our Crimson Resistance.

It’s a simple plot, but one that serves the looter shooter action perfectly well. The Timekeeper himself isn’t exactly a villain to write home about, but I can understand that developer Gearbox Software probably wanted something a little safer after the disastrously ineffective and endlessly annoying villains of Borderlands 3.

On that note, as mentioned above, Borderlands 4’s writing is much stronger than its direct predecessor. Each playable Vault Hunter has bags of personality, while many of its side characters are surprisingly likable. Returning characters from previous entries are all winners, too, feeling better-written here than ever before. Yes, even Claptrap.

A rip-roaring good time

(Image credit: 2K)

Not much has changed in terms of the overall gameplay loop in Borderlands 4. Despite the shift to an open world, you’ll still encounter plenty of camps of baddies (the main two factions being Psycho-like Rippers and the Timekeeper’s robotic Order), and plenty of hives of fauna like flying Kratches and skittering Creeps.

There are plenty of variants therein, too, including tougher ‘Badass’ enemies, enemies with behavioral modifiers (including status changes and on-death effects), and powerful world bosses.

Best bit

(Image credit: 2K)

It should come as no surprise that the meat and potatoes of Borderlands 4 – its core looter shooter gameplay loop – is its strongest element. Guns and their modifiers are more impressively varied than ever, thanks to them being made up of individual parts that all offer their own unique quirks and perks. Finding synergy between your Vault Hunter’s skills and your preferred weapon types is seriously satisfying when you find a winning combination, too.

Traversal does have some new quirks, though, and movement in Borderlands 4 feels better than it ever has in the series. Your grapple is a huge new addition, letting you quickly assail to higher points via grapple nodes, or for grabbing and tossing various explosives at your foes. A new glider, quick-dodge, and air dash are also really welcome, and add plenty of dynamism to both combat and traversal.

You also have quick access to a speedy hover vehicle, which can be spawned at any time (provided you’re not in a zone that doesn’t allow you to drive). I much prefer this over having to trudge to garage locations as you had to in the older games, and it makes getting around the massive Kairos map a breeze. Though fast travel locations are also available at large quest-giving outposts and after clearing certain zones of goons.

There is plenty to do throughout the open world, including side missions, and optional challenges like finding hidden vault symbols, clearing outposts, and finding vault key fragments. Though I never felt particularly incentivized to go full completion mode here, especially as the bulk of challenge rewards simply provide you with storage deck upgrades for expanding ammo capacity and backpack space. A useful upgrade for sure, but a pretty unglamorous one.

It’s not his vault

(Image credit: 2K)

The stars of Borderlands 4 are of course its playable Vault Hunters, and we’ve got a memorable cast this time around. I completed my first playthrough (as I typically do with the series’ games) with the Siren class, Vex. She’s easily my favorite Siren in the series to date, packing a delightfully smug and edgy personality with some truly devastating action skills, such as summoning copies of herself to distract enemies and deal elemental damage to them.

Harlowe is another superb addition to the roster. While her action skills can lean towards support and crowd control, my favorite has to be her Chroma Accelerator – the Vault Hunter equivalent of a massive nuke. Action skills like this and those found on other characters can of course be further modified through skills (you still get one skill point per level), and respeccing is inexpensive, allowing you to experiment to find a build that feels right for your playstyle.

Naturally, you’ll be swimming in guns, grenades, and other glorious forms of destruction. The rarity system is still in place, with rare, exotic and legendary guns offering increasingly more stats and modifiers. What’s great about equipment in Borderlands 4 is that guns can be made up of parts from multiple manufacturers.

For example, a Jakobs gun can pack a mighty punch, but a Maliwan underbarrel may give it access to an elemental alt-fire, like a corrosive gas cloud or electrical taser. A Tediore attachment might also let you lob the gun at enemies instead of reloading it, causing more damage the more ammo it has in the chamber.

Grenades have seen a massive upgrade, too, and now come in several forms. Jakobs ‘grenades’ for example are now devastating throwing knives. You can also equip an Ordnance in your grenade slot, effectively replacing the rocket launcher weapon type from prior games. Oh, and better yet, grenades are now replenishable on cooldown as opposed to being their own ammo type.

Glitch in the system

(Image credit: 2K)

I have greatly enjoyed my time with Borderlands 4, but there are definitely a few bugbears to make note of, particularly when it comes to performance. Having a big open world is nice, offering plenty of variety from verdant forests and snowy peaks to arid Pandora-like deserts and dilapidated factories and high-tech bases.

There is a cost to the world’s more seamless nature, though. Performance, at least on PC, could be much better. Frame drops and hitches were a constant annoyance over the course of my playthrough, even with one of Nvidia’s current-generation graphics cards. DLSS and frame generation are supported and do help to smooth things out to a degree, but the overbearing issues certainly remained.

Another issue I ran into was that my graphics settings would slightly alter sometimes when I booted the game. Usually, this was DLSS disabling itself or changing preset, but sometimes the entire graphics preset would increase or decrease, leading to some fiddling around when I noticed performance was worse than usual. Hopefully this is something that gets addressed soon in post-launch patches.

Gameplay-wise, I think some of the enemy modifiers could do with a bit of tweaking, at least for a first-time normal mode playthrough. Enemies with regenerating health or additional health, armor, or shield bars weren’t particularly interesting to fight, mainly acting as irritating bullet sponges.

But to end on a high note, I really enjoyed Borderlands 4’s music. It’s never been something that particularly stood out to me in the other games, but here, it sets the stage for combat very well. Engaging Rippers, for example, will be accompanied by a fast-paced punk rock sound. While the robotic Order troops prefer a more techno-driven soundscape. It’s genuinely great stuff.

Should you play Borderlands 4?

Play it if…

Don’t play it if…

Accessibility

Borderlands 4 is teeming with accessibility options. Robust subtitle options are featured, including size, color, and background opacity. There are several audio presets for those who are hard of hearing, as well as protanopia, deuteranopia and tritanopia colorblind settings for user interface elements. Oh, and if you really can’t stand Claptrap, there is a dedicated volume slider for him, too.

How I reviewed Borderlands 4

My first playthrough of Borderlands 4 lasted 40 hours for this review. That included a complete playthrough of the main campaign, while also ticking off several side missions, objectives, and vault challenges. Having poured hundreds of hours into previous games in the series, I went out of my way to compare the quality and quantity on offer here in relation to other Borderlands titles, and came away satisfied with this latest entry.

I played on my new gaming PC, powered by an Nvidia GeForce RTX 5060 GPU and Intel Core i5 14400F CPU, via Steam, primarily using the 8BitDo Ultimate 2 Controller, with some time also spent playing the game with mouse and keyboard. While my main playthrough was with Vex, I also tested the other Vault Hunters including Harlowe, Rafa, and Amon.

First reviewed September 2025

Borderlands 4: Price Comparison



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Borderlands 4 teaser image
Product Reviews

Why we don’t have a Borderlands 4 review yet

by admin



Borderlands 4 launches today, and reviews from critics have started appearing online.

We look forward to playing and reviewing Gearbox’s latest co-op shooter ourselves, but for PC Gamer, that work will start after the game’s public launch. 2K Games provided early review copies of Borderlands 4 to a number of media outlets, but PC Gamer was offered access at launch only.

We’ll be digging into Borderlands 4 as soon as it unlocks and will publish our review when we’re ready.


Related articles

One thing we’re particularly curious to investigate is its PC performance, as the minimum specs somewhat surprisingly call for an eight-core CPU (“or equivalent”). I also want to know what the “emotional” Claptrap moment we’ve been promised is.

In the meantime, see whether you agree with Harvey’s recent ranking of the top five Borderlands games, and if you’re also jumping into Borderlands 4 at launch, check out Rory’s speculative theorycrafting for ideas about how to build your first character.



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Universal Executive Regrets Most Hilarious, Perfect Part of 'Fast and Furious' Franchise
Product Reviews

Universal Executive Regrets Most Hilarious, Perfect Part of ‘Fast and Furious’ Franchise

by admin


Before the abysmal mess that was Fast X, the ninth Fast and Furious film, F9, did the most insane thing imaginable. After literal years and years of joking about it, F9 actually sent characters to space. It was Ludacris (literally and figuratively), it was hilarious, and it was wonderful. But now, looking back, one of Universal Studios’ most powerful executives regrets it.

“I’m sorry that we sent them into space,” Donna Langley, the Chief Content Officer for NBCUniversal Studio Group, said recently, as reported by Variety. “We can never get that genie back.”

Langley is right about the second point, of course. Actually doing the most over-the-top thing imaginable in the franchise, when you still have movies to come, maybe wasn’t the right timing. Going to space would’ve been a perfect finale. But, since the fifth film, the trajectory of the series has always been increasingly wild and unbelievable. It got so crazy that this site, which only covers pop culture of a sci-fi or fantasy nature, finally dubbed the franchise io9 worthy (remember when Idris Elba played an enhanced super villain?). They had to go into space. It was inevitable.

The point being, hopefully, what Langley means isn’t that she regrets sending the franchise to space. Hopefully, it’s that she regrets sending the franchise to space so soon. Honestly, we don’t think it’s that, but it happened. It’s done. And now, the way it fits into the franchise is almost as a culmination of the franchise’s wildly unbelievable run. One through four are kind of normal and grounded. Five takes it up a notch. Then six through nine are sci-fi fantasy movies. Space is the peak that allows subsequent movies to dial back to a more grounded, street-level story, which is what franchise star and producer Vin Diesel has been teasing about the long-in-development 11th film in the main series.

So while we kind of understand Langley’s regret, we are here to ease the blow. Fans wanted the Fast and Furious franchise to go into space. Even if they didn’t think they did, they did. It was one of those perfect acts of madness that make the films so unique. Afterwards, all I could think of was, why not go further? Let them race spaceships. Let them drift submarines. I don’t know. I don’t work for Universal. But don’t regret doing the single most hilarious, perfect thing Fast has done in a long, long time.

Want more io9 news? Check out when to expect the latest Marvel, Star Wars, and Star Trek releases, what’s next for the DC Universe on film and TV, and everything you need to know about the future of Doctor Who.



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Crispr Offers New Hope for Treating Diabetes
Product Reviews

Crispr Offers New Hope for Treating Diabetes

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Crispr gene-editing technology has demonstrated its revolutionary potential in recent years: It has been used to treat rare diseases, to adapt crops to withstand the extremes of climate change, or even to change the color of a spider’s web. But the greatest hope is that this technology will help find a cure for a global disease, such as diabetes. A new study points in that direction.

For the first time, researchers succeeded in implanting Crispr-edited pancreatic cells in a man with type 1 diabetes, an autoimmune disease where the immune system attacks insulin-producing cells in the pancreas. Without insulin, the body is then unable to regulate blood sugar. If steps aren’t taken to manage glucose levels by other means (typically, by injecting insulin), this can lead to damage to the nerves and organs—particularly the heart, kidneys, and eyes. Roughly 9.5 million people worldwide have type 1 diabetes.

In this experiment, edited cells produced insulin for months after being implanted, without the need for the recipient to take any immunosuppressive drugs to stop their body attacking the cells. The Crispr technology allowed the researchers to endow the genetically modified cells with camouflage to evade detection.

The study, published last month in The New England Journal of Medicine, details the step-by-step procedure. First, pancreatic islet cells were taken from a deceased donor without diabetes, and then altered with the gene-editing technique Crispr-Cas12b to allow them to evade the immune response of the diabetes patient. Cells altered like this are said to be “hypoimmune,” explains Sonja Schrepfer, a professor at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in California and the scientific cofounder of Sana Biotechnology, the company that developed this treatment.

The edited cells were then implanted into the forearm muscle of the patient, and after 12 weeks, no signs of rejection were detected. (A subsequent report from Sana Biotechnology notes that the implanted cells were still evading the patient’s immune system after six months.)

Tests run as part of the study recorded that the cells were functional: The implanted cells secreted insulin in response to glucose levels, representing a key step toward controlling diabetes without the need for insulin injections. Four adverse events were recorded during follow-ups with the patient, but none of them were serious or directly linked to the modified cells.

The researchers’ ultimate goal is to apply immune-camouflaging gene edits to stem cells—which have the ability to reproduce and differentiate themselves into other cell types inside the body—and then to direct their development into insulin-secreting islet cells. “The advantage of engineering hypoimmune stem cells is that when these stem cells proliferate and create new cells, the new cells are also hypoimmune,” Schrepfer explained in a Cedars-Sinai Q+A earlier this year.

Traditionally, transplanting foreign cells into a patient has required suppressing the patient’s immune system to avoid them being rejected. This carries significant risks: infections, toxicity, and long-term complications. “Seeing patients die from rejection or severe complications from immunosuppression was frustrating to me, and I decided to focus my career on developing strategies to overcome immune rejection without immunosuppressive drugs,” Schrepfer told Cedars-Sinai.

Although the research marks a milestone in the search for treatments of type 1 diabetes, it’s important to note that the study involved one one participant, who received a low dose of cells for a short period—not enough for the patient to no longer need to control their blood sugar with injected insulin. An editorial by the journal Nature also says that some independent research groups have failed in their efforts to confirm that Sana’s method provides edited cells with the ability to evade the immune system.

Sana will be looking to conduct more clinical trials starting next year. Without overlooking the criticisms and limitations of the current study, the possibility of transplanting cells modified to be invisible to the immune system opens up a very promising horizon in regenerative medicine.

This story originally appeared on WIRED en Español and has been translated from Spanish.



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Product Reviews

How to choose the best TV for gaming right now

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These days, the best TVs for gaming aren’t much different from the best TVs you can buy as a whole. But if you’re hoping to make your PlayStation 5 or Xbox Series X games look their best, there are a few key features to keep in mind. To help you get the most from your living room setup, we’ve broken down a few tips for buying a good gaming TV and picked out a few well-reviewed options from across the price spectrum.

What to look for in a gaming TV

Whether you use it for gaming or not, all good TVs are built on the same foundations. You want a 4K resolution, enough brightness to overcome glare, a relatively high contrast ratio with deep and uniform black tones, wide viewing angles and colors that find the right balance between accuracy and saturation. For video games specifically, the ideal TV has a 120Hz refresh rate (or higher), VRR support, minimal input lag and fast motion response, with no blur or other unwanted artifacts behind quick-moving objects. Of course, finding a set that does all of this well and fits into your budget can be tricky.

OLED and LCD

For now, top OLED TVs generally offer the best picture quality for gaming or otherwise. But good OLED sets usually cost more than their LCD counterparts, and some models may not get bright enough for those who have their TV set in a particularly bright room.

More specifically, modern OLED TVs may utilize different types of OLED display tech: WOLED (i.e., “White OLED”) or the newer QD-OLED. We won’t dig too deep into how the two diverge in panel composition and subpixel structure, but the simplified version is that QD-OLED displays use a layer of quantum dots (hence the “QD”) to deliver a wider gamut of more vibrant colors than traditional WOLED sets.

This doesn’t mean all QD-OLED TVs are inherently better: How well an individual set performs is more important than the panel it uses, and some premium WOLED TVs like the LG G5 use a new “four-stack” structure to improve color purity and brightness. (Other models have used a display tech called Micro Lens Array (MLA) to greatly boost brightness as well.) Certain WOLED TVs may also handle reflections better or retain deeper black tones in a bright room. And either way, virtually all OLED TVs share the same core strengths.

If you opt for an LCD TV — whether to save cash or stick in room with poor light control — an advanced backlight with smaller and more precise mini LEDs and effective full-array local dimming will usually improve contrast and lighting detail. Many of these TVs, including some budget-level models, also use quantum dots to enhance colors (and are labeled as “QLED” TVs). They usually aren’t as vivid or fast in motion as the top OLED sets, but they’re often brighter and more affordable, and the best can still produce an excellent image in their own right.

HDMI 2.1

To get the most out of a PlayStation 5 or Xbox Series X/S, your TV should have full HDMI 2.1 support. This update to the HDMI spec enables a higher maximum bandwidth — 48 gigabits per second, up from HDMI 2.0’s 18 Gbps — and a handful of features that are beneficial for gaming performance specifically. Those include variable refresh rate (VRR) and automatic low latency mode (ALLM), which we detail further below.

Beyond that, perhaps the chief perk of HDMI 2.1 is its ability to transmit sharp 4K video up to a 120Hz refresh rate with modern consoles like the PS5 and Xbox Series X, or up to 144Hz with a powerful gaming PC. Not every PS5 or Xbox Series X/S game supports frame rates that high — and some only do at lower resolutions — but those that do will look and feel especially fluid in motion. HDMI 2.1 also includes support for Enhanced Audio Return Channel (eARC), which allows you to pass higher-quality lossless audio from a source device connected to the TV to a compatible soundbar or receiver.

The more full HDMI 2.1 ports your TV has, the better. “Full” is the key word there. As reported by TFT Central, because HDMI 2.1 is backwards compatible with HDMI 2.0, TV and monitor manufacturers have been allowed to brand HDMI ports as “HDMI 2.1” even if they lack full (or any) support for the spec’s upgraded features. We recommend a few TVs below that have true HDMI 2.1 ports, but if you’re buying a new TV for gaming, make sure your chosen set isn’t trying to hide any capabilities you may consider essential.

While HDMI 2.1 is the latest and greatest today, it’s worth noting that the HDMI Forum officially revealed a new HDMI 2.2 spec at CES 2025. This update promises a greater maximum bandwidth of 96 Gbps, which should technically enable even higher refresh rates and resolutions. It could also help reduce hiccups in audio and video syncing (i.e., annoying lip-sync errors). If history is any indication, though, we’re still a bit away from HDMI 2.2 ports appearing on TVs you can actually buy. Even then, the only people who could take advantage of the theoretical resolutions and refresh rates allowed by the spec are those who connect a super-powerful gaming PC to their TV. But this could always change with whatever the next PlayStation and Xbox consoles bring.

HDR — High Dynamic Range

HDR refers to a TV’s ability to display a wider range between the darkest and brightest parts of a picture. This can bring out details that would otherwise be missing on a standard dynamic range (SDR) TV, in both the very dark and (especially) very bright areas of an image. HDR typically comes with an improvement to color reproduction as well, displaying a larger palette of more vibrant colors that brings content closer to its creator’s original vision.

To get an HDR picture, you need both content that is mastered to take advantage of the tech and a TV capable of displaying that content. HDR also comes in a variety of formats, which are generally split between those that utilize static metadata (e.g., HDR10) and those that utilize dynamic metadata (e.g., HDR10+, Dolby Vision). In short, the latter allows a TV to optimize its brightness and colors on a per-scene or even per-frame basis, while the former uses one set of optimized settings for the entirety of the given content. Support for these formats can differ depending on the TV, content and game console you use. The Xbox Series X and S, for example, support Dolby Vision for gaming, while the PS5 does not.

The good news is that most TVs you’d buy today are HDR-ready in some fashion, even on the budget end of the market. The catch is that some TVs are much better at getting the most out of HDR than others. The same goes for actual content mastered in HDR. With video games in particular, there aren’t quite as many titles designed to take advantage of HDR as there are movies (though the number is growing all the time), and the variance in HDR quality tends to be wider.

HGiG — HDR Gaming Interest Group

HGiG is essentially a set of standards for gaming in HDR. It stands for the HDR Gaming Interest Group. Sony and Microsoft are both members, as are many TV makers and game developers. What this means is that, ideally, all the groups communicate information so that you can start up a new game on a console or PC and have it automatically recognize your display. Once that happens, the game can adjust its settings to that display’s capabilities and give you the best picture quality possible, without losing details in the brightest or darkest areas of the screen. For example, daylight at the end of a dark tunnel may portray a brightly lit environment instead of looking like an overexposed white blob.

This is a good thing, but the reality is a bit more complicated. Not all TVs highlight HGiG compatibility in their settings menu, while only some PlayStation and Xbox games recognize and follow the guidelines. If an HGiG option is listed in your TV’s tone mapping settings, you should turn it on prior to running the console’s HDR settings. Then, if you’re playing a game that supports HDR and HGiG, you should be in good shape without having to adjust the various luminance levels again. Still, how all of this looks to you might differ depending on your TV and the game you’re playing. Use whatever settings you think look best.

ALLM — Auto Low Latency Mode

ALLM lets a compatible source (like your PS5 or Xbox) tell your display to switch into a picture mode that reduces lag between receiving each frame of an image and displaying it on the TV. This cuts out additional processing that could be the milliseconds of difference between landing a precise input or not. Put another way, it lets your TV automatically enable its “Game” mode when it detects that you’ve launched a game. A good modern TV can do this without forcing you to enter any menus, then switch back when you’d rather watch a movie or TV show.

VRR — Variable Refresh Rate

VRR should sound familiar to most gamers at this point. Many players have experienced slowdown, screen tearing or stuttering as a system struggles to render each frame at the target speed, which is most commonly 60 or 30 fps on a TV. With VRR, everything stays in sync: Your display won’t show the next frame until it’s ready, which can make things feel smoother and more responsive, even if the system fails to deliver on its target frame rate.

There are a few different implementations of VRR available, including Nvidia’s G-Sync, AMD’s FreeSync and the HDMI Forum’s VRR spec, which is part of the full HDMI 2.1 standard. Both a TV and an input device need to support the same VRR tech for it to work, and different devices may only support VRR within a specific refresh rate window. On a 120Hz display, for instance, the PS5’s VRR only works between 48Hz and 120Hz.

As a reminder, the PS5 officially supports HDMI Forum VRR, the Xbox Series X and S support HDMI Forum VRR and FreeSync, while gaming PCs may support G-Sync or FreeSync depending on whether they use a Nvidia or AMD graphics card. A great gaming TV supports all the big VRR formats, but missing, say, G-Sync, isn’t a killer if you only game on a PS5 or Xbox.

8K (You don’t need it)

One thing you don’t need to worry about is 8K support. Although the PS5 and Xbox Series X are theoretically capable of outputting 8K video, almost no games are made for that resolution, and 8K’s practical benefits are extremely minimal unless you plan on sitting unreasonably close to a massive TV. The few 8K TVs on the market are usually very expensive as well.

Good gaming TVs you can get right now

While we at Engadget do not formally review TVs, we’ve researched the market and rounded up a few sets that have been widely well-received by other professional review sites we trust, including Rtings, Wirecutter, Reviewed, PCMag and others.

Keep in mind that there’s never an ideal time to buy a new TV. Prices for today’s models are always dropping, and next year’s upgrades are always just around the corner. So if you see an 2024 version of one of the recommendations below at a deep discount, that may be a better value.

LG

Screen sizes: 42″, 48″, 55″, 65″, 77″, 83″ | Display type: WOLED | Resolution: 4K | Maximum refresh rate: 144Hz | HDR formats: Dolby Vision, HDR10, HLG | HDMI ports: 4x HDMI 2.1 | VRR: HDMI Forum VRR, FreeSync, G-Sync certified | Smart OS: webOS | Screen form: Flat | ALLM: Yes | TV tuner: ATSC 1.0 

The LG C5 ticks most of the requisite boxes for a good gaming TV, according to reviews around the web. Its superb OLED panel produces the kind of deep contrast, super low input lag, clear motion and wide viewing angles expected from a good OLED set. While it doesn’t have a QD-OLED screen like the Samsung S90F — and thus can’t produce the same level of vibrant colors — reviewers we trust say that it can actually get brighter with non-HDR content and that its black tones stay darker in a bright room.

The device includes four full HDMI 2.1 ports, all of which can play 4K video at a maximum refresh rate of 144Hz, and it works with the big three VRR formats. It also supports ALLM and, unlike all Samsung TVs, Dolby Vision HDR. The latter is a nice bonus for Xbox players in particular. LG’s webOS software will show you ads, meanwhile, but it also includes built-in support for cloud services like Xbox Game Pass and NVIDIA GeForce Now.

It’s still worth mentioning the Samsung S90F, as that set is often available around the same price and includes many of the same benefits while pumping out bolder colors. It reportedly gets brighter when both TVs are set to their respective Game Modes as well. If you see it on sale for less, don’t care about Dolby Vision and want the better colors of a QD-OLED display, feel free to get it instead.

But you must make sure you get the right one — only the 55-, 65- and 77-inch versions actually use a QD-OLED panel in North America. The other sizes use a WOLED display, which kind of defeats the point. Internationally, the distinction between models is even less clear. This sort of panel mixing is just bad form on Samsung’s part. That said, the 42- and 48-inch versions of the C5 lack some of the brightness boosting tech of the larger models, so LG isn’t totally innocent either.

If you have more cash to burn, the LG G5 and Samsung S95F are essentially the higher-end versions of the C5 and S90, respectively. They’re brighter, better at fending off glare and they support up to a 165Hz refresh rate for PC gaming. The S95F has a matte coating over the display, which makes it especially capable of reducing reflections. But they’re both expensive, with their 55-inch models priced at $2,000 or higher as of our latest update.

Pros

  • Fantastic contrast with deep black tones
  • Low input lag and clear motion
  • Four HDMI 2.1 ports
  • Available in sizes up to 83 inches

Cons

  • Not as color-rich as top QD-OLED TVs
  • Built-in speakers could be better

$1,397 at Amazon

TCL

Screen sizes: 55″, 65″, 75″, 85″, 98″, 115″ | Display type: QLED with mini-LED backlight | Resolution: 4K | Maximum refresh rate: 144Hz (288Hz at 1080p) | HDR formats: Dolby Vision, HDR10, HDR10+, HLG | HDMI ports: 2x HDMI 2.1, 2x HDMI 2.0 | VRR: HDMI Forum VRR, FreeSync, G-Sync compatible | Smart OS: Google TV | Screen form: Flat | ALLM: Yes | TV tuner: ATSC 1.0

If you can’t spend quite so much for an OLED TV, the TCL QM7K is a nice midrange alternative with a mini LED backlight. It’s not a better gaming TV than some pricier LCD sets in a vacuum, since it doesn’t have the absolute brightest display, it only includes two full HDMI 2.1 ports and its picture will look somewhat washed out if you don’t view it straight on. You’ll want to tinker with the default picture settings to get the most out of it, too.

But reviewers suggest that it’ll play nice in a bright or dark room, with impressive contrast and colors for the money, low enough input lag in its “Game Master” mode and support for all the main HDR and VRR technologies. It can play up to 144Hz in 4K or — for the more competitive players out there — as fast as 288Hz in 1080p. (The latter falls to 240Hz with the 55-inch model.) It runs on the excellent Google TV platform on top of that, and it uses one of its non-HDMI 2.1 ports as its eARC connector — if you have multiple consoles, that means you can hook a soundbar up to the TV without having to disconnect a gaming device from a 2.1 port first. You’re still giving up the near-perfect contrast and smooth motion of a good OLED set, but for hundreds of dollars less, the QM7K should do well enough.

Pros

  • Solid value
  • Impressive contrast for the price
  • 144Hz panel with VRR and 1080p @ 288Hz support

Cons

  • Worse contrast and colors than OLED TVs
  • Only two HDMI 2.1 ports
  • Mediocre viewing angles

$618 at Amazon

TCL

Screen sizes: 55″, 65″, 75″, 85″, 98″ | Display type: QLED with mini-LED backlight | Resolution: 4K | Maximum refresh rate: 144Hz (288Hz at 1080p) | HDR formats: Dolby Vision, HDR10, HDR10+, HLG | HDMI ports: 2x HDMI 2.1, 2x HDMI 2.0 | VRR: HDMI Forum VRR, FreeSync, G-Sync compatible | Smart OS: Google TV | Screen form: Flat | ALLM: Yes | TV tuner: ATSC 1.0

On the budget end, the TCL QM6K is widely regarded as one of the year’s better TV bargains. You should still get the QM7K if possible, as reviews suggest that its contrast, brightness and color volume are superior across the board. The cheaper model isn’t any better with viewing angles or warding off direct light, either. So don’t expect a showstopping image.

But for a TV that’s often priced below $500 for a 55-inch set, the QM6K should hold its own for the average viewer (especially if they don’t care about HDR). Its list of gaming features is surprisingly equal as well: You still get a 144Hz refresh rate with the ability to go up to 288Hz at 1080p, a pair of HDMI 2.1 ports (neither of which is an eARC port), ALLM, similarly low input lag in its game mode and support for the major VRR formats. If money’s tight or you’re just looking for a cheaper second TV to stick upstairs, there’s value here.

Pros

  • 144Hz panel with VRR and 1080p @ 288Hz support
  • Low input lag
  • Decently affordable

Cons

  • Not bright enough for quality HDR performance
  • Muted colors compared to pricier options
  • Mediocre viewing angles

$498 at Amazon

Richard Lawler contributed to a previous version of this report.



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We tested six smart rings, and there’s a clear winner
Product Reviews

We tested six smart rings, and there’s a clear winner

by admin


Smart rings are having a moment. After years as a niche gadget, regular people are starting to see the appeal. They’re thinner, more accurate, and more wearable compared to a decade ago — and for some people, they’re a smarter choice than smartwatches.

Smartwatches may dominate the wearable landscape, but they don’t work for everyone. They can be bulky. Daily charging is a pain. Plus, they don’t always work for people with wrist tattoos or those who participate in more niche sports. (Ever try stuffing a Garmin under a boxing glove? It’s not fun.) Conversely, smart rings are discreet and often have multiday battery life, and your finger can be a more accurate place to gather heart rate data.

From left to right, we have the Circular Slim, RingConn, Ultrahuman Ring Air, Galaxy Ring, Oura Ring, and Evie Ring. Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge

So which smart ring is the best? To find out, I called in six smart rings currently on the market: the Oura Ring, Ultrahuman Ring Air, Circular Slim, Samsung Galaxy Ring, RingConn, and Evie Ring. But side note: this isn’t a traditional review or buying guide. This is a gauntlet where smart rings get eliminated based on my personal experience and preferences, until there’s just one winner left.

With that in mind, for the past few months, I slept with these rings. Showered with them. Exercised with them. Compared a crapton of health data until my eyes bled. For a while, I wore all six simultaneously like a mafia don wearing two pairs of smart ring brass knuckles. I now have six ring tans. All so I could definitively tell you which is the one smart ring to rule them all.

The Circular Slim was my least favorite of the bunch. Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge

Folks, it ain’t the Circular Slim.

On paper, the $294 Circular Slim has a lot of promise. It executes on almost none of it. The big problem was accuracy. While the metrics were generally fine, my step count was occasionally so wrong I couldn’t help but laugh. I’m talking 5,000 steps off compared to my other wearables. And that’s when I had the patience to review my metrics because syncing is an absolute chore. On average, it took two to three minutes, which meant I frequently rage quit the app. It’d be one thing if this was a one-off. It was not. Most people want smart rings for health tracking. If you’re not accurate and syncing is a chore, what is the point?

It’s a bummer because this is the only smart ring with ambitions of being anything other than a fitness tracker. It has a vibration motor for silent alarms. When Circular was still a Kickstarter, that motor was also supposed to alert you to notifications. That feature has been “coming soon” for years — something users are none too happy about. At the moment, the haptics are limited to silent alarms, but even that doesn’t quite hit the mark. You have to tap the ring twice above the logo to dismiss the alarm. In the dark, that logo is nigh impossible to see. Most mornings, I’m so groggy I end up smacking my hand multiple times just to turn it off. There’s also an ambitious AI chatbot that spits out daily recommendations. The problem is it takes 14 days to calibrate, and like other AI-powered fitness features, it wasn’t very helpful. But the real kicker is the charger is an easily misplaced USB stick. It’d be one thing if it had great battery life, but no. I got two to three days with all the features turned on. I also don’t think a nearly $300 ring should feel like it was made of cheap, 3D-printed plastic. Easily my least favorite ring of the bunch.

Eliminated: Circular Ring

The open-gap design remains my favorite thing about the Evie Ring. Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge

Design matters, but so does polish

The next ring on the chopping block is the $269 Evie Ring. It hurts me to write this because it’s the prettiest and most comfortable of the six. Most smart rings tend to be indistinguishable from one another, but the Evie Ring has a clever open-gap design, which means it doesn’t matter if your fingers bloat or gain a few pounds. You’ll always be able to take it off with ease.

If design and comfort were the only factors, this ring would win. But it’s not. The Evie Ring’s main issue is it’s the quintessential first-gen product with first-gen issues. Everything works decently, unlike the Circular Ring, but there’s a distinct lack of polish. Syncing and firmware updates can take a while, and Movano hasn’t figured out the best way to present and contextualize your data — though it makes a valiant effort. The ring has just relaunched to address some of this feedback, but it’s still very much playing catch-up. Hopefully, future versions will smooth out the kinks.

The RingConn’s square shape wasn’t my favorite, but I’m a fan of charging cases over docks. Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge

Being ‘fine’ isn’t enough

The $279 (currently $139) RingConn isn’t bad. It simply doesn’t stand out. It has the best battery life of the pack. I reliably got six to nine days on a single charge and it has a neat little charging case. It’s just so… middling. This is the smart ring I’d recommend people get if all they wanted was basic, mostly decent health tracking without any bells and whistles. Syncing can sometimes take a bit, but nowhere near as long as the Circular Slim or Evie Ring. Honestly, the thing that bugged me most about the RingConn was its slightly squarish shape. It can feel a bit odd on the finger, but unless you’re hypersensitive to that kind of thing, you’ll barely notice it after a few days.

The RingConn’s flaws don’t do it a discredit. But this is a battle royale. You can’t win by just being fine if other options are good, nay great.

The hardware is great. It’s just not going to be the best without a Galaxy Watch. Photo by Victoria Song / The Verge

It’s got to stand alone

For what it’s worth, the $400 (currently $299) Samsung Galaxy Ring nails the hardware. This is the slimmest ring of the bunch and the most comfortable after the Evie Ring, and the futuristic charging case adds to its chic allure. The reason why it doesn’t take the title is because this ring is essentially for Samsung diehards — to the detriment of everyone else.

Case in point, you get the best battery life if you use it with a Samsung Galaxy Watch. The cool double pinch gesture to control the camera or dismiss notifications? Yeah, you need a phone running One UI 6.1 or newer. It’s essentially a neat accessory for your Galaxy Watch.

The Ultrahuman Ring Air came so close, but it’s best geared to the Whoop crowd. Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge

Training shouldn’t be the only focus

The $349 Ultrahuman Ring Air came so close to taking it all. It’s slim and lightweight, and I got compliments while wearing it. Battery life isn’t the best, but it’s decent for the category at three to four days. Where it shines is fitness tracking and training — meaning it caters to athletes above everyone else.

Compared to the Oura Ring, which has a streamlined focus on general wellness, this ring zeroes in on optimization. Say you’re trying to build healthier sleep habits. The companion app will give you a list of drinks with their average caffeine content and flag when you should drink what if your goal is to sleep by a certain time. I’m trying to wake up earlier so I can sneak in runs before the sun starts baking the planet. When I wake up, the ring shows me a “Phase Advance” timer. If I exercise during that time, it’s more likely to shift my natural Circadian rhythm earlier. There are a bunch of “upgrade” widgets called Power Plugs that let you further customize your experience by focusing on other goals, like sun exposure for vitamin D, cycle tracking, Circadian alignment, etc. Some Power Plugs are free. Others, like the forthcoming AFib detection, will cost an extra $4.90 monthly, which I don’t love.

Accuracy is otherwise on par with my other devices, but the way my data is interpreted gives me a little pause. For example, I’m flattered this ring thinks my VO2 Max — a metric used to gauge your aerobic fitness — is 44 ml/kg/min (apparently, that’s superior) and that my resting heart rate is Elite. Based on my years of testing other devices, this is overly generous. Granted, every company uses a different algorithm, but I generally fall in the slightly above average — emphasis on slightly — range.

While I like the Ultrahuman Ring Air a lot, it’s partly because I’m that dork who likes training. All this is a bit much if you’re a more general user.

Eliminated: Ultrahuman Ring Air

I gave five rings the chance to dethrone the Oura Ring. It hasn’t happened yet. Image: Victoria Song / The Verge

Most of the smart rings I tested did one or two things better than the third-gen Oura Ring that’s currently $199. That changes a bit with the fourth-gen (and latest) Oura Ring that came out in late 2024 and costs $349. If you care about accuracy and health tracking, Oura does a lot of work validating its algorithm, working with researchers, and putting out a metric ton of documentation about its features. It’s been putting in the work for several years, and that helps it stay ahead of the competition. The app is polished, syncing and updates are never an issue, and it’s widely available. The best thing about all this new competition is it’s also lit a fire under Oura’s butt to release more features and updates in the past few months than it has in a while. The main gripes I have are the $6 monthly subscription, and its charging dock isn’t my favorite. (Despite our laser-focused wishes for an updated dock, it’s mostly the same with the fourth-gen model.)

Smart rings as a whole won’t be dethroning smartwatches anytime soon. They’re too expensive when a smartwatch can do much more for the same price. But, if you’re going to buy a smart ring, you should get the best one — and that’s the Oura Ring. I gave five other rings every opportunity to dethrone it. Perhaps it’ll happen one day. But until then, the Oura Ring is king.

Updated September 10th: Updating pricing, and replaced the third-generation Oura Ring with the latest version.

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Nikon ZR camera, no lens, under low key magenta lighting
Product Reviews

Nikon Zr review: cinema cameras just got a major new player

by admin



Why you can trust TechRadar


We spend hours testing every product or service we review, so you can be sure you’re buying the best. Find out more about how we test.

Nikon ZR: two-minute review

The new Nikon ZR is the first in a new line of Nikon / RED cinema cameras, and instantly makes Nikon a major new player in this space, capable of going to toe-to-toe with Sony, Canon, Blackmagic and Panasonic.

Nikon only acquired RED Digital Cameras 18 months ago, and it’s made fast work of producing the surprisingly polished and capable ZR, adorned with Z Cinema Camera and Nikon / RED branding, and available for a tantalizing price that significantly undercuts rivals.

It packs a bunch of Nikon Z6 III tech, including the same 24MP partially stacked full-frame sensor, 5-axis image stabilization, subject-detection tracking autofocus and more, into an extremely compact, weather-sealed cinema camera body.

  • Nikon ZR at BHPhoto for $2,196.95

We get 6K 60fps video with internal RAW recording, with any one of nine industry-favorite RED color profiles baked in – that’s the Nikon / RED amalgamation truly bearing fruit – plus 4K 120fps and Full HD 240fps slow-motion recording.

Handily, shutter angle can be set automatically to 180 degrees, so there’s no need to mess around with manual exposure settings, plus the shutter angle can be set to any position between five and 360 degrees manually, should you wish.

The Nikon ZR with new ME-D10 shotgun mic attached – the mic supports the camera’s 32-bit float audio capture skills (Image credit: Tim Coleman)

We don’t get open gate video recording as in some rivals like the Canon EOS C50, but the ZR has another trick up its sleeve: hold the camera vertically, and its UI automatically rotates, with the vertical orientation embedded in the video files and automatically detected in Nikon’s editing software, delivering full-resolution vertical video.

The ZR is the first camera of its kind with internal 32-bit float audio capture, plus what Nikon says is the best-quality internal mics yet – a triple mic combo with Ozo audio and a choice of five directional pickup patterns, including binaural.

Alongside the ZR, Nikon has launched the ME-D10 directional mic (you can see it slotted into the camera’s hotshoe in the image above), which is compatible with the camera’s 32-bit float capabilities.

This is also the smallest cinema camera I’ve used, yet it still squeezes in a large, brightest-in-class 4-inch vari-angle touchscreen. Naturally, there’s no viewfinder.

Nikon has put both its own and RED’s branding on the ZR, together with Z Cinema Camera (Image credit: Tim Coleman)

Given its tiny size, there are compromises. We don’t get some of the pro connectivity found in other pricier compact cinema cameras – for example there’s only a micro HDMI port, not a full-size one. However, if you still feel the need to use an external monitor even with the large 4-inch built-in display, all you’ll need is a micro-to-full-size HMDI adaptor to get connected.

Sadly, the ZR lacks mounting points for video accessories and, with no grip, you’ll definitely want to rig it up with a grip or a cage for a better hold. That means forking out for ZR-dedicated gear – Nikon outsources to leading accessory maker SmallRig.

However, at just $2,199.95 / £2,199.99 (Australia pricing is TBC), no other cinema camera comes close to the ZR for video features – and this aggressive pricing will soften the blow of any additional outlay on accessories.

I can see the Nikon ZR as a go-to b-cam for many pros, especially those already shooting with a RED camera, for whom the color profile matching will make for a seamless workflow. That said, this is a capable video camera in its own right too.

The Nikon ZR is an incredibly capable and polished compact cinema camera with world-first features, and an exciting first step into the filmmaking space for Nikon. Should video lenses soon follow (most Z lenses are designed primarily for photography), along with a higher-end cinema camera with pro connectivity to sit above the ZR, then Nikon will truly find its footing in this space.

The compact body is the smallest in this class of cinema camera, with a fairly simple control layout (Image credit: Tim Coleman)

Nikon ZR: price and release date

  • Costs $2,199.95 / £2,199.99 (Australia pricing TBC)
  • There will be various accessory bundles, TBC
  • Sales start in October

The Nikon ZR costs $2,199.95 / £2,199.99 (Australia pricing is TBC, but that coverts to roughly AU$4,500). At that price it significantly undercuts rivals – such a feature set is typically found in cameras that cost around 50% more, and more often in cameras closer to twice the price.

That said, there are no video accessories included, and you’ll want to fork out for some in order to enjoy the ZR’s handling and feature set to its full potential. These will likely include a grip and / or cage, plus Nikon’s new ME-D10 directional mic, which is compatible with the camera’s 32-bit float audio format.

Nikon doesn’t make its own accessories such as grips or rigs, relying on third parties such as SmallRig to supply those. At the time of writing I don’t have pricing for dedicated ZR accessories.

The Nikon ZR is due to go on sale in October 2025.

Today’s best Nikon ZR deals

The ZR is compact cinema camera for run-and-gun filmmaking – an ideal b-cam (Image credit: Tim Coleman)

Nikon ZR: specs

Swipe to scroll horizontally

Video

6K up to 60fps, Raw internal

Photo

24MP full-frame

Lens mount

Nikon Z

Autofocus

Dual Pixel CMOS AF II

Screen

4-inch, 3.07m-dot, vari-angle

Viewfinder

N/A

Weight

19oz / 540g (body only)

Battery

EN-EL15 (same type as Nikon Z6 III / Z8)

Nikon ZR: Design

  • Smallest and lightest cinema camera of its kind; weather-resistant
  • Large 4-inch, 3.07m-dot touch LCD with brightest in-class display, no viewfinder
  • No mounting points for accessories
  • 3x internal mics, Ozo audio with five directional pickup patterns

As far as I know, the Nikon ZR is the smallest and lightest camera of its kind, weighing just 19oz / 540g (body-only). It’s also weather-resistant, which is a rarity in the cinema camera world.

There are pros and cons resulting from the tiny dimensions. Drawbacks include enthusiast-level connectivity, like micro HMDI rather than full-size (though you only need an adaptor to remedy this), and the absence of a grip or mounting points for accessories. A camera like the Canon EOS C50 feels more high-end, given its pro-level connectivity.

It feels best to keep things simple with the ZR, making the most of its compact body and powerful features by minimizing the number of accessories in play. A grip is the one accessory I would absolutely look into buying, while if you want to rig up the ZR you’ll need a cage, which will in turn allow you to attach accessories such as lights and mics – Nikon has partnered with SmallRig to create grips and cages for the ZR (pricing TBC).

Image 1 of 4

(Image credit: Tim Coleman)(Image credit: Tim Coleman)(Image credit: Tim Coleman)(Image credit: Tim Coleman)

Despite its tiny body, the ZR packs a large 4-inch touch display. As such, I don’t really see the need for attaching a bulky external 5-inch monitor. It certainly helps that the ZR’s 3.07m-dot display is wonderful bright and vivid – the brightest in its class, says Nikon. Mind you, I’ve only used the ZR in a studio; a truer test will be the bright outdoors.

Other cinema cameras, like the Sony FX3 and Canon EOS C50, only have 3-inch displays, while the Blackmagic Cinema Camera 6K has a mega 5-inch unit. In the case of the Sony and Canon models, I’d absolutely want to add a monitor to my setup.

The camera’s top plate is pretty simple: there’s a photo / video switch (though sadly the UI remains the same whichever setting you’re in, rather than there being dedicated menus for photo and video), record button with rocker, plus three buttons for accessing items such as display settings.

The rear is dominated by the large touch display, which when folded away reveals the Nikon / RED branding. Beside it are a joystick for controls such as autofocus point selection, a menu button (a quick press brings up the main menu and a long press brings up the quick menu, which is a nice touch) and a playback button.

Image 1 of 4

(Image credit: Tim Coleman)(Image credit: Tim Coleman)(Image credit: Tim Coleman)(Image credit: Tim Coleman)

Battery life promises to be okay, given that the ZR uses the same EN-EL15 battery as the Nikon Z6 III and Nikon Z8. There are no vents or cooling fans, though, which would normally suggest that a camera of this type would be prone to overheating during long recording sessions.

I haven’t recorded clips any longer than a few minutes, but I’ll be sure to run the camera for longer during my in-depth testing. However, Nikon says the camera’s magnesium alloy body is a natural heat sink, and promises that long record times are possible, and based on my experience with previous Nikon cameras I have no reason to doubt it.

There’s exciting tech under the hood, too, namely a totally new Ozo audio setup, which comprises three mics. Together, these offer five directional pickup patterns, including front narrow (like a shotgun mic), front wide, rear and binaural 3D stereo.

Nikon says this Ozo system is the best internal mic setup of any camera, and it’s supported by a world-first: in-camera 32-bit float audio capture. Nikon’s new ME-D10 shotgun mic, released at the same time as the ZR, supports 32-bit float audio too.

Those are impressive audio features for any camera, let alone one at this price point, and I look forward to properly testing them out.

Nikon ZR: Performance

  • 6K up to 60fps, 4K up to 120fps, Full HD up to 240fps
  • Internal RAW recording and RED color profiles (up to nine in-camera at any time)
  • Subject-detection autofocus and 5-axis image stabilization
  • 24MP stills, partially stacked full-frame sensor

For the most part, the Nikon ZR has the same photo and video specs as the Z6 III (which we awarded five stars out of five in our in-depth review), which means a full-frame partially stacked 24MP sensor equipped with 5-axis image stabilization.

Add in decent subject-detection tracking autofocus and the ZR is a capable stills shooter, although while this is useful for on-set stills, the main focus of my testing is of course the ZR’s video chops.

There’s the partially stacked 24MP full-frame sensor and Nikon Z mount (Image credit: Tim Coleman)

Like the Z6 III, the Nikon ZR shoots 6K up to 60fps, 4K up to 120fps and Full HD up to 240fps. There’s the option for shooting internal RAW with a 12-bit color depth, or keeping things simple and baking in the look at capture with 10-bit recording.

Given the array of creative styles and color profiles on board, which includes space for up to nine RED color profiles at any one time, you might just feel happy to skip shooting RAW, with its large file sizes and grading demands, and use one of the many baked-in color profiles instead to save editing time and space on your hard drives.

I shot a variety of video clips during a half-day session with a drummer in action inside a studio, including 6K RAW, a few of the RED profiles baked in, and 240fps slow-motion – see my sample video, above.

In this setting, the ZR delivered some superb-looking video. I’ll be expanding this first impressions review with more detail about its video and audio quality, once I’ve had an extended time with the ZR.

The ZR is a decent camera for photos too, with 24MP stills (Image credit: Tim Coleman)

Nikon ZR: also consider

(Image credit: Tim Coleman)

How I tested the Nikon ZR

  • I had just half a day with the ZR
  • I paired it with multiple Nikon Z lenses and tried out the new ME-D10 mic
  • No third-party accessories were available, so I used the camera handheld

I had the opportunity to shoot with the Nikon ZR for half a day ahead of its launch, using it for an indoor stage-lit shoot of a drummer in action.

Nikon supplied an array of Z-mount lenses for the shoot, of which I used a few primes and zooms. The new ME-D10 directional mic was also available on the day.

Nikon doesn’t make its own rigs or cinema camera accessories, relying on third parties such as SmallRig instead. None of these accessories were available to me, so I shot with the ZR entirely handheld, without a grip or rig.

During my limited test time I made sure to shoot in 6K RAW, 240fps slow motion, and to try out various color profiles, focusing on the RED looks.

I have plenty of experience using rival cinema cameras such as the Sony FX3, so I’m well equipped to make an informed initial assessment of the ZR. That said, cinema cameras need to prove themselves as tools their users can rely on shoot after shoot, so check back soon for my in-depth verdict after I’ve spent more time with the camera.

Nikon ZR: Price Comparison



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Today's Wordle puzzle on a smartphone
Product Reviews

Today’s Wordle clues, hints and answer for September 11 #1545

by admin



The best thing about our tailor-made clue for today’s Wordle is that you can use it whenever you think you need it most. Save it for when you’re really stuck and it’ll give you some fresh ideas, helping you focus and find your way. Or take a look before you lay down a single letter if you like the idea of guaranteeing yourself a good start. Whatever happens, you’ve got this—especially as the September 11 (1545) answer is just a little further down the page.

A clue for today’s Wordle

Stuck on today’s Wordle? Here’s a clue that pertains to the meaning of the word.

If you’re still just as stuck after our clue, scroll down for further hints.


Related articles

Hints for the September 11 (#1545) Wordle

Our Wordle hints will start vague so as to just give you a bit of a nudge in the right direction at first.

As you scroll down, they’ll offer more and more help towards figuring out today’s word without fully giving it away.

Are there any repeated letters in today’s Wordle?

You’ll need to find five different letters to win.

How many vowels are in today’s Wordle?

There are two vowels somewhere in here.

What letter does today’s Wordle begin with?

It’s a good idea to start with a “C” today.

There’s one word you’ve been looking for, and we might just have it below.

The September 11 (#1545) Wordle answer is…

(Image credit: Future)

This is it. No turning back now!

The solution to today’s Wordle puzzle is…

The meaning behind today’s Wordle answer

You know chairs. Hopefully comfortable ones with supportive backs and adjustable bits. 🪑

Previous Wordle answers

Past Wordle answers can give you some excellent ideas for fun starting words that keep your daily puzzle-solving fresh. They are also a good way to eliminate guesses for today’s Wordle, as the answer is unlikely to be repeated.

Here are the last 10 Wordle answers:

  • September 1: LEAST
  • September 2: MIGHT
  • September 3: FETCH
  • September 4: BLEND
  • September 5: DRIFT
  • September 6: BULGE
  • September 7: TENOR
  • September 8: CHIRP
  • September 9: TRICK
  • September 10: POUTY

Learn more about Wordle 

(Image credit: Future)

How to play Wordle

Wordle’s a daily guessing game, where the goal is to correctly uncover today’s five letter word in six goes or less. An incorrect letter shows up as a grey box. A correct letter in the wrong space turns up yellow. And the correct letter in the right place shows up as green. There’s no time limit to worry about, and don’t forget that some letters might be used more than once.

Get better at Wordle!

What’s the best Wordle starting word?

Generally you want to pick something with a good mix of common consonants and vowels in it as your Wordle opener, as this is most likely to return some early green and yellow letters. Words like SLATE, CHIME, and REACT all work, but feel free to find your own favourite.

Is Wordle getting harder?

(Image credit: Valve)

Wordle is not getting harder!

There will always be the occasional day where the answer is the name of a body part, has a sneaky double vowel, or a word obscure enough to send everyone rushing off to a dictionary. But the daily answers, edited by Tracy Bennett, are still a good mix of common terms and tougher challenges.

Remember that if you’re craving more of a challenge, you can enable Hard Mode under the ⚙️ options menu. This option doesn’t make the words themselves harder, but it requires that “any revealed hints must be used in subsequent guesses.”

How did Wordle begin?

Wordle is the creation of Josh Wardle, and began life as a small personal project before its public release in 2021. From there it’s gone on to become a global phenomenon, attracting a dedicated daily audience, billions of plays, a whole host of competitors, and even a seven-figure sale to the New York Times where it’s become a mainstay of daily games alongside the crosswords and Connections.



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Huawei
Product Reviews

China’s chip champions ramp up production of AI accelerators at domestic fabs, but HBM and fab production capacity are towering bottlenecks

by admin



Chinese companies Huawei and Cambrincon have begun to ramp up their production of AI accelerators at China-based fabs, according to J.P. Morgan (via @rwang07) and SemiAnalysis. If everything goes as planned, China will get over a million domestically developed and produced AI accelerators in 2026 from these two companies alone. This will hardly be enough to dethrone Nvidia’s AI GPUs in the People’s Republic, but it will certainly be a major step towards AI self-sufficiency.

However, it remains to be seen whether Chinese industry can produce millions of AI accelerators, as there seem to be two major bottlenecks — advanced semiconductor fab capacity and HBM memory supply. Furthermore, it remains to be seen whether these processors can deliver sufficient performance for China’s AI industry.

No more TSMC for Chinese AI companies (well, almost)

Although it was widely believed that Huawei produced a significant portion of its Ascend 910B accelerators at Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp.’s (SMIC) fabs in China, the company actually used shell companies to place orders with TSMC and deceive the world’s largest foundry to make Ascend 910B silicon.


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In fact, virtually all of the China-based developers of AI accelerators — from Cambricon Illuvatar CoreX to Biren and Enflame — have either used, or continue to use, TSMC’s services. However, only Huawei has managed to deceive TSMC and have a high-performance AI processor fabricated in Taiwan despite being on the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Entity List that prohibits TSMC (and other companies) from working with the Chinese high-tech giant.

(Image credit: TSMC)

Since blacklisting Huawei in 2020, which obliges companies to obtain an export license from the U.S. government to ship any device containing American technology to the company, the U.S. government has put numerous China-based developers of AI accelerators and CPUs into its Entity List and introduced quite serious sanctions against China’s AI/HPC and semiconductor sectors. As a consequence, only a handful of companies from the People’s Republic can use TSMC services involving more or less sophisticated process technologies. Those who can still work with TSMC now produce simplified designs (up to 30 billion transistors on 16nm-class production node) packaged by a trusted OSAT provider, targeting entry-level systems.

Time for SMIC to step in

While SMIC apparently did not produce AI accelerators for Huawei until fairly recently, the company has been making the company’s HiSilicon Kirin 9000S and similar system-on-chips (SoC) for smartphones. This has not only helped Huawei to return to the market of high-end smartphones without using restricted processors and models from Qualcomm, but also enabled SMIC to polish off its 7nm-class (also known as N+2) fabrication technology. Keeping in mind that Kirin 9000S has a die size of around 107 mm2, whereas the AI accelerator Ascend 910B has a die size of 665 mm2, it makes a lot of sense to pipe clean the node using the former.

(Image credit: SMIC)

Both SemiAnalysis and analyst Lennart Heim estimate that Huawei illicitly acquired approximately 3 million Ascend 910B dies from TSMC in 2024, which would be sufficient to assemble around 1.4 to 1.5 million Ascend 910C neural processing units (NPUs) that use two Ascend 910B dies. 1.5 million Ascend 910C NPUs are sufficient for Huawei to continue equipping its own AI data centers with in-house AI accelerators and potentially supply them to third parties.

SemiAnalysis believes that Huawei would have run out of silicon by now, but its partner SMIC began to ramp up production of Ascend 910B (or whatever it is called) in the third quarter of 2024, gradually increasing output to alleged hundreds of thousands of units in the first half of 2025. That ramp is set to continue, enabling Huawei to build as many as 1.2 million Ascend 910B dies in the fourth quarter of this year, according to SemiAnalysis.

SMIC appears to have made progress with 7nm-class production technologies and can now produce significant volumes of Ascend dies. Analysts estimate that as few as 20,000 wafer starts per month (WSPM) could enable production of several million chips annually. SMIC’s total advanced-node capacity is projected to reach 45,000 wafers per month by the end of 2025, expand to 60,000 by 2026, and 80,000 by 2027.

Of course, SMIC’s 7nm-class yields remain below those of TSMC, especially for large chips like the Ascend NPUs. However, if SMIC allocates 50% of its output for Ascend, even at a below 50% yield, Huawei will get over 5 million Ascend 910B dies in Q4 2026, according to SemiAnalysis. The big question is whether even 2.25 million Ascend 910C processors will be enough to meet AI performance requirements in late 2026.

SMIC has bottlenecks

JP Morgan is a bit more conservative with its predictions about the production of Chinese AI accelerators, saying that Huawei will get 600 – 650 thousand of ‘700 mm2-equivalent’ dies from local producers (which may include SMIC and perhaps Huawei’s own fab, though it is unlikely that this fab is good enough to produce data center-grade chips at this point) this year and 800 – 850 thousand dies in 2026.

We do not know the die size of the Ascend 910B produced at SMIC, but it is likely that it is larger than that of the same processor made at TSMC, likely close to 700 mm2, so JP Morgan’s estimates should be close to the number of actual NPUs that Huawei may get. The analysts also estimate that Cambricon can get 25 – 30 thousand large chips from SMIC this year, 300 – 350 thousand in 2026, and 450 – 480 thousand in 2027. Keep in mind that the current unit estimates reflect wafer-level production after wafer-in.

(Image credit: SMIC)

JP Morgan seems to be quite cautious about SMIC’s output in general. Analysts from the company claim that it takes about six months from wafer start to chip completion, plus two more months for packaging and module assembly, so it essentially takes SMIC eight months to produce an Ascend 910C.

To put it into context, for TSMC’s 7nm-class process nodes (such as N7, N7+, N6), the typical wafer cycle time — from starting wafer to completed processed wafer — ranges between 90 to 100 days, depending on factors like process complexity and customer priority. For CoWoS-S advanced packaging, the lead time is somewhere between 30 and 60 days, depending on complexity.

SMIC’s production cycle at 7nm-class nodes is roughly twice as long as TSMC’s, primarily due to its reliance on DUV-only lithography with heavy multi-patterning. TSMC’s N7 and N7P process technologies also relied on DUV lithography (only N7+ and N6 incorporate EUV, enabling them to simplify critical layers and reduce overall process steps), but their cycle was not that long. Perhaps, SMIC has fewer higher-end Twinscan NXT:1980i or NXT:2000i litho tools than TSMC, which creates a major bottleneck for large chips like the Ascend 910B, or maybe its fab is less efficient (e.g., has slower tools, less automation) in general. It is also unclear whether SMIC has advanced packaging in-house or has to turn to companies like JCET to fully assemble an Ascend 910C module.

If JP Morgan’s assessment is accurate and SMIC/Huawei have major fab bottlenecks for 7nm-class fabrication technology and large chips, then ramping the fab up may be problematic without access to ASML’s fairly advanced scanners like the Twinscan NXT:1980Di (unrestricted for China, restricted for SMIC) or NXT:2000i (a restricted tool for China).

As Huawei clearly knows that SMIC’s capacity may not be enough to satisfy its demands for mobile application processors, CPUs, and AI accelerators, the company is simultaneously investing heavily in its own fabrication facilities. To equip them, it facilitated the creation of SiCarrier, a maker of fab tools with big ambitions, and bought $9 billion worth of fab tools in recent years to install them into fab(s), reverse engineer them, and build at SiCarrier.

If Huawei’s fab project becomes a success, it will not only enable the company’s greater control over its supply chain but will potentially free up SMIC capacity for other Chinese chipmakers such as Cambricon. However, rebuilding the whole wafer fab equipment supply chain may be too hard a task even for a company like Huawei because even to build a sophisticated DUV lithography system, it will need to replicate several industries, not just a tool from ASML or Nikon.

If there were no restrictions on advanced fab tools for China, companies like Huawei and SMIC would likely attempt to address the 7nm and possibly even 5nm and 3nm-class challenges with a brute force approach by simply procuring more tools. However, even if these companies manage to obtain plenty of ASML’s NXT:1980Di for their fabs, they will still have to perfect techniques like self-aligned quadruple patterning (SAQP) and achieve decent yields, which could take years.

HBM bottleneck

But while the lack of advanced fab tools and production capacity for sophisticated nodes is something to be expected from the Chinese semiconductor industry, there is another, less obvious bottleneck for the People’s Republic AI accelerators: HBM memory supply.

SemiAnalysis reports that Huawei’s AI accelerator output could be limited not only by fab capacity, but by a shortage of HBM. The company had built up a large stockpile of HBM stacks — approximately 11.7 million units, with 7 million of those shipped in just one month by Samsung before U.S. export restrictions on HBM2E (and more advanced) were enforced in late 2024. While this stockpile has supported Huawei’s Ascend 910C production so far, it is expected to be depleted by the end of 2025, which will stop production of these NPUs unless new sources are found.

China’s main domestic DRAM supplier, CXMT, is racing to develop its own HBM capacity. The company has benefited from poached engineers, foreign equipment, and government funding, and can now manufacture DDR5 and early-stage HBM products. However, its projected output of ~2.2 million HBM stacks in 2026 will only support around 250,000 to 400,000 Ascend 910C packages, which is considerably less than what Huawei needs. While CXMT is rapidly expanding, including advanced packaging partnerships with JCET, Tongfu Microelectronics, and Xinxin, it still lacks the scale and efficiency of global leaders like Samsung and SK hynix.

As a result, Huawei and other Chinese companies may attempt to smuggle HBM produced by market leaders into the country to keep building their AI processors. However, given this constraint, China’s AI hardware industry may not be able to scale further unless it can overcome the HBM bottleneck.

What about self-sufficiency?

Being unrestricted in terms of access to advanced process technologies and HBM supply, Nvidia can produce millions of high-performance AI processors for China. As long as its products meet U.S. export controls requirements, the company can funnel millions of GPUs — whether these are relatively low-performance H20 or high-performance B30A — to China to meet demands of its partners like Alibaba or ByteDance.

(Image credit: Huawei)

Since both H20 and B30A seem to be cut-down versions of high-end H100 and B300, Nvidia’s supply of such processors could also be limited, as the company would rather sell more full-fat GPUs. On the one hand, this means that China-based customers or Nvidia could acquire additional capacity from cloud service providers. On the other hand, this means that there is unsatisfied demand for AI processors in the People’s Republic, a market that may well be addressed by domestic AI hardware companies.

However, recent rumors suggest that China’s government wants Chinese companies to buy domestic AI hardware to strengthen the domestic industry. If China truly sets the goal for AI hardware self-sufficiency, then it may well use the brute force approach to production of AI hardware — both compute and memory — and make them regardless of yields and cost. However, given uncertainties with advanced fab capacity and HBM supply, this strategy may not work.

Furthermore, there are other obstacles like fragmented ecosystems and ubiquity of Nvidia’s CUDA software stack that may prevent China from becoming self-sufficient in terms of AI hardware and software in the foreseeable future.



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