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Oxylabs Review: Pros & Cons, Features, Ratings, Pricing and more

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In 2015, the proxy software market growth was in full swing, so Oxylabs came into being to answer the need for IPs in different locations. It was born in Lithuania and has developed to have more than 175 million IPs in 195 countries (that’s practically the whole world), with the US, the UK, and Germany becoming home to its largest networks.

Through Oxylabs, users can gain access to residential, mobile, datacenter (regular and dedicated), and ISP proxies, as well as a web scraping API and comprehensive datasets (all scraped ethically from publicly available sources) required for various businesses.

On top of that, it supports the SOCKS5 protocol, making its proxies ideal for threat intelligence and cybersecurity, as well as the web unblocker for real-estate scraping and travel fare aggregation.

With this in mind, Oxylabs has a separate tier that targets businesses that need proxy services for their operations. Say you want to scrape data from e-commerce sites – you can do this with the provider’s proxy servers and a price comparison app.

Thanks to its cooperation with renowned data centers and the cyber insurance service, if you suffer damage due to a lapse in the proxy network, clients can feel safe and well taken care of by a capable proxy service platform.

    Oxylabs subscription options:

  • 1 month plan – $210 per month ($210 total cost)

Oxylabs: Plans and Pricing

Oxylabs’ pricing structure depends on the type and bandwidth of IPs on offer.

Residential has two plans: Regular and Enterprise.

The Regular option comes in the pay-as-you-go, no-commitment variant that starts at $4/GB and offers up to 50GB of traffic per month, as well as Micro at $3.87/GB for 13GB of traffic, Starter at $3.75/GB for 40GB of traffic, and Advanced at $3.49/GB for 86GB of traffic.

As for the Enterprise option, it includes Premium ($3.01/GB for 133 GB of traffic), Venture ($2.75/GB for 318 GB of traffic, plus a dedicated account manager to boot), Corporate ($2/GB for 1TB of traffic), and Custom + (starting at $2,500/month for over 2 TB of traffic) tiers.

ISP proxies start at $16 monthly for 10 IPs (i.e. $1.60 per IP). The higher the number of chosen IPs, the lower their unit cost. For example, 100 IPs cost $130/month ($1.30 per IP), 1,000 will set you back by $1,150/month (that’s $1.15 per IP), and if you need more than 1,000 IPs, you can contact Oxylabs’ sales team for a tailored quote.

Mobile proxies (4G, 5G, or LTE rotating IPs) have a similar price structure as their residential counterparts.

Hence, there are two tiers – Regular and Enterprise. The former charges $5.4/GB under the pay-as-you-go variant (1GB of traffic and up to 50GB available top-ups), $4.92/GB for the Micro option (12GB + up to 12GB top-ups), $4.74/GB for Starter (38 GB + 38 GB top-ups), and $4.5/GB for Advanced (80GB + up to 80 GB top-ups).

Enterprise pricing for mobile proxies ranges from $3.9/GB under the Premium pack (123GB + up to 123 GB available top-ups) to $3.6/GB under Venture (292 GB + up to 292 GB top-ups) to $3/GB for Corporate (600 GB + up to 600 GB top-ups). Need more? You can get it starting at $3,000/month for over 1TB of traffic, custom top-up options, and a dedicated account manager – an option also available with Venture and Corporate.

For datacenter IPs, you can choose regular or dedicated proxies.

If you want regular datacenter IPs, the choice of payment is yours – pay per IP or GB. The IP-based pricing (with unlimited bandwidth) ranges from the free tier for 5 IPs (no credit card required) through $12 per month for 10 IPs to $750 monthly for 1,000 IPs. On the other hand, bandwidth pricing starts at $50 per month for 77GB and ends at $2,200 for 5TB (no extra IP cost). If your needs surpass these packages, you can arrange for a custom deal.

Should you require IPs from a dedicated proxy server instead of a shared one, Oxylabs offers plans ranging from $6.75 per month for 3 IPs to $3,600 monthly for 3,000 IPs (unlimited bandwidth, with fair usage, which is up to 100 concurrent sessions and a a monthly data threshold of 100 GB per IP), with custom options available if your needs exceed 3,000 IPs.

The platform also has web scraping APIs on offer – regular and enterprise options – the former offering a non-committal free trial for up to 2,000 results, and paid options ranging from $49/month for up to 98,000 results to $249/month for up to 622,500 results. The latter starts at $499/month for up to 1.35 million results and ends at $2,000/month for up to 8 million results, with custom options starting at $10,000/month.

Finally, the web unblocker feature, an AI-powered proxy solution for block-free web scraping at scale, also offers regular and enterprise pricing alongside a 7-day trial. The regular pricing starts at $75/month for 8 GB of traffic and ends at $660/month for 88 GB of traffic. Enterprise options start at $900/month for 128 GB of traffic and a dedicated account manager, ending at $3,500 for 700 GB of traffic and a higher rate limit, with custom options available starting at $5,000/month.

All the packages (Regular and Enterprise) have a 10% discount if you sign up for the yearly subscription. Oxylabs accepts payment cards, wire transfers (both in US dollars and euros), AliPay, and PayPal.

Oxylabs: Features

A user’s journey with Oxylabs begins with registration. You can sign up with your email address or an existing Google account. After signing up, you’ll be redirected to a dashboard where you can access all features. Whether residential proxies, mobile proxies, a web unblocker, or a scraping API, this intuitive dashboard makes it easy to find what you want.

(Image credit: Oxylabs)

Let’s dive deeper into the features Oxylabs offers:

Residential proxies

Residential proxies are real IP addresses offered by Internet Service Providers (ISPs). They’re tied to real devices in physical locations, allowing you to bypass geo-restrictions for different purposes.

For example, price comparison sites need to scrape localized data from different websites to offer good deals to users. However, retailers are often against price scraping and use geo-restrictions to prevent their sites from being scraped.

A residential proxy lets price comparison sites bypass these geo-restrictions and harvest the required data. Because the residential proxy is tied to a legitimate device, the price comparison site operator can visit a website like any normal user.

Retailers also often have different prices for different locations. Residential proxies let price comparison providers visit localized versions of a retail website. Oxylabs provides access to over 175 million residential IPs across 195 countries, including over 10 million in the US, more than 5 million in China, 3.5 million+ in Germany, and roughly the same amount in the UK.

You can precisely target IPs by country, city, state, ZIP code, and even geographical coordinates, making it easy to get localized data. Oxylabs’ developer-friendly documentation and integrations make integrating these IPs into your app as smooth as possible.

Oxylabs’ IPs are legitimately sourced, which is important in a proxy sector that constantly grapples with illegitimately acquired IP addresses that expose customers to risks. It gets its residential IPs from consenting device owners who agree to join the network in exchange for a benefit, e.g., a VPN service.

ISP Proxies

Residential proxies are reliable for many use cases, but they have limitations regarding large-scale data scraping. Usage restrictions, such as bandwidth limits and available time per day, make them unsuitable for scraping massive amounts of data.

Oxylabs mitigates this situation by providing proxies leased directly from ISPs like British Telecom, Comcast, Lumen, Orange, and Frontier. You can request a shared ISP proxy (shared by up to 3 users) or a dedicated proxy, which is more expensive.

Oxylabs provides ISP proxies for enterprises with unlimited duration sessions or dynamic IP rotation. These ISP proxies are well-suited for heavy traffic loads, such as mass data scraping, app testing, and ad verification. The tradeoff is their high cost, starting at $1.60 monthly per shared IP.

Mobile proxies

Oxylabs provides access to a massive mobile proxy pool with 20 million+ addresses in 140 or so countries. You can filter these IPs by country, state, city, and coordinates to find precisely what you want. Its largest proxy pools are available in the US, Germany, France, Canada, the UK, and Mexico.

Mobile proxy servers act like mobile devices, enabling users to bypass geo-restrictions and general website blocks. For example, many websites use CAPTCHA to prevent web scraping bots from accessing their data. But with Oxylabs, you can use real mobile IP addresses to bypass CAPTCHA and scrape the needed data.

A mobile proxy is also an excellent tool for ad verification. Companies use them to monitor whether their ads are displayed to real traffic rather than bots. Likewise, businesses can combine Oxylabs’ mobile proxy service and scraping API to gather and respond to real-time reviews.

Data center proxies

Oxylabs offers datacenter proxies that aren’t sourced from ISPs. Instead, they come from secondary cloud service providers, offering anonymity and private IP authentication.

(Image credit: Oxylabs)

Datacenter proxies are high-speed and perform well, making them a great option for massive data scraping. You can buy them in bulk for a cost-effective sum, starting at $1.20 monthly per IP (a pack of 10 IPs), compared to $4/GB for Oxylabs’ residential proxies and $5.4/GB for mobile proxies.

Oxylabs provides shared and dedicated datacenter IPs, the latter of which is more expensive. Shared IPs have unlimited bandwidth, while the bandwidth for dedicated IPs varies by your chosen plan. For both types, you can connect to your proxy servers via the HTTP, HTTPS, and SOCKS5 protocols.

Web Unblocker

Oxylabs offers a Web Unblocker that specializes in bypassing anti-bot systems. Many websites use sophisticated systems to prevent scraper bots, but Oxylabs enables you to bypass these systems and scrape the data you require.

It uses dynamic fingerprinting to simulate human-like browsing, with the same headers, cookies, and JavaScript rendering of a web browser. You’ll use a proxy, but the websites think it’s a legitimate user, and it serves the required content without hassles.

The Web Unblocker also uses machine learning techniques to select and rotate proxies, deciding what works best on a specific site. If your scraping request fails, the Web Unblocker automatically rotates proxies to send another request. This process occurs until the request is finally fulfilled.

Scraping APIs

Data scraping is a common use case of residential, ISP, mobile, and datacenter proxies. Companies use them to scrape data manually, a process that gets cumbersome when dealing with massive amounts of data. But Oxylabs solves this problem by offering APIs to automate data scraping.

You’ll select the type of data you want to scrape (text, images, prices, ads, social media likes, etc.) and choose your target website. Then, the API goes to work, scraping the data while you focus on other tasks. You’ll be alerted once your data scraping task is complete. Oxylabs offers distinct APIs for scraping search engines, e-commerce, or other public websites.

(Image credit: Oxylabs)

Other scraping solutions currently offered by Oxylabs include its unblocking browser, which is a ‘maintenance-free and anti-bot-ready headless browser,’ OxyCopilot, an AI-powered assistant for generating web scraping and parsing requests, video data API, and an AI studio with a smart crawler, scraper, browser agent mimicking human behavior when navigating, web search interpreter, and a website mapping tool.

Oxylabs: Ease of Use

Oxylabs offers an intuitive interface that’s easy to navigate. All features are neatly arranged on the dashboard, with the menu on the left and the viewing pane beside it. The interface sports a white background, purple and black text, and contrasting colours that look visually appealing.

This platform put considerable effort into its proxy integrations, making them easy to understand and deploy. If user friendliness were the only criterion for this review, Oxylabs would get a perfect score.

Oxylabs: Customer Support

Oxylabs provides 24/7 support for customers. You can start a live chat with a support agent or send an email and expect a response within 24 hours. Oxylabs’ support team was active and highly willing to solve inquiries during our test.

Customers can also access complementary support resources, primarily extensive documentation for its features. On Oxylabs’ website, you can find detailed guides and user manuals for all types of proxies, making them easier to configure.

There’s a ‘Scraping Experts’ section on Oxylabs featuring web scraping video tutorials. This section provides valuable knowledge from the Beginner to Advanced levels, teaching the ins and outs of website scraping with Oxylabs’ proxies. It is continuously updated with new videos and includes on-demand Q&A sessions to learn directly from scraping experts.

However, we noticed a drawback. There is no telephone support for customers, which is an inconvenience when paying for an expensive tool.

Oxylabs: The Competition

The proxy software industry is very competitive, with no shortage of rivals to Oxylabs. The main competitors we’d like to highlight are Bright Data, Decodo (formerly Smartproxy), and SOAX.

Bright Data is excellent for residential, mobile, and datacenter proxies. It also offers web scraping APIs like Oxylabs. The difference is that Bright Data offers more customizability and is a costlier solution.

Decodo is another reliable proxy server provider, with its datacenter proxies supporting the SOCKS5 protocol just like Oxylabs. However, Oxylabs has a larger IP pool of 175 million+ proxy addresses.

SOAX provides a massive proxy IP pool as well, and it has web scraping APIs and a Web Unblocker like Oxylabs. However, it outshines Oxylabs in terms of user-friendliness and customizability.

Oxylabs: Final verdict

All things considered, Oxylabs’ reputation as one of the best proxy providers in the industry is well deserved. Not only does it offer a 175 million-strong pool of proxy IP addresses for data scraping and other business tasks, but it also throws in a bunch of useful tools for good measure. This includes a sophisticated web scraping API, unblocking capabilities, an AI assistant, a video data API, and an AI studio.

As such, it’s not just great for individual users with demanding proxy requirements, but also for any business looking for a proxy provider that can serve its needs at scale. That said, it might be a bit expensive, especially if you’re a high-level user. Still, all the advanced features listed above certainly justify the price mark.

We’ve also highlighted the best proxy and best VPN



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OpenAI's Teen Safety Features Will Walk a Thin Line
Product Reviews

OpenAI’s Teen Safety Features Will Walk a Thin Line

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OpenAI announced new teen safety features for ChatGPT on Tuesday as part of an ongoing effort to respond to concerns about how minors engage with chatbots. The company is building an age-prediction system that identifies if a user is under 18 years old and routes them to an “age-appropriate” system that blocks graphic sexual content. If the system detects that the user is considering suicide or self-harm, it will contact the user’s parents. In cases of imminent danger, if a user’s parents are unreachable, the system may contact the authorities.

In a blog post about the announcement, CEO Sam Altman wrote that the company is attempting to balance freedom, privacy, and teen safety.

“We realize that these principles are in conflict, and not everyone will agree with how we are resolving that conflict,” Altman wrote. “These are difficult decisions, but after talking with experts, this is what we think is best and want to be transparent in our intentions.”

While OpenAI tends to prioritize privacy and freedom for adult users, for teens the company says it puts safety first. By the end of September, the company will roll out parental controls so that parents can link their child’s account to their own, allowing them to manage the conversations and disable features. Parents can also receive notifications when “the system detects their teen is in a moment of acute distress,” according to the company’s blog post, and set limits on the times of day their children can use ChatGPT.

The moves come as deeply troubling headlines continue to surface about people dying by suicide or committing violence against family members after engaging in lengthy conversations with AI chatbots. Lawmakers have taken notice, and both Meta and OpenAI are under scrutiny. Earlier this month, the Federal Trade Commission asked Meta, OpenAI, Google, and other AI firms to hand over information about how their technologies impact kids, according to Bloomberg.

At the same time, OpenAI is still under a court order mandating that it preserve consumer chats indefinitely—a fact that the company is extremely unhappy about, according to sources I’ve spoken to. Today’s news is both an important step toward protecting minors and a savvy PR move to reinforce the idea that conversations with chatbots are so personal that consumer privacy should only be breached in the most extreme circumstances.

“A Sexbot Avatar in ChatGPT”

From the sources I’ve spoken to at OpenAI, the burden of protecting users weighs heavily on many researchers. They want to create a user experience that is fun and engaging, but it can quickly veer into becoming disastrously sycophantic. It’s positive that companies like OpenAI are taking steps to protect minors. At the same time, in the absence of federal regulation, there’s still nothing forcing these firms to do the right thing.

In a recent interview, Tucker Carlson pushed Altman to answer exactly who is making these decisions that impact the rest of us. The OpenAI chief pointed to the model behavior team, which is responsible for tuning the model for certain attributes. “The person I think you should hold accountable for those calls is me,” Altman added. “Like, I’m a public face. Eventually, like, I’m the one that can overrule one of those decisions or our board.”



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PacketStream
Product Reviews

PacketStream Review: Pros & Cons, Features, Ratings, Pricing and more

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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.

PacketStream started its journey in California in 2018, when it was established by the entrepreneur duo Arthur Aivazian and Ronald Bell. They imagined it as a company solving a particular need in the market – offering a network of peer-to-peer (P2P) residential proxies, which are IP addresses sourced from real devices around the world, allowing users to bypass geographic restrictions when accessing various kinds of data.

As opposed to many other residential proxy providers, which are centralized, PacketStream’s peer-to-peer nature allows acquiring and selling residential proxies to customers directly. In other words, users buy or sell residential IPs from and to one another. This system makes proxies cheaper, albeit at the cost of reliability and speed.

Another problem that this platform could face is the risk of unreliable IP addresses potentially being added to the network. This is because PacketStream, despite offering secure proxies in general, doesn’t entirely control the IPs sold through its network.

PacketStream: Plans and Pricing

Unlike many proxy providers out there with complex pricing plans, PacketStream keeps things simple, charging per bandwidth, with a flat fee of $1 per GB. This way, you get access to the entire network of residential proxies, which is a lot more straightforward and may even be a cheaper alternative to providers charging for individual IP addresses.

Indeed, $1 per GB is one of the most affordable pricing options in the industry, as most competitors charge a lot more. These include IPRoyal with $6.5 per GB, Bright Data with $8.40 per GB, and Webshare with $2.8 per GB (depending on the specific package you selected).

That said, you’ll need to purchase at least 50 GB, which will set you back by $50. This means you can’t buy just $1 of bandwidth to take the platform for a spin before deciding – the 50 GB minimum is a must. Still, PacketStream offers rotating proxies (alongside their static counterparts), so if one IP address doesn’t work, you can switch to a different one in a jiffy.

PacketStream offers a free trial, but without a standardized process. You need to contact the sales team to request this trial, which is futile for most individual users. The free trial is only suitable for people who plan to spend significant sums on proxies. After all, why contact a sales team if you just need to test a few gigabytes worth of proxies?

PacketStream accepts payments through PayPal and major credit cards.

PacketStream: Features

PacketStream allows users not just to buy proxies, but also to acquire them and sell them on to offset costs, and sell your unused device bandwidth for profit, offering it at prices starting at $0.10 per GB. The minimum payout is $5 and is sent to your PayPal account once per week with a 3% fee applied to cashouts.

Interestingly, Microsoft Defender blocked the download and installation of PacketStream, identifying it as a program that “displays deceptive product messages.” This is typically how ‘scareware’ is described, or software that makes deceptive or fraudulent claims about your computer’s health to trick you into buying unnecessary or potentially unwanted products, which may not be inherently malicious in the same way as other malware.

However, since PacketStream doesn’t make any scary claims about your device, the flagging as potentially malicious could be due to the application’s process of using your computer to route third-party traffic when you share your bandwidth with other users. Hence, the antivirus interprets the app’s behavior as unusual or questionable. So, if you fail to install PacketStream, this could be the reason.

Residential Proxies

PacketStream offers a P2P residential proxy network spanning 190 countries. These proxies are sourced from real devices whose owners sell their bandwidth on the PacketStream network. You don’t have to worry about illegally sourced IP addresses, a major problem plaguing proxy providers. Every IP address on PacketStream was consensually added by its owner to earn money.

The company has both randomized and static IP options on offer, with randomized IPs changing with every new request to provide a high level of anonymity. Static IPs, on the other hand, remain consistent for scenarios where a single and steady IP address is required. Selection of the type of residential proxy you need is done as part of the request when buying access.

PacketStream’s proxy IP addresses were reliable during our test and offered reasonable speeds. We chose IP addresses from different countries, and they provided fast connections, although the speed varies depending on the country. PacketStream lets you choose proxies from roughly 190 countries, but you can’t select by city, which we consider a disadvantage. Many rival proxy providers let you choose proxies from specific cities to increase your chances of evading geographical restrictions.

(Image credit: PacketStream)

The platform supports HTTP, HTTPS, and SOCKS proxy protocols, which differ in how they handle traffic and their compatibility, each having its own strengths and downsides. Having the latter option in particular is important as it reduces network delays and provides better speeds than HTTP/HTTPS, making it ideal for high-speed, general-purpose tasks like P2P sharing or streaming. The other two, on their part, offer benefits like content caching and content filtering.

Residential proxies can be used for many things. A good example is data scraping, wherein people use proxies to bypass website geo-restrictions and scrape relevant information.

Suppose you run a website that tracks the prices of commodities and delivers this data to users. Running a price monitoring site requires extracting data frequently and quickly from many websites. The websites (primary data sources) are privy to external data scraping and block it by implementing geographical and IP restrictions. They can identify specific IPs from data scraping bots and block them from further access. They can also ban IP addresses of an entire country from accessing their information.

PacketStream gives you access to a large network of residential IP addresses to bypass restrictions and scrape commodity price data. If one IP address gets discovered and blocked, just switch to another and try your luck.) Although specific numbers may differ, this proxy provider has millions of IP addresses across 190 countries, so you’ll have no fear of running out of new proxies to bypass geographical restrictions on websites and services.

Online retail is another common use case for residential proxies. Many people use automated bots to snap up fast-selling products, placing orders before they run out of stock. However, e-commerce sites don’t like this and often blocklist bot IP addresses. PacketStream’s residential proxies let users circumvent this block and get their desired product.

As far as an e-commerce site is concerned, residential proxies belong to legitimate devices. It’s challenging for them to detect and block these proxies. Even when they do, you can switch to another proxy and visit the e-commerce site. PacketStream’s large network of residential proxies allows people to utilize automated scripts to bid for products.

One major drawback is that PacketStream offers only residential IPs. It doesn’t provide datacenter IPs, which are faster and more reliable. Datacenter IPs are sourced from dedicated servers with more speed, making them ideal for massive data scraping tasks. Large enterprises are the main users of datacenter proxies, but PacketStream doesn’t serve this cohort well. This proxy provider best suits individuals and small businesses seeking affordable residential proxies.

PacketStream doesn’t offer mobile-specific IPs. Mobile device IP addresses are present on this P2P network, but you can’t specifically choose that option. Many businesses use mobile IPs for app testing and ad verification, but performing these tasks with PacketStream is difficult.

Likewise, PacketStream doesn’t offer proxies sourced directly from Internet Service Providers (ISPs). ISP proxies provide higher data throughput and reduced delay than residential proxies, but you can’t get them on PacketStream.)

Selling Bandwidth

(PacketStream lets users sell their unused bandwidth and make money. You can add your IP address to the network and earn money when people use your device as a proxy. Pricing is $0.10 per GB, which can help you offset the cost of buying bandwidth on PacketStream.

Sharing your bandwidth requires downloading the PacketStream client on your PC. This client is available on Windows and macOS, as well as on Linux, where it can be installed by running a specific command via Docker. It can run even on low-end PCs. The primary requirement is a stable internet connection.

After installing the PacketStream PC app, you can open it anytime and activate a shared connection. Your payout is automatically calculated based on the amount of data your shared connection transmits. Closing the PacketStream app immediately terminates the shared connection, giving you complete control over the process. PacketStream can’t use your connection without your consent, which you give by opening the app.

There’s no limit to the amount of bandwidth you can share. The minimum payout is $5 for 50 GB of bandwidth, which makes sense because 50 GB is the minimum amount of bandwidth that PacketStream users can buy. A 3% fee applies to every payout.

Reseller API

PacketStream offers reselling/white-label services. This feature is for people interested in starting their own proxy providers. In that case, you can sell PacketStream’s proxies under your own branding and earn money. PacketStream provides a bare-bones version of its platform, which you can customize to build a brand atop the company’s infrastructure.

(Image credit: PacketStream)

Resellers provide access to the same network of proxies available on PacketStream. Any device added to PacketStream’s network will become available on your proxy provider. This feature isn’t for individual users, but we consider it worth discussing to give a complete PacketStream review.

PacketStream: Ease of Use

PacketStream outshines many competitors in the user-friendliness criterion. It arguably has the simplest interface we’ve encountered in a proxy provider, thanks partly to its limited features (there’s not much to navigate).

(Image credit: PacketStream)

All features are neatly arranged on the left menu, and the main dashboard lies on the right side. With a white background and a few contrasting colors, PacketStream’s interface feels visually appealing and easy to navigate. The average person won’t have any issues understanding this interface: this can’t be said for some proxy providers.

There’s a drawback, though. PacketStream doesn’t offer a browser extension to manage proxies. You need the desktop interface to manage and deploy new proxies, unlike other proxies with browser extensions for seamless proxy management. An extension lets you switch proxies at the click of a single button, but PacketStream doesn’t provide this benefit.

PacketStream: Customer Support

An area where PacketStream lags behind its competitors is customer support. It offers direct support only via email, with no live chat or telephone option. You can send a support email and expect a response within 48 hours, but there’s no option to hold a real-time conversation with support staff.

Also, PacketStream doesn’t provide as many self-help support resources as most competitors. There’s a FAQ section and user guides on the website, but they aren’t as detailed as what we’ve seen in other proxy providers.

PacketStream: The Competition

PacketStream has many competitors, the most notable being Bright Data, Oxylabs, and Decodo (formerly Smartproxy).

Bright Data offers residential, ISP, and datacenter proxies. It also offers advanced web scraping APIs as pre-built datasets. In contrast, PacketStream offers none of these except residential IPs. If you need PacketStream’s proxies for automated data scraping, you’ll need an external platform for the APIs. However, at $1 per GB, PacketStream’s residential proxy service is much more affordable than Bright Data’s, which costs around $8.4 per GB.

Oxylabs provides residential, ISP, and datacenter proxies, with a massive pool of over 100 million IP addresses. It also provides a Web Unblocker and web scraping APIs for enterprises. Oxylabs is undoubtedly the more sophisticated platform. It offers more reliable and speedy proxy IPs, with complete control over its proxy network, unlike peer-to-peer PacketStream. However, Oxylabs’ residential IPs cost $8 per GB, compared to PacketStream’s $1.

Webshare offers residential, ISP, and datacenter proxies, but not web scraping APIs. Its pool of 80 million+ IP addresses across 195 countries is on par with Oxylabs and Bright Data but larger than PacketStream. With pricing as low as $2.8 per GB, Webshare is one of the most affordable proxy providers for enterprises. Yet, PacketStream’s $1 per GB beats it in pricing.

In summary, PacketStream lags slightly behind most competitors in certain advanced features and customer support. However, it outperforms them in ease of use and affordability, helped by the lower costs of running a P2P network and the opportunity to earn money through offering your bandwidth for other users.

PacketStream: Final words

PacketStream is among the most affordable residential IP providers in terms of price per GB, although the minimum purchase is worth $50. This makes it ideal for individual users or small businesses that require rotating and static proxies for mundane online activities. Having said that, enterprises will probably find it lacking for any large-scale data scraping needs. Besides, it lacks the more reliable datacenter and ISP proxies and has limited customer support.

We’ve rated the best VPN services.



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IGN Fan Fest 2025: Fall Edition features new looks at Anno 117: Pax Romana and Dispatch
Esports

IGN Fan Fest 2025: Fall Edition features new looks at Anno 117: Pax Romana and Dispatch

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IGN Fan Fest is returning this October for its Fall Edition.

Featuring over 75 content partners across games, movies, and streaming, viewers can expect new game announcements alongside trailers and exclusive clips.

These include new looks at Ubisoft’s Anno 117: Pax Romana, AdHoc Studio’s Dispatch, and 2K’s WWE 2K25, as well as Netflix’s Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell: Deathwatch animated series.

The Fall Edition will also feature celebrity interviews for upcoming films and shows, including Keanu Reeves and Aziz Ansari for Good Fortune.

Further details will be revealed over the coming weeks.

IGN Fan Fest 2025: Fall Edition starts on October 15 at 9am PDT/12pm EDT/5pm BST with a one-hour broadcast of gameplay, trailers, and first looks.

This will be followed by the main event, starting at 10am PDT/1pm EDT/6pm BST on IGN.com, YouTube, Steam, Facebook, Twitch, and X.

More information on IGN Fan Fest can be found here.

GamesIndustry.biz is part of IGN Entertainment, the division of Ziff Davis that includes Eurogamer, Rock Paper Shotgun, and VG247.



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Apple is giving iPhone 14 and 15 users another free year of satellite features
Gaming Gear

Apple is giving iPhone 14 and 15 users another free year of satellite features

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iPhone 14 and iPhone 15 users are getting another year of free access to satellite connectivity features, according to a footnote on Apple’s newsroom posts for the iPhone 17 and iPhone 17 Pro. “The free trial will be extended for iPhone 14 and iPhone 15 users who have activated their device in a country that supports Apple’s satellite features prior to 12 a.m. PT on September 9, 2025,” Apple says.

Apple originally launched its Emergency SOS service via satellite shortly after it released the iPhone 14 lineup, in November 2022, and at the time, Apple said the feature would be free for the first two years. (The feature is still free for two years after activation on iPhone 14 models and newer.) But in 2023, Apple added an additional free year for existing iPhone 14 users, meaning that the deadline to potentially start paying for the earliest adopters would be November 2025. Now, it appears that deadline has been bumped to November 2026.

With iOS 18 last year, Apple expanded its satellite messaging features to let you text friends or family when you’re off the grid. Today, Apple also announced that the new Apple Watch Ultra 3 will have satellite connectivity features.



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Sony LinkBuds Open buds next to charging case
Product Reviews

Sony LinkBuds Open review: plenty of bass and awesome features, but at quite some cost

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Sony LinkBuds Open: two-minute review

The Sony LinkBuds Open are yet another contender in the trendy and ever-expanding world of open earbuds – but they still stand out from the crowd.

This model succeeds Sony’s first attempt at open earbuds, which launched three years ago now, and combines a slightly unorthodox design with a broad feature-set, tuneable audio, and modern controls. With a price of $199 / £149 / AU$249.95, though, there’s a lot of expectation on Sony’s latest open buds – so, can they hit all of the right notes?

Well, I’ll start by talking about my first impressions out of the box. As soon as I unboxed the Sony LinkBuds Open, I was struck by their unusual yet enticing looks. Unlike a lot of the best open earbuds, these adopt neither the clip-on nor the hooked designs that most of their competitors adopt. Instead, each bud has a ring-shaped driver, which lets ambient sound in easily. The batteries are housed in an orb-shaped casing, and wings are attached to these for a more secure in-ear fit.

I’m a fan of the ring-shaped in-ear components – these fit nicely and let in ambient noises without a hitch. Admittedly though, the spherical exterior looks a bit clunky, and although the wings ensure a pretty secure fit, they felt a little peculiar in my ear, which took comfort levels down a bit for me personally. Overall, these should still feel fine in-ear for a few hours, but there are comfier alternatives out there, like the Apple AirPods 4 with ANC, for instance.

Something I loved was the charging case. The white color variant has a glossy, marble-like appearance and I appreciate the attention to detail here. It’s worth noting that you can also grab these buds in Black or Violet – the latter being a special edition produced in collaboration with singer Olivia Rodrigo.

Another thing that really impresses me about these buds is their feature-set, which is bursting at the seams with user-friendly goodness. There’s multi-point connectivity, 360 Reality Audio support, voice assistant integration, and services such as Spotify Tap – all accessible via Sony’s Sound Connect app.

But there’s more! There’s customizable, and surprisingly effective touch controls, DSEE upscaling for lower-quality music files (still looking at you, Spotify), and depth-filled EQ options. There’s Find Your Equalizer – a gamified way to uncover the best tuning for you – as well as presets and a five-band custom option. Combine that with Scene-based listening, head gesture controls, and a wearing condition check-up, and you’re looking at a highly talented pair of buds.

Still, it’s worth flagging that some competitors offer features that have been omitted here. There’s no active noise cancellation – something you’ll spot on a model like the Edifier LolliClip or Honor Earbuds Open – though you probably want to hear your surroundings clearly if you’re buying open-style earbuds. There’s also no LDAC, Sony’s ‘hi-res’ Bluetooth audio codec, but again, the open design here does limit audio capabilities.

Finally, there aren’t any health monitoring options – think a heart rate or blood oxygen tracker (you’d need to look to the Beats Powerbeats Pro 2 for that). But still, you have plenty to play with on the LinkBuds Open, and the companion app is super easy to use.

(Image credit: Future)

  • Sony LinkBuds Open (White) at Amazon for $119.99

A quick note

When I started testing the Sony LinkBuds Open, I encountered some issues, such as a rattling noise in one bud and connectivity issues. Thankfully, we were swiftly presented with a fresh, fully functional unit, but for transparency’s sake, I wanted to flag such quirks. These issues have not influenced my final scoring of the model.

By now, then, you must be wondering how the LinkBuds Open sound. Well, I have mixed feelings about this model. Firstly, it’s worth pre-empting this by emphasizing that an open design means a likely hit to audio fidelity, and typically weaker bass response than you’d expect from earbuds with a seal or over-ear headphones, for example.

Still, I was relatively impressed with the low-end performance of the LinkBuds Open. I tried listening to AAAAA by Kiefer with EQ set to ‘Off’ (flat), and found that the bass rippling through the track was meatier than what the impressive SoundCore AeroClip could offer with default tuning. Was it the cleanest low-end replication I’ve heard? Well no.

In Stepping Out (feat. $Ha Hef) by Jay Worthy and LNDN DRGS, the funky bassline clashed slightly with vocals, which didn’t have quite enough space to breathe. Meanwhile, the palpable sub-bass is pretty understated in The Boys Are Back In Town by Yung Gravy – though that’s almost to be expected from a pair of open-ears given their technical limitations.

Elsewhere, highs sounded pretty prominent out of the box – but perhaps a little too prominent at times. On occasion, sounds in the treble-frequency edged towards the harsh side of things – though this can be remedied with EQ adjustment in the Sound Connect app.

It’s in tracks more focused around vocal performances, then, where the LinkBuds Open truly shine. For instance, when tuning into Déchire la Toile by Lorien Testard and Alice Duport-Percier, gliding keys and emotive vocals sounded clear and controlled, with a pleasing openness to the sound creating a decently immersive listen. Even at higher volumes, there was a solid level of detail on display, though my colleague did note significant sound leakage – not ideal if you’re in the office or on public transport.

All in all, you won’t get that perfectly balanced, beautifully layered audio – and you might want to tinker with that out-of-the-box sound profile. But for a pair of open earbuds, the LinkBuds Open are certainly solid in the audio department, with generally clear, weighty sound.

A few final notes on this open-ear option from Sony. Firstly, you get a pretty standard serving of playtime. You should get around 8 hours from the buds alone, plus an additional 14 with the charging case. During my testing, I found this to be about right – putting them about on-par with modes like the aforementioned Soundcore AeroClip.

And one more thing: there are optional fittings that you can purchase to customize the LinkBuds Open to your liking. These include multi-colored covers for both the buds themselves and the charging case, if you really wanna jazz things up. This level of customizability is admirable, but you’ll have to spend extra to access it.

In the end, then, can we say that the LinkBuds open hit all of the right notes? Not quite – but they still put on a good show. I’m not totally sold on their design and sonically, they’re not as strong as some wireless buds in the same price-range. But still, commendable mid-range performance, fairly meaty bass given the design and lots of EQ options kept me satisfied overall.

Unfortunately, there’s one area where these buds fall down for me: their cost. They’re very pricey for open ears, which already come with some compromises in terms of audio. So, even though they have a deep feature-set and secure in-ear fit, this model’s not quite a slam dunk. If you’ve got a good amount of cash to splash on some open earbuds, these may well be worth checking out, but otherwise, I’d suggest taking a peek at my other recommendations in the ‘Also consider’ section.

Sony LinkBuds Open review: specs

Swipe to scroll horizontally

Waterproof rating

“IPX4 equivalent”

Battery life

8 hours (earbuds); 22 hours (with charging case)

Bluetooth type

Bluetooth 5.3

Weight

5.1g (per bud); 30g (charging case)

Frequency range

20Hz-20kHz

(Image credit: Future)

Sony LinkBuds Open review: price and release date

  • $199 / £149 / AU$249.95
  • Launched in October 2024

The Sony LinkBuds Open – or Sony LinkBuds Open WF-L910 as they’re sometimes listed – released at the end of 2024. They have a list price of $199 / £149 / AU$249, which is by no means cheap for a pair of open-ears, though nowhere near as steep as the Bose Ultra Open Earbuds, which launched at $299 / £299 / AU$449.95.

On top of that, I’ve already spotted these on sale in some territories. For instance, they’ve dropped to under £130 / AU$250 on Amazon at the time of writing. You can pick the LinkBuds Open up in a variety of colors, including Black, White, or Violet. The latter is a collaboration with singer Olivia Rodrigo, and includes custom EQ options which were tuned by the artist and her producer.

(Image credit: Future)

Should you buy the Sony LinkBuds Open?

Swipe to scroll horizontally

Attributes

Notes

Rating

Features

Wide suite of features and awesome in-app experience.

4.5/5

Sound quality

Generally solid for open ear sound, imperfect yet fairly meaty bass, clear mids.

3.5/5

Design

Not the most elegant looking, just OK comfort, but secure fit and appealing case.

3.5/5

Value

Despite good overall performance, these are expensive against similar quality rivals.

3/5

Buy them if…

Don’t buy them if…

Sony LinkBuds Open: also consider

Swipe to scroll horizontallyHeader Cell – Column 0

Sony LinkBuds Open

Anker Soundcore AeroClip

Huawei FreeArc

Price

$199 / £149 / AU$249.95

$129.99 / £129.99 (about AU$210)

£99.99 (about $130 / AU$210)

Waterproof rating

“IPX4 equivalent”

IPX4

IP57

Battery life

8 hours (earbuds); 22 hours (with charging case)

8 hours (earbuds); 24 hours (with charging case)

7 hours (earbuds); 23 hours (with charging case)

Bluetooth type

Bluetooth 5.3

Bluetooth 5.4

Bluetooth 5.2

Weight

5.1g (per bud); 30g (charging case)

6g (per bud); 42g (charging case)

8.9g (per bud); 67g (charging case)

Frequency range

20Hz-20kHz

20Hz-20kHz

20Hz-20kHz

How I tested the Sony LinkBuds Open

(Image credit: Future)

  • Tested across the course of multiple weeks
  • Used in the office and while out and about
  • Predominantly tested using Tidal

I tested the Sony LinkBuds Open over the course of multiple weeks while in the office, at home, and out on walks.

For the most part, I listened to music with the buds via Tidal, though I occasionally dipped into a few tracks on Spotify. During testing, I made sure to run through the TechRadar testing playlist, which features tracks from a range of genres. I also listened to songs from my personal library.

Where appropriate, I compared the LinkBuds Open against rival models, such as the Anker Soundcore AeroClip, which helped me to assess aspects like audio performance and comfort.

  • First reviewed: September 2025
  • Read more about how we test

Sony LinkBuds Open: Price Comparison



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Borderlands 4 PC Specs Revealed, Alongside Graphics Settings And Accessibility Features
Game Updates

Borderlands 4 PC Specs Revealed, Alongside Graphics Settings And Accessibility Features

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Gearbox has disclosed the PC specs for Borderlands 4. The specs were shared by 2K on the Borderlands 4 website, covering both minimum and recommended. 2K also disclosed the numerous PC-specific settings that players can choose from, along with a range of accessibility features.

For the minimum specs, 2K said players who meet the standards can run Borderlands 4 with “solid performance on older PC hardware.” The recommended PC specs, meanwhile, provide “the intended experience for Borderlands 4,” 2K said. These settings strike a balance between performance and graphics, 2K said.

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Now Playing: Borderlands 4 | Official Launch Week Trailer

You can see the minimum and recommended PC specs below, along with a rundown of the graphics setting and accessibility feautres.

2K also disclosed Borderlands 4’s three difficulty settings. These include Easy, Normal, and Hard, while people should also be aware that difficulty scales individually in co-op parties. Here are the descriptions for each difficulty setting in Borderlands 4.

  • Easy: “Looking for a story.” Reduced damage, Elemental Affinities matter less
  • Normal: “Looking for a balanced experience.”
  • Hard: “Looking for a challenge.” Increased damage taken, increased Cash, Loot Quality is increased, Elemental Affinities matter more

Minimum PC hardware requirements:

  • Requires a 64-bit processor and operating system
  • Requires SSD
  • OS: Windows 10 / 11
  • Processor: Intel Core i7-9700 / AMD Ryzen 7 2700X
  • Memory: 16 GB RAM
  • Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2070 / AMD Radeon RX 5700 XT / Intel Arc A580
  • Requires 8 CPU Cores for processor and 8 GB VRAM for graphics.
  • Storage: 100 GB available space

Borderlands 4 ‎ recommended PC specs:

  • Requires a 64-bit processor and operating system
  • Requires SSD
  • OS: Windows 10 / Windows 11
  • Processor: Intel Core i7-12700 / AMD Ryzen 7 5800X
  • Memory: 32 GB RAM
  • Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 / AMD Radeon RX 6800 XT / Intel Arc B580
  • Storage: 100 GB available space

Borderlands 4 ‎ PC graphics settings:

  • Basic
    • General:
      • Display Mode: Fullscreen, Windowed Fullscreen, Windowed
      • Resolution (Varies by setup)
      • Display Stats: None, FPS, All
      • Limit Frame Rate: Off, On
        • Custom FPS Limit (Varies by setup)
      • Vertical Sync: Off, On
      • Field of View (ultrawide monitors supported)
      • Vehicle Field of View (ultrawide monitors supported)
  • Advanced:
    • General:
      • Graphics Preset: Low, Medium, High, Very High, Badass
      • Anti-Aliasing: Disabled, Enabled
    • Resolution Scaling
      • Uscaling Method: Disabled, DLSS, FSR, TSR, XeSS
      • Upscaling Quality: Ultra Performance, Performance, Balanced, Quality, Full Resolution
      • Spatial Upscaling Quality: Performance, Balanced, Quality, Ultra Quality, Disabled
      • Scene Capture Quality: Low, High, Full Resolution
      • Frame Generation: Off, On
      • NVIDIA Reflex Low Latency: Off, On, Boost
    • Environment:
      • HLOD Loading Range: Near, Medium, Far
      • Geometry Quality: Low, Medium, High
      • Texture Quality: Low, Medium, High, Very High
      • Textures Streaming Speed: Medium, High, Very High
      • Anisotropic Filtering Quality: Off, x1, x2, x4, x8, x16
      • Foliage Density: Off, Very Low, Low, Medium, High, Very High
      • Volumetric Fog: Low, Medium, High, Very High
      • Volumetric Cloud: Low, Medium, High, Very High
      • Shadow Quality: Low, Medium, High, Very High
      • Directional Shadow Quality: Low, Medium, High, Very High
      • Volumetric Cloud Shadows: Disabled, Enabled
      • Lighting Quality: Low, Medium, High, Very High
      • Reflections Quality: Low, Medium, High, Very High
      • Shading Quality: Low, Medium, High
    • Post-Processing:
      • Post-Process Quality: Low, Medium, High, Very High
      • Motion Blur Amount
      • Motion Blur Quality: Off, Low, Medium, High, Very High

Borderlands 4 ‎ accessibility features:

  • Basic
    • Subtitles:
      • Show Subtitles: Off, On
      • Subtitle Text Size: Normal, Large, Extra Large
      • Force Bold Text: Off, On
      • Subtitle Color: White, Orange, Yellow, Pink, Light Blue, Green
      • Subtitle Background: Off, On
      • Subtitle Background Opacity: Off, Low, Medium, High, Full
    • Speaker Identity:
      • Toggle Speaker Identify: Off, On
      • Speaker Identify Color: White, Orange, Yellow, Pink, Light Blue, Green
  • Audio & Visuals:
    • General:
      • Menu Text Scaling: Off, Size 1, Size 2
      • Damage Numbers: Off, On
    • Audio:
      • Force Mono (converts all game audio to mono): Off, On
      • Mix Preset: Bass Reduction (Vestibular), Ear Fatigue Reduction, Hyperacusis Relief, Misophonia Relief, Sensory Comfort, Tinnitus Relief General, Tinnitus Relief Targeted, 80 Hz Notch
    • Colors:
      • Color Preset (accessibility settings for different types of color vision deficiency):
        • Default
        • Green/Red (recommended for those that experience Deuteranopia)
        • Red/Green (recommended for those that experience Protanopia)
        • Blue/Yellow (may help those that experience Tritanopia)
      • High Contract HUD: Off, On
      • High Contrast Reticle: Off, On
      • Friendly Reticle Color: Green, White/Blue, Red, Blue, Orange, Purple
      • Enemy Reticle Color: Green, White/Blue, Red, Blue, Orange, Purple
      • Neutral Reticle Color: Green, White/Blue, Red, Blue, Orange, Purple
  • Gameplay:
    • General:
      • Map Zoom Speed (Adjust how quickly the Map zooms in and out)
      • Enable Vibration: Off, On
      • Enable Adaptive Triggers: Off, On
      • Screen Shake Intensity
    • Movement:
      • Toggle Crouch: Off, On
      • Toggle Sprint: Off, On
      • Enable Dash: Off, On
      • Camera Head-bob
      • Grapple View Tilt: Off, On
      • Mantle with Forward: Off, On

In other news, Gearbox disclosed its post-launch plans for Borderlands 4, but if you want the new Vault Hunters then you’ll have to pay for the $130 Super Deluxe Edition. It’s currently unclear if Gearbox will sell the new additions as standalone DLC. There will also be additional storylines and side missions as well Bounty Packs that introduce new areas and missions that will lead to unique boss fights and the chance to earn more loot. Bounty Packs will be included with both the Deluxe and Super Deluxe Editions.

Borderlands 4 will hit PC, PS5, Xbox Series X|S on September 12, with a Switch 2 edition coming in early October. For more, check out the global launch times for Borderlands 4.



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Gaming Gear

Rumors, prices, new features and what else you need to know

by admin


In less than 48 hours, Apple will finally begin its big September “Awe dropping” iPhone event, and we’ll get our official look at the long-anticipated iPhone 17 lineup. The hardware announcement will take place on September 9 at 1PM ET, and the Engadget team will be liveblogging it from Cupertino in real-time. (You can watch the iPhone 17 event on YouTube, too.) The newest phones will come equipped with the latest iOS 26 features preinstalled, along with any new features Apple reveals that day. So what can we expect to see? While Apple keeps all the details under lock and key, we actually have a very strong idea as to what we’ll be seeing, thanks to leaks from Asian supply chains, case manufacturers and some credible media reports. Oh, and there are plenty of more fanciful rumors, too. Here’s our best bet as to what will be coming out of Cupertino next in just a few days.

What are the latest iPhone 17 rumors?

Bloomberg‘s Mark Gurman is the industry’s best-known Apple whisperer, and his event preview offers a tidy overview of what to expect on Tuesday. That includes four new iPhone 17 models, with an all-new superthin model, dubbed the iPhone Air, leading the pack. We’ll also likely see the baseline iPhone 17, as well as the usual Pro and big-screen Pro Max models, which will offer the line’s best cameras and extras.

Additionally, expect up to three new Apple Watch models, with the satellite-connected Apple Watch Ultra 3 and a possible new entry-level Apple Watch SE flanking the Apple Watch Series 11. Rounding out the new products should be the AirPods Pro 3 earbuds, which are said to add heart-rate monitoring and a live translation feature.

While all of those reports largely jibe with earlier rumors, Gurman’s report includes screen sizes and handset sizes down to the millimeter. In fact, he had previously outlined most of the same expectations in a recent appearance on the Engadget Podcast.

But he’s not the only one with exact measurements: Plenty of case makers, including Dbrand, have unveiled their cases for the complete iPhone 17 line, further solidifying expectations on dimensions and screen sizes for the new models. That said, we’re still treating everything as unconfirmed until Apple’s official announcements hit on Tuesday.

While we don’t expect any big leaps forward on the Apple Intelligence front at Tuesday’s event, Gurman’s subsequent report notes that Apple is continuing to experiment with AI models from Google, Anthropic and OpenAI, and may license technology from one or more of them ahead of a major Siri upgrade that could arrive as soon as March 2026.

How much will the iPhone 17 cost?

Apple’s announced plan to expand US-based manufacturing partners seems to give it at least some shielding from the steepest Trump administration tariffs that have already triggered price increases on everything from PlayStations to Switch consoles to high-end cameras to Sonos speakers. But given that President Trump’s trade policies can change from week to week, and Apple’s continuing reliance on Asia-based supply chains, price shocks remain an ongoing possibility. The bigger question is: Will Apple absorb any higher costs, or pass them on to consumers?

If prices do creep up, Apple may choose to pair it with an “upgrade.” Consider this recent rumor posted by MacRumors from a leaker known as “Instant Digital,” suggesting that the default storage of the iPhone 17 line may start at 256GB, doubling the current 128GB baseline. While that could be accompanied by a price increase of $50, Apple could at least pitch it as a “better value.” That said, the company doubled the default RAM of its Mac computers from 8GB to 16GB at no extra cost in 2024 — but that was before the current Trump tariff cycle started.

Now, on the eve of the iPhone announcement, a report from JPMorgan mixes and matches the rumors above. As recounted in 9to5Mac, the iPhone line’s starting prices will still stretch from $799 to $1,199 — just as they do now — with the Air possibly getting a $50 increase versus the iPhone Plus model it’s replacing, and the 17 Pro costing an additional $100, but including more storage.

Again, these prices are only projections and haven’t been confirmed by Apple.

When will the iPhone 17 series be announced?

As noted above, the date has been confirmed for Tuesday, September 9. That lines up with Apple’s traditional schedule, and the earlier report from iphone-ticker.de (via MacRumors).

This generation of Apple smartphones may be the last to be fully released in September, however. There have been hints that the introduction of the iPhone 18 collection in 2026 will be split into a pro-tier announcement in the fall and a standard model announcement the following spring.

What will the new iPhone 17 lineup include?

Design leaks suggest that Apple is building an ultra-thin smartphone, likely to be named the iPhone 17 Air to match Apple’s ultralight laptop designation. Bloomberg‘s Mark Gurman reported in January (and reaffirmed in his September event preview) that the iPhone 17 Air will be equipped with a basic A19 chip and will only have a single camera lens. It will also supposedly use Apple’s new in-house modem, which was introduced in February on the iPhone 16e.

As a guest on the latest Engadget Podcast, Gurman told Engadget’s Devindra Hardawar and Igor Bonifacic the rumored iPhone Air will be rough around the edges at first. He believes the 17 Air will “lag in both” when it comes to camera and battery performance. “The battery life is going to be subpar compared to a base-level 17 or Pro model,” he says. The ultimate goal, he notes, is to get all the functionality of the Pro models into the Air models.

An investor note from Apple analyst Jeff Pu indicated that the Air will have a titanium frame. If his reports are accurate, the lightweight smartphone will be the only entry in the iPhone 17 lineup to use that metal; the iPhone 17, iPhone 17 Pro, and iPhone 17 Pro Max are expected to be made of aluminum, which is lighter. Other speculation had suggested that the Air would use a blend of aluminum and titanium, so the exact materials may not be known until the official announcement.

Additionally, an August 4 MacRumors report said the internal battery pack of the iPhone Air is just 2.49mm thick — half the thickness of the iPhone 17 Pro battery. The leak was posted on the Korean-language Naver blog, where they show the alleged batteries of the iPhone 17 Air and 17 Pro side by side. The same account claimed the 17 Air’s battery capacity was a mere 2,800 mAh, MacRumors noted. (That’s below the battery capacity of current iPhone 16 models.)

At the very least, it sounds like the iPhone 17 Air won’t take away the charging port and rely only on wireless connectivity. Bloomberg said that while Apple had investigated making the iPhone 17 Air without a single port, the company (fortunately) changed plans. He also says that the rumored phone will have a 6.6-inch screen and include the Dynamic Island and Camera Control button.

On a similar topic, an iPhone 17 Pro production leak appears to have revealed an all-aluminum chassis, according to MacRumors. Originally posted by leaker Majin Bu, the image shows a shell that has a large round hole on the back (where the Apple logo typically is) to allow for MagSafe charging. MacRumors says this could just be a molding but notes that the aluminum frame (versus the current titanium in Pro iPhone models) would yield a significantly lower weight.

That same leaker (Majin Bu), whom MacRumors classifies as a “hit-or-miss leaker,” suggests the iPhone 17 Pro will have better wireless signal strength thanks to an updated antenna design. The individual posted a render on X that shows a new antenna system that wraps around the iPhone 17 Pro’s supposedly wider rear camera bump. Again, this is a render, not a real-world photo. That said, we can’t knock the goal of better wireless reception, so we’re hoping this one has a degree of truth to it.

Leaker Majin Bu also claims “TechWoven” cases could be introduced, per a MacRumors report. The cases match the rumored design on the iPhone 17 models, with the wide camera bump. The leaker noted there are two lanyard holes for “convenient and secure carrying,” so it could be worn around your neck. The colors would come in grey/black, blue, green, purple and orange. Additionally, he said there will be new Liquid Silicone cases in eight colors, including Deep Orange, Pale Orange, Grass Green, Celadon, Fog Purple, Grey Blue, Dark Blue and Midnight Black. He also recently showed a clear iPhone 17 Pro and Pro Max case with the large rear camera bump cutout. The case isn’t fully transparent and instead has a white rectangular piece that covers the MagSafe area.

The new Pro iPhones are said to have a full-width “camera island” on the rear, which would mark the first time an Apple model opted for that design. This feature can be seen in the purported iPhone 17 “spotted in the wild.” The pics, highlighted on MacRumors, show a black cased iPhone (17 Pro?) with the distinct back panel. Is it the real deal? The dual angles lend a degree of credibility in a social media landscape increasingly polluted with AI-enhanced fakes, but your guess is as good as ours.

Additionally, the iPhone 17 Pro‌ models could have the brightest display yet, according to leaker “Instant Digital,” MacRumors reports. The goal is to make it “more suitable for use in direct sunlight for prolonged periods.” The article points out that existing 16 Pro models can double their maximum brightness while in direct sunlight, making it easier to see what’s on the screen.

We’ve also gotten what seems to be a reliable look at what the color lineup will be for the new smartphones. Macworld reported that the iPhone 17 will be available in black, white, steel gray, green, purple and light blue. The iPhone 17 Air will reportedly have four color options: black, white, light blue and light gold. While the Air colors will be less saturated, the visuals for the iPhone 17 Pro and iPhone 17 Pro Max will go bold. The options for the Pro models are expected to be black, white, gray, dark blue and orange.

Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman believes there actually will be a new orange color offered for the iPhone 17 Pro and Pro Max, as well as a light blue color for the iPhone 17 Air, he confirmed in his August 24 Power On newsletter.

On July 30, Tom’s Guide highlighted an X post from Sonny Dickson — a longtime and generally reliable leaker of unreleased iPhone information — showing “dummy” iPhone 17 models in the new colors that were the source of the aforementioned Macworld story. While these are literally just mock-ups — not real, leaked iPhones — it’s interesting to see how the design and color rumors translate into a real-world look and feel.

To add the the rumors, a Weibo leaker known as Digital Chat Station suggests the iPhone 17e will come equipped with a new design that includes the Dynamic Island, MacRumors reports. According to the post, the new phone will have the A19 chip and could have a 6.1-inch OLED display with a front-facing 12-megapixel camera and a rear-facing 48-megapixel camera. However, it’s important to note this report refers to the 17e model that would be expected to launch no earlier than February 2026, if it followed the same release pattern as the iPhone 16e.

What will iOS 26 be like?

Apple upended its numbering conventions with WWDC 2025, and will match the name of each new operating system to the year it’s released. So when the next wave of iPhones hits, they’ll be running on iOS 26.

On the design side, the smartphone OS introduced during the big developer showcase took a contentious approach dubbed Liquid Glass. Apple has been scaling down the amount of transparency effects in the subsequent beta tests of iOS 26, but it will still have a glass-like visual.

The feature list includes big and small updates. On the more impactful side, the Phone and Photos apps have been redesigned. There will be several features leveraging artificial intelligence, such as live translation capabilities coming to Phone, FaceTime and Messages. Apple is also currently testing a sensitive content warning for child accounts that will freeze FaceTime video if nudity is detected by on-device machine learning tools. And the company is also launching Visual Intelligence, which will use AI to search for elements in an image.

iOS 26 also has a litany of minor, quality of life improvements. Group texts are getting support for polls. And for the slow risers out there, iOS 26 will finally let you escape the tyranny of the nine minute snooze alarm.

The next iOS is now available as a public beta. Here are our initial impressions of the Liquid Glass design and other new features. iOS 26 is compatible with all models back through iPhone 11.

What other products are expected to be released alongside the iPhone 17?

If Apple follows its usual pattern, the iPhone 17 will be announced alongside new Apple Watch products. That would be the Apple Watch Series 11 (if Apple sticks to the same naming scheme), and maybe an Apple Watch Ultra 3 and/or an updated Apple Watch SE. (They’ll all run watchOS 26, of course.) As noted above, a new version of the Apple AirPods Pro (which received its last big update in 2022) is expected, and there’s a possibility we’ll see new AirTags trackers (first released in 2021), though those could be announced later.

The Apple rumor mill got a big shot in the arm in mid-August thanks to the reported inclusion of product ID numbers in recent beta software builds. Per MacRumors, it’s a laundry list of new hardware, including long-rumored product updates like the Apple TV, HomePod mini, new Apple Studio Display monitor and two fresh iPads.

Of course, even if that list is totally accurate, we may not see those products until 2026 — if ever. So don’t expect all of products to share the stage with the iPhone 17, especially since Apple likes to keep its star performer at the center of attention.

That said, keep in mind that Apple has recently been having Mac-centric announcements in late October (as it did last year to debut new M4 Macs), so there’s always the chance of another shoe dropping a few weeks down the road.

Update, September 7, 2025, 12:32PM ET: Added Mark Gurman’s latest reporting on Apple’s possible AI partnerships.

Update, September 6, 2025, 8:45AM ET: Added Mark Gurman’s latest full predictions on what’s expected at the Tuesday Apple event.

Update, September 4, 2025, 3:23PM ET: Added new rumors about the iPhone 17 Air battery/eSIM, and camera details for the latest lineup.

Update, September 3, 2025, 3:24PM ET: Added new rumor about the increased brightness of the iPhone 17 pro models.

Update, September 2, 2025, 3:56PM ET: Added new details about the potential iPhone 17 lineup prices, and a new Clear Case rumor.

Update, August 30, 2025, 8:45AM ET: Added commentary from Mark Gurman’s guest appearance on the Engadget Podcast about the rumored iPhone 17 Air.

Update, August 27, 2025, 5:44PM ET: Added official Apple iPhone 17 event date, and a rumor about its event logo.

Update, August 25, 2025, 5:15PM ET: Added new reports about the iPhone 17 Pro’s orange color as well as new rumored Liquid Silicone cases.

Update, August 22, 2025, 11:52AM ET: Added new details about the colors of the rumored TechWoven case.

Update, August 20, 2025, 7:12PM ET: Added new rumor about potential TechWoven case for iPhone 17 series.

Update, August 18, 2025, 6:23PM ET: Added new rumor about the iPhone 17e potentially having the Dynamic Island.

Update, August 15, 2025, 2:05PM ET: Added new rumor about the all-aluminum chassis on the iPhone 17.

Update, August 13, 2025, 10:02PM ET: Added a list of the products that are expected to be released alongside the iPhone 17s.

Update, August 11, 2025, 7:27PM ET: Added a render of a rumored new antenna design for the iPhone 17 Pro.

Update, August 8, 2025, 4:43PM ET: Added new speculation and reports about iPhone 17 pricing.

Update, August 6, 2025, 4:05PM ET: Added latest details about the potential iPhone 17 event date.

Update, August 4, 2025, 5:23PM ET: Added latest battery leaks about the iPhone 17 models.

Update, August 1, 2025, 8:15AM ET: Added new photos showing potential iPhone 17 colors.

Update, July 30, 2025, 11:08AM ET: Added latest leaks and rumors about the iPhone 17, and updated information on the iOS 26 public beta.

Update, July 17, 2025, 4:40PM ET: Added latest information about iOS 26, possible materials for the Air, and the color options for the different models.

Update, March 17, 2025, 2PM ET: Added details about the rumored price and features of the iPhone 17 Air.

Update, April 11, 2025, 3:45PM ET: Added details from Front Page Tech’s new video that claims to reveal details from a leaked iOS 19 build.



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Hollow Knight Silksong features the voice of Stardew Valley creator Eric Barone
Game Reviews

Hollow Knight Silksong features the voice of Stardew Valley creator Eric Barone

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Stardew Valley creator Eric Barone has voiced a character or two in Hollow Knight Silksong.

Barone’s name was spotted in Silksong’s credits, which you can access from the Extras part of the main menu. And when The Verge asked Stardew Valley studio ConcernedApe if this was the same Eric Barone who worked there, the company’s head of biz dev, Cole Medeiros, confirmed it.

But! Neither Mereidos nor Barone will confirm who Barone voices in Silksong. Medeiros said Barone would rather not say so as not to spoil anything. Barone could potentially be any of the weird and wonderful characters you bump into along the way.

There! Third down on the left. | Image credit: Eurogamer / Team Cherry

This is a news-in-brief story. This is part of our vision to bring you all the big news as part of a daily live report.



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An image of iPhone 17 dummy units in five shades
Gaming Gear

Apple will need to show off truly unique AI features for the iPhone 17 to convince me to upgrade

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Apple’s next big iPhone event is just around the corner, and the iPhone 17 lineup is likely to take center stage. I’ll be looking to see how Apple melds the new hardware with its AI ambitions. Because unless there’s something unique to the new devices, specifically relating to AI, I’m not sure I really want to upgrade.

There have been rumors flying around Apple’s AI plans ever since Apple Intelligence started rolling out. But that has mostly seemed like just the same set of AI features available on every device with an occasional Apple twist. If the company wants this launch to stand out, it’ll need to show how the iPhone 17 can do something that no other Apple device, perhaps no other smartphone, can do using AI. Something connected to the hardware.

My high expectations fit with Apple’s teasing of “Awe Dropping” news. Presumably, that’s not just because of how much the high-end version of the new phones will cost. But Apple will need more than just a coat of AI paint on the otherwise impressive piece of technology.


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Unique AI

Apple has come off as pretty cautious about AI until now. Sure, Apple Intelligence can help with rewriting emails, summarizing notes, and making personalized emojis, but it’s hardly rewriting how people live their lives.

I admit I’m not sure what my ideal announcement would be. But it shouldn’t be just another text editor or image generator. I want an AI feature that feels like it couldn’t exist on anything but this phone. Something so tightly tied to the hardware, sensors, and Apple ecosystem that it becomes immediately obvious why this phone couldn’t have come out last year or even last week.

Perhaps it’s an AI model that can read my expression and start giving me directions home just from a confused look on my face. Or turning a still into an AI-powered GIF faster than I could type a description of one.

I’m not expecting a holographic AI double of myself to appear in the air or anything, but so many ideas we’ve accepted as common features would have been far-fetched at best a few years ago. And the new iPhones are certain to have the hardware to power some wild ideas. Faster processors, keen sensors, and neural engines that can mimic human conversation at an astonishing level are capable of doing much more than creating an emoji of a dog with a cowboy hat.

So if Apple wants to win me over at this upcoming iPhone event, I don’t need another time-lapse video of Cupertino drone shots and a Jony Ive knockoff voice; I want to see AI doing things my phone never could. Otherwise, I’m happy sticking with my already quite powerful device that’s already paid for. When Tim Cook says there’s one more thing, it should be something I won’t be able to see anywhere else.

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