Earlier this week, Google and hardware partners ASUS, Acer and Lenovo announced a somewhat surprising initiative to build Chromebooks expressly for cloud gaming. While many Chromebooks are a riff on the classic 13-inch laptop, the first round of these devices have large, high-resolution screens with fast refresh rates, anti-ghosting keyboards, powerful processors and a few software tweaks to better work with cloud gaming services like GeForce NOW.

All these laptops are set to be released by the end of October, but I got a chance to check out a pre-production version of Acer’s Chromebook 516 GE. Over the last week, I’ve played some games with it as well as put it through my daily work routine. I’ll need to test the final version before giving it a proper review, but the Chromebook 516 GE has a lot going for it, whether you play games or not.

Acer will offer a few configurations of this laptop, but the one I tried is up for pre-order at Best Buy. It features a 12th-generation Intel Core i5-1240P processor, 8GB of RAM, 256GB of storage and a 16-inch, 2,560x1,600 display with a 120Hz refresh rate. The 516 GE is larger and heavier than a lot of Chromebooks, but 3.75 pounds is pretty reasonable for a 16-inch laptop.

As an all-purpose machine, there’s a lot to like about the 516 GE, assuming you’re OK with a computer that isn’t super portable. The screen is simply great to work on – with an effective 1,600 x 1,000 resolution by default, there’s plenty of vertical space, and I was easily able to have large windows (like a Google Doc and Slack) next to each other without feeling cramped. Its brightness rating of 350 nits isn’t going to blow you away, but it felt like plenty to me, and colors were nicely saturated without being exaggerated. And while the 120Hz refresh rate doesn’t change the basic experience of using a Chromebook, things like scrolling through YouTube or resizing windows did feel smooth and fluid.

The keyboard and trackpad are also great. The keyboard is large and spacious, and the keys have plenty of travel. It’s equally suited to a long writing session or playing games. And the computer’s large deck means the trackpad is also one of the bigger ones I’ve used on a Chromebook; it’s smooth and responsive. In a nod to its gaming heritage, the keyboard has an RGB LED backlight and an outline around the WASD keys, but these are about the only flourishes that make this computer feel like a “gaming laptop.”

The real question with this laptop, though, is whether it truly offers a better cloud gaming experience than other options (including other Chromebooks). I’m not ready to pass judgment on that yet, but both NVIDIA’s GeForce Now and Xbox Cloud Gaming worked without any issues here. I just plugged in my Xbox Controller and got to business. On GeForce Now, which I connected to my Steam account, I spent some time playing Portal and Shadow of the Tomb Raider, while I tried out favorites like Forza Horizon 5 and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder’s Revenge via my Game Pass subscription.

There’s no doubt that this display elevates the experience, both simply because of its sheer size and its resolution. I haven’t tried any games that played at 120Hz yet, but everything I did play looked excellent – assuming my connection stayed solid. The 516 GE has a WiFI 6E chip inside, but as I don’t have a 6E router yet, that didn’t do me any good. And even when I was in the same room as my router, with a strong signal, the quality of my game streams varied significantly. Overall, GeForce Now feels much more reliable than Xbox Cloud Gaming. When playing Xbox games, the picture glitched out in significant, game-disrupting fashion pretty frequently. GeForce Now, on the other hand, I would experience the occasional burst of dropped frames, but the visuals rarely started tearing and distorting like they did on Xbox Cloud Gaming.

Neither were nearly as good as playing a locally installed game, and the overall experience isn’t all that different from what I’ve experienced doing cloud gaming on my MacBook Pro or other laptops. Acer can make a great laptop, but there’s only so much they can do about iffy streaming quality. And my internet connection isn’t exactly slow – I got about 170 Mbps down in a speed test I took when I was done playing.

For $650, Acer’s Chromebook 516 GE seems like a solid value – the combination of a powerful hardware, a great screen and keyboard and solid build quality make it a compelling device. Chromebooks with an i5 processor usually cost at least this much if not more, and the 516 GE has a fair number of features that make it unique. Whether this helps Google’s initiative to convince people Chromebooks are worth gaming on is another story altogether, but at the very least, Acer’s latest will likely be worth a look once it is available.

One part of Google may have given up on cloud gaming, with Stadia set to be discontinued in a few months. But on the ChromeOS team, there’s a whole new initiative to try and push back on the whole “you can’t game on a Chromebook” thing. Today, Google — along with a handful of hardware and software partners — are announcing what it calls “the world’s first laptops built for cloud gaming.” 

Stripping back the hyperbole, what does this mean in practice? After all, the whole point of cloud gaming is that you don’t need superpowered hardware to enjoy high-quality games — many existing Chromebooks can run cloud gaming services just fine. That said, the new laptops announced today are quite a bit different than your average Chromebook. 

At a high level, Google says that it focused on a handful of hardware features to differentiate these laptops, including large displays with high refresh rates, keyboards with anti-ghosting tech (and RBG keyboards in some cases), WiFi 6/6E cards and generally high specs.

Three new laptops from ASUS, Acer and Lenovo

Acer

ASUS, Acer and Lenovo all announced new computers today as part of this push. First, the Acer Chromebook 516 GE features a 16-inch IPS screen with a 2,560 x 1,600 resolution and 120Hz refresh rate, along with an RBG anti-ghosting keyboard and 12th-gen Intel processors (up to a Core i7). It’s also equipped with a gigabit ethernet port, two USB-C ports, a USB-A port and HDMI. Finally, it has DTS audio via two upward-facing speakers and two more downward-facing speakers on the underside of the laptop. Acer will offer a number of configurations, but the first will be at Best Buy this month for $650 — it’ll include a Core i5 processor, 8GB of RAM and 256GB of storage via its NVMe SSD.

ASUS’ offering is a little different — the Chromebook Vibe CX55 Flip has a 15.6-inch display that maxes out at 1080p, but it’s a touchscreen and it has an even higher 144Hz refresh rate. As the name suggests, the CX55 can flip around into “tablet” and “tent” modes, like many other ASUS Chromebooks. It doesn’t have RGB lighting on the keyboard, but it does have a rather distinctive orange trim, including around the crucial WASD keys; it also has 1.4mm of travel.

Specs-wise, the CX55 uses 11th-generation Intel processors; you can get it with an i3, i5 or i7. The i3 model is paired with Intel UHD graphics, while the i5 and i7 models use Intel’s Iris X graphics. It’ll have either 8GB or 16GB of RAM and up to 512GB of storage. Unsurprisingly, the CX55 also has two USB-C ports as well as USB-A and HDMI ports. The laptop will come out this month as well, and Google said in a briefing that pricing would start at $399 — we don’t know what specs that includes, but it’s probably safe to assume it’s the i3 model. 

Lenovo

Lenovo’s IdeaPad Gaming Chromebook has a fair bit in common with Acer’s device. It has a 16-inch display with a 2,560 x 1,600 resolution and 120Hz refresh rate as well as an RGB, anti-ghosting keyboard with 1.5mm of travel. Processors include 12th-generation Intel Core i3 or Core i5 options, plus 8GB of RAM and up to 512GB of storage (the base configuration starts with 128GB). The port selection is a bit more limited — it only offers two USB-C ports, one USB-A port and a MicroSD slot. Like the other two laptops, the IdeaPad Gaming Chromebook will launch this month; it starts at $599.

Software, gaming services and peripheral partnerships

Google

Naturally, software and game access is perhaps just as important as the hardware here. As such, Google has partnerships with NVIDIA, Amazon and Microsoft to ensure its devices work with GeForce Now, Luna and Xbox Game Pass out of the box. The NVIDIA partnership is probably the most significant, as the company is bringing GeForce Now's high-performance RTX 3080 tier to Chromebooks for the first time — this means games will play in up to 1600p resolution at 120 fps with ray tracing enabled (assuming the game supports these specs, of course). NVIDIA also made a progressive web app (PWA) so you can laugh directly into GeForce Now from your Chromebook’s dock or launcher. 

Microsoft also made a PWA for Game Pass, but everything works the same as running Game Pass on a PC — assuming you have an Xbox Game Pass Ultimate subscription, you can stream any Game Pass title to your Chromebook. Similarly, an Amazon Luna subscription gives you access to a rotating selection of over 100 games. 

Google is also optimizing ChromeOS to make directly launching games easier. When you hit the “everything” search button on your Chromebook, you can just type in the name of the game you want to play and launch it directly, as if it were natively installed. For starters, this will only work with the GeForce Now catalog (as well as apps on Google Play), but Google says it wants to add this search feature for other services as well. 

To make sure that anyone checking out these Chromebooks can start playing immediately, Lenovo, Acer and ASUS are all including a three-month subscription to GeForce Now RTX 3080 tier as well as three months of Amazon Luna+. The ASUS option also includes a free SteelSeries Rival 3 gaming mouse, as well.

Speaking of mice, Google also partnered with companies like SteelSeries, Corsair and HyperX (as well as Lenovo and Acer) to make sure their gaming-focused peripherals work with Chromebooks. This includes making sure these peripherals can have their settings fine-tuned in ChromeOS, in some cases via PWAs. 

Do gaming Chromebooks have a shot?

It’s fair to wonder how much traction Google’s latest initiative will get. Chromebooks have found a lot of success in education and (to a lesser extent) enterprise settings, but the idea of a full-fledged push to get people gaming on a Chromebook is a pretty major shift. That said, I’m impressed by the pricing on these models — there aren’t a lot of Chromebooks with large, high-resolution screens with high refresh rates. Generally speaking, it sounds like you get a lot of bang for your buck with these models compared to some other premium ChromeOS devices. Naturally, these laptops are a big bigger and heavier than the standard 13-inch Chromebook, but that’s a tradeoff that might work for some people.

Google is also putting a big advertising and awareness push being this strategy, and it’s not tied to a single product like Stadia. Given that Google is being service-agnostic, these laptops should provide a very good cloud gaming experience for the foreseeable future, even if Google doesn’t stick with its cloud gaming push long term. And with other initiatives like Steam for ChromeOS moving forward (Google said it should enter beta soon), it's fair to say the company seems focused on removing the longstanding notion that you can't play games on a Chromebook.

There weren't a lot of surprises in store at today's Google event in Brooklyn — after all, the company started teasing its Pixel 7 and Pixel 7 Pro smartphones, the Pixel Watch and the Pixel Tablet months ago. Regardless, we now have all the details on Google's latest hardware, all of which you can pre-order now in advance of the October 14th launch date (with the exception of the Pixel Tablet, which Google still says will launch sometime in 2023). In the meantime, here's what you need to know about these new phones and watch.

The Pixel 7

Google

Just like last year's Pixel 6, the Pixel 7 is priced at $599, making it a phone that should give you a great bang for your buck. The display is just a tiny bit smaller than last year's model, at 6.3 inches, but it has the same 1,080 x 2,400 resolution. Also like last year, there are two camera modules on the back: a 50-megapixel standard camera and a 12-megapixel ultrawide option. The front-facing camera got a nice upgrade, though — it's a 12-megapixel shooter with bigger pixels and a wider field of view than last year's model. It can also be used to unlock your phone, but there's still an under-display fingerprint sensor if you prefer.

As expected, the new Tensor G2 chip is on board here, enabling a handful of notable features as well as improving overall performance. For example, the Pixel 7 has a new feature called Photo Unblur, which uses the chip's AI smarts to do exactly what it says — make your blurry photos more legible. You can even do this to older photos in your Google Photos library, so you can touch up old memories that you might have shot on other phones or cameras. It also powers the Super Res Zoom features so you can shoot 2x photos that come in at a full 12.5-megapixel resolution, a trick that Google's had around for a while now. But as usual, the results will probably be better this year than before.

From a design perspective, the Pixel 7 largely keeps the look from last year's model, with the prominent camera bar on the back. It comes in three colors (snow, obsidian and lemongrass) and the aluminum body is made from 100 percent recycled material.

The Pixel 7 Pro

Sam Rutherford/Engadget

Of the two new phones, the Pixel 7 Pro is probably the more exciting thanks to its three-lens camera system on the back. Both the 12-megapixel ultrawide camera and the 48-megapixel telephoto camera have been upgraded; the telephoto camera has the same Quad Bayer PD technology as the main 50-megapixel sensor. What this means is that, combined with the aforementioned Tensor G2 chip, the Pixel 7 Pro's Super Res Zoom capabilities should be significantly improved. 

The camera itself has a 5x optical zoom compared to the main camera, and the high resolution sensors mean you can pull a 10x zoom picture here at 12.5-megapixels. Overall, Google says you can zoom in as far as 30x if you want — we'll have to review this phone before we can say how good these shots look in reality, but it'll be fun to see just how well this camera can perform in the wild. The ultrawide camera also has a new macro photography mode, thanks to the wider field of view and autofocus feature.

Video shooting has also been upgraded, as all the cameras on the Pixel 7 Pro (and the Pixel 7, for that matter) can shoot 4K video at 60 fps. There's also a new Cinematic Blur feature that automatically blurs the background in videos to make your subject pop more, not unlike what you can do with photos in portrait mode.

As for the rest of the hardware, the Pixel 7 Pro sports the same 6.7-inch screen as the Pixel 6 Pro. Like last year, it supports variable refresh rates up to 120Hz, compared to the 90Hz the Pixel 7 tops out at. Naturally, it also has the same Tensor G2 chip as the Pixel 7; the Pro does come with 12GB of RAM, compared to the 8GB in the standard model. It comes standard with 128GB of storage, but you can step up to 256GB or 512GB if you're going to shoot a ton of video or otherwise save a lot of content on it. 

At long last, the Pixel Watch

Cherlynn Low / Engadget

The Pixel Watch has been rumored for years, and we finally know a lot more about it ahead of its launch next week. It comes in a single 41mm size case, but you can get it in three stainless steel finishes (silver, black and gold). As for other customization features, Google says it'll launch with 20 different bands and 19 different watch faces. It has a Gorilla Glass 5 crystal on top, a haptic crown and a second side button, the same essential controls you'll find on the Apple Watch.

Unsurprisingly, there's a lot of Fitbit integration here for activity and health tracking. Notably, the Pixel Watch continuously tracks your heart rate every single second, and it also has an ECG app and can track your sleep quality overnight. GPS means it can track activities like running without your phone, and Google says there are a total of 40 different exercise modes you can use to log different workouts.

Google says the Pixel Watch will last up to 24 hours with its always-on display, and it can be fast-charged to 50 percent in only 30 minutes. The basic model costs $349, while the LTE-capable Pixel Watch costs $50 more. While the Pixel Watch is naturally designed with Pixel phone users in mind, it'll work with any phone running Android 8.0 or higher. You'll also get six free months of Fitbit Premium and three months of YouTube Music Premium. 

A quick update on the Pixel Tablet

Google

After a very brief tease earlier this year at I/O, Google gave us a little more detail on the upcoming Pixel Tablet. Unlike the other devices announced, the Pixel Tablet won't arrive until sometime in 2023. Unsurprisingly, we know it'll use the Tensor G2 chip found in Google's latest smartphones, but we didn't get any other spec details. We did, however, learn a bit about it's design. Google’s vice president of product management Rose Yao told Engadget that the company developed a new “nano-ceramic coating” that she said is inspired by “the feel of porcelain" for the Pixel Tablet. She said it feels like the coating on a Le Creuset dutch oven, with tiny pieces of ceramic embedded in the tablet's recycled aluminum frame. Ultimately, this should make for a device that has a good grippy feel.

Another neat feature we saw for the first time is the Pixel Tablet's docking station, which essentially turns the device into a Nest Hub. This magnetic stand holds and charges the Pixel Tablet and also provides it with improved speakers for a better audio experience, whether that's listening to tunes or making video calls. Unsurprisingly, it also has a photo frame feature, again similar to the Nest Hub.

There's no word on release date or pricing yet, so we'll have to be patient; hopefully we'll hear more about the Pixel Tablet early in 2023. But, it wouldn't surprise me if we have to wait until May for the next I/O conference to get all the details on this device.

Probably the biggest change Apple announced with iPadOS 16 earlier this year is Stage Manager, a totally new multitasking system that adds overlapping, resizable windows to the iPad. That feature also works on an external display, the first time that iPads could do anything besides mirror their screen on a monitor. Unfortunately, the feature was limited to iPads with the M1 chip — that includes the 11- and 12.9-inch iPad Pro released in May of 2021 as well as the M1-powered iPad Air which Apple released earlier this year. All other older iPads were left out.

That changes with the latest iPadOS 16 developer beta, which was just released. Now, Apple is making Stage Manager work with a number of older devices: it'll work on the 11-inch iPad Pro (first generation and later) and the 12.9-inch iPad Pro (third generation and later). Specifically, it'll be available on the 2018 and 2020 models that use the A12X and A12Z chips rather than just the M1. However, there is one notable missing feature for the older iPad Pro models — Stage Manager will only work on the iPad's build-in display. You won't be able to extend your display to an external monitor.

Apple also says that developer beta 5 of iPadOS 16. is removing external display support for Stage Manager on M1 iPads, something that has been present since the first iPadOS 16 beta was released a few months ago. It'll be re-introduced in a software update coming later this year. Given that some of the iPad community has been pretty vocal about issues with Stage Manager, particularly when using it with an external display, it makes sense that Apple is taking some extra time to keep working on it. 

Obviously, we'll need to try Stage Manager on an older iPad Pro before we can say how well it works, but the A12X and A12Z chips are still plenty powerful, so the experience should hopefully not be any different than on an M1 iPad. It's a bummer that external monitor support isn't included, but this should still be welcome news to people who bought Apple's most expensive iPads in the last few years.

Apple provided Engadget with the following statement about this update:

We introduced Stage Manager as a whole new way to multitask with overlapping, resizable windows on both the iPad display and a separate external display, with the ability to run up to eight live apps on screen at once. Delivering this multi-display support is only possible with the full power of M1-based iPads. Customers with iPad Pro 3rd and 4th generation have expressed strong interest in being able to experience Stage Manager on their iPads. In response, our teams have worked hard to find a way to deliver a single-screen version for these systems, with support for up to four live apps on the iPad screen at once.

External display support for Stage Manager on M1 iPads will be available in a software update later this year.

Last year, I tried the Freewrite Smart Typewriter — an expensive, single-purpose E Ink typewriter that does one thing very well. It lets you draft text with an excellent keyboard and zero distractions. If you're a serious writer, there's a lot to like about it, but it is most definitely not cheap; Astrohaus, the company behind the Freewrite, even raised the prices of its products, including the full-size model and the portable laptop-style Freewrite Traveler, earlier this year. 

Today, though Astrohaus is unveiling a third device that they've been teasing for a few weeks now, the Freewrite Alpha. The most important thing to know is that the Alpha will be priced at $349, or $249 if you purchase via the Indiegogo crowdfunding campaign that starts today. That's still not cheap, but it's half the price of the Freewrite Traveler while still offering the same core features as the other products in the lineup.

The Freewrite Alpha is a small two-pound slate with a pop-out kickstand that probably isn't quite as portable as the Traveler, but should still be quite easy to carry with you just about anywhere. Despite the small size, it nevertheless has a full-size mechanical keyboard with Kailh Choc V2 low-profile switches. My guess is that they'll have a lot more travel than the laptop-style keyboard on the Traveler, though they probably won't be quite as satisfying a typing experience as you'll get with the Kailh Box Brown keyboard on the full-size Smart Typewriter. 

Alan Burns

It's also the first Freewrite to use an LCD display rather than the E Ink screens on the other models. It's a smaller screen than the already-small displays on other Freewrite models; it can display between two and six lines of text, depending on the font size you use. Given that Freewrite devices are meant specifically for drafting rather than editing, this shouldn't be too much of a concern, but you will see less copy on this device than other ones. You can scroll back up and see what you've written and used the WASD keys to move your cursor around, but I've found that, for the most part, I just plow ahead and write. 

Astrohaus says that the LCD display is reflective and uses ambient light, so it's not quite the same as looking at a glowing rectangle like your phone or iPad. But it likely won't be quite as easy on the eyes as the E Ink screen on other Freewrites. But on the other hand, the refresh rate should be much quicker. As for battery life the Alpha should last about 100 hours. Past Freewrites haven't had specific battery estimates; Astrohaus just say they last weeks between charges. 

Alan Burns

There are a lot of things the Alpha has in common with other Freewrite models. Everything you write is automatically saved to the device locally, and — assuming you connect it to WiFi — everything is also backed up to the cloud and available in the Freewrite Postbox web app. You also don't have to use this proprietary service, as the Alpha can also back up to Evernote, Dropbox or Google Drive. For the old school among us, you can also connect the Alpha to a computer and pull the local files off via its USB-C port (this is also used for charging). 

If you're interested, the aforementioned Indiegogo campaign is live now, but devices aren't expected to ship until July of 2023. That's a long wait for this product, but the current $249 price point is a lot more affordable than any previous Freewrite — so if this device catches your eye, it might be worth checking out on Indiegogo. While Freewrite devices are expensive, I can say from experience that they really can help you focus on writing, provided you can keep away from your phone, of course.

The vinyl resurgence shows no sign of slowing down — but streaming services are still the preferred way for most people to listen to music these days. As such, smart speakers like the Amazon Echo, HomePod mini and the line of Sonos products make a ton of sense for most people. But most of those speakers don’t work with turntables, which can make things complicated if you want to both play records and stream tunes.

Victrola, a brand that’s been making record players for more than 100 years, is mostly known at this point for making entry-level turntables with built-in speakers in a variety of vintage-inspired designs. But today, the company introduced the Stream Carbon, a $799 turntable that can directly connect to a Sonos system, which means you’ll be able to stream your records all over your home. Victrola says this is just the first of more planned devices in the Stream lineup, too.

You’ll need to set up the turntable using a Victrola Stream app, but once that’s set, you’ll be able to control the Stream Carbon via the Sonos app or a control knob on the device itself. Just as you can play music on any single Sonos speaker, a group of speakers or everything in your system, you’ll be able to send music from the turntable to any combo of Sonos devices in the same fashion. As for compatibility, Victrola told me that it works with any Sonos speaker, regardless of whether it works on the older S1 system or the current S2. Given the vast majority of speakers work with the newer S2 system software, most people won’t even have to think about this — the Stream Carbon should just work with your existing setup without any issues.

Victrola

As for the Stream Carbon’s hardware, it’s a belt-driven turntable with an aluminum platter and Ortofon 2M Red cartridge. It has a built-in preamp and traditional RCA outputs, if you want to hook it up to older speakers. Naturally, it has wireless connectivity, but you can also hook it up to Ethernet if you want a more stable connection. Given the Sonos integration, the Stream Carbon unsurprisingly skips out on having a Bluetooth connection or USB output. 

Design-wise, it’s a minimal turntable without a full dust cover; there’s just a protector for the arm. It should look right at home next to any of Sonos’ similarly minimalist speakers. The aforementioned control knob is located right on the front of the device — it’s not clear yet how exactly it works, but Victrola says it can control both volume as well as speaker playback groups so you don’t have to hunt around in the app once you’re up and running. 

Victrola

Sonos has long positioned its flagship Five speaker as a good option to use with turntables, as it has an auxiliary input jack; the company even sells a $950 set with a Pro-Ject TI Phono SB turntable and a Five speaker. That’s a lot of money, but considering the Stream Carbon costs $799 on its own, it’s worth considering as an alternative. Sonos also sells the Port, a $449 device that connects a stereo, receiver or turntable to Sonos speakers. But if you already have existing Sonos products, the Stream Carbon should be an easy, albeit expensive way to play records across multiple speakers. 

You can pre-order the Stream Carbon now, and the company says they’ll start shipping in October. And if the $799 price puts you off, Victrola says more Stream turntables will be coming — hopefully at a lower price point.

Sony and developer Naughty Dog confirmed today that its excellent bundle of Uncharted 4: A Thief's End and Uncharted: The Lost Legacy are coming to the PC on October 19th. As announced last year, the Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves collection will bring these two games to the PC for the first time, following the collection's release for the PS5 this past January. 

This news lines up with a leak last week that showed a listing for the game on the Epic Games Store with an October 19th release date. This confirmation comes after Sony had delayed the game's release from its original "early 2022" timeline. As you'd expect, there are a host of features relevant to PC players, including ultra widescreen monitor support and a host of graphics adjustment options including texture and model quality, anisotropic filtering, shadows, reflections and ambient occlusion. The UI has also been tweaked to better fit on PC and you can remap all controls as you see fit.

Speaking of controls, you can also play this game wirelessly with the PS4's DualShock 4 controller; if you plug in a PS5 DualSense controller, you'll get more advanced haptic feedback.

If you're interested, Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves is up for pre-order on Steam and the Epic Games Store for $49.99. It's the first Naughty Dog title to hit the PC, but a number of other high-profile Sony exclusives (including Horizon Zero Dawn and God of War) have come to the PC in recent years. And Naughty Dog's latest release, the remade The Last of Us Part I will also be released for the PC, though there's no timeframe just yet.

Sonos has long offered a wireless subwoofer as part of its home theater, a large and powerful product that also costs a whopping $749. For anyone with a smaller room, or a smaller budget, it was a bit of a stretch. Sonos is giving bass-lovers a new option today: the rumored Sub Mini is real — and at $429, it costs a lot less than its bigger sibling. 

The Sub Mini is a cylindrical speaker with a "center tunnel" cutout to move air around. It's a foot tall and about 9 inches in diameter; at 14 pounds, it's not exactly light, but that's more than 20 pounds lighter than the Sonos Sub. It's compatible with any amplified Sonos speaker aside from portable products like the Move and Roam, which means you can pair it with audio speakers like the Sonos One or Five as well as home theater soundbar like the Beam and Ray. (Sonos recommends pairing its high-end Arc soundbar with the full-sized Sub, but there's no technical reason you can't use it alongside the Sub Mini.)

Along with that center tunnel, the Sub Mini includes two 6-inch, force-cancelling woofers and two class-D digital amplifiers, along with a 5GHz wireless connection and a 10/100 ethernet port if you prefer to hardwire your speakers. As with all Sonos products, you set up the Sub Mini through the Sonos mobile app — from there, you'll tell it which room the sub is in and pair it to a soundbar or speaker set. 

As with other Sonos speakers, you can tune the Sub Mini once it's set up to properly balance your system's sound using Trueplay. You'll need a compatible iOS device to use Trueplay, as it uses the device's microphone to listen to the room and optimize audio quality based on the acoustics of your room. My experience with Trueplay has always been positive, so this is a step worth taking if you have an iPhone or iPad. 

The Sonos Sub comes in black or white and is up for preorder today and will be widely available on October 6th. As with any speaker, we'll need to hear this one before we can recommend it, but it's good that Sonos finally has a more affordable option for improving bass from its products. It should also be appreciated by anyone with a smaller room or setup — I've long wanted a little more bass from my pair of Sonos One speakers, for example, but the bigger Sub would be massive overkill. The Sub Mini, on the other hand, could be just right.

As usual, Apple's September event was packed with new hardware, most of which we aren't too shocked to see. The rumor mill correctly predicted the all-new Apple Watch Ultra, as well as the more iterative Apple Watch Series 8 and a new Apple Watch SE. And the iPhone 14 and 14 Pro mostly met expectations, as well — including the sad fact that the iPhone mini is no more. The AirPods Pro have also gotten a long-awaited update, though we'd classify this as another iterative change. 

The iPhone 14 and 14 Pro

Shocking no one, Apple introduced four new iPhones today across two different lines. The iPhone 14 is joined this year not by a mini model, but by a bigger iPhone 14 Plus with a 6.7-inch screen. Aside from the bigger screen, the design is essentially identical to last year's iPhone 13. As is often the case, the camera got some of the biggest upgrades — Apple says the main back camera as well as the front-facing TrueDepth camera are all new, and they're combined with a new photo processing pipeline called the Photonic Engine for improved low-light performance. The True Tone flash has been improved, as well. And for video shooters, a new "action mode" should reduce shaking and vibration that occurs when you move around while filming.

There are also some notable new safety features on board here. Just like the new Apple Watch models, the iPhone 14 features crash detection, which uses a new accelerometer and gyroscope along with machine learning models to detect severe car crashes; it'll automatically call emergency services if a user is unable to reach or use their phone. The new iPhone also has a satellite connection to contact emergency services in places where there's no cellular signal. As usual, Apple also says that the iPhone 14 will have better battery life than ever before — particular the iPhone 14 Plus, which can have a bigger battery thanks to its larger size. 

The iPhone 14 Pro and 14 Pro Max come in the same two screen sizes and include all the features found on the iPhone 14, along with some notable improvements. The iPhone 14 Pro has an "always-on" screen for the first time. The refresh rate drops to 1Hz and the screen dims, similar to what happens on the Apple Watch's own always-on display. This lets you see notifications and widgets from the new Lock Screen in iOS 16 at all times. 

Another significant change to the iPhone 14 Pro display is that the notch has been replaced with a circular cut-out that Apple calls the Dynamic Island. Rather than just leave this space as a blank hole to house the front-facing camera and face detection systems, this area will work alongside iOS 16 to provide a quick view at background processes running on your phone like timers, directions, Face ID or music playback. We haven't seen it in action yet, but it seems like a good improvement over the static and fairly large notch that has been part of the iPhone for years now.

Apple's iPhone Pro lineup always has some significant camera advantages, and that's the case again this year. The iPhone 14 Pro has a new 48-megapixel, quad-pixel sensor for the main camera lens. Typically, the iPhone 14 Pro will combine four pixels into one ultra-sized pixel that keeps image size around 12MP but allows for significantly improved low-light performance. You can also use 2x telephoto zoom with no loss of quality, as it just uses the middle 12 megapixels of the sensor for full-sized images. The ultra-wide camera and front-facing camera are also all new, and naturally the iPhone 14 Pro uses the new Photonic Engine for further image improvements.

All iPhone 14 and iPhone 14 Pro models will be available for pre-order on Friday, September 9th. The iPhone 14 starts at $699 and will be widely available on September 16th, while the $799 iPhone 14 Plus arrives on October 7th. The iPhone 14 Pro and 14 Pro Max start at $999 and $1,099, respectively, and will also be in stores on September 16th.

Apple Watch Series 8, Apple Watch Ultra and Apple Watch SE

As expected, Apple Watch Series 8 is just a minor tweak to the existing Apple Watch formula. The main new hardware features are a temperature sensor and two new accelerometers that work in concert with the Watch's existing sensors to detect car crashes. If you use the temperature sensor overnight, women can get estimates about when they're expected to ovulate, as well. The Series 8 is also getting a new software feature called low power mode. Apple says this should extend battery life from the standard 18 hours to 36 hours by turning off features like the always-on display and features like automatic workout detection while keeping key tools like activity tracking on. Fortunately, this feature is coming to all Apple Watches since the Series 4.

The $799 Apple Watch Ultra, however, is an entirely new beast. It resembles the original Apple Watch, but with a much larger 49mm display and a flat front crystal that is built to project the screen from side impacts. The Digital Crown and side button are built into a new protruding area that helps protect the crown, and there's a new "action" button on the left side of the Watch, as well. You can customize that button to launch any feature or app you want — like starting a workout or activating a built-in dive computer. 

Speaking of dives, the Ultra has twice the water resistance of the standard Apple Watch, and it also has a bigger battery rated for 36 hours of usage. That can be extended to 60 hours using the new battery saver feature. Given that the Apple Watch Ultra is much larger than its predecessors, it requires new bands, and Apple designed three entirely new options: Trail Loop, Alpine Loop and Ocean Band. Each of those bands is meant for a different activity. You can pre-order the Apple Watch Ultra today, and it'll be available in stores on September 16th.

Finally, Apple updated the entry-level Apple Watch SE. It starts at $249 and has a larger screen, the same crash detection features as the Series 8, a 20 percent faster S8 chip and health features like AFib history and heart rate notifications. Thankfully, this means Apple has finally stopped selling the ancient Apple Watch Series 3; the SE is now the cheapest option available. 

AirPods Pro

The new AirPods Pro look essentially identical to the original model, but there are a lot of nice updates on board here. Perhaps most significant are touch-sensitive areas on the headphone stems that you can swipe to adjust volume, a pretty handy addition for when you don't want to ask Siri for help. The new H2 chip, meanwhile, offers up to two times the noise cancellation performance as the original AirPods Pro, along with improvements to overall sound quality and transparency mode. Battery life has been improved, too — you should get about 6 hours per change, or 30 hours total with the charging case.

The charging case has gotten some good improvements, too — it now works with the small Apple Watch charging disc as well as the MagSafe charger and any other Qi-compatible wireless chargers. It also has a built-in speaker so you can find it if you lose it, and there's also a lanyard attachment. The new AirPods Pro cost the same $249 as the last model, and they'll be up for pre-order on September 9th and available on September 23rd. 

Probably the biggest new features for the iPhone 14 and 14 Plus isn't one you'll use ever day, but you'll be glad you have it if you need it. The new phone has a built-in satellite connection that people can use to send emergency SOS messages in places where there's no available cellular signal. 

First, your iPhone will help you orient your phone in the direction you need to point it to get the best signal. Once you have a connection, you can open up a message interface that lets you communicate with emergency service providers. Apple says that because of satellite connectivity limits, it'll take much longer to send messages than you're used to, so the feature includes some automatic questions it prompts you to answer, like "is anyone hurt?" It'll have auto-populated answers that you can tap to respond. Apple is also compressing messages to a third their normal size to make sending them a little quicker.

Apple say that once the message it sent to the satellite, it then gets sent to emergency response centers; if those centers are only set up for voice calls, they'll first be routed to a response center that'll then get in touch with emergency response. 

This feature will be included for free for two years with all iPhone 14 and 14 Pro models; it's not clear how much it'll cost after that. For people who are frequently away from cellular signals — perhaps the same people who are looking at an Apple Watch Ultra — this feature could be extremely useful in a tough spot.

Follow all of the news from Apple’s iPhone event right here.