It's the end of an era as Nintendo is shutting down its Wii U and 3DS eShops today (March 27th) at 5PM PST (8PM EST). After that, you'll no longer be able to purchase new games for those consoles, though you'll still be able to redownload titles you've already purchased for the time being. 

The company first warned of the eShop closures back in February 2022, and barred users from adding funds to their accounts on August 29th. Nintendo wrote at the time that that the move was "part of the natural lifecycle for any product line as it becomes less used by consumers over time."

That may be true, but a trove of over 1,000 digital games will be lost in the shutdown, including Dr. Luigi, Mini Mario & Friends: Amiibo Challenge, and Pokémon Picross, to name but a few. In total, 450 digital-only Wii U games, 600 digital-only 3DS games and 530 virtual console games will disappear, VGC reported. Of the latter, 335 aren't currently available on Nintendo Switch Online. 

That means the only option for folks who want to play these classic games will be physical copies, which have soared in value. Many other download-exclusive games, meanwhile, will disappear for good. 

The European Union has agreed to make a carveout for synthetic fuels in its proposed 2035 ban on the sale of new combustion engine cars. Per the Associated Press, the bloc made a deal with Germany on Saturday to allow automakers to sell new ICE cars past 2035, provided those vehicles run on climate-neutral fuels only. The agreement ends a dispute that had threatened to scuttle the EU’s signature climate change policy. At the start of March, the European Parliament delayed a vote that would have codified the proposed ban after Germany, with support from automakers, said it would not back the mandate without an exemption for synthetic fuels.

“We have found an agreement with Germany on the future use of e-fuels in cars,” Frans Timmermans, the executive vice president of European Green Deal, posted to Twitter on Saturday. “We will work now on getting the CO2 standards for cars regulation adopted as soon as possible.” Environmental group Greenpeace criticized the agreement. “This lazy compromise undermines climate protection in transport, and it harms Europe,” the organization wrote in a statement.

As The Guardian notes, making synthetic fuels is incredibly energy intensive. Moreover, without direct air capture tech, e-fuel cars produce almost as many greenhouse emissions as their conventional ICE counterparts. According to one estimate published before Saturday’s announcement, a carveout for synthetic fuels could result in as many as 46 million fewer cumulative EV sales in Europe by 2050 “without providing any additional CO2 savings.” It’s also worth noting that no company is producing synthetic fuels at scale yet. That’s a significant point because e-fuels are unlikely to save European drivers money. By 2030, Transport & Environment estimates the average EU driver will pay €782 a year more to fill their car's tank with synthetic fuel than conventional gas.

The next game from the makers of Genshin Impact has a release date. Honkai: Star Rail — a turn-based, space-fantasy, tactical RPG — arrives on April 26th. In addition to previously announced PC and mobile availability, developer HoYoverse announced today that a PlayStation (PS5 / PS4) version is coming “later.”

Although much is unknown about Honkai: Star Rail, we do know it trades in Genshin Impact’s Breath of the Wild type of open-world action for turn-based combat. Based on its trailers, it looks like a visual spectacle with an anime-esque art style and a cast of memorable characters. 

The story, set in the same universe as Honkai Impact 3rd, follows a protagonist with an implanted Stellaron (mysterious life forms that respond to the world’s desire to advance) on a quest to discover the truth about the “Cancer of All Worlds.” It begins at a tutorial level on Herta Space Station before moving on to snow-covered Jarilo-VI and other diverse worlds.

The free-to-play game will use gacha (item and character-based loot boxes) for monetization. It’s rated T for Teen and will be available for PC (standalone installation or the Epic Games Store), iOS and Android. That PS5 / PS4 version will arrive at an unknown later date.

After a particularly long incubation process, The Lord of the Rings: Gollum is almost ready to ship. Daedalic has revealed that its stealth action take on JRR Tolkien's fantasy world will be available May 25th on PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One and Xbox Series X/S. A Switch version is due later in the year. While the mechanics of the game are by now familiar, this still promises to be a fresh take if you weren't enthused with the hack-and-slash of Monolith's Middle-earth games.

You play Gollum in a previously unrecorded story of his search for (what else?) the Precious during the first few chapters of The Fellowship of the Ring. He's clearly not a brawler, so he has to sneak and climb to survive. And crucially, the battle inside his corrupted mind plays a key role. You have to choose between giving into Gollum's darker impulses or hanging on to the shreds of kindness from Smeagol. While this is an original tale based on the books, you'll run into familiar characters and navigate a world heavily inspired by Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings movies.

To say Gollum has taken a while to finish would be an understatement. It was originally unveiled in 2019, and even then wasn't expected to arrive until 2021. That year came and went (the pandemic didn't help speed development), and even a tentative September 2022 release didn't happen after a delay that was only supposed to last "a few months" as Daedalic took extra time to polish the title.

The timing might work in the game's favor. In 2019, Amazon's Lord of the Rings TV series was still in its infancy, and the last big Tolkien game (Middle-earth: Shadow of War) was old news. Flash forward to 2023 and it's another story. Amazon's The Rings of Power show is a major success, and movie effects house Weta Workshop is making its own game set in the franchise. There's a renewed interest in hobbits and orcs, and Gollum might benefit from that demand.

Sega announced a new expansion today for Sonic Origins, its remastered collection of old-school Sonic the Hedgehog games. Sonic Origins Plus adds 12 classic Game Gear titles and new playable characters.

Sonic Origins Plus adds the entire library of Sonic Game Gear installments, which includes: Sonic the Hedgehog, Sonic the Hedgehog 2, Sonic Chaos, Sonic the Hedgehog: Triple Trouble, Sonic Labyrinth, Sonic Blast, Sonic Drift, Sonic Drift 2, Sonic 2 in 1, Tails Adventure, Tails' Skypatrol, Sonic Spinball. Additionally, the expansion lets you play as Amy Rose (Sonic’s hammer-wielding admirer first introduced in Sonic CD) in the first three Sonic games, and you can play as Amy or Tails in Sonic CD.

You’ll receive all the content from the Sonic Origins base game, including remastered versions of Sonic the Hedgehog 1, Sonic the Hedgehog 2, Sonic the Hedgehog 3 & Knuckles and Sonic CD (as well as all previously released DLC). In addition, the collection still includes Classic Mode, where you can enjoy the games in their original and unaltered format, and Anniversary Mode, which stretches the aspect ratio to 16:9 and lowers frustration by giving you infinite lives. Finally, a 20-page book of classic art and a reversible coversheet are bundled if you buy a physical copy.

If you own Sonic Origins, the expansion will cost an extra $10. However, if you’re new to the collection, you get Sonic Origins Plus — including all the base game’s content — for $40, the same price you’ll pay now for Sonic Origins alone. The expansion will be available for PlayStation (PS5 / PS4), Xbox (Series X / S and One) and Nintendo Switch on June 23rd, which marks the 32nd anniversary of the first Sonic game’s launch on the Sega Genesis / Mega Drive.

A year after first launching in the US, Amazon Luna is expanding to three new regions. Starting today, the cloud gaming service is available in Canada, Germany and the United Kingdom. The expansion marks the first Amazon customers outside of the US have had a chance to try Luna. If you’re a Prime subscriber, the company offers a handful of complimentary games every month. The March lineup features four games, including Megaman 11 and Trails from Zero.

You can access more of the Luna library by subscribing to bundles Amazon calls “Channels.” For instance, the Luna+ channel comes with games like Control, Street Fighter II and Tetris Effect. Pricing varies by market, but in Canada for example, Luna+ costs $13 per month.

There’s also a Ubisoft+ channel that comes with access to all of the publisher’s most popular games, including Assassin’s Creed Valhalla, Watch Dogs: Legion and Rainbox Six Extraction. If you already own some of Ubisoft’s games on PC, you can play those games on Luna provided you have an Amazon Prime or Luna+ subscription.

Notably, today’s announcement sees Luna expanding to three markets where Stadia was available before it was unceremoniously shut down by Google at the start of the year. Judging by the fact Amazon recently removed 53 games from the Luna+ library, the service hasn’t exactly been a homerun for the retail giant, but an expansion is a move in the right direction.

Nothing’s revealed its second-generation Ear wireless buds. The eye-catching design sticks around and the company has tried to address some of the issues that bedeviled the original, with some much-needed improvements to connectivity and setup. Fortunately, the price of the Nothing Ear 2 is the same as the Ear 1: $149, which undercut a lot of the established true wireless competition.

Nothing hasn’t redesigned its buds and case – they look very similar side-by-side – but it’s made a handful of incremental changes. Most of them focus on the case, which is smaller and slimmer. The outer part of the case is still transparent, but part of the white structure is now exposed. There’s no textured surface, just a soft-touch panel. Nothing claims the see-through plastic is harder to scratch and damage than the original Ear 1. In my pockets and bag, getting shuffled around with keys or other objects has already left a noticeable scratch on the case. I also worry that this exposed panel could get muckier easier – the curse of all white gadgets.

Photo by Mat Smith / Engadget

Tackling one the bigger complaints I had with the Ear 1, Nothing moved the microphones and antenna inside the buds to improve connectivity and stability – something it also did with the cheaper Ear Stick. The company’s first wireless buds were often finickity when pairing. The company has also changed the antenna structure for better reliability, and the initial pairing process seems to be less fussy and smoother than its predecessor. It’s also, finally, added dual connectivity, making it easier to switch between your phone and laptop.

Microphone placements have also been repositioned to reduce wind noise on calls, but I didn’t notice major improvements over the Ear 1. Nothing said its Clear Voice tech was tuned to just shy of 2 million sounds on the Ear 1 in order to filter them out, while that was closer to 20 million on its newest buds. However, I made several test calls, and I was still difficult to hear when it was windy.

Nothing says it improved sound detail with polyurethane components for clearer low frequencies (it’s been a while since a company has sold polyurethane as a feature), and graphene for brighter highs. There’s also a dual chamber design for a wider soundstage.

The Ear 2 will also be compatible with Hi-res audio at launch, although they weren’t at time of writing, and are compatible with the LHDC 5.0 codec, which all means they should work with premium audio standards where you can find them.

But does it sound all that different? Swapping between the Ear 1 and Ear 2, the newest version does offer clearer sound in the trebles and the bass has more oomph than before. But, compared to wireless buds that are often hundred dollars more expensive, like the AirPods Pro or Sony’s latest flagship buds, they don’t quite stand up, coming off a little flat.

Nothing’s latest buds offer three levels of active noise cancellation (ANC): low, mid and high. The Ear 2 also offer a personalized ANC profile calibrated to your own hearing. The test is a lengthy five minutes, roughly, with a test dedicated to each bud. Your mileage and ears will different, but I didn’t note any marked improvements after calibration. The ANC isn’t perfect: At the highest levels of active noise cancellation still seemed to struggle with the reverberations on trains and the subway, leading to a jarring noise echo in my left bud while using ANC, despite recalibrating the buds several times in a bid to fix it. It’s, fortunately, happening much less often following a firmware update over the weekend. There’s also an adaptive ANC mode that will flit between levels depending on the noise around you, hopefully reducing the toll on battery life.

Nothing says there are battery improvements across both the buds (roughly an hour more, to over six hours) and the case, which can juice the buds for up to 36 hours of listening (with ANC off), two hours longer than the Ear 1. You should get 8 hours of audio from a 10-minute charge, too. There’s still wireless charging too, if you want it.

Setting up and switching between ANC modes is done through the updated Nothing X app, but the Ear 2, predictably, work best with Nothing’s Phone 1, with drop-down shortcuts and easier access to the fine-grain controls.

There’s also a custom sound profile calibration to hone in on frequencies you might not hear – thanks, aging. The equalizer, again inside the companion app, offers more options. You switch between treble- or bass-centric modes, a balanced mode and one dedicated to voice. My custom sound profile also came with the ability to augment my weaker audio frequencies I had trouble hearing with a richer profile, alongside the standard recommended mode. You can also tweak the intensity with a slider.

Photo by Mat Smith / Engadget

Nothing may have added many minor features and improvements but the Ear 2 isn’t shaking up the status quo like its predecessor. Given the eye-catching hardware of the Ear 1, I wasn’t expecting a major redesign (they don’t need it) and the company has addressed my biggest problems with the first headphones. It’s hard to complain about the range of improvements, including upgraded water and sweat resistance rating: the buds are IP54 rated while the charging case is IP55.

The Ear 2 will launch in white on March 28th on Nothing’s own retail site, as well as on Amazon and Kith. Unfortunately, if you were looking to match your black Phone 1, there’s no plan for a black option.

Ford has finally shown the medium-sized electric crossover it teased last year, and it might not be what you expect. The company has unveiled an electric Explorer that's "designed for Europe" and as suited to tight city streets as it is weekend jaunts. It's relatively compact (under 14.8ft long versus 16.6ft for the gas SUV) and offers creature comforts like "sporty" seats. Notably, it also includes a few technology features you won't even find in higher-end Ford EVs like the Mustang Mach-E.

The 15-inch vertical touchscreen will seem familiar, but it slides up and down — you won't have to settle for an awkward position. You also won't find the physical knob from earlier Ford EVs. The automaker also takes advantage of the electrified design to provide a massive amount of console storage space (enough for a 15-inch laptop) and a private "locker" for valuables. Wireless phone charging is standard, as is wireless Android Auto and Apple CarPlay. The five cameras and three radar sensors provide Ford's usual range of driver aids, although this is the first time Europeans will have access to features like Assisted Lane Change (which changes lanes through a stalk press).

Most performance specs aren't yet available, including range. However, Ford claims you can charge from 10 percent to 80 percent in a relatively quick 25 minutes.

The company is taking reservations for base Explorer and higher-end Explorer Premium trims now ahead of a release later this year. While final pricing will have to wait, Ford expects the line to start below €45,000 (about $48,500). Don't expect a launch elsewhere, unfortunately. Ford tells Engadget there are "no plans" to bring the Explorer EV to North America, and that the conventional Explorer will still be on sale worldwide.

The Explorer is part of a larger strategy to introduce seven EVs to Europe by 2024, including the compact Puma and the Transit van. Ford ultimately hopes to completely electrify its passenger cars in Europe by 2030. This new model may be key to that transition. On top of being more practical for European streets, it's considerably more affordable than the roughly €62,000 Mach-E. This is the mainstream (if still pricey) people-hauler that might reach a wider audience.

For decades now we’ve become accustomed to tossing all sorts of things into the recycling bin, like glass bottles, aluminum cans and cardboard. One category, however, that still isn’t on everyone’s list is consumer electronics. Over a billion phones were purchased in 2022, and that’s just one type of gadget. All that electronic waste can have real consequences for the planet, so it’s something you should have on your mind next time you clean out that closet.

Sure, you can try parting with your stuff for cash, but it can be tough, if not impossible, to find someone who wants a 12-year-old printer or a busted CRT. Few places have curbside pickup — in fact, some localities make it illegal to leave electronics for the garbage collectors — so you're going to have to find a reputable center to take it. We've gathered some resources to help you dispense of your broken and unwanted computers, televisions and any other gadget flotsam that's taking up space.

National chains

There is no national electronics recycling law at this time, so you won't find any federal programs to assist you with getting rid of old devices. The USPS does run a program for federal agencies and their employees, but it's not available to the general public. Instead, the rest of us have to rely on nationwide retailers to toss out our old stuff.

Best Buy

Best Buy has more than 1,000 locations in the United States, so it's likely you have one nearby where you can drop stuff off. You just need to take it to the customer service counter. They'll issue you a receipt too, but keep in mind that you can't claim the drop-off as a deduction on your taxes because Best Buy isn't a charity.

You can even recycle televisions and monitors, though you'll be charged a fee of $30 per item to cover the higher costs of transporting and disassembling them. (Consumers in California are not charged the $30 fee, while locations in Connecticut and Pennsylvania will not accept televisions or monitors at all.) If you're turning in a printer, you’ll get up to a $50 voucher toward the purchase of a new HP or Epson printer (select models only).

Also be aware that Best Buy limits you to three items per household per day, including up to two televisions.

Staples

Recycling your stuff at Staples is similar to Best Buy — just bring your products to the customer-service counter. But it’s more limited in that you can only bring in seven items a day, and the store won’t accept televisions at all (monitors are allowed). Staples Rewards members also receive a small credit of $5 per month for bringing in goods to be recycled or shredded. Members who spend at least $50 on ink or toner within a 180 day period can also receive $2 for every used ink cartridge they turn in, up to 20 a month.

Office Depot

Office Depot

Office Depot has more than 1,300 locations, but unlike Staples and Best Buy, it won't recycle your old gadgets for free. If you're only getting rid of a few phones or batteries, those can be turned in at no charge. For everything else, you must purchase a Tech Recycling Box, which costs $8.39, $18.29 or $28 depending on the size. Once you have the box, you can fill it with as many items as you want, provided they all fit inside, including smaller televisions. So it's a great deal if you have a lot of stuff you want to dispose of. These can be turned in either in person or by mail.

You can also return used ink and toner cartridges and get $2 each, up to 10 a month, if you’re a rewards member and spend at least $10 in-store on products within the same month.

Home Depot and Lowes

You can dispose of old rechargeable batteries, old phones and CFL bulbs in the dropoff boxes at any of 2,300 Home Depot or 2,200 Lowe’s locations. The bins are usually located in the front of the store, and Home Depot has an 11-pound limit on individual items.

Target

Target locations have drop-off bins for recyclables located near the entrance; in addition to bins for paper and plastics, there is a specially-designated bin for e-waste like cellphones and used ink cartridges

Manufacturers

If you can't make it to a retail location, especially when you need to get rid of only one or two items, many companies offer recycling programs for their own products. They'll even pay for shipping. Some run their own programs while others use outside organizations. We've outlined policies from a handful of manufacturers below.

Amazon

While Amazon would love to direct you to its trade-in program, you're probably reading this post because there's stuff you can't sell, and for those items Amazon offers mail-in recycling. You can send in your busted Kindles, Fire TVs and even Dash Buttons, as well as select peripherals like keyboards and mice. You'll just need to fill out some forms online and generate a shipping label, which you can slap on any box. Drop it off at a UPS location, and you're good to go; Amazon will cover all the costs.

Apple

Apple

If your iPhone or MacBook is still in good shape, you should consider selling it, but if it's too old or beat up you can still score a gift card by turning it into Apple's recycling program. For iPhones (as well as select handsets from Samsung and Google), iPad and Apple Watches you'll be asked to fill out a form attesting to the product's condition and given a trade-in quote, with a working iPhone 7 going for $30 and an iPhone 11 scoring you $160. For Macs, you'll be asked to provide a serial number as well. Though Apple won't give you cash for anything it deems old or unacceptable, you can still mail it in or bring it to any Apple Store so it can be responsibly disposed of.

Dell

Dell offers drop-off recycling via a partnership with Goodwill. Not every location participates, but there are more than 2,600 that do. And, because it's a charity, you may even be able to deduct it as a donation on your taxes. Dell also has a mail-back program on its site where you can generate a shipping label and drop the package off at a FedEx location instead.

Epson

You can ship old products back to Epson by simply creating a shipping label on its site and dropping it off at a FedEx location. Or just drop it off at a Best Buy location for a $30 or $50 voucher toward a new Epson printer.

HP

If you can, HP recommends taking its products to the nearest Best Buy. Ink and toner cartridges can be returned by mail; the company will mail you an envelope that can hold between 3 and 8 ink cartridges and can be dropped off in a mailbox or at the post office. For toner and large quantities of ink cartridges, you can print out a label and use your own box, or request a box be sent directly to you, which you’ll fill with items and drop off at a UPS location.

Other manufacturers

Many other companies use outside recyclers to dispose of their products, and you'll often see the same names popping up again and again across different manufacturers. This should simplify things in some cases — you should be able to send in products from multiple sources in one package. You just need to fill in the make and model to generate a prepaid shipping label. However, different states have different rules on what you can return, so the drop-downs for selecting your product may vary by area.

Two major recycling companies you'll notice a lot are RLG, which covers Acer, Canon, Google, Intel, Lenovo, Microsoft and Motorola, and MRM, which recycles products for Alcatel, BlackBerry, Barnes & Noble (nook), TCL and Toshiba.

Phones

Cell phones are the easiest gadget to recycle — if you haven't already decided to sell yours off on eBay or via sites like Decluttr and ecoATM. But, if you can't or won't make some cash off of it, you can send it to:

Call2Recycle, which has drop-off centers all over the country in many chain stores, including Lowes and Home Depot. It will also accept rechargeable batteries.

Cell Phones for Soldiers accepts phones in any condition and sells them to refurbishers or recyclers. The proceeds go toward purchasing phone cards for troops so they can call their friends and family back home. To be clear, the phones are not given directly to the soldiers.

The four major US carriers — Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile and Sprint — all offer free recycling. You can trade in your old device in-store or send it in for a credit toward a new phone, or let them straight up recycle it. AT&T also participates in Cell Phones for Soldiers.

If you do decide to try your luck with ecoATM to see if your old phone is still worth a few bucks and it turns out it's worth nothing, you can at least rest easy knowing that the company will also recycle your phone responsibly.

States

There may not be a national law dictating that you must recycle your electronics, but at least 26 states have passed rules that vary widely on what they demand of manufacturers and consumers. Almost all states that do collect products for recycling provide this service free, with the bill footed by the companies in some way. Most provide some local programs to help you get rid of your stuff, regardless of whether recycling your gadgets is required or optional.

States where you can no longer dispose of electronics in the regular trash and must recycle them include: California, Connecticut, Illinois, Indiana, Maine, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Vermont, West Virginia, Wisconsin and the District of Columbia.

The following states have laws requiring manufacturers to pay for recycling, but you, the consumer, are not actually required to recycle your electronics: Hawaii, Maryland, Michigan, Missouri, Oklahoma, Texas, Utah, Virginia, and Washington.

The following states have some special circumstances worth noting:

Connecticut: Does not allow recycling centers to charge you a fee for turning in electronics, so many organizations and retailers that would usually charge for recycling televisions and monitors do not accept them. Because you cannot dispose of them curbside, you can take them to a municipal transfer station for free.

New York: If you live in a New York City apartment building with 10 or more units, contact your landlord about getting an ecycleNYC drop-off box installed in your building. It’s super convenient and free.

Pennsylvania: Does not allow retailers to charge you a fee to recycle, so places like Best Buy and Staples will not accept televisions or monitors. Many recycling centers have also closed as a result of underfunding, so check the list of open locations first. Some nonprofit recyclers may still accept the items, and you should check to see if your local government is hosting any drop-off events. Lancaster and Dauphin Counties also still run civic recycling programs.

Virginia: This state does not have a dedicated statewide recycling program, but some localities run their own programs including Fairfax, Loudoun and Rockbridge counties, and cities like Arlington. Check each municipality’s site for details.

We were left impressed with Oppo's Find X5 Pro last year, so naturally, we have high expectations for its successor. As announced earlier, the upcoming Find X6 Pro meets the basic requirements you'd expect from a 2023 flagship: Qualcomm's Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 processor, Sony's IMX989 "1-inch" sensor for the main camera, a bright 6.82-inch 3,168 x 1,440 AMOLED screen, a generous 5,000mAh battery, an IP68 ruggedness rating and up to 16GB of RAM plus 512GB of storage. As a bonus, Oppo also brought back a periscopic telephoto camera — a missing feature since the Find X2 Pro from 2020 — to make full use of its photopgrahy partnership with Hasselblad, as well as its very own MariSilicon X imaging neural processor.

The Find X6 Pro features what's arguably the largest external redesign since the Find X3 Pro, with the three rear cameras — all with a 50-megapixel resolution plus optical stabilization — residing within a large circular island. The glass-covered upper part houses the main camera (23mm equivalent), the ultra-wide camera (15mm equivalent), the LED flash and Hasselblad's logo, while the lower part features the periscopic camera with 3x optical zoom (65mm equivalent) or 6x "in-sensor" zoom — we'll get to that later. As for video recording, you can get up to 4K at 60fps, though the 32-megapixel punch-hole selfie camera (21mm equivalent) on the other side is limited to 1080p at 30fps.

Richard Lai/Engadget

While the 3x optical zoom on this new periscopic camera may sound less exciting than the 5x counterpart on the Find X2 Pro, it does offer a 6x "in-sensor" zoom. This is thanks to the relatively large Sony IMX890 sensor (1/1.56-inch), which still offers a good amount of pixels even when cropped natively. With a pre-release firmware, I was able to capture impressively clean and sharp shots even at 6x. Of course, any other 10x optical zoom camera would beat this hybrid solution, but this is still a viable alternative, especially given how handy the 3x optical zoom comes in for food photography and the new Hasselblad Portrait Mode — the latter claiming to simulate "the colors and depth of field of Hasselblad’s classic XCD30 and XCD80 lenses."

As for the ultra-wide camera, it also uses an IMX890 sensor, which is apparently the largest offering to date in this category. Like before, this camera packs a freeform surface lens to minimize distortion, along with a relatively large f/2.2 aperture.

Of course, there are plenty other non-photography goodies on the Find X6 Pro. The 5,000mAh battery is now paired with a new 100W SuperVOOC fast charging, which goes from zero to 100-percent charge in just 28 minutes. Or you can go with 50W AirVOOC wireless charging, which takes 52 minutes to reach a full charge. Oppo also claims to double the battery lifespan with its Battery Health Engine from last year.

In addition to the usual stereo speakers, Oppo implemented a design dubbed "Active Privacy Protection for Voice Calls" to the earpiece, which is apparently "capable of improving sound insulation by up to a factor of 3.5 to reduce audio leakage." In other words, people stood around you are less likely to eavesdrop on your calls.

Last but not least, while not all flagship phones come with an infrared remote control, some may still appreciate this feature on the Oppo Find X6 Pro to control things like TVs, air conditioners and lights.

Richard Lai/Engadget

The Oppo Find X6 Pro will be available in China from March 24th, with design options including a dual-tone brown (glass plus vegan leather), black (glass) and green (glass). Prices range from 5,999 yuan or about $873 (12GB RAM with 256GB storage) to 6,999 yuan or about $1,018 (16GB RAM with 512GB storage).

There's also a similar-looking but more affordable Find X6, which swaps out the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 chip with MediaTek's Dimensity 9200. Also, its main camera uses an IMX890 instead of the 1-inch IMX989, whereas its ultra-wide camera uses a Samsung JN1 sensor and, sadly, lacks a freeform lens. That said, this phone still packs a generous 4,800mAh battery with 80W fast charging, and it comes with an IP64 ruggedness rating. It'll be offered in green, gold and black, with prices going from 4,499 yuan or around $654 (12GB RAM with 256GB storage) to 4,999 yuan or about $727 (16GB RAM with 512GB storage).

We'll be keeping an eye out for international availability, even though it'll likely be limited to Europe for the west. Stay tuned.