This week we saw a number of gadgets from Lenovo, Samsung and others go on sale. Lenovo's new Smart Clock Essential with Alexa support is down to only $50 right now, while a number of Samsung Odyssey gaming monitors have great discounts. You can officially buy Samsung's latest smartphones today, too, and you'll get a credit if you go through Amazon. Plus, Roku's Streaming Stick 4K+ is 30 percent off and down to $49. Here are the best tech deals from this week that you can still get today.

Lenovo Smart Clock Essential (Alexa)

Lenovo

Lenovo's new Smart Clock Essential with Alexa support is on sale for $50 right now, or 29 percent off its normal price. This version has a slightly different design than the original, featuring pogo docking pins on the bottom, and new fabric colors. Otherwise, it does all of the things the Google Assistant-version did, only with Alexa. It also doesn't have a built-in camera, which will make it more appealing to those concerned about privacy.

Apple Watch Series 7

Engadget

Certain colors of the Apple Watch Series 7 are down to $349, or $50 off their normal price. Apple's latest flagship smartwatch earned a score of 90 from us for its slightly larger display, faster charging and handy watchOS8 features.

Samsung Odyssey Neo G9 gaming monitor

Samsung

Samsung's 49-inch Odyssey Neo G9 mini-LED curved gaming monitor is still $500 off and down to $2,000. Yes, it's still a pricey display, but serious gamers who want a more immersive experience will find it worthwhile. It has a 5,120 x 1,440 resolution with a 240Hz refresh rate, along with high contrast ratios, bright HDR performance and support for NVIDIA G-Sync and AMD FreeSync Premium Pro. If you don't want to drop so much on one monitor, a number of other Odyssey displays are on sale, too, including the 34-inch Odyssey G5 curved monitor for $430.

Samsung Galaxy S22 series

Cherlynn Low / Engadget

Amazon's offering a $100 credit to those that order any of the three smartphones in the new Samsung Galaxy S22 lineup. All you have to do is enter the promo code on the product page before you check out, and you'll get an email after your handset ships with the details of the credit being added to your Amazon account. Those considering the Galaxy S22 have an extra incentive on top of that — $100 off in the form of an on-page coupon that you can clip, which will bring the price of the base model down to $700.

Roku Streaming Stick 4K+

Roku

Roku's new Streaming Stick 4K+ is down to $49, or 30 percent off its normal price. In addition to 4K streaming, it supports HDR10+, a faster processor and it comes bundled with the Roku Voice Remote Pro, which lets you use voice commands to search and issue verbal commands.

Instant Pot Max

Instant Pot

The six-quart Instant Pot Max is down to a record low of $75, or half off its normal price. This multicooker has a large touch screen for easy programming, 15psi of pressure so you can experiment with canning and a sous vide cooking option.

Samsung T7 SSD (1TB)

Samsung's T7 portable SSD in 1TB is down to a record low of $110, or 35 percent off its usual rate. It's one of our preferred drives if you need something compact, speedy and compatible with a bunch of devices. We also like its aluminum unibody and its Dynamic Thermal Guard that helps control heat levels.

Samsung Galaxy Watch 4

Samsung's cellular Galaxy Watch 4 models are on sale for record-low prices right now. The 40mm model is down to $220 while the 44mm version is down to $250. We consider the Galaxy Watch 4 to be the best Android smartwatch you can get and it earned a score of 85 for its bright screen, comprehensive health tracking and new Wear OS features, like downloading apps directly from the Play Store.

Samsung 980 Pro SSD (2TB)

Samsung's 980 Pro internal drive in 2TB is 35 percent off and down to $280 — a great price for a powerful SSD that works with the PS5 (provided you have a heatsink). It has read speeds up to 7,000 MB/s, advanced thermal controls and works with Samsung's Magician Software, which lets you check its health and optimize settings as you'd like.

Nintendo Switch

Prime members can get $20 off the Nintendo Switch at Woot right now. While the discount isn't on the OLED model, it's a good sale on a console that rarely sees sales like this. Just make sure to check out Woot's return policy before buying.

New tech deals

Eufy Security baby monitor

Eufy's baby monitor is on sale for $119, which is close to its all-time-low price. This model comes with one camera and a separate monitor display with a 5-inch 720p screen. The camera lens can pan and tilt to see most of your baby's nursery, and it can send alerts when your baby starts crying. The monitor supports two way audio and, since it's not a WiFi-connected device, the feed is secure and private.

Apple MagSafe battery pack

Apple's magnetic battery pack for iPhones is down to $88, which is 11 percent off its normal price. We have seen it cheaper in the past, but this is the best price we've seen since December. The accessory attaches magnetically to the back of the latest iPhones and provides up to 15W of wireless charging.

Alo Moves

The on-demand fitness service Alo Moves has an offer few new members that knocks 50 percent off the price of a one-year membership, bringing it down to $99. The platform has dozens of yoga, pilates, barre and strength training classes, along with guided meditations and series that help you master specific skills over the course of longer periods of time.

NordVPN

NordVPN's latest sale knocks the price of a two-year subscription down to just under $96, plus you'll get a free gift on top of it. The prize isn't anything physical, but rather additional subscription time on top of the two-year plan you paid for. Prizes are chosen at random, but after you make your purchase, you'll get either an extra month, and extra year or an extra two years added on to your subscription.

UK deals

AirPods (2nd gen)

Apple's second-generation AirPods are down to £99 at Amazon. These don't have some of the bells and whistles that the new third-gen models do, but they remain a decent option for Apple users on a budget. We gave them a score of 84 when they first came out for their improved wireless performance and solid battery life.

Sony WF-1000XM3

Sony's WF-1000XM3 earbuds are on sale for £76, or 31 percent off their normal price. These buds earned a score of 89 for their excellent sound quality, great battery life and full-featured companion app.

Fitbit Sense

Fitbit's most advanced smartwatch, the Sense, is down to £189 right now. That's not a record low, but it's still 37 percent off its usual rate. We gave it a score of 82 for its comprehensive health tracking features and big, bold display.

Follow @EngadgetDeals on Twitter for the latest tech deals and buying advice.

The long wait is over: Elden Ring has finally arrived. FromSoftware's latest opus has received overwhelmingly positive reviews, but there are some notable issues with the RPG. For one thing, there's a problem with game save data on PlayStation 5 that's worth keeping in mind.

Publisher Bandai Namco said that if your console switches off unexpectedly while you're playing Elden Ring or you put the PS5 in rest mode, "saved data may not be saved correctly." It's working on a fix for the issue, but for now it's best for PS5 players to save their progress manually "by exiting the game regularly." Bandai Namco said your data will be saved properly when you open the menu with the Option button and select Quit Game.

For the time being, it's probably best for PS5 players to exit and restart the game after completing a major event (the bosses already seem tough enough without having to beat them twice) or visiting a site of Lost Grace checkpoint. It's an annoyance that will likely break the level of immersion, but until FromSoftware and Bandai Namco release a patch to fix the issue, exiting the game every so often is still better than losing a big chunk of progress.

The bug is especially grievous given that Elden Ring doesn't have a pause option. PS5 players might have been tempted to put their console into rest mode when they take a break, but it doesn't seem like a great idea to do that for now.

Bandai Namco also says it's working to resolve performance issues, particularly on PC. Those include framerate drops, stuttering, Easy Anti-Cheat not launching for some Steam accounts and the mouse sensitivity being too high. The publisher didn't offer a timeline for rolling out the fixes.

Elden Ring is already a big hit. At the time of writing, Twitch streams have more than 796,000 viewers, an impressive number for a primarily single-player game in this genre. Elden Ring hit peak concurrent viewership of 910,000, according to Niko Partners senior analyst Daniel Ahmad. Elden Ring is far outpacing the peak player counts of other FromSoftware titles on Steam too. The number of concurrent players has hit a high of 764,835 — even before people have more free time to play at the weekend. 

If you missed the Galaxy S22 pre-order window and the perks that came with it, Amazon has another offer that sweetens the deal if you go there to buy one of the handsets. For all three models — the S22 Ultra, S22+ and S22 — you can get a $100 Amazon credit if you input the promotional code on the product page when you checkout. Look for the "extra savings" banner under the price to get the appropriate promo code for the model you're buying, and you'll get an email after your order has shipped with details of the credit being added to your Amazon account.

If you're picking up the Galaxy S22, Amazon also has a $100 coupon that you can clip on the product page before you add the phone to your cart. That means you can get the handset for $700 instead of $800, and get the $100 credit on top of that when adding the promo code at checkout.

We've had time to test all three of Samsung's latest smartphones and we've been mostly impressed. The Galaxy S22 Ultra earned a score of 89 from us; being the biggest and most expensive of the bunch, it has all of the advanced features you may be looking for in your next smartphone. Note lovers will like that Samsung brought over some signature elements of that lineup, including the built-in S Pen, and we liked its big, colorful Super AMOLED panel with its 120Hz refresh rate and Vision Booster. The phone's triple rear camera array took shots that could easily compete with those taken by the iPhone 13 Pro and the Pixel 6 Pro, and the phone's ability to handle pretty much any task we threw at it. Our biggest gripe was with its relatively short battery life: we got just more than 17 hours in our testing, which is a few hours less than last year's Galaxy S21 was able to last.

While the Galaxy S22+ and S22 aren't huge departures from last year's models, Samsung improved them in nearly every way. You're getting a more refined design, a brighter screen, improved performance and better low light image from the main camera. Both handsets earned a score of 87 from us — we liked the lovely display, solid performance and UWB support on the Galaxy S22+, and we liked the slick design, strong performance and relatively low starting price on the Galaxy S22.

Follow @EngadgetDeals on Twitter for the latest tech deals and buying advice.

This morning is brought to you by a lot of phone news. To start, we’ve got our detailed review of Samsung’s Galaxy S22 (and S22 Plus) by the latest addition to Engadget’s editorial team, Sam Rutherford. We also have a first look at Oppo’s latest attempt at a flagship, the Find X5 Pro, written by yours truly, who’s been here a little too long. Hah.

Oppo’s new phone, a few days early, is kicking off our coverage of MWC – the world’s biggest mobile show hosted in Barcelona. Due to the pandemic’s ebbs and flows, we’re covering all the announcements remotely, but expect more news from Samsung, Huawei, Lenovo and many others over the next few days.

The Find X5 Pro has impressive specs, a partnership with camera experts Hasselblad and a pretty-looking phone. The challenge for Oppo is getting people to consider its device as a compelling, reliable alternative to the big players like Samsung, Apple and, well, all the other companies jostling for second place. And even if you like what you see, there’s no word of US availability for now.

Beyond the world of tech, we’re all sadly watching the developments in Ukraine this morning. If you’re looking for ways to help those affected, NPR’s put together a list of organizations asking for assistance.

-Mat Smith

The biggest stories you might have missed

• Nintendo is buying close development partner SRD

• Spotify reportedly took down freshly added episodes of Alex Jones' podcast

• A Pokémon Presents livestream will take place on February 27th

• Google relaxes COVID-19 rules for its US employees | Engadget

• Amazon union organizer arrested for allegedly trespassing at warehouse

• Facebook turns on 'lock profile' tool for people in Ukraine

Twitter restores suspended accounts that tracked Russian military activity

Twitter Safety has also posted tips in Ukrainian on how to keep accounts secure.

Twitter has admitted that it mistakenly removed accounts sharing Russian military activity during its invasion of Ukraine. The deleted accounts, which have since been reinstated, included an aggregator of user-generated posts from Ukraine and accounts owned by people doing open-source intelligence (OSINT) to debunk fake news and claims.

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Oppo Find X5 Pro packs a new AI chip and Hasselblad branding

And I think it’s a pretty device.

Engadget

Oppo’s latest phone looks and sounds like an expensive, powerful flagship. With a 6.7-inch WQHD+ screen that can hit 1,300 nits of brightness, adaptive refresh rates and a new AI chip, made in-house to amp up low light camera performance – even at 4K. There are also two 50-megapixel primary camera sensors, a new (but familiar-sounding) Hasselblad collaboration and a gorgeously curvy design to help it stand out from the competition. US-based readers, however, might never see one.

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Samsung Galaxy S22 review

Building on solid foundations.

Engadget

After Samsung ticked the new design box with last year's S21, now the company has refined it further with the Galaxy S22 and S22+. While they might look a lot like last year's phones, there have been some notable upgrades, especially on the S22's display, performance and camera. The Galaxy S22, starting at $800, offers a boatload of premium features in an attractive chassis with excellent build quality.

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What connects OnlyFans and a terrorism database?

A lawsuit alleges the company is trying to squash rivals.

OnlyFans is facing a pair of lawsuits over claims it conspired with Facebook to disable adult entertainer accounts by placing their content on a terrorism database. One suit was launched earlier this week by a rival platform called FanCentro, and the other is a class action lawsuit made on behalf of three adult entertainers. Both Facebook and OnlyFans were named as defendants in the latter complaint.

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The new Moto Edge+ wants to be a more affordable Galaxy Note

The phone starts at $900 and features active pen support.

Back in 2020, the Moto G Stylus quickly became one of the company’s most popular phones, featuring stylus input on a phone outside of Samsung’s Note series. But now, Motorola is stepping up its ambitions with the new Edge+, which is essentially a more affordable take on a Galaxy Note. Unlike with Samsung’s devices, Motorola’s Smart Stylus is an optional extra that comes bundled with a folio cover, which addresses the phone’s lack of built-in stylus storage. Prices start at $1,000 (or $900 at launch), but again, you’ll pay extra for that stylus.

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'OlliOlli World' is a great Switch experience

Despite a few flaws.

OlliOlli World, the delightfully offbeat skateboarding platformer, launched a few weeks ago on basically every gaming console you could ask for. It’s a clean break for the series, taking familiar gameplay but putting it in a totally redesigned world that allows for more exploration, competition and tricks. The original OlliOlli was released on the PS Vita handheld, meaning its appearance on the also-can-be-a-handheld Switch seems like the most appropriate home for the reboot.

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The Xbox Game Pass rival that Sony is cooking up for the PlayStation will have three tiers that cost $10, $13 and $16 a month, according to VentureBeat's GamesBeat. Bloomberg first reported about the all-in-one game subscription service codenamed Spartacus back in December. Based on the documents the publication saw, Spartacus would merge the perks offered by PlayStation Now and PlayStation Plus and would likely be available for the PS4 and the PS5. This new report gives us more details about the service and what each tier will get you. 

Sony is reportedly calling the Spartacus tiers Essential, Extra and Premium, with the first one being PlayStation Plus in its current form. It will still cost $10, and it will give you access to games every month that you can add to your library. Meanwhile, the Extra tier will cost $13 and will include access to those monthly games, as well as to a game catalogue with hundreds of older games that you can download. That catalogue could possibly be the same as PS Now's. 

Finally, the Premium tier will set you back $16 a month and will include all the aforementioned perks, along with access to PS Now's streaming capabilities and a library of classic games. In addition, it will give you access to a feature called "game trials" that will let you download and start playing new PS games before their release. If it's similar to EA's game trials, then you can only play a title before its official launch for a set number of hours. 

At this point, it's still unclear if Sony will add new first-party exclusives to the service when it becomes available. Sony Interactive Entertainment president and CEO Jim Ryan previously said that it wasn't sustainable to put new releases that cost hundreds of millions to develop in a subscription service. However, Microsoft has purchased Bethesda since then and has also recently started the process of acquiring Activision Blizzard. The tech giant is adding both developers' titles to the Xbox Game Pass, so Sony will have to think of ways to make Spartacus a more enticing option. 

Spartacus is reportedly entering the testing phase in the coming weeks. GamesBeat says Microsoft could also officially reveal the details of the subscription service in March. 

A lot of gadgets operate on a "tick-tock" development cycle, with the most well-known being past iPhones that sported fresh designs, only to be replaced 12 months later by more refined but similar-looking S variants. And after Samsung ticked the box with a fresh new design for last year's S21, now the company has returned with the more polished Galaxy S22 and S22+. While they might look a lot like last year's phones, there have been some notable upgrades, especially on the S22's display, performance and camera.

Design

Even though I'm still not sure how much I love Samsung's Contour Cut camera design, the Galaxy S22 very much looks and feels like a high-end device. The outside of the phone features Samsung's Armor Aluminum alloy that's been polished to a near-mirror finish, with the S22 also being one of the first phones equipped with Corning's Gorilla Glass Victus+ to protect the phone from drops and scratches — both in front and in back.

Sam Rutherford/Engadget

To add a little spice to the mixture, the S22's backside sports a lovely matte texture – which does a surprisingly good job of resisting fingerprints. And for 2022, Samsung also spruced up the S22's color options with new shades of green, pink and white, along with good ole black.

Like previous Galaxy S phones, the S22 comes with an ultrasonic in-screen fingerprint reader, and after years of tweaking its algorithm and improving the tech, this time it feels seriously fast. In my experience, unlocking the phone was practically instant, and I never really ran into recognition issues unless my fingers were legit wet or greasy. (Keep your grubby hands away from my phone if you're eating pizza, k thnx.)

Sam Rutherford/Engadget

The one thing avid movie watchers should be aware of though is the color-matched frames on the pink and white models. If you're the kind of person that might be bothered by a glint or sparkle around the edge of the phone while watching videos, you may want to go with one of the darker color options.

And while it's not really a surprise at this point, the S22 doesn't feature a microSD card slot or a headphone jack. With the Galaxy S line now being three generations removed from the last device to include both of those features, it's pretty clear they're not coming back.

Display

Samsung has had a lock on the crown when it comes to making the best mobile displays in the business for a while now. But on the S22, the company has outdone itself once again with displays that can hit a peak brightness of 1,300 nits on the S22, or an astounding 1,750 nits on the S22+. Suffice to say any fears of the S22's screen being hard to read even in direct sunlight are unfounded.

Sam Rutherford/Engadget

Then, to make things look even better, Samsung created a new feature called Vision Booster designed to amp up things like contrast and color saturation in very bright or dim conditions. While there's no indicator or pop-up that lets you know it's working, I found the effect most pronounced when I used the phone outdoors, with more subtle changes in the dark when compared to phones like the Pixel 6 Pro. I found Vision Booster made dark scenes easier to parse, but even when viewed side-by-side, I basically had to press my face up against the phones to really see the differences.

But regardless of where you are, the end result is a display that lives in technicolor, pumping out vivid shades and hues, along with the perfectly dark inky blacks that make OLED screens so enthralling. Plus, thanks to a 2,340 x 1,080 resolution and a variable 120Hz refresh rate, everything from photos to gifs look sharp and crisp.

Performance

The Galaxy S22 line is one of the first phones to feature Qualcomm's new Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 chip, which when combined with 8GB of RAM and 128GB of storage (or 256GB if you opt for the upgrade) results in a phone that feels blisteringly fast. In my experience, there isn't really anything you can throw at the S22 that makes it even sweat, aside from stuff like hardcore multitasking when connected to an external monitor via Samsung Dex (which is still very much a thing).

Sam Rutherford/Engadget

And while some reports claim that Qualcomm's Snapdragon Gen 8 Gen 1 has a proclivity for running hot, S22's built-in vapor chamber cooling system seems effective at keeping throttling to a minimum. Compared to the S21 FE, which features an older Snapdragon 888 chip, our S22+ posted scores in Geekbench 5's Compute test around 25 percent higher (4,708 vs 5,999). And while the gap wasn't quite as large in Geekbench 5's CPU test, the S22+ still posted a significantly higher single-core score of 1,213 compared to 1,061 for the S21 FE.

As for wireless connectivity, all versions of the S22 and S22+ support all the important flavors of 5G, including Verizon and AT&T's new C-band spectrum.

Cameras

After recent advancements from competitors like the iPhone 13 and Pixel 6, Samsung is now playing catchup to Apple and Google in the camera department. And while Samsung is touting a bunch of new camera features for the S22 and S22+ like Adaptive Pixel and various "Nightography" improvements, the real upgrades are the S22's new sensors — particularly the one for its 50MP main cam.

Sam Rutherford/Engadget

Thanks to that significantly higher resolution (up from 12MP on the S21), photos from the S22's main wide-angle camera are just flat-out sharper than before. But more importantly, the S22's primary camera offers wider dynamic range and big improvements for low-light photos. In darker scenes, the S22 uses a four-to-one pixel binning technique that combines four adjacent pixels into one big pixel, which allows for improved light sensitivity. The result is brighter photos with richer colors, especially at night. And even though Google's Night Sight still has a slight advantage over Samsung's Night Mode, the S22 has seriously narrowed the gap.

Elsewhere, you also get a solid 12MP ultra-wide camera with a 120-degree field of view, and a 10MP telephoto camera with a 3x optical zoom, the latter of which is important because neither the standard iPhone 13 or Pixel 6 comes with a dedicated zoom lens. So once again, the base S22 is the most well-rounded camera phone for the money. And in front, the 10MP selfie camera captured crisp pictures of my face including my many pores and blemishes, though you can always play around with Samsung's beauty settings if you want to put on a smoother face for social media.

Where things get frustrating is that some of the S22's new camera features are often hard to use, or even tell when they're working — with the main offender being Samsung's Adaptive Pixel feature. Adaptive Pixel uses multi-frame image capture to shoot pics using the main sensor's full resolution along with lower-res pixel-binned shots, before merging them together to create a higher-quality composite final image. The issue is that Adaptive Pixel isn't turned on by default, and searching the phone's settings for it doesn't return any matches.

To even activate this, you need to first make sure Samsung's scene optimizer is on, then you have to turn on the camera app's full 50MP capture mode, make sure the Detail Enhancer setting is disabled, and then point the S22 at a dark scene and hope Adaptive Pixel kicks in. And I do mean hope, because there's no pop-up or notification that lets you know when the feature is activated. Even when you do get it to work, while the pictures are a bit sharper and feature a more neutral color profile (which is better for anyone who wants to edit their pics later), Adaptive Pixel doesn't really produce magically superior images like Samsung's marketing may have led you to believe.

Sam Rutherford/Engadget

That's kind of a shame after all the attention Adaptive Pixel got during the S22's debut at Samsung's recent Unpacked event. Thankfully, other new camera features like Auto Framing work as advertised, allowing the phone to track up to 10 people's faces when capturing video, while Samsung's Advanced OIS ensures that your clips look smooth and shake-free. The company's AI Stereo Depth Map technique also makes the phone a bit better at differentiating between your subject's face and the background in portrait mode, though you may have to do some serious zooming in to really see the difference.

In short, I like a lot of the changes Samsung has made to the S22's camera setup, raising its general photo prowess, even if some of the phone's new software don't quite live up to expectations.

Software

Sam Rutherford/Engadget

The Galaxy S22 line comes with Samsung's One UI 4.0, which is based on Android 12. That means because it has long supported features like scrolling screenshots, the main upgrades in Samsung's latest Android skin are the new Privacy Dashboard and customization options for your home screen, app icons and the phone's UI. Similar to what's available in Google's Pixel phones, the customizations allow you to set a consistent color palette across your phone's menu, while new mic and camera notifications make sure you know when apps are accessing critical hardware components.

Other software upgrades include Live Sharing in Google Duo, which is a Samsung-exclusive feature that lets you share your screen during video chats. It's simple and effective, even if it's not quite as full-featured as Apple's SharePlay in iOS 15. And for those looking to keep better track of digital documents like your ID, credit cards, and even digital car keys, Samsung also made a new Digital Wallet that can securely store all those things in one place.

Battery life

Sam Rutherford/Engadget

Featuring 3,700 and 4,500 mAh batteries respectively, both the S22 and S22+ have respectable longevity. But if lasting a long time between charges is really important for you, the S22+ is definitely the better pick as it lasted 17 hours and 33 minutes on our local video rundown test, compared to just 14 hours and 47 minutes for the standard S22. And thanks to its 45W wired charging (up from 25W charging on the S22), the S22+ juices up way faster too. In both cases though, you'll need to make sure you have the proper power brick, as neither phone comes with a charging adapter in the box.

S22 vs S22+

Aside from the obvious differences in screen size (6.1 inches vs. 6.6 inches) and overall dimensions (5.8 x 2.8 x 0.3 inches and 5.9 ounces vs. 6.2 x 2.9 x 0.3 inches and 6.9 ounces), there are a few other features that separate the S22 and S22+. The S22 is limited to 25-watt wired charging while the S22+ gets 45-watt wired charging, with both phones also featuring 15W Qi wireless charging and 4.5W reverse wireless charging (aka wireless power share).

Other differences include slightly faster WiFi speeds on the S22+ thanks to support for WiFi 6E (compared to standard WiFi 6 for the S22). The S22+ also has built-in UWB connectivity, which isn't available on the S22. UWB is one of many protocols used to send files to other devices wirelessly via Nearby Share, though that's not really a big deal since Nearby Share still works, albeit less swiftly, over WiFi and Bluetooth. The other consideration is that for people looking to use digital car keys from automakers like BMW and others, those often work better and have longer ranges using UWB compared to NFC, which might make the S22+ a better choice for more tech-savvy new car buyers.

Wrap-up

Sam Rutherford/Engadget

The Galaxy S22 isn't a huge improvement or departure from last year's phone, but just like an "S-year" iPhone, Samsung has tweaked and elevated all the phone's most critical components. You're getting a more refined design, improved performance, a sharper main cam with better low-light photography and an even brighter screen. And that's saying something from the king of mobile displays.

Sure, some features like Vision Booster and Adaptive Pixel are more subtle or harder to use than I'd like, but putting all this in a chassis sporting excellent build quality and other premium features like IP68 dust and water resistance, reverse wireless charging and more is a formula that's hard not to like. And with a starting price of $800 for the standard S22, you're getting more phone for the money than anything you can buy from Apple or Google.

OlliOlli World, the delightfully offbeat skateboarding platformer, launched a few weeks ago on basically every gaming console you could ask for. It’s a clean break for the series, taking familiar gameplay but putting it in a totally redesigned world that allows for more exploration, competition and tricks.

You may not recall, but the original OlliOlli was released in 2014 exclusively for the PS Vita before hitting more platforms over the following years. That was my first exposure to the game, and I played it non-stop whenever I traveled; for a few years, the Vita was a constant companion on work trips and vacations alike.

I sunk untold hours into the two OlliOlli games on the Vita, mastering almost everything they threw at me. (I was never able to hack the insane “Rad” mode, where you had to make every single landing perfectly or else you’d slam and have to start the level over.) So while I was thrilled to try OlliOlli World on the PS5, I’ve also been wondering how it works on the Switch — would this be my new on-the-go gaming addiction, or do the compromises of playing on aging hardware degrade the experience?

After a couple weeks, I’m happy to say that OlliOlli World looks and plays great on the Switch. Still, there are a few things you’ll want to know as you decide which platform to buy it on. Of course, the game gives up some visual fidelity on the Switch — as with all games, 1080p when docked to a TV and 720p on the console’s built-in display is as good as it gets, a far cry from the beautifully detailed 4K visuals you’ll get on the PS5 or Xbox Series X. OlliOlli World on the Switch does target 60 fps, similar to other consoles.

Roll7

None of these changes are surprising; we all know the Switch is less powerful than modern systems. But fortunately, these changes largely don’t make a difference. The character models of your skater, as well as the many people you meet across the skateboarding haven of Radlandia, are indeed less detailed on the Switch. What’s most important is that the game’s gorgeous art style still shines. OlliOlli World is one of the most vibrant games I’ve ever played, and it looks especially vibrant on the OLED Switch’s screen. While it took me a few minutes to adjust to the lower-resolution experience here, I mostly didn’t think about it once I got down to the game’s core skateboarding action.

The difference in frame rate is more noticeable. OlliOlli World is an extremely fast game, one that really benefits from running at 60 fps. But despite the fact that developer Roll7 targeted 60 fps for the Switch, there were times that I felt like it dipped even below 30 fps. Roll7 did a great job of making the Switch version feel smooth enough that gameplay isn’t usually impacted, but sometimes the game would drop frames in a crucial moment that led to me unceremoniously slamming after a trick. The vast majority of the time, things stayed steady enough that it didn’t impact my gameplay. But there’s no doubt that you’ll notice dropped frames compared to how the game plays on the PS5.

I also came across frame rate drops in other parts of the game, like the animation that happens when your skater kicks off a run, or the loading screen transitions that take place when moving from the map into a level. These don’t affect gameplay, but they’re hard to ignore and add to the feeling that the Switch struggles a bit to keep up with the action. But the fact that the frame rate usually stays solid when you’re on a course is far more important.

Probably the most significant compromise that comes when playing on the Switch are the Joy-Con’s relatively tiny analog sticks. Compared to the spacious sticks on PlayStation and Xbox controllers, it’s a bit harder to pull off the game’s more complex tricks when playing on the Switch. Again, though, it’s not a deal-breaker. I’ve thrown down plenty of impressive runs and beat nearly every single challenge the game has thrown at me over the course of dozens of levels.

That said, I’m getting far enough into OlliOlli World on the Switch that levels are getting increasingly difficult, and I’m a little worried about keeping up with the more difficult levels that’ll come over the two worlds I have yet to conquer yet. I’m confident that I’ll be able to make it through basically any level the game throws at me. But each level has a number of specific challenges you can optionally complete — to truly master those, I might end up docking my Switch to the TV and playing with the Switch Pro Controller, which has much better analog sticks than the Joy-Con.

On the other hand, the PS Vita analog sticks are even smaller than those on the Switch, and I eventually mastered two OlliOlli games on that system. There’s no doubt that bigger controllers make pulling off the game’s tricks more comfortable and probably easier, but OlliOlli World is still extremely playable on the Switch.

To sum it up: there are a handful of compromises across graphics and gameplay if you choose to play on the Switch rather than a more powerful console. But I don’t think that they should stop you from playing the game on Nintendo’s handheld. It’s a great pick-up-and-play game, the kind of title you can spend a rewarding 10 minutes with or get lost in for multiple hours. The experience is a little more refined on Sony and Microsoft’s more powerful consoles, but you can’t easily take that on the go with you. If you don’t care about that, snap it up on the PS5 or Xbox Series X / S. But if you’re looking for a game that’s at home both on your TV and away from it, OlliOlli World on the Switch fits the bill perfectly.

One of the more popular VR apps you can download through Steam and Meta’s Oculus Quest Store has a child safety problem. If you’re unfamiliar with VRChat, the app styles as “the future” of social virtual reality. “Our vision for VRChat is to enable anybody to create and share their own social virtual worlds,” the game’s developer says on its Steam store page. With some understanding of Unity, players can create their own social spaces and avatars. That means you can see a lot of creativity on display in VRChat, but there’s also a dark side to it as the BBC found out.

Posing as a 13-year-old girl, BBC researcher Jess Sherwood said she entered a virtual strip club where she saw adult men chase a child while telling them to remove their clothes. In many of the rooms Sherwood visited, she frequently saw condoms and sex toys on display, and on one occasion even saw a group of adult men and minors simulating group sex. She also saw instances of grooming. 

"It's very uncomfortable, and your options are to stay and watch, move on to another room where you might see something similar, or join in — which, on many occasions, I was instructed to do," she said.

"Predatory and toxic behavior has no place on the platform,” VRChat told the BBC. The developer added it was “working hard to make itself a safe and welcoming place for everyone.” We’ve reached out to the company for additional comment. Part of the problem stems from the fact nearly anyone can download and play VRChat. For instance, to download the app from the Oculus Quest Store, all you need is a Facebook account. Sherwood created a fake profile to set up her account and access VRChat.  

She isn’t the first person to notice VRChat has a child safety problem. While the game has a “Very Positive” rating on Steam, the presence of predatory adults is something you see referenced frequently in both positive and negative reviews. “Enjoyable social VR slowly being ruined by horny degenerates and ddosers,” said one player with more than 2,300 hours spent in the game.

“The amount of ‘people’ around the age of 30 attempting to do stuff like flirting all the way to trying to have e-sex with clearly underage users is alarming,” said another player.

VRChat isn’t the only metaverse app dealing with what amounts to a harassment problem. At the start of February, Meta added a Personal Boundary feature to Horizon Worlds to give users the ability to prevent people from entering their personal space. More recently, Microsoft took the dramatic step of removing Altspace VR’s social hubs. 

Those who were able to lock in an early shipment date for the Steam Deck are perhaps just a few days away from getting their hands on the system. To give a clearer idea of which Steam games will run on the handheld PC, Valve has set up a page where you can check whether titles in your library are compatible.

After you log in with your Steam account, the tool will organize your library into a few sections. If a game is marked as Verified, it should run on Steam Deck with few, if any, hiccups. Unsurprisingly, Valve games such as Half-Life 2 and Portal 2 are deemed Verified, as are third-party games such as God of War, Death Stranding, Tetris Effect and Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice.

Those labeled Playable will run on the system but "might require extra effort to interact with or configure," according to Valve. Valheim, The Witcher 3, Inscryption and The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim are among those.

There might be some games in your library that don’t currently work on the device at all. One of those, sadly, is Fall Guys. Virtual reality games like Half-Life: Alyx and the VR version of Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice won't run on it either. The tool will also say how many games in your library haven’t yet been tested on Steam Deck. 

Valve has tested a little more than 400 games on Steam Deck so far, according to SteamDB. As of Wednesday, there were 64,679 games listed on Steam, so the company has only checked a fraction of them on its new hardware. Valve is continuing to test games though, so more will be Verified in the coming months.

The tool builds on a set of labels Valve has been adding to Steam games over the last few months. Although there are many more untested games than ones Valve has actually checked, this could still be a handy way to see whether buying a Steam Deck might be worthwhile.

A new wave of 5G-enabled cars are headed our direction. Audi is the latest automaker to announce it will offer 5G connectivity in select models of future cars. The German manufacturer announced today that select models of Audi vehicles, beginning in 2024, will be able to connect to Verizon’s 5G Ultra Wideband network. 

Drivers of the new Audi 5G lineup can expect a host of new features, including higher speeds to download or stream entertainment, an improved in-car navigation system with 3D mapping, cloud-based user-profiles and even the (arguably dangerous) ability to buy things in your car.

Just note that drivers will likely need to pay a subscription to access Audi's 5G in-car services. While Audi didn't disclose how much a 5G subscription would cost, the current Function On-Demand plan with 4G in-car WiFi and navigation is $849 a year on most models. 

The new 5G vehicles will also build on Audi’s current crop of in-car connected services, including information on traffic lights and low-latency road alerts. This will likely mean an even faster and more detailed version of what Audi’s 4G-enabled cars already offer. We’ve already seen current Audi models that offer integrated payment for toll roads and will alert drivers when they’re near a school bus, cyclists, road crews and other obstacles.

Audi’s 5G cars will also be equipped with mobile edge computing, which likely means better autonomous driving features since the cars will be able to react to data instantly. The tech industry has pushed for mobile edge computing on cars as a way to improve the safety of AV features. Edge computing will allow for real-time data processing, so cars can respond faster to other cars, infrastructure, and connected devices on the road.

The US is getting closer to the connected car future that major automakers like Audi, BMW, Volvo, Ford have pushed for. Roughly 60 percent of US drivers rode a connected vehicle in 2021, and that number is expected to grow to more than 70 percent by 2025, according to an eMarketer report. While drawbacks for drivers include the added costs of subscription plans and cybersecurity risks, many still enjoy the added safety and entertainment features.