There are a few things you can bank on when it comes to Bose headphones. The first is powerful and effective active noise cancellation (ANC) that’s been the best in the industry for years. You can also reliably expect that the company’s new set of cans will be comfortable over the course of a long flight or extended work session. Bose continues to check both boxes with the QuietComfort Ultra Headphones ($429), but the marquee feature here is the company’s unique take on spatial audio. However, more immersive sound and a refreshed design, along with everything else the company is known for, comes at a higher price.

Design

After debuting a refreshed design on the Bose 700 headphones in 2019, the company returned to its old aesthetic on subsequent models. With the QuietComfort Ultra Headphones, Bose did a mix of the two, but it mostly stuck to the traditional look of the QC line. The outside of the ear cups are where the blend of the 700 and previous QuietComfort models is most apparent. They have a similar shape to those on the 2021 QC 45s, but the physical buttons are almost entirely gone, more like the 700s.

Bose removed the three-button setup for playback and volume, instead assigning play/pause, skipping tracks and changing audio modes to a single multi-function control. Just below it on the right ear cup, the Bluetooth pairing button also handles power. The company moved the on-board volume adjustment to a touch-sensitive strip that you can glide your finger across to raise or lower the level. Bose also allows you to assign a shortcut to the volume slider that’s activated by long pressing on it. Even though it’s touch-based, the slider reliably recognized my thumb swipes.

Another notable design change is the headband and hinge. Bose gave these a refined look by using metal instead of relying entirely on plastic. The hinge is better integrated in the headband so there are no visible screws until you fold the ear cups in. Those ear cups can also rotate flat, consistent with previous models over the years. Even with all the changes, Bose managed to keep things extremely comfortable during long listening sessions. Both the earpads and the inside of the headband are soft and cushiony, and I didn’t notice the extra weight.

Software and features

Photo by Billy Steele/Engadget

All the settings are found inside the Bose Music app. Once connected, the software serves up battery life and a volume slider right up top, with quick access to audio modes, Bluetooth connections, EQ, Immersive Audio, shortcut customization and tips underneath. The app also has a media player that mirrors whatever you’re playing elsewhere, so you don’t have to leave to control tunes when you’re tweaking headphone settings.

For audio modes, Bose gives you three by default: Quiet, Aware and Immersion. The first is just active noise cancellation, while the second is full transparency. Immersion is both  maximum ANC and Immersive Audio. Bose also offers the ability to create your own modes with an adjustable noise canceling, the option of wind block and Immersive Audio. Once you create a new mode, favoriting it will make it accessible via the QuietComfort Ultra Headphones’ on-board controls.

For Immersive Audio, there are three options to choose from. You can disable it entirely for the stock Bose tuning, and to save battery life, or you can opt for Still or Motion settings. The former keeps the audio at a fixed point and it is best for when you’re sitting. The latter allows the audio to follow you as you move around, using head tracking to keep the sound in front of you at all times.

In order to use that long press on the volume slider shortcut, you first have to enable it in the Bose app. From there, you can assign a handful of actions to the gesture. These include hearing the battery level, cycling through the Immersive Audio presets, accessing a voice assistant or playing content from Spotify. If none of those seem particularly helpful, you can always leave it turned off.

Sound quality and Immersive Audio

Photo by Billy Steele/Engadget

While the headline feature is Immersive Audio, Bose has also improved its stock tuning on the QuietComfort Ultra Headphones. Before I even activated spatial audio, I could tell the sound was considerably warmer and clearer, with more bass right out of the box. Overall sound quality is one area Bose lagged slightly behind the likes of Sony and Sennheiser, but the company is certainly catching up.

Bose’s take on spatial audio doesn’t rely on specialized content like Dolby Atmos in Apple Music or Sony 360 Reality Audio. Those formats have been engineered to specifically make the instruments sound like they’re playing around you. Bose uses a combination of headphone components and its newly developed signal processing for Immersive Audio. Thanks to virtualization, it works with any content and that makes it more convenient.

Like the dedicated spatial audio formats, the first thing you’ll notice is the sound is louder. Immersive Audio lends more overall presence to music, but there’s also heightened clarity and detail. Rather than surround you with sound, Bose claims to put you in the acoustic sweet spot, as if you were sitting in the perfect position in front of a set of high-end speakers. Indeed, the company achieves this as albums like TesseracT’s prog-metal War of Being have an atmospheric depth while preserving finer details – from the texture of the singer’s growl to subtle nuances in the drums.

At times, Bose’s spatial audio can make songs sound worse. On Tyler Childers’ “In Your Love,” the vocals are sharp and tinny, and the reverb is accentuated to the point it becomes a distraction from the rest of the music. And the vocals are now several notches louder than the instruments. When it hits, this audio tech is a joy to listen to, but because Bose is relying on signal processing rather than carefully engineered content, the results can vary greatly.

Another area Bose continues to improve is transparency mode. On the QuietComfort Ultra Headphones, the company offers noticeably clearer audio when piping in your surroundings and allowing you to hear your voice. It’s still not as good as what Apple manages on the AirPods Max (no one comes close really), but Bose is making strides. That certainly helps when you’re taking a call or need to be tuned into your environment.

Stellar noise canceling performance is nothing new on a set of Bose headphones. The company is consistently the best in terms of allowing you to block out the world and the same holds true with the QC Ultra Headphones. Constant rumbling from an air conditioner or white noise machine is reduced to barely a whisper. The headphones do a great job with TV sound and human voices too – even the lethal combination of a nine-year-old playing Fall Guys.

Call quality

Photo by Billy Steele/Engadget

Bose promises “amazingly clear calls” on the QC Ultra Headphones, a claim that’s on par with nearly every headphone company these days. While I wouldn’t describe the audio quality for calls that way, it’s suitable for everyday voice and video calls when you just need to hear and be heard. It doesn’t sound like you’re on speakerphone, but it’s not pristine either. That’s better than what a lot of the competition offers and near the best you’ll get on wireless headphones.

Battery life

Bose says you can expect up to 24 hours of use with ANC turned on. If you opt for both noise cancellation and Immersive Audio, that figure drops to 18 hours. However, during my tests using the latter option, both the Bose app and macOS were showing 30 percent remaining after 20 hours. So while it’s true that the company’s new spatial audio impacts battery life, the QC Ultra Headphones still surpass the stated numbers.

To help you conserve battery, the QC Ultra Headphones will automatically turn off when they aren’t being worn and no audio is playing for 10 minutes. There’s also a quick-charge feature that gives you two and a half hours of use in 15 minutes. That’s with ANC on and Immersive Audio off though. If you need spatial audio during this time, Bose says you can expect 30 minutes less battery life after the fast top off.

The competition

While Bose has done a lot to catch up, it still doesn’t offer the suite of features that Sony does on the WH-1000XM5. No company does and that’s why the M5 is consistently at the top of our best wireless headphones list. The QuietComfort Ultra Headphones do offer more effective noise cancellation, but there’s nothing akin to Sony’s Speak-to-Chat automatic pausing or the ability to change audio modes based on your activity or location. The M5 also supports Sony’s DSEE Extreme that uses AI to upscale compressed audio and increase depth and clarity. The results are far more consistent than Bose’s Immersive Audio.

Wrap-up

With the QuietComfort Ultra Headphones, Bose remains near the top of the headphone heap. While Immersive Audio is great at times, the results are inconsistent and can be downright bad with some albums and songs. Still, the default tuning is improved and puts these headphones closer to the level of Sony and Sennheiser sonically, mostly due to added bass, increased clarity and enhanced warmth. Bose needed to nail its new trademark feature to help justify the higher price, but it failed to do so. The QuietComfort Ultra Headphones showcase a number of improvements over previous Bose models, but they’re not good enough to dethrone the king.

As expected, the commissioners of the Federal Communications Commission voted along party lines to move forward with a plan to largely restore Obama-era net neutrality protections. All three of the agency's Democratic commissioners voted in favor of the Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (PDF), with the two Republican commissioners dissenting.

FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel, who has long supported net neutrality rules, last month announced a proposal to reclassify fixed broadband as an essential communications service under Title II of the Communications Act of 1934. It also aims to reclassify mobile broadband as a commercial mobile service.

If broadband is reclassified in this way, the FCC would have greater scope to regulate it in a similar way to how water, power and phone services are overseen. As such, it would have more leeway to re-establish net neutrality rules.

Supporters believe that net neutrality protections are fundamental to an open and equitable internet. When such rules are in place, internet service providers have to provide users with access to every site, content and app at the same speeds and conditions. They can't block or give preference to any content and they're not allowed to, for instance, charge video streaming streaming services for faster service.

"The proposed net neutrality rules will ensure that all viewpoints, including those with which I disagree, are heard," Commissioner Anna Gomez, who was sworn in as the panel's third Democratic member in September, said ahead of the vote. "Moreso, these principles protect consumers while also maintaining a healthy, competitive broadband internet ecosystem. Because we know that competition is required for access to a healthy, open internet that is accessible to all."

On the other hand, critics say that net neutrality rules are unnecessary. "Since the FCC’s 2017 decision to return the Internet to the same successful and bipartisan regulatory framework under which it thrived for decades, broadband speeds in the U.S. have increased, prices are down, competition has intensified, and record-breaking new broadband builds have brought millions of Americans across the digital divide," Brendan Carr, the senior Republican on the FCC, said in a statement. "The Internet is not broken and the FCC does not need Title II to fix it. I would encourage the agency to reverse course and focus on the important issues that Congress has authorized the FCC to advance."

Restoring previous net neutrality rules (which the Trump administration overturned in 2017) has been part of President Joe Biden's agenda for several years. However, until Gomez was sworn in, the FCC was deadlocked, leaving that goal in limbo until now.

The FCC suggests that reclassification will grant it more authority to "safeguard national security, advance public safety, protect consumers and facilitate broadband deployment." In addition, the agency wants to "reestablish a uniform, national regulatory approach to protect the open internet" and stop ISPs from "engaging in practices harmful to consumers."

The FCC will now seek comment on the proposal with members of the public and stakeholders (such as ISPs) having the chance to weigh in on the agency's plan. After reviewing and possibly implementing feedback, the FCC is then expected to issue a final rule on the reclassification of broadband internet access. As the Electronic Frontier Foundation points out, this means net neutrality protections could be restored as soon as next spring.

It's still not a sure thing that net neutrality protections will return, however. The implementation of revived rules could face legal challenges from the telecom industry. It may also take quite some time for the FCC to carry out the rulemaking process, which may complicate matters given that we're going into a presidental election year. 

Nevertheless, net neutrality is a major priority for the fully staffed commission under Rosenworcel. “We’re laserlike focused on getting this rulemaking process started, then we're going to review the record, and my hope is we'll be able to move to order," the FCC chair told The Washington Post. 

What good are AI-powered processors without apps that take full advantage of them? That seems to be the question Intel has been asking itself lately. The company just announced a new initiative, the AI PC Acceleration Program, which is meant to help developers create new AI-powered features that take advantage of Intel's upcoming Core Ultra mobile chips.

Those processors, which are due to arrived on December 14th, are notable for being the company's first to include a neural processing unit (NPU). Just like how a GPU speeds up gaming tasks, an NPU accelerates AI workloads, like the background blur feature in Windows 11's video chat Studio Effects. An NPU alone won't make people rush out to buy new notebooks, though. What Intel needs are compelling reasons for people to want AI acceleration.

Enter the AI PC Acceleration Program, which so far includes more than 100 software vendors and over 300 AI-powered features, according to Intel. These aren't just no-name developers either: Current participants include Audacity, Adobe, BlackMagic, Webex and Zoom. As part of the program, Intel connects developers with AI toolkits like OpenVINO, design resources, and marketing help. This is uncharted territory for most software makers, after all — Intel's assistance could help them to deliver useful AI features more quickly.

"We at Audacity are thrilled to be partnering with Intel to help bring powerful, open and, most importantly, free AI tools to a mass audience of AI PC users," Martin Keary, Audacity's head of product, said in a statement. "With time, we expect these kinds of initiatives to produce a new kind of creative environment for musicians, podcasters and audiophiles – a worthy successor to the traditional audio tools that have typified the last 20 years."

This isn't the first time Intel has tried to push developers to build new AI features, Robert Hallock, Intel's senior director of client technology and performance marketing, told Engadget. It runs similar initiatives for server and datacenters, which have led to around 1,000 examples of AI-enabled software. Developers will be able to sign up for the AI PC Acceleration Program online, and Intel will then determine there eligibility and the resources they'll require.

Hallock notes that the fruit of Intel's AI push won't just be limited to the company's NPUs either—they should also run on AI hardware from AMD and Intel without much extra effort. Looking ahead, he expects NPUs to be a common component in all PC processors, making them something developers can rely on even more. Developers will still target CPUs for latency-sensitive work, while games and 3D rendering will go straight for GPU power. But the NPU will be the go-to solution for long-running, power-intensive AI tasks because it's far more efficient than GPUs and CPUs.

"In the quest for performance per Watt, having this third accelerator makes a big difference," Hallock said. "It extends battery life, it allows GPU offloads. That's one of the key benefits."

Discord is introducing new safeguards to protect young users. On Thursday, the company announced Teen Safety Assist. With this week’s initial rollout, the program consists of two features: Automated alerts and content filters.

Moving forward, when a user a teen hasn’t chatted with before sends a direct message, Discord will display a safety alert if the platform’s automated systems suspect the teen’s safety could be at risk. The prompt will nudge the young person to reconsider if they want to respond to the message, and point them to the app’s block feature and related safety tips.

By default, Discord will now also automatically blur potentially sensitive images from a teen’s friends and delete sensitive content from strangers. Young people can disable the feature through an option in Discord’s settings menu. Adults, meanwhile, can enable the filters for themselves, if they want the additional protections.

The introduction of Teen Safety Assist comes amid increased scrutiny of Discord’s efforts to limit the spread of child sexual abuse material (CSAM) and protect young users from predatory adults. In June, NBC News identified 35 cases over a period of six years where adults had allegedly used the platform to kidnap, groom or sexually assault minors. The outlet also found 165 cases where authorities were prosecuting adults for sharing CSAM over Discord or allegedly using the platform to extort young users into sending sexual images of themselves.

In the aftermath of the report, Discord banned teen dating servers and changed its safety policies to ban the sharing of AI-generated CSAM. It also announced new rules explicitly prohibiting any other kind of text or media content that sexualizes children. At the same time, the company introduced Family Center, a dashboard for parents and guardians to keep track of what their teens are doing on Discord.

Discord

“Teens are still in the process of learning about themselves and what it means to be online, and our new safety features are rooted in providing them with agency on the platform, to give them ways to learn and grow in safe and age-appropriate online spaces,” said Savannah Badalich, senior director of policy at Discord. “These newest features are part of an ongoing, multi-year effort to continually evolve and advance safety on Discord.”

At the same time, Discord is introducing a new warning system for people who violate its policies. Outside of incidents involving the most “extreme” violations, the company is moving away from permanent bans. It’s doing so under the belief that most users will choose to be better online citizens given the chance and proper guidance.

In practice, the system will notify a person when they’ve violated one or more of Discord’s policies and detail the restrictions on their account. It will also link out to the company’s Terms of Service, Community Guidelines and appeal mechanism. A new “Account Standing” tab within the settings menu will allow users to see all their current and past policy violations.

“We think we’ve built the most nuanced and proportionate reporting system,” Badalich told Engadget, adding the company hopes other platforms will look to what Discord has created for inspiration related to their own enforcement efforts. “We believe people, especially teens, have the capacity to grow.”

Separately, Discord announced a slew of new features and enhancements slated to arrive either in the near future or down the line. To start, the platform’s in-app shop, which Discord began testing last month with Nitro subscribers, will soon be available to all users. The marketplace features digital items people can use to decorate their avatars and profiles. Discord will offer store discounts to Nitro members, as part of a new perk for signing up.

Discord

This week, the company will also start rolling out a feature called Remix. It allows users to edit an image directly within Discord’s mobile app and share it with their friends and servers. The company spent much of the last year improving its Android and iOS clients. One recent update saw it improve app launch times on both platforms. In the near future, Discord says people can expect a new “Midnight” dark mode the company claims reduces battery consumption on devices with OLED screens, more functional notification tabs and a new search feature for the settings menu to make it easier to find the exact option you’re looking to tweak.

Last but not least, the company says it will begin rolling out Premium App Subscriptions to eligible developers in the UK and Europe, following a launch that began in the US a few weeks ago. On the subject of third-party apps, bots and plugins, the company said it’s in the process of exploring how to make those accessible across nearly every part of Discord. It provided few details on the effort, but said the goal is to allow people to access their favorite apps and bots without those experiences being restricted to select servers.

“We're experimenting with a few different things, but the goal is for developers to reach more people with the awesome experience they're building. For users, we don’t want them to be gated from having these custom experiences at their fingertips,” Cherry Park, director of product marketing at Discord, told Engadget. “In terms of the way we architecture and build it, there are a couple of solutions. Some are easier, some are more difficult, and you're going to see us experiment with a few of them over the next few quarters.”

Discord promised to share more about its efforts around app portability in the near future. In the meantime, Nitro subscribers will get a chance to test new features before they become available to the public.

Samsung was the first manufacturer to make a proper foldable phone, but it’s gotten a bit complacent. Now OnePlus is releasing its first phone with a flexible screen and it’s already giving the Galaxy Z Fold 5 a run for its money. Not only does the Open pack larger displays, both inside and out, it's also thinner and lighter. That is, as long as you don’t count its massive camera module. And with its Open Canvas software, OnePlus is taking a novel approach to multitasking that makes it super fast and easy to switch between apps. 

But perhaps the most impressive thing the Open is doing, is putting pressure on the price of big fancy foldables, because starting at $1,700, it costs $100 less than the Z Fold 5 and Google’s Pixel Fold – and that’s before you factor in OnePlus’ deal that knocks another $200 off with the trade-in of any phone. In a year when we’ve already seen Google release its first foldable phone, the arrival of the OnePlus Open is adding even more excitement to the category.

Displays: Super bright

Similar to Samsung’s Galaxy Z Fold line, the OnePlus Open sports two displays: a skinner 6.3-inch exterior screen along with a 7.8-inch flexible panel on the inside. Both panels are slightly bigger than those on the Z Fold 5 while also featuring 120Hz refresh rates. But the thing the OnePlus has really pushed is brightness, which hits around 1,400 nits during normal use, or up to a mindblowing 2,800 nits in certain situations like when watching HDR content outdoors. And once again, that’s for both displays. However, those numbers are so high, it maxed out my colorimeter, so I can’t fully verify OnePlus’ claims. Regardless, brightness was never an issue.

Design: When every gram matters

OnePlus hasn’t messed around too much with Samsung’s template and stuck with an inward folding design. However, it does feel like the company tried to shave off every extra gram or millimeter. The black model which features a vegan leather back weighs just 239 grams, just one gram lighter than an iPhone 14 Pro Max. Meanwhile, our emerald dusk review unit sports a glass back and only comes in a touch heavier at 245 grams.

The Open is also surprisingly sleek measuring just 11.7mm thick. That’s even thinner than the Pixel Fold (12.1mm). That is, until you factor in its massive camera module which brings the phone’s true thickness to around 18mm. The Open also has a wider exterior display, which makes typing on it much nicer without a ton of added bulk.

Photo by Sam Rutherford/Engadget

Of course, some of the biggest areas of concern on a foldable are its hinge and crease. Thankfully, OnePlus has done a pretty good job with both. There is a faint groove that runs down the middle of its main display, but it’s subtle. You only notice it when viewed from acute angles or if you really go looking for it.

The hinge is also surprisingly smooth and, unlike its rivals, there’s a bit of spring-loaded action to it. So after a certain point it just swings wide open. That’s a nice change coming from the Pixel Fold which always seems to stop right at 179 degrees, no matter what you do. Another detail I appreciate is that the Open closes flush, so you don’t have to worry about keys or other small objects getting inside. Unfortunately, you only get an IPX4 rating for water resistance, which is far short of the IP68 classification on the Pixel Fold and Z Fold 5.

Performance: Mobile multitasking made easy

The OnePlus Open features a Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 chip that results in very similar performance to that of the Galaxy Z Fold 5. Samsung’s phone does enjoy about a five to 10 percent lead in tests like Geekbench 6 due to slightly higher clock speeds. But during everyday use, the advantage is basically imperceptible. But the OnePlus does have 16GB of RAM (versus 12GB on the Z Fold) along with 512GB of base storage–which is double what you get from both Samsung and Google.

Photo by Sam Rutherford/Engadget

However, my favorite thing about the Open is how it handles multitasking. You can obviously do stuff like having two apps open in splitscreen. But if you want more, OnePlus’ Open Canvas software makes it possible to open three apps at once, with little tabs that let you move things around with a single tap. It’s like each app is a little card that slides in and out of view as you need them, and it works surprisingly well. It’s so much faster than sliding up and holding to open recent apps, but without adding too much clutter. And as a tweak on Samsung and Google’s taskbars, OnePlus added a dedicated icon for recent files, so it's super easy to drag and drop docs or photos into email or messages.

That said, as someone who loved older versions of Oxygen OS, I feel like the current design of OnePlus’ UI (following the company’s merger with Oppo) looks a bit cheap. Almost every button aside from in the quick settings is some kind of rounded rectangle, and while it’s functional, it’s also kind of boring.

Cameras: A big bump from Hasselblad

Photo by Sam Rutherford/Engadget

Ever since OnePlus partnered with Hasselblad to upgrade its cameras, the modules on the backs of its phones have gotten bigger and bigger. And while it’s a bit of an eyesore, the Open’s huge camera bump isn’t without reason as it holds a large 1/1.43-inch 64-MP LYTIA T808 main sensor from Sony with a new pixel architecture designed to increase the amount of light it can capture for even better nighttime photos. OnePlus claims it delivers the best image quality on any foldable available today and, while I won’t go quite that far, its pics are relatively close to what you can capture with a Pixel Fold. Photos are sharp and detailed, the one shortcoming is that OnePlus’ low-light processing isn’t quite as good as Google’s Night Sight. But compared to the Z Fold 5, the Open’s pics often had better dynamic range and less exaggerated sharpening.

You also get a 48-MP ultra-wide cam that can also shoot macros, and a 64-MP telephoto with a 3x optical zoom that goes up to a 6x lossless magnification. Once again, while that 3x zoom is every bit a match for the Z Fold 5’s 3x telephoto cam, it's 6x lossless just isn’t quite as sharp as the 5x optical lens on the Pixel Fold. But that’s not a big surprise because there still isn’t a true replacement for high-quality glass.

Battery life: Great longevity but no wireless charging?!

OnePlus has always had somewhat spotty support for wireless charging. Its first phone to have it was the OnePlus 8 Pro in 2020, which was years after its competitors got on board. That support continued on the OnePlus 9, OnePlus 9 Pro, and the OnePlus 10 Pro. But then OnePlus dropped wireless charging for the 10T and the 11, and unfortunately, we don’t get it here on the Open either.

Photo by Sam Rutherford/Engadget

The lack of wireless charging on any $1,000 phone is pretty disappointing, let alone a brand new flagship foldable. My suspicion is that OnePlus didn’t include it because charging coils would have added one or two millimeters in thickness, which would have detracted from the phone’s design. And if that’s true, that’s a pretty weak justification.

On the bright side, wired charging is significantly faster than its competition at 67 watts. And it's even faster in Europe at 80 watts due to their 240-volt power standard. However, because of OnePlus’ proprietary charging system, you only get those speeds when you use the included brick, so if you switch to a third-party adapter, speeds drop in half to around 30 watts.

Thankfully battery life is great. With its exterior display, the Open lasted 25 and a half hours on our video rundown test, which is an hour and a half better than the Z Fold 5. And with its main display, it lasted just over 19 hours, which is also quite respectable.

Pricing: An almost unbelievable discount

Photo by Sam Rutherford/Engadget

When it comes to pricing, big foldables like this have always been pretty expensive, though at $1,700, the Open costs $100 less than both the Z Fold 5 and the Pixel Fold. But to sweeten the pot even further, OnePlus has an enticing deal that will knock another $200 off the price with the trade-in of any phone. Typically there are some limits or restrictions to promos like this, so I had to confirm the details with OnePlus. But the company really does mean any device, regardless of how old it is or what condition it’s in. That means you can finally get rid of the Nokia brick that’s been living in a drawer for the last 10 or 15 years and get some value out of it. And if you do, you’re looking at an effective price of $1,500, which still ain’t cheap, but it is significantly lower than the competition. The caveat is that this discount is only available directly through OnePlus.

Wrap-up

When I first heard OnePlus was making a foldable phone, I wasn’t sure what their goal was. The company hasn’t been in the business of making flagship killers for a while. But with the Open, OnePlus has crammed some rather impressive hardware into a device with a novel approach to multitasking. The Open’s cameras are as good if not slightly better than what you get on a Z Fold 5, and it has bigger screens too. Honestly, there are a lot of things about the Open’s design that I wish we were getting from Samsung, as opposed to the three years of minor refinements we’ve seen following the release of the Z Fold 3.

Photo by Sam Rutherford/Engadget

It’s also important to note that the Open has an alter ego, because depending on where you live, this thing will also be known as the Oppo Find N3. The two phones are essentially the same device just with different branding. That said, the Open will still get four years of Android updates and five years of security patches along with support for all the major US carriers. But unlike Google and Samsung’s offerings, the Open will only be available through online retailers and because OnePlus doesn’t have any local US retail partners, the only way to get the Open serviced is to send it in. That’s a bit of concern as pretty much every foldable phone tends to have an issue with its built-in screen protector bubbling after about a year. So even though OnePlus offers free shipping for repairs under warranty, no one wants to be without their phone for a week or more while it’s in the shop.

Still, I’m impressed with what OnePlus is bringing out the gate.

Alienware just announced a refresh to the popular m17 R5 gaming laptop. The m17 was already a stellar example of an AMD Advantage system and the m18 kicks this up a notch or two. The Alienware m18 goes all-in with AMD integration, with the company boasting that its the “most powerful 18-inch AMD Advantage laptop” ever made.

The term AMD Advantage is marketing speak for a computer that’s built from the ground up for gaming via various AMD chipsets and technologies. To that end, the m18 is the first computer to feature the all-new AMD Radeon RX 7900M laptop graphics chip. These laptops also come equipped with the well-regarded AMD Ryzen 7945HX CPU. So, yeah, this thing’s a beast, with Alienware calling it a “performance juggernaut.”

The Radeon RX 7900M has been engineered to deliver “desktop-class” visuals even when playing power-hungry AAA titles. The GPU is filled with techy features, like second-gen raytracing accelerators, 16GB of GDDR6 VRAM and other “advanced capabilities to push the limits of gaming and content creation on the go.”

The Ryzen 9 7945 CPU helps everything move along thanks to 16 performance cores, 32 processing threads and AMD’s proprietary Zen 4 chiplet technology. The CPU was manufactured using the new 5nm design, the first for gaming laptops, which promises better power efficiency and faster performance.

These laptops ship with AMD’s Adrenaline Edition software suite, so you can access the SmartShift tool to shift power between the GPU and CPU in real-time to boost performance. Additionally, the company’s proprietary SmartAccess graphics tech automatically prioritizes game performance and reduced latency when using FreeSync.

Alienware

Laptops are more than just numbers on a spreadsheet, however, and the m18 has some other perks worth mentioning. These computers come equipped with Alienware’s Cryo-tech thermal regulation technology. This thermal interface material extends to both the CPU and GPU, with an expanded vapor chamber covering each component, helping to dissipate heat across the entire system. Four thin fans finish this process by pulling heated air through eight heat pipes and out via five vents.

You also get an 18-inch display panel equipped with both Dolby Vision and Dolby Atmos, with a 16:10 aspect ratio, QHD+ resolution and a maximum refresh rate of 165Hz. You can overclock this refresh rate all the way to 480Hz at the expense of resolution for competitive gaming scenarios. An FHD webcam and an IR camera for facial recognition are also on board.

As for RAM and storage, there’s user-replaceable dual-channel DDR5 memory and you can shop options with up to three M.2 SSDs for a combined total of 8.5TB of storage. The laptop boasts some aesthetic flourishes, like an aluminum lid and bottom cover, an aluminum die-cast inner frame and an embossed "18" on the exterior. The m18 is available today with a starting price of $2,800.

AMD has unveiled the Radeon RX 7900M mobile GPU built around its RDNA 3 architecture, its fastest mobile gaming chip to date and "first-even chiplet laptop graphics." The company has positioned the new chips for high FPS 1440p (QHD) gaming rather than 4K as a way to boost regular laptop gaming. AMD is also touting its FSR 3 (FidelityFX Super Resolution) upscaling tech that's similar to NVIDIA's DLSS 3, promising a large boost in frame rates for games like Starfield and Forspoken.

As a flagship chip, the RX 7900M comes with 72 compute units (compared to 32 for the RX 7700S) and features 16GB of GDDR6 RAM, while consuming up to 180 watts — well beyond the 110 watt TDP of NVIDIA's RTX 4080 mobile chip. AMD claims it can outperform the latter by 7 percent on average in terms of frame rates, while offering an additional 4GB of GDDR6 RAM. 

AMD

In one example, AMD claimed it could beat a laptop with an RTX 4080 mobile chip by 27 percent on Starfield with a 62 fps frame rate (FSR 2, Ultra 1440p). In another, it said that Forspoken could run at 201 fps with FSR 3 turned on, compared to 63 fps with the setting disabled. It also listed higher frame rates for a number of rasterized games, though it was beaten by a majority ray-traced games run on NVIDIA RTX 4080 GPU-equipped laptops. This is an issue we flagged after reviewing the Radeon RX 7900 XTX and 7900 XT desktop processors last year.

Along with the mobile GPU, AMD announced a partnership with Alienware, integrating its RX 7900M and Ryzen 9 7945HX processor into the m18 laptop. Along with those chips, that model comes with an 18-inch QHD+ (2,560 x 1,600) display, up to 64GB of RAM, 8.5GB of storage max, and more. That model, along with the RX 7900M, is set to arrive in Q4 2023, when we can hopefully put AMD's claims to the test. 

Adobe just released the latest iterations of Photoshop Elements and Premiere Elements. These 2024-branded versions feature plenty of new features that streamline the creative process, many of them aided by, wait for it, artificial intelligence. Beyond AI-powered tools, there’s also some other stuff for photo and video editors to get excited about.

Let’s start with AI features, all of which are powered by Adobe’s new Sensei AI platform. On the Photoshop side of things, there’s a new tool that automatically selects objects and backgrounds for removal, editing or replacement. This looks to be a more nuanced take on Google’s Pixel Magic Eraser tech.

The company says you can use this tool to swap out the sky, which should come in handy for those looking to turn standard outdoor photos into a fiery hellscape. The AI tools even let you smooth out a subject’s skin and complete a number of automatic smart fixes. Additionally, Photoshop Elements 2024 uses AI for its brand-new Artistic Effect options, allowing you to completely transform images into something resembling a famous work of art.

Adobe’s Sensei AI also lets you upscale JPEGs to remove artifacts, creating a more “smooth, natural look.” This should give editors more control over this file type, as it has never been anyone’s first choice when it comes to making image adjustments.

Adobe

As for Premiere, the popular video-editing software suite now uses AI to automatically create highlight reels culled from uploaded footage. The company says that these AI-created clips will “draw people in by focusing on motion, close-ups and your highest quality footage.”

Of course, this is a proper Elements update, so there’s all kinds of features that don’t dive into the AI well. Photoshop gets updated color and tone presets, photo reels that can be saved as MP4s or GIFs, a bunch of new one-click editing options and an aesthetic facelift to tie everything together. There’s even something called Guided Edits, that teaches you how to do things as you go.

Premiere gets a suite of new audio effects, like reverb, and a number of built-in presets to create a unique vibe. Just like Photoshop, there’s a visual redesign that offers a “fresh look” and access to a similar collection of tutorial-based Guided Edits. Both software suites are available now as solo purchases or in a bundle.

WhatsApp is finally giving you the option to send voice notes without concerns about them being recorded or shared. The messaging app is rolling out a feature that lets you set voice notes to view once and then self-destruct, WABetaInfo reports. Now, there's really very little reason to call anyone.

The new feature works similarly to when you set a photo sent over WhatsApp to be viewable only once. When recording a voice note, you'll see the number one inside a circle. Simply click that, and your voice note will become a one-time listen. However, you cant hear it again either, so if you're someone who either likes the sound of your own voice (rare) or to analyze everything you've just said, then you might want to skip it. It also appears that the audio will be lost if your recipient accidentally closes out of the conversation while listening to it.

With voice notes' popularity growing tremendously over the past few years, this new feature could be a great option for sending friends your streaming password, card information or just cold-hard gossip without it getting out there. The ability to set your audio messages to listen once is currently in beta testing on both Android and iPhone devices but should roll out to more testers in the coming days. 

Oppo's first two horizontally folding phones caught our attention with their shorter 9:8.4 "golden" aspect ratio, but with the brand new Find N3, the company sided with a more conventional design, which is backed by some new software tricks to boost the multitasking experience. Not to mention an upgraded set of Hasselblad-branded rear cameras, a vastly improved folding durability, and the alert slider inherited from OnePlus — as we've already seen on the recent Find N3 Flip.

The new foldable AMOLED display on the Oppo Find N3 comes in at 7.8 inches wide, with a resolution set at 2,240 x 2,268, which ends up being a pixel density of 426 ppi. As far as crease goes, it's even less visible than before, so it's definitely fair to call it "virtually crease-free" this time round. The more interesting feature here is the new self-healing coating, which can apparently smooth out scuffs to keep the panel in pristine condition for a little longer.

With the increased body height, the Find N3's cover display features a more familiar — and arguably more practical — 20:9 aspect ratio (though it's still shorter than, say, the Xiaomi Mix Fold 3). Here we have a flat 6.3-inch, 2,484 x 1,116 AMOLED panel (431 ppi), and much like the flexible screen, it supports 1,440Hz PWM dimming for less eye fatigue, 1-120Hz refresh rate, Dolby Vision, HDR10+, up to 1,400 nits in High Brightness Mode and up to 2,800 nits peak. This is noteworthy, considering that many earlier foldable phones have weaker display properties on the inner screen.

Oppo

The Find N3 is built with Oppo's third-generation Flexion hinge, which consists of zirconium-based liquid metal for compactness, as well as the company's self-developed aircraft-grade steel for strength. The flexible screen is also backed by carbon fiber support plates for structural strength, making the device "36-percent more resistant to warping than past-generation foldables." Better yet, Oppo got TÜV Rheinland to certify the Find N3's 1,000,000-fold durability, which is more than double that of the Find N2's "mere" 400,000 folds, let alone the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 5's 200,000 folds. The fold counts remain at 100,000 for both the 50ºC (122°F ) and -20ºC (-4°F) tests. While there's no Ingress Protection Rating here, Oppo has applied a weather-sealing process to make the Find N3 splash-proof.

Photography is also a significant upgrade here. Find N3 is the first smartphone to pack Sony's 48-megapixel (4:3), 1/1.43-inch LYTIA-T808 sensor (it's actually 52 megapixels, 1/1.35 inches in full — 20-percent larger than the main rival's). This is apparently the first sensor to feature a two-layer transistor pixel structure, which is a cunning trick to let each pixel receive more light, thus more image detail. Sony goes as far as claiming that this chip "rivals the high-quality 1-inch type sensor." Additionally, this f/1.7, 24mm-equivalent main camera comes with optical image stabilization.

There's also a 64-megapixel, f/2.6 periscope telephoto camera with an unnamed 1/2-inch sensor — one that's apparently three times larger than what you'd get on a main competitor's foldable. With this 70mm-equivalent lens, you get 3x optical zoom and 6x "lossless" zoom (by cropping), both of which are assisted by optical stabilization via a floating prism structure. You can use the same camera in Hasselblad Portrait mode.

Last but not least, the 48-megapixel, 14mm equivalent ultra-wide camera packs a Sony IMX5811/2-inch sensor, which Oppo claims to be 130-percent larger than key rival’s. It comes with an f/2.2 lens, a 114-degree field of view and macro shot support down to 4cm.

Oppo

To complement the photography hardware upgrade, the Find N3 packs a new Oppo Computational Photography (OCP) feature, which captures the original brightness information for fine-tuning each HDR shot "pixel by pixel." The result is supposedly "a more natural image with rich highlights and shadows." This sounds somewhat like what the now-retired MariSilicon X imaging neural processor would have handled in the past, but Oppo has yet to dive into the technical details on OCP. On a related note, the ProXDR display mode in the gallery app leverages OCP details to optimize the screen’s peak brightness, in order to make the photos pop; but you can also long-press the ProXDR button to see the photos as-is.

For video calls, you also have the option to use either the external 32-megapixel f/2.4 selfie camera (1/3.14-inch, 22mm equivalent), or the internal 20-megapixel f/2.2 counterpart (1/4-inch, 20mm equivalent).

As for the remaining core phone specs, the Find N3 is unsurprisingly packing Qualcomm's flagship Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 processor, along with 16GB of LPDDR5X RAM, 512GB of UFS 4.0 storage, a dual SIM tray, NFC, a triple-speaker system (with spatial audio support) and a larger 4,800mAh battery. With 67W SuperVOOC charging support, the device reaches over 80-percent charge in 30 minutes, or a full charge in 42 minutes. You'll find the new alert slider (silent, vibrate and ring) located right next to the volume rocker, which is above the side-mounted fingerprint reader. The whole package comes in at 239 grams heavy and 5.8mm thick when opened — not record-breaking numbers but still impressive in this category.

On the software side, Oppo justified its shift in aspect ratio by adding some handy multitasking features. In this ColorOS 13.2 (based on Android 13), the new "Global Taskbar" offers an "App Library" button on the far left, which toggles a pop-up menu for quickly launching an app or even dragging it into a split-screen view. There's also a "File Pocket" button next to that, which is another pop-up menu showing your recent files, images and clipboard items, so that you can easily drag and drop into an active app.

Oppo

Another powerful multitasking feature is "Boundless View," which is basically split-screen on steroids. By tapping the top bar above your desired app in split-screen mode, you can click on "Expand View" which then automatically widens said app, but still leaving a small portion of the other app in view, thus letting you quickly swipe between apps. Similarly, you can also have up to three apps in this horizontal split-screen view — just drag the third app from the dock to the center of the screen. By expanding all three apps in this split screen, you'll be creating a "15-inch Boundless View" layout, and you can get an interactive overview with a four-finger pinch at any time. Much like the usual split-screen mode, you can save these Boundless View app combos for quick access on the home screen.

My favorite handy features from before, namely two-finger split screen (swiping down the middle of the screen) and "FlexForm Capture" (partly open the phone while in the camera app), are here to stay. As a bonus, Oppo promises four years of software updates and five years of security updates for the Find N3.

Oppo

The Oppo Find N3, available in "champagne gold" and "classic black," will be rolling out to global markets soon, with pre-orders starting in Singapore on October 20th. The damage is S$2,399 (around US$1,745) which, to our surprise, is a big jump from the Find N2's price for the same 16GB RAM and 512GB storage configuration. The China version is offered as a premium kit, which is asking for 12,999 yuan or about US$1,777, and it comes with a kickstand case, a car charger and other accessories. Luckily for folks over there, they also have a more affordable 12GB RAM and 512GB storage variant for just 9,999 yuan (about US$1,367), but this is still a lot pricier than last year's base model. It'll be interesting to see how the supposedly near-identical OnePlus Open foldable — launching later today — will differentiate itself from its Oppo twin, be it pricing or software.