They’re far more powerful and fun than their bargain price suggests. | Photo: Terrence O’Brien / The Verge
When I'm asked what to buy if you want to get into making electronic music, I often recommend Elektron's budget-minded Model:Samples and Model:Cycles grooveboxes. They don't grab headlines the way Teenage Engineering's gear or the Telepathic Instruments Orchid do, and even compared to the company's higher-end and more niche musical offerings like the Digitakt, Octatrack, or Tonverk, they're often overlooked. But as my collection has grown to include fancier and far more expensive instruments, I still find myself coming back to the Model series.
Those looking to get their first groovebox are often drawn to more familiar brand names like Korg …
The OhSnap Snap Grip Stand, in black and silver. | Photo by Sean Hollister / The Verge
I told myself I wouldn't buy an OhSnap accessory for my phone. Every one I'd tested was nice, but felt overpriced and slightly flawed. After I weighed in on the $40 Snap Grip 5 last year, I wound up sticking with my $25 Syncwire instead. But OhSnap's $50 Snap Grip Stand finally got me. To have a truly useful vertical stand and grip always attached to my phone, ready at a moment's notice? Heck yes.
My favorite phone grip is the one I never want to take off - because it's a great stand. The $50 OhSnap Snap Grip Stand is the company's best yet, effortlessly propping up phones vertically. It's still got double-sided magnet action and …
New plugin support for CrossPoint Reader lets Xteink’s devices access DRM-protected ebooks.
One of the big tradeoffs with Xteink's pocket-friendly e-readers is a lack of easy access to ebooks. On a Kindle or Kobo you can download tens of thousands of titles through each device's respective online bookstores, but with Xteink's devices you have to source DRM-free ebooks on your own. That's about to change, as the developers of CrossPoint Reader, a free alternative firmware for the X3, X4, and X4 Pro, are introducing support for third-party plug-ins that will expand the e-readers' capabilities. One of the first from the community will give the devices access to DRM-protected ebooks borrowed through OverDrive's Libby library app, or pu …
Maximum camera. | Photo: Antonio G. Di Benedetto / The Verge
It wasn't long ago that shooting with a super high-resolution camera meant making serious sacrifices for the sake of all those megapixels. Enter the A7R VI.
Sony's latest flagship high-res camera is a 66.8-megapixel spec monster. In addition to its modest bump in resolution from the last-gen A7R V, it uses a new sensor and processor that unlock nearly any kind of shooting - from sports and action to usable 8K video. It's a huge departure from years ago, when high-resolution cameras were slower, noisier, and more specialized as a result of all those megapixels.
The A7R VI's fully stacked sensor and new Bionz XR2 processor allow it to shoot …
The good news? Despite that, there are still many great options, including the selection we’ve tested and highlighted below.
Before you go for the cheapest option you can still find, consider biting the bullet on a more powerful laptop, especially if you’re buying for a college student. Prices are likely to continue rising well into next year — especially since all the memory being made through 2027 is already allocated. You can get a mostly tolerable laptop for under $500 and a good one for around $700, but spending more to get something like a MacBook Air gets you better build quality and enough performance headroom to last through four years of college and well beyond. (Many Verge writers and editors are still using M1 MacBook Airs from 2020). But even the modest options below (new or refurbished) should easily be good for more than a few years. The key is to avoid something that feels slow or janky on day one, if you can. It’ll only get worse from there.
If your school or curriculum recommends certain laptops or minimum specs, then you already know what to aim for. If not, our rule of thumb is to go with a Mac running Apple silicon or a Windows laptop running Intel or AMD chips released in the last few years. (For Windows machines, don’t go any older than 2022 or 2023 — Intel’s 13th-gen “Raptor Lake” or AMD’s Ryzen 7000 series.) Snapdragon X chips are also great options unless you’re a college student who needs to run specialized software not compatible with Windows on Arm (or if you want to play games).
But try to get 16GB of memory and 512GB of storage or more if you can — especially for college students. Eight GB of RAM is workable on macOS with the MacBook Neo, but Windows laptops struggle a bit with it. And for the most budget-conscious or anyone shopping for younger kids, a quality Chromebook is still great.
The best cheap laptop
Apple MacBook Neo
Score: 9
Pros
Cons
Impressive performance for the price
Perfect for a middle school or high school student
The best mechanical trackpad around
Solid speakers and screen
Small limitations: 8GB of RAM, slow storage, no keyboard backlighting, and only 20W charging with the included charger
Wish it weighed a little less, and its colors were more vibrant
The MacBook Neo is the easy pick for students from middle school to high school who need a laptop. There’s still no beating its balance of build quality and good-enough performance at this price. Students and teachers can get it starting at $599, and Apple offers refurbished models for $599 for the rest of us as well. If you can justify spending an additional $100, it’s worth getting the model with twice the storage and a Touch ID fingerprint sensor, which makes logging in and entering passwords much less of a hassle.
The A18 Pro chip is powerful enough for most high school students (and adults), and everything from its trackpad to its speakers and screen range from good to great, which is not the case for Windows laptops in this price range. Its only shortcoming by comparison is having just two USB-C ports. The 8GB of RAM and 256GB of base storage mean a student eventually pushes the limits of what this laptop can do sooner than a more powerful MacBook Air, but the Neo is still significantly cheaper.
The Neo is the best cheap laptop, but the MacBook Air is still the best laptop for most people, and the standard recommendation for college students. Every part of it is a step up from the Neo: It has a much more powerful processor, and it starts with 16GB of RAM and 512GB of much faster storage. And few laptops can match the Air’s overall build quality. It also means spending $1,299 (or $1,199 for students) on a 13-inch model, or $1,499 for the 15-inch. It’s a shame the Air no longer starts at $999 like it did just last year, but it’s still worth springing for if you’re buying for the long term.
The Airs have been so good for so many years now, you don’t miss out on much by buying a refurbished model if it’s substantially cheaper. Keep an eye on Apple’s refurb store, and retailers like Best Buy sometimes have great deals too.
Asus’s Zenbook A14 is a bit of a MacBook Air wannabe, but it’s a compelling alternative if you value a superlight Windows laptop with long battery life. The 2025 model sports an Arm-based Qualcomm Snapdragon X Plus chip, a nice 14-inch OLED display, and a sleek textured beige finish.
Asus Zenbooks are some of the sleeker, better-looking Windows laptops, and the Zenbook A14 is Asus’ wannabe MacBook Air. It has a good Snapdragon X Plus chip, 16GB of RAM, 512GB of storage, and a lovely OLED display in an ultra-light chassis (it’s just 2.4 pounds / 1.09kg), all for $1,000 or as low as $700 on sale. It even has a solid port selection, with one USB-A, two speedy USB4, and HDMI 2.1. I really enjoyed the larger Zenbook A16 version when I reviewed it, but the A14 is even lighter and significantly cheaper. Like its larger sibling, the A14 is coated in Asus’ Ceraluminum finish that gives it a nice textured feel and unique look. (It’s a beige laptop!)
A cheap laptop with a great processor
Acer Aspire 14 AI
Score: 6
Pros
Cons
A great, well-rounded processor in a cheap laptop (if you get it on sale)
Acer’s Aspire 14 AI didn’t impress me with its screen, speakers, or build quality when I tested it against the Neo, but for $500 or $600 on sale, which it often is, it’s hard to beat. It has a solid Intel Lunar Lake processor, 16GB of RAM, 512GB of storage, and a bunch of speedy ports. Getting two USB-A, two Thunderbolt 4, and HDMI 2.1 on a $600 laptop? Hell yeah.
A Lunar Lake chip means you get great battery life, and you can even do some light gaming. Its screen isn’t pretty and everything creaks, but with the money you save you can overcome some of its shortcomings with a mouse and monitor. Just keep in mind that the appeal of this laptop is what you’re getting for the price. If the deal winds change and Aspire 14 AIs are selling for $700 or more, consider something else.
I’m still testing the HP OmniBook 3 for a full review, but I’ve used it enough and I like it enough at around $500 to give it a nod. Its speakers and screen are not good quality, but they’re slightly better than the Acer Aspire above — just don’t look too close, or you’ll notice that its 1920 x 1200 resolution isn’t very sharp at this scale. At 16 inches you’re getting a big screen for cheap, but this laptop doesn’t feel large, as it weighs only 3.65 pounds / 1.66kg and is about 0.63 inches / 16mm thick (at its hinge, where it’s slightly thicker). And its sizable battery and efficient Snapdragon X chip allow it to last long on a charge. Plus, it’s got an ample-sized numpad for you numbers people.
Consider a refurbished ThinkPad
Lenovo ThinkPad T14 Gen 4 (Intel 13th-gen, refurbished)
Lenovo ThinkPads are workhorse enterprise laptops, making older refurbished models a great pickup on the cheap. The T14 Gen 4 from 2023 came with Intel Raptor Lake chips, a 14-inch 1920 x 1200 IPS display, and plenty of ports — among them, Thunderbolt 4.
ThinkPads are awesome. They have great keyboards and trackpads, sturdy builds, lots of ports, and even a TrackPoint. They’re typically very expensive when bought new, and they have a reputation for lasting a long time. They’re Lenovo’s business line, so there’s a constant stream of used ThinkPads entering the secondhand market when companies refresh their fleets. That makes them a great candidate for buying refurbished or used. Lenovo sells many refurb units directly, so you know you should be getting something in good shape. Many of them are still expensive, but this ThinkPad T14 is an attractive example, offering a 13th-gen Intel chip, 16GB of RAM, and 512GB of storage for around $700. Or for a bit more you can get this ThinkPad L14 Gen 5 with a newer Intel Meteor Lake chip for around $1,000.
A Chromebook is good for web browsing, doing homework, and nailing the basics of browser-first computer use — when done well. The Asus Chromebook Plus CX34 is a mainstay of The Verge’s laptop recommendations, despite being a few years old. It’s very affordable at just $350, and even with its 12th-gen Intel chip and 8GB of RAM it’s more than serviceable for ChromeOS. Google’s new Googlebooks are coming in the fall, but some earlyleaks are pointing at those potentially being pricier laptops (making me wonder what exactly their appeal will be).
A great convertible Chromebook
Acer Chromebook Plus Spin 514 (2025)
Score: 7
Pros
Cons
Excellent battery life
Speedy performance
Stylus support
Crummy, muffled-sounding speakers
No biometric login
Feels slightly pricey at $700 when a Lenovo with OLED and more RAM is just $50 more
If you can afford a slightly pricier, newer, and better Chromebook than the Asus, check out the Acer Chromebook Plus Spin 514. Its full price of $749 is a bit much, but when discounted to $600 like it is at the time of this writing it can be worth it. The Arm-based MediaTek Kompanio Ultra in this Chromebook paired with 12GB of RAM gives it very good performance and excellent battery life. And since it’s a convertible, it’s also great to use with an optional stylus for note-taking, drawing, and sketching.
The Clip Pro are the first clip-style earbuds from CMF, Nothing’s budget sub-brand.
Clip earbuds are an exercise in compromise. It's an inherent aspect of their design - and physics. They can be more comfortable for people that don't like something jammed in their ear, but sound response suffers. Ambient awareness is great because you can easily hear the sound around you, which means to hear your own music the buds need to be turned up and potentially leak sound out to your neighbors. For what they offer, they can also get pricey, with popular pairs from Bose, Sony, and Shokz reaching $200. The CMF Clip Pro, though, are under $100, and while they still have those compromises, they handle them well.
The Claw EX. I rather like the purple. 3D-printed stand not included.
As The Verge's resident handheld reviewer, I have nearly every portable gaming PC on a shelf in my house. The MSI Claw 8 EX AI Plus is now the first one I reach for. Thanks to a next-gen Intel chip and improved MSI design, the Claw EX is the most powerful handheld that truly feels portable. It's the handheld with the longest battery life, and the first Windows handheld I can trust to sleep and wake reliably.
Like the Steam Deck, when I press the power button, my game is always right where I left off. Unlike the Steam Deck, it can hibernate for days without losing a significant amount of charge.
From left, Segway, Roborock, Dreame, Husqvarna, and Mammotion automowers lined up to do battle with my lawn. | Photo: Jennifer Pattison Tuohy / The Verge
Robot lawnmowers are finally good enough to take a lot of work out of maintaining a yard, but they’re still not set-it-and-forget-it machines. If you don’t want these autonomous cutting machines to tear up your lawn or go roaming in your neighbors’ yard, you’re still going to need to keep an eye on them. But with some oversight, they can take a big chore off your hands.
This summer I tested five bots on my flat, three-quarter-acre, coastal South Carolina property with sandy soil, centipede grass, and lots of trees. Things went much better than last year’s trials and tribulations, thanks to huge improvements in navigation and maneuverability. Basically, they stopped getting stuck. My lawn has never looked better, and my spouse — who had sworn off robot lawnmowers after a user-error injury — is now a convert. His riding lawnmower has been idle for over a month.
The consistency of robot mowers is impressive. Running daily and shaving just millimeters at a time, these mowers have created a noticeably lusher lawn. I walked out on it barefoot this morning — something I’ve never done before. The best part is that they work quietly around the clock, without bothering my pets, the wildlife, or the neighbors. I also love the professional-looking lawn lines they make.
What’s better
The key upgrades this year are network RTK navigation, fallback navigation systems, and improved all-wheel-drive to tackle rougher terrain.
RTK — real-time kinematic positioning — is the satellite positioning tech most automowers switched to over the last few years as they’ve ditched boundary wires. It uses stationary ground-based reference stations (antennas), along with GPS, to provide very precise location data, down to a centimeter or two. It’s used for surveying, drone navigation, and anything that needs that fine level of precision.
Every mower I tested, apart from the Lidar-based Dreame, comes with its own RTK antenna that needs to be installed in your yard with a clear view of the sky; trees, a neighbor’s house, or your own roofline can all block the signal. In my previous testing, I didn’t get a single RTK mower to run successfully in my backyard, where I have very spotty GPS coverage.
This new crop all now offers NetRTK as an option. This taps into a network of existing RTK reference stations through a cloud connection, and requires a Wi-Fi or 4G connection on the mower. Most worked out of the box without me needing to install the antenna, but you’ll need to check if your house is covered, as coverage varies.
RTK mowers now also use a secondary navigation tech such as lidar or vSLAM to keep on track when the signal drops. This improvement in navigation, plus bigger, more capable machines, meant I no longer spent my summer dragging confused mowers out from under oak trees.
What still needs work
However, automowers are far from perfect.
These are autonomous machines with blades, and leaving them to their own devices comes with risks. One spent three days methodically destroying a patch of my lawn before I noticed. Another took out two outdoor extension cords. Several models dug sandpits in bare patches, and another tried to climb up a small tree.
Obstacle detection is better across the board, but it still has a long way to go. Hoses, cables, and cars are still a challenge — my family now knows to check under the wheels before driving away.
No one has really solved gates yet, either (although they’re trying) — I still have to manually open mine to let the robot mow the full property. And, while every manufacturer currently advertises NetRTK coverage as free for the lifetime of the device, there are obvious downsides to relying on a cloud service to mow your lawn. Finally, automowers are still expensive, and I have concerns around long-term durability.
Like their siblings, robot vacuums, there are myriad models on the market now; the right one for you will depend on the size of your yard and your landscape. To find the mower that worked best for me, I tested four top-of-the-line models with specs capable of tackling my challenging terrain and large expanse of my backyard: The Husqvarna 420 IQ ($3,299), Mammotion Luba 3 AWD 3000 ($2,799), Navimow X430 ($2,499), and the Dreame A3 AWD Pro 2500 ($3,099.99). I also tried the entry-level Roborock RockNeo Q110H ($1,299) on my front lawn, which is more like a standard suburban lawn.
Also like robot vacuums, robot lawnmowers fall under the new FCC robot ban, so while existing models can continue to be sold and supported in the US — including all the models reviewed here — the fate of new models is in question.
The robot I’d get for my yard
Segway Navimow X430
Navigation: RTK, vSLAM / Yard size: up to 1 acre / Cutting: 0.75” to 4” height, 17” width (dual discs) / Terrain capabilities: 4WD, zero-turn wheels, 84% slope / Theft features: Lift and out-of-zone alarms, GPS anti-theft, PIN / Weatherproofing: IP67 / Connectivity: 4G (1 yr free then $32.90 a yr), Wi-Fi, BLE / Warranty: 3 yrs
The Segway Navimow X430 ($2,499) is by far the best mower I tested. This 60-pound beast looks like Darth Vader’s dog, and was the only mower I tested that didn’t get stuck once. Its 4WD wheels combined with impressive suspension rolled through the potholes, over sticks and rocks, even small tree branches. It navigated around my chickens and across the tall, uneven transition from my front yard to back yards — it was the only bot that could mow both in one trip (with the gate open).
This video shows the Segway tackling a sandpit and executing a 90-degree turn without damaging the sod.
It uses a combination of RTK, vSLAM, and vision-based tech to navigate, and it covered my entire property without once getting lost or stuck. It features impressive “xero-turn” maneuverability enabling it to pivot smoothly with no lawn damage. Its dual-disc, 17-inch cutting width covers more ground, and it was able to mow most of my backyard in under three hours — nearly twice as fast as most competitors. I really liked the remote-control mowing feature, which was handy for tidying up the edges of the lawn and more sensitive areas such as around flower beds.
The Segway’s speed does mean a few blades go untrimmed, and its rain sensing relies on weather data from the internet, which meant it often didn’t mow because it predicted rain that never came. Setting up the NetRTK was a bit tricky, mostly because I had to put the charging station in an awkward spot to connect to the GPS (it can’t be under an awning or up against a building as the mower also needs a clear view of the sky).
The Dreame A3 AWD Pro 2500 ($3,099.99) is the best option if you can’t rely on RTK. Its lidar and camera-based navigation performed nearly as well as the Segway in my backyard, only getting stuck a couple of times. It doesn’t need a clear view of the sky, so you can place it anywhere, and its sliding edge-cutting deck worked slightly better than the Segway’s EdgeSense feature in my testing. (Beware, it’s set to a fixed 1.2-inch minimum).
But in my testing, lidar was the least reliable navigation tech, and sometimes the A3 declared the job complete when it wasn’t. Lidar robots do best in a fenced-in yard, as they can more easily get lost and wander off into your neighbors’ yard, something that never happened with the RTK robots.
The Dreame performed as well as the Segway when mowing, but its turning mechanism did churn up dirt where there was less grass cover.
While the Dreame rarely got stuck, its turning mechanism wasn’t as smooth as the Segway, and it dug several sandpits in various spots where there was no grass. I do like its “Garden Guardian” mode that uses the camera as a roaming security guard, and it can also identify when people cross its path and warn them that it’s working. It’s been mildly hilarious watching it surprise the heck out of dog walkers passing by the front yard.
An expensive but reliable option for yards with no trees
Husqvarna Automower 420 IQ
Navigation: EPOS (RTK), radar / Yard size: 1 acre / Cutting: 1” to 4” height, 9.4” width (single discs) / Terrain capabilities: 2WD, large wheels, 45% slope / Theft features: Out-of zone alarm, GPS anti-theft, PIN / Weatherproofing: IPX5 / Connectivity: 4G (free for life), Wi-Fi, BLE / Warranty: 4 yr mower, 3 yr battery
Husqvarna’s Automower 420 IQ ($3,299) is a good option for a standard yard. It has the longest warranty (four years), the easiest app and controls, and a modular design for longevity. It’s 2WD, but its large wheels tackled uneven terrain well. It requires an RTK antenna and has the option of cloud-based RTK (in some areas), but its backup navigation for satellite dead spots requires installing physical boundary wire.
I tested this in my neighbor’s yard using the physical RTK antenna, as they have fewer trees and clearer views of the sky. It navigated well, but it uses radar for obstacle detection and has no camera at all. This meant it wasn’t as good at dodging objects as the others, and ran into the bushes once and tried to climb a small tree.
But if you have a large, uncomplicated, tree-free yard, it’s a good option thanks to Husqvarna’s broad support network, free-for-life cellular connectivity for both theft and NetRTK (should you need it), and impressive performance.
The Mammotion combines all three wireless navigation types — RTK, lidar, and vision — making it ideal for properties with spotty GPS coverage like mine. But it’s less nimble than the other AWD models thanks to lower ground clearance and weaker suspension.
Its turning mechanism also tore up a couple areas of my garden, particularly a shaded area near my neighbors’ sprinklers, which stayed damper than other spots. Mammotion has acknowledged this issue, telling The Verge “We’ve identified that a recent update to the turning logic caused some unwanted results. The mower turning too sharply might tear up the grass to some extent, especially when the ground is wet and slippery, or the grass isn’t very thick.”
They’ve deployed several software updates to address this, but we should all be wary of relying on software updates to fix fundamental problems with an expensive lawnmower.
A budget option for smaller yards with or without trees
Roborock RockNeo Q110H
Navigation: RTK, vSLAM / Yard size: 0.25 acre / Cutting: 0.8” to 2.4” height, 8.7” width (single disc) / Terrain capabilities: 2WD, 45% slope / Theft features: Out-of zone alarm, GPS anti-theft (with optional module), PIN / Weatherproofing: IPX6 / Connectivity: Wi-Fi, BLE (4G sold separately) / Warranty: 2 yr
The $1,299 Roborock RockNeo Q110H is my budget pick. This rear-wheel-drive mower was impressive on my flat, treed front yard, although its lack of all-wheel-drive meant that the occasional large tree root stopped it in its tracks. That, and its more limited range, is why it’s half the price of other mowers here. It offers RTK and vSLAM navigation, with the option of antenna or NetRTK.
The RockNeo is remarkably similar to the Segway Navimow i100N I tested last year, with a few upgrades, including better camera-based obstacle detection, steeper slope navigation (up to 45%), and a wider cutting blade. It can also be used for manual remote-control mowing and has a built-in edge-cutting feature, although there’s the option of an edge-cutting add-on module, which I haven’t tried.
Edge cutting is still very much a work in progress for all mowers. Some do well straddling the edge, but if you have a fence or delicate boundary, that won’t work. Companies are trying all sorts of solutions — including special attachments. Ecovacs Goat A3000 Pro Lidar looks to be the most promising, thanks to a side-mounted string trimmer. But for now, you should plan to keep your manual trimmer handy.
Robot mowers have improved significantly over the last 18 months. Advances in navigation have solved my main pain points from my last round of testing, and bigger, beefier bots are now better at navigating the varied terrain of American yards. Today, the right bot will maintain your yard beautifully with minimal effort. While they still need oversight and the occasional rescue, and they haven’t solved every problem, they do take a lot of the work out of maintaining your yard.
Photos and videos by Jennifer Pattison Tuohy / The Verge
The Matic robot vacuum now offers gesture controlled spot cleaning and a built-in voice assistant. | Photo by Jennifer Pattison Tuohy / The Verge
Matic, my current favorite robot vacuum, just got a big upgrade. The company has launched Matic Cues, which brings voice and gesture control to the robot. Now, you can talk directly to your vacuum to tell it what you want it to do, or just point at a mess to have it spot-clean.
The feature launches today, August 13 at 2 pm ET, and will show as an option in the Matic app under Settings > Matic Cues. The update arrives just ahead of a planned price hike on September 9, which will see the WALL-E-style robot's price go from $1,245 to $1,495.
I've been playing with Matic Cues for a day or so, and so far it's working well. Gesture control is th …
My drive of the 2027 Corvette Grand Sport X began under oily black clouds, a torrential weather front releasing its grip on Manhattan - an inauspicious start for any mega-powered sports car. Rain pelted the waterlogged pavement, as I set course for the mountain-man roads of the Catskills, then on to Long Island and New England over three days. Fortunately, this Grand Sport, a name synonymous with value among Corvette fans, was the first of its kind: A 721-horsepower super-hybrid with a brainy, confidence-boosting AWD system. I popped the Corvette into Sport mode, Wet mode be damned. Finding tire grip galore on the Palisades Parkway, I realiz …
Music journalism is going to the wall, and places for sensible, well-informed, nuanced takes on the latest releases are dwindling. So we thought we might as well put the final nail in the coffin.
You might argue that nobody reads record reviews anymore. Tell that to the trembling, sleep-deprived publicist forced to turn up at a Bel Air mansion this week with a fistful of Xanax in both hands and a printed copy of a Pitchfork 0.0 under one arm.
“I’m sorry Mr. Tyga, but they’re suggesting the very existence of your new record $TARFACE has made the world a worse place.”
Obviously I haven’t actually listened to this album. Instead, I laid back and imagined the above playing out like that endlessly retooled scene from Downfall, except when Hitler’s entourage have to tell him he’s lost the war, and they’re all about to die trapped like rats in a cavern underground, their voices and sobs are slathered in AutoTune, as a spectral Keyboard Cat jauntily hammers out “POWDERED DREAMS” over the bunker intercom.
This, as we’ve seen this week, is the power of the music press in 2026. To reduce the audible output of an artist’s soul to a meme.
What are the protocols for giving a record 0.0, anyway? Does Pitchfork have nuclear launch codes that need to be triple co-signed before the lowest possible score is authorized? And while the warhead was armed, did no one think to point out that the suggestion that “$TARFACE places the listener in their own personal Cronenberg film” unintentionally makes the record sound pretty sick?
Then again, what do I know, I’m not a real reviewer; my process for allotting scores is to roll a bejeweled polyhedral D&D dice and then tear down people’s dreams accordingly. I almost felt bad for savaging Dresden Dolls and Twenty One Pilots last week, but now I’m feeling that maybe I was a little too merciful. Go get the arsenic, I won’t make the same mistake again.
Matty Healy, Jack Antonoff, Bo Burnham, Lucy Dacus, Julien Baker, Maya Hawke, Cameron Winter, Alex G, and Christian Lee Hutson are all meant to be somewhere on Lost Weekend—a roster one sad girl on X described as “the Avengers of the psych ward.” It’s been a few years since I last visited a mental health facility, but I doubt too many in-patients are jamming to the new Phoebe Bridgers album. This is music for people who don’t have much wrong with them at all, beyond a chronic case of being ghosted by men that text all in lower case.
What’s that, you want more? OK, basically, this record confirms Phoebe’s status as the definitive songwriter of our parasocial moment. There are lyrical observations and anecdotes so personal they border on self-doxxing. The magical friction that every great (or even just good) record needs comes, amid this onslaught of relatability, from jarring nods to her celebrity existence—dating Paul Mescal, appearing in the new Robert Pattinson movie, etc. The effect on the listener is a form of delusional projection symptomatic of our modern derangement (comorbidities might include grippy socks as a fashion statement and treating DSM diagnostic criteria like star signs).
7/10 RAM’D ASS
Channel Tres Enigma POV Alta Music Group
It was a “hard relate” from me when I learned that the idiosyncratic thump of this new Channel Tres record was born from him watching The Wiz (1978) and breaking down in tears. I had a similar crash out while watching the Sixth Sense (1999) after one my school friends died. Sure, I didn’t make any music afterwards—let alone a record of soulful, uninhibited tech-rap—but I guess they’re different films. The big realization for Tres was that “the characters had everything they were searching for all along and that the Wiz was just a man.” While the main guy in Sixth Sense is literally dead and will never be able to speak to anyone he loves ever again. Still, this album is bouncy enough to get Bruce Willis dancing, even if the only person who can see him is that kid who looks like he’s trapped in a Southern Gothic painting.
6/10 LEE HARVEY OSMENT
Getdown Services Massive Champion Breakfast Records
Listening to the kitchen sink surrealism of the second Getdown Services record, I immediately thought of a viral tweet I saw earlier this week claiming that “pound for pound the UK might be the funniest place in the world”—engagement-bait that has naturally been QT’d hundreds of times, along with assorted footage of the eccentric chaos that passes for life in my comedy nation which somehow used to rule a quarter of the planet. Any one of these replies could be subject matter for this Somerset duo, who pan the dirty stream of everyday life and come out with gold. They might be best described as LCD Soundsystem for people who’ve just pawned their actual sound system and, unfortunately, have no way to listen to this record.
6/10 FRANK BLACK PUDDING
Maidenhead Maximum Clonage Self-released
I’m not just reviewing this because the band share a name with my hometown, but because a part of me is still trapped in the church hall where there were weekly all-ages shows. When I hit play on the purgatorial trash metal of Maximum Clonage, a ghostly moshpit consumed this teenage interzone of corpse paint and body odor, which I fear I’ll never truly escape despite disowning any music with even the hint of a blast beat the second I hit puberty.
4/10 BEVERLEY NIGHT SHIFT
James Ellis Ford Lost in Another World Domino
If I had a near-death experience like James Ellis Ford (who was diagnosed with an aggressive form of cancer with only a 30 percent survival rate) and my life flashed before my eyes, would it be as impressive as his: starting out in an avant-pop band before becoming a member of certified bloghaus royalty, making symphonic rock with Alex Turner from the Arctic Monkeys and some other guy, producing many of the best albums of the last 20 years, and now releasing a beguiling new solo record of oblique pop songs? The answer, obviously, is no. It would just be a collection of idiotic reviews, full of jokes and digressions, signifying nothing.
8/10 LAIKA ROLLING STONE
The Script The User’s Guide to Being Human BMG Records
Step 1: Come out of the womb covered in blood, shit, and piss, which are coincidentally the constituent ingredients of this new record by The Script.
Step 2: Learn to walk, talk, feed yourself, and make music (optional extras: develop taste and/or an artistic sensibility, have experiences which provide you with interesting things to say about the world).
Step 3: Die. There are some deluded souls who truly believe they deserve more from life than this. Those people ought to spare a thought for The Script, who never progressed past Step 1.
When I first picked up the Pixel 11 Pro this week, it was clear to me that this was one of those refinement years - at least when it comes to hardware. Aesthetically, the phones are as beautiful as ever, with Google's signature camera bar and bright, colorful backing glass. There are small updates, like a single piece of glass covering the camera bar and the all-new HiLight ambient LED on the Pros. But this year, the Pixel is all about quality of life and software improvements.
After weeks of teasers, Google has finally formally announced the Pixel 11, Pixel 11 Pro, Pixel 11 Pro XL, and Pixel 11 Pro Fold. The phones are all shipping next we …
The Robot Phone takes pop-up cameras to a whole new level.
The Robot Phone, which launches today in China, doesn't sound like a good idea - and not only because it's not actually a robot. Instead it's a regular Android smartphone with its main camera installed on a compact gimbal arm that unfolds from the phone's rear. Cramming the equivalent of a DJI Osmo Pocket inside a smartphone sounds like a great way to get the worst of both worlds, but after an hour of testing, I'm cautiously optimistic that Honor has made this Frankenphone work.
This is a smaller gimbal than you'll find on DJI's compact Osmo Pocket line - Honor claims it's the smallest in the world. It still makes the phone bulkier than no …
“Where’s the number pad?” The number pad is holding you back. | Photo: Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge
You probably know just by looking at it if the Classic-TKL Underscore Edition is for you. Do you want a retro-looking wired keyboard without a number pad? Great. Do you care that it doesn't have wireless? Perfect. Do you want it preassembled? Buddy, you're in the right place.
But Nathan, you might say, preassembled is the regular way to buy a keyboard. That is the baseline expectation. Most people buying a cake expect a cake, not a box of cake mix. And that's true, for most people and most keyboards. But until now, the Classic-TKL has only been available as a bare-bones kit, and now you can buy one ready to go, with quality components, for …
Login
The Verge - All Posts
