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Tech

Great camera, but stumbles on basics

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Verdict

The Sony Xperia 1 VIII is a fascinating but deeply flawed flagship, pairing gorgeous colour science, creator-friendly controls and practical perks like a headphone jack and microSD with an unfinished-feeling design and janky camera app. When rivals like the Oppo Find X9 Ultra and Vivo X300 Ultra deliver better cameras, software, battery life and displays for only a little more, this latest Xperia becomes a hard sell for anyone but die-hard Sony purists.

  • Gorgeous minimalist design

  • Still has 3.5mm port and microSD card slot

  • Lightweight, AI-free software (for the most part)

  • Realistic camera results in terms of texture and detail

  • Expensive for what it offers

  • Poor battery life considering spec

  • Camera software bugs make it unresponsive at times

  • Not particularly fast charging speeds

Key Features

  • Trusted Reviews IconTrusted Reviews Icon

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    Review Price:
    £1399

  • Old-school pro hardware

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    The Xperia 1 VIII keeps a 3.5mm headphone jack, microSD slot and a dedicated two-stage shutter key, giving creatives real physical controls and flexible storage.

  • Creator-grade camera setup

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    Sony’s triple-camera system with a larger zoom sensor, telemacro capability and restrained processing delivers detailed, natural-looking shots without overcooked HDR or fake-looking zoom.

  • Cinematic screen experience

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    A 120Hz LTPO OLED display, front-firing stereo speakers and bezel-housed selfie camera combine for an uninterrupted, movie-like viewing experience.

Introduction

So this phone – the Xperia 1 VIII – is, once again, Sony at its most confusing. It looks like a love letter to purists and creatives, yet somehow feels like a phone that doesn’t quite know who it’s really for.

On the one hand, it clings to enthusiast-friendly features that almost every other brand has abandoned. On the other, it fumbles some of the basics so badly that it’s hard to recommend to anyone without a long list of caveats. It’s ambitious, flawed, and strangely fascinating – and there’s a lot to unpack.

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Design and build

  • New look, but poor build quality
  • 3.5mm headphone jack and microSD card support
  • Side-mounted fingerprint sensor

Even just in terms of design, there’s a gap between what Sony is aiming for and what it actually achieves with the Xperia 1 VIII.

Look at it from arm’s length – particularly in this glorious Garnet Red colour – and it seems like this picture-perfect attempt at minimalism and precision. The square cutout camera island with its sharp, defined lines and clean circular punch-outs for the lenses, combined with that matte, frosted glass look, is sublime to look at. At least from a little way away. 

Sony Xperia 1 VIII - top-down, rear of the phoneSony Xperia 1 VIII - top-down, rear of the phone
Image Credit (Trusted Reviews)

It’s when you look closer, or pick it up, that the illusion shatters. For instance, there’s a very small gap around the glass panel on the back where it doesn’t quite sit flush up against the metal edges. And with enough time and use, that will collect dust, fluff and all manner of other tiny pocket detritus. Especially considering that the texture on the back is what I can only plainly describe as extra-fine sandpaper. 

Sony Xperia 1 VIII - misaligned rear panelSony Xperia 1 VIII - misaligned rear panel
Image Credit (Trusted Reviews)

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It’s rough enough that you could file your nails with it if you wanted, and I mean that very literally. Don’t ask me how I know. Just know that, when you have a hypothesis, tests must be done. For science. 

You combine that rough texture with the sharp edges of the camera island, which often catch the side of my right index finger when I hold the phone – and it’s a phone I’d rather not hold more than I need to. So where the previous couple of Xperia phones were grippy, tactile delights, this one is very much not. 

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Sony Xperia 1 VIII - in hand, rear of the phoneSony Xperia 1 VIII - in hand, rear of the phone
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Then there are other little details that jar. Like the fact that the external edge of the SIM tray and rectangular cover over the Wideband antenna don’t quite match the colour of the aluminium on the edges. It feels, putting it mildly, a bit rough and ready. I’ve even managed to scratch off some of the red finish on one of the edges. No idea how.

Sony Xperia 1 VIII - mismatched SIM card traySony Xperia 1 VIII - mismatched SIM card tray
Image Credit (Trusted Reviews)

Still, as is always the case with Sony’s flagship phones, you get the mainstay basic features that pretty much every other phone maker has long since ditched. 

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Sony Xperia 1 VIII - connected to wired headphonesSony Xperia 1 VIII - connected to wired headphones
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There’s a 3.5mm audio port on the top edge, which, in an age when wired earbuds are making a comeback, might just be a key feature. There’s also a microSD card slot built into the SIM tray so you can expand storage if you want. Although, given the price of memory cards these days, maybe not something you can do without selling a kidney first. 

Sony Xperia 1 VIII - microSD card slotSony Xperia 1 VIII - microSD card slot
Image Credit (Trusted Reviews)

Sony, for some reason, also continues to use a physical fingerprint sensor on the side of the phone rather than switch to an under-display sensor.

As with previous versions, I’ve found it really prone to accidental touches, leading to failed login attempts. But it has improved; I’ve not experienced that anywhere near as often as the older phones. And there’s always the option in the settings you can enable, to ensure that it only tries to unlock when you physically press the button at the same time. 

There’s also a physical camera shutter button, with a half-press function for focusing. I actually quite like this, but in an age when the side keys on premium phones are multi-functional touch-sensitive panels, it does feel a little basic.  Maybe that’s part of the charm though; it’s not trying to do too much, so it’s not complicated at all. 

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Sony Xperia 1 VIII - side-onSony Xperia 1 VIII - side-on
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What I will always appreciate is that there’s no punch-hole camera in the display, or any interruption at all. The selfie camera is built into the bezel on the top, as is one of two stereo speakers. 

Sony has long prioritised loudspeaker performance over following the trend of uniform bezels on all four sides. And those speakers are balanced, loud, and deliver good treble, midrange, and bass response. As you’d expect them to. I’ve heard better, but I’ve also heard much, much worse. 

Sony Xperia 1 VIII - front-facing speakerSony Xperia 1 VIII - front-facing speaker
Image Credit (Trusted Reviews)

Screen

  • 6.5-inch FHD OLED panel
  • Stuttering despite LTPO tech
  • Deep, rich and warm colour profile

There’s not a huge amount to say about the display on this phone that couldn’t have been said about the previous couple of models. It’s a 6.5-inch 1080p LTPO OLED panel with a 120Hz refresh rate, so it can ramp up and down incrementally. 

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Sony Xperia 1 VIII - top down, watching a videoSony Xperia 1 VIII - top down, watching a video
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It doesn’t always do that instantly, however. I sometimes noticed a stuttering in animations within the interface when doing things like bringing up the app drawer from the bottom of the screen. 

But as far as colour processing and detail go, once you get into watching movies and video, it really shines. Sony’s colour is deep, rich and warm. It’s very inviting and enjoyable to watch. Unlike a lot of other phones I’ve used, it doesn’t push the brightness so far that it washes out the colours. 

Sony Xperia 1 VIII - front-on, watching a videoSony Xperia 1 VIII - front-on, watching a video
Image Credit (Trusted Reviews)

Sony, as always, has a few different tuning options you can use too. With Creator Mode enabled, it becomes a little more muted, designed as a clean, studio-like palette that will undoubtedly appeal to anyone who uses their phone camera to film additional footage for projects. 

My only real criticism, from a colour standpoint, is that it seems to shift when you look at it from an angle. Looking at a white screen and changing the angle, it seems to shift slightly towards green, which can affect how a video appears when viewed at an angle other than head-on. 

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Sony Xperia 1 VIII - side-on, watching a videoSony Xperia 1 VIII - side-on, watching a video
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Cameras 

  • Triple 48MP rear camera system
  • No actuating zoom lens, but higher-res
  • Great colours, but frustrating bugs and quirks

Sony’s latest triple 48MP camera system will definitely get a reaction from fans of previous-gen models – if only because the actuating zoom lens on the back has been replaced with a more typical zoom camera and sensor.

Sony Xperia 1 VIII - rear camera close upSony Xperia 1 VIII - rear camera close up
Image Credit (Trusted Reviews)

That means you don’t get a lens that physically moves to offer a physical zoom anymore. Its telemacro feature was a lot of fun to use for anyone with a tripod and steady hands, but I’d argue the switch makes more sense for the vast majority who shoot handheld. 

The benefit of the new model is that it can digitally crop into a larger, more pixel-dense sensor and give you macro photos much more easily, with less patience required. You can still get relatively close to small objects, tap the 2.9x or 5.8x zoom button, and get a good, in-focus shot with not much effort at all. 

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That, along with the AI shooting assistant Sony has added in the app, clearly shows that the Xperia is trying to appeal to less experienced photographers than before. But there’s a problem. Less experienced photographers – or any photographer in general – need a camera that’s consistently reliable and easy to use. And that means, when you tap to change the focal length or tap to shoot a photo, you want it to snap instantly the first time. 

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Sony Xperia 1 VIII - camera app crashingSony Xperia 1 VIII - camera app crashing
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The Xperia doesn’t do that. There’s lag when tapping to change cameras, and repeated taps are often required to actually snap photos. In fact, I’ve often had times when tapping the 0.7x, 1x, 2x, and other icons on screen freezes the camera view at one focal length. And that’s not to mention the AI framing guide interface floating on top of the screen, getting in the way at times. 

So, if you’re wondering how many times I’ve been tempted to hoy the phone into the sea when trying to frame a shot, the answer is: many times. Many, many times, I was tempted to lob it straight into the ocean. 

If you’re also wondering how useful the AI shot helper tool is, the answer is – not very. You’ll find yourself dismissing it more than actually using it. In my mind, it should be a separate camera mode in the app, not something floating across your video in the standard camera layout view. 

It’s this exact type of imprecision, and getting the basics wrong, that ultimately stands in Sony’s way. For all its efforts to offer the old basic practicalities like the physical storage expansion and wired audio, the camera app doesn’t work anywhere near as well as it should. 

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Sony Xperia 1 VIII - rear camera moduleSony Xperia 1 VIII - rear camera module
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That aside, I’m actually a really big fan of how Sony treats colours, shadow, highlights and texture with its cameras. You get a lot of variety in colour, there’s a difference in the subtle shades and shadows, but they don’t get lifted to such an extreme that everything in them looks grey and faded.

If I had to say which of all the cameras I’ve tested this past year delivered the most authentic take on what the scene actually looks like to the eyes, with minimal extra processing, it’s Sony.

One thing it seems to do more aggressively than most is tame highlights. So, as an example, if you take photos on a bright sunny day, and compare photos with the iPhone 17 Pro, you’ll notice far more bright spots and highlights from the iPhone, which strip the overall image of colour, where Sony tones it right down to help retain some of that colour. Giving, what I think, is a richer, more attractive overall look. 

And while the optical zoom levels aren’t there like they were on the last one, you can zoom to 2.9x or 5.8x and still get a solid picture at those lengths. 

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Sony isn’t like other Android makers either, so it doesn’t boast about massive, misleading 100x zoom lengths that rely heavily on artificial processing. So the maximum it lets you go to is about 17x. At those lengths, pictures do lack quite a lot in detail and sharpness, so personally I wouldn’t go much beyond 10x if image quality is important to you.

Still, it is – again – refreshing to have a phone that hasn’t gone all-in on computational photography and mega zooms with photos that look like oil paintings. 

But if zoom photos are a big draw to you because you like shooting nature, animals and the like, I’d highly recommend the Vivo X300 Ultra. Not only does its zoom lens have a larger sensor, but there are also additional 200mm and 400mm lens kits available to get you closer to scenes. If I wanted to spend a day outdoors and snap photos of birds, bugs, plants and the like, that’s the phone I’d take. 

The night mode algorithm does a good job of taking photos when there’s not a lot of light available, and, just like in the daytime, takes photos that don’t seem as aggressively processed. So while most other phones tend to make details look a bit soft and painterly, the Sony is pretty faithful to those textures. Again, that’s actually quite refreshing. 

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When filming video, there’s a difference between what you see on the screen and what the end result looks like. There’s quite a jarring, stuttering, rolling-shutter-like look to the video as it’s being captured on screen, even when shooting at 60 frames per second. But download that footage, or watch it back on the phone, and it’s perfectly smooth and clean. 

Performance

  • Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 and up to 16GB RAM
  • Can get warm after a few minutes of gameplay
  • Fine for everyday use, not for gaming

As far as raw performance and speed go, there’s plenty of grunt here to keep up with even the most demanding apps, games and situations. The combination of the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 and 12- or 16GB of RAM can easily run your top-tier game titles like Genshin Impact, Destiny Rising and Call of Duty Mobile. 

Sony Xperia 1 VIII - gamingSony Xperia 1 VIII - gaming
Image Credit (Trusted Reviews)

I did notice that after a few minutes of use, the phone starts to get warm, and under intense benchmark stress testing, it doesn’t quite last as long or as reliably as something like the Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra.

So it’s not quite as efficient when it comes to cooling. And when you consider it’s not pushing as many pixels on the screen as phones like the Oppo Find X9 Ultra or S26 Ultra – and that it can’t outperform them in terms of frame rates or consistency in those extreme situations despite that – it’s clear it’s not a phone built for outright performance. 

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Sony Xperia 1 VIII - gamingSony Xperia 1 VIII - gaming
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Still, for most people who aren’t sticking their mobile games into the highest settings and looking for the highest fidelity and smoothest gameplay for long periods, this phone works just fine. 

Software

  • Near-stock Android 16
  • Feels like it needs TLC
  • Very little AI smarts

I think at this point, it’s safe to say the Xperia launcher and interface are starting to look quite dated. It’s still a very clean Android skin, but it very much has the look of a vanilla version of Android from years ago. And unlike most other manufacturers, it doesn’t really add much of its own with any real value beyond some niche creator apps. 

Sony Xperia 1 VIII - home screenSony Xperia 1 VIII - home screen
Image Credit (Trusted Reviews)

Like so much of this phone, it just feels as though the Xperia phone isn’t really getting any love from Sony at all anymore. To the point where it may be kinder to the phone to put it out to pasture, rather than let it continuously limp on for another generation. 

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The only benefit of this approach is that there’s virtually no bloatware. And Sony’s smartphone division obviously hasn’t got the resources to put tonnes of AI into everything, so if you like an AI-free experience, you can get that (mostly) on the Sony Xperia.  

It’d be easy to see the lack of AI as a negative, but having used so many phones with AI crammed in every which way, I find it refreshing. 

Sony Xperia 1 VIII - home screenSony Xperia 1 VIII - home screen
Image Credit (Trusted Reviews)

I’d argue strongly that, for the most part, the best AI features are used in purpose-built apps, like Google Gemini, translation apps, voice note transcription apps, and similar tools. Since you can just download and install whichever ones you find useful, it’s not a huge miss to have a phone that’s not ramming AI down our throats from every angle. 

Battery life

  • 5000mAh battery
  • Lasts all day, but not as good as previous Xperias
  • Takes almost 90 minutes to fully recharge

A couple of years ago, Sony’s Xperia phone switched from a 4K display to Full HD, and the result – along with a very efficient chipset – was incredible battery life. It was a proper two-day phone. It legitimately impressed me, and many other reviewers at the time. 

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Sadly, although Sony claims the same for this one, the experience isn’t anything close to that of the Xperia 1 VI

Sony Xperia 1 VIII - in-handSony Xperia 1 VIII - in-hand
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Even for someone with relatively light use that rarely tops three hours of screen time in a day – and most of that pretty casual use – I’d still finish a day with closer to 40% left over than 50 or 60. Some days it would be even less. For a phone with a 5000mAh battery, 1080p display and LTPO tech, I’d argue that it is actually quite poor. 

My feeling, although hard to say for sure, is that the more power-hungry Elite Gen 5 processor in this new version is drinking more battery juice than previous models. Because even while in standby mode and seemingly not really doing much, the phone would sip battery in the background, dropping steadily over the course of the day. 

In fact, just to see what was going on, one day I’d charged it to 100%, disconnected my smart watch, took out the SIM card and left it on my desk. I came back to it the next day, and in that 24-hour period, it dropped more than 30%. That’s highly inefficient for a modern phone. 

Sony Xperia 1 VIII - battery settingsSony Xperia 1 VIII - battery settings
Image Credit (Trusted Reviews)

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So, where the Xperia 1 VI was the ultimate device for going and going, this newer version feels like quite a step backwards. And while the charging speed is quick enough to be convenient, it’s still not near the levels of the other devices in its price range. 

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Sony’s spec sheet says it supports 30W wired charging. Plugged into a fast charger with a display showing wattage, it would be pulling about 25-27W most of the time. From empty, it could refill about half the battery in half an hour and took 85 minutes to fully recharge. That’s about half an hour longer than the Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra to 100% – a phone that has the same-sized battery.

Should you buy it?

You care about authentic photography

Sony’s colour science, restrained processing, and rich detail make the Xperia 1 VIII one of the most natural-looking camera phones around, with pleasingly true-to-life shots that many rivals can’t match.

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You want a great all-round experience

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With design imperfections, odd software choices, poor battery life and only fine performance, the Xperia 1 VIII doesn’t offer the best experience for the price.

Final Thoughts

The Sony Xperia has held on to its unique space in the smartphone market for an unusually long time. 

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Every year feels like the year Sony could and maybe should finally stop making a phone. The problem is that it’s trying to appeal to niche, professional users while also adding more mainstream features like night photos and AI framing guides. 

But by having this unclear focus, it doesn’t do either of those things particularly well. Holding on to practicalities like the headphone port, SD card slot and manual camera controls doesn’t make up for the janky camera app, poor battery life and a design or build that – frankly – seems unfinished. 

And here’s the thing: if you want to buy a phone that offers super camera skills, both automatic, manual and in any situation, then you buy the Oppo Find X9 Ultra, or the Vivo X300 Ultra. And with those, you’ll also get a phone with much better battery life, more mature software and a better display. 

You’ll have to pay a little more to get either, but it’s a worthwhile investment, whereas, in its current state, the Xperia 1 VIII is difficult to recommend to anyone. There are just far too many compromises.

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To see how the Xperia 1 VII stacks up to the competition, take a look at our selection of the best smartphones and best camera phones.

How We Test

We test every mobile phone we review thoroughly. We use industry-standard tests to compare features properly and we use the phone as our main device over the review period. We’ll always tell you what we find and we never, ever, accept money to review a product.

  • Used as a main phone for over a week
  • Thorough camera testing in a variety of conditions
  • Tested and benchmarked using respected industry tests and real-world data

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FAQs

Is the Sony Xperia 1 VIII still worth buying for creatives and photography enthusiasts?

Only if you’re a very specific kind of user. The Xperia 1 VIII offers lovely colour science, manual controls, a physical shutter button, and practical perks like a headphone jack and microSD slot. But laggy, unreliable camera performance and an unfinished-feeling design mean there are better all-round camera phones, like the Oppo Find X9 Ultra or Vivo X300 Ultra, if you want consistently great shots.

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How is the battery life on the Sony Xperia 1 VIII compared to previous Xperias?

It’s a clear step backwards. Despite a 5000mAh battery and 1080p LTPO display, the phone drains faster than expected, even on light use and in standby, and no longer delivers the two-day endurance that earlier Xperias were known for. Charging is merely average for the price, which makes the battery situation even harder to overlook.

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Test Data

  Sony Xperia 1 VIII
Geekbench 6 single core 3543
Geekbench 6 multi core 10022
Geekbench 6 GPU 23317
3DMark Solar Bay 47.4
AI performance 6381
Time from 0-100% charge 85 min
Time from 0-50% charge 29 Min
30-min recharge (no charger included) 52 %
15-min recharge (no charger included) 27 %
3D Mark – Wild Life 6874
3D Mark – Wild Life Stress Test 59.8 %

Full Specs

  Sony Xperia 1 VIII Review
UK RRP £1399
USA RRP $1599
Manufacturer Sony
Screen Size 6.5 inches
Storage Capacity 256GB, 512GB, 1TB
Rear Camera 48MP + 48MP + 48MP
Front Camera 12MP
Video Recording Yes
IP rating IP68
Battery 5000 mAh
Wireless charging Yes
Fast Charging Yes
Size (Dimensions) 74 x 8.3 x 182 INCHES
Weight 200 G
Operating System Android 16
Release Date 2026
First Reviewed Date 29/06/2026
Resolution 1080 x 2340
HDR Yes
Refresh Rate 120 Hz
Ports USB-C, 3.5mm headphone port, microSD card slot
Chipset Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5
RAM 12GB, 16GB
Colours Graphite Black, Iolite Silver, Garnet Red, Native Gold
Stated Power 30 W

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Tech

CEOs expect large-scale reskilling as AI reshapes workforce, finds report

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The EY Ireland CEO Outlook survey found that Irish CEOs remain confident about growth over the next 12 months despite global volatility and geopolitical risk.

EY Ireland has released its CEO Outlook survey, which explores how those in leadership are responding to global issues, challenges and opportunities. To gather data, EY partnered with FT Longitude and collected information from 1,200 globally dispersed CEOs throughout March and April of this year. 

What was discovered is that Irish CEOs are confident about the potential for growth over the course of the next 12 months, despite growing pressures from global volatility and geopolitical risk. Of those who were surveyed, 92pc of CEOs in Ireland said they were optimistic about revenue growth and their competitive position. 

However, despite the optimism, Irish CEOs harbour significant concerns about the landscape. Instability and conflict stand out as the most pressing issues for 70pc of Irish CEOs and other concerns include macroeconomic volatility (42pc), trade and supply chain disruption (22pc) and talent and capability gaps (16pc). 

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There is a similar pattern among the global respondents, albeit at lower levels compared to the Irish figures. 56pc of global CEOs ranked geopolitical risk among their top two concerns, followed by macroeconomic volatility (31pc), technology disruption including AI-related risks (23pc) and trade and supply chain disruption (22pc).

Commenting on the results of the report, Helena O’Dwyer, a partner and the head of strategy at EY-Parthenon Ireland, said: “Irish CEOs are navigating a complex, unpredictable and rapidly evolving landscape. The confidence in their own growth prospects is real and there is a track record over the past decade of successfully navigating global uncertainty with confidence. 

“Even still, the pace and scale of the geopolitical upheaval is extraordinary, and geopolitical risk is no longer a background concern, it is a day‑to‑day operating reality – shaping decisions on costs, supply chains, capital and growth. From conversations with clients we know, however, that for mid-sized businesses in particular, the challenge is somewhat different. 

“They may lack the scale of management capacity to find the time to actively manage these issues, or struggle with the level of working capital or technology to be able to address issues or take advantage of opportunities. These leaders are more focused on keeping income steady, reducing costs, looking after staff and staying connected to customers.”

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Past the testing phase

The report also noted that for many organisations and CEOs, artificial intelligence investment has moved on from the experimental stage to accountability – particularly for those sitting in Irish boardrooms.

84pc of Irish CEOs who contributed their insights explained that they have increased AI investment since 2025, with the focus increasingly shifting from experimentation to the expectation of measurable results. 

Data also suggests that leaders based in Ireland are expecting AI to deliver measurable results, with 68pc using standard metrics to measure and report on AI impact across major projects. 

60pc expect the large-scale AI reskilling and upskilling of existing employees to be among the two most significant workforce impacts over the next three years, while only one in 10 fear that it will reduce hiring in certain roles.  

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‘Cultural resistance to change’, however, emerged as a major concern for four out of every 10 contributing Irish CEOs, who found it to be a barrier to deriving real value from AI. Globally, CEOs were less concerned, with just 16pc reporting a similar worry.  

The report explained that this is reflective of the broader maturation in how businesses are approaching AI. The question is no longer whether or not to invest, but rather, how to demonstrate that investment is generating returns and whether you are building the internal structures needed to sustain and scale it.

Carol Murphy, a partner and the head of markets at EY Ireland, said: “CEOs increasingly are not asking whether to invest in AI, they’re asking what it’s delivering and what comes next. The focus has shifted firmly to results and that’s starting to change how work is organised across businesses. 

“We’re seeing companies move beyond pilots and build AI into core operations, but that shift also brings a workforce challenge. Many organisations know they need to reskill and redesign roles to make the most of AI, but progress isn’t always straightforward. There can be resistance to change at all levels and for smaller and mid-sized businesses in particular, training and transformation have to happen in step with day-to-day delivery.” 

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Sony’s next PlayStation could break free of the living room and I think it’s worth the risk

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Sony may have just dropped its biggest hint yet that a true PlayStation handheld is on the way. In a recently published Q&A with investors, Sony Interactive Entertainment CEO Hideaki Nishino said the company’s next-generation PlayStation strategy will deliver a seamless gaming experience that extends “beyond the living room.” While he never explicitly mentioned a handheld, the comments have once again fueled speculation that Sony is preparing to return to the portable gaming space with the PS6 generation.

Sony finally said what everyone was thinking

The statement wasn’t made out of nowhere. Nishino acknowledged that gaming habits have changed over the years, with more players choosing personal monitors and flexible gaming setups instead of gathering around a TV in the living room. Sony says it’s already trying to adapt to those changing habits by expanding its ecosystem with accessories like monitors and speakers, while also pointing to the positive reception of the PlayStation Portal as proof that gamers want more ways to access the PlayStation experience. The executive also emphasized that future PlayStation hardware will leverage technologies that can work “in various forms and locations,” suggesting Sony is thinking beyond the traditional home console.

That said, Sony also poured a little cold water on the excitement. Nishino reiterated that the company doesn’t intend to sell future hardware at significant losses. That’s a notable statement at a time when component costs continue to rise, and gaming hardware is becoming increasingly expensive.

“As a principle, we do not intend to sell hardware at significant losses.” – PlayStation

Naturally, that has led many to question whether now is really the right time for Sony to launch a premium handheld, or whether the economics simply don’t add up. Honestly, I think that’s a fair concern. But I’m not convinced it’s enough to stop Sony.

The numbers might actually work in Sony’s favor

The biggest mistake people make when imagining a PlayStation handheld is expecting it to be a PS5 squeezed into a smaller shell. But honestly, it doesn’t need to be that.

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A portable with an 8-inch display isn’t trying to push native 4K graphics onto a 65-inch television. A clean 1080p target changes the equation completely. Modern AMD APUs have already shown just how much performance can be packed into handheld hardware, and by the time Sony is ready with its next device, that technology will only become more efficient. Throw in dynamic resolution scaling, modern upscaling techniques, and a platform where developers know exactly what hardware they’re building for, and suddenly running current-generation PlayStation games on a handheld doesn’t sound nearly as far-fetched.

Then comes pricing. Could Sony really launch something like this for around $550 to $600? Maybe.

Yes, $600 is still a lot of money. There’s no pretending otherwise. But gaming hardware has become expensive across the board. Microsoft’s latest Xbox refresh now starts at around $800, while the Steam Deck, despite being several years old, has seen its price hiked to a little under $800 now. Suddenly, a $600 PlayStation handheld starts looking a lot less outrageous.

More importantly, Sony isn’t just selling a handheld. It’s selling an ecosystem. Every player who buys a PlayStation handheld is also likely buying first-party games, third-party titles, PlayStation Plus subscriptions, accessories, and digital content. That’s a luxury companies like Valve simply don’t enjoy to the same extent. Sony doesn’t need to make huge profits on the hardware itself if the ecosystem keeps players spending for years afterward.

There’s an even bigger reason why this makes sense

Now what about the launch timeline? See, on paper, launching a PlayStation handheld alongside Grand Theft Auto VI sounds like the ultimate power move, right? Pair the biggest game of the generation with brand-new hardware, and you’ve got a marketing campaign that practically writes itself.

But if Sony were really gearing up for a 2026 launch, the rumor mill would probably be working overtime by now. Hardware has a habit of leaking months before it’s announced, and so far, things have been surprisingly quiet. Besides, Sony is already using GTA 6 as one of the biggest reasons to buy a PS5 Pro. Launching another premium device at the same time could end up stealing its own thunder.

I feel that’s why a 2027 launch actually makes more sense.

Rockstar has a history of bringing GTA games to PC much later, and GTA 6 is widely expected to follow the same pattern. That gives Sony a golden opportunity to pitch its handheld as the easiest, and potentially only, way to play GTA 6 and PlayStation exclusives on the go. Suddenly, waiting a little longer doesn’t sound like a delay; it sounds like smart timing.

By then, Sony would have more mature hardware, better manufacturing yields, and a stronger lineup of games to support a new platform. It would also arrive at a time when handheld gaming has become more competitive than ever. Nintendo has the Switch. Valve proved the Steam Deck wasn’t just a one-hit wonder. ASUS, Lenovo, MSI, and Acer are all pushing Windows gaming handhelds further every year. Even Microsoft has finally embraced the category. Sony is now the only major gaming company without a true native handheld.

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There’s another piece of the puzzle that makes this even more interesting. Sony has reportedly shifted away from bringing its flagship single-player games to PC, choosing instead to keep those experiences exclusive to PlayStation hardware. If that strategy continues, a native handheld becomes far more valuable than just another gadget. Instead of waiting years for a PC release, the only way to experience PlayStation’s biggest exclusives on the move would be through Sony’s own hardware. Honestly, that’s a pretty compelling reason to buy one.

Am I reading too much into this?

Will any of this actually happen? We don’t know yet. Sony hasn’t confirmed a handheld, revealed any hardware, or shared a launch window. Right now, it’s all speculation based on a few carefully chosen words. But sometimes, those carefully chosen words tell a bigger story. And if Sony really is preparing to take PlayStation beyond the living room, I think a premium handheld is exactly the kind of gamble worth taking.

So here’s my question to you: if Sony launched a “premium” handheld with a gorgeous 1080p display that let you play your entire PlayStation library anywhere, even if it cost around $600, would you buy one?

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Amazon seeks cheaper AI alternatives as Anthropic shifts to token-based pricing

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Amazon is looking at OpenAI and other alternatives after a renegotiated contract will shift Anthropic billing to per-token pricing next year.

Amazon is looking for cheaper alternatives to Anthropic’s Claude models after a renegotiated contract will shift to token-based pricing that could substantially increase the company’s AI costs, according to The Information. The new pricing structure does not take effect until next year, but Amazon is already exploring options including OpenAI. The report highlights a deepening rift between two companies that were once inseparable partners in the AI race.

Amazon’s dependence on Claude runs deep. Its coding agent Kiro, workplace assistant Quick, and consumer-facing Alexa for Shopping all rely on Anthropic’s models, according to The Information. A shift to token-based billing would make that dependence far more expensive, particularly after Amazon recently scrapped an internal leaderboard that encouraged employees to burn through as many AI tokens as possible.

The search for cheaper models has sent Amazon toward OpenAI, a company it has already been growing closer to. Earlier this year Amazon committed $50 billion to OpenAI, giving the AI lab access to its cloud infrastructure in exchange for access to its models. That deal followed Amazon’s initial $4 billion investment in Anthropic, which has since grown to a potential $33 billion.

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Anthropic, meanwhile, has been expanding its own relationships beyond Amazon. The company committed to spending $200 billion on Google Cloud and chips over five years, according to The Information, a deal that effectively makes Google a major infrastructure partner alongside AWS. Amazon’s latest $25 billion investment in Anthropic included a reciprocal commitment of more than $100 billion in AWS spending, but the Google arrangement signals Anthropic no longer depends on a single cloud provider.

The tension boiled over last month when the US government ordered Anthropic to shut down its Fable 5 and Mythos 5 models after a security report that originated from Amazon. Andy Jassy reportedly told government officials that Amazon researchers had used Fable 5 to obtain information useful for cyberattacks. The timing raised questions, coming as Amazon was preparing to launch its own cybersecurity-focused AI agent designed to spot vulnerabilities.

The contract dispute, the move toward OpenAI, and the Fable 5 incident together suggest the Amazon-Anthropic relationship has entered a new and more adversarial phase. Amazon remains one of Anthropic’s largest investors and cloud customers, but both companies now have reasons to reduce their dependence on each other. For the broader AI industry, the fracturing of its most prominent investor-model-provider partnership would redraw the competitive map.

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Anonymous researcher drops 0-day ‘exploitarium’ repo

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At least two vulnerabilities are already under attack

Not everyone is willing to follow responsible disclosure of vulns. An anonymous researcher has dumped what they say is working exploit code for zero-day vulnerabilities across 15 software products and open source projects without notifying any vendors or maintainers prior to publishing – and attackers are already exploiting at least two of these.

The first is CVE-2026-55200, a critical, pre-authentication remote code execution (RCE) vulnerability in libssh2, a popular client-side C library that implements the SSH2 protocol. Remote attackers can send crafted SSH packets with excessively large packet_length values to corrupt heap memory and achieve remote code execution.

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A fix has been merged into the libssh2 mainline development source control branch, and maintainers are still preparing a libssh2 release containing the patch.

The second is CVE-2026-20896, a critical authentication bypass vulnerability affecting self-hosted Gitea Docker deployments that allows unauthenticated remote attackers to impersonate any user and fully take over the Git server. It’s fixed in Gitea 1.26.3.

The researcher, who goes by bikini, dropped the exploit code and vulnerability write-ups in a now-removed GitHub repository called exploitarium. They remind us of Nightmare Eclipse – the zero-day bug hunter who has been publishing Microsoft exploits over the past couple of months.

Unlike Nightmare Eclipse, however, bikini doesn’t appear to hold a grudge against any one vendor, publishing purported vulnerabilities across multiple products and projects including libssh2, Splunk, RustDesk, 7-Zip, VLC, AnyDesk, OpenVPN, c-ares, Gitea, and Floci.

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Bikini claimed – and, to be clear, The Register has not verified these claims or that the code works – that none of the exploits in the repo have been reported. 

“Feel free to report them yourself and take credit for the CVE if handed out lulz,” the anonymous researcher wrote, as shown in this screenshot posted on X by Ledger CTO Charles Guillemet. “Please do not abuse these. I do this so to allure people into the field.”

Other researchers, including Federal Signal analyst Ethan Andrews, suggested that bikini used advanced AI models – specifically GPT-5.5 Codex – to automate fuzzing and vulnerability discovery, in yet another indication that the AI-induced vulnpocalypse is nigh.

In response to bikini’s data dump, Andrews built 44 KQL detection rules covering the full exploitarium repo with language translation available for non-KQL stacks. 

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“The most technically significant findings – libssh2 pre-auth heap write and Gitea default Docker auth bypass – have been independently verified as high-risk with active exploitation observed,” Andrews wrote, noting that some of the exploitarium disclosures “have been dismissed by the community as low-impact AI-fuzzing noise.”

While the repository has since been removed by GitHub, nothing ever truly dies on the internet, and it’s safe to assume that attackers are now also using AI to scan for vulnerable instances. In many cases, bikini’s PoCs mean they don’t even have to spend time developing an exploit. ®

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I tried a hidden video trick in iOS 27, and it saved me a ton of frustration

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If you’ve ever been on vacation and chose to record video instead of taking photos only to avoid missing the fun moments, thinking you’d pause and take screenshots later, you might have ended up questioning your decision later. 

You see, the process involves multiple steps, starting from hunting for the right frame, pausing, and taking a screenshot. If it doesn’t look good, you go back to the video, pause somewhere else, and try taking another screenshot. You see where I’m going with this?

It’s a specific little misery that iOS 27 has now quietly fixed, and I genuinely can’t believe it took this long.

How does the new “Save video frame as photo” feature work?

The new “Save Video Frame as Photo” option in the Photos app does exactly what it sounds like. You can save a single frame from a video directly to the gallery as a photo, without the hassle of capturing screenshots. You can use it in two ways.

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The first one lets you use the feature quickly and save a video frame as a photo in as little time as possible. Open the video in the Photos app, scrub to the moment you want, pause, tap the three-dot menu at the top right of the screen, then tap the “Save Video Frame as Photo” button. 

You should see a “Saved Video Frame” dialogue box pop up at the bottom of the screen. The saved frame shows up in your library, right next to the video you’ve extracted it from.

However, if you need frame-by-frame flexibility, open a video, then tap the hamburger menu at the bottom to enter the edit menu. Use the timeline at the bottom of the screen to scrub through the video one frame at a time. 

Once you find the exact moment, tap the three-dot menu again and tap “Save Video Frame as Photo.” You should see a “Photo saved to your library” message on the screen. Tap the “OK” button below it, and you’re good to go.

The feature is genuinely better than capturing screenshots

The difference in quality here is worth understanding. Saving a video frame as a picture is the same as taking a picture when you’re recording a 4K video at 60 fps; the saved frame comes out as an 8 MP photo (in Apple’s HEIF format). 

Screenshots, on the other hand, save as PNG files that are lower in resolution but larger in file size. In a nutshell, the frame-extracted picture has both a smaller file size and a higher resolution than screenshots. 

Furthermore, it doesn’t capture unwanted visual elements, such as the video progress bar at the bottom or a notification pop-up that shows up at the exact moment (I hate those).  

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It’s one of those iOS 27 features Apple didn’t announce onstage, and yet once you know it exists, you’ll wonder how you ever managed without it.

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Mary Jo Foley: What’s a consumer-focused outsider doing at the helm of Microsoft’s AI push?

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Jacob Andreou speaks onstage during TechCrunch Disrupt 2023. (Photo by Kimberly White/Getty Images for TechCrunch, CC By 2.0)

It’s not surprising that Microsoft is looking to turn its Copilot platform into a “Super App,” given that its rivals are doing the same. But Microsoft is going about the task in a way that doesn’t follow its usual playbook, by putting a big bet on a consumer-savvy hire from the outside with some feather-ruffling ways.

The company’s newly minted Copilot Executive Vice President Jacob Andreou came to Microsoft from Greylock Partners and before that, Snapchat-maker Snap. Andreou currently oversees more than 11,000 Microsoft employees, according to a recent profile in Fortune.

Microsoft is bringing onboard another former Snap (and Discord) vice president, Peter Sellis, to help, GeekWire has learned. Sources say Sellis will be leading Copilot Design, Growth and Engineering, reporting to Andreou.

Andreou is part of a recently formed Copilot Leadership Team. His charter is to lead the “Copilot experience” by driving design, product, growth and engineering, as outlined in a March 2026 reorg memo from CEO Satya Nadella. He is one of a small group charged with shaping the future of Copilot, alongside others focused on the underlying Copilot platform and AI models.

Given Andreou’s Snap background, his plan to meld Microsoft’s consumer and enterprise Copilot experiences makes sense. It won’t be a snap, however. (See what I did there?)

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Even though both share the Copilot brand, consumer Copilot and Microsoft 365 Copilot don’t work the same way or use the same data sources or architecture. To boot, Microsoft hasn’t had a lot of luck with this kind of consumer-enterprise unification, as evidenced by the low interest in and uptake of its free, consumer-focused Teams product compared to its business-focused Teams collaboration offering.

The 33-year-old, Los Angeles-based Andreou seemingly is undaunted by the challenge and is pushing some employees to clock 12-hour days to keep up with younger, AI-focused companies, Fortune reports.

Microsoft was infamous for requiring employees to work long hours and weekends during crunch times leading up to delivering Windows NT and Windows 95, but not so much in recent years. Microsoft is known as a place where outsiders often struggle to thrive compared to those who climb the corporate ladder for years, making Andreou’s approach feel even riskier.

Andreou has been a big backer of the Tasks productivity layer in consumer Copilot, which is still in public preview. Tasks, which enables Copilot to handle actionable items, is similar to the recently released Copilot Cowork layer that is part of Microsoft 365 Copilot. (I asked Microsoft if the two would merge as a single Cowork-type offering at some point but was told the company had no comment.)

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However, the holy grail remains the “Super App.” With the Copilot Super App, Microsoft is looking to give consumers and business users a reason to stay within Copilot regardless of the AI task with which they – or their agents – are engaging.

“Come summer, we will be bringing coding to all knowledge work within one Copilot Super App. That’s really exciting. So you’re going to have Chat, Cowork, and Code all in Copilot,” Nadella told Microsoft Build conference attendees in early June.

Microsoft isn’t the only AI-focused company working on extending its AI coding capability beyond just developers. Nor is it the only one betting on the Super App concept.

  • OpenAI is working to turn ChatGPT into a Super App that brings together ChatGPT and Codex into a single environment that operates like a personal assistant.
  • Anthropic is extending Claude to become a Super App (though it hasn’t used that terminology), as well, by creating a single environment that combines productivity, development and automation tools.

The Copilot Super App isn’t Andreou’s only focus. He tells Fortune that AI model choice and home-grown AI model excellence also are among his key priorities.

Microsoft is expanding model choice in the Copilot Cowork feature beyond Anthropic to include OpenAI and soon, Microsoft’s own Cowork 1 model – which may be based on Microsoft’s hosted version of the open-source DeepSeek model. Cowork 1 will be the newest addition to Microsoft’s growing pool of Microsoft-developed models, seven of which debuted at Build this year. Microsoft is seeking to position itself as the champion of lower cost, efficient models built for those who are token-maxxed out.

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Andreou definitely has his work cut out for him as a consumer guy in a heavily enterprise-centric company.

Microsoft 365 Copilot and consumer Copilot are just two of more than two dozen different “Copilot”-branded commercial offerings available across the various Microsoft product teams, which can feel overwhelming.

Microsoft also needs to give users a clearer way to find and use the quickly expanding stable of first- and third-party agents, like the OpenClaw-based Microsoft Scout personal assistant. Will Andreou and his Super App quest bring at least some order to the Copilot and agent madness? We’ll know more sometime this summer.

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EOFY gaming laptop deals Australia: Acer Nitro and Lenovo Legion are on sale

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EOFY is a good time to check gaming laptop deals, even if the laptop isn’t going to be used for work. Gaming laptops can be quite expensive, so a legitimate discount can make a bigger difference than it does on a basic everyday laptop.

That said, a gaming laptop can also be a powerful workstation if your work does need extra grunt. A fast CPU, dedicated GPU and plenty of RAM can help with video editing, 3D work, coding, running AI tools, creative apps or just keeping a lot of browser tabs and programs open at once.

It’s also worth checking our main EOFY laptop deals hub even after June 30, because in previous years we’ve seen some great laptop deals hang around or pop up in early July as retailers clear leftover stock.

For gaming laptops, we have deals from lower-cost RTX 5060 machines with generous RAM, through to much more expensive RTX 5090 desktop replacements.

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The Acer Nitro V 16S is a good option for a buyer who wants current-gen gaming performance without paying big money. You still get an RTX 5060, 32GB RAM, a 1TB SSD and a 180Hz display for AU$1,777, which is a lot of hardware for the price.

The RTX 5060 is a lower-end current-gen GPU, but that’s still a good fit for 1080p or 1200p gaming, especially if you’re happy to use DLSS or turn down a few settings in the most demanding games. With RAM prices rising, 32GB of RAM is harder to take for granted at this price, so it’s good to see Acer include it rather than cutting back to 16GB.

The Lenovo Legion Pro 7i is at the other end of the scale. Our Lenovo Legion Pro 7i review described it as “perfect for a desktop replacement, just okay as a portable”, and that’s exactly how I’d frame this deal.

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You’re not buying it because it’s cheap or easy to carry everywhere. You’re buying it because you want a very powerful 16-inch gaming laptop with an RTX 5090, 32GB RAM, a 1TB SSD and a 240Hz OLED screen.

Our review gave the Legion Pro 7i 4 stars and called out its excellent gaming performance, gorgeous OLED screen and useful port selection. That makes it a good fit if you want one machine for demanding games, an external monitor setup and heavier work like editing, rendering or development.

The big caveat is battery life, which our review said “is not great”, but that’s the trade-off with this kind of desktop-replacement gaming laptop.

If neither of these gaming laptop deals is quite right, our main EOFY laptop deals hub has more options across cheaper Windows laptops, MacBooks, 2-in-1s and higher-end gaming machines.

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How And Why To Fight Back Against Social Media Bans

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from the moral-panic-creeping-further-and-further dept

Several U.S. states are pushing to ban young people from social media entirely. This marks the latest wave of censorship bills masquerading as “children’s online safety” measures, with states like MassachusettsIdahoMinnesotaNorth CarolinaSouth CarolinaIllinois, and EFF’s home state of California leading the charge.

Just a few years ago, lawmakers supporting age-gating laws insisted their efforts were narrowly targeted at limiting young people’s access to adult content. At the time, we warned that they would not stop there: once the government established the authority and built the infrastructure to collect and “verify” massive troves of user data, it would inevitably sweep broader and broader categories of lawful speech into this mass surveillance and censorship system. 

Unfortunately, our predictions came true. As legislators across the country advance proposals that would block all young people from accessing the “modern public square,” the Overton window has shifted dramatically towards mass censorship—and the speed of this shift should concern all of us. 

This primer breaks down this dangerous wave of social media bans: how they work (and why they don’t), who they harm, and how we can fight back. 

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How to Spot a Social Media Ban

The details of these bills vary from state to state. Some (like California’s AB 1709) are a flat-out social media ban for all young people under a certain age, while other states (like South Carolina and Minnesota) allow access to young users who hand over even more data to show verifiable parental consent. Many bills regulate certain social media features, too, including by setting default privacy settings, time limits, or notification preferences for all accounts that fail the age-gate.

As for the age-gating mechanism itself, most proposals fall into two broad categories: age verification bills and behavioral age estimation bills. 

Age Verification Bills require online services to collect highly sensitive data, including government ID and biometric information, from all users before either restricting or allowing them access. 

For example, take California’s social media ban (AB 1709). Starting in January 2027, operating systems will be required to collect enough information from users to sort them into age groups, or “brackets.” Under AB 1709, social media apps would then use that age bracket information to completely block anyone under 16, while supposedly letting everyone else through. By contrast, Florida’s law (HB 3) takes a more aggressive route by forcing platforms to verify users’ identities directly, usually by contracting with private third-party companies to perform verification services.

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Behavioral Age Estimation Bills, on the other hand, are a more recent innovation of states like Minnesota (HF 1438) and South Carolina (H 4591). These bills require platforms to estimate the ages of users based largely on data that they already collect, including self-attested age, behavioral information, and account history and activity. In practice, these bills enable tech companies to use algorithms and/or AI to analyze our online behavior and estimate age based on that. 

Proponents of behavioral age estimation bills claim that their proposals avoid the massive security risks that come with mandatory age verification bills. However, much of the data that social media platforms collect from us “in the ordinary course of operation” is collected in order to serve us targeted behavioral ads. If we force platforms to use this imperfect data to make more important judgments about who can access their services, we risk entrenching those insidious data collection practices. Surely we don’t want to give social media companies more reasons to justify and sustain their reliance on this exploitative business model.

If you want to dig into the nuance here, our terminology guide sheds more light on the technical differences between age verification and age estimation bills. 

Overall, it’s a lose-lose scenario: either platforms collect new forms of our most sensitive and immutable data, or they unleash their AI and algorithms on our existing behavioral data to make creepy guesses about who we are and what we deserve to see. No matter which age-gating method your state chooses to execute its social media ban, there will be lots of error at the margins—and lots of users who will be blocked or chilled from access to lawful online speech.

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Why Social Media Bans Are So Dangerous

Social media bans are unconstitutional, discriminatory, and deeply misguided. They reinforce existing structures of oppression, and they are broadly unsupported by young people, whose voices are conspicuously absent from this conversation. They undermine parental decision-making and replace tailored family-level solutions with a one-size-fits-all band-aid. And, in the places we have seen social media bans go into effect, early reports show that they don’t even work

For example, in Australia, where a social media ban has been in effect since late 2025, a majority of young people can still access social media, those who can’t have lost their access to the news, and crisis helplines are reporting skyrocketing numbers of calls from youth left stranded without online community or resources.

We could go on and on about all of the inherent harms here, but we’ll try to keep this short as we walk through some of the major issues.

1. Security Risks and Privacy Harms

In order to ban some users, social media platforms first must confirm the ages of all users, regardless of age. Bans thus incentivize companies to force users of all ages to hand over government IDsface scans, and other sensitive information. When parental consent is required, companies must collect even more verification data and often create explicit links between child and parent accounts—further destroying users’ anonymity. 

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Both of these databases create massive data “honeypots” that invite identity theft and permanent surveillance. We’ve already seen repeated data breaches involving age- and identity-verification services. Yet these laws would force both adults and the youth they claim to protect to feed their most sensitive data into this growing surveillance ecosystem. 

If we don’t trust tech companies with our private information now, we shouldn’t pass laws that force us to give them even more of it. 

2. Disproportionate Harm to Vulnerable Communities

Age-verification technology is deeply flawed and prone to discrimination. These systems frequently misidentify or lock out people of colorpeople with disabilities, and trans or gender-nonconforming individuals whose IDs may not match their appearance. 

Where these bills require parental consent, they impose disproportionate access barriers on low-income, non-traditional, and immigrant families. These sorts of families are more likely to share a single family device or have strong reasons to not want the government to track family associations and ID documents. 

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Beyond the technical failures, these bans cut off a vital lifeline. For LGBTQ+ youth, foster kids, and those stuck in unsupportive home environments, social media is often the only place to find community, explore their identity, or access life-saving resources. Forcibly removing young people isolates those who need connection the most, while creating massive new barriers for adults. 

You can read a breakdown of the diverse groups vulnerable to these laws here

3. Based on Shoddy Science

The current legislative push to ban young people from social media relies heavily on the idea that the “great rewiring” of the adolescent brain is a proven fact. This simply isn’t true.

Social science indicates that moderate internet use is a net positive for teens’ development, and negative outcomes are usually due to either lack of access or excessive use. For LGBTQ+ and marginalized youth in particular, social media offers an essential space to access support they might lack offline. By forcing youth into digital isolation, these bans cut off vital access to political news, community, and health resources. They also completely ignore the calls of young people themselves who favor digital literacy and education over restrictive government control.

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Instead of cutting off these lifelines, we should support measures that arm all youth (and the adults in their lives) with the knowledge they need to navigate online spaces safely.

4. Reckless Free Speech Violations for Users of All Ages

No matter your age, the First Amendment protects your right to speak and access information. 

Blanket social media bans immensely and unconstitutionally chill all users’ exercise of this right. They cut off young people’s access to lawful speech, or ruin their privacy in the home by mandating parental consent and sometimes even parental access to their account activities and settings. They force all users (adults and young people alike) to hand private information over to tech companies before speaking or accessing information on social media platforms, imposing annoying obstacles on lawful online expression and wrongfully blocking some adults outright. 

Critically, these bans destroy our right to online anonymity—a cornerstone of our right to free expression that protects whistleblowers, journalists, activists, immigrants, and everyone who has ever used a private browser or account to ask the internet an embarrassing question.

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How to Fight Back

Social media bans weaponize parents’ concerns about children’s safety to justify unprecedented levels of surveillance and censorship. In the process, these laws deny young people their rights, threaten online anonymity for everyone, expose our sensitive personal data to breach and abuse, and replace parental decision-making with state authority. This is a battle over the future of the open, private, and free internet, and we must act now to protect it.

Here’s how you can help us fight back: Talk to your community (including young people!) about what’s at stake. If you’re a parent, lean on open conversations and platforms’ existing tools to tailor your child’s experiences instead of handing that power over to the government. And no matter where you live, contact your government representatives and tell them clearly that social media bans are not the answer to kids’ online safety.

Republished from the EFF’s Deeplinks blog.

Filed Under: age estimation, age verification, california, free speech, idaho, illinois, massachusetts, minnesota, moral panic, north carolina, social media, social media ban, south carolina

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RAM prices expected to rise another 40-50% in Q3 2026, and then 30% more in Q4 as AI demand outpaces supply

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Ethan Tan, a memory industry consultant and former Samsung China executive, told Jefferies Equity Research analysts during a recent briefing that he expects memory prices to rise by 40% to 50% in the third quarter of 2026 compared to the prior quarter, and by another 30% to 40% in Q4….
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Want a cheap Yeti cooler for your 4th of July celebrations? I’m a deal-hunting outdoor expert, and I’ve tracked down the only holiday offers actually worth your money

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Looking for a deal on a Yeti cooler for your July 4th celebrations? I’ve got you covered. As the former editor of an outdoor adventure website, I know exactly where to look to find the best offers on Yeti gear, and I have uncovered some great deals that will arrive in time for the big day.

Amazon has some great offers, particularly on soft coolers like the Hopper Flip 8 and 12, both of which are ideal for cans or lunches. There are also big discounts on the roomier Yeti M Series, including backpack-style coolers that make carrying your food and drinks a breeze.

Want a hard cooler? Take a look at Yeti Rescues, where you can find heaps of like-new coolers approved by the company itself, and with big price cuts. It’s a smart way to get a top-quality cooler for a lot less than list price. I’ve tested outdoor gear for years, and these price cuts are rare, so grab them while you can.

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Yeti deals at Amazon

Yeti’s online store often holds seasonal sales and special deals on selected colors and product lines. Here are today’s best offers.

Yeti Rescues deals

Can’t see the cooler you want in the Black Friday sale? Take a look at Yeti Rescues — an official Yeti program that takes coolers and other equipment that’s not brand spanking new (products that have been returned, for example, or that Yeti has used for demos or displays), inspects them, cleans them, and sells them at a bargain price.

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More Yeti deals

Amazon and Yeti Rescues aren’t your only options when you’re shopping for a cheap Yeti cooler. Dick’s Sporting Goods has a decent selection of offers as well. I’ve rounded up a handful of the best below, but you can also check out the full sale yourself.


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