Valentine’s Day is just a few days away, and IKEA’s cute kitchenware is a great way to make breakfast or dinner extra special for your sweetheart. I’m TechRadar’s kitchens expert, and I’ve put together this collection of cookware and accessories that will add a little splash of romance without breaking the bank.
IKEA has launched some exciting lights this year (we were particularly taken by the donut-shaped Varmblixt LED Lamp we saw at the CES tech show last month), and there are some particularly cute options for your kitchen table this Valentine’s Day. The wireless Solvinden LED Table Lamp in candy pink would look particularly sweet beside an arrangement of flowers like the Smyka Artificial Bouquet, or the Fejka Artificial Potted Plant with its variegated pink and green foliage.
Want to make more of a statement? The heart-shaped Upplyst LED Wall Lamp emits a soft, cozy light, and is rated for around 20 years of use so you can bring it out time after time (or make it a permanent fixture in your kitchen).
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Fill the Sommaröga Serving Stand with cupcakes or muffins, and serve them with a handful of heart-printed Vinterfint Paper Napkins to catch any stray crumbs – for just $1. Not much of a baker? If you have a store nearby, IKEA’s Swedish Food Market offers a huge selection of cakes, desserts, and cookies to enjoy as part of a special Valentine’s Day ‘fika’ or coffee break.
EURO-3C’s backers – Spanish telecoms giant Telefónica, dozens of other European companies, and the European Commission (EC) – aim to fill a gap. U.S.-based cloud giants dominate in the EU, and European policymakers want their growing portfolio of digital government services on a “sovereign cloud” under full EU control.
But the EU lacks a real equivalent to the likes of AWS or MicrosoftAzure. Indeed, any effort to build one will inevitably run up against the same U.S. cloud giants.
But those hypothetical risks to digital services have become more real as transatlantic relations have soured under the second Trump administration. The U.S. has openly threatened to invade an EU member state and sanctioned a European Commissioner for passing legislation the White House dislikes.
After the White House sanctioned the Netherlands-based International Criminal Court in February 2025, Court staffers claimed Microsoft locked the Court’s chief prosecutor out of his email (Microsoft has denied this). Around the same time, the U.S. reportedly threatened to sever EU ally Ukraine’s access to crucial Starlinksatellite internet as leverage during trade negotiations.
“The geopolitical risk isn’t just the most extreme form of a doomsday ‘kill switch’ where Washington turns off Europe’s internet,” Stéfane Fermigier of EuroStack, an industry group that supports European digital independence. “It is the selective degradation of services and a total lack of retaliatory leverage.”
What, then, is the EU to do? France offers an example. Even before 2025, France implemented harsh restrictions on non-EU cloud providers in public services – providers must locate data in the EU, rely on EU-based staff, and may not have majority-non-EU shareholders. Now, EU policymakers are following France’s lead.
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In October 2025, the EC issued a two-part framework for judging cloud providers bidding for public sector contracts. In the first part, the framework lays out a sort of sovereignty ladder. The more that a provider is subject to EU law, the higher its sovereignty level on this ladder. Any prospective bidder must first meet a certain level, depending on the tender.
Qualifying bidders then move to the second part, where their “sovereignty” is scored in more detail. Using too much proprietary software; over-relying on supply chains from outside the EU; having non-EU support staff; liability to non-EU laws like the CLOUD Act: all hurt a bidder’s score.
The framework was created for one tender, but observers say it sets a major precedent. Cloud providers bidding for state contracts across Europe may need to follow it, and it may influence legislation on both national and EU-wide levels.
Who, then, will receive high marks? At the moment, the answer is not simple. The EU cloud scene is quite fragmented. Numerous modest EU providers offer “sovereign cloud” services – such as Scaleway, OVHcloud, and Deutsche Telekom’s T-Systems – but none are on the scale of AWS or Google Cloud.
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Inertia is on the side of the U.S. cloud giants, who can invest in their infrastructure and services on a far grander scale than their European counterparts. Some U.S. providers now offer cloud services they say comply with the Commission’s “cloud sovereignty” demands.
Some European observers, like EuroStack, say such promises are hollow so long as a provider’s parent company is subject to the likes of the CLOUD Act, and loopholes in the Commission’s process remain open. An AWS spokesperson told Spectrum it had not disclosed any non-US enterprise or government data to the U.S. government under the CLOUD Act; a Google spokesperson said that its most sensitive EU offerings “are subject to local laws, not US law”.
Even if a project like EURO-3C can offer a large-scale alternative, the US cloud giants have another sort of inertia. Many developers – and many public purchasers of their services – will need convincing to leave behind a familiar environment.
“If you look at AWS, you look at Google, they’ve created some super technology. It’s very convenient, it’s easy to use,” says Arnold Juffer, CEO of the Netherlands-based cloud provider Nebul. “Once you’re in that platform, in that ecosystem, it’s very hard to get out.”
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Martyna Chmura, an analyst at the Bloomsbury Intelligence and Security Institute, a London-based think tank, sees some EU developers taking a mixed approach. “Many organizations are already moving toward multi-cloud setups, using European or sovereign providers for sensitive workloads while still relying on hyperscalers for certain services,” she says.
In that case, the EU’s top-down demands may encourage developers to use EU providers for sensitive applications – like government services, transport, autonomous vehicles, and some industrial automation – even if it’s inconvenient in the short term, or if it causes even more fragmentation of the EU cloud scene. “Running systems across different platforms can increase integration costs and make security and data governance more complicated. In some cases, organisations could lose some of the efficiency and cost advantages that come from using large hyperscale platforms,” Chmura says.
“Overall, the EU appears willing to accept some of these trade-offs,” Chmura says.
The Oppo Find N6 is a book-style foldable that really nails the experience, combining a near-creaseless inner display, refined hardware, improved cameras and genuinely usable all-day battery life in a package that finally feels ready for more than just early adopters – making the fact it’s not getting a wide release all the more frustrating.
Slimline design
The foldable crease is almost imperceptible
Much better camera hardware
Strong battery life and rapid charging
Camera sensors still trail behind bar phones
Snapdragon chipset is underclocked
Very limited availability
Squirrel Widget
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Key Features
Near crease-less foldable screen
The inner 8.13-inch screen has the least visible crease of any foldable yet, making for a truly premium experience.
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All-day battery and fast charging
The combination of a 6000mAh battery and 80W wired charging offers great battery life and a full charge in under an hour.
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Boosted camera hardware
With a 200MP main and dual 50MP zoom and ultrawide lenses, the Find N6 is capable of great shots.
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Introduction
The biggest problem with book-style foldables has always been right there in the middle of the screen – but with the Find N6, Oppo has all but erased it.
Thanks to a new hinge and “Auto-Smoothing” glass, the inner display is almost perfectly flat, finally delivering a tablet-like canvas that doesn’t constantly remind you it folds in half.
Oppo hasn’t stopped there, either; the N6 backs that near-creaseless panel with a larger battery, faster charging, a genuinely competitive camera system and one of the most polished big-screen Android experiences around, complete with powerful multitasking tools and thoughtful productivity tweaks.
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The catch? Despite feeling like a proper 2026 flagship that just happens to fold, Oppo is only releasing it in a handful of markets – China, Japan, Malaysia, Thailand, Australia and New Zealand – with no plans for a launch in the EU, UK or US, making this more of an import‑only glimpse at the foldable future than a phone most people can realistically pick up.
Design
Just as thin as last year, but lighter
Shallow camera bump
Improved dust and water resistance
Take a quick look at the Oppo Find N6 and you might struggle to find any real differences between it and its predecessor, but honestly, that’s not a problem at all.
The Oppo Find N5 led the charge on the super-thin foldable trend that the likes of Samsung and Honor have since jumped on, and even if the N6 isn’t any thinner, at 8.9mm folded and 4.2mm unfolded, it’s still slimmer than some regular bar phones.
Image Credit (Trusted Reviews)
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I’m not disappointed it’s not any thinner; the Honor Magic V6 is technically slimmer, though only by 0.1mm – something you won’t notice. They can’t really go much thinner anyway, as the USB-C port simply won’t fit.
Much like the N5, the N6 is super thin when unfolded, nice to hold and, with newly chamfered edges, it doesn’t feel quite as sharp as its predecessor despite having the same flat edges. The rounded corners don’t feel quite as premium as Samsung’s sharp-cornered Galaxy Z Fold 7, but that’s largely a matter of personal preference.
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The Find N5 might’ve been thin, but compared to the Fold 7 and Magic V5, it wasn’t light. At 229g, it was noticeably heavier than Samsung’s 215g and Honor’s 217g. The Find N6 shaves off 4g, but it’s still pretty hefty. It’s not as heavy as the 258g Google Pixel 10 Pro Fold, but it’s not quite as lightweight as Samsung’s alternative either.
Flip the phone around and you’ll find a familiar ‘cosmos ring’ camera housing, once again front and centre, but much shallower than before. It’s now among the thinnest camera housings you’ll find on a foldable, allowing for less of a table wobble while still offering impressive camera hardware – but more on that later.
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Other tweaks include a slight repositioning of the power and volume controls to accommodate Oppo’s new customisable SnapKey, and improved dust and water resistance – though its combination of IP54, IP58 and IP59 isn’t quite as robust as the IP68 Pixel 10 Pro Fold.
Colour options remain attractive, with the phone available in Blossom Orange, a softer orange than Apple’s iPhone 17 Pro alternative with rose gold detailing, along with Stellar Titanium, a more toned-down grey with matching silver accents.
Screens
8.12-inch foldable AMOLED screen
No visible crease on foldable screen – a first
Great cover screen, though still a bit narrow
If there’s one reason to import the Find N6, it’d be the screens – and the foldable inner panel in particular. At 8.12 inches, it’s huge and offers all the premium gubbins you’d expect, including an LTPO-enabled 120Hz refresh rate, 2160Hz PWM dimming and a top brightness of 2500nits in HBM.
Image Credit (Trusted Reviews)
The real magic, though, is the crease – or lack of it. The crease has been the bane of foldables since their inception and, while we’ve come a long way from the cavernous creases of early models, you can still see and feel them on the latest Z Fold 7 and Magic V5.
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Not with the Find N6. Even powered off, it’s very hard to spot the crease. That’s down to an industry-first hinge manufacturing process that uses 3D printing to smooth out parts of the hinge and keep it flat. Oppo claims other manufacturers usually have a variation of around 0.2mm, but the N6 is just 0.05mm – less than the thickness of a human hair, and only really visible when shining a light directly at it.
Image Credit (Trusted Reviews)
Run your finger across it and there’s only the slightest dip if you really feel for it. In everyday use, you won’t notice it – I certainly haven’t over the past month or so.
The result is a much more premium, clean-looking foldable experience that finally doesn’t feel compromised in any real way. It’s a genuine step forward in foldable screen tech and helps Oppo stand out from the foldable crowd.
Image Credit (Trusted Reviews)
Paired with a bright, smooth AMOLED panel, it’s an absolute joy to use for everyday tasks like scrolling through TikTok, watching YouTube or editing videos in CapCut with its foldable-friendly UI. It’s still a little reflective, with plastic instead of glass, but that’s par for the course if you want a folding screen.
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Crucially, Oppo claims the new hinge – and its new Auto-Smoothing Flex Glass – shouldn’t degrade over time either, with no noticeable difference even after 200,000 folds. If Oppo’s numbers are to be believed, it could last for over 1 million folds – but only time will tell.
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The cover screen seems almost dull in comparison, but it’s also a well-specced panel, sharing most key specs with the internal screen while actually getting brighter at 3500nits. The bezels have slimmed down to 1.4mm thick, giving it a cleaner look than last year’s N5, though the surrounding frame means it’s still not quite as bezel-less as a bar-phone alternative.
Still, it performs admirably at its primary task of providing a more traditional smartphone experience when it’s not convenient to unfurl the inner screen. At 6.6 inches, it’s the perfect size for scrolling through social media, replying to WhatsApp messages and anything else you want to do one-handed, with a similarly vibrant, colourful panel that lends itself well to video.
Image Credit (Trusted Reviews)
I do wish it were a little wider though, with a 20.7:9 aspect ratio that’s still a little tall and narrow compared to regular phones. It’s not something I noticed much during active use, but switching between it and phones like the Galaxy S26 Ultra, the extra width is appreciated.
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Cameras
200MP main, 50MP 3x periscope and 50MP ultrawide lenses
Boosted camera performance across the board
Secondary lenses aren’t perfect for low-light situations
With the N5, Oppo sacrificed camera performance to achieve its super-thin build – but the N6 looks to rectify this. It’s headed up by a 200MP main shooter, along with a 50MP 3x periscope lens and a 50MP ultrawide complete with autofocus, with underlying hardware that’s much more capable of competing with premium bar phones.
The 200MP sensor, up from 50MP last year, is the star of the show, with a wide f/1.7 aperture and a 1/1.56-inch sensor drinking in as much light as possible. It’s a competent snapper in both well-lit and low-light environments, with the high-res sensor providing plenty of detail with pixel-binning tech at play.
Image Credit (Trusted Reviews)
There are plenty of shooting modes to play with too, both Hasselblad-branded and Oppo-branded, all focused on specific scenarios or lighting conditions. You’ve got modes for tricky situations like concerts, fireworks and silhouette shots, along with options that improve the look in bright outdoor conditions, providing plenty of tools to experiment with and get great shots.
Colours are also much truer to life than you’ll get from Samsung’s alternative, mainly thanks to the dedicated True Colour camera from the flagship Find X9 Pro, whose sole job is to measure colour. That setup means that, unlike most other foldables, the colour science is the same across all three rear lenses, with each using that dedicated colour sensor.
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The 50MP 3x periscope remains unchanged from last year’s foldable, but it’s still a competent zoom lens, especially compared to Samsung’s 10MP 3x telephoto alternative. The 3x zoom is ideal for portrait photography, especially when paired with the dedicated Portrait mode for advanced control over lighting and background blur, and it’ll do a decent job up to around the 10x mark before those telltale signs of artificial enhancement start to become apparent.
The 50MP ultrawide, with a big boost in resolution and now able to offer pixel-binning tech to boost light capture and detail, feels much more at home in a high-end smartphone. Like the other lenses, it delivers great shots, particularly during the day, with little edge distortion, and the autofocus makes it great for group shots.
When light levels drop, the limitations of Oppo’s camera tech start to appear – not necessarily with the super-high-res main sensor, but with the secondary lenses, the ultrawide in particular. It’ll do well enough in dim bars, clubs and streetlamp-lit streets, but the aperture just isn’t quite wide enough for proper low-light photography.
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The Find N6 likely won’t be winning any awards for smartphone photography – the ultra-slim dimensions mean there are still compromises to be had, particularly in terms of sensor sizes compared to regular camera-focused phones – but it’s a great showing for a foldable, and I think very few people will be disappointed with what the N6 offers.
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Performance
Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 – but with fewer cores
Still delivers a top-notch everyday experience
Can handle gaming sessions with ease
The Oppo Find N6 has Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 power at its heart – but there’s a catch. This is a new, slightly underpowered, seven-core CPU version of the chipset, which usually comes with an eight-core configuration. Oppo claims that the NPU and GPU are identical, though that doesn’t quite align with my test results.
Even when paired with 16GB of RAM and 512GB of storage, it’s not quite at the same level of performance as Snapdragon-powered bar flagships like the Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra and OnePlus 15 in benchmark testing.
Test Data
Oppo Find N6
Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 7
Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra
OnePlus 15
Geekbench 6 single core
3571
2318
3519
3553
Geekbench 6 multi core
9677
8828
10713
10642
Geekbench 6 GPU
23961
–
24611
–
3DMark Solar Bay
46.9
–
46.9
–
3D Mark – Wild Life
6398
5574
7281
6166
3D Mark – Wild Life Stress Test
53.6 %
–
67.6 %
–
While single-core CPU performance is comparable, the N6 falls slightly behind ‘true’ 2026 flagship alternatives in multi-core CPU tests – unsurprising given the missing core – and more interestingly in GPU tests, with scores consistently lower than the top-end competition.
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It also isn’t the greatest phone I’ve seen in terms of sustained performance, scoring just 53.6% stability during a high-intensity 20-minute stress test – though that is fairly common among super-thin foldables where there isn’t a lot of space for heat to be effectively dissipated.
That might paint a picture of a foldable that can’t quite keep up with bar-style competition, but the day-to-day performance of the Find N6 is absolutely fine.
Image Credit (Trusted Reviews)
The phone feels about as rapid as any other flagship you could pick up in 2026, foldable or otherwise, with Oppo’s focus on speedy animations across the OS making it feel even more responsive. Apps open with a sense of urgency, multi-app splitscreening is a delight on the big internal panel, and it can handle gaming sessions with ease.
I could happily run my go-to games, like Call of Duty Mobile and Crashlands 2, with high-fidelity graphics and high frame rates on the higher-res internal panel without any noticeable lag or stuttering. The phone does get warm after longer 30-minute+ sessions, but even then, it’s not hot, just warm under the fingers.
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As you’d expect from a high-end phone, that’s paired with top-end connectivity including Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 6, along with NFC for those all-important contactless payments.
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Software
ColorOS 16 based on Android 16
New floating window multitasking mode
Suite of productivity and AI features
Of all the heavily customised Android skins I encounter switching between brands like Samsung, Honor and Xiaomi, Oppo’s ColorOS has to be one of my favourites. It’s well-designed and polished without the bloatware and ballooning feature set you get with some rivals, with a focus on speed, customisation and genuinely handy productivity tools.
Image Credit (Trusted Reviews)
The latest version, ColorOS 16 based on Android 16, further improves this with better UI animations that make everything feel a little slicker and more responsive, along with new lock screen themes, a sprinkling of Apple-inspired transparency and a completely new way to multitask on big-screen foldables.
Like some of the best Android tablets, the Find N6 has a fully featured windowed app mode – dubbed Free Flow Window – that allows for a desktop-like experience with up to four resizable windows on-screen at once. You can either let the phone arrange them automatically or drag them around yourself.
Image Credit (Trusted Reviews)
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It’s particularly handy when switching between apps to retrieve information, allowing you to keep apps running in mini windows while you work in another app full-screen, or run them side by side for simultaneous use. And if that’s not your cup of tea, the traditional full-screen multitasking experience – which remains excellent – is still available.
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That alone makes the Find N6’s software experience among the strongest available right now, but other new features like the ability to view messages and notifications from a connected iPhone and the option to remotely access PC and Mac desktops also enhance the experience.
Image Credit (Trusted Reviews)
There’s also the usual smattering of AI features, including a suite of AI photo-editing tools, image-generation tech, translation tech, and audio-recording transcription. The latter still needs a bit of work however, with a 100-minute-per-month limit and a buggy summary experience.
On the whole, though, ColorOS 16 remains a good-looking, feature-packed and easy-to-use spin on Android.
Battery life
6000mAh silicon carbon battery
Can get you through most days with ease
Rapid 80W charging
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Oppo has made big gains in the battery life department with this year’s foldable, sporting a decent-sized 6000mAh battery that makes it bigger than the Z Fold 7, Magic V5 and Pixel 10 Pro Fold – though it is bested by the newer Magic V6, revealed at MWC and due out later this year.
Still, among foldables you can actually buy right now, the Find N6 has one of the largest batteries around – and that translates to strong everyday performance.
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It’s the first foldable I’ve used where I don’t feel constrained by the battery, and that meant I was actively using the larger, more power-hungry inner screen more than I would on the likes of the Z Fold 7. It got me through demanding days with a mix of photography, music playback, messaging, browsing and gaming, with some charge left in the tank.
We’re talking remaining battery in the range of 10–20%, which is a little close for comfort – especially compared to bar phones like Oppo’s own Find X9 Pro and its 7500mAh cell that can get well into a second day of use – but it’s still a big step forward for foldables.
Of course, your mileage may vary depending on what you’re up to and the features you’ve enabled, but for most people, the Find N6 will be an all-day device.
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If it does need a top-up on particularly busy days, the Find N6 charges very quickly with rapid 80W wired charging support. Despite having a bigger battery than much of the competition, it still goes from near-empty to a meaningful charge in around 15 minutes and to full in well under an hour.
You’ll need a SuperVOOC-branded charger to hit those speeds, and you’ll need an adapter if you import one to the UK (or simply source a UK charger separately), but that’s a small price to pay. If you decide against it, it also supports 55W USB-C PD charging and 50W AirVOOC wireless charging – though, again, the latter requires a specific charger to reach top speeds.
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Squirrel Widget
Should you buy it?
You want an almost crease-free foldable experience
The Find N6 has pretty much eliminated the crease, with only a slight 0.05mm-deep bump running down the screen – the shallowest of any foldable yet.
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You don’t want to import it
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With such limited availability, you’ll likely need to import the Find N6 – and that comes with additional fees and taxes.
Final Thoughts
The Oppo Find N6 is an ultra-thin book-style foldable that doesn’t come with an obvious, daily compromise.
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The near-creaseless inner display is a genuine first for foldables, finally delivering a tablet-like experience that doesn’t constantly remind you of the underlying hardware trickery. Paired with refined hardware, a much-improved camera system and the kind of battery life that lets you actually use that big inner screen without anxiety, it feels like Oppo is tackling the pain points that have made foldables feel like early-adopter tech for years.
That said, the Find N6 still isn’t the perfect all-rounder, and for many people it simply won’t be an option at all.
The seven-core Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 doesn’t quite match the best bar-style flagships in raw benchmarks, the secondary cameras and low-light performance still trail traditional camera phones, and, most importantly, it’s not getting a wider release beyond China, Japan, Malaysia, Thailand, Australia and New Zealand, making it a non-starter for most.
If you’re willing to import, the Find N6 is one of the most complete foldable options around – it’s just a shame that, for most people, it’ll remain more aspirational than attainable. For options that are more easily available, take a look at our hand-picked selection of the best foldable phones.
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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 a month
Thorough camera testing in a variety of conditions
Tested and benchmarked using respected industry tests and real-world data
FAQs
Is the Oppo Find N6 available in the UK, US or Europe?
No, unfortunately not. The Find N6 is limited to regions including China, Japan, Malaysia, Thailand, Australia and New Zealand.
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Does the Oppo Find N6 come with a charger in the box?
It depends on the region you’re in, but generally speaking, you’ll get an 80W SuperVOOC charger in the box.
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Since Andrej Karpathy coined the term “vibe coding” just over a year ago, we’ve seen a rapid increase in both the capabilities and popularity of using AI models to throw together quick programming projects with less human time and effort than ever before. One such vibe-coded project, Gaming Alexandria Researcher, launched over the weekend as what coder Dustin Hubbard called an effort to help organize the hundreds of scanned Japanese gaming magazines he’s helped maintain at clearinghouse Gaming Alexandria over the years, alongside machine translations of their OCR text.
A day after that project went public, though, Hubbard was issuing an apology to many members of the Gaming Alexandria community who loudly objected to the use of Patreon funds for an error-prone AI-powered translation effort. The hubbub highlights just how controversial AI tools remain for many online communities, even as many see them as ways to maximize limited funds and man-hours. “I sincerely apologize,” Hubbard wrote in his apology post. “My entire preservation philosophy has been to get people access to things we’ve never had access to before. I felt this project was a good step towards that, but I should have taken more into consideration the issues with AI.” “I’m very, very disappointed to see [Gaming Alexandria], one of the foremost organizations for preserving game history, promoting the use of AI translation and using Patreon funds to pay for AI licenses,” game designer and Legend of Zelda historian Max Nichols wrote in a post on Bluesky over the weekend. “I have cancelled my Patreon membership and will no longer promote the organization.”
Nichols later deleted his original message (archived here), saying he was “uncomfortable with the scale of reposts and anger” it had generated in the community. However, he maintained his core criticism: that Gemini-generated translations inevitably introduce inaccuracies that make them unreliable for scholarly use.
In a follow-up, he also objected to Patreon funds being used to pay for AI tools that produce what he called “untrustworthy” translations, arguing they distort history and are not valid sources for research. “… It’s worthless and destructive: these translations are like looking at history through a clownhouse mirror,” he added.
Denon has introduced the DP-500BT Bluetooth turntable, a semi-automatic belt-drive model designed to bring vinyl playback into wireless listening systems. The new turntable allows records to be played through traditional analog outputs or streamed directly to Bluetooth speakers and headphones, offering a flexible option for listeners who want the warmth of vinyl without giving up modern convenience.
Vinyl’s resurgence shows no signs of slowing. U.S. vinyl sales rose for the 19th consecutive year to 47.9 million units, with independent record stores accounting for roughly four out of every ten purchases. Buying habits across physical formats are also shifting as direct-to-consumer sales now represent 13.6% of all physical album purchases, according to Luminate. The continued demand for physical media helps explain why companies like Denon are expanding their turntable lineups.
Although Denon is perhaps best known for its AV receivers, the company has a long history of producing turntables. Its current range includes the DP-450USB ($799), DP-400 ($599), DP-300F ($499), DP-29F ($219), and the flagship DP-3000NE ($2,799). The new DP-500BT joins that lineup as a belt-drive design that blends classic analog playback with the convenience of Bluetooth connectivity.
Inside the Denon DP-500BT Bluetooth Turntable
The Denon DP-500BT is a semi-automatic belt-drive turntable that combines traditional analog playback with built-in Bluetooth connectivity. It can be used with modern wireless audio systems or connected to conventional Hi-Fi setups through its analog outputs. The turntable includes an integrated moving magnet phono preamp that can be bypassed if you prefer to use an external phono stage. Wireless playback is supported via Bluetooth with compatibility for aptX, aptX HD, and aptX Adaptive codecs.
Lyle Smith, President of Sound United at HARMAN, explained, “The DP-500BT brings timeless analog and modern wireless freedom together in a way only Denon can. Whether someone is building their first vinyl setup or expanding an existing system, this turntable delivers a premium experience with simple, flexible Bluetooth streaming that carries the depth and detail of vinyl into any room.”
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The DP-500BT uses a precision belt-drive system designed to maintain stable platter rotation. It includes a die-cast aluminum platter that adds mass for smoother operation and improved speed stability. Denon also equips the turntable with its balanced S-shaped tonearm, intended to support accurate tracking and help reduce distortion during playback.
A pre installed moving magnet (MM) cartridge and a built in switchable phono preamp are included, allowing the DP-500BT to connect to a wide range of audio systems, including powered speakers and traditional Hi-Fi components.
However, what sets the DP-500BT apart from many turntables is its built-in Bluetooth transmitter, which supports aptX, aptX HD, and aptX Adaptive codecs. This allows users to play vinyl records wirelessly through compatible Bluetooth devices, including headphones, receivers, and powered speakers. In addition, semi-automatic operation with auto lift and playback stop helps protect records while making everyday listening easier and more convenient.
Cast metal feet and vibration-resistant construction maintain stability. A removable dust cover preserves the matte finish. Every element supports both the visual identity and the performance standard expected from Denon.
The design of the DP-500BT reflects Denon’s refined, modern aesthetic with a two-tone finish and minimalist design that fits with a wide range of interiors.
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Denon DP-500BT Key Features
Pure Vinyl Playback: Stable platter rotation and careful mechanical design help preserve the character and detail of vinyl records while minimizing distortion.
Bluetooth Streaming: Vinyl records can be played wirelessly through compatible Bluetooth speakers or headphones throughout the home.
Precision Engineered Construction: A die cast aluminum platter, vibration resistant chassis, and balanced S shaped tonearm are designed to reduce resonance and support stable playback.
Belt Drive System: The belt drive design helps isolate motor vibration from the platter, contributing to consistent rotation and cleaner playback.
Semi Automatic Operation: Automatic tonearm lift and playback stop help protect the stylus and records while making operation easier.
Built In Phono Preamp: A switchable phono preamp allows the DP-500BT to connect directly to powered speakers, receivers, or amplifiers that do not include a dedicated phono input.
Streaming is undoubtedly the most popular way to listen to music, but physical media hasn’t quite lost its magic yet. CDs and audio cassettes are making comebacks, but vinyl records have an extra special place in the music listening landscape.
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As a result, there are an increasing number of turntables that also include Bluetooth as a way to stream vinyl record listening all around the house, whether it be on Bluetooth speakers, wireless headphones, or earbuds, without having to have a turntable in every room.
Denon is the latest to integrate Bluetooth in its turntable line with DP-500BT, but there is also a lot of competition from noted brands, such as the Technics SL-40CBT and Sony PS-LX5BT. The question is, has Denon entered the Bluetooth Turntable game too late to be competitive? Or is this just the right time to unite the old world and the new? We shall soon find out.
Price & Availability
The Denon DP-500BT Bluetooth turntable is priced at $899 at Crutchfield and can be purchased through Denon and authorized retailers in select global markets.
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Inside Climate News: Republican lawmakers in multiple states and Congress are advancing proposals to shield polluters from climate accountability and prevent any type of liability for climate change harms — even as these harms and their associated costs continue to mount. It’s the latest in a counter-offensive that has unfolded on multiple fronts, from the halls of Congress and the White House to courts and state attorneys general offices across the country.
Dozens of local communities, states and individuals are suing major oil and gas companies and their trade associations over rising climate costs and for allegedly lying to consumers about climate change risks and solutions. At the same time, some states are enacting or considering laws modeled after the federal Superfund program that would impose retroactive liability on large fossil fuel producers and levy a one-time charge on them to help fund climate adaptation and resiliency measures. But many of these cases and climate superfund laws could be stopped in their tracks, either by the conservative majority on the U.S. Supreme Court or by the Republican-controlled Congress.
Last month the court decided to take up a petition lodged by oil companies Suncor and ExxonMobil in a climate-damages case brought against the companies by Boulder, Colorado. The petition argues that Boulder’s claims are barred by federal law, and if the justices agree, it could knock out not only Boulder’s lawsuit but also many others like it. The court is expected to hear the case during its upcoming term that starts in October. There is also a possibility that Republicans in Congress will take action before then to gift the fossil fuel industry legal immunity, similar to that granted to gun manufacturers with the 2005 Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act. Sixteen Republican attorneys general wrote (PDF) to U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi in June suggesting that the Department of Justice could recommend legislation creating precisely this type of liability shield. And last month, one Republican congresswoman announced that such legislation is indeed in the works. “The ultimate democratic institution in America is the jury,” said former Washington Gov. Jay Inslee. Enacting policies that prevent or block climate-related lawsuits against polluters, he said, would effectively shutter “the doors of the courthouse to Americans that have been injured by oil and gas company pollution and by their lies and deceit about that pollution.”
“I really think it’s an un-American effort to deny Americans the traditional right of access to a jury,” Inslee said. Oil and gas executives are “terrified” by the prospect of having to stand before a jury and face evidence of their climate-change lies and deception, he added. “You’ll see the steam coming out of the jury’s ears when they hear about how they’ve been lied to for decades. [Oil companies] understand why juries will be outraged by it, and they are shaking in their boots. The day of reckoning is coming, and that’s why they’re afraid.”
The Pittsburgh startup’s AI platform will create digital twins of Pacific Fleet vessels, starting with 18 ships, as the Navy races to fix a maintenance crisis costing up to $20 billion a year.
Roughly 40% of the United States Navy’s fleet is unavailable at any given time. Ships are queued in dry dock. Maintenance cycles stretch across months. The cost of the backlog, according to Gecko Robotics CEO Jake Loosararian, runs somewhere between $13 billion and $20 billion annually. And as he puts it, “at a time when you need every asset you can get, that’s pretty critical.”
On Tuesday, the Pittsburgh startup announced it had signed a five-year IDIQ (indefinite delivery, indefinite quantity) contract with the US Navy and the General Services Administration, with a ceiling of $71 million.
The initial award stands at $54 million. It is the largest contract the Navy has ever awarded Gecko Robotics , and the largest robotics deal the Navy has signed to date.
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The work begins immediately with 18 ships in the US Pacific Fleet, destroyers, amphibious warships, and littoral combat ships, over the next nine months. Gecko’s wall-climbing robots, drones, and sensors will crawl across hulls, decks, and welds, gathering data points that would take human inspectors weeks to collect.
That raw data feeds into Cantilever, the company’s AI-powered operating platform, which converts it into a detailed digital twin of each vessel: a living, updatable model of the ship’s structural health.
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The company says its technology can identify necessary repairs up to 50 times faster and more accurately than manual inspection techniques. Critically, the inspection can happen before a ship even reaches dry dock, meaning the right parts and personnel can be staged in advance, rather than the process beginning only once the vessel is already out of service.
Defense One reported that just 41% of ships completed repairs on time in 2025, well short of the Navy’s 71% goal. The Navy has since reset its target to above 60%, with the broader ambition of reaching 80% fleet combat surge readiness by 2027.
Gecko’s contract structure is also notable for its scope: because it runs through the GSA, any branch of the Department of Defense can access the company’s AI and robotics under the agreement, not just the Navy.
“Readiness isn’t just a metric. It’s all that matters,” Loosararian said in a statement. “This growing partnership is about the unfair advantages Gecko is deploying to our Navy and how prediction, through our robotics and AI products, ensures our brave men and women are the most advantaged in the world in their fight to defend freedom.”
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The contract arrives at a moment of heightened urgency around US shipbuilding capacity. The Trump administration released a multi-page plan in February to revive the sector, which has fallen significantly behind China. Pennsylvania Senator Dave McCormick, in a statement, said the deal demonstrated how “engineers, researchers, and skilled tradesmen from a great Pennsylvania company are leading advances in technology, artificial intelligence, autonomous systems, and robotics and giving our military the capabilities it needs for the next generation of American defence.”
Gecko is not new to the Navy. The company, co-founded by Loosararian and Troy Demmer, now its president, has previously deployed its TOKA series robots on destroyers, amphibious vessels, and aircraft carriers, and has worked with defence prime contractor L3Harris on digital twins for military aircraft.
Earlier this year it partnered with BPMI, a contractor for the Naval Nuclear Propulsion Programme, to cut inspection times on nuclear carrier and submarine components by up to 90%.
The company was last valued at $1.25 billion following a Series D round led by Cox Enterprises in June 2025, which brought its total funding to $173 million. It remains private. The TOKA robots that will crawl the Pacific Fleet’s hulls are the same ones Gecko has been deploying in power generation, oil and gas, and heavy manufacturing for years, the argument being that the physical world, whether it’s a coal boiler or a guided-missile destroyer, yields its secrets the same way: slowly, and only to whoever has the patience to look closely enough.
Full-color 3D printing is something of a holy grail, if nothing else just because of how much it impresses the normies. We’ve seen a lot of multi-material units the past few years, and with Snapmaker’s U1 and the Prusa XL it looks like tool changers are coming back into vogue. Just in time, [Radoux] has a fork of OrcaSlicer called FullSpectrum that brings HueForge-like color mixing to tool changing printers.
The hook behind FullSpectrum is very simple: stacking thin layers of colors, preferably with semi-translucent filament, allows for a surprising degree of mixing. The towers in the image above have only three colors: red, blue, and yellow. It’s not literally full-spectrum, but you can generate surprisingly large palettes this way. You aren’t limited to single-layer mixes, either: A-A-B repeats and even arbitrary patterns of four colors are possible, assuming you have a four-head tool changing printer like the Snapmaker U1 this is being developed for.
FullSpectrum is in fact a fork of Snapmaker’s fork of OrcaSlicer, which is itself forked from Bambu Slicer, which forked off of PrusaSlicer, which originated as a fork of Slic3r. Some complain about the open-source chaos of endless forking, but you can see in that chain how much innovation it gets us — including this technique of color mixing by alternating layers.
[Wombly Wonders] shows the limits of this in his video: you really want layer heights of 0.8 mm to 0.12 mm, as the standard 0.2 mm height introduces striping, particularly with opaque filaments. Depending on the colors and the overhang, you might get away with it, but thinner layers generally going to be a safer bet. Fully translucent filaments can blend a little too well at the edges, but the HueForge community — that we’ve covered previously — has already got a good handle on characterizing translucency and we’ll likely see a lot of that knowledge applied to FullSpectrum OrcaSlicer as time goes on.
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Now, you could probably use this technique with an multi-material unit (MMU), but the tool-changing printers are where it is going to shine because they’re so much faster at it. With the right tool-changer, it’s actually faster to run off a model mixing colors from the cyan-yellow-magenta color space that it is to print the same model with the exact colors needed loaded on an MMU. That’s unexpected, but [Wombly] does demonstrate in his video with a chicken that’s listed as taking nineteen hours on Bambu’s MakerWorld as taking under seven hours.
Could this be the killer app that pushes tool-change printers into the spotlight? Maybe! Tool changing printers are nothing new, after all. We’ve even seen it done with a delta, and lots of other DIY options if you don’t fancy buying the big Prusa. If you’ve been lusting after such a beast, though, you might finally have your excuse.
We spend hours testing every product or service we review, so you can be sure you’re buying the best. Find out more about how we test.
Oukitel WP61 Plus: 30-second review
Unveiled at IFA 2025 in Berlin, the Oukitel WP61 Plus is the brand’s flagship all-in-one rugged smartphone, featuring a 20,000 mAh battery, an integrated 2W DMR walkie-talkie, and a high-powered camping flashlight.
But what is likely to confuse people is that the WP60 and WP62 have been available for some time, but Oukitel held the WP61 Plus back.
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Built for outdoor professionals, search-and-rescue workers, or those who routinely find themselves in the great outdoors, the WP61 Plus is entering a highly competitive market.
There are four versions of the WP61 that all share the same SoC, memory, and storage model but differ in the special features included. There is a base model, the Plus model reviewed here, that has a 2W DMR walkie-talkie, the WP61 Ultra with thermal imaging, and the WP61 Ti with NTN Skylo Satellite communications.
All of them use the Dimensity 7025 processor, have 12GB of RAM, 512GB of storage and the same 108MP primary camera.
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The large 6.8-inch FHD+ display runs at 120Hz, which is a welcome touch for a rugged device, and Android 16 puts it on the cutting edge for that platform
Where the WP61 Plus truly distinguishes itself, however, is in its extended utility features. The built-in DMR (Digital Mobile Radio) walkie-talkie operates at 2W and is designed to maintain group communications in areas where cellular coverage fails.
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Oukitel quotes a range of 5.5km (3.4 miles) for DMR communications, but this will work without any cell service.
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Combined with the camping light and the ability to act as a power bank for smaller devices, this phone is positioned less as a smartphone and more as a portable field communications and survival tool.
The only significant downside of this design is its physical scale; at over 650g, this isn’t a small or lightweight design, and with the walkie-talkie antenna attached, it becomes even more unwieldy.
The WP61 Plus might not break into our best rugged smartphone selection, but if you are looking for a general-purpose rugged phone for an adventure trek, then it could be an option.
(Image credit: Mark Pickavance)
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Oukitel WP61 Plus: price and availability
How much does it cost? $370/£280/€323
When is it out? Available soon
Where can you get it? You can get it directly from Oukitel or via online retailers such as Amazon.
Direct from Oukitel, the asking price for the WP61 Plus is $369.99/£279.99/€322.68, which is a good deal if you accept the view that this is a discount from $499.99/£378.37/€436.06, a price at which this product has never been sold.
You read that correctly. At the time of writing, while Oukitel are promoting this product, it remains out of stock. Also, it’s not available via online retailers, but that’s probably right around the corner.
The Plus model is $50 more than the base model, but $60 less than the Ultra option. There is no price yet for the Satellite model.
There are lots of phones that use the same or similar SoCs, like the Blackview Oscal Tank 1, RugOne Xever 7 Pro, Doogee S200 and Oukitel WP300. All these are cheaper, but lack the DMR walkie-talkie technology.
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Blackview has the Xplore 1 Walkie Talkie that sells for €383.95 direct from the makers, a good amount more than the WP61 Plus.
The Unihertz Atom XL is a much smaller phone with the same DMR technology, priced at $289.99 at the official Unihertz outlet. However, I’d avoid this phone because there are no US or Global models.
A better choice is the Armour 26 Ultra Walkie-Talkie, but its base price is $649.99, making it substantially more expensive.
For a DMR-capable phone, the WP61 Plus is reasonably priced, though it might seem a little expensive for the platform specification.
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(Image credit: Mark Pickavance)
Oukitel WP61 Plus: Specs
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Item
Spec
CPU:
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MediaTek Dimensity 7025 (6nm)
GPU:
IMG BXM-8-256
NPU:
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MediaTek’s APU 780
RAM:
12GB
Storage:
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512GB
Screen:
6.8-inch FHD+ LCD
Resolution:
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1080 x 2460 pixels 650nits
SIM:
2x Nano SIM + TF (one shared position)
Weight:
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651.6 grams
Dimensions:
179.5 x 85 x 27.5 mm
Rugged Spec:
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IP68 IP69K dust/water resistant (up to 2m for 30 minutes), MIL-STD-810H Certification
Rear cameras:
108MP Camera + 8MP Night vision +2MP macro
Front camera:
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32MP Sony IMX616
Networking:
5G bands, WiFi 5, Bluetooth 5.2
Audio:
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130 dB 5W speaker
OS:
Android 16
Battery:
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20000 mAh (45W wired, 5W reverse charge)
Colours:
Black
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Oukitel WP61 Plus: design
Built for the field, not the pocket
DMR Antenna
Standard layout
The WP61 Plus makes no apologies for its bulk. At 179.5 x 85 x 27.5 mm, it is a substantial device, and one that is clearly engineered to accommodate its enormous 20,000mAh battery alongside the walkie-talkie antenna hardware and camping light module. The extra 27.5 mm of depth alone sets it apart as a very different prospect from a standard smartphone, and not one you can easily fit in a pocket.
What can make this design even more challenging to store is that in the box is a 92mm antenna for the DMR walkie-talkie that screws into the top right of the phone. You can choose not to attach that, but I presume that will impact the ability to communicate using that functionality.
The Oukitel WP series devices have traditionally used a combination of reinforced polycarbonate and aluminium alloy framing, and the WP61 doesn’t deviate from that, making it a device that can withstand heavy abuse.
The device supports a ‘seat charger’, a docking cradle that allows the phone to be mounted and charged in a fixed location, such as a vehicle dashboard or on a desk. This is a thoughtful addition for fleet operators or those who need their device always charged and ready. The dock isn’t included as standard, and its arrival date and price haven’t been released yet.
(Image credit: Mark Pickavance)
In terms of the general aesthetics and layout, there isn’t anything especially surprising about the WP61 Plus. The button arrangement is the one most rugged phones use, with the power (doubling as a fingerprint reader) and volume buttons on the right, the custom button on the left, where the SIM tray is also placed.
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The buttons are all metal, and the sides of the chassis are all machined aluminium, making this phone feel both comfortable to hold and seemingly indestructible.
Both the top and bottom edges feature a waterproof plug: one for the antenna on the top and another covering the USB port on the bottom. Both of these are held in place with screws, suggesting they could be replaced when they wear out if Oukitel makes replacements available.
To avoid wearing out the USB-C cover, the dock has four metal contact points on its bottom face, allowing it to be charged without inserting a cable.
The rear has three noticeable features: a camping light, a 5W speaker, and the camera cluster. The 1200-lumen camping light is obscured by a reference sticker that contains important information you don’t want to misplace by peeling it off and throwing it away, annoyingly.
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According to Oukitel, the speaker is rated at 130 dB, which would undoubtedly damage your hearing if you held it against your ear while it was making noise. The top-centre placement of that speaker also pushes the three rear camera lenses to the phone’s outer edge, which isn’t ideal.
While I’ve seen worse, the WP61 Plus seems to try to be many things at once and has slightly compromised some of its features in the process.
(Image credit: Mark Pickavance)
Design score: 3.5/5
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Oukitel WP61 Plus: hardware
MediaTek Dimensity 7025
20000 mAh battery
Walkie-talkie
This is the third phone I’ve covered that uses the MediaTek Dimensity 7025, and I haven’t changed my opinion of it.
Instead of this being a new and exciting SoC, it’s a renaming of the older Dimensity 930, a chip from May 2022. If you research this silicon, you will find that the Dimensity 7025 was launched in 2024, but the underlying chip is at least two years older.
That explains why all the 70XX SoCs are made using a 6nm process, whereas all the 73XX and 74XX chips use the new and superior 4nm process.
Ironically, that’s not the biggest issue with this platform, since, as SoCs go, the Dimensity 7025 is an effective power-efficient system that delivers a good user experience for the most part.
A bigger problem is that the CPU is coupled with the IMG BXM-8-256 GPU, one of those PowerVR IMG designs that is poor by modern standards. It drives the Android 16 interface reasonably, but it’s not a game-friendly GPU. Critically, it lacks some of the OpenGL and Vulkan functionality that interactive graphics apps often use.
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For the WP61 Plus’s intended use cases, it is a sensible and efficient choice, but more modern MediaTek designs, such as the Dimensity 7300 and 7400, offer far more potential.
In large, rugged phones, a 20000 mAh battery isn’t exceptional, but this device helps because it supports a 45W charger, which is included. That enables the phone to charge from zero to full capacity in about four hours, and get more than half of a charge in ninety minutes.
This is dramatically better than the WP60 offered with the same battery capacity, as that phone could only charge at 33W. Though, as I recall, the WP60 did reverse charge at 7W, where the WP61 Plus only puts out 5W.
(Image credit: Mark Pickavance)
You can get a similar platform and battery in a wide range of rugged phones, but the final feature I’ll talk about here is something that is in relatively few: a DMR (Digital Mobile Radio) walkie-talkie.
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The radio in the WP61 Plus transmits at 2W, which is a meaningful output for direct device-to-device communication. DMR is a professional-grade digital radio standard, typically used in construction, security, and emergency services, making this a genuine productivity tool rather than a novelty. And, the hardware here can also work with Analogue technologies, alongside DMR-capable handsets.
As I only have one WP61 Plus, I wasn’t able to test the assertion that communication of over 5.5km was possible, but the technology is capable of that, so I don’t doubt it could work at that range in theory. The beauty of this technology is that it doesn’t rely on any other infrastructure to operate, though the practical range may be limited by terrain.
For those working together off the grid or at a building site, the range seems enough to be practical, even if it won’t work if you travel beyond the potential range, or put a mountain between those talking.
The custom button opens the DMR app to initiate a call, and you can select a channel to communicate over. While you can add custom channels, the app includes the standard DMR-approved channels for a range of countries, including Europe, the USA, Australia, and Taiwan. Iran, Korea, Malaysia, Russia, Japan and China.
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As a matter of interest, I researched the DMR frequencies for various countries, and discovered that for some, like India, for higher power transmitters like this one, using 5W and with better range, a WPC license is required. So if you are not in any of the countries I previously listed, it might be worth researching which DMR channels you can use and any other clearances required before purchasing.
Even with those potential caveats, the DMR part of this device is undoubtedly the best aspect, should you have more than one of these or other DMR handsets to hand.
Oukitel WP61 Plus: cameras
108MP, 8MP night vision and 2MP Macro on the rear
32MP on the front
Four cameras in total
(Image credit: Mark Pickavance)
The Oukitel WP61 Plus has four cameras:
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Rear camera: 108MP Samsung ISOCELL HM6 (S5KHM6), 8MP SK Hynix Hi-846 night vision IR sensor, 2MP BYD BF2257CS Macro Front camera: 32MP Sony IMX616 Sensor
Oddly, this camera arrangement is remarkably similar to a range of phones I’ve recently reviewed, except that many of them use a GalaxyCore sensor for the 2MP macro function, whereas the WP61 Plus uses the BYD BF2257CS for the same job.
The combination of the 108MP Samsung ISOCELL HM6 (S5KHM6) and the 8MP SK Hynix Hi-846 night-vision IR sensor was seen on the Oukitel WP60 Pro. But that phone didn’t use the Sony IMX616 front-facing sensor, and it used a GalaxyCore GC02M1 for the Macro.
The Sony IMX616 is better than the 32MP GalaxyCore GC32E1, but the 2MP Macro sensors don’t make a huge difference to the close-up shooting you can do.
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The weakness of this layout is that the 108MP Samsung ISOCELL HM6 (S5KHM6) is used to avoid the need for zoom optics by providing a high-resolution sensor that can be cropped or pixel-binned. It offers a range of zoom settings from 1.0x to 4.0x. But it’s still not as good as having actual zoom optics, as the zoom jumps between settings, and the results for some digital zoom factors are better than for others.
The SK Hynix Hi-846 night vision sensor delivers impressive results in complete darkness, although it captures only in monochrome. And the Macro sensor is exceptionally grainy and requires excessive amounts of light to produce passable results.
Probably the biggest disappointment of this camera is that the primary Samsung ISOCELL has a resolution of 108MP, and you can shoot at that full resolution, but incredibly, the best video resolution available is only 1440p. That this phone, with a 108MP sensor, can’t offer 4K video is embarrassing.
The hardware is rated for 8K at 24 frames per second (fps) and 4K at 120fps, so the video resolution is down to the choices Oukitel made about the SoC and the Android camera application.
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This camera can take some excellent still images, but if I were to drag a phone this big and heavy about the wilderness, I would at least expect it to shoot 4K video.
(Image credit: Mark Pickavance)
Oukitel WP61 Plus Camera samples
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(Image credit: Mark Pickavance)
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Oukitel WP61 Plus: performance
Older 6nm SoC
GPU issues with OpenGL 3.1 and Vulkan 1.3
Great battery life
Swipe to scroll horizontally
Phone
Oukitel WP61 Plus
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Blackview Oscal Tank 1
SoC
MediaTek Dimensity 7025
MediaTek Dimensity 7050
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GPU
IMG BXM-8-256
Mali‑G68 MC4
NPU
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MediaTek’s APU 780
MediaTek NPU 550
Memory
12GB/512GB
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12GB/256GB
Weight
656g
640g
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Battery
20000
20000
Geekbench
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Single
959
920
Multi
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2362
2466
OpenCL
failed
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2471
Vulkan
failed
3036
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PCMark
3.0 Score
13080
11684
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Battery
40h 9m Est.
33h 57m Est.
Charge 30
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%
28
13
Passmark
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Score
6620
6861
CPU
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5284
5285
3DMark
Slingshot OGL
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3741
5293
Slingshot Ex. OGL
3738
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4150
Slingshot Ex. Vulkan
2614
3940
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Wildlife
Failed
2232
Row 19 – Cell 0
Nomad Lite
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Failed
266
Rather than putting the WP61 Plus against another phone with the same SoC, I thought it might be appropriate to compare it with a marginally better chip, so I chose the Blackview Oscal Tank 1. It uses the MediaTek Dimensity 7050, slightly better than the 7025.
Both of these phones have the same battery capacity and RAM, which makes them closer to each other than many other rugged phones. size
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What these results show is that the Dimensity 7025 is modestly slower than the 7050 used in the Tank 1, until you test it with a graphics benchmark. The IMG BXM-8-256 GPU can’t run the OpenGL and Vulkan APIs used by GeekBench and is required for 3DMark Wildlife and Nomad Lite.
But the upside of poor GPU performance is that the battery lasts much longer, with the WP61 Plus running for more than 40 hours. However, that result is a predicted endpoint because, like the Oscal Tank 1, the WP61 Plus crashed PCMark before exhausting the battery. Not sure if this is an issue with the benchmark or how both these phone makers are managing their batteries.
The overall performance of the WP61 Plus is fine for most uses, but it’s not a phone that gamers or anyone who uses VR will embrace. However, with curation, the battery could easily last six days or more, which could be useful off-grid.
(Image credit: Mark Pickavance)
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Oukitel WP61 Plus: Final verdict
The Oukitel WP61 Plus is a device that sets out to do something genuinely different in a crowded market. Rather than competing solely on processing power or camera resolution, it bundles a professional-grade walkie-talkie, an enormous battery, and a camping light into a package that could plausibly replace multiple pieces of equipment for an outdoor professional or expedition team.
The Dimensity 7025 is not the most exciting chipset, and the physical dimensions mean this is not a device you will comfortably carry in a trouser pocket. But if your priorities are extended endurance, off-grid communications, and resilience in harsh environments, the WP61 Plus presents a compelling case at the asking price.
How useful DMR technology is to you will depend on whether you already use it or intend to buy multiple phones for walkie-talkie use. If it’s not something you’ll use immediately, you could save yourself $50 by buying the base model, since it has everything else I’ve mentioned here.
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Should I buy a Oukitel WP61 Plus?
Swipe to scroll horizontally
Oukitel WP61 Plus Score Card
Attributes
Notes
Rating
Value
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Reasonable cost for a well-made device
4/5
Design
Substantial but purpose-built for outdoor use
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3.5/5
Hardware
Unique walkie-talkie, 20,000mAh battery and mid-range SoC
4/5
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Camera
Good for still images, but the lack of 4K video is poor
Liquid Glass first arrived across Apple’s recent platforms, including iOS 26 and macOS Tahoe. This brought a translucent, layered look to menus, widgets and system UI elements. While the redesign sparked mixed reactions from users, it appears Apple is committed to refining the style. They are refining it rather than replacing it.
The report says internal versions of iOS 27 and macOS 27 largely stick with the same design direction. That’s partly because the interface has strong backing internally. Apple’s new software design chief Steve Lemay — who took over the role after Alan Dye departed for Meta — was closely involved in developing Liquid Glass. In fact, he is expected to continue evolving the concept rather than replacing it outright.
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That approach mirrors how Apple handled another major visual shift in the past. When iOS 7 abandoned skeuomorphic textures for a flat design, Apple spent several years gradually refining the look. Instead of dramatically changing it again, they chose to refine it.
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In the meantime, Apple has already started offering small tweaks for users who find the effect too strong. Updates like iOS 26.1 introduced a “Tinted” option that increases the opacity of Liquid Glass elements across the system. Additionally, iOS 26.2 added a slider to adjust the transparency of the Lock Screen clock.
Apple had reportedly explored a system-wide Liquid Glass opacity slider during the development of iOS 26. However, they ran into engineering challenges when trying to apply the setting consistently across the entire interface. According to Gurman, the company could revisit that idea in a future version of iOS 27.
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For now, though, the direction seems clear: Liquid Glass isn’t a short-lived experiment; it’s the foundation of Apple’s next generation of software design.
No matter how much we don’t like and oppose it, personal data is now a commodity. Our phone numbers, addresses, shopping habits, or employment history details are collected, analyzed, and traded among data brokers, marketers, recruiters, insurers, and countless other buyers, not to mention frauds and thieves.
However, trying to remove your online presence manually means tracking down every single company that holds your data (which can be hundreds), submitting legal deletion requests, and repeating the process when your data reappears or your request is ignored. This can easily become a full-time job.
That’s why data broker removal services exist: to automate, manage, and repeat those requests on your behalf.
But how to choose the best provider? Below, you will find a 2026 evaluation of the most recognized names in the industry.
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Top Data Broker Removal Services at a Glance
Category
Incogni
Aura
DeleteMe
Optery
OneRep
Pricing (monthly when billed annually)
From $7.99
From $9.99
From $6.97
From $3.25
From $8.33
Free option
30-day money-back guarantee
14-day free trial, 60-day money-back guarantee
Free scan
Basicself-service, 30-day money-back guarantee
5-day trial, 30-day money-back guarantee
Automation Level
High
Medium-High
Medium-Low
Medium
Medium-High
Broker coverage
420+ public and private brokers
200+ brokers, mainly private
up to 850+ brokers (varies by plan), mainly public
120-640+sites (varies by plan)
310+ sites, mainly public
Verification
Dashboard, Deloitte Limited Assurance Report
App alerts and screenshots
Quarterly reports and screenshots
Screenshots and exposure scans
Dashboard and monthly reports
Best for
Long-term, low-effort privacy
Identity + privacy bundle
Detailed proof and control
Data exposure prediction
Public removals, Families
Incogni: Best for Balanced Automation, Coverage, and Accountability
Overview and Pricing
Incogni focuses on the continuous removal of personal data from data brokers, including both public people-search sites and private commercial databases.
Incogni’s plans start at $7.99/month when billed annually, and even the basic option contains all you need for effective data removal. Higher-tier plans only change prioritization and scope. There’s no free option, but you can take advantage of its 30-day money-back guarantee to see if the service suits your needs.
Features
Fully-automated opt-out and deletion requests across 420+ data brokers
Recurring removal cycles: 60 days for public, 90 days for private brokers
Supported by Deloitte’s limited assurance assessment, Incogni officially reports that it has processed 245+ million removal requests from 2022 to mid-2025, indicating sustained operations rather than one-time cleanups. As data brokers can reacquire information and their databases refresh regularly, the recurring cycle is vital if you want to protect your online footprint in the long run.
Transparency and Reputation
Apart from a limited assurance report by Deloitte, the service also holds Editors’ Choice Awards from PCMag and PCWorld, which praise its automation system and wide coverage.
On Trustpilot, Incogni has generally positive feedback, with an average rating of 4.4 based on over 2,000 reviews. Users often note actual reductions in spam and visible listings.
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User Experience
Once you set up your account, you need to verify your identity. After that, Incogni will handle most data removal activity in the background without involving you directly. The clear, straightforward dashboard will show you all the brokers Incogni has contacted, confirmed removals, responses, and next scheduled cycles. You can peek into it whenever you like, but you don’t have to engage to make the process effective.
Advantages
Disadvantages
High automation
No screenshots
Broad coverage
No free trial
Deloitte Limited Assurance Report
Basic reporting
30-day money-back guarantee
Phone support only on Unlimited plans
Industry recognition
Recurring cycles and resubmitted requests
Clear interface, straightforward user experience
Aura: Best All-in-One Identity and Privacy Suite
Overview and Pricing
Aura is not a provider like others on this list, as it combines data removal service with broader digital protection features, including credit alerts, antivirus, VPN, device security, and identity theft monitoring.
Aura’s prices begin at $9.99/month when billed annually. What’s more, you get a 14-day free trial and a 60-day money-back guarantee for risk-free testing.
Features
Automated data removal across 200+ data brokers (mainly private)
Identity theft monitoring
Dark web monitoring
Credit score and breach alerts
Antivirus/anti-malware protection
VPN
Family and multi-device plans
Effectiveness
When it comes to data removal itself, this Aura functionality is automated. The platform first scans broker and people-search sites, submits deletion requests whenever finding your
information, and re-checks for reappearances. However, as it’s not its main focus, its data removal coverage is quite narrow compared to dedicated solutions. Aura’s value is the strongest only if combined with the whole toolkit.
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Transparency and Reputation
Aura has been widely described in the identity protection space with overall positive sentiments. You can find Aura reviews on PCMag, Forbes, and NerdWallet. On Trustpilot, it holds an average rating of 4.2 based on almost 1,000 reviews. Users appreciate its all-in-one service, but broker removal results themselves don’t match those ensured by services focused exclusively on that problem.
User Experience
Aura’s interface contains all the features offered by the providers, showing alerts, scans, security postures, removal status, and more. This holistic view appeals to people who seek central management of their online presence, but for many users, it can be overwhelming.
Advantages
Disadvantages
Privacy+security bundle
Narrower coverage
Insurance
Manual approval steps
60-day money-back guarantee
Overwhelming user experience
14-day free trial
No third-party verification
Comprehensive alerts
DeleteMe: Strong for Proved Public People-Search Listing Deletion
Overview and Pricing
DeleteMe focuses on public people-search sites and background information databases. These are mentions that usually appear in search results when someone Googles your name.
The cheapest DeleteMe plan is $6.97/month when billed annually and can be used by 1 person.
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Features
Automated scans of people-search sites (up to 850+, depending on the plan)
Expert manual handling
Quarterly detailed reports
Coverage for individuals, couples, and families
Limited custom removal requests (40-60 per year, plan-dependent)
DIY opt-out tutorials
Effectiveness
DeleteMe is quite effective at removing visible information from many major public listings. The company was a pioneer when, in 2010, it entered the industry with its
part-automatic, part-human-assisted approach. The team submits requests and tracks
progress, then provides you with scheduled, detailed reports that include, for example, even screenshots.
Transparency and Reputation
DeleteMe has been in the industry since 2010, which says a lot about its reliability. It has generally positive user reviews, especially when it comes to its detailed reporting system and exhaustive explanations about what was removed. There have been no third-party assessments of its services, but the provider has a good reputation in the industry, as seen in the review in PCMag or praise from Forbes. When it comes to user feedback, it has a rating of
4.0 on Trustpilot, though based only on 180+ reviews.
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User Experience
Contrary to Incogni’s live and always-on progress monitoring, which you can check but don’t have to, DeleteMe is more report-centric. Users receive quarterly PDF summaries that show what sites were contacted, where their information was removed, and what remains pending.
Many people appreciate their human approach.
Advantages
Disadvantages
Clear, detailed reporting
Slower cycles
Long-standing service
Less automation
Human expertise
Narrower broker reach
30-day money-back guarantee
US-mainly coverage
Optery: Best for Exposure Visibility
Overview and Pricing
Optery’s main field of expertise is discovering where your personal data exists, providing users with insight into exposures before and during removal attempts.
Optery’s offer starts at $3.25/month when billed annually. The company also has a free, self-service version. Apart from that, you get a free scan and a 30-day money-back guarantee.
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Features
Exposure dashboard displaying where your personal data exists
Automated removal from up to 630+ brokers with paid plans
Initial free scan across 120+ sites and free self-service plan
Guided removal request sending process
Custom removal submissions
Manual tracking of opt-outs and their status
Effectiveness
Optery is most effective at identifying where your personal data has been exposed. Then, for its removal, it blends automatic attempts with user-guided actions and manual tracking.
It doesn’t have the same automated recurring cycles as, for example, Incogni, but it may be helpful if you want to truly understand data exposures.
Transparency and Reputation
Optery is often highlighted for its exposure insights and transparency. Users appreciate the “seeing where my data lives” model, but many note that broader coverage comes only with more expensive plans, while manual user input is still needed.
On Trustpilot, Optery has 171 reviews with an average rating of 4.1. It has also been reviewed by PCMagquite enthusiastically, though they mentioned that the service doesn’t distinguish between removed data and never-found data. TechRadarpraised it for its ease of use.
User Experience
Optery is more interactive and gives you more control of the process (which can be both an advantage and a disadvantage, depending on how much time you’re willing to sacrifice). Its dashboard clearly shows where your personal data is, and then you need to decide which removals are more important and what to do next. You also get before and after screenshots as visual proof, while reports are AI-improved to make them more accurate and detailed.
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Advantages
Disadvantages
Free scan
Broader coverage with more expensive plans
Free self-service
US-focused
30-day money-back guarantee
Slower with cheaper plans
Clear interface & control
No phone support
Onerep: Best for Public Listing Removal and Families
What It Does
OneRep automates removal requests issued to public people-search sites. Its focus is on high-risk databases like Intelius and Whitepages. The service also ensures quarterly recurring checks to combat resurfacing of your data.
However, there’s significant controversy around the company (more of that below).
Onerep’s prices start at $8.33/month when billed annually. It also offers a 5-day free trial. What makes it attractive and more affordable is its family plans that cover up to 6 members.
Features
Automated scans and removal requests across 310+ data brokers
Quarterly re-scanning
Great family value
Clear and straightforward dashboard tracking
Effectiveness
Optery is effective when it comes to reducing online visibility on many public sites, including those deemed high-risk. However, this provider doesn’t focus on private commercial
brokers that are responsible for a large portion of the spam. It makes Optery’s reach much narrower.
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Transparency and Reputation
OneRep has a mixed reputation in the privacy protection community.
User reviews vary: some praise successful public listing removals, while others complain about slow relisting or only partial effects. Still, it holds a quite impressive average rating of
However, it’s essential to know that Krebs on Security revealed that in March 2024, Mozilladecided to drop OneRep from its list of recommendations due to the company’s CEO’s involvement in running people-search networks. This raised serious questions about conflict of interest in the industry. While the provider stated that Onerep operates completely independently and never sells user information, it is still often referenced in privacy circles.
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User Experience
Onerep’s dashboard is pretty simple to manage. It shows progress on targeted sites and all removal requests, though it’s not really an automated model, so it only suits users who don’t mind handling the process.
Advantages
Disadvantages
Great family value
Industry controversies
5-day free trial
30-day money-back guarantee highly conditioned
Quarterly re-scans
US focus
Public listing coverage
Little customization
No third-party verification
Narrower scope
Final Perspective for 2026
When it comes to choosing a data removal service, the main difference is usually in scope and depth. Some providers focus on visible people-search listings, while others dig deeper to find your personal information in harder-to-find databases. They also vary in the recurring cycles they offer (or not).
Managing your overall online visibility is vital, but if you really want to reduce the amount of your information circulating on the web, you need to focus on less visible broker networks. Or rather, choose a provider built around large-scale broker coverage. Only then will you be able to enjoy more sustained results.
In 2026, Incogni stands out among its competition, as it combines a wide broker reach, continuous removal cycles, and a streamlined, low-maintenance experience. Not to mention that it was independently assessed. While other providers are not to be altogether dismissed, Incogni’s focused, automated approach offers the most comprehensive way out.
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FAQ
Why can’t I just remove my data from brokers myself?
Manual removal means identifying hundreds of brokers, submitting individual opt-out requests, repeatedly verifying your identity, and rechecking when your data reappears. For most people, that quickly becomes too time-consuming to manage consistently.
How often does my data reappear after removal?
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Data brokers regularly refresh and repurchase data, which means listings can resurface even after deletion. That’s why recurring removal cycles are critical for long-term results.
What’s the difference between public and private data brokers?
Public brokers (like people-search sites) display your information in search results, while private brokers trade data behind the scenes with marketers, insurers, and other businesses. Private databases often contribute more to spam and profiling, even if you don’t see them.
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Do all services provide proof that removals were completed?
No. Some providers offer screenshots or quarterly reports, while others rely on dashboards or summary updates. The level of transparency varies significantly by service.
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Is a bundled identity protection service enough for data removal?
All-in-one tools can help, but their broker coverage is often narrower than services dedicated specifically to data removal. If reducing online exposure is your main goal, specialized coverage may deliver stronger results.
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