Impressive brightness, vibrant colour and a host of image processing technologies make the Bravia 7 II an excellent Mini LED TV, but does it really live up to Sony’s True RGB hype?
Compelling HDR peak brightness
Cool PlayStation gaming functionality
Solid smart TV experience
It’s a big, bulky beast
Limited viewing angle
No HDR10+ or Dolby Vision IQ
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Key Features
Review Price:
£1999
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Google TV
All the apps including the UK catch-up versions
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True RGB
Sony’s version of ‘proper’ RGB backlighting
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My Cinema
Customise the TV’s performance based on what you watch
Introduction
The Bravia 7 II is the more affordable of Sony’s two new True RGB Mini LED TVs, and it arrives on the back of considerable hoopla. Behind the scenes, Sony has been touting its latest TV technology as the next big thing, promising greater contrast, improved colour accuracy and more precise control of blooming.
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The idea behind True RGB is straightforward. Conventional Mini LED TVs use a white LED backlight combined with a Quantum Dot colour filter layer. Sony’s True RGB system instead uses independently controlled red, green and blue LEDs in the backlight.
Easy to explain, but not so easy to accomplish.
Much like Spandau Ballet, I know this much is true.
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So just how effective is the technology, and are the results good enough to convince discerning buyers to ghost OLED in favour of something brighter?
Price
The 55-inch Sony Bravia 7 II (K-55XR75M2) tested here initially launched at £1,999 in the UK, but has quickly dropped to £1,699 (a recognition that the bullish tag was unsustainable). US and Australian pricing is set at $1,499 (down from a debut at $2,099) and AU$2,499 respectively.
The Bravia 7 II is also available in 50-, 65-, 75-, 85- and 98-inch screen sizes, the latter topping out at £6,999.
That makes the 55-incher an interesting proposition. It’s more expensive than the highly regarded LG C6 OLED (£1,599) but less pricey than Sony’s own Bravia 8 II 55-inch QD-OLED (£1,899). In the run up to its launch, Sony has consistently positioned True RGB as its premium TV offering, above OLED in its range. That seems to have flipped.
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If you’re slightly confused, you’re not alone.
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Design
Big and weighty
Mirage Stand
Let’s not beat about the bush – for a 55-incher, the Bravia 7 II is a substantial beast.
It weighs a grimace-inducing 18.4kg and the chassis, which measures 122.8 x 78.4 x 20.9cm with stand attached, has unapologetic depth. It’s not an easy wall mount.
I’ll assume that bulk is largely down to the novel True RGB Mini LED backlight – there’s clearly a lot of hardware packed behind the panel.
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Its dress-sense is relatively restrained. A narrow black bezel surrounds the panel, with a textured plastic finish to the rear.
Image Credit (Trusted Reviews)
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The central stand is the most interesting aspect of its design. The screen sits on what Sony describes as a Mirage Stand, so named because it uses a translucent central panel able to diffuse the visibility of whatever lies behind it.
The effect is clever. Cables are sufficiently distorted to make them difficult to identify. Sony appears to be trying to create the impression that the screen is floating above its pedestal.
It’s an intriguing piece of industrial design.
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Connectivity
HDMI 4K/120Hz support
Hybrid optical connection
Terrestrial and Satellite tuners
Is it possible to be impressed and disappointed at the same time?
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The Bravia 7 II is well served to support high frame rate gaming, and boasts Variable Refresh Rate and Auto Low Latency Mode compliances, but only two of its four HDMI inputs are so equipped, and one of those has to serve as the eARC connection if you’re hooking up an external sound system.
There’s no digital optical audio output, instead we get a hybrid 3.5mm optical audio output with S-Centre speaker input, plus a couple of USB ports.
Image Credit (Trusted Reviews)
Ethernet LAN connection is provided, alongside Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 5.3.
The TV comes with two remote controls, one a button heavy standard zapper, the other a more premium pointer with fewer buttons and fast access keys for Crunchyroll, Netflix, Disney Plus, Prime Video, YouTube and Sony Pictures Core.
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User Experience
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Google TV remains one of the more polished smart TV platforms available, and it provides the front end here.
What we see isn’t too dissimilar from other executions of the platform on rival screens and media players. Curated rails offer local programming, trending shows and selected movies.
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App coverage is strong, with Netflix, Prime Video, BBC iPlayer, ITVX, Channel 4, Channel 5, Disney+, YouTube, BBC Sounds, Sony Pictures Core, Tubi and Crunchyroll among the available services.
The Bravia 7 II also incorporates Google’s Gemini assistant.
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UK terrestrial TV is served by YouView. There’s no Freely onboard, which is a shame. The TV does, however, have both terrestrial and satellite tuners, so there’s a choice of aerials.
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Features
XR Clear Image AI upscaling
My Cinema mode
Picture processing remains one of Sony’s traditional strengths, and the Bravia 7 II brings several of the company’s established technologies together.
XR Motion Clarity continues to impress. Motionflow can be left on Auto or adjusted using a pair of sliders. Movement is smooth with very few visible processing artefacts.
The television also uses XR Clear Image AI for upscaling. This analyses the quality of the source material and attempts to reconstruct lost detail and textures. It’s all very clever, and easy to take for granted.
If the Bravia 7 II was a posh meal out, you’d be worried about the bill. It’s a visual feast, with innovative ingredients.
HDR is where the True RGB system makes its strongest argument. In Professional mode, our 55-inch Bravia 7 II produced a measured peak brightness of 2,101 nits, in a 10% window.
Most obviously, this means specular highlights have appreciable impact; a small source of light in a dark scene can suddenly become intensely bright. When Jack Reacher escapes the Feds via shadowy underground subway tunnels (Reacher, S4), light sources guiding his way are appropriately intense.
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Shadow performance is equally important. The Bravia 7 II retains levels of near-black detail, and blooming control is impressive.
The Bravia 7 II may not have as many dimming zones as the flagship Bravia 9 II, but uniformity is demonstrably good. The Reacher title cards appear as white lettering against a completely black background. These black areas remain impressively inky while the white lettering stays clean and bright.
The result is remarkably similar to OLED.
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Sony has long argued that the number of dimming zones is less important than how effectively they’re controlled. The Bravia 7 II gives that argument some weight.
HDR support covers HDR10, HLG and Dolby Vision, but there’s no HDR10+ or Dolby Vision IQ though.
The inherent brightness of the panel also serves SDR well too. Everyday HD images have punch and pizazz.
Punch and Pizazz would also be great names for cats. Just saying.
Colour reproduction is another strength. The AI brain behind RGB Triluminos Max appears to have been trained on jelly beans and Smarties.
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Reds and greens are rich and lush, yet don’t lean into the kind of lurid oversaturation that can sometimes accompany very bright displays.
It’s worth noting that the panel isn’t glare-free. Objects, windows and light sources all reflect on screen, so plan your seating accordingly.
Unfortunately, off axis viewing is poor, with significant loss of colour and contrast when viewed from the side.
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Picture modes include Vivid, Standard, Cinema, Professional, Calm, Photo and IMAX Enhanced. It says much that I could happily watch at least four of these without grinding my teeth.
What’s new is a My Cinema mode – I was prompted to turn this on when starting a movie on Netflix – with Director’s Cut, Daytime and Dialogue settings. Director’s Cut is essentially Sony’s interpretation of a Filmmaker Mode (which it doesn’t offer). Director’s Cut significantly reduces brightness, hence it’s a dark viewing mode, while Daytime is a more social setting.
Sound Quality
Dolby Atmos & DTS: X compatible
Voice Zoom 3
3D Surround upscaler
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The Bravia 7 II’s integrated audio system is definitely better than the average flatscreen. 40W of amplification drives two full-range drivers and two tweeters, producing a healthy level of slam, with enough energy to make films and games enjoyable without immediately needing a soundbar.
Dolby Atmos and DTS:X are supported, and a 3D virtualiser broadens stereo material to create a wider presentation.
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Dialogue receives particular attention through Voice Zoom 3. The AI system identifies speech and can increase or reduce its level. I really didn’t find it very useful, but if you occasionally struggle to follow dialogue in dramas, it’s doubtless going to be helpful.
Bass performance is, inevitably, limited. A low frequency measurement revealed a hum at 31.5Hz (at 100 per cent volume), followed by a more confident response at 50Hz. There’s a honking character to the mid-to-lower bass, which means the system lacks the authority of a good external audio setup, but it succeeds in beefing up the mix.
A soundbar or AV system would still be my recommendation for anyone buying the Bravia 7 II, specifically for serious home cinema.
Bluetooth provides another useful option. I paired the set with Marshall Milton on-ear headphones, which was a real boon for late night private viewing.
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Gaming
4K/120Hz support
PS Remote Play
Gaming Multi View
Clearly, in Sony World, TV owners only have one console, and it’s a PlayStation 5. So I guess the single HDMI for high frame rate gaming is all you need.
If you do indeed own a PS5, Sony guilds the lilly with Auto HDR Tone Mapping which automatically optimises HDR settings during the console’s initial setup.
To help key an eye on your gaming status, there’s Game Menu 2, a handy pop-up display that provides adjustments and assistance. This can also be used to search for YouTube videos and access Gaming Multi View.
The set’s overall gaming presentation is top notch. Sharp, colourful and contrasty, it looks great with serious shooters and colourful platformers. Motion is crisp and free from smearing.
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Thankfully, you don’t need to faff around with menus to optimise all this.
The TV automatically switches into Game Mode when consoles are connected to minimise lag and maximise responsiveness. I recorded input lag at 10.9ms (1080/60). It switches out of Game Mode when you watch a movie on the console.
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You can also connect your PlayStation remotely. The PS Remote Play app lets you control your PS5, PS5 Pro (or PS4) from another room, or location like a friend’s house. Not new but still pretty neat.
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Should you buy it?
A Mini LED that’s like OLED
Go ahead and pick one up if you want a uniformly bright, well-specified Mini LED TV with impressive OLED-like black-level performance…
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If you’re more of a cineaste
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If cinematic OLED imagery matters more to you than extreme brightness, then Sony’s own BRAVIA 8 II QD-OLED probably makes more sense – but be wary of that high-speed HDMI limitation…
Final Thoughts
The Bravia 7 II is an impressive calling card for Sony’s nascent True RGB TV tech. It delivers a picture with genuine OLED-like qualities, and offers levels of HDR brightness that OLED still struggles to match.
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So is it worth the investment? I’m not entirely sure. I really enjoyed watching shows and movies on it. A combination of high brightness, controlled blacks and convincing colour will always win me over. Motion handling, long a Sony strength, also warrants a thumbs up.
However, movie fans need to consider the Bravia 7 II’s position within Sony’s own range. Its HDR highlights can exceed what you get from the Bravia 8 II QD-OLED, but the latter retains an advantage when it comes to an overall cinematic presentation.
For gamers, the equation becomes even more complicated. The combination of brightness, motion handling, 4K/120Hz support, VRR and Sony’s PlayStation-specific features make this a capable large-screen PS5 gaming display, but that two HDMI v2.1 limit is a potential deal breaker – unless you’re going to partner the telly with an AV receiver.
That said, for buyers looking for HDR impact, gaming and Sony’s processing expertise, the Bravia 7 II warrants very serious consideration.
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How We Test
The Bravia 7 II True RGB Mini LED was both bench-measured and boxset-binged over a prolonged period. Sources included Blu-ray, Sky Stream, a PS5 and assorted media streaming gizmos.
My audition period also coincided with Reacher Season 4 landing on Prime Video and the launch of Lanterns on HBO Max, so many hours were duly spent glued to the various picture presets. I mixed it up with official Dolby test demos and oft-used movie clips.
It was also partnered with a Sony Bravia Theatre Bar 7 system, to check system interoperability.
Tested with real world use
Tested for several days
FAQs
Is the Sony Bravia 7 II an OLED TV?
No. The Bravia 7 II uses Sony’s new True RGB Mini LED technology. Instead of OLED pixels generating their own light, the TV uses independently controlled red, green and blue LEDs in its backlight.
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Does the Sony Bravia 7 II need a soundbar?
You won’t need one for everyday viewing. Its 40W sound system produces a good overall balance and has reasonable impact. However, an external sound system will open the door to more immersive listening and better bass performance.
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Test Data
Full Specs
Sony Bravia 7 II Review
Manufacturer
Sony
Screen Size
54.6 inches
Size (Dimensions)
x x INCHES
Size (Dimensions without stand)
784 x 1228 x 209 MM
Weight
18.4 KG
Operating System
Google TV
Release Date
2026
Model Number
K-55XR75M2
Resolution
3840 x 2160
HDR
Yes
Types of HDR
Dolby Vision, HDR10, HLG
Refresh Rate TVs
48 – 120 Hz
Ports
Two HDMI, two HDMI 2.1, 3.5mm hybrid optical audio, Ethernet, USB
For a diehard fan of Donnie Darko, meeting director and screenwriter Richard Kelly is a thrill in itself. But to first encounter him as a silhouette in a darkened movie theater is to feel almost like a character in one of his films—unmoored by indefinite space and physics, questioning your altered perception.
It’s a hot Friday in mid-August when I sit down with Kelly, 51, at Santa Monica’s Aero Theatre, a beloved repertory venue that makes a key appearance in Donnie Darko, his remarkable debut feature. Released in October 2001 with virtually no marketing due to the tragic events of 9/11 weeks prior (the plot hinges on a plane accident), it couldn’t get a toehold at the box office. But in the months and years that followed, the film became a hit on the home video market and gained a fervent cult fandom thanks to its unique supernatural mystery.
To mark its 25th anniversary, the movie will enjoy another limited theatrical run, beginning on October 2, the date that launches mentally disturbed suburban teenager Donnie Darko (Jake Gyllenhaal) on a surreal journey that may or may not lead to the end of the world. Kelly has just finished recording an intro for the new 4K restoration, and snippets of it play without sound on the big screen as we talk.
“My memories of this film run the entire spectrum from fear to love,” Kelly jokes, alluding to the corny pop psychology peddled by Patrick Swayze’s self-help guru in the film. This occasion, Kelly says, is all about the “love,” as he couldn’t be more grateful to “all the people who have continued to support” his work.
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That camp should be pleased to hear that on December 15, Kelly will publish his mammoth first novel, The Philosophy of Time Travel, available for preorder now. The 800-page volume picks up right where the movie left off and is intended to set the stage for a film sequel as well. “It’s been very inspiring for me to remain focused on continuing the journey that began 25 years ago, on my own creative terms,” Kelly says. “This film has defined my entire career, but at the same time, it’s set a benchmark in the sense of the movies that I want to continue to make.”
Here, the auteur revisits the unforgettable dreamscape that put him on the map, and considers the artistic possibilities still ahead.
On when he realized Donnie Darko was becoming a cult hit:
There was one specific moment, I think in March of 2002, when I was in New York City. I was walking through the East Village, and I walked past a pizza restaurant called Two Boots, and my poster for Donnie Darko was hanging in their window. I saw the poster and I was like, “What’s going on? This is bizarre. Why does a pizza restaurant have a movie poster?” I went inside and I asked the manager, and he said, “Well, we have a little theater in the back, the Pioneer, and we’re playing your movie every Saturday night at midnight—and it’s selling out.”
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I showed up the next Saturday night at about two in the morning, when the movie was finishing. I expected there’d be maybe 10 people there, and he wasn’t joking, it was sold out, and there were people with camcorders and lights in my face, and Michael Musto from the Village Voicewas there. I was just completely bowled over by the fact that there were people who cared, who were really, really connecting with the movie. That was the moment I knew that it wasn’t over, that the movie was going to have a second wind.
AMD is building out what they are describing as an “elite” team of developers for driving Rust code “deep into the GPU stack” from firmware to drivers, shader compilers, and other GPU software in Rust. AMD Senior Fellow Harsh Meno posted this week to LinkedIn about this new effort…
And note this AMD job posting that’s active for hiring a software development engineer to work on Rust code…
“We are building next-generation systems software for AMD GPUs with Rust as a core technical direction. The work spans compilers, runtimes, low-level GPU software, firmware, developer tooling, and methods for improving the safety and correctness of complex hardware-software systems.
“Rust is not incidental to this role. You will help establish how Rust is used in performance-sensitive and high-trust parts of the GPU stack, including the compiler and tooling support, system interfaces, engineering practices, and validation methods required for production deployment. You will have the opportunity to influence both near-term implementations and the longer-term architecture for using Rust across current and future AMD platforms.”
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“AMD also isn’t alone,” the article points out, “as NVIDIA has also been pursuing similar Rust-based initiatives for their GPU software too, including the development of the Nova Linux kernel driver written in Rust.”
The ads pointed people towards almost 50 apps combined across Google’s Play Store and Apple’s App Store. Of the 350 ads, the researchers say that around 300 of them directed people to AI image or video generator ads, with most of these apps being linked to China-based developers. Some apps had already been removed by the time WIRED started reporting this story.
Among those that would generate explicit imagery of adults were eight identical apps listed on Apple’s App Store, multiple of which were linked to Chinese developer names. When the apps opened, they would show explicit AI-generated content, including a menu of sexual scenarios, including one called “threatening knife” where a knife is held to a woman’s throat. WIRED identified another seven identical apps that shared the same design, explicit content, and listed the same developer contact details.
“The App Store was designed to be a safe and trusted place for users, and we have zero tolerance for developers who deliberately attempt to evade our review process,” says Apple spokesperson Adam Dema. “The developers mentioned in this report initially submitted apps that are compliant with the App Review Guidelines, only to later surface nudify capabilities, which are against our rules.” The company says that 17 of the 20 apps included in the research had already been removed from its store and it has taken action against the remaining three, as well as removing the seven apps WIRED found.
Google spokesperson Dan Jackson says the company does not allow apps that contain sexual content or the ability to nudify. “We continually take proactive steps to detect and remove apps with harmful content,” they say, adding that it removed all the apps included in the report. “When violations are reported to us, we investigate and take swift action, which in the case of these apps has included suspending hundreds of violating apps and restricting related search terms like ‘nudify’ on our store.”
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“The share of Chinese developers creating nudify apps has grown year over year,” says David Pham, a former Meta employee who investigated nonconsensual imagery and abuse on its platforms. Pham says that while at Meta he observed similar ads to those discovered by the researchers and those uploading the content would constantly try to get around safety systems.
“Every time the platform or investigators would build a new detection model or a new way to have some type of enforcement, they quickly—within a day, maybe five days—built a new way to avoid detection,” Pham says. Those uploading the ads would change domains they used, obscure who posted them, and include measures such as blurring imagery or subtly changing images to avoid detection. However, Pham, who left Meta last year, says it has the funding and resources to be able to tackle the uploads. “I would like to live in a world where we’re not getting CSAM or NCII material sent directly to our phones,” he says.
Meta’s current protections against ads containing CSAM and NCII appear to need work. More than 11,000 undress ads have appeared on Meta’s platforms since February this year, according to a recent Indicator Media report, with many of these being reportedly posted by “repeat offenders.” Analysis by WIRED also found hundreds of ads including explicit content that contain similar language to those ads found by the TTP researchers. (Meta says malicious advertisers use adversarial tactics to continually try to avoid its detection systems and it has “incorporated” the language in the ads highlighted by WIRED into its moderation systems.)
One ad containing one of the teenagers that the researchers found the real-world identity of was reported to Meta when it had reached four accounts in Europe, according to the TTPs research. However, when it was removed days later, it had been seen by more than 330 users. “This is not something that it should take a small nonprofit doing research to stumble across and then have to investigate and report,” Paul from TTP says. “We’re talking about one of the most well-resourced— technologically and financially—companies on the planet.”
AI-assisted development has transformed how software gets built. Because tools can generate code, build prototypes and speed up testing, ideas that once took weeks or months to develop can now be explored in a fraction of the time.
Engineering capacity is no longer the constraint it once was. More organizations can experiment and bring new products to market faster than ever before. But building faster doesn’t guarantee better products.
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Human judgement is still necessary to decide which ideas deserve investment, which features solve real customer problems and which experiments aren’t worth pursuing.
AI can dramatically shorten the journey from idea to release, but it can’t make those types of business decisions for you (yet).
Anant Gupta
Research from MIT found that while AI has fueled a surge in new apps entering mobile marketplaces, usage has not increased at the same pace. Faster development is producing more software, but it isn’t creating more customer attention. Customers haven’t suddenly found more hours in the day simply because software is easier to build.
That raises the bar for decision-makers. As AI removes many of the barriers to creating software, success increasingly depends on learning quickly from customer behavior and understanding what customers genuinely value. It’s the only way to stand out in an increasingly crowded marketplace.
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Customer insights are your biggest asset
After every release comes the same questions. What next? Do we invest further or move on? AI has made it possible to build and ship software more quickly, but it hasn’t made those decisions any easier.
That’s why product intelligence matters. Understanding how customers behave gives decision-makers the confidence to decide where to focus their effort. Behavioural data shows what customers keep coming back to, where they struggle and where they give up. It also helps distinguish between features that attract initial interest and those that become part of customers’ everyday workflows. That distinction often says more about long-term value than launch-day engagement or anecdotal feedback.
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It also reveals where customers complete key tasks, where they struggle and where they abandon journeys. Those signals often provide stronger evidence than customer opinion alone, because they reflect what people actually do rather than what they say they do.
Those insights make prioritization easier. They show which features deserve more investment, which ideas aren’t landing and where the next opportunity probably sits. They can also help product teams decide when to refine an existing feature, simplify an experience or stop investing in something customers aren’t using. Product decisions become grounded in how customers actually use the product, rather than internal assumptions and beliefs.
As AI lowers the barriers to building software, deeply understanding customers becomes even more valuable. The strongest organizations keep learning from the people using their products, allowing every release to build on real customer insight.
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From AI-assisted coding to AI-assisted product improvement
AI-assisted development has changed how software is built, and product leaders are only beginning to explore what it can do beyond writing code. The next stage is using AI alongside product intelligence to strengthen the decisions that shape a product over time.
When working with large volumes of behavioral data, AI can help surface patterns more quickly, highlighting changes in customer behavior, unexpected user journeys and emerging trends that might otherwise be overlooked.
That gives decision-makers more confidence about where to focus their attention, while leaving more time to interpret what’s happening and determine the best response. Rather than spending hours searching dashboards for answers, product teams can focus on understanding the behavior, testing possible improvements and deciding which ideas are worth pursuing.
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Every release generates new behavioral data. Instead of relying on assumptions, product management teams can use that evidence to decide what deserves attention next. Over time, each release helps inform the one that follows.
Used in this way, AI becomes part of the product improvement process as well as the development process. The combination of AI and behavioral insight helps organizations learn faster, respond with greater confidence and keep building products around what customers actually need. Focusing on what the data uncovers about what customers actual need is the best way to endear your product to your users.
AI has changed the speed of product development. But every release still depends on good product judgment, which means knowing what to improve, what to leave behind and where to invest next. Behavioral insight is the best guide for decision-makers to ensure that every release reflects what customers actually do rather than what your internal teams assume they’ll do.
This article was produced as part of TechRadar Pro Perspectives, our channel to feature the best and brightest minds in the technology industry today.
The views expressed here are those of the author and are not necessarily those of TechRadarPro or Future plc. If you are interested in contributing find out more here: https://www.techradar.com/pro/perspectives-how-to-submit
Sitting alongside your keyboard, it offers nine customizable keys to give access to AI tools and agents
Users can even create and share their own integrations
Logitech has launched a new $99 accessory it says will help programmers and coders work faster and more effectively than ever before.
The new MX Keypad offers nine customizable full-color LCD keys which can be assigned to launching commands, running macros, and accessing AI tools.
It’s also very compact, around the same width as a Logitech mouse and weighing just 96 grams, meaning it will sit alongside a user’s keyboard without taking up too much space on your desk.
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Faster and more effective access
Logitech says the MX Keypad, developed alongside GitHub and available in two color schemes, will act as a control center for users, aiming to cut down on switching between apps – although the customization options can also be used for non-coding apps.
Any of the nine keys can be configured to control one or multiple apps and agents, from running complex prompt macros to launching everyday commands, with native GitHub, VS Code and Copilot integration at launch.
Using the Logi Actions SDK, developers can even create and share their own integrations, while community-built plugins for tools including Claude Code and OpenAI Codex are already available, and plugins created and tested by developers for GitHub Copilot and Claude Code.
(Image credit: Logitech)
The MX Keypad connects using USB-C and requires macOS 13 or later, or Windows 10 or later. As is typical with Logitech devices, sustainability is also a key feature, with the MX Keypad features certified post-consumer recycled plastic, 64% for graphite, and 49% for its pale gray colored models.
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“Today, coding mastery depends on how easily developers can juggle between an ever-increasing range of AI tools,” said Anatoliy Polyanker, VP and GM at Logitech. “MX Keypad puts a physical control center at your fingertips, allowing you to orchestrate your AI workflows faster and more intuitively.”
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The MX Keypad looks to offer a more streamlined version of Logitech’s existing MX Creative Console, which provides an LCD keypad with a separate dialpad to adjust settings and move around your favorite creative apps, but costs $199.99.
Like many of us, [Austin] finds writing code satisfying — especially if it is challenging. His latest challenge: shoehorn something that looks like Python into 512 bytes. Ok, that didn’t work out, but would you believe 1024 bytes of source code?
The goal was to properly execute a fizzbuzz program using a decidedly Python-like syntax. Since he is only interpreting Python, some things were simplified. In addition, he tried hard to minimize things like whitespace and variable names. Still, there were other things to do, and he borrowed from tips for code golfing.
The resulting code is essentially illegible, but it handles integer variables and literals, assignment, arithmetic, many control structures, functions, and even print. Not bad for 1 K.
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Despite being tiny, the parser does a lot, but it does cut corners. No bytecode, no syntax tree, and no error handling. Variables have to be a single lowercase letter. So, ok, it isn’t really Python. But it is something.
The limited-time deal is available in the Midnight finish only, and units are shipping within 1-2 days, suggesting stock may be limited.
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Amazon’s $150 discount extends to several upgraded configurations as well, with the M5/16GB/1TB model also marked down to $1,649 in the Midnight finish.
Our M5 MacBook Air Price Guide offers easy price comparison across popular retailers on dozens of configurations. Here are today’s highlights from the guide:
Sonos makes products from portable speakers, to home cinema soundbars and wireless speakers, so there’s plenty of variety in their product line-up.
If you’re new to Sonos, this guide serves as a helpful way of figuring out what you to look out for and understanding what Sonos can do for you.
Whether it’s a soundbar, a subwoofer, or a wireless speaker; we’ve tested pretty much all of the speakers that Sonos has released.
All the speakers have been fully tested and reviewed by our experts, and they’re tested for their sound, design and build, how easy each product is to use, and whether they’re good value for money.
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As always, click the review link below the entry to read an in-depth look at the products.
If a Sonos speaker is not the only type of speaker you’re considering, we’ve got other guides that cater for portable speakers such as our best outdoor and best Bluetooth speaker lists, while we also have our best smart speaker ranking and our best soundbar list if you’re after indoor speakers.
We play a lot of music, and we play it loud. We play it everywhere – in the house, in the garden, and even in the bath if a speaker is waterproof.
We don’t just listen to the speakers; if there are special features then we make sure we fiddle with them until we’re satisfied. A number of Sonos wireless speakers have smart functionality with the integration of Amazon Alexa, Google Assistant or multi-room, and as a result we start talking to our speakers as well as connecting them together.
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Of course, it always comes back to the music. Speakers are tested by reviewers who have a love of music, a knowledge of sound quality, as well as a context of the market. We’ll listen to Bluetooth speakers alongside similarly priced rivals, so when we recommend a particular model, it’s among the best you can buy for the money.
Obviously, we know not everyone has the same taste in music, so we won’t only test with the same perfectly mastered album, but with a variety of genres and file qualities, from MP3 to Hi-Res FLAC.
Memory prices are finally slowing down, and the reason is not that supply improved. It is that buyers ran out of money.
TrendForce expects conventional DRAM contract prices to rise 13% to 18% quarter on quarter in Q3. Dan Robinson reported the forecast for The Register. He paired it with separate European shipment numbers that show what the squeeze has done to the market.
The Taiwanese analyst calls that growth rate a moderation, and by recent standards it is. Rising contract prices drove a 59.5% quarter-on-quarter jump in DRAM industry revenue in Q2, to $154.73bn.
Why it is slowing
TrendForce gives two reasons, and the second is the interesting one.
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Demand is shifting away from high-capacity RDIMMs towards lower-capacity parts. And then there is what the analyst calls “the limited ability of PC and smartphone customers to absorb further price increases”.
That is a market hitting a ceiling rather than finding a balance. Supplier inventories are still at historic lows and bit shipments are expected to grow only modestly. Nothing about the supply side has eased. Prices are rising more slowly because the people at the end of the chain cannot pay any more.
Note who TrendForce names as the constraint: PC and smartphone customers. Phones use the same memory and face the same maths, and the handset market has spent a decade training buyers to expect more storage each year for roughly the same money. That expectation is now colliding with the price of the parts.
And 13% to 18% in a single quarter is not relief. It is a smaller increase on top of a year of increases.
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Europe is where the bill lands
The market intelligence firm Context expects European PC shipments to fall hard as component costs push system prices up.
Laptop shipments are forecast to drop 6.4% year on year in Q3, then 20% in Q4. Desktops look worse: down around 20% in Q3 and almost 30% in Q4.
Those are severe numbers for a mature market, and they describe a straightforward mechanism. Memory got more expensive, so machines got more expensive, so European buyers stopped replacing them.
Corporate buyers are stretching refresh cycles and buying only when they have no choice, according to Context. “The PC refresh cycle has not disappeared, but the economics around it have changed,” said senior analyst Marie-Christine Pygott.
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Stretching a refresh cycle is not free, though it looks free on a budget line. Older machines run slower, fail more often, and eventually fall off support, which is a security problem rather than a productivity one. European IT departments are taking that risk because the alternative costs more today.
Falling volumes, rising profits
PC makers are not suffering, which is the part that explains why nothing corrects.
Higher prices have more than covered the lost volume so far. The Register reported in May that Lenovo had dodged the worst of the memory crisis by pushing customers towards premium devices. The strategy worked.
That is a rational response to scarcity and it also removes the pressure to fix it. If selling fewer, dearer machines makes more money than selling more cheap ones, a manufacturer has no reason to fight for volume.
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The same logic has been visible up and down the market for months. AMD raised Radeon prices in August, days after Nvidia did the same. Nvidia is putting up AI server prices by more than 15% from next year, citing memory costs. Everyone passes it on.
The AI PC did not save anyone
Manufacturers spent two years promising that AI-capable PCs would trigger a mass upgrade. Context says that is not what happened.
The end of Windows 10 support drove recent buying, not artificial intelligence. AI PCs are taking a growing share of machines entering the European supply chain. That is mostly because the capability is becoming standard, though, rather than because anyone is choosing it.
So the upgrade wave came from a support deadline, and it has now largely passed. What is left is a market with higher prices, no compelling reason to buy, and a stack of machines that will stay in service longer.
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Who the memory is going to instead
None of this is happening to the AI industry. It is happening because of it.
The three big memory makers are concentrating on high-end products for AI buyers. Samsung has benefited from moving early into HBM4 mass production. SK hynix had the highest proportion of HBM in its bit shipments of the three. Micron is prioritising higher-priced server DRAM.
That leaves the mature-process business to second-tier manufacturers such as Nanya, Winbond and PSMC, who are supplying DDR4 and DDR3. The squeeze has already reached parts nobody expected, including DDR2, a standard from 2003, and the capacitors that carmakers need.
Europe watches most of this from the outside. SK hynix chose Indiana for its $4bn memory packaging hub after a Polish plant fell through, which means the continent absorbs the price rises without hosting much of the capacity.
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What would actually change it
Two things, and neither is close.
The first is supply. Inventories are at historic lows and bit shipments are growing modestly, so relief needs new capacity, which takes years to build and is currently being pointed at HBM rather than at the parts in a laptop.
The second is AI demand cooling, which nobody in the industry expects and which would bring its own problems.
Until one of those happens, the pattern holds. AI buyers pay a premium for the memory they want. Everyone else pays a premium for the memory that is left. And the moderation TrendForce is forecasting is a description of European buyers reaching their limit, not of the shortage ending.
Here’s a non-exhaustive list of things that, as recently as seven years ago, we could reliably do without a smartphone:
Read a restaurant menu while seated inside, and pay your check.
Enter a concert or sporting event
Use a parking garage or park your car on the street
Receive packages or retrieve purchases
Complete the sign-in process for work, banking, or government services
Attend school events or communicate with your kid’s school
Access health care and other kinds of appointments
Take public transit
Get a taxi
Get into a gym or fitness class
I’ve been thinking about this drift toward mandatory apps and QR codes a lot lately, as a new millennial parent unhappy with my addictive tendency to mindlessly scroll near my baby. I also know that, parent or not, the research on ways that heavy smartphone use negativelyaffects our own well-being, attention spans, and relationships has become near-impossible to ignore. And people don’t need meta-analyses to be convinced: It’s why so many are turning to tools and hacks that aim to help us limit our phone use, or at least time spent scrolling on certain apps. It’s also why we’re seeing a wave of new clubs and social events that are proudlyphone-free.
I think these “digital detoxes” are encouraging, and I’ve been researching so-called dumb phones myself. But none of these trends will really matter if we’re continually forced into a world of apps for every element of daily life.
Late last month, Meta agreed to pay at least $12.1 billion to settle claims that it deliberately designed Facebook and Instagram to addict children, and announced it would be redesigning the platforms for younger users to include daily time limits, overnight lockouts, and restrictions on like counts and beauty filters.
It’s a start, but we have to think bigger than just the algorithms that keep us glued to our phones. Because they’re not the only forces that make quitting so hard. Increasingly, it’s just basic access to services and companies and public institutions that are making a smartphone exit feel elusive.
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You should not have to have an addictive device in your pocket at all times in order to do ordinary things. We should be pushing for a world where adults can meaningfully reduce their smartphone use, or quit it altogether if they want.
And it’s not just about personal self-improvement. The status quo has already been long untenable for many people, especially the elderly, the disabled, the unhoused, and anyone who just can’t afford a data plan.
Pushing for a non-smartphone option is about accessibility, affordability, and agency. It’s about demanding the kind of freedom in a society we deserve to have. There should never be any essential service that requires phones as the only way in.
We can fix this, and some people are already showing how.
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Even if it takes us another decade to unwind, it’s important to remember these changes are less than ten years old.
Smartphone ownership exploded over the 2010s, rising from 35 percent of US adults in 2011 to 81 percent in 2019, according to Pew. It has since climbed to roughly 9 in 10.
In other words, smartphones stopped being a device many people had and started becoming a device every institution could assume you had. What happened next was part real improvements in convenience, part cost-cutting that pandemic-era policy made easier to justify, and part what sociologists call “isomorphism” — organizations converging on a practice not because it works best, but because everyone else has adopted it.
Isomorphism is one of my favorite concepts I learned in college, and you know it when you see it. For example, you’re planning a conference, and somewhere along the way it became true that a “good” conference has its own app, even though nobody wants to download an app to learn when lunch is on the schedule. Or it’s the way every mission statement sounds like every other mission statement.
I’d say the charitable reason we drifted toward handling so much by smartphone is that a lot of it genuinely is better, faster, and harder to lose. Tapping a turnstile with my phone, and never wondering whether I left my DC metro card at home, has made my life easier.
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The less benign reasons are that digital systems let companies and governments cut labor and operating costs. Apps and QR codes replace cashiers, waitstaff, printed materials, and customer service reps, and shift new work onto us, the customer. The smartphone systems also generate a lot of personalized data which companies love to collect, and sometimes sell.
Then there’s control, which companies certainly like. Not all of it is sinister. (Think blocking tickets from being resold, or prices and menus being updated instantly.) But when sellers control the interface and know a lot about us, two people can open the same app at the same moment and see different prices. Economists call this price discrimination, and it’s much easier to pull off when there’s no posted price we can compare against.
But just because inertia is leading us toward a universal smartphone society, that doesn’t mean it’s where we’ll end up. We have options to push back.
Let’s protect the non-smartphone option
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Smartphones aren’t going anywhere. But it’s eminently reasonable to demand that whatever cost a company or government pays to keep a viable non-smartphone option is a cost worth paying.
While the “march of digitization” might feel inevitable, Clare Morell and Brad Littlejohn of the conservative Ethics and Public Policy Center remind us that Americans have a long history of taking on technology in the name of humanity, from automobiles to firearms, and forcing some reasonable accommodations. There has been a push in recent years to preserve paper options for people who struggle to apply for benefits online. Some cities also have laws requiring businesses to accept cash. New York state just passed a ban on “cashless establishments,” which ensures people will still be able to dine out or shop without needing to go through a QR code or app.
Morell and Littlejohn point to other solutions, like the Americans with Disabilities Act, which they say could be read to require businesses to serve customers who don’t use apps, or adding smartphone ownership to state anti-discrimination statutes.
Europeans have gotten further with this than we have. In 2023, the Council of Europe’s Parliamentary Assembly urged member states to keep non-digital access to public services available, and in early 2025, a coalition of anti-poverty, disability, and digital-rights groups delivered an open letter asking the European Parliament to guarantee offline access to all essential services. Their argument is that the EU wants everything online by 2030 while more than 40 percent of Europeans still lack basic digital skills.
Focusing on child safety first makes sense both morally and politically. Reformers have amassed a decent track record of getting companies and governments to redesign products around children’s vulnerability, and such redesigns rarely stay confined to kids. In 1997, cigarette mascot Joe Camel was dropped under federal pressure over marketing to kids, but the advertising restrictions that followed reshaped how cigarettes were ultimately sold to everyone. I’d be surprised if Meta keeps a chronological feed and a nighttime cutoff walled off for teens alone.
And yet, we shouldn’t rely solely on osmosis from kid reforms to fix our adult problems. For starters, reforms don’t always trickle down. Congress passed COPPA in 1998 to keep companies from harvesting kids’ data online, and the rest of us still have no equivalent federal safeguard.
Not every fix would require regulation. Afreka Ebanks, a spokesperson for Dumb.co, which sells smartphone alternatives, told me she’s optimistic that pressure on individual businesses can spark change, in part because marketing has shifted so heavily toward community and belonging in recent years. Companies that want to seem grounded in their neighborhoods, she argued, are more susceptible to locals asking for a non-phone option. She’s been asking her own gym to bring back the key fobs it used to issue, so members can leave their phones at home while they exercise.
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Dumb.co is also betting that if enough people give up smartphones — not a majority, but a large enough minority — businesses won’t want to lose those customers. She cited Capital Bikeshare in Washington, DC, which still makes it easy for riders to unlock bikes with a physical key even as most users go through the app. “They do want to serve those people who aren’t carrying around phones,” she said.
At the end of the day, we’re not going to restore less phone-dependent childhoods for our kids if we can’t also build a less phone-dependent society for the rest of us. And we deserve to have that choice. Opting out just cannot be functionally impossible.
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