A new study examines how large language models perform in a variety of medical contexts, including real emergency room cases — where at least one model seemed to be more accurate than human doctors.

The study was published this week in Science and comes from a research team led by physicians and computer scientists at Harvard Medical School and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. The researchers said they conducted a variety of experiments to measure how OpenAI’s models compared to human physicians.

In one experiment, researchers focused on 76 patients who came into the Beth Israel emergency room, comparing the diagnoses offered by two attending physicians to those generated by OpenAI’s o1 and 4o models. These diagnoses were assessed by two other attending physicians, who did not know which ones came from humans and which came from AI.

“At each diagnostic touchpoint, o1 either performed nominally better than or on par with the two attending physicians and 4o,” the study said, adding that the differences “were especially pronounced at the first diagnostic touchpoint (initial ER triage), where there is the least information available about the patient and the most urgency to make the correct decision.”

In Harvard Medical School’s press release about the study, the researchers emphasized that they did not “pre-process the data at all” — the AI models were presented with the same information that was available in the electronic medical records at the time of each diagnosis. 

With that information, the o1 model managed to offer “the exact or very close diagnosis” in 67% of triage cases, compared to one physician who had the exact or close diagnosis 55% of the time, and to the other who hit the mark 50% of the time.

“We tested the AI model against virtually every benchmark, and it eclipsed both prior models and our physician baselines,” said Arjun Manrai, who heads an AI lab at Harvard Medical School and is one of the study’s lead authors, in the press release.

To be clear, the study didn’t claim that AI is ready to make real life-or-death decisions in the emergency room. Instead, it said the findings show an “urgent need for prospective trials to evaluate these technologies in real-world patient care settings.”

The researchers also noted that they only studied how models performed when provided with text-based information, and that “existing studies suggest that current foundation models are more limited in reasoning over nontext inputs.”

Adam Rodman, a Beth Israel doctor who’s also one of the study’s lead authors, warned the Guardian that there’s “no formal framework right now for accountability” around AI diagnoses, and that patients still “want humans to guide them through life or death decisions [and] to guide them through challenging treatment decisions”.

Suppose your giftee loves growing mushrooms but has graduated to more challenging varieties. In that case, North Spore makes an automated monotub ($165) that can be paired with either substrate or the brand’s fruiting blocks. It keeps the growing environment with the proper airflow and humidity, and I’ve grown so many mushrooms in mine that I’ve turned into a Crazy Mushroom Lady, leaving bags on neighbors’ porches and chasing down acquaintances in the grocery store.

(Note that the photo above shows golden oyster mushrooms, which mycologists are investigating as a potential invasive species. North Spore says it is currently phasing out its yellow oyster mushroom kits while it works on developing a sporeless strain.)

A Decorative Indoor Trellis and Plant Saucers

If your friend or loved one is supporting their vines or floppy potted plants with bendable moss poles or, worse, a jerry-rigged ladder made out of duct taped pencils (it was an emergency, OK?), treat them to one of these hand-finished, laser-cut plant supports. There are staked and modular versions (my favorite is the wonderful-smelling, extendable redwood Zella) as well as coasters, wall mounts, and saucers that water your plants from the bottom. I have tested many of them—including the classic versions—and all have added a dash of style while lending critical structure to floppy and vining plants. Can’t pick just one? Check out Treleaf’s collection of gift bundles.

Succulents in the Mail

Lula’s Garden’s heart-shaped box is featured in our guide to the Best Flower Delivery Services, and since then, I have had multiple people recommend the brand to me. I have now tried it, and I have to agree—this is an excellent gift. It’s fun, stylish, and priced the same as or even less than transient flowers. Not everyone is inclined to take care of a houseplant, but succulents are super easy to care for, and the box they arrive in doubles as a planter. All you have to do is unbox and use the included pipette to add a few squirts of water. The gardens are contemporary yet neutral enough to fit in with just about any decor. Just a heads up that unboxing the gardens that come with rocks (like the Bliss) may be a little messy, but the more premium gardens (like the Urban) don’t have any loose parts and come out of the box looking exactly as they do online.

For Making Compost Indoors

Reencle

Prime Electric Composter

As seen in our guide to the Best Kitchen Composters, the Reencle Prime doesn’t fully make ready-to-use compost, but it comes the closest out of any of the major brands. It functions a lot like a heated trash can—just throw your kitchen scraps in, and microbes will break them down over time into a sort of loamy mixture. When the volume of the Prime reaches the fill line, the mixture can be scooped out and added at a 1:4 ratio with potting soil, then left to cure for three weeks. After this, it can be used for both outdoor and indoor plants. Not only will it free up space in your giftee’s trash can and cut down on dangerous greenhouse gas production, it will make their plants happy.

Modular Landscape Blocks

It’s frustrating to spend untold time and money on your garden vision, only to find that landscaping elements like real rock walls and edging can cost thousands of dollars. If your giftee loves making their garden pop, these PolyRock blocks come in modular, six-block sections about 4 feet long. They slot neatly together like Legos, look exactly like real rock, and are flexible, so you can use them straight or curve them into a circle. No digging or leveling is required, and they’re easy to detach and move around if you change your mind or design plans. You can choose from gray, brown, black, or white tones. I have a strip of gray blocks installed along the front of my house, and more than one neighbor has thought it was real rock. The adjacent grass has even been cut with a string trimmer every week for months, and there’s still nary a scratch on the blocks.

A Do-It-All Cart

Gorilla

Poly Garden Dump Cart

Don’t torture yourself with an inefficient wheelbarrow! A garden cart might seem like an odd gift at first, but this is the all-category MVP of my yard and household. It not only carries mulch, plants, and yard tools, but it can also tote up to 600 pounds for the small version and 1,200 pounds for the large, which has allowed me to transport everything from giant pizza ovens to bags of smoker pellets. The cart’s got a quick-release dump latch on the front and pneumatic tires that handle mud and sand with no problem. I’ve tested other carts in the past, but this is the only one that has earned a permanent spot in my garage. If your giftee lives on a large plot of land or needs to transport a lot of pots or other supplies around their house, this will be an invaluable companion. Note that it will require some assembly, but it didn’t take more than an hour.

A Candle That Smells Like Tomatoes

You might be thinking: Why on earth would someone want a candle that smells like a tomato? I certainly did, when WIRED reviewer Louryn Strampe crowned a tomato-scented candle as the overall best pick in her Guide to the Best Scented Candles. However, now that I’ve smelled it myself, along with a handful of other versions (LAFCO’s is my second favorite), I completely get it. I was immediately transported back to being amid sun-warmed tomato leaves in my grandfather’s garden, but my teen son, who doesn’t have the same association, also immediately recognized it as a distinctly summer smell. It’s warm and vegetal, but still sweet and fresh. It’s sure to remind your favorite gardener of the good times ahead.

A Quality Pair of Gloves

I’ve used a lot of gardening gloves over the years, but these two are my all-time favorites. Digz’s long-cuff garden gloves keep dirt, leaves, and other detritus out when you’re reaching down deep into something, and they’re invaluable for pulling out blackberry vines, goosegrass, and other long and/or sticky weeds. (Digz also makes some excellent tools with soft, ergonomic handles, but those aren’t as widely available.) If you’re looking for something sturdier, longer-lasting, and more versatile, Vermont Glove has been hand-sewing goat-leather gloves since 1920, and the Flatlander design dates from that time. These gloves are both ridiculously soft and insanely sturdy—my husband and I have both used them for all manner of yard work, including pulling thorny weeds, and they have stood up beautifully despite their lightweight feel.

Apple retailers have issued steeper discounts on the MacBook Pro for May, resulting in record-low prices on several M5 Pro and M5 Max 14-inch and 16-inch configurations.

Prices have dipped to as low as $1,949 for the 2026 MacBook Pro, with a variety of 14-inch and 16-inch configurations now up to $250 off. You can check out top deals below, with a full rundown of markdowns in our 14-inch MacBook Pro 2026 Price Guide and 16-inch MacBook Pro Price Guide.

14-inch MacBook Pro M5 Pro and M5 Max deals

• M5 Pro, 15C CPU, 16C GPU, 24GB, 1TB, Standard Display: $1,949 ($250 off) at B&H
• M5 Pro, 15C CPU, 16C GPU, 24GB, 2TB, Standard Display: $2,394.50 ($205 off) at Amazon
• M5 Pro, 18C CPU, 20C GPU, 24GB, 2TB, Standard Display: $2,637.49 ($162 off) at Amazon
• M5 Max, 18C CPU, 32C GPU, 36GB, 2TB, Standard Display: $3,359 ($240 off) at Amazon

16-inch MacBook Pro M5 Pro and M5 Max sale

• M5 Pro, 18C CPU, 20C GPU, 24GB, 1TB, Standard Display: $2,549 ($150 off) at Amazon
• M5 Pro, 18C CPU, 20C GPU, 48GB, 1TB, Standard Display: $2,899 ($200 off) at Amazon
• M5 Max, 18C CPU, 32C GPU, 36GB, 2TB, Standard Display: $3,699 ($200 off) at Amazon
• M5 Max, 18C CPU, 40C GPU, 48GB, 2TB, Standard Display: $4,199 ($200 off) at Amazon

In our M5 Max 16-inch MacBook Pro review, we found the M5 Max chip is blazing fast with great graphics and AI performance. We’re also pleased to see support for Wi-Fi 7 in the 2026 line.

Four hundred dollars is a significant amount: it could be a weekend trip, a decent mirrorless lens, or a perfectly capable budget Motorola smartphone. Yet here we are, staring at two Razr phones that look remarkably alike, run the same version of Android, share the same rear camera array, and flip the same way into your pocket — the $1,099 Razr+ and the $1,499 Razr Ultra. 

While the base Razr (2026) sits in a totally different category, the real confusion lies between the Razr+ (2026) and the Razr Ultra (2026). To help you with that, I’ve spent hours juggling between the product’s spec sheets and zooming in on every single detail. For me, it’s not about declaring the winner, but about finding out which is the right Motorola flip phone for you.

Razr+ (2026) vs. Razr Ultra (2026): Specifications at a glance

Price and availability

Both phones will be available for pre-orders starting May 14, 2026, and hit shelves on May 21, 2026. The Razr+ comes in at $1,099, a $100 hike over last year, while the Razr Ultra jumps $200 to $1,499.

The more overlooked difference is how you actually buy them. The Razr+ is available through AT&T at launch and T-Mobile later in 2026, meaning carrier financing, trade-in deals, and installment plans are all on the table. The Razr Ultra skips carrier retail entirely.

Similar form factors yet different in-hand feel

Unfold the phones, and you’d struggle to tell them apart due to nearly identical dimensions, the same titanium hinge inner structure and four-inch cover display, and the identical IP48 ingress protection rating. Yes, the Ultra is 0.4 mm thicker and 10 grams heavier, but these aren’t the real-world differentiators.

It’s the Razr Ultra’s Alcantara back that sets it apart from anything else in the segment: warm, grippy, fingerprint-resistant, and reminiscent of a luxury car interior. That’s where part of the additional $400 goes.

The Ultra also comes in a Cocoa wood veneer variant, which carries a grain texture beneath a protective coating that saves it from daily wear and tear. The Gorilla Glass Ceramic 3 on the cover screen rounds out the design that’s built to take daily life.

The Razr+, meanwhile, comes in one Pantone Mountain View variant, with a woven jacquard finish. I think it’s unique as well, just not as exquisite as the Ultra. If you prefer going caseless, the Ultra has no equal.

Ask yourself: where do you use your phone the most?

In a dim room, the 7-inch (Ultra) and the 6.9-inch (Razr+) LTPO AMOLED foldable screens look identical, both while scrolling through the UI or watching content on YouTube or Netflix. However, the real gap shows outside, under direct sunlight. 

If you live and work in a region where the peak summer sun often makes you squint at smartphone screens, both phones solve that problem, but the Ultra does it with even less squinting involved. The Ultra’s inner screen peaks at 5,000 nits, which is considerably more than the 3,000 nits ceiling of the Razr+. 

There’s a rather modest brightness difference between the cover screens: 3,000 nits on the Ultra versus 2,400 nits on the Razr+. Further, the Ultra swaps the LTPS panel for LTPO, which enables smarter, more efficient refresh rate adjustments.

So, checking turns on a navigation map, reviewing a photo you just shot, or simply checking a message without cupping your hand over the phone screen, is relatively easier on the Ultra, particularly outdoors. However, if you predominantly live indoors or in office environments with artificial yet soothing lighting conditions, the Razr+ is no slouch.

Both phones get the same chip as last year, but the gap still matters

I’ll be upfront with you. Neither of Motorola’s flagship flip phones received a chipset upgrade this year due to rising component costs and thinning profit margins. And despite that, both the phones debuted with a price hike, indicating just how ugly the situation is. 

The Razr+ ships with the Snapdragon 8s Gen 3 (4nm), while the Razr Ultra retains the Snapdragon 8 Elite (3nm), and even in 2026, the performance gap between them is quite real. The Elite carries a 30-40% performance delta (in CPU and GPU tasks), and it’s also more efficient, thanks to 3nm fabrication technology. 

Even so, I’d say that the Razr+ packs sufficient punch for day-to-day tasks like scrolling, messaging, multitasking, streaming, and casual gaming. What’s different on the Ultra is that everything feels more snappy, thanks to Elite’s Oryon afterburners.

The 8 Elite also brings 16GB of RAM and 512GB of storage, versus the Plus’s 12GB and 256GB, which might not matter today, but if I were to hold onto a device for, let’s say three to four years (given that you’re getting three years of OS support), I’d definitely want some memory and storage headroom to begin with. 

On the software front, I don’t have much to talk about, except the new Daily Drops feature, which obviously is Motorola’s take on Samsung’s Now Brief. Essentially, it’s a personalized daily feed with curated headlines, weather updates, and Google Photos Memories.

There’s the Google Photos Wardrobe feature that lets you try on outfits virtually from your own photo gallery. Pick your own poison from the multiple AI assistants and make use of the Moto AI suite with notable features like Catch Me Up and Next Move. The only difference is that the 8 Elite’s NPU handles on-device AI tasks faster.

If you’re a photography enthusiast, Ultra is the one for you

I’ll admit Motorola had me with the deceptively similar specs: a 50MP (f/1.8) primary and a 50MP (f/2.0) ultrawide with Macro Vision on both phones. Upon digging deeper, though, the Ultra pulls ahead.

Its primary sensor is physically larger at 1/1.56 inches versus the Razr+’s 1/1.95 inches, and that extra real estate makes the sensor faster in daylight and cleaner in poorly-lit conditions. On top of that, the Ultra uses a Sony LOFIC (Lateral Overflow Integration Capacitor) sensor, which, in theory, captures up to six times more dynamic range. 

The Ultra handles harsh afternoon sun, backlit subjects, and high-contrast scenes better. Further, it supports Dolby Vision capture for video and shoots up to 8K in 30 fps (most users won’t need it, but I had to mention it). 

On the selfie front, the Ultra ships with a 50MP (f/2.0) sensor with a wider aperture and bigger pixels than the 32MP (f/2.4) shooter on the Razr+, translating to better low-light selfies. Both phones share Camcorder Rotate to Zoom, Frame Match, and Group Shot.

Like the screen, the chipset, and the differences in cameras all add up to the $400 difference, but they’ll matter most to content creators and vloggers. For most users, the Razr+ does hold its ground quite well.

The Ultra pulls ahead in usage and charging times as well

Unlike the Flip 7, which still sticks with a lithium-ion battery, both the Razr+ and the Razr Ultra come with the newer silicon-carbon battery tech, which allows manufacturers to pack in more battery capacity into slimmer bodies. 

The Razr+, with its 4,500 mAh battery, claims to offer over 31 hours of battery life, while the 5,000 mAh cell on the Ultra takes the number to 36+ hours. Now, these are lab numbers, and your mileage will vary. I’d say that under mixed usage, the Razr Ultra should provide an hour or two of screen-on time over the Razr+. 

The Ultra charges faster as well, both when wired (68W vs. 45W) or wirelessly (30W vs.15W), which means that midday top-ups or unplanned charging sessions in the morning will be quicker. The Razr+ will last the day just fine, but heavy users might want to stick with the Ultra.

Bottom line: Should you spend the extra $400?

The $400 gap between the Razr+ (2026) and the Razr Ultra (2026) is real, as is quite evident from the section-wise discussions we’ve just gone through. However, whether those differences matter depends entirely on how you use your smartphone. 

If you spend a lot of time outdoors, shooting video content, showing off your phone to other people, and tend to hold onto a device for three to four years, the Ultra earns its premium over the Razr+. Together, the brighter display, faster chip, superior primary and selfie camera, faster charging, and premium build add up to a meaningfully better phone in ways that show. 

However, if you’re a casual user who isn’t particular about all those things, but just doesn’t want to go with the Razr 2026, the Razr+ (2026) strikes the sweet spot between functionality and affordability. It’s a capable, well-rounded phone that covers all the bases without breaking your bank and letting you save enough for the weekend trip. 

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

• Does the Motorola Razr+ 2026 have wireless charging? Yes: 15W wireless and 5W reverse wireless charging, same as last year.
• Are the Razr+ 2026 and Razr Ultra 2026 waterproof? Both are IP48-rated: splash and submersion resistant, but not fully dustproof.
• Does the Razr+ 2026 use the same chip as last year? Yes: Snapdragon 8s Gen 3, unchanged for the third consecutive year.
• Which phone is better for photography: the Razr+ or the Razr Ultra? The Ultra: bigger sensor, LOFIC technology, and a significantly better front camera.

If you were planning to pick up a Mac mini anytime soon, you might be in for a wait.

Apple has confirmed that its smallest desktop is facing supply issues that could take “several months” to resolve. This is happening as demand continues to run ahead of what the company expected.

The update came during Apple’s Q2 2026 earnings call. There, the company acknowledged that both the Mac mini and Mac Studio are currently struggling to stay available in normal supply-demand balance. In short, Apple is selling them faster than it can keep up.

The Mac mini has always sat in a slightly unusual place in Apple’s lineup. It’s never been the flagship Mac. However, it has quietly built a loyal following among developers, creators, and anyone trying to build compact desktop setups. The latest generation, though, seems to have pushed it into a different category altogether.