Andrew Stephan is the director of War Game: The Making of S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2, a documentary from Microsoft about the ordeal of the game developers at GSC Game World, the Ukraine game studio that had to make S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: The Heart of Chornobyl, a triple-A game, in the middle of a war zone.

The film depicts the lives of the game team — perhaps the biggest in all of Ukraine with 460 people — as they figured out how to get the game done in the midst of the Russian invasion. On and off in the works for a decade, the game is scheduled to ship on the PC and consoles on November 20, 2024.

It’s emotional story that centers on a husband-and-wife team, Ievgen Grygorovych and Mariia Grygorovych, the leaders of the game studio, and the decisions they had to make in saving the game, the studio and the lives of their employees. It offers lessons around making decisions under pressure.

I wondered how the filmmakers captured the footage of the company and its game developers as they worked through the crisis of the Russian invasion in February 2022. The video shows the making of the game from its earliest days through the onset of war and its aftermath. Stephan told me that his film teams were not able to go to the country during the time of war. Rather, the GSC Game World team themselves chose to record their experiences in the documentary. It’s remarkable that most of the history captured in the raw footage was due to the foresight of the team itself.

It’s a compelling video and story, and I encourage everyone to watch it for inspiration. It’s shows the limits of human visibility during war and the determination of a team to adapt and finish a game under the most trying circumstances.

The team’s resilience in the face of war and other obstacles showed through in the emotional film, which is a kind of microcosm for the toil thousands of people working in games in Ukraine or in the Ukrainian diaspora — under the shadow of war where all of the odds are against them.

“There’s not a single person at that company that we interviewed, or that we didn’t, who hasn’t lost someone. Who hasn’t lost friends or family,” Stephan said in his interview with me.

Here’s an edited transcript of our interview.

GamesBeat: What has the reception been like so far? Have you heard some good things about how it’s being viewed?

Andrew Stephan: I’m not in tune with the numbers myself. That was never my MO. I would defer to Microsoft on what the viewership is like. I know that for me, the number one response, positive response I was hoping to get, and the audience I was most curious about, was the team at GSC. I had the fortune of getting to fly out to Prague last week to screen it with them for the first time. Most of the team had not seen the film. It was a powerful opportunity to watch it with more than 100 of the people on the team, and get to meet several of them that I’d never had a chance to meet before. To a person, they were all deeply touched and grateful to Xbox, to the production team for doing their story justice, for taking the time to be deliberate with the story. That’s been great.

Everywhere I’ve seen a comment, or I’ve seen someone weighing in with an opinion, it seems to be overwhelmingly positive. That’s been my early experience.

GamesBeat: What was some of the initial impetus for you? Why focus on Ukraine, and why this particular team?

Stephan: I can’t chalk it up to anything more than luck and timing. I knew Tina Summerford, who appeared in Power On, from my time at G4 TV way back when, in the early 2000s. She’s the one who brought me on to do Power On for the 20th anniversary of Xbox. What was supposed to be a stand-alone feature documentary, maybe 45 minutes or an hour, ended up becoming six episodes, a couple of years in the making, and helped the team at Xbox land a couple of Emmy nominations and their first win. That was an extremely positive experience. I had a great time making it. The brand was very happy with the outcome, with the reception.

We stayed in touch, and she first alerted me to GSC’s story in the summer of 2022, when it was first put on her radar. She kept tracking their progress. She earned the studio’s trust. She and Glenn at Microsoft, the two of them earned the studio’s trust and got them comfortable with the idea of documenting their journey. She re-approached me in the spring of 2023 about throwing my hat in the ring to try and direct a film, to make a pitch to Microsoft. I leapt at the opportunity. They bought into my pitch and the rest was history.

GamesBeat: If you think about all the footage that turned out to be so on the ground there–were they deciding to film themselves? Or were you actually having your team go there and capture everything with them all the time?

Stephan: All credit goes to them for having the prescience to document their own journey. At the very beginning, as we started, they had–I forget his name. Nick was his first name. But they had an in-house photographer and bibliographer who had documented a ton of meetings and just the process of making the game. They were documenting stuff before the war started. Even before the imminent threat of war. They were filming all through 2021 and 2022. At the very beginning, they handed us a giant pile of material that we had to comb through. They weren’t shooting with the intent of having this footage used in a documentary like this. But we were able to cherry-pick.

Any of these films, what really brings it to life is the archival. Being able to establish a sense of place and time, creating a more intimate connection with your subjects. Because of the highly charged and challenging nature of the subject matter, it’s not like we could have boots on the ground in Kyiv. We had to rely on them exclusively to give us some of that footage. But that’s a process for them. Remember, beyond that initial dump, this team is heads down, just cranking every day to get a game out the door. They’re repeatedly dealing with requests from me and my team about trying to get footage. I think it worked out well. All the way down, close to the last weeks of edit, they were still sending footage over when we were looking for specific moments of coverage.

GamesBeat: I hope you didn’t have to go into Chernobyl, into the radiation zone there.

Stephan: I think I would have–my instinct as a filmmaker, I would have loved to have gone. But from a family perspective and a Microsoft perspective, and from an insurance perspective–it’s a complicated thing. We’re very fortunate that we were able to make the film we made at the distance we were at. Fortunately I was able to go to Prague several times to film the interviews there with the team, capturing them in the office and shooting some B-roll, a day in the life. We made a few trips out there.

Something that’s interesting is how many people don’t actually know that Chernobyl was in Ukraine. I was surprised to find out–I don’t even think I knew how close it was to Kyiv before this all started. That was a fascinating element to all of this. Multiple people have said to me, “I had no idea.” For them, wanting their story told is part of it. It’s a chance to learn more about their culture, what’s inspired them, what’s driven them to create the way that they do, create the things that they create.

GamesBeat: What’s a good way to describe what you captured?

Stephan: I was always intrigued by the power of expression and creating art during a time of war. The importance of creating, I was always intrigued by the importance of creating. Drawn to the power of creating art during a time of war, and the need to creatively express yourself as an outlet. I spoke at length with some of the team members about whether the game felt like a distraction or salvation. Is it your job? Is it a silly distraction? Or does it give you meaning at a time when you desperately need to have something to hold onto? I think both sides of the coin, Kyiv and Prague, they all saw the latter as the value in the game. It was a big source of meaning for them in a difficult time.

It somewhat literally says that in the film. This is how we approached it. We saw the game as an act of resistance, an act of defiance, an act of creative expression during this insanely intense period. Someone in the film says it. “The game, for us, is now an act of resistance.” We had that thought in mind well before we’d ever captured that piece of sound. It was almost in some way validating. That’s what I hope the message of the film conveys, that it’s seen as exactly that.

GamesBeat: There was a line, something like, “We have a gun in one hand and a computer mouse in the other.”

Stephan: That’s right. “We make the game with one hand and load our weapons with the other.” Literally and metaphorically, it turns out. That’s the other thing, just being drawn to the fact that–how surreal it is to have these employees that not only stayed behind, but felt the sense of duty to country to go serve on the front lines. And still stay connected. They talk about the team returning to the game at some point, but in the meantime those team members still check in. That’s interesting. They’ll jump on a call every once in a while. Their day to day is not what it was, but I think that’s impressive.

GamesBeat: I do wonder if you then extracted–are there lessons for developers everywhere, given that everyone is having their own tough times? Not as extreme as this, but still, morale is being challenged.

Stephan: I don’t know if I extracted a lesson personally. I’m not in their shoes. I wouldn’t pretend to understand the impact. I will say that as a creative, for any creative–this held true here, hearing their stories. The thing you’re making, the art you’re making, can be a life preserver. Not an escape, but there’s nothing wrong with it if you want to call it an escape. But something that you can sink yourself into, put your heart and soul into, and it’ll provide you some form of respite from the madness going on around you.

I will say, a lot of people have been very supportive. The Xbox team has been incredibly supportive. People in the gaming community, from day one, have been very supportive. I think a team like GSC feeds off that. It’s helped keep them driven. It’s a contributing factor in helping keep them driven, that support. They’ve stayed focused, and I think they’re going to make something pretty special. There’s a level of–if there’s a takeaway, it’s perseverance, personal and professional.

GamesBeat: In some ways it feels like all of Ukraine acted this way. They understood that if they stopped working, stopped their economy, they’d lose the war that way.

Stephan: What’s remarkable about what GSC did, though, that maybe differentiates them–from the little I dug, I didn’t see anyone else that was doing this. But when they left, they offered that opportunity to everyone and their families. Employees past and present. They offered a chance at sanctuary, to get out. If people stayed, GSC kept them employed. Keeping people employed during a time like this was maybe more the exception than the rule. It’s pretty fantastic that they had this thing to rally around and keep them going, keep people gainfully employed and provided for, and in turn further the team’s efforts to push back across the board, through their game and through the day to day of the war.

GamesBeat: It was life-saving to have the company care for its employees.

Stephan: It was life-saving on many levels, in my opinion. I’d say it was life-saving and soul-saving.

GamesBeat: It’s an honest and raw look at everything. I did wonder about a couple of issues where maybe you had to decide how much to include in it. There were a couple of soldiers from GSC who were killed, who had either worked on the first game or done voice acting. Was there a choice you had to make about how much of that subject to reference or include?

Stephan: No, I think it sorted itself out. I didn’t want to sensationalize anything. It felt out of place to tell the story of a developer who didn’t have a day to day hand in the making of the sequel. He was on the original team, so it felt appropriate to post-script the film in memory of him. The other individual wasn’t even brought to my attention until deep into the post production process, his passing. I’m not sure that it would have changed anything.

Our choice wasn’t to make this–I think those two people are more representative–if you think about it, there’s not a single person at that company that we interviewed, or that we didn’t, who hasn’t lost someone. Who hasn’t lost friends or family. At some point those two names that appear in the postscript at the end of the film, and to all our fallen friends and comrades–I can’t remember the exact language right now. But it was in memory of all of them. We didn’t choose or care to single out anyone as the primary form of the narrative. The narrative was about the team. We wanted to focus on the people. To your point, even if that had happened to some of the contemporary team members, I’m not sure that’s a road we would have gone down. We wanted to focus on the achievement that this team had accomplished.

GamesBeat: Is there some good that you hope may come from telling this story?

Stephan: Certainly I hope that anything my team and I make–we’re not salacious filmmakers. You look for deeply human stories and you look to amplify those stories, to familiarize people with maybe lesser-known stories that are about people. It’s about people first, to create a sense of empathy for the team by making people understand that there is a team of humans on the other end of the game. It’s the same thing with Xbox and Power On. It’s not just a console. These are the people who made it. This is what they suffered through. There were feelings on the line. In this film there are lives on the line.

The good, you hope, is that people who–again, for me, this was one of the goals of the story, to be able to tell a story where–it was part of the director’s statement. I wrote something to the effect of always having been sympathetic to game developers, who face intense criticism and weighty expectations from really passionate fanbases. For understandable reasons. But they’re under intense pressure. So many fans are driven by their intense love for these franchises, and they sometimes lose touch with the fact that real human beings exist behind these fictional games they love so much.

As I started to immerse myself in the story a year and a half ago, seeing the comments from the people who were impatient about the delays and the attacks on the studio, for me it was a rare opportunity to humanize a team in this world. I’d wanted to do this for a while. The idea of developers just in general, artists in general, and the pressures on them to create art. Commerce and art don’t always go hand in hand very gently. That was important to me, to humanize the process of game development, both for the people in this intense situation, but also–hopefully people will step back and think about developers in general, who face an uphill battle just to make a game, much less a special game. Just to complete something is an achievement.

That was important to me, and obviously to shed light on their story, the GSC team’s story, the war in general and their place in all this. I hope what comes out of that is that people see it and those two things resonate. To go back to your earliest question, about the response, tons of comments are along the lines of, “I get access to this game on Game Pass, but I’m going to buy it anyway because I want to support this team.” There’s been a ton of support for the team. People are starting to see–even you. You led this off by saying, “I had no idea.” If it’s not on your radar this way, you wouldn’t be able to appreciate it the same way you can now. I hope that’s the universal reaction.

GamesBeat: What did you think of Ievgen and Maria as sort of the principle people, the main characters of this story, so to speak?

Stephan: They were wonderful people. I don’t know when you figured it out, but I didn’t know they were husband and wife for quite some time, because in their opinion it’s irrelevant to the story. As a filmmaker it clearly became very relevant at some point, but they don’t lead with that. They were both similar spirits. Kind. They function as perfect complements, business and strategic and creative.

They were apprehensive at first, like almost every subject of any film has been. You don’t know who you’re really letting into the house. But over time I think, as is usually the case, we earned that trust. They could see we were coming from a good place. You try to remain objective as a filmmaker, but you feel an immense sense of pressure to get it right and do the story justice. Over the course of a year and a half the relationship continued to strengthen. We reached a point where they had the requisite level of faith that we were going to do right by the story. That’s why it was incredibly gratifying to get to watch it with them on the big screen and see how moved they were.

Welcome back folks. This week in the world of tech has been a busy one. We tested a new smart ring for our Oura Ring 4 review, we got four new Kindles from Amazon, and LG updated its 2023 for free.

To catch up on the biggest stories we’ve rounded them below for your to browse the highlights, with links to the wider stories if you’re hungry to learn more.

Strands is a brand new daily puzzle from the New York Times. A trickier take on the classic word search, you’ll need a keen eye to solve this puzzle.

Like Wordle, Connections, and the Mini Crossword, Strands can be a bit difficult to solve some days. There’s no shame in needing a little help from time to time. If you’re stuck and need to know the answers to today’s Strands puzzle, check out the solved puzzle below.

How to play Strands

Hint for today’s Strands puzzle

Today’s Strand answers

Today’s spanagram

We’ll start by giving you the spangram, which might help you figure out the theme and solve the rest of the puzzle on your own:

Today’s Strands answers

• FIZZ
• ZING
• KICK
• OOMPH
• SPARK
• VERVE
• PIZZAZZ

Fitness trackers are an odd category of devices. Smartwatches were initially panned for offering reduced usability compared to phones, and fitness trackers offer even less functionality than smartwatches. Be that as it may, fitness trackers were able to cut out their own niche in the wearables market. Fitness trackers offer users an experience that’s just right, bringing just enough features to keep track of your health and keep from getting distracted. I was given the opportunity to review the new Xiaomi Smart Band 9 to see if it reaches that balance.

Being a person who’s reviewed a ton of mid-range phones, I’ve come to realize that fitness bands share some similarities with mid-range phones. They’re both devices designed to offer just enough functionality and features to create a full experience. They’re missing many of the bells and whistles of fancier devices, but they’re not meant for people who want that sort of fanfare. Just like how mid-range phones need to justify their existence by making you reconsider paying $1000+ for a flagship phone, fitness trackers are doing the same thing to keep you from getting a smartwatch.

So, the question is: is the Xiaomi Smart Band 9 enough to do that, or is it time to start looking for an Apple Watch? Let’s find out in this review.

Xiaomi Smart Band 9 Review: Design

Fitness bands come in a surprising range of design languages with some of them almost resembling smartwatches. Xiaomi went a more traditional route with its design, and it makes for a nice-looking minimalist design. The screen has the ovular shape that most people associate with fitness bands. The device’s body is ever-so-slightly thicker than the band.

That display is surrounded by a classy-looking chamfered edge that adds some nice gloss to it. The chamfer is small enough as to not disrupt the overall rounded aesthetic of the Smart Band 9. Also, the gloss from the edge adds some nice contrast to the matte metal that comprises the body. I have the blue color that matches the color of the Xiaomi 14T Pro that I reviewed recently. Just like I said in that review, I absolutely love that color. It has a nice cool tone that makes it a bit lighter than the Bay Blue that we saw with the Pixel 8 phones.

The soft tone of the matte metal characterizes the overall look of this band. While many other fitness bands are rather angular with flat screens and sharp corners, the Xiaomi Smart Band 9 is much more rounded. The glass curves to meet the metal body, the body itself is subtly round, and we can’t forget about the ovular shape of the display.

There’s a gentleness to the overall design that I like. In a way, it reminds me of the look and feel of the Pixel Watch series. These devices are notably rounded, but there’s an elegance to them that lets you know that they’re still high-quality.

Xiaomi Smart Band 9 Review: Build Quality

This isn’t a particularly expensive piece of tech, but the build quality does contradict its price. The Xiaomi Smart Band 9 is a nicely put-together device. It’s neat that the company chose to use metal for the chassis. It not only adds to the looks of the device, but it also adds some reassuring rigidity. This is a pretty lightweight fitness band, so I’m pretty sure that Xiaomi didn’t opt for the highest-quality metal for the body. Be that as it may, in my usage, I haven’t seen any scratches or blemishes on the metal so far, and I wear it pretty much all the time.

The same goes for the front. I’m happy that the company opted for glass instead of plastic. This is a device that remains on my exterior at all times, as opposed to a phone, which lives in my pockets. Be that as it may, I haven’t seen any scratches. That’s surprising, as I’ve bumped the Smart Band on surfaces every now and then on accident.

As lightweight as the Smart Band 9 is, it’s held up amazingly during my testing. I think that’s a testament to Xiaomi’s engineering. It’s a fitness band, so it’s supposed to be lightweight so as to feel like nothing is on your wrist while you’re working out. The company could have used cheaper materials to easily accomplish this. However, Xiaomi managed to use some rather sturdy materials while keeping both the weight and the price down.

I have no complaints about the overall build quality of this device. It’s lightweight, but it still feels sturdy.

Xiaomi Smart Band 9 Review: Display

The display on a fitness band isn’t quite as important as the display on a phone. I’m not exactly looking to binge-watch “The Boys” on the Smart Band 9. This is why I’m confused as to why I love this display.

I’ve used fitness trackers and smartwatches with modest displays. They’re usually pretty pixelated LCD panels that do the bare minimum. And, I didn’t care. If I can see my heart rate and steps, I’m fine. However, I think that the display on the Smart Band 9 has spoiled me for other devices.

Brightness

I don’t think I’ve come across a smartwatch with a display that was hard to read in the sunlight. Wearables are supposed to mimic traditional timepieces, so above all else, they’re meant to be seen. If you look down at your watch, and you can’t see what it’s showing, then it pretty much failed at its job.

The display on the Xiaomi Smart Band 9 is definitely good at being seen. In fact, the sunlight readability on this band is fantastic. I can see the information on the screen perfectly clearly. I think that the brightness takes just a second to crank itself up when I enter the sun, but that’s the only gripe I have.

Colors

It seems a bit odd to have a section about the colors in the review, but they really look nice. Xiaomi fitted the band with an OLED display, and it sought fit to calibrate it to show some nice colors. I’d say that they’re similar to the displays on some of its better phones.

The colors pop with a nice amount of saturation. Sure, fitness data is the same whether you’re looking at a black-and-white screen or an HDR10+ display. However, it’s not just about the data. There are a ton of different watch faces that you can assign, and many of them have some radical and beautiful designs. The quality of the display really does them justice.

Aside from the watch faces, the colors also make the app icons and other UI elements pop with a satisfying burst of color. Everything has a nice dash of color, and I really enjoy it.

Details

I was pretty surprised by how crisp the screen is on the Smart Band 9. I’ve used some watches and bands where the pixelation was evident. That’s not the case with this fitness band. I don’t see a bit of pixelation. Everything from large icons to small text looks fantastic.

Overall

Just like on a smartphone, a nice display on a fitness band is technically a luxury. However, it’s more of a luxury on the latter. You don’t NEED a good display to check your health data, and you’re not watching movies, editing photos, or playing games on your fitness band.

This makes the display that much better. It feels like I’m enjoying an unnecessary luxury. It’s like getting a designer phone. The fact that Xiaomi went the extra mile to add this extra bit of fanciness makes the experience just a bit more enjoyable. It could have just been a plain old screen, but it’s so much more.

Xiaomi Smart Band 9 Review: Fitness features

What’s a fitness tracker without a full arsenal of fitness features? The Xiaomi Smart Band 9 comes with a complete suite of tools to help you monitor your health. Going down the list, there is a Stats app that shows your steps and calories, a Workouts app that monitors dozens of different workouts, an Activity Log, a Running Course app, a Heart Rate Monitor, A Vitality app, a Blood Oxygen Monitor, a Sleep Tracker, a Stress Tracker, and a Breathing timer. This is more than enough to cover the basics and satisfy advanced fitness nuts.

Sleep Monitor

The sensors like the heart rate monitor and the sleep monitor are extremely accurate. I was pretty surprised by how accurate the sleep monitoring worked. There would be those times when I’d casually dose off for an hour and see that it was still able to log that.

Heart rate monitor

What’s neat about the heart rate monitor is that it displays your current reading on the widget before you tap on it. It automatically reads and updates the information when you’re not using it. This way, I’m able to see what my heart rate is without needing to open the app and do a reading.

Stress monitoring

I’d say that the one feature I don’t have the most faith in is the stress reader. I’ve used it when experiencing varying degrees of stress, and it always gives me pretty much the same score. I used it during times of calmness and during times when I felt like I was going to tear my hair out, and I’d still get a similar score. I’m wondering if this tool is just not there yet.

Workout detection

There’s a feature where the watch will automatically detect if you start a workout. At the cost of battery life, it will trigger if it detects an uptick in activity. I find that it’s really accurate in detecting if I’m working out. I tested it out by resting for a bit and then spontaneously going on a run. It was able to start up once my heart started pumping.

Since I’m primarily a walker, there were times when it would erroneously trigger, however. I’d casually walk to the store, and the watch band would log it as a workout. So, this is something to keep in mind.

Mi Fitness app

Just like other fitness wearables, there’s a companion app that shows you your stats in more detail. The app’s home screen shows you a grid of blocks, and each block houses the information from one of your apps. There’s one that shows your sleep stats, your heart rate, blood oxygen, and so on. When you tap on one of the blocks, it will expand to fill the screen.

Depending on the block you tap, it will show you your progress over time. For instance, if you tap on the heart rate block, you’ll see a chart showing you how your heart rate rose and fell over time. You’ll also see other metrics like your resting, maximum, minimum, and average heart rate. You’ll get additional information relevant to the health metric being measured.

I think that the Mi Fitness app does a great job of displaying your health data. The interface is simple to use and all of your health metrics are easy to read. Also, there are subtle animations here and there. There’s even a feature that tells you how many calories you burned in terms of food items. It will say something like “You burned 443 kcal! That’s equivalent to 1 chicken leg.”

One small complaint

I think that this is a one-size-fits-all type of app. You’re able to connect it with different Xiaomi wearables, and these devices will have varying health features. This means that the app could potentially display blocks for health metrics that your device isn’t compatible with.

For example, the Mi Fitness app shows a block for blood pressure. I searched, but there’s no blood pressure sensor on the Smart Band 9. So, it’s just a bit awkward seeing a block for a feature sitting there that I can’t use. It’d be nice if the app would tailor the interface to the device so that it only shows what each device can measure. That’s just one minor complaint that I have.

Overall

The Mi Fitness app is a prime showcase that Xiaomi is not new to the wearables game. The app is great for showing you your health data.

Xiaomi Smart Band 9 Review: Smartwatch features

The Smart Band 9 isn’t a smartwatch, but that doesn’t mean that it can’t snag a few features from larger devices. For such a small and affordable device, it has a ton of functionality packed into it, actually.

For starters, as I mentioned before, there’s a wide selection of watch faces that you can apply. It comes with a pre-installed collection of faces, but you can download more from the Mi Fitness app. There are an absolute ton of watch faces that you can download. They range from formal to artistic to minimalistic to cute; you name it. In fact, there are 18 different categories of watch faces. I couldn’t even scroll through them all before I found a handful that I loved.

Apps

Moving onto the non-fitness apps, there’s a timer, alarm clock, stopwatch, world clock, weather app, calendar, events app, tasks app, music app (to control the music playing on your phone), find my phone, phone silencer, camera control, flashlight, and focus mode.

All of these features work flawlessly on the band as well. Accessing your apps is as easy as swiping up on the watch face. The apps will live on two pages, and you’ll have to scroll a bit to get to the second page.

Thankfully, you can reorder the apps in the Mi Fitness app. So, you can move your most-used apps to the top of the feed.

Widgets

One of my favorite features is the widgets feature. Widgets are full screens that you can swipe through on the band. You’ll swipe either left or right to access your widgets. An example of a widget is the music controls screen. Rather than scrolling through the apps and tapping on the Music app, you can just swipe on your screen and access the controls. There’s also the weather widget and the tools widget, which houses the settings, Do Not Disturb, and Find Phone icons.

My favorite widgets are the customizable ones. Each customizable allows you to stack two apps on top of one another. This makes it easier for me to access my favorite apps. What’s neat is that, if you add an app that has health data, like the heart rate app or the stress app, the widget will show you the most recent measurements. So, if I want to see my heart rate, I’ll be able to just swipe and see it.

You can edit the order of your widgets, so you can prioritize the apps you use the most.

Notifications

When it comes to the notifications, they’re pretty good. I like that it will show you a long feed of your notifications. Some fitness bands I’ve used will only show you a limited number of notifications. The Smart Band 9 will do its best to show you all of your notifications.

It shows a little red dot at the top of the screen when you have a notification to view. Just swipe down to access your notifications. What I like is that you can dismiss individual notifications with a swipe to the left and a tap on the trash can icon.

The text in the notifications displays pretty nicely given the screen’s aspect ratio. After viewing a notification, you have the option to dismiss it or back out of it, leaving it in the notification shade. When you dismiss a notification on the band, it will dismiss it on your phone, which is pretty standard practice.

What’s nice is that the watch will actually group notifications together that are from the same app. This helps keep the notifications from getting too messy. Also, there’s the handy Dismiss all button at the top of the screen.

My only complaint is that there’s no option to open the app on your phone when you tap on a notification. I’d sometimes tap on a notification to have it open on my phone when I plan on getting to it later. It’s not a big issue, it’s just that I haven’t seen too many wearables that didn’t have this ability.

Extras and Gestures

Aside from the apps and widgets, there are a few extra goodies to enjoy. There’s an AOD (Always on display) that I like. You can either tap on the screen to wake the watch or swipe.

If you’re so inclined, you can enable the rise-to-wake feature if you want. This will wake the screen automatically when you raise the watch to your face. This feature will have an effect on your battery life, as there’s always the chance that you’ll wake it by accident when you lift your hand.

The screen will shut off automatically when you lower your hand, but there’s a nifty gesture to manually shut off the screen. When enabled, you’ll just need to cover the screen with your hand, and it will shut off.

Overall

Sometimes, I feel like the Xiaomi Band 9 is as much of a smartwatch as it is a fitness band. There are some nice quality-of-life features that I enjoy.

Xiaomi Smart Band 9 Review: Battery

The battery life of this device is a bit of an odd story. When I first charged it up, the battery life was pretty bonkers. It drained about 5% in the first day, and it took almost a week for it to drain properly. So, I give the battery life high marks based on that.

However, the battery life diminished noticeably after just a few cycles. After a few weeks of using it, I’d say that it can last me around three days on a charge. I did enable features like the AOD and the raise-to-wake gesture, so they have an effect on the battery life. So, when it comes to longevity, you should expect a few days of battery life after breaking it in and running the battery a few cycles.

When it comes to charging, I’m able to plug it in and get from 0% to 100% in less than an hour. It charges super fast.

Xiaomi Smart Band 9 Review: Final verdict

Wrapping this up, I think that picking up the Xiaomi Smart Band 9 is a no-brainer. It’s a high-quality, feature-packed, health nut-grade fitness tracker that not only covers the basics, but goes beyond its intended purpose. I don’t think of this as less than a smartwatch, I think of it as more than a fitness tracker. It’s useful both on and off the track.

The design is stunning, the build is high-quality, the performance is smooth, the software is intuitive, the screen is nice, and the companion app is fantastic, and it’s all wrapped up in a sub-$60 package. Xiaomi knocked it out of the park with this device, and I highly recommend that you buy it!

We’re in the awkward stretch between Amazon’s October Prime Day event and next month’s Black Friday sales, so it’s admittedly a slow week for tech deals. Nevertheless, we’ve found a few steep discounts on premium OLED TVs from Samsung and LG, the entry-level Apple Pencil, our favorite cheap running earbuds, recommended power banks, Sony headphones and more. Here are the best tech deals from this week that you can still buy today.

• Samsung S90C OLED TV (65″) for $1,300 at Best Buy ($300 off MSRP): The S90C’s QD-OLED panel mixes the typical advantages of an OLED TV — excellent contrast with deep black tones, clear motion, wide viewing angles and so on — with a layer of quantum dots. The latter helps it deliver a wider gamut of more vibrant colors and generally improved brightness compared to traditional OLED sets. This model is from 2023, but it received high marks across the web, and the differences between it and the newer S90D aren’t massive. For reference, that updated set costs $300 more as of this writing. We may see further discounts as we get closer to Black Friday, of course, but for now this deal is only about $20 more than the lowest price we’ve tracked for the 65-inch model. It’s also available at Amazon, albeit from a third-party seller.

• LG C3 OLED TV (65″) for $1,297 at Amazon ($203 off): The LG C3 is another well-regarded premium TV from last year. Its WOLED panel isn’t quite as bright or color-rich as a good QD-OLED set, but it offers top-notch contrast, motion response and viewing angles. Like the S90C, it has four HDMI 2.1 ports and can play in 4K at 120Hz, the maximum refresh rate supported by the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X. Unlike the S90C, it supports the popular Dolby Vision HDR format. Its webOS software is generally easier to navigate than Samsung’s Tizen platform, too. Outside of select in-store deals and a very brief dip to $1,245 earlier this year, this is the lowest price we’ve seen for the 65-inch variant. Again, there’s a newer model available, but most reviews suggest that it’s not a huge upgrade, and it costs $300 extra right now.

• Sony ULT Wear for $148 at Amazon ($52 off): While the ULT Wear aren’t a top pick in our guide to the best wireless headphones, they’re worth considering at this price if you prefer a (very) bass-heavy sound profile. Decent active noise cancellation, a refined design, above-average call quality and a solid 40-ish hours of battery life add to the appeal, though again, you really need to be a “basshead” to enjoy them. We gave the pair a score of 78 in our review. This deal marks an all-time low, and it’s also available at Walmart.

• Apple Pencil (USB-C) for $65 at Walmart ($14 off): Here’s a new low for Apple’s entry-level iPad stylus. This model doesn’t support pressure sensitivity or wireless charging, so those who can afford to step up to one of Apple’s more expensive Pencils should do so. But if you just want a pen for casual doodling or note-taking — or if you own a 10th-gen iPad, which doesn’t support those better options — this one should do the job at a more palatable price.

• Apple Magic Keyboard for iPad Pro 13-inch (M4) for $300 at Amazon ($49 off): Yes, the 13-inch iPad Pro is more iPad than most people need, so dropping another $300 to pair it with a keyboard is definitely overkill. But if you’re dead-set on making the Pro your main computer, the keyboard itself is extremely well-made, and this deal does let you save some cash compared to buying from Apple directly. It’s another new low.

• JLab Go Air Sport for $14 at Amazon ($16 off): The Go Air Sport is the budget pick in our guide to the best running headphones. They aren’t the cleanest-sounding set of wireless earbuds around, but their hook-style design stays in place while you’re on the move, they have an IP55 water-resistance rating and, most importantly, they’re very affordable. This deal is among the lowest prices we’ve tracked; just clip the $6 on-page coupon, and note that it only applies to the teal colorway. Other colors are also on sale for $20, which is still a decent value.

• Amazon Fire TV Stick 4K Max + Xbox Core Wireless Controller (Sky Cipher) + 1-month Xbox Game Pass Ultimate for $80 at Amazon ($67 off): If you happen to be in the market for a streaming stick and a new Xbox controller, Amazon is bundling its top-end Fire TV Stick with said gamepad at a discount. This is mainly a deal because it includes the “Sky Cipher” version of the Series X/S pad, which usually costs between $60 and $70 on its own. (If you don’t care about the color, you’ll likely be able to save more by getting the Max and a standard Xbox controller separately around Black Friday.) Amazon is selling this bundle to push the streamer’s ability to play Xbox games over the cloud, so it’s also throwing in a month of Game Pass Ultimate. The 4K Max still tends to promote Prime Video and other Amazon services above all else, but it’s fast, and it supports all the major apps. We’ve also found it to be a surprisingly decent retro gaming machine.

• Mario vs. Donkey Kong (Switch) for $40 at Woot ($10 off): Amazon subsidiary Woot is running a few discounts on first-party Nintendo Switch games, including this remake of the popular Game Boy Advance puzzle-platformer Mario vs. Donkey Kong. It may not be as good as its predecessor (few games are), but we still called it a “solid mix of challenge and depth” in our review. This is its lowest price to date. Other Nintendo-published games such as Kirby and the Forgotten Land and Princess Peach: Showtime! are at or near all-time lows as well.

• Resident Evil 4 (PS5) for $22 at Amazon ($8 off): In other video game deals, this is an all-time low for the physical PS5 copy of last year’s Resident Evil 4 remake. The Xbox version is available for the same price. Just note that you can save a couple bucks through PSN if you don’t mind buying digital.

• Doom Eternal (PC) for free at Amazon ($40 off, Prime only): This offer has been live for a week now, but it’s still worth a PSA: Amazon Prime subscribers can grab the PC version of the wonderfully chaotic FPS Doom Eternal for no extra cost. You’ll have to claim it through the Microsoft Store instead of Steam or GOG, but free is free. BioShock Remastered, another classic FPS, is available for the same price.

• Anker Prime Power Bank for $90 at Amazon ($40 off): The Anker Prime is the premium pick in our guide to the best power banks. It might be overkill for most, but its hefty 20,000mAh capacity and pair of 100W USB-C ports allow it to recharge multiple laptops, let alone smartphones and tablets, at full speed. There’s a 65W USB-A port on top of that, plus a handy display that keeps you updated on the battery’s status. We’ve seen this discount a few times before, but it matches an all-time low. The deal is also available at Anker.com with the code WS7DV2DWW6CW.

• Samsung Bar Plus USB flash drive (128GB) for $13 at Amazon ($8 off): The Bar Plus is a basic but dependable thumb drive if all you need is a simple stick to hold and transfer files. We saw this discount during Amazon’s October Prime Day sale earlier in the month, but it comes within a dollar of the drive’s all-time low all the same. The 128GB model has usually sold between $15 and $20 over the past year.

• Lexar Professional 1066x microSD card (1TB) for $75 at Amazon ($15 off): The Professional 1066x is a serviceable (if unspectacular) microSD card we’ve recommended in the past. This is another leftover Prime Day deal, but it takes about $15 off the street price we’ve typically seen for the 1TB model over the past few months.

• Razer Basilisk V3 gaming mouse for $40 at Amazon ($30 off): We recommend the Basilisk V3 in our gaming mouse buying guide for those who don’t mind using a cable and prefer a more ergonomic, right-handed shape. This deal has been live for a couple of weeks but still matches the device’s all-time low. Note that Razer released an updated version with an improved sensor earlier this month — we’ll test that one soon, but the upgrades appear to be fairly minor in practice.

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