Anker has announced its own custom silicon that the company says will bring local AI to audio devices, mobile accessories, and IoT devices. The Thus processor is the world’s first neural-net compute-in-memory AI audio chip, which is smaller than traditional chips, and requires less power to run complex computations. That makes it an attractive solution for smaller devices. 

When comparing Thus to existing chips, Anker CEO Steven Yang said, “Every AI chip built until now stores the model on one side and does the computation on the other. To think, the device has to carry all those parameters across, many times per second, every single inference. Thus puts the computation where the model already lives. The model never has to move again.”

The first Thus chip will integrate into Soundcore’s upcoming flagship earbuds. The company says it’s starting with earbuds because they’re the most challenging devices to put AI chips in due to size constraints. The small space limits the amount of power available, and because the chip is always active while you’re wearing the earbuds, previous designs had to rely on small neural networks capable of handling a few hundred thousand parameters. But Anker says that with the more energy-efficient compute-in-memory design, the Thus chip is capable of handling several million parameters, significantly increasing the computing power to handle things like complex world noise.

Traditional call noise canceling relies on those small onboard neural networks and can have difficulty isolating your voice in very noisy environments, which results in ambient noise leaking through or voices getting highly compressed, making it difficult to hear. Anker says the larger neural network available on the Thus chip, plus eight MEMS (micro-electromechanical systems) microphones and two bone conduction sensors to focus in on your voice, in its yet-to-be-announced earbuds will have significantly cleaner call audio, regardless of the environment.

It sounds intriguing, but we’ll have to see how the compute-in-memory Thus chip performs in the real world against the competition — including the Apple AirPods Pro 3 and Sony WF-1000XM6. Based on a leak in March, the first earbuds to include the Thus chip are likely the Liberty 5 Pro Max and Liberty 5 Pro, expected to be priced at $229.99 and $169.99, respectively. Anker will release full earbuds product details, as well as additional AI-powered features, at Anker Day on May 21.

Samsung has announced some more details about The Frame and Frame Pro, and the most interesting news is that this year’s Frame Pro will be a little less expensive across sizes. While last year’s Frame Pro at release was $2,199 for the 65-inch model, $3,199 for the 75-inch, and $4,299 for the 85-inch, the 2026 series is $1,999.99, $2,799.99, and $3,999.99 for the same sizes, respectively. Samsung is adding a 55-inch size as well, although pricing is not yet available. The regular Frame (and its pricing) will be coming later this year with two new, larger sizes of 75 and 85 inches. There’s no mention so far of the 98-inch model Samsung showed in its booth during CES.

This year, the cable connections on the Frame will be built into the TV itself, instead of putting them in the wired One Connect Box it used in the past. To help whenever owners need to change cables, the Frame will include built-in legs — Samsung calls them back stoppers — to prop the TV a few inches away from the wall while it’s still mounted for access to the connections panel. The 2026 Frame Pro still uses the wireless One Connect Box for its inputs.

Both TVs will have the newest version of Samsung’s glare-free screen technology to minimize reflections and some AI additions, like AI Soccer Mode. Overall, I expect performance to be similar to last year’s models.

The S95H flagship QD-OLED TV is getting an art frame-inspired look for the first time. Samsung has added a metal bezel, which creates a floating effect when the TV is mounted on the wall. This S95H is the first Samsung OLED TV that can display art from Samsung’s Art Store, like The Frame TVs. It’s also wireless One Connect Box-ready and includes a glare-free panel. The S95H is expected to be brighter than last year’s S95F thanks to Samsung’s OLED HDR Pro technology. Sizes available are 55 inches ($2,499.99), 65 inches ($3,399.99), 77 inches ($4,499.99), and 83 inches ($6,499.99).

Along with the flagship S95H, there are the S90H and S85H OLED TV series, which are more affordable — and less bright. The S90H’s prices range from $1,399.99 for the 42-inch model up to $5,299.99 for the 83-inch, and the S85H from $1,199.99 for the 48-inch to $4,499.99 for the 83-inch model.

Ikea’s $10 Kallsup Bluetooth speaker is fun and colorful and sounds better than its price suggests. It’s not mind-blowing (it is a $10 speaker, after all), and there are no features to speak of, other than the ability to connect up to 100 of them together, but at that price, I don’t really care. They’re a quick addition if I need a bit more color and sound on my desk or in my son’s room.

The Kallsup is about as simple as a Bluetooth speaker can get. It’s a 2.75-inch plastic cube enclosure with four short feet on the bottom and a single speaker inside, and it’s available in pink, white, and yellow green. There are two buttons and a small LED light on the top, and a USB-C charge port on the back. The button with the Bluetooth symbol turns the speaker on, plays a short welcome jingle, and puts it into pairing mode. It makes some slightly odd breathing noises while waiting to pair. You can also turn it off with the same button, or put it back in pairing mode if you need to change to another device. The second button, which has a play symbol on it, can be used to play and pause, skip or repeat the previous track, and connect it with up to 99 more Kallsups. Turning the speaker on and pairing takes around 10 seconds.

Ikea Kallsup Bluetooth speaker

Pros	Cons
Cute Cheap Surprising sound for $10	Multiple speakers need to be re-paired each time No smart features

Where to Buy:

• $9.99 at Ikea

I didn’t have high expectations of a $10 speaker, but even a single Kallsup is surprisingly decent. At moderate volumes, the speaker works well for background music or to listen to a podcast or audiobook. While at my desk, I preferred it to the thin-sounding built-in speakers on my M4 MacBook Air.

The Kallsup’s driver isn’t very big, so there’s not a lot of bass response, but it’s more than my laptop speakers can muster. As would be expected from a single, small driver, most of the frequency focus is on the midrange, so vocals are and speaking voices are highlighted the most — which is what makes the Kallsup good for audiobooks and podcasts. At max volume, there’s some slight distortion with tracks that have a lot of high-end frequencies, but when listening at close range at my desk, I never felt the need to blast the tiny speaker.

When these speakers were first announced at CES, what caught The Verge staff’s attention most was the ability to connect up to 100 of them. Daisy-chaining them is easy and is a great way to spread out the sound and increase overall volume. With the 20 I had on hand, while measuring with a decibel (dB) meter from a few inches away, a pink noise test signal increased from 86 dB with one speaker and up to 94 dB with all of them together — which is nearly twice the perceived volume. So spreading them around a room will give you some extra volume, but they’re still mono speakers and there’s no way to connect two as a stereo pair.

When putting $200 worth of Kallsup speakers up against comparatively priced Bluetooth options — the $269 Bose SoundLink Plus, $189 Amazon Echo Studio, and $179 Sonos Roam 2 — the Ikea array sounded okay, but the other three all had better response across the frequency range. The Echo Studio was my favorite because of how the low end balances against the mids and highs, but it also needs to be plugged in and doesn’t have the portability of the others. The Bose gets far louder than them all, even when all 20 Kallsups play together, and the Roam 2’s sound is more balanced (and the speaker more portable) than 20 Kallsups. All three of the more expensive speakers also offer far more features: the Bose and Sonos are IP67 dust- and water-resistant (the Kallsup are not IP rated), the Roam 2 works in the Sonos ecosystem, and the Echo Studio can order your groceries. The Kallsup is a very simple Bluetooth speaker, and 20 of them are 20 very simple Bluetooth speakers.

Stacking up a bunch of the speakers, or spreading them around, increases their volume and area coverage, but it can be time-consuming. Turning on and pairing a single speaker takes 10 to 20 seconds, but when you multiply that by 20 speakers, it turns into minutes. And that connection isn’t maintained once the speakers power down, so you’ll need to go through the process again the next time you want to use all of them. And then there’s finding 20 unused USB-C charging ports when they run out of battery after nine hours. The Kallsup also makes a rather disconcerting “aahhhh” sound when you plug it in to charge that I could do without, especially in chorus.

Still, when using just one or a handful of them, the Kallsups are a fun, colorful, and cute way to add sound to your space. I could see putting a few around a kid’s room — my 10-year old liked their look when I set them up for photos — or just adding a pop of color to your desk. And for $10, the Kallsups more than live up to their price.

Photography by John Higgins / The Verge

It’s been nearly a year and a half since Sonos released a consumer product, and those last two releases — the Arc Ultra and Sub 4 — were updates to existing products. The $299 Sonos Play, however, is a brand-new portable speaker that can expand an existing system or be the gateway into the Sonos world. When on Wi-Fi, it acts like any other Sonos speaker — with features like Auto Trueplay, AirPlay 2, and the ability to stereo pair — but it’s also a water-resistant Bluetooth speaker. 

The Play falls right in the middle of Sonos’s portable speaker lineup. While it’s not quite as easily packable as the Roam 2, the Play has more than twice the battery life and is capable of filling larger spaces with sound. It’s a far more grab-and-go option than the Move 2, which at more than twice the weight of the Play, and two inches bigger in all directions, is really only luggable between rooms or out to the backyard. The Play melds the home use of the Move 2 with the portability of the Roam 2 to make it the most versatile Sonos speaker yet.

Sonos Play

Score: 8

Pros	Cons
Easily portable Integrates into the Sonos ecosystem Bluetooth capable	Doesn’t include wall adapter Sound is a little shouty

Where to Buy:

• $299 at Sonos
• $299 at Amazon
• $299 at Best Buy

In size and shape, the Play looks a lot like someone took an Era 100 and smushed it to about half the depth. It has four buttons on the top — play/pause, volume up and down, and one to turn voice services on and off — and a Bluetooth button, mic switch, power button, and USB-C port on the back. Like the Move 2, it has a charging base where it can live when not being toted around, although the base has a hard-wired USB-C cable and doesn’t come with a wall adapter. It requires at least an 18W charger; if you don’t have an extra already, you’ll either need to buy the $29 one from Sonos or a cheaper one elsewhere. The USB-C port on the back can be used to charge the Play when away from its base, allow the speaker to act as a power bank for your device, or — with the $19 line-in adapter — to connect a wired 3.5mm audio source.

Much like the Era 100 and Move 2 before it, the Play features two angled tweeters with waveguides designed to provide stereo separation (although it’s very difficult to hear a stereo image from any single speaker). There’s a front-firing midwoofer for midrange and bass frequencies, as well as two force-cancelling passive radiators on either side of the speaker.

The Play delivers clear vocals — whether they’re Chris Cornell or Ella Fitzgerald — and solo instruments like Miles Davis’ trumpet stand out in the mix. For my taste, the sound tuning of the Play overaccentuates the midrange and treble a bit compared to the Era 100, which has a smoother midrange and a bit more bass response. On the Play, both the string-muted guitar and cymbals of Fleetwood Mac’s “Second Hand News” sounded too present and forward. Songs that already have a lot of high-end, such as the metallic sounds in “Super Bon Bon” by Soul Coughing, can get shouty at higher volumes. And the Play can get loud, particularly with rock and pop that’s more compressed, where I tended to keep the volume set at 50 (out of 100) or below.

As long as you keep the mic turned on, you can enable Auto Trueplay, which allows the speaker to constantly listen and adjust the tuning based on the environment it’s in. In my days with the speaker, I kept this on as I moved it around to different rooms, or out to the front yard, and it kept the sound tuning consistent. Which also means that in all of those situations, it still kept the slightly pushed upper frequencies. There’s an EQ in the Sonos app, but it’s limited to just bass and treble. There’s no way to back off the shouty upper mids, but I found that boosting the bass by a couple ticks gave me the low-end response I was looking for without needing to pump the volume up, and doing so gives more depth to the strings during the opening theme of Rachmaninoff’s second piano concerto.

As with other Sonos speakers, you can use the Sonos app to connect two Plays into a stereo pair, which allows you to have a much wider soundstage and stereo separation. This is only available on Wi-Fi, though. Even if you take both with you, they won’t maintain that stereo connection on Bluetooth. If you do take only one, the Play will act as a Bluetooth speaker while away from Wi-Fi and reconnect as a part of the stereo pair when returned and the Bluetooth connection is turned off. If you want to use one Play on its own around the house, turning off the other one will temporarily disable the stereo pair so you aren’t carrying around just the left or right channel. 

The stereo pairing is a nice feature, but if I were going to make a stereo pair with Sonos speakers, I’d do it with an Era 100 and the new Era 100 SL. They sound better, they’re cheaper, and since they need to be plugged in, you know they’re staying put.

The Play shines as a portable speaker. It weighs 2.87 pounds (less than half the 6.6 pounds of the Move 2), has a built-in durable rubber carrying loop, and is IP67 rated to keep it dust-tight and protected from being dunked in water. Sonos claims the battery lasts up to 24 hours, which is consistent with my testing, and in the future when it no longer holds a charge, you can replace it yourself using Sonos’ battery replacement kit.

When you’re out and no longer on Wi-Fi, you can connect to the Play via Bluetooth. And you can group multiple Play or Move 2 speakers using a proprietary speaker-to-speaker grouping technology with no audible lag (it’s like party modes on other portable speakers). The pairing process is quick, and the added speakers have an impressive range. I was able to carry a second Play speaker around 200 feet away before losing the connection. This isn’t the same as the stereo pairing you can do on Wi-Fi. In this mode, each speaker is getting the same signal, not split between left and right channels. And since you’re on Bluetooth and not Wi-Fi, you can’t share what’s playing on the rest of your Sonos system.

When you pick up the Play, it’s best to get into the habit of grabbing for the loop instead of the speaker body. Its size and shape are great for grabbing it by its side, but on a few occasions when I did that, one of my fingers would accidentally press either the Bluetooth button or the power button, stopping my music playback. 

In the app you can choose between Sonos Voice Control or Alexa (still no Google Assistant). The Sonos voice assistant can complete Sonos system tasks well — stopping and starting music, changing volume, moving your music to other speakers — but can have trouble with more specific requests, such as searching for songs.

My experience with the Sonos Play speakers was smooth, except for an issue I ran into with one of my two review samples, which stopped working or charging after a short while. Sonos was quick to send out a replacement, and this would be covered by the one-year warranty, or the 30-day return policy. 

The Sonos Play speaker is a highly capable portable Bluetooth speaker with great, albeit mid- and high-end focused, sound that’s rugged and can easily expand with other Sonos speakers. If you’re just looking for a portable Bluetooth speaker, though, there are lots of less expensive options with similar performance, like the Bose SoundLink Plus, JBL Charge 6, or Ultimate Ears Megaboom 4 — although all of them have flaws in their sound profiles (for instance, the Bose can get a little distorted at higher volumes, and the Megaboom doesn’t get too loud). 

But the Play isn’t just a portable Bluetooth speaker, it’s a way to build — or start — a Sonos home system. If you want to be able to easily, and temporarily, bring your Sonos system into a room that doesn’t have a speaker — for a relaxation playlist while taking a bath, perhaps — the Play is the best way to do that. The Move 2 has better sound, but is much bulkier, less water-resistant, and $100 more expensive; the Roam 2 is $160 cheaper, and a lot smaller, but with a corresponding decrease in sound quality and volume. 

An Era 100 — or a pair, with an Era 100 SL — is still a better choice for a stationary setup. It’s cheaper and it sounds better. But if you were thinking of buying something like the Era 100, and you also want a speaker you can carry around, the Play is a great choice for both existing Sonos users looking to expand or someone that’s been waiting to try out the system. It’s the most flexible Sonos speaker, with the fewest compromises yet.

Photography by John Higgins / The Verge

Samsung promised “more than a design refresh” for its new top-end Galaxy Buds – it added upgraded woofers for improved, dual-amped hi-fi sound, a new blade design, clearer call performance, and better noise cancellation. Ultimately, while the $249.99 Galaxy Buds 4 aren’t a huge leap forward over the previous model, they keep what was good about the Buds 3 and improve on most of what wasn’t — as long as you use Samsung Galaxy devices.

That’s because, much like the AirPods Pro 3 with Apple gear, the Buds 4 Pro still work best when paired with another Galaxy device. This unlocks all of the functionality of the Buds 4 Pro, including hi-res audio support, Gemini and Bixby voice wakeup, head gestures for call and Bixby control, the interpreter translation, Auracast, auto switch, and HD voice calling. Some of these are available with an Android device running the Galaxy Wear app, but for iPhone, Windows, and game consoles, the buds can only handle standard audio, calls, and toggling ANC on and off. It might be a good business decision, but it limits who can fully enjoy the Galaxy Buds 4 Pro.

Samsung Galaxy Buds 4 Pro

Where to Buy:

• $249.99 at Samsung
• $249.99 at Best Buy
• $249.99 at Amazon

One of the improvements I was happy to see from the Galaxy Buds 4 Pro over the previous version is a better, more consistent sound profile. I found the Buds 3 Pro to be a bit shouty, where certain frequencies in vocals stuck out more than they should. There was a similar problem with the high end, and I didn’t want to listen to them for long periods of time. But the Buds 4 Pro fixed that. The midrange in particular is smoother, which allowed me to just sit back more and enjoy Chris Cornell’s soaring vocals on “Black Hole Sun” and “Superunknown.” And Matt Cameron’s hi-hat helps to drive the groove while his cymbals punctuate rhythmic hits throughout without being piercing.

The bass levels on the Buds 4 Pro are right on the edge for me, and it really depends on the music whether it’s adding an extra driving punch or is overkill. The kick drum during the verses of Tracy Chapman’s “Fast Car” is a little more present than it should be, but it also gives an extra pulse and depth before the whole band comes in for the chorus. But the thumping toms and driving bass of “Uprising” by Muse is a bit too much for what I’m used to. It’s in no way excessive or out of control — and I’m sure many will love the extra low end and think I’m foolish— but it can start to cover some of the midrange presence. Luckily, it’s easily adjusted with a 9-band EQ in the app.

If you have a Galaxy device, the Buds 4 Pro support 24-bit / 96kHz hi-resolution audio from streaming apps that offer it (my app of choice is Qobuz). The differences are minor and depend on the track, but with Pink Floyd’s “Brain Damage,” the hi-res version was a bit more spacious. As the song opens up with the entry of the organ and fantastic backup singers, you can feel the individual character that each voice provides.

Another point of improvement is the buds’ active noise cancellation. They do an excellent job with the low end, so rumbles of airplane engines while on trips will be properly tamed, and a decent job with the pesky midrange frequencies that almost all earbuds have trouble with. The performance isn’t quite as good as the AirPods Pro 3, Bose Ultra, or Sony WF-1000XM6, but it’s a significant improvement over the Buds Pro 3. In the app, it’s possible to adjust the intensity of both the ANC and transparency mode to give you more awareness options when out in the world.

The Galaxy Buds use an array of six microphones and a voice pickup unit that helps the mics focus on your voice, and during calls they do an excellent job isolating my voice and blocking out things like wind, traffic, nearby people, or loud noises. So much so that my friend wasn’t able to hear a car alarm across the street during our call, or any of the traffic as I walked down a busy San Fernando Valley street. The tradeoff was a hefty dose of compression added to my voice, but I was still easily intelligible.

For those with a Galaxy device, Samsung includes a super wide band for voice option, which increases the bandwidth of calls to 16kHz and can be turned on in the Buds 4 Pro menus. I recorded multiple phone call samples — one with the super wide band turned on with a Galaxy S26 Plus, one with it turned off (while still using the Galaxy phone), and one with an iPhone — all while I walked the same few blocks of a busy street during rush hour. The super wide band makes a minor improvement to vocal quality, but I only noticed it listening to the samples back-to-back. Is it nice to have? Sure. Critical for calls? Absolutely not. There’s no reason not to turn it on if you have a Galaxy device, but those without one aren’t missing much.

The Galaxy Buds still have the AirPods stem design they first adopted with the Buds 3, but Samsung made some changes that are for the better. The silly LEDs along the stem are gone, replaced with a metal strip Samsung refers to as a “blade design,” and they’ve added a third online-exclusive color, pink gold, to go along with white and black. The metallic strip looks as if it’s capacitive, but in fact is just decoration. The capacitive controls are on the sides of the stem and work with both swipe (for volume) and pinch motions (for ANC toggle, pause/play, track controls, assistant activation, and call controls). Which earbud controls what can be customized in the Buds 4 Pro settings on your device, if it’s Galaxy or Android.

There are only three ear tip sizes that come with the Galaxy Buds, while many other earbuds are starting to include additional smaller and larger options. I was able to get a secure fit with the medium tips, and I never worried about them coming loose even when I went on a run. And since the Galaxy Buds are IP57, they make a good set of workout earbuds.

Carried over from the Buds 3 is a transparent top charging case, so you can show off your earbuds as they charge (do people do this?). It’s a clamshell design with wireless charging that fits well into small pockets and is smaller than the cases for the AirPods, Sony WF-1000XM6, and XM5, and much smaller than the bulky Bose Ultra Earbuds.

Yes, the Galaxy Buds are still, much like Apple’s AirPods, essentially a device built primarily for a walled garden — that of the Galaxy ecosystem — but now their performance measures up far more favorably against those iconic earbuds. They sound really good, have ANC performance now worthy of their price, and — if you’re using a Galaxy device — include features like Auracast, high-res audio, and auto switch.

But that exclusivity means the Galaxy Buds 4 Pro aren’t for everyone. I certainly wouldn’t recommend them for an iPhone user (in the same way I wouldn’t recommend AirPods for anyone but an Apple user), and non-Galaxy Android users should also consider the Technics AZ100, Sony -WF1000XM5, or Bose Ultra Earbuds. For anyone with a Galaxy phone, though, the Galaxy Buds 4 Pro are the top choice.