John.Higgins | The VergeThe Verge is about technology and how it makes us feel. Founded in 2011, we offer our audience everything from breaking news to reviews to award-winning features and investigations, on our site, in video, and in podcasts.2026-06-03T21:12:51+00:00https://www.theverge.com/authors/john-higgins/rsshttps://platform.theverge.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/01/verge-rss-large_80b47e.png?w=150&h=150&crop=1John.Higgins<![CDATA[WiiM expands its whole-home ecosystem with a new soundbar]]>https://www.theverge.com/?p=9427482026-06-03T17:12:51-04:002026-06-03T17:12:51-04:00
The $479 WiiM Bar includes a 2.1-inch touchscreen on its front. | Image: WiiM
WiiM, the audio company that’s challenged the idea that audiophile-level performance requires a small loan, is expanding its whole-home ecosystem with the WiiM Bar, which releases in July. Much like its other speakers and audio components, the WiiM Bar supports a bunch of streaming options and expandability at an affordable price — in this case, $479.
The company’s first soundbar has a 3.0.2 Atmos configuration with a total of eight drivers — three front mid-woofers, three front tweeters, and two up-firing full-range height drivers — paired with four passive radiators. That configuration can be expanded to 3.1.2 with the addition of a WiiM Sub Pro for $449, or to a 5.1.2 surround setup by also adding two of the company’s wireless Sound or Sound Lite speakers. It’s compatible with both Dolby Atmos and DTS:X, and includes room correction, dialogue enhancement, and a night mode.
While most current soundbar designs from companies like Sonos, Bose, and Samsung are sleek yet understated, the WiiM Bar stands out with a 2.1-inch round touch display front and center. The Bar isn’t the first WiiM device to incorporate a touchscreen; they can also be found on the WiiM Ultra streamer, WiiM Amp Ultra streaming amp, and WiiM Sound speaker. I’m all for having a display that shows things like volume level, playback information, or album art, and I like that it also offers another way to control the soundbar. But I rarely find myself near a soundbar while I’m listening to it, so I’m not sure how useful that part is. There are also illuminated capacitive buttons for volume, play and pause, and source switching.
The Bar can integrate into an existing WiiM multi-room system. It can play audio from more than 20 services from within the WiiM Home app, or connect with Google Cast Audio, Spotify Connect, Qobuz Connect, Tidal Connect, and Amazon Music Cast. There’s also local network support with DLNA or Roon. One major exclusion is Apple AirPlay, which hasn’t been supported by any WiiM products since the Amp was released in November 2023.
Connections include HDMI eARC, optical, line in, Ethernet, and a USB-A port that is configurable as audio in, audio out, or for media storage. There’s an included remote control if you prefer one to the app or controls on the soundbar.
I fully expect the Bar, releasing in July, is just the beginning. If WiiM follows its previous strategy, we’re sure to get a step-up option later this year or early next. But even if we don’t, the $479 WiiM Bar looks to be an awfully good deal from a company that knows how to make great-sounding products.
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John.Higgins<![CDATA[Sony’s first RGB TV is a statement piece]]>https://www.theverge.com/?p=9378792026-05-27T12:48:23-04:002026-05-27T12:00:00-04:00
The first wave of RGB LED TVs are fighting for their spot in the TV hierarchy. They need to outperform OLED TVs in brightness and color (because they’ll never match OLED’s contrast), and they need to outperform regular LED TVs in everything (because their price is so much higher). It’s now time for Sony to take a swing with the Bravia 7 II, which is out alongside the flagship Bravia 9 II. Both pair RGB LED backlighting with Sony’s always top-notch processing.
RGB TVs like the Bravia 7 II use red, green, and blue LEDs instead of a field of all-blue or white LEDs for the backlight. This allows for an RGB LED TV to display more, and brighter, colors without as much reliance on its color filter. Sony drives each LED individually, giving its TV fine control of the color mix.
The biggest potential drawback of RGB LED technology is color crosstalk, which is when one color bleeds into the color next to it. It happens because the red, green, and blue LEDs provide light for a zone that includes multiple pixels. If the majority of those pixels are supposed to be red, then the backlight will create red light and rely on the color filter to carve out the correct colors for the remaining pixels in that zone. But sometimes that red will slightly affect the pixels that aren’t red, especially if they’re a lighter color or white.
Sony Bravia 7 II specs
Display type: RGB LED
HDR formats: Dolby Vision, HDR10, HLG
OS: Google TV
HDMI inputs: 2 x HDMI 2.1 (one with eARC); 2 x HDMI 2.0
Audio support: Dolby Atmos, DTS: X
Gaming features: 4K/120Hz, ALLM, VRR
Sizes available (inches): 50, 55, 65, 75, 85, 98
So far, examples of color crosstalk are most apparent in test patterns, and while running the Bravia 7 II through a barrage of tests, I could see evidence of it. A green rectangle would subtly create a halo into the space around it — and it happened with a bunch of colors, not just green.
But test patterns are designed to bring out flaws. And apart from those unusual conditions, I only saw color crosstalk on a handful of occasions, with none of them being significant. The most noticeable was with the app tiles on my Apple TV. The blue of the Prime Video tile slightly crept into the white of the text, and on the NASA app tile the emblem’s text had a red tint.
In movies and TV shows, there was little crosstalk to be found. I could nitpick and wax poetic about the red of Snoke’s throne room causing a minor shift to his skin tone in a few frames of The Last Jedi when I paused and inspected the pixels from a foot away, but the reality is it doesn’t matter. When I sat back and watched, there wasn’t a point during The Last Jedi, or Mad Max: Fury Road, or the F1 Canadian Grand Prix where I felt pulled out of the action by color crosstalk.
In fact, in Professional picture mode, the Bravia 7 II produces a beautiful picture with all content. Along with color crosstalk essentially being a non-issue, colors and grayscale in SDR are remarkably accurate, apart from some inaccuracies in red, which is oversaturated. Lighter grays in HDR are a bit brighter than they should be as well, but it’s not too noticeable, and colors look vibrant. The Bravia 7 II is also capable of 2,200 nits of brightness. It doesn’t match the TCL X11L light cannon, or even the LG G5 OLED from last year, but it’s plenty of brightness for an average living room. And since the majority of content is still mastered at 1,000 nits, Sony’s latest still has plenty of brightness headroom.
One of the benefits of RGB backlighting is the ability to display more colors, and in testing, the Sony measured 88 percent of BT.2020. There’s a limited amount of content that actually uses those colors, so while the potential is impressive, it won’t matter unless you’re watching something like Planet Earth II that’s specifically mastered for it. The green jungles of Ecuador are lush and verdant, and the shimmery blues and cyans of hummingbirds pop off the screen. It looks similar to the Hisense UR9 on those scenes, although overall the Sony is far more accurate. Still, until we get a lot more movies and TV shows that are mastered in BT.2020 instead of P3, there’s little benefit.
When using Professional mode on the Sony, there’s an interesting menu option available that allows you to change the backlight from using color to white light. If the slight color bleed on the Apple TV app tiles bothers you, switching it from color to white will remove the problem. But doing so also affects the color gamut coverage, decreasing it from 88 percent to 73 percent of BT.2020 and down to 91 percent of P3. The inclusion of the option is curious, as I’m not sure what a useful application for it is apart from the novelty of seeing the performance difference between color and white backlight LEDs.
Beyond picture performance, the 7 II has some cool, and some not so cool, design choices. Starting with the cool is the pedestal stand, which incorporates a lenticular screen on its front that causes cables hanging behind it to disappear from view while still presenting a mostly transparent look. It’s a nerdy and fun solution to cable management.
A not so cool choice was to still only have two HDMI inputs support 4K at 120 Hz, one of which is the eARC port. As other TV manufacturers are including support across all four inputs, this is a miss from Sony. It doesn’t make or break a TV, but if you’re planning to connect a soundbar or AVR to the eARC HDMI port and want to connect more than one game console or PC for high refresh rate gaming, it’s not possible.
The Bravia 7 II also has a pretty reflective screen. Reflected lights don’t cause as dramatic a rainbow effect as I’ve seen on TCL and Hisense TVs, but the screen doesn’t mitigate the light much. The Bravia 9 II has a non-glare, low-reflection panel, so if you have a room with lamps or ceiling lights you’re concerned about, that’s the better choice — for at least an extra $1,000.
Which brings us to the cost. Sony has always priced its TVs a bit more than other manufacturers, and that trend continues. The 65-inch Bravia 7 II for my review is $2,600. That’s $600 more than the Hisense’s top-end RGB LED TV, the UR9 (once Hisense slashed the price after release), and $500 more than the Samsung R85H. I haven’t had a chance to closely look at the R85H yet, but I can say even for $600 more, the accuracy and far better processing of the Sony Bravia 7 II is worth it over the Hisense.
If I could control the daytime light in my room, I’d probably still opt for an OLED like the LG C6. Regardless of the RGB backlight tech, the Bravia 7 II (and every other RGB LED TV) is still an LCD TV. It handles blooming well, but can’t compete with the pixel-level control and deep contrast an OLED provides.
As more RGB LED TVs come out and get evaluated, we’ll have a better idea of how they perform with actual content and if the color crosstalk concerns are real or marketing subterfuge from competitors. But one or two things is certain: either color crosstalk isn’t an issue, or Sony has figured out a way to make it a non-issue with its processing. Even though there are nitpicks like the reflective screen and limited HDMI 2.1, the Bravia 7 II is an excellent TV with a beautiful picture.
Photography by John Higgins / The Verge
How I test TVs
I set up each TV in my living room on my home theater credenza. I stream movies and shows through the TV’s apps and from an Apple TV, play discs on a Magnetar UDP900 MkII 4K Blu-Ray player (including the Spears & Munsil Ultra HD Benchmark disc) and movies from a Kaleidescape Strato E player, and play games on my Xbox Series X and PlayStation 5. This is done at different times of the day and under different lighting conditions, with curtains open, with lamps and overhead lights on, or with blackout curtains up to keep the room dark. While I am a certified ISF Level 3 calibrator, I do not calibrate the TVs before measurement, as the overwhelming majority of TV owners don’t bother. So it’s important to know how well the TVs perform out of the box, with minor tweaks in the menu anyone can do.
For measurement, I use Portrait Displays’ Calman color calibration software, a Murideo 8K Seven pattern generator, an X-rite i1 Pro 3 spectrophotometer, Portrait Displays’ C6 HDR5000 colorimeter, a Konica Minolta LS-100 luminance meter, and Leo Bodnar 4K lag tester.
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John.Higgins<![CDATA[Anker’s new earbuds have the best call quality I’ve ever heard]]>https://www.theverge.com/?p=9357662026-05-21T19:07:50-04:002026-05-21T19:00:00-04:00
The Liberty 5 Pro series are Soundcore’s most ambitious earbuds yet.
Soundcore, Anker’s audio brand, has mostly lived in the budget-to-midrange world, but with its new Liberty 5 Pro earbuds, it’s aiming at the big guys. The two new earbuds — the Liberty 5 Pro and Liberty 5 Pro Max — use Anker’s new Thus chip, which has more processing power than previous Soundcore earbuds to try and compete with the chips found in Apple, Sony, and Bose products. And that extra processing power gives the Liberty 5 Pro the best in-call noise canceling I’ve heard in any earbuds.
Previously, the highest-priced Soundcore earbuds (not counting the sleep buds) were the Liberty 4 Pro at $150, but the Liberty 5 Pro are $170 and the Liberty 5 Pro Max are $230. That’s reaching into AirPods Pro 3 territory. Price differences within a product line usually mean different earbud designs, like the open-ear AirPods 4 with ANC versus the sealed AirPods Pro 3. But the Liberty 5 Pro and 5 Pro Max earbuds are exactly the same. They have the same chip, 9.2mm drivers, microphone array, ANC performance, sound profile, battery life, IP55 rating, and overall features. The only difference is the case.
The 5 Pro case has an angled 0.96-inch TFT screen on the front that can be used to change settings like ANC, sound profiles, speak-to-chat, and Dolby head tracking. Everything that can be done on the screen can be done in the Soundcore app too, so it’s just preference if you want to take out the case or your phone.
The 1.78-inch AMOLED screen for the 5 Pro Max case is on its sliding top. In addition to the capabilities of the 5 Pro case, you can adjust the screen brightness or change the wallpaper, as well as access a feature that sets the 5 Pro Max apart from its less-expensive sibling: a microphone and an AI note-taking app. You can record audio directly to the case, which has 357MB of storage, then transfer it to your phone where you can generate a transcription and summary in the Soundcore app. (It does require a Soundcore account.)
The file can be edited in the Soundcore app or exported (audio as an MP3, and the transcript and summary as .txt, Markdown, .docx, or PDF file). The transcription can differentiate between different speakers and in my testing I found it to be very accurate, both with who was speaking and with what they were saying. If you’re someone who needs to record classes or meetings regularly it’s a useful feature, especially since it doesn’t require your headphones to be in. But beyond the larger screen, it’s the only major thing that sets the 5 Pro Max apart from the 5 Pro.
The earbuds look similar to the Bose Ultra Earbuds with a wide, chunky outer body, but they don’t feel that way in the ear. As opposed to the bulbous housing of the Bose, the Liberty 5’s housing slims down, allowing for a better fit while also making them easier to hold onto. They’re comfortable and feel very secure, and I was never concerned they would fall out, even when jumping around.
Out of the box, the Liberty 5 sound profile is on the bassy side, causing vocals — especially male vocals — to sound muddy. Snare hits sound dull and there’s sparkle missing from high-end sounds. By choosing your favorite sound clip tuning from a series of seven examples, you can adjust the earbuds to your preferences (there’s also an 8-band EQ if you’d rather use that). It fixed the issues I had with Soundcore’s default profile. There was still good bass response, but the lower mids were cleaned up and the high mids were boosted a bit, causing the whole sound to open up. Nick Drake’s acoustic guitar in “Pink Moon” shimmers more, as do the piano octaves, and his voice doesn’t get swallowed up by the lower guitar register as his voice descends at the end of the chorus vocal line. Compared to the AirPods Pro 3 my Soundcore profile was still heavier on the bass and didn’t have the same high-end response, but I enjoyed my music listening just as much. The Liberty 5 Pro support LDAC for high-res audio from devices that use the codec.
Adaptive noise-canceling performance is comparable to the AirPods Pro 3, and for $80 less, which is great. The Liberty 5 Pro let in a little bit more midrange than the AirPods, but it’s a very small difference. They ably handle low-end drones and will work well for long flights.
The most remarkable feature of the Liberty 5 Pro series, though, is its voice call capability. I have never heard a pair of earbuds or headphones handle ambient noise on a call this well. One time, my very enthusiastic son sang and yelled while jumping up and down in front of me and the person on the other end of the call heard none of it. During another call, arborists fed tree branches into a wood chipper right outside our open apartment window. The person on the other end had no idea.
I have a friend who’s also an audio reviewer, and I call him regularly to test call clarity on headphones and earbuds. He can’t remember the last time I sounded as natural on a call. And this was while a bunch of traffic, with some emergency vehicles, drove past as I walked the neighborhood. To see how they compare to the AirPods Pro 3, I would switch the earbuds without telling him which I was wearing, and he consistently said the Apple buds sounded muddy and more compressed.
The Liberty 5 Pro buds have a voice-control mode that responds quickly, although it’s not consistent when there’s conversation around you. I tried toggling between noise cancellation modes while my wife was on a Zoom call in the same room, and if she was talking I’d need to speak uncomfortably loudly for modes to change. What’s interesting — and a bit disconcerting — is that there’s no wake word needed. So instead of listening for just an activation phrase, it’s listening for 11 different possible phrases, including “Play Music,” “Volume Up,” “Reject Call,” and “Transparency Mode.”
For the call clarity alone, the Liberty 5 Pro series is an impressive step forward. If you mainly use your earbuds for calls, they are the best earbuds to get. While the AI recording and transcription on the Liberty 5 Pro Max case is interesting, unless you need it regularly, there’s no reason to spend the extra $60 over the Liberty 5 Pro. They have the same ANC performance, same sound profile — which is really good after using the customization questionnaire — and same incredible call quality. $170 might be more than Soundcore earbuds have been in the past, but the improvement is worth it, and if you’re not concerned with staying in Apple’s, Google’s, or Samsung’s ecosystems, the Liberty 5 Pro are an excellent option.
Photography by John Higgins / The Verge
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John.Higgins<![CDATA[Sony’s 1000X The Collexion are a luxurious and expensive celebration of its iconic headphones]]>https://www.theverge.com/?p=9331682026-05-19T11:16:25-04:002026-05-19T12:00:00-04:00
Ten years ago Sony introduced the MDR-1000X headphones. They combined noise canceling, good sound, design, and comfort in a way that we hadn’t quite seen before in a set of wireless headphones. (At the time, the Bose QC35 were the closest competitor, but I wasn’t a huge fan of their sound tuning.) The 1000X set off a line of consistently excellent wireless noise-canceling headphones that became the go-to for comparisons — I still have a pair of WH-1000XM4s that hang on the side of my desk. To celebrate the launch of the original, Sony is releasing the 1000X The Collexion. (The X in “collexion” refers to the headphones’ 10 years and is a part of the series name. There’s no indication that any other products will be added to this Collexion.) Sony told me they’re “the pinnacle of technology and design,” and boy does their price reflect that.
The new 1000X cans don’t replace the WH-1000XM6 that Sony released a year ago. According to Sony, the XM6 are designed for functionality while the 1000X are a luxury design focused on comfort. They’re also $650. That’s at least $200 more than the WH-1000XM6 usually go for, and $100 more than the Apple AirPods Max 2. So are these headphones worth adding to your collexion?
The new 1000X look a lot like the XM6, with some callbacks to the design of the original 1000X headphones from a decade ago — namely an exposed metal headband and ear cups that are wrapped in vegan leather for a more textured feel than the smooth plastic of the XM6 ear cups. The same material is used for the ear pads and headband cushion. Both the ear cups and the headband cushion are more comfortable than the ones on the XM6. The head cushion padding is around 40 percent thicker and 10 percent wider than the padding on the XM6, according to Sony. The padding is also easily removable and replaceable, though pricing for replacements is to be determined. There’s a little more space on the interior of the ear cushions, which fit around ears more easily than the XM6. The ear cup housing is 5mm slimmer than the XM6, giving the headphones a sleeker look.
Both the joints and headband support are made of stainless steel instead of plastic, and the headband frame is on the exterior of headband padding, as opposed to inside like on the XM6. The joints swivel but don’t fold, so the headphones lie flat like the WH-1000XM5 and take up a little more space than the XM6 do when they’re folded. Buttons and cable ports are also made of metal to match the joints and headband. The metal paired with the vegan leather finish of the housing and padding materials gives the 1000X a unified, streamlined design. I do wish they came in colors other than white and black. I understand the idea of a more understated, restrained aesthetic, but some color options could turn them more into a statement to wear around.
The new design elements do have some drawbacks, though. The first being that the headphones are heavier. Using metal instead of plastic increased the weight from 253 grams for the XM6 to 320 grams for the 1000X. This is still a far cry from the 386 grams of the Apple AirPods Max 2. I didn’t find the weight of the 1000X to be too overbearing, although after about an hour and a half I started to feel pressure where they rested on the top of my head.
The design choices also affect noise-canceling performance. The 1000X uses the same QN3 noise-canceling processor and 12-mic system as the 1000XM6, which gives it the same level of active noise cancellation. But because of the thinner ear cup, the 1000X’s passive isolation isn’t as good, most noticeably in the midrange and extending up into higher frequencies. So its overall noise cancellation is weaker than the XM6.
The thinner housing leaves less room for the battery. Sony claims that with ANC on, the headphones get up to 24 hours of battery life (the XM6 get up to 30 hours). I haven’t had the 1000X long enough to verify that claim. The battery is less efficient for fast charging, too, with a five-minute charge providing an additional 1.5 hours of playback, while the XM6 can get three hours from a three-minute charge.
Sony says the 1000X use newly designed unidirectional 30mm carbon fiber drivers, plus the company’s “most advanced” version of its DSEE sound processing and new V3 integrated processor. The sound is a little clearer in the lower midrange, and there’s some sparkle at the high end that’s missing in the XM6.The opening vocals on The Black Crowes’ “Sometimes Salvation” can sound slightly muffled on the XM6, but on the 1000X the voice cuts through the texture of the guitars well. When Marc Ford comes in with his soulful solo on the right side of the soundstage, the distorted guitar sings with great presence. This sound difference between the 1000X and XM6 is pretty minor, though. Both headphones sound great.
For the 1000X, Sony added music and game 360 upmix listening modes to the 360 upmix cinema mode found on the XM6. 360 upmixing takes a stereo signal and attempts to create a 3D soundscape. I’m not a huge fan of it, as it tends to boost high frequencies quite a bit and doesn’t sound as immersive as a track that’s actually been intentionally mixed for spatial audio.
The last design aspect that sets the 1000X apart is its case. It’s very close in size to the XM6’s case — even though the XM6 ear cups fold up and the 1000X’s swivel flat — but it has a cutout to form a handle, causing it to look less like a headphones case and more like a small bag. As with the XM6 case, there’s a magnetic clasp on the bottom that keeps it securely closed (it took an excessive amount of shaking for me to cause the headphones to fall out).
The Sony 1000X headphones are comfortable, stylish, well built, and sound great. I’m not entirely sure who they’re for, though. The Sony XM series has been known for its top-notch noise canceling, but the redesign diminishes that. Their price also makes them out of reach for most people. And maybe that’s the idea. While the 1000X are a celebration of the XM series, they’re not an evolution. And they’re an expensive celebration at that. If you’re looking for comfortable, functional, and great-sounding headphones, I’d still get the 1000XM6.
Photography by John Higgins / The Verge
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John.Higgins<![CDATA[The Apple Studio Display could have been so much more]]>https://www.theverge.com/?p=9290152026-05-14T18:03:55-04:002026-05-13T07:00:00-04:00
The Studio Display looks great next to a MacBook, but its aging display technology holds it back. | Photo by John Higgins / The Verge
For the better part of 12 years, Apple owned the 5K monitor world — primarily because it made basically the only options. LG’s 5K UltraFine was a solid, if bland choice, but many people bought a 27-inch iMac from 2014 for its 5K screen alone. Then in 2022, Apple finally gave the people what they wanted by releasing the $1,599 Studio Display (which was essentially the iMac’s screen as a separate monitor with a webcam and speakers) and removed the LG from its store.
It wasn’t until late 2024 that companies like BenQ and Asus finally began releasing their own 27-inch 5K monitors. And while the Studio Display was the best built and best looking — its aluminum chassis and stand are solid and sleek — the competitors offered things the Studio Display didn’t, like more adjustable stands, better port variety, and the ability to connect to multiple computers at once. They work with Windows, too. And even though they use the same dated 5K panel as the Studio Display (or a very similar one), they are much cheaper, ranging from $1,100 down to just $550.
That meant Apple was primed to strike back. This year, Apple finally released a Studio Display with a proper panel upgrade. It has a mini-LED backlight instead of edge lighting, with a quantum-dot-based optical stack for up to 2,000 nits of brightness. It supports up to 120Hz refresh rate, has 14 very accurate reference modes, and includes two modes that use Apple’s newly developed CMF (color matching function) for color consistency across display technologies. I’m referring, of course, to the $3,300 Studio Display XDR.
For the regular Studio Display, Apple just slapped a better webcam and faster ports on the same 12-year-old IPS panel and called it a day. And it’s still $1,600.
Unfortunately for Apple, it’s not 2022 anymore, and the Studio Display now has more competition. I spent a few weeks testing the new Studio Display alongside the BenQ PD2730S ($1,100) and MA270S ($1,000), the Asus ProArt PA27JCV ($700), and the KTC H27P3 ($550), swapping them out regularly. Most of them do at least something better than the Studio Display, if not multiple things, and they are hundreds of dollars cheaper.
To be fair, the new non-XDR Studio Display is better than the 2022 model. It has a much better camera, thankfully, and instead of one Thunderbolt 3 and three USB-C ports it now has two Thunderbolt 5 ports (one upstream and one downstream with support for daisy-chaining) and two USB-C. The speakers are better, and it has an A19 chip instead of the A13 Bionic (which really doesn’t matter for a monitor). But it’s still built around the same ancient edge-lit 60Hz panel with 600 nits of brightness.
Color accuracy has always been one of the strengths of Apple’s monitors. Much like the 2022 Studio Display, the 2026 version is very color accurate — particularly in sRGB mode, which is excellent. The BenQ PD2730S is visibly as accurate as the Studio Display (and comes with a calibration report). The Asus ProArt PA27JCV (which also comes with a calibration report) and the BenQ MA270S aren’t quite as close in measurements, but they’re both great for all but the most critical color grading.
The Studio Display has issues with its black level looking more gray than black, particularly in a dark room. The BenQ monitors have far deeper blacks than the Studio Display; the Asus ProArt isn’t quite as strong there, but still better than the Studio Display. The standard glass of the Studio Display handles reflections well (better than the “nano gloss” of the BenQ MA270S), but the $300-extra nano-texture finish option is superior for brightly lit rooms. BenQ’s PD2730S has a matte panel that cuts reflections almost as well as Apple’s nano-texture glass upgrade, but also unfortunately lifts black level slightly when compared to the other BenQ.
The build quality on the Studio Display is excellent, with an all-aluminum frame, but the $1,600 base model’s placement options are frustrating. It comes with either a tilt-only stand or VESA mount option that includes no stand (but not both; they’re separate models). If you want a stand that’s both tilt- and height-adjustable, it’s another $400. The stand moves smoothly and stays in position, but it doesn’t rotate or pivot. All stand decisions need to be made at checkout, too, as there’s no way to remove the stand or add a VESA mount yourself.
Apple’s competitors allow for far more flexibility in placement, with removable stands that allow for VESA mounting. The BenQ MA270S and PD2730S and Asus ProArt PA27JCV all have stands that pivot, rotate, are tilt- and height-adjustable, and can even be removed entirely, if you prefer to use a VESA arm or stand. Now, none of the stands are quite as robust or good-looking as Apple’s, as they all include some plastic, but the extra flexibility makes up for it. And the BenQ MA270S has a nice rubber pad on the front to place your phone or earbuds case without worrying about it slipping off.
Port selection is improved on this year’s Studio Display, but it’s still optimized for people living in the exact world that Apple wants you to live in. The upgraded Thunderbolt connectivity is nice if you intend to daisy-chain displays, but you can still only connect a single computer at a time. There’s still no HDMI, DisplayPort, USB-A, audio out, KVM, or any controls whatsoever. Everything is done in the settings menu on the connected Mac, and there’s no power button to turn it off. The BenQs, Asus, and even the KTC H27P3 have more connectivity options. While none have Thunderbolt 5, the BenQs both include Thunderbolt 4, and they all have at least one HDMI port. The Asus and BenQ monitors also have a KVM for using a single set of peripherals with multiple computers.
During my time with all the monitors, the BenQ MA270S was the one I always went back to. It’s the one I’m typing this on now. The picture looks great. It fits on my desk better; the Studio Display, even with the height-adjustable stand, doesn’t get low enough for me. I can connect the BenQ to both my M4 Macbook Air and Windows PC at the same time and swap between them quickly, or even use one on each side of the monitor. I can hit the power button to turn it off, and I can still adjust its brightness and color modes from my computers. Plus, it’s only $1,000, which is half the price of the Studio Display with the tilt- and height-adjustable stand.
The BenQ MA270S does have a glossy screen, which isn’t everyone’s favorite. The matte screens on the PD2730S or Asus ProArt are better for people who need more reflection handling. (Of the two, I prefer the BenQ matte, but both perform well). Any of the three is great for professional color work.
Just having a 5K panel isn’t enough to compete with the Studio Display. While the $550 KTC H27P3 has a sharp image like the Studio Display (and the other three monitors), its stand is tilt-only and wobbly, and the port selection is more limited than the BenQ and Asus monitors. As the cheapest of the 5K monitors here, it’s fine for daily use, but color inaccuracies make it unsuitable for color work.
Apple missed an opportunity with the Studio Display. It could have made improvements to the backlight, offered a more flexible stand option, or changed the panel for one with a higher refresh rate. But instead all we really got were Thunderbolt 5 ports and a better camera with an old, dated panel. There isn’t enough to justify the $1,600 price when all of its competitors are hundreds of dollars less and most have similar color accuracy and much better ergonomics and features.
All of the competitors I’ve tested so far use panels similar to the 60Hz edge-lit IPS one Apple’s been using since 2014. But now that the Studio Display XDR exists, the competitors have more options too. New monitors — like the LG 27GM950B and Asus ROG Strix XG27JCG — use mini-LED backlighting with high refresh rate panels that have similar specs to the one in the XDR. Plus, they cost $1,200 or less, making the regular Studio Display feel even more out of touch with 2026. We’re also getting close to seeing a 120Hz 27-inch 5K OLED monitor, as both LG Display and Samsung Display have shown off the technology.
While the 2022 Studio Display had its limitations, it was the best option if you wanted a 27-inch 5K monitor. But times have changed. The 2026 Studio Display isn’t the only 5K monitor anymore, and it’s not the best 5K option, either. I couldn’t tell you why Apple is still charging the same price for the same ancient panel as it did four years ago. What I can tell you is that, unless you prioritize Apple’s design above all, you’re better off saving your money with something else.
Photography by John Higgins / The Verge
Updated May 14, 2026: Clarified that the Asus ProArt PA27JCV also comes with a factory calibration report.
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John.Higgins<![CDATA[Quantum dot TVs beat RGB LED TVs, says the company that makes QDs for TVs]]>https://www.theverge.com/?p=9274422026-05-08T18:46:29-04:002026-05-09T08:00:00-04:00
RGB LED technology might be everyone’s focus for TV tech in 2026, but quantum-dot TVs still might be the better choice. | Photo by John Higgins / The Verge
At the Los Angeles Convention Center, two 85-inch TVs sat side by side inside the Nanosys meeting room at Display Week — a yearly business-to-business convention focusing on the technology that goes into displays of all types. One TV was a mini-LED panel with super quantum dots, and the other was an RGB LED — this year’s hottest TV trend. Both TVs were showing the same content at the same time to highlight the differences between the two technologies — or more specifically, to show the potential failings of RGB LED backlights when compared to super quantum dot (SQD), which uses blue LEDs for the backlight.
I should probably mention that Nanosys made the quantum dots in the first TV.
The TV on the right, with the Nanosys super quantum dots, was labeled as the TCL X11L — the striped lower grille confirming as much — and the other was most likely the TCL RM9L. Nanosys wouldn’t confirm as much, but I’ve seen the RGB LED TVs from Hisense, Samsung, LG, and Sony in person, and it wasn’t any of those. Jeff Yurek, vice president of marketing at Nanosys, informed me that both TVs were in Filmmaker Mode and color was set to native to allow both to hit the largest gamut possible.
As a quick refresher, RGB LED TVs use red, green, and blue LEDs grouped into zones to create a colored backlight based on the image displayed on screen. Theoretically, this gives the TV more vibrant and saturated colors than mini-LED TVs like the X11L with blue backlights, without needing to rely solely on the quantum dots. The primary potential issue is that the colored light provided by the backlight will bleed into adjacent pixels or zones that differ in color, resulting in what’s called color crosstalk. Practically, this could cause the red of a bright shirt or hat to cause the skin of the wearer to have a reddish hue. And that’s exactly what this demo showed.
During the entire demonstration, the same video feed went to both TVs. One slide showed three rows: two rows of boxes with the primary and secondary colors — blue, green, red, cyan, magenta, and yellow — and the third with a thin white cross on a black background under each colored box. The top row of boxes would then alternate between a solid box and one with a white cross inside it. On the RGB LED TV, as the white cross appeared in the top row, it was easy to see the color of the area around the cross get a bit lighter and less saturated. The color crosstalk didn’t just happen within the top row of boxes; the box color from the middle row also visibly bled into the bottom row of crosses. This shows in the TVs’ BT.2020 color gamut measurements as well, with the introduction of the white cross diminishing overall BT.2020 coverage, most dramatically with the blue and green color points.
But unless you’re a measurement nerd like me, you don’t watch solid blocks of color on your TV for fun. The effect is also present with skin tones — something that, as humans, is easily noticed. Just as the color of the blocks bleeds into the white cross, so does a colored background into skin tone; still images of a woman’s face with a colored background caused her skin tone to shift toward the background color. To make sure my eye wasn’t causing the color bleed, as opposed to the TV, I used a scope to focus just a portion of the woman’s face, blocking out the rest from my view. I could still tell which background color was displayed by the change in hue of her skin.
The SQD TV did not exhibit any color crosstalk. It also had better contrast, which comes down to the number of dimming zones. The X11L is advertised as having up to 20,000 dining zones, although according to Rtings, the 85-inch model has 14,400 — still an impressive number. The RGB LED TV used in this comparison has, I was told, around 8,000 dimming zones. One reason the number is lower is because each dimming zone on an RGB TV, at a minimum, needs to have three LEDs — a red, a green, and a blue — and those take up space. But when the backlight is composed of only blue LEDs, a single LED can be a dimming zone, giving much finer control.
All of this is perceptible in actual content. During an action scene with quick movement and fast cuts, I could still pick out differences as bright colors affected those surrounding them, particularly with skin tones. And in night scenes, the contrast difference was notable. If the RGB LED TV was in the room by itself, without the SQD TV for comparison, I don’t think the color crosstalk would look as glaring. Our eyes can adjust quickly to visual issues, and we stop noticing them. But taking away the comparison doesn’t take away the problem.
This isn’t brand-new information. Industry experts have been concerned about the potential for color crosstalk in RGB LED TVs since the technology debuted at CES 2025. Those concerns have grown as more RGB LED TVs arrive on the market this year. LG Display, notably a maker of OLED panels which are in direct competition with RGB LED, produced videos a few weeks before this year’s CES, highlighting the problems.
Of course, both Nanosys and LG Display have vested interests in downplaying RGB TV tech. The performance of one RGB LED TV also doesn’t tell the story for all RGB LED TVs. I didn’t notice any crosstalk issues when I reviewed the Hisense UR9, although the more I see other RGB LED TVs, the more I think the Hisense may be bypassing the issue and falling back to white backlighting, not RGB, whenever there were a lot of colors on screen. Also the processing capabilities of the upcoming Sony RGB LED TVs could make color crosstalk a nonissue on those sets. And we’re still right at the beginning of the RGB LED TV story. As the technology continues to develop and refine, these issues should be mitigated. But for 2026, SQD at least looks to have the upper hand.
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John.Higgins<![CDATA[Bose takes a swing at Sonos with its new home speakers]]>https://www.theverge.com/?p=9236862026-05-05T10:37:53-04:002026-05-05T08:00:00-04:00
The new Bose Ultra Speaker can be used individually, as a stereo pair, or as the rear speakers in an Atmos setup.
Last Thursday, in a staged home on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, I sat on a couch that was a bit too low and a tad too deep in front of a small, beige-colored smart speaker sitting on the middle of a trio of arched midcentury storage cabinets. On either side of the smart speaker sat two tall curved white screens.
The speaker was the new $299 Lifestyle Ultra, Bose’s answer to the Sonos Era 100. Alongside a $1,099 Ultra soundbar and $899 subwoofer, it’s one of three new home audio products the company announced today, all of which seem to be gunning directly for Sonos — hopefully minus that company’s recent missteps. I heard all three at Bose’s New York event, and the speaker in particular impressed me.
The $299 Ultra Speaker is the most interesting and most distinctive-looking of the bunch. It has a front-firing woofer and tweeter, an up-firing driver — unlike the Era 100 — and a bass port on the back. (For music, Bose uses its own processing for the upward-firing sound, rather than Dolby Atmos.) On the top of the speaker, behind the up-firing driver, are capacitive controls for power, Bluetooth pairing, microphone mute, volume control, and a play/pause button. The volume and play/pause are in a circular depression, which you can trace with your finger clockwise or counterclockwise to also control the volume. The Ultra Speaker and soundbar support Alexa Plus.
The speaker sounds impressively big with great vocal clarity, and without the harsh highs present on speakers like the SoundLink Plus. In fact, when listening to the first sample — “Man I Need” by Olivia Dean — I thought there must be additional speakers playing from behind the curved white screens.
I was partly right: The screens were hiding two more Lifestyle Ultra speakers, but they weren’t playing during that track. Instead, they were there for a later demo of a stereo pair. Playing Leon Bridges’ “Peaceful Place” and Steely Dan’s “Hey Nineteen,” they demonstrated good stereo sound separation.
I did find that the Ultra speaker can sound overly punchy when it comes to things like snare hits (I noticed this most during Chris Stapleton’s “Bad As I Used To Be”), at least at the volumes we listened to. This might be down to the lack of room correction, a surprising omission from the Ultra Speaker at launch. Especially when being used in a stereo pair, I expected there would be some way to tune the speakers to the room and compensate for any placement issues. I was told that Bose is looking into the possibility of adding room correction at a later date for both single-speaker and stereo setups.
Instead of putting all streaming app playback control in the Bose app like Sonos does with its app, Bose instead relies upon the grouping and playback functionality within apps people are already using regularly, such as Apple Music and Spotify. The Ultra speaker can stream music over Wi-Fi through Apple AirPlay, Google Cast, and Spotify Connect, and it can be added to AirPlay and Google Cast speaker groups, including those with non-Bose speakers. When Wi-Fi is unavailable, you can stream to the Ultra via Bluetooth. The speaker is Auracast capable, but will not be Auracast enabled when it’s launched on May 15. Raza Haider, Bose president of premium consumer audio, told me Auracast will be turned on once that ecosystem is more mature.
I was expecting Bose to unveil its own Sonos app competitor, but this more open option — allowing you to expand what you currently have whether it’s Bose or not — is intriguing. It also bypasses the difficulty of housing all of those individual streaming apps within the Bose app, and getting it to work properly. “We deliberately are trying to be more open and app-less in our experience,” said Haider. In addition to Spotify Connect, I’m hoping Bose will include services like Qobuz Connect and Tidal Connect in the future.
Upstairs from the Ultra Speaker was a demo for the $1,099 Ultra Soundbar, which is Bose’s first major soundbar redesign in years. It has two up-firing drivers, two wide-set drivers for left and right channels, two Bose PhaseGuide drivers — proprietary designs that direct the sound out to the sides — and two additional drivers flanking a center tweeter. The capacitive controls are similar to those found on the Ultra Speaker.
We began the soundbar demo with the spice harvester evacuation scene from Dune, and it was a bit underwhelming. That’s one of my go-to scenes for testing movie sound, so I’m very familiar with it. While the soundscape had great width to it and I could feel rumble through the floor, there was a hole where the bass frequencies should meet the midrange, causing the sound to feel hollow. Vocal clarity was crisp, and the soundbar did a decent job with the Atmos channels, but I couldn’t get past the absent upper bass frequencies.
Fortunately, along with the Ultra Speaker and Ultra Soundbar, Bose is releasing the Ultra Subwoofer, and it’s what the soundbar needs to fill the frequency hole I heard. Instead of just feeling some vibrations from the low end, on Jacob Collier’s “Mi Corazón” the bass sounded full and supportive. It was a significant difference, but at $899, it also turns the soundbar/sub combo into a $2,000 system (the same price as the Sonos Arc Ultra paired with a Sonos 4 sub).
For a full Atmos system, two Ultra Speakers can be used as rear channels, creating a 7.1.4 configuration. Wembley Stadium, from the Live Aid concert portion of the movie Bohemian Rhapsody, surrounded and filled the room well. The Atmos height was good, although a little indistinct at times in its placement. That could have been due to the room design and my sitting position — though interestingly, unlike the smart speaker by itself or in a pair, the full system has room calibration.
Based particularly on my experience with the Ultra Speaker, there’s great potential for the new Bose Lifestyle Collection. “There’s lots more to come. This is the start of the new platform of the Lifestyle series,” said Haider when I asked him about the possibility of a battery-powered version or a larger speaker. “The next one won’t be smaller.”
Photography by John Higgins / The Verge
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John.Higgins<![CDATA[Hisense aggressively cuts the price of its RGB LED TV on release day]]>https://www.theverge.com/?p=9225712026-05-04T10:53:27-04:002026-05-04T09:00:00-04:00
The Hisense UR9 — the first RGB LED TV to be released this year — is now available for much less than originally revealed. The 65-inch UR9 is now $1,999, while the 75-inch model is $2,999, and the 85-inch is $3,999. (There’s no updated price yet for the 100-inch.) That’s between $1,500 and $2,000 off, depending on size.
When I reviewed the UR9, my biggest issue was its price. At $3,500 for a 65-inch, both the LG G6 and Samsung S95H — flagship OLED TVs — were less expensive than the UR9, and OLED still outperforms what I’ve seen from RGB LEDs. Then, two days after my review published, Samsung released pricing for its own high-end R95H RGB LED TV, which was $300 less than the Hisense. I suspect this pricing change from Hisense is at least partially in response to the Samsung announcement.
Both Hisense and Samsung are currently the only TV companies that have a 65-inch size available of their top-tier RGB model. LG’s MRGB95 starts at 75 inches, while the smallest TCL RM9L is 85 inches and both are more expensive than Samsung and Hisense — now significantly so. (We’re still waiting for details about Sony’s True RGB offerings later this year.)
All TV companies eventually bring down their prices the longer a TV model has been available, with Hisense and TCL historically lowering prices by a few hundred dollars a month or two after release. This year it took TCL a week to lower its 65-inch QM8L price from $2,500 to $1,800. But a $1,500 cut the day of release is a new level of aggressive pricing from Hisense.
The Hisense UR9 is a bright and color-vibrant TV, now at a far more affordable price. Its main competition is the TCL QM8L, which uses a blue LED backlight and SQD technology like the X11L instead of red, green, and blue LEDs. The TCL potentially has similar performance — I will be reviewing one soon — but for someone set on getting the new RGB LED tech, this price cut makes the UR9 an even better option.
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John.Higgins<![CDATA[Anker made its own chip to bring AI to all its products]]>https://www.theverge.com/?p=9164632026-04-22T05:26:27-04:002026-04-22T05:30:00-04:00
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.
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John.Higgins<![CDATA[The AirPods are Tim Cook’s most underrated achievement]]>https://www.theverge.com/?p=9160312026-04-21T13:49:35-04:002026-04-21T13:49:35-04:00
The AirPods changed the direction of true wireless earbuds and became Apple’s most important accessory. | Photography by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge
Apple Silicon chips. The iPhone’s dominance. Apple Vision Pro. During Tim Cook’s 15-year tenure as Apple CEO there were highs — and in the case of the Vision Pro, maybe a low — that helped define Apple as one of the most dominant forces in tech even without Steve Jobs. But one product doesn’t get the recognition it deserves, as evidenced by The Verge’s Apple Top 50 products, where the original AirPods don’t even crack the top 10.
Before AirPods, almost all earbuds were still wired back to your phone or iPod. Apple’s ads leaned into the aesthetic with vibrant neon backdrops to frame dark, dancing silhouettes connected by the iconic, stark white earbud wires. But in 2016 that all changed. Suddenly there was Lil Buck, filmed in black and white, pulling a white case out of his pocket, flipping open the lid, putting earbuds without wires into his ears, and dancing down the streets and across the walls of Mexico City. It was a moment that reshaped an industry and turned Apple into the most important audio company of the past 25 years.
At Apple’s special event in September of 2016, Phil Schiller praised the “courage” it took Apple designers to remove the headphone jack from the iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus. A few minutes later, the other shoe dropped: Jony Ive announced the AirPods. Sure, there was a Lightning-to-3.5mm adapter included with the phone so people could still use their wired headphones and earbuds, but the future was wireless. Removing the headphone jack — which, for the record, I and The Verge hated at the time — was instrumental in moving the audio world forward, whether anyone wanted to or not.
The AirPods weren’t the first true wireless earbuds — the Bragi Dash, Onkyo W800BT, and Earin wireless earbuds were all available in 2015 — but there’s a reason we’re not talking about the ubiquity of the Dash right now. Apple sold an estimated 14–16 million AirPods in 2017, and the number kept growing every year.
Untethering yourself from your iPod or iPhone was a game changer. Headphone wires got caught on everything: watchbands, backpack straps, collars, or worse if you ever commuted to work through a big city. Eventually, once people got over looking stupid, AirPods became a fashion statement in their own right. They suggested the wearer was already living in the future, a place where earbuds could be neatly stored in a case, a charging case, without the need to coil a cable that would inevitably unravel in a bag.
I’ll admit that when I got them in my ears for the first time, I was not an immediate fan. The open-ear, one-size-fits-all design wasn’t the most comfortable for me, it never felt totally secure, and the sound quality was merely fine. But it was the integration and ease of use, thanks to the W1 chip, that made the AirPods so attractive. No need to hassle with Bluetooth connections. Just bring the earbuds near your iPhone and they paired, and not only with your iPhone but your other Apple products, too.
The AirPods Pro 2 were a huge step forward in noise-canceling performance, and since then, they’ve gotten improved call quality with more mics and better algorithms, heart rate tracking, live translation, adaptive audio, and, on the AirPods Pro 2 and Pro 3, the ability to act as over-the-counter hearing aids.
And even though the original versions were not my favorite, today my AirPods are always with me. I use them for work meetings. I use them for walks around the neighborhood with their adaptive noise canceling keeping me aware of my surroundings. And I use them when I’m at home and want to watch something on my iPad. They’ve become ubiquitous in so many lives.
While Tim Cook led this period of audio innovation at the venerable computer company, John Ternus oversaw development of the first AirPods, and continues to do so. With Ternus stepping into the CEO position in September, almost exactly 10 years since the AirPods were announced, I fully expect we’ll continue to see the AirPods line grow in their integration, both in the Apple ecosystem and the lives of those who use them.
And maybe, if we’re lucky, we’ll get them in a color other than white.
