The perfect phone for people who carry two phones. | Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge I saw a lot of weird phones at Mobile World Congress last month: robot phones, cameras disguised as phones, phones for dogs. But the one that caught me most off guard was the one my friend (and Verge alum) Sam Byford brought to dinner: an iPhone Air."Ha!" I said. "You actually use that thing?" "Yeah," he said. "It's great." That's when he pulled out a second phone - the Xiaomi Leica Leitzphone, which he was using alongside it. Got it, I said. The trick to enjoying the iPhone Air is to simply have another, much better phone on your person at all times. I found this very funny and recounted the anecdote to anyone who would listen. But fr …Read the full story at The Verge.

Microsoft is losing another veteran executive. Julia Liuson, head of Microsoft's developer division (DevDiv), is resigning from the software giant after 34 years. Liuson spent the past 12 years leading Microsoft's developer business, during a period Microsoft focused more on open source projects and acquired GitHub for $7.5 billion.Liuson will continue as head of DevDiv until the end of June, and then move to an "advisory role" reporting to Microsoft CoreAI chief Jay Parikh, according to an internal memo seen by The Verge. It's not immediately clear who will replace Liuson, or whether the DevDiv team will simply report up to Parikh in the …Read the full story at The Verge.

Smart TVs are universally terrible. No, not the panels which continue to improve year-on-year, but the "smart" part that runs on them. Slow CPUs lead to sluggish app performance, if you can find the apps you want to use. To fix it, many opt for external streaming devices, but these are, for the most part, underpowered.

It has never been a better time to be a Linux gamer. With Proton making good headway, we're seeing gaming-oriented distros spring up in the wake of SteamOS to capitalize on the wave of titles Linux can now run. This includes Bazzite, which has posted some excellent performance demonstrations over the past few months, including that one time it outperformed Windows on Microsoft's branded handheld console.

Happy ceasefire day and welcome to Regulator, a newsletter for Verge subscribers about Big Tech's rocky journey through the world of politics. If you're not a subscriber yet, you can do so here, but my only request is that you sign up before Donald Trump decides to revisit his previous threats toward Iran and kickstart World War III.I'm back after being waylaid last week by the deadly combo of a moderate cold and the beginning of pollen season. (Twenty-one percent of the District's acreage is taken up by public green space, and DC is consistently ranked the best city park system in America. Unfortunately, I am allergic to every tree and gr …Read the full story at The Verge.

When it comes to operating systems, conversations tend to revolve around three major names: Windows, Linux, and macOS. And if you want a free, open-source OS, then those based on Linux are really your only option. Meanwhile, there's a project that doesn't get nearly enough attention, despite being one of the most interesting pieces of software out there: ReactOS.

I thought the WD Black SN850X 2TB SSD in my gaming PC was pricey when I bought it for $173 in 2024, but now that same SSD costs $649, more than what I paid for most of the parts in my PC combined. The price on my WD Black drive nearly quadrupled since November 2025, and consumer SSDs across the board are seeing similar increases, much like with RAM:The 4TB version of the popular Samsung 990 Pro SSD previously cost $320, but will now run you nearly $1,000.External SanDisk SSDs saw a 200 percent price hike at the Apple Store in March.Sony has announced that it's suspending orders for its SD and CFexpress cards. Modular PC brand …Read the full story at The Verge.

Adobe’s subscription pricing has always been a sore spot, but it hit even more when I did the math on what I’d spent over the years. This was not just for Photoshop, but I’ve rotated through several apps and packages. And I’m not even a professional editor, this was purely a hobby habit, so it made no sense to keep paying. I couldn’t give you the exact amount, as I don’t remember the details myself, but my hobby probably cost me close to $2,000 over several years.

If you've ever looked into running AI models on your own hardware, you've almost certainly come across Ollama. It's the default recommendation in many different places, it's what most YouTube tutorials point you toward, and it's the tool that a lot of self-hosting guides treat as the starting point for local inference. For good reason, too, because getting a model running with Ollama is as easy as typing "ollama run gpt-oss-20b" and waiting. It's the Docker of local LLMs, and that comparison isn't a coincidence, given that some of the people behind Ollama came from the Docker world.

This thing is poised to eat their lunch. | Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge The MacBook Neo is disrupting the laptop space and putting Apple into the conversation as a value option like it’s never been before. With a price starting at $599 (or $499 for students and teachers), the colorful laptop’s A18 Pro chip may be stolen from older iPads and iPhones, but it offers more than enough performance for everyday tasks and web browsing. From the screen sharpness, trackpad/keyboard feel, and its aluminum build, everything else about it is in line with more expensive MacBooks. And that means PC makers have a hot new competitor to contend with and adapt to — one that they weren’t ready for. Here’s all the news and analysis of Apple’s Mac for the masses. A MacBook Neo heatsink mod dramatically improves its gaming performance. I’m testing the MacBook Neo’s competition. What do you want to know? A simple mod with a sliver of thermal pad boosts the MacBook Neo’s performance. Upgrading the MacBook Neo’s storage is satisfying ASMR, but don’t try this at home. iFixit calls the Neo Apple’s “most repairable MacBook in 14 Years.” The MacBook Neo is a winner PC makers are not ready for the MacBook Neo The MacBook Neo is surprisingly easy to disassemble and repair. Pro videographer finds the MacBook Neo more capable than expected. Here’s where you can buy Apple’s budget-friendly MacBook Neo I reviewed the MacBook Neo, ask me anything MacBook Neo review: the Mac for the masses Preorders for Apple’s colorful MacBook Neo come with a $25 gift card MacBook Neo versus an old MacBook Air: good luck Apple launches $599 MacBook Neo powered by an iPhone chip Our first hands-on look at Apple’s MacBook Neo Apple’s website leaks MacBook ‘Neo,’ which could be its new cheaper laptop Apple helped kill netbooks. Will it bring them back? Bring back the iBook, you cowards Apple is reportedly working on a cheaper Mac laptop with an iPhone chip A MacBook with an iPhone chip.

In case you have been living under a rock these last few months, I'd like to inform you that things are bad in the PC hardware right now. What started six months ago with a DRAM shortage snowballed into higher-than-ever RAM and SSD prices. By the time the year was done, we saw GPU price hikes, too, as VRAM got more expensive and manufacturers stopped caring about consumer hardware. Unlike previous hardware shortages, this AI-induced crisis feels unprecedented, and all signs point to at least 2–3 more years of doom and gloom. In short, 2026 is one of the worst years for PC hardware in recent memory. And MSI confirmed as much when it called it the "most challenging year since the company was founded."

It doesn't take much to transform your display into a smart TV. Just pick up any streaming media stick of your choice, plug it into the HDMI port of your display, and you're good to go.