Many of us have probably heard the phrase “real gamer” before, often used by one segment of the gaming population to dismiss some other portion. And, with video games proliferating as they reach more and more devices and surge in retail, the question of who qualifies as a “real gamer” will persist.
The thing is, real gamers come in all types. The Entertainment Software Association has found large percentages of the population gaming, including Baby Boomers in the US. And, that range covers everything from young gamers duking it out in online battle royale games to older gamers playing poker alone on their computers.
With all this in mind, we’ve set out to show that PC gaming is full of players who aren’t always what we’d think of when the words “PC gamer” come up. It’s not all belligerent teens sitting at a desk with a $2,000 PC below and 2 liters of Mountain Dew on top.
Here are just a few examples of real PC gamers that show how broad the culture really is.
Shirley Curry, the ‘Skyrim Grandma.’
The famous Shirley Curry
One of the most colorful pieces of evidence that anyone can be a gamer is Shirley Curry, perhaps better known as “Skyrim Grandma.” Curry is a mother, grandmother and great-grandmother living in Virginia, USA, and she loves playing Skyrim.
She’s a true YouTube celebrity with over 748,000 subscribers and over 14 million views at the time of writing. She’s so legit, she has the YouTube Verified checkmark. (Something I don’t have, and I do this for a living!) Curry regularly shares her video game adventures, often adventuring through the almost endless world of The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. She’s had enough of an impact that Bethesda is even going to include an NPC of Curry in The Elder Scrolls 6
So you know she’s the real deal, Curry even includes her system specs in the description of her videos:
To top it off, she also lists the Skyrim game mods she has installed.. Every now and then, you can catch Curry checking out other games as well, like Call of Cthulu and Deliver Us the Moon.
Jack Black, or otherwise today known as ‘Jablinski’.
Celebs have gaming hobbies, too
A few years ago, the world got to see the widely beloved Terry Crews join the PC gaming fray when he publicly announced that he was building a gaming PC. Crews has a long career split between his stint in the National Football League as a defensive end and linebacker in the ‘90s, and his ongoing acting career.
Beyond his celebrity, Crews still has a family life, and he decided to build a gaming PC to share the hobby with his son. He picked up an X99 motherboard to slot in an Intel Core i7-6800K and 32GB of RAM. He didn’t include the graphics card in his livestream, but he picked up an HTC Vive to dive into virtual reality with his rig. He later confirmed that he got the rig up and running.
Crews isn’t alone either. Jack Black has also tipped his hat to the gaming world when he announced in late 2018 that he’d start a YouTube gaming channel. Over the ensuing year, his channel didn’t do much to produce gaming content, with one focused more on old arcade games and one pretending to stream but admitting he hadn’t figured out the El Gato game capture device. Eventually, Black did upload a Lego Star Wars video as well as a stream with PewdiePie playing Minecraft.
Regardless of whether they play publicly, we can count many celebrities as PC gamers.
Farming Simulator 2019 in action.
Gamers reliving reality
Skyrim Grandma and Terry Crews might be more high profile when it comes to the sorts of people you wouldn’t expect to be PC gamers, but there are still others out there silently enjoying PC games on their own. We’re talking about the simulation players.
You may think more about the gamers playing intense shooters where insane reaction speeds are a necessity. But, plenty of PC gamers enjoy a calmer experience that lets them live a small slice of reality they might otherwise not have access to. Think of Flight Simulator, Train Simulator or Farming Simulator. All of these put players into a unique position to dive into realistic experiences that still take them out of their day-to-day life.
Games like SimCity or Cities: Skylines let gamers design their own worlds and simulate reality from a bird’s-eye view. And, given that many of these simulation franchises launch new games on an annual basis, it’s safe to say there are plenty of PC gamers enjoying these. And, let’s not forget how many people are still building their ideal homes and lives in The Sims.
The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim in action.
The faithful modders
Shirley Curry is actually a great example of another type of gamer: the long-term, faithful gamer who sticks with one game for a long time, using mods to keep the game fresh. Some games strike a deep note with players and offer enough to do to keep them around for years. Massive open worlds, like Skyrim, often manage this level of retention.
But, even a game that offers hundreds of hours of content can only hold the hearts of gamers for so long in its vanilla form. That’s where gamers who truly love their game turn to mods. The gamers who use mods can add entire new worlds to their games, add new weapons and equipment, and change the way the game world works to open up new playful possibilities.
Some mods even allow gamers to add everything from new quests to entire voice-acted storylines. There are also mods that can overhaul the sound and graphics for almost every asset in the game, breathing new life into it even as the graphics of the vanilla version age. The use of mods can let these gamers stick with one game, steering clear of the latest fads, as they simply occupy the game world they love or wait ages for the next one to arrive (as many are doing for The Elder Scrolls 6).
FarmVille 2 is one of the most popular browser games to date.
The overlooked browser gamers
One thing most would assume is essential to PC gaming is a gaming PC. But, there are so many games available to gamers that require little more than an internet connection and modest hardware. Browser games make the hobby accessible to many gamers, and they can even entice users who would otherwise have little to do with games.
It doesn’t take much work to see just how popular browser games still our. We took a quick peek at Armorgames and Newgrounds, sites we visited plenty over a decade ago, and we can see they’re still living. Games like Sonny 2 rank among the best browser games, with lengthy stories and compelling gameplay. Armorgames lists Sonny 2 as having over 25 million plays since it launched in 2009 (I personally put probably as many hours into this game as I put into any turn-based RPG in the past decade). And, newer games are still getting millions of plays. Some browser games even serve as a starting point for franchises, such as Meat Boy and N.
Kids can jump online to play a bit of Agar.io while adults hop on for some card games in the browser. (This writer’s father hasn’t had much involvement with video games since his days as a Dig Dug player in the arcades, but he recently got into a browser-based golf game.) And, these PC gamers are so easy to overlook, as they may well be playing quietly in the library or on a laptop while waiting for their flight at the airport.
And, lastly, let’s not forget there is even a select mass of PC gamers out there who actually prefer to have Motion Blur turned on in their games. If there weren’t, why would game developers keep offering the feature and setting it on by default? Ugh.
Welcome to TechRadar’s PC Gaming Week 2019. We’re celebrating the most powerful gaming platform on Earth with in-depth articles, exclusive interviews and essential buying guides that showcase everything PC gaming has to offer. Visit our PC Gaming Week 2019 page to see all our coverage in one place.
Walk around any office or work environment and you’ll see a huge number of mobile devices. Each person might have multiple devices in their possession or direct use. It wasn’t always like this and now, the growing number of smart devices is making things more complex from the perspective of Wi-Fi troubleshooting. For the sake of the IT team’s workload and the company’s overall bottom line, something must give if businesses want to create and maintain functional Wi-Fi networks in a device-centric era.
It can often seem like trying to hit a moving target when remediating Wi-Fi network issues. Many wireless problems are ephemeral, disappearing shortly after they arise based on changing user and environmental conditions. Sending techs onsite to reproduce the problem can be expensive, and often yields lacklustre results as the data needed to reproduce and resolve an issue can be long gone.
What’s more, many problems attributed to the wireless network could actually be the fault of so many other things, such as an issue with DNS, DHCP or authentication servers.
The benefits of machine learning
Thanks to machine learning and other AI technologies, it is finally possible to address these issues in a seamless and scalable manner. You’ll be able to spot causes of problems more easily, predict problems before they happen, and also set, monitor and enforce user service levels. That’s all thanks to AI-driven WLANs, delivering a better wireless experience for IT administrators, which translates to an amazing Wi-Fi experience for mobile users.
There are four key components to building an AI engine for a WLAN: data, structure and classify, data science and insight. Let’s take a closer look at each.
Start with the right data
You can’t expect a strong AI engine if you don’t have the right raw ingredient – good data. That’s what is initially gathered from the network, applications, devices and users so it needs to be of high quality. And if you want to result in the best insights, you need data in abundance from the various points within the IT ecosystem.
Indeed, good data doesn’t grow on trees, you need to know where to look and how to gather it. When we’re talking about wireless networks the best way is to design purpose-built access points that collect pre- and post-connection states from every wireless device. The information, or metadata, from these access points is sent to the cloud, where the AI engine can then structure and classify this data.
Structure and classify the metadata
Once your data is in place, at this point the AI engine is able to structure and classify the received metadata through a set of AI primitives. By programming the AI engine with relevant wireless network domain knowledge, this metadata can be classified and analysed effectively by the data science toolbox, in order to deliver insights of value straight into the network.
Apply the data science wizardry
Collected, measured the classified the data? This is where the data science comes into its own.
As far as the data science goes, there are different flavors to choose from. So, whether you want to deploy supervised and unsupervised machine learning, data mining, deep learning or mutual information, there are options to investigate depending on the needs of the business.
Take time-series data, for example. This is baselined, and used for anomaly detection. Combine this with event correlation, and you’re more able to effectively understand the origins of issues on the network. Streamlining these techniques with one another helps network administrators reduce to mean-time-to-repair, enhancing end-user satisfaction—and ultimately, saving time and money along the way.
Use insights to solve problems
When a network is essentially able to heal itself, you’ll wonder why you used to carry out so much manual legwork before. But that’s what you will have once you have all your data science ducks in a row. Completing the AI engine is the virtual assistant that delivers insights to the IT administrator, as well as feeds that insight back into the network itself to automate the correction of issues.
A top priority here is the use of a natural language processor. This will make life easier for the administrators who would otherwise have to hunt through dashboards or common language interpreter commands in order to extract the insights from the AI engine. The upshot of using natural language is that it increases the productivity of IT teams while delivering a better user experience for employees and customers.
Look forwards with data science
By incorporating AI and data science with wireless expertise, it puts an end to manual packet sniffing. When a user is experiencing a network anomaly, the WLAN system can automatically detect it and start capturing packets, a concept known as Dynamic PCAP (dPCAP). This process is akin to going into a time machine because it enables you to see what was going on in the Wi-Fi network and the mobile device when the anomaly was detected. That means you won’t have to send boots on the ground to use sniffers to chase problems that might have already long gone.
This network monitoring technology already exists so it’s high time for businesses to shift from reactive to proactive when it comes to solving problems. When you know a problem is likely to occur, you can act quickly before it is able to cause chaos or downtime in the business.
Bringing intelligence and insights into the wireless network, however, takes this a step further. Changes can be automated, and made in real-time, empowering Wi-Fi networks to dynamically and autonomously self-optimise for each connection and environment.
Now more than ever wireless networks are a key cog in the machine for businesses—but with the endless proliferation of new and varied devices, operating systems, and applications, troubleshooting issues can prove challenging. Driving WLANs with artificial intelligence at the core is changing the game though; providing the extra time and resources that today’s organisations need to keep up with today’s connected world.
Jeff Aaron is the VP of Marketing at Mist Systems, a Juniper Company.
If you don’t want to wait for Black Friday to snag a deal on the best-selling Apple Watch, then you’ve come to the right place. Amazon has the Series 4 smartwatch on sale for $349. That’s a $50 discount and the best price we’ve found for the smartwatch. If you’re interested in a bigger display, Amazon also has the 44mm Apple Watch 4 on sale for $349.97.
The Apple Watch 4 is packed with health and fitness features and now includes a built-in ECG that will notify you when a high or low heart rate is detected. The smartwatch tracks popular workouts and calories burned and offers personalized coaching to keep you motivated. The swimproof smartwatch also features a 30% larger display making it easier to see health stats, messages, and notifications. The Series 4 smartwatch provides an impressive 18-hour battery life and includes basic smartwatch features such as the ability to make calls, send messages and receive notifications.
The recently released Apple Watch 5 currently retails for $384 and offers upgraded location and health features and includes an Always-On Retina display. If these additions don’t matter to you, then it’s best to stick with the Apple Watch 4 and take advantage of this discount while you can.
We’ve found these deals from various retailers – in some cases you can buy with a few clicks, while for others, such as the Dell and Alienware laptops, you’ll need to enter a code to get the discount.
If you’re in the mood for more bargains, make sure you check out our pick of the best Black Friday laptop deals that have already gone live.
Dell is offering 14% off a load of its gaming laptops, so make sure you visit its site and apply the AW14 code if you want to snag yourself a brilliant deal on some incredible gaming laptops.
A content delivery network (CDN) works to accelerate almost any website by caching its files in servers around the world. Whether your visitors come from Europe, North America, Asia or anywhere else, content is automatically served from the nearest location for the fastest possible speeds.
If you’re new to the technology then it might seem intimidating, and there’s no doubt that prices can be high, but don’t let that put you off. A CDN is not just for massive corporations. You can set up the simplest services in less than five minutes, and if you choose your plan wisely, it might not cost you anything at all.
Whatever your website, from a simple blog to a sprawling site for a big business, we’ve picked out some of the best services around to help point you in the right direction. If you find anything that looks interesting, give it a try – you can explore many of these CDNs for free, without handing over payment details or signing up for any contract.
Cloudflare is a hugely popular American content delivery service which combines novice-friendly ease of use with expert-level features and functionality.
Setup is simple, with no need to edit your code. Just update your DNS nameservers to use Cloudflare and the service kicks in automatically, caching content and serving it to visitors from their nearest location.
But there’s much, much more. Web filtering can block bots, limit content spam, keep you safe from hackers or detect and mitigate DDoS attacks. Smart image optimizations can reduce image file sizes by up to 35%, further improving speeds. There’s wide support for standards like IPv6, HTTP/2 and SPDY, clever page rules to help you manipulate traffic, and a REST API allows developers to take full control of what the service is doing.
Cloudflare’s free plan allows you to see what the service can do, without making any commitments. It’s very usable, with unlimited bandwidth and no annoying restrictions to try and force you to upgrade.
Upgrading to the Pro plan costs a reasonable $20 (£16) a month, and adds the image optimization rules, extra configurability and improved support.
Whatever you choose, Cloudflare delivers great performance. As we write, the benchmarking site CDNPerf ranks Cloudflare at eight place for worldwide HTTP request response times out of a field of 20 top CDNs.
Fastly provides CDN tricks for some really big organizations, including the likes of Spotify and Reddit, and the firm lives up to its name, delivering impressively fast performance levels. Going by the rough guideline of CDNPerf’s rankings, it’s the second fastest CDN for the UK, and worldwide speeds are mostly good, too.
Perhaps Fastly’s strongest point, however, is just how configurable the service is. For example, there’s diverse support for different types of video caching, and tons of low-level controls for those who want to get stuck into the likes of manipulating HTTP headers to customize how content is served.
Of course, some know-how is required to set up everything, and novices to the CDN world will doubtless be confused by all the options on offer. But for those who need this level of flexibility and configurability, it’s priceless to have.
Speaking of the price, Fastly operates a pay-as-you-go model with a minimum charge of $50 (£37) per month. In addition, you can test up to $50 of traffic for free.
KeyCDN is an easy-to-use budget CDN that might be a good pick for first-time users.
Getting started couldn’t be much simpler. Sign up with your email address and you get an immediate 25GB to play with, no payment details required. A well-designed web dashboard enables creating your first zone with the minimum of clicks, and there are guides to help you integrate the service with WordPress and other apps.
Worth mentioning is that as of late November 2018, KeyCDN fully supports IPv6.
More experienced users will appreciate options like Origin Shield – this allows you to specify a KeyCDN server to be the source for updates rather than the origin, reducing your server load. You’re able to manipulate headers, cache or strip cookies, or set up a custom robots.txt. Once the service is running, a capable set of reporting tools enable watching CDN performance in near real-time. Also, all customers have access to Image Processing feature, which is great for image optimization.
KeyCDN’s standout feature has to be its low prices. Bandwidth charges start at $0.04 (£0.032) per GB, less than half the price you’ll pay with some of the high-end competition. The minimum usage is a tiny $4 (£3.2) per month and the minimum payment is $29 (£23.3). The company doesn’t even try to cash in on the extras, for example offering shared SSL and custom Let’s encrypt SSL certificates for free.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, these low prices don’t get you leading-edge performance, but there’s still plenty of power here and you do get a lot for your money.
MetaCDN is an Australian company which combines the CDNs of Amazon Cloudfront, Fastly and Verizon’s EdgeCast into a single speedy service.
Why? It’s all about performance. When a visitor accesses your site, MetaCDN has three networks and more than 120 locations to choose from – way more than anyone else. In other words, there’s a much greater chance any visitor will have a server near them.
This matters because every CDN delivers its best performance in different areas. EdgeCast scores highly in North America, for instance, but Fastly is quicker in the UK. MetaCDN automatically chooses the best network for every visitor’s location, giving you the best of all worlds.
This approach does have a catch. When you sign up with a single CDN, you can get access to all its individual settings and options, but combining three means you only get settings which apply to all of them (for obvious reasons). Which essentially means MetaCDN has barely any configuration options at all. (Check the Support site to get a rough feel for how the system works.)
Still, MetaCDN is nicely user-friendly and it could be a good pick if speed is your top priority. Pricing is complicated (although not bad for access to enterprise-level CDNs) and there are three plans, Basic, Lite and Pro. The most popular one, Lite, is $50 on a monthly basis (you can also choose a yearly rate, for a $39 a month).
This CDN provider focuses mainly on the West, with 14 points of presence (PoPs) in North America, and nine in Europe. There are only five PoPs in Asia, and two in Australia and South America (Brazil).
StackPath is user-friendly, complete with a straightforward web console to manage your settings, and if you do get stuck, there’s extremely efficient technical support available via either live chat or phone.
Performance seems good in the US and UK, and indeed Europe, but further afield you may see things tail off a bit, which is hardly a surprise given StackPath’s aforementioned focus on Western nations.
Another strength here comes on the security front, with this CDN giving users free shared SSL (or the option to use your own SSL certificate, if you prefer). There’s also anti-DDoS technology and a capable Web Application Firewall.
All in all, this is a tempting offering with a baseline plan that charges $10 (£7.6) for up to 1TB of bandwidth per month. The first month is also free.
Update: The service has been now integrated with StackPath – “Everything you love about MaxCDN is being integrated into the new StackPath CDN service.”
MaxCDN is actually owned by StackPath now (the previously mentioned CDN), but provides a standalone service of its own which is well-suited for novices. You get 24/7 tech support with speedy responses promised (and indeed these claims stood up to our testing), and it’s easy enough to set up, and indeed use going forward.
You don’t get as many settings to play with as some of the more advanced services, but that’s hardly surprising when trying to keep things more user-friendly.
Another definite benefit is a range of useful reports, and a solid core network. MaxCDN offers eight edge locations in the US, five in Europe – and you can add additional locations in Asia (and Australia), but you have to pay extra for those.
Overall, though, pricing is a strong point, starting from $9 (£6.75) a month for a 100GB account, with a clean pricing structure which isn’t confusing in the slightest (often not the case with CDN offerings). Performance is, generally speaking, solid enough, and this CDN does pretty well for speeds in the UK and US.
Amazon CloudFront is the CDN facet of AWS (Amazon Web Services), so it’s certainly part of a heavyweight operation. And indeed CloudFront offers a raft of advanced features as you might expect, and you can customize all manner of things such as enabling automatic GZip compression for better speeds.
Another strength here is the in-depth analytics on tap, showing you details of your visitors’ device type, OS and so forth. There’s also the handy ability to set up alerts, meaning you can be warned when data transfer usage goes above a certain level.
The downside to all the options on offer is that relative novices to the CDN world may find CloudFront’s control panel a little intimidating, at least initially.
The other slight sticking points are that calculating pricing can be a rather tricky matter, and if you aren’t an experienced user familiar with CDN basics, tech support isn’t free – if you need help, you’ll have to fork out for it. Prices vary depending on region, but the good news is there’s a free tier (which gives you 50GB of data per month for one year).
Performance levels are fairly average, too, but there’s no denying the power and configurability that Amazon offers to the slightly more tech-savvy user.
As you’re doubtless aware, Microsoft Azure is a big old stack of integrated cloud tools for building and managing applications and services, with a wide range of coverage including a CDN offering, which is what we’re focusing on here, naturally. Note that this doesn’t use Microsoft’s own edge servers, but rather three plans that use other CDN networks: Standard Akamai, Standard Verizon, and Premium Verizon.
We fully discuss these various plans in our review of Microsoft’s CDN service, linked below, but suffice it to say that in terms of pricing – which can be somewhat confusing to work out – this isn’t the cheapest offering around. Still, those who want integration with other Microsoft technologies and services may well find the price worth paying.
You get a web dashboard which is absolutely crammed with features, although as ever, this means it’s not particularly easy to use for beginners (and the setup process is pretty involved, too). Performance levels are impressive, and at the time of writing, according to CDNPerf, Azure CDN is the third fastest content delivery network in the US and fourth worldwide.
This has to be a tempting prospect if you’re using other Azure services, or if you’re a developer who will appreciate the likes of .NET or PowerShell management features. You can create a free account and get started with 12 months of free services.
CDN77 is a big-name player in the content delivery game, with some heavyweight clients signed up including the European Space Agency. It has an expansive CDN network with 35 data centers across the globe, with many of those in Europe and the US, but there are also locations in South America, Asia and one in Australia.
The web console interface is very streamlined and keeps any jargon to a minimum, making it suitably user-friendly for novices to the CDN world. The flipside of this is that there aren’t a huge amount of options, although you can do some tweaking of various settings.
In terms of performance, CDN77 is solid enough, and it ranks as a lower-to-mid pack player that’s unlikely to disappoint, but certainly isn’t the fastest CDN network we found when reviewing these various services.
You get a free Let’s Encrypt SSL certificate, and CDN77 is pretty good value for money overall in terms of its per-GB pricing, although it’s not the cheapest outfit we’ve highlighted here. Pricing starts at $0.049 per GB of data for US and European locations, with Asia and Latin America being more expensive. If you want to test the waters, there’s a 14-day risk-free trial, and you don’t need to supply any payment details for this.
If you need a powerful CDN, look no further than Leaseweb, an enterprise-level operation which is still suitable for regular business users – just about, although we should say upfront that it isn’t cheap, as you might imagine.
Pricing starts at $113 (£88, €99) per month for an entry-level plan with a 2TB data allowance, the good news being that even with this ‘basic’ subscription, you get all the same security and CDN features as the heavyweight enterprise plans.
That includes a smartly designed console for overseeing your CDN needs, complete with an extensive raft of potential settings and tweaks, featuring many options you don’t get with your average service (like the ability to set the cache-control header, or determine how long to cache 404 responses).
There’s also an in-depth statistics section which displays graphs and charts showing many interesting stats, such as visitor and traffic breakdowns, cache performance and the top file types which are seeing action.
The one somewhat bleak spot is Leaseweb’s performance, which seems somewhat off the pace going by CDNPerf’s findings, although it’s difficult to gauge exactly what results you’ll get in practice. Users who want a powerful range of features in their CDN could give the 30-day trial a go to find out.
The Motorola Razr release date may stick to the end of 2019 – but barely, according to two recent reports. And you may not be able to buy the phone until 2020.
Last month, we heard that the rumored foldable phone would debut in December, and now a source close to the matter repeated this end-of-2019 release date to the to CNET.
This doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll be able to pick up the Motorola Razr in 2019, according to the source, just that it’ll be unveiled to the public and press before then. It could mean the handset will launch in late 2019 and be available to buy in 2020.
Motorola was eyeing a mid-2019 release date for the foldable phone, which had to be pushed back, and it’s not clear if Motorola has decided on a final release date or if it’s still perfecting the device.
In light of the Samsung Galaxy Fold, which was delayed repeatedly due to the fact it kept breaking, and the Huawei Mate X, the release date of which was pushed back to avoid imitating Samsung’s problem, it makes sense that Motorola plays it safe with the new foldable phone.
It’s worth bearing in mind that the Motorola Razr hasn’t been confirmed by any means, as Motorola has never mentioned it by name, but we’ve heard enough rumors to suggest it’s real and that it’ll be out soon.
Take this rumor with an especially big pinch of salt, though – while it does back up a previous rumor we’ve heard before, it’s possible the source is actually the same person, since both release date news comes from an anonymous source speaking confidentially to news sources.
We’ll know for sure by the end of 2019, whether we see the Motorola Razr foldable phone or not, so stay tuned for news on the mythical Moto handset.
Best Wireless (Bluetooth) Headphones: Welcome to TechRadar’s guide to the best wireless and Bluetooth headphones you can buy in 2019.
Now sure, a few short years ago, we may have tried to dissuade you from buying a pair of wireless headphones (the technology had issues with wireless connectivity over Bluetooth and sound quality took a dive as a result) but these days, you can’t go wrong by buying a wireless pair of headphones.
Thanks to advancements in Bluetooth (thanks, aptX), the best wireless headphones not only stay connected to any phone, from the best smartphones to the best cheap smartphones, in every situation. But they sound just as good as their wired counterparts, too.
Yes, a wireless pair of headphones might cost a bit more than a similar wired model, but wireless headphones offer greater freedom of movement and, because they don’t use an aux cable, make great companions for jack-less phones like the iPhone 11 and Pixel 3 that simply lack a 3.5mm aux port to connect with.
Whatever your reason for upgrading, we’re here to help you pick out the best wireless headphones, regardless of your budget. What you’ll find below are the top headphones we’ve reviewed – some of which come with neat features like noise-cancellation – all vetted by our staff so you can shop with confidence.
Can’t decide which headphones to buy? Check out our guide video below:
The best over-ear wireless headphones
Image credit: TechRadar
For the last three years, the Sony 1000X series of headphones have been our favorite wireless headphones on the market. They sound great thanks to a combination of superb wireless codecs – aptX and Sony’s proprietary LDAC tech – and keep outside noise at bay thanks to Sony’s ever-improving noise-cancellation algorithms.
While the Sony WH-1000XM3 might not be a massive improvement over last year’s WH-1000XM2, they’re still a cut above their rivals, the Bose QC35 II, in nearly every way: they sound better, they block out noise better and have better features like Quick Attention mode that lets in all outside noise without taking off the headphones. (The latter is perfect when giving a drink order on a plane or speaking to a coworker for a brief moment before diving back into your work.)
Great-sounding and feature-packed, these impressive Sony headphones are great travel companions and all-around excellent wireless headphones.
Looking for the best Sony headphones? Read our round up of the best Sony headphones we’ve reviewed so far
Bose has really outdone itself with the Headphones 700 – and a big part of these cans’ appeal, is the sophistication of the noise cancellation they offer.
As an alternative to the Sony WH-1000XM3, these headphones sound fantastic, with a vibrant, lively character and well-balanced soundstage and offer the same great noise-cancellation you’d expect from Bose.
They don’t have the same dexterity as the WH-1000XM3 and the battery life is also 10 hours less than Sony headphones despite costing more, but they’re still well-worth considering when looking for a pair of wireless headphones.
Offering class-leading battery life, terrific style and plenty of personalization when it comes to sound profiles, the Elite 85h is easy to recommend. That said, purists will bemoan the lack of high-end codec support and there are punchier headphones on the market at this price point. When you consider that Jabra’s Elite 85h headphones are the company’s first attempt at premium wireless ANC headphones, the result is quite commendable. We can’t wait to see what the company’s next premium ANC headphones will accomplish.
If you want an alternative to Sony’s WH-1000XM3, this is it.
Bose took the already-excellent QC35 and updated with Google Assistant. The headphone is identical in every way save for the new Google Assistant button. This means you still get the class-leading noise cancellation Bose is known for, good sound quality, and incredible comfort. Said simply, they sound great and their battery life is long enough for all but the longest of flights.
If you’re looking to save some money, however, consider the original Bose QuietComfort 35. They can also be found for far cheaper these days, and if you’re not fussed about having Google Assistant built into your headphones then you can save yourself some money while you save up for QC35 II.
The Beyerdynamic Amiron Wireless are the best-sounding wireless headphones you can buy, period. Sound is spacious, detailed, and makes you want to rediscover your music library. Their bulky design and average noise isolation make them terrible for travel but if you’re looking for the best sound from a wireless headphone, this is it.
Audio-Technica has a long history of producing high-quality headphones, microphones, and turntable accessories, and with the release of the ATH-M50xBT, it delivers studio-quality audio without the cord.
The ATH-M50xBTs are designed for really high-end audio performance, with 45mm drivers and a frequency response range of 15-28,00 Hz, and it shows – we were very impressed with the warm, well-rounded sound.
The ATH-M50xBT headphones also performed well in terms of battery life and Bluetooth connectivity, however the microphone isn’t particularly strong, and you may struggle to make phone calls using them – still, that’s probably not the reason you would purchase a pair of studio grade headphones in the first place.
The Sennheiser HD 4.50 BTNC headphones are proof that you don’t need bottomless cash reserves to get decent noise-canceling. Sure, they’re not as powerful as the Sony WH-1000XM3 or sound as beautiful as the Amiron, but these are decent all-around wireless headphones at a good price.
The AKG N60NC Wireless sound like a pair of headphones that should be much more expensive than they are.
At their mid-range price point the headphones offer fantastic value for money, with great sound quality and a level of noise-cancellation performance that’s on a level with the much more premium entries on this list.
Our biggest issue with these headphones is the fact that they’re on-ear rather than over-ear, meaning that we found that they got uncomfortable over longer periods.
Regardless, the benefit of this is that this is a fantastically compact pair of headphones, and if you’re willing to make the trade-off then these are great for the price.
The Grado GW100s sound great with a wide soundstage, clear highs, smooth mids, and extended bass frequencies. They also sport a kitsch, retro design that recalls Grado’s humble beginnings in 50’s Brooklyn.
Although the Bluetooth connection works very well, the need for a wireless pair of open-back headphones can be unclear; particularly if the design makes them unsuitable for commuting or listening in communal areas.
Saying that, having the option to listen wirelessly is undeniably convenient when you’re pottering around the house, and you can use these cans with an AUX cable if you’re something of an audiophile who prefers a wired connection.
Overall, we feel the Grado GW100s are designed for a fairly niche market of audiophiles who crave a wide, natural sound, and who do the majority of their music listening at home. If that sounds like you, you will probably love the Grado GW100s. If not, you may want to look at closed-back models instead.
Overall, Microsoft’s Surface headphones are surprisingly good, with a stunningly warm sound, and generous bass frequencies, which means your music will sound great whether you’re listening to subby hip-hop or acoustic singer-songwriters.
One criticism of this warm sound is that it can take some of the attack away from lower-mid frequencies, which some users may find a bit underwhelming. However, if sharp trebles and mids tend to give you listening fatigue, these could be the perfect headphones for you.
The calling card of these headphones is the active noise cancellation, which we felt worked really well, and we loved how easy it was to control this using the inbuilt dials on each housing.
Although we were initially unconvinced by the high price (particularly when you can buy quality cans from heritage audio brands for less), the features work so seamlessly that it feels justified.
Looking for something more compact? Read our guide to the best earbuds 2019
The best in-ear wireless headphones
Image credit: TechRadar
Here’s where things get a bit murky – the term ‘wireless headphones’ is often used interchangeably with ‘Bluetooth headphones’ – i.e. headphones that don’t use a 3.5mm jack to connect to your phone, but still have a wire running between them. While we contemplated leaving these off our list entirely, Bluetooth headphones are still well-worth considering – even if it means having a wire wrapped around your neck.
That being said, if we had to pick a pair of Bluetooth headphones to go with, it’d be the NuForce BE Sport4 headphones: They’re an incredible value for a pair of wireless headphones that sound good, last all day, have a bulletproof build and incredible noise isolation. While they’re not the most dynamic or resolving headphones, NuForce shows us that the future of Bluetooth is a bright one.
When you think of noise-cancelling headphones you probably picture bulky over-ear cans like the Bose QuietComfort 35 or the Sennheiser Momentum Wireless, but three years ago Bose turned its noise-cancelling chops to in-ear headphones, and the result was the excellent Bose QuietComfort 20i.
Soon after that came the Bose QuietControl 30 (QC30, for short). These neckbuds offer the best noise cancellation of any in-ears we’ve tried and are comfortable enough to wear around your neck for long flights. Add to that the fantastic wireless capabilities of these headphones and you have the recipe for success.
While we’d love to see a true wireless pair of headphones from Bose, the QuietComfort 30 are a tried-and-true stopgap that you’ll enjoy all the same.
If you don’t mind rocking a neckband, the Moto Surround hits all the high notes in terms of price, performance and battery life. After spending some time with the RHA MA390 Wireless, we came away extremely impressed with the package RHA has come up with. The headphones are built extremely well, have a vibrant sound signature, and are hardy enough to take anywhere -and all at an affordable price.
It’s main rival, the OnePlus Bullets Wireless, are also excellent, however we give the nod to the RHA MA390 for its more dynamic sound and better build quality.
Audiophiles may complain about the sound performance of Beats headphones, but the inclusion of Apple’s proprietary W1 chip has been a boon for the strength of their wireless connectivity.
The Beats X make up for their overly bassy sound with a rock solid connection and a pairing process that, on iOS devices at least, is as painless as it’s possible to be.
Functionally that makes these wireless earbuds a joy to use, just don’t expect the most detailed or broad soundstage. If you’re shopping for a no-fuss pair of earbuds that charge in 5 minutes and don’t mind spending a little extra money on them, the Beats X are for you.
Although the TrueConnect is RHAs first true wireless headphone, the company showed they did their research and development by making it one of the best true wireless headphones on the market today. The combination of sound quality, battery life, and wireless reliability means these are a pair of headphones you can rely on everyday.
The Jabra Elite 65t set the standard for what true wireless headphones should be and, regardless of what RHA has done here with the TrueConnect, they’re still great headphones. Compared to the RHA TrueConnect, the Jabra has more features with its useful ambient noise mode to help with situational awareness and an app that lets you tailor sound.
The RHA doesn’t have either of those features but we didn’t miss them, thanks to better sound quality and wireless reliability. The RHA also feels more like a premium product than the all-plastic Jabra.
All said, if you’re shopping for a pair of true wireless headphones, the $170 (£150, about AU$265) RHA TrueConnect should be at the very top of your list.
You might have expected to see the Apple AirPods on the list. While Apple’s true wireless earbuds are fine for certain folks – cough, iPhone users exclusively – they’re not the best for everyone. If you’re looking for an egalitarian pair of true wireless earbuds, you can do no better than the Jabra Elite 65t.
Not only are these competent Bluetooth buds for use around town, with a long-enough battery life and good sound quality, but they are easily some of the best true wireless earbuds on the market, offering a perfect balance of usability, features, and sound quality. If you’re in the market for the ‘ultimate’ set of true wireless headphones and don’t mind paying for them, then they are a strong choice.
The NuForce BE Free5 wireless earbuds show just how accessible truly wireless headphones can be nowadays. For around $100 (about £75, AU$134) they feature a more polished design than the more expensive BE Free8, and even sound better to boot. However, we found the left earbud would drop out briefly more than we’d like, and we hope NuForce can address this issue.
The connection dropouts combined with the frustrating controls keep it from claiming the top spot on our list, but the BE Free5 offer undeniable value in the truly wireless headphone market,, making them a great option for your first pair.
The second generation Apple AirPods, the AirPods (2019), aren’t quite the AirPods 2 we were hoping for, but they still some cool features.
They still feature the iconic design of the original AirPods (a good or bad thing depending on your point of view), and sound quality hasn’t changed at all. The bulk of the upgrade comes from the new H1 headphone chip, which improves connectivity and battery life, and allows for a new ‘Hey Siri’ voice activation feature.
The AirPods (2019) also come with an optional wireless charging case means you can use a Qi-compatible charging mat to power the case, rather than sticking a cable into the Lightning charging port in the bottom of the case.
Like their predecessors, they are super easy to pair, but they are very much optimized for using with iPhones – and they aren’t exactly cheap.
Apple AirPods undeniably popularized the true-wireless format. They work seamlessly with an iPhone, sound good in terms of their form factor, and have excellent connectivity and battery life.
Even though they are around three years old, the original AirPods still hold their own in the true wireless earbud arena, and the upgraded AirPods (2019) aren’t actually very different.
Apple has now stopped selling the AirPods, but many stores are still trying to sell off their remaining stock – head to our round up of the best Apple AirPods prices, sales, and deals for up to date information on any discounts.
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From the minds behind the Ticwatch Pro,Ticwatch S and Tichome Mini , the TicPods Free have been cited as a more flexible alternative to the AirPods, coming in a range of colors, and enabled for Google Assistant and Amazon Alexa, as well as Siri.
When we tested them, we thought the audio quality was impressive, and although guitars sometimes sounded a little distorted, it’s a small price to pay for the amount of sonic power you get with these in-ears.
These in-ears are unlikely to appeal to true audiophiles but if you’re a casual listener, the TicPods Free will do just fine, and for a great price.
Sony’s first pair of true wireless headphones, the Sony WF-1000X, were divisive -some users thought they didn’t offer enough bass, while others said they had too much. Some said they cut out or unpaired periodically. Others simply never had that problem.
Criticisms came from all corners of the internet and the only reasonable conclusion one could make after sifting through all of the noise was that Sony’s headphones just couldn’t please everyone.
Now, Sony’s second-generation true-wireless headphones – the Sony WF-SP700N – are here to try it again. These true wireless headphones are better tuned for the low-end and they’re stable in almost every situation. They still offer very modest active noise-cancellation tech and a sweat-resistant PX4 rating, and the new charging case is aesthetically pleasing if not radically different in functionality from before.
Let’s get one thing out of the way – the B&O Beoplay E8 are one of the nicest-looking and most expensive wireless earphones you can buy.
At $299 (£259, AU$449, AED 1,199) you can throw in a bit more cash and splurge for one of our favorite noise-cancelling headphones, the Bose QuietComfort 35 $349 (£259, AU$499, AED 1,449), which give you better battery life and a richer sound. But if you’re looking for a something to take to the gym and have the cash burning a hole in your pocker, then the Beoplay E8 might be just what you’re looking for.
While they don’t feature noise-cancellation, you will find a longer-lasting battery life of around four hours alongside Bluetooth 4.2. The E8 come with a stylish carrying case, and you can tweak the sound to your liking using the accompanying Beoplay app on Android and iOS.
Even without tinkering around with ToneTouch, the E8 sounds crisp and clear. Bass feedback will depend on how snug you’re wearing the E8s, but was acceptable for earphones of this size. If you’re able to look past the price point, then then Beoplay E8 is a great investment. It’s super compact, offers great audio, and looks great – what more could you ask for?
Cambridge Audio is well-known for its good quality audio equipment. However, untul recently the company hasn’t ventured into the world of true wireless earbuds.
Enter the Cambridge Audio Melomania 1s: with an outstanding 45 hours of battery life, these buds combine the brand’s award-winning engineering with the convenience of truly wireless listening.
For a pair of true wireless earbuds, the sound quality offered by the Cambridge Audio Melomania 1s is sensational. In fact, it rivals some of the best over-ear headphones, which is all but unheard of for buds of this size.
They may not have the noise cancellation technology offered by the Sony WF-1000XM3 Wireless Earbuds, but they are $100 (around £80) cheaper – and have a superior battery life.
They certainly outperform the Apple AirPods, in all respects apart from the lack of wireless charging case. This is a small price to pay for that exceptional audio quality, though, and we think they represent much better value for money, too.
If you’re a budget TV buyer you’ll be happy to know that the all-new TCL 6-Series TVs are available to buy at a number of retailers today.
The big difference between this year’s crop of TVs and last year’s is the addition of new Quantum Dot screens that will enhance color and contrast on the new series. TCL will also expand the number of contrast control zones, which will make HDR content look even better than before.
If you’re looking for something a bit more premium, the brand-new 8-Series takes things a step further by combining mini-LEDs with QLED technology to up the contrast even more and reach the inky black levels of OLED – but that won’t be coming until later this year.
Is this the best budget TV of 2019?
Without getting them into our home theaters for testing we can’t make any definitive claims on their performance-to-price ratio, but history is on TCL’s side – last year, the TCL 6-Series was definitely the best budget TV of the year, beating out LG, Samsung, Vizio and Sony. As long as the QLED screen doesn’t oversaturate the colors, there’s almost no reason to believe these TVs would be any worse than before.
The 8-Series, coming later, is a bit more of a question mark in terms of what it will be able to do. Early previews of the screen suggest that it will be able to stand up to LG’s award-winning OLED TVs at a slightly lower price point – but again, we can’t make any claims without putting them through their paces later this year.
We’ll try to get reviews in quickly but, if you desperately need a TV right this minute, the new 6-Series is a pretty safe bet.
Check out your other options with our list of the best 4K TVs
While the Apple Watch Series 5 was announced just last week, you can already find discounts on the smartwatch at Amazon. For a limited time, you can get the Apple Watch 5 with GPS for $384.99. That’s a $15 discount and the lowest price we’ve found for the latest Apple Watch. If you’re interested in a bigger display, Amazon also has the 44mm Apple Watch 5 on sale for $414.
The most significant upgrade to the Apple Watch 5 is the Always-On Retina display. This new feature allows you to easily see your watch face so you can always read the time, messages, and other important notifications. The Series 5 smartwatch also received a new Map app and additional safety features that allow you to make international emergency calls. The latest health benefits include cycle tracking and activity trends and an ECG app that monitors your heart rate and lets you know if something is wrong. The waterproof smartwatch provides up to 18 hours of battery life and can send and receive calls, messages, and notifications.
The Apple Watch 5 is officially available to order today, and we don’t know how long Amazon will have the smartwatch on sale. Price cuts on the Series 5 are extremely rare, and this might be your last chance to save before Black Friday.
We’ve had an inkling that some new AMD Navi graphics cards would be arriving sometime in the near future. But, we’ve just seen a leak that may just indicate that the replacement for the AMD Radeon RX 570 is imminent.
Both an AMD Navi 12 and an AMD Navi 14 graphics processor (GPU) have appeared in a commit for Mesa 19.2. If you’re unfamiliar with Mesa, its a 3D graphics library that AMD uses in its driver updates. So, if an AMD Navi 12 appeared in a developer commit for this library, it’s a pretty good sign that these GPUs are real, and should be coming to market relatively soon.
Still, all that’s included in this commit are references to “CHIPSET (0x7360, NAVI12)” and “CHIPSET (0x7340, NAVI14)”. We don’t know what kind of specs these GPUs will be featuring, or when these GPUs will be coming to market. However, because Mesa 19.2 is the current version of the graphics library, with the next version scheduled for release on October 15, according to Mesa’s website, it could be that AMD is planning on releasing these GPUs in the very near future.
Plus, we’ve also seen some fresh rumors suggesting that Nvidia would be pushing out a GTX 1650 Ti card in October, too. A commit isn’t the most rock-solid evidence that a new graphics card is coming out, but all the cards seem to be falling in place – either way, we’ll have to wait until AMD is ready to lift the veil on its next graphics card.
AMD will be releasing graphics cards for everyone, including folks looking for a budget entry-level card, according to its RDNA white paper. Previous leaks about the AMD Navi 14 have pointed at it being a budget-level graphics card that will replace the AMD Radeon RX 570, so having two new graphics cards targeting this sector of the market will be exciting – as this is where most people actually spend their money.
Now, all we have to do is wait to see whether Nvidia or AMD announce the next entry-level graphics card. Whichever gets there first, budget buyers will be the winners.
