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The Beats Fit Pro (1st Gen) earbuds aren’t the newest exercise earbuds on the market, and they’re not reinventing the wheel; however, they’re a tried-and-true favorite with ANC and a comfortable fit, making them a sportier version of AirPods Pro for gym-goers and runners, with a slight added edge when it comes to battery life. Right now, a pair in white is 35% off and currently at its lowest price ever at $129.99 (originally $199.95).

Beats Fit Pro (1st Gen) Earbuds

$129.99
at Amazon

$199.95
Save $69.96

$129.99
at Amazon

$199.95
Save $69.96

These true wireless earbuds from Beats feature strong noise cancellation and Apple’s signature H1 chip, making them similar to AirPods Pro with Apple features such as spatial Audio with head tracking, Adaptive EQ, hands-free Siri, and one-touch iOS pairing. They last up to 6 hours with ANC on (compared to 4.5 hours on the Airpods Pro with ANC on) and get an extra 21 to 23 hours from the charging case.

Like most Beats headphones, they have physical touch buttons, which is a perk for those who don’t like touch controls. The buds fit “comfortably and securely,” according to CNET, despite having a one-size-fits-all wingtip design. They have 9.5mm drivers, which are a little more bass-heavy and punchy than AirPods Pro. The ANC is reliable, doing a good job of blocking out low-frequency sounds in crowded settings, but PCMag notes that it may not be as effective against higher frequencies, unlike slightly pricier models such as the Sony WF-1000XM4 earbuds.   

While they surpass AirPods in a couple of categories, their six microphones perform slightly worse, with less clarity and less background noise reduction. That said, CNET still ranks them above the AirPods Pro for overall performance and fitness use. If you’re an Apple user looking for comfortable everyday earbuds that can be used everywhere from your daily commute to your workouts, the Beats Fit Pro (1st Gen) are a solid choice, especially at their lowest price ever.

Sony is rolling out a firmware update for its PlayStation Portal handheld that introduces a new quality option for both Remote Play and Cloud Streaming. Choosing the 1080p High Quality mode means that you’ll be able to stream games at a higher bitrate compared with the 1080p Standard option. 

You can switch to this mode by going to Quick Menu > Max Resolution and picking 1080p High Quality while you’re playing a game. You’ll need to restart your game session for the change to take effect. Naturally, 1080p High Quality will use more data than the other resolution options.

Sony says that more than half of all Portal users are now PlayStation Plus Premium subscribers, meaning they can use the Cloud Streaming option on the device. With that in mind, the company is making some Cloud Streaming changes as part of this firmware update. 

The company says it has refined the search screen — from now on, whenever you open this up, the on screen keyboard will pop up immediately. That’s a nice little quality-of-life update that streamlines things a bit. When you pick the “stream” option on pages for game bundles (i.e. for any title that includes multiple games), you’ll be able to select a specific game to jump into. 

Sony Interactive Entertainment

There are notification changes too. If you receive a game invite while playing a supported title, you’ll now see a clear notification on your screen. Trophy notifications should now display properly too, with the trophy name and image showing up. Unlocking a platinum trophy will cause an animated notification to appear. 

There’s one more tweak to the system with this Portal update as Sony attempts to make the onboarding experience a bit smoother. Those who pick up a Portal but don’t already have a PlayStation account will be able to create one and then sign in on the handheld by scanning a QR code on their mobile device. Such folks will still need to have access to a PS5 or sign up for PS Plus Premium to actually get any use out of the Portal, of course.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/a-playstation-portal-update-is-adding-a-1080p-high-quality-mode-142216189.html?src=rss

Samsung is nothing if not consistent.

Just as it has for many years, the company is starting the year with a new generation of Galaxy S phones. Rumors about remixing the lineup did not pan out, so there are still three versions of the phone—the Galaxy S26, S26 Plus, and S26 Ultra. It’s the Ultra, with its whopping $1,300 price tag, that makes up the largest chunk of Samsung flagship sales, even though you can get a perfectly serviceable smartphone for a third of the price. The S26 Ultra serves a different market than a budget phone, though.

The Galaxy S26 Ultra is big, powerful, and overflowing with features. It can be a bit too much at times, particularly if you don’t care for mobile AI. It’s expensive, but you get long support and just about everything you could want from a smartphone in 2026. Still, with other smartphone makers scaling back amid skyrocketing component prices, the S26 Ultra may end up looking like a good value in hindsight.

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Apple and Nike are at it again. But this time, their collaboration doesn’t involve Apple Watch bands or a shoe-tracking iPod. Instead, the companies are launching a new color option for Beats’ fitness-focused earphones. Meet the Powerbeats Pro 2 – Nike Special Edition.

“This isn’t just a new colorway,” Beats CMI Chris Thorne wrote in a press release. “It’s a collision of two brands that define performance, culture and sports — the attributes of today’s athlete.”

Okay, cool, but marketing-speak aside, this is, in fact, just a new colorway. However, depending on your taste, it might be one you’re into. Nike’s “Volt” palette takes center stage, with its love-it-or-hate-it electric yellow-green motif. The two companies share logo duties, with the Beats “b” on the left bud and Nike’s swoosh on the right. Meanwhile, the charging case takes you to Speckle City, looking like something Jackson Pollock flung a can of leftover shoe paint onto.

Apple / Nike

Otherwise, these are the same Powerbeats Pro 2 earphones that launched last year. You get heart-rate tracking, decent ANC and Spatial Audio. You can revisit Billy Steele’s review for more details on the earphones.

To help move the product, Beats and Nike called upon an athlete they both sponsor: a little-known hooper named LeBron James. The Lakers vet stars in a new ad, where he uses the Nike Powerbeats to tune out the noise with a little help from Lionel Ritchie.

You can watch the commercial below — and order the new colorway from Apple’s and Nike’s respective websites on March 20. The Nike Special Edition Powerbeats Pro costs the same $250 as the standard version. However, this is a limited-edition variant, so there’s no guarantee it will be around for long.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/audio/headphones/apple-and-nike-team-up-for-a-new-powerbeats-pro-2-colorway-140000882.html?src=rss

If you have an old Android device lying around your house gathering dust, there are multiple ways to repurpose it—including turning it into a webcam or a dedicated smart home controller. One option that’s perhaps less obvious, however, is saving your house from wifi dead zones. Those of you who have spots in your home where wifi struggles to reach will know the frustration here: Once you leave the wifi’s range, you’re suddenly cut off from messages, media, and the news, but an old Android phone can help.

Android phones can access wifi networks of course, but they can also act as hotspots for these same networks. With some careful positioning, it’s possible to turn an old phone into a wifi extender (or wifi repeater), a device that re-broadcasts a wifi signal to extend its range. Repeaters can’t improve the speed of the signal they receive, but they can extend it, which can get you connected to the internet in rooms your wifi previously didn’t reach. While buying a dedicated device for the job may yield better results, if you already have a spare Android device in your home, give this trick a try first before spending any money.

Turning your old Android device into a wifi extender

Wifi hotspot settings on a Google Pixel.
Credit: Lifehacker

Android being Android, the exact method for this depends on the make and model of your phone, but generally speaking, you need to locate the wifi hotspot feature in the Settings menu for your device. On a Pixel phone, for example, you’ll find it under Network and internet and Hotspot and tethering. From here, enable Wi-Fi hotspot, which generates a new wifi network off the back of your main one. If you tap the Wi-Fi hotspot menu entry, you can configure the name and password for this new network. The only downside here is you’ll need to give the boosted wifi in your dead zone a different name and password to your regular wifi.

There are some other options to be aware of here too: Make sure Turn off hotspot automatically is disabled so the hotspot always stays active; under Speed and compatibility, you should enable 2.4GHz or 5GHz (or both) in most cases, to minimize the chances of complications with whatever device you’re connecting to. You’ll probably want to keep this device plugged in too, to save on battery life. It’ll defeat the purpose if your new wifi repeater can’t actually power on.

If this is an old device, it might not have cellular data access anyway, but to make sure this is a wifi-to-wifi hotspot, you can take out the SIM card or turn data access off. (On Pixel, you’ll find the option under Settings > Network and internet > SIMs.) Otherwise, you might find your repeater is actually running off a cellular connection. On most other Android phones, you should find a similar set of settings: When it comes to Samsung Galaxy devices, open Settings and tap Connections > Mobile Hotspot and Tethering. You then get a Mobile Hotspot toggle switch, and you can tap Mobile Hotspot to access the network options.

I turned a Galaxy S25 Ultra into a wifi repeater

Wifi hotspot settings on a Samsung Galaxy.
Credit: Lifehacker

I gave this a try using a Galaxy S25 Ultra, and it worked exactly as advertised. Given the power of the components inside a smartphone, this is never going to rival something like a mesh network, but for small-scale access where upload and download speeds aren’t of paramount importance, it can be useful—and, of course, free, if you already have a redundant Android device you’re not otherwise using.

I did have to experiment a bit to get the phone in the right spot between my router and the laptop I was trying to get online with, but you should be able to figure it out with a bit of trial and error. In the case of a Galaxy S25 Ultra at least, the phone doesn’t have to be in the same room as the connecting device, but it helps. My broadband connection at home averages around the 300 Mbps mark, and I put the Galaxy S25 Ultra in an upstairs room to act as a hotspot. With my laptop in the same room, connected to the phone, I was getting download speeds of 60 Mbps or so—much reduced, but still fine for streaming high-resolution video.

When moving the laptop further away, I could still tether to the Galaxy S25 Ultra, but speeds dropped to 12 Mbps or so. That’s a big reduction from the maximum possible speed, but the connection was still absolutely usable for checking emails, browsing the web, and writing up this article in Google Docs. Your mileage will vary depending on the phone you’re using, your internet speed, and the layout of your home, but you should be able to get this working with many Android devices. Bear in mind that phones of a certain age may not support this, however: According to the Reddit hive mind, this is a trick that works on most recent Pixel devices, but not the Google Pixel 7a for example.

I’m posting this on March 17,St. Patrick’s Day, the day we celebrate the patron saint of Ireland, and Irishness in general, by dancing to accordion-and-fiddle-based music, dyeing a river green, and enjoying a wee drink or three. But there’s a lot people get wrong about the holiday, so allow me to clear up some myths.

St. Patrick’s Day wasn’t always a day for partying

The association between boozing it up and March 17 is relatively recent. St. Patrick’s Day was observed in Ireland as early as the ninth century but it was largely a somber remembrance, not a celebration—it marks the anniversary of St. Patrick’s death, after all. It was a day when the dietary restrictions of Lent were lifted, which must have been a relief, but it wasn’t about drinking and having fun. It was about going to Mass. Pubs were closed by law on March 17 in Ireland up until the 20th century, and drinking was unofficially discouraged on that day until as late as the 1970s.

St. Patrick’s Day, as we know it now, was arguably born in New York in 1762, when a group of Irish soldiers in the British army marched through Manhattan to a local tavern. In 1848, New York’s Irish Aid societies held the first official St. Patrick’s Day parade (which was also the world’s first civilian parade of any kind) and from there, the “drinking, dancing, and having fun” aspect of the holiday grew.

Ireland, by the way, was the last nation to get the memo. In a 2001 New York Times article, Irish novelist Maeve Binchy recalls a childhood spent watching every other country cut loose on March 17, while “Dublin was the dullest place on earth to spend St. Patrick’s Day.” By the 1990s, though, Ireland realized that people would rather have fun than remember dead saints, and now there are festivals and parades all over the country, including a huge one in Dublin.

Corned beef is not an Irish dish

The Irish are well-known for their story-telling and dance styles, but they are not known for their cuisine. The one exception is corned beef and cabbage, a meal many think of as Irish, except it really isn’t. Ireland has a complicated history with cows, but in general, pigs have been the real Irish protein, particularly after the 1800s. Things were different in the U.S., though. Irish immigrants in New York City were lacking Irish bacon, so they supposedly substituted corned beef, which they bought from their Jewish neighbors.

If you want legit Irish food, try boxty or Irish soda bread. Boxty is a potato-based pancake. Irish soda bread was invented during the potato famine and is made with sour milk and leavened with baking soda by people too poor to afford yeast. Soda bread was born of a nation’s misery, but if you add raisins and slap some salted butter on it, it’s delicious with coffee.

Saint Patrick wasn’t Irish

Unlike that other famous holiday-saint, St. Nicholas, St. Patrick wrote an autobiography, so we know something about his life. He was born in the late fourth century in Roman-occupied Britain, probably in Scotland or Wales, so he was Roman by citizenship, and could have been British, Italian, or Celtic. When he was around 15, Patrick was kidnapped by raiders and taken to Ireland, where he was forced to shepherd. After six years of captivity, Paddy escaped back to Scotland or Wales, spent 15 to 20 years in religious study, became ordained as a bishop, then returned to Ireland to convert the pagans to Catholicism. He was obviously successful in his mission, although I doubt pagans thought so. Here’s how the druids supposedly described St. Patrick:

Across the sea will come Adze-head, crazed in the head,
his cloak with hole for the head, his stick bent in the head.
He will chant impieties from a table in the front of his house;
all his people will answer: “so be it, so be it.”

“Adze-head” refers to the tonsure, the haircut monks used to have, so it’s a quality insult.

Saint Patrick did not drive the snakes from Ireland

Like all good saints, Patrick’s actual deeds were overshadowed by imaginary ones written down in the centuries after his death. In his own writings, Patrick only cops to one, very minor, miracle: When returning to Ireland, his party ran out of food, and Patrick said, “God will give us some” Then they found some wild boar. The miracles attributed to Patrick in hagiographies written about him are way more exciting. Here is only some of what St. Patrick was said to have done:

• Battled druids and pagans in wizard duels, where the magical powers of the pagans were defeated by Patrick’s faith

• Confronted the devil stone idol of Cromm Crúaich by striking it with his crosier and banishing the demon within it to hell

• Banished demonic birds by ringing his bell

• Raised 33 people from the dead

• Was guided by Jesus himself to “St. Patrick’s Purgatory,” a cave in Lough Derg where sinners could be purged of their sins if they spent a day and a night there in penance

• Left a walking stick behind that sprouted into a tree

• Accidentally drove his staff through the foot of King Aengus, then later prayed and healed the wound

• Drove the snakes out of Ireland

It’s that last one that people remember. Supposedly, St. Patrick was in the middle of a 40-day fast atop Croagh Patrick when he was attacked by serpents. He waved his magical staff, and ordered all the snakes to depart the Emerald Isle. And it’s true there are no snakes in Ireland, but it’s not because of St. Patrick—it’s because there never were snakes in Ireland.

Oppo is back with another high-spec foldable phone you may never see outside a tech journalist’s hands. The Find N6 is its new, sub-9mm device that is headed to Asian markets and, for now, not many other places. That means no US or European availability. So why write about it? With its build quality, hardware specs and camera array, not only is it a very good phone, but it’s also proof that another device maker can go toe-to-toe with Samsung’s dominance in flagship foldable phones.

Hardware

Image by Mat Smith for Engadget

Oppo is obsessed with the foldable crease. More than me, more than most of you, more than it should, probably. A focus of its presentation last month in London detailed all the effort put into its “zero-feel crease.” The idea is that you can’t really feel where the device folds, with 3D liquid printing and laser scanning used to fill the hinge’s surface precisely. The company says this reduces hinge height variance from 0.2mm to only 0.05mm.

Oppo has improved the glass used on the foldable display, and according to TÜV Rheinland testing (again), the Find N6 reduces long-term crease formation by up to 82 percent compared to last year’s Oppo model. It apparently takes a lot of engineering to make a foldable that looks pristine for longer. It’s definitely still early days, but after a few weeks of use, the crease does seem perceptibly shallower than that of other devices, especially the older Find N5. However, there is still a crease. You might not feel it as much, but you can see it. 

Despite that particular obsession, it’s another incredibly thin foldable, measuring 8.93mm (0.35 inches) thick. That means, folded, it seems roughly equivalent to most typical smartphone form factors. For reference, the iPhone 17 Pro is 8.75mm (0.34 inches) thick. Even with its slim profile, it also offers improved protection with IP59 certification against dust and water. The new foldable also picks up a new custom hardware button, like the Find X9, which can be assigned to launch the camera, switch sound profiles and other quick action settings.

The screens are the same size and resolution as its predecessor: a 6.62-inch front display and an 8.12-inch inner screen. There have been notable improvements here, too. Peak brightness has been punched up to 3,500 nits on the front screen and 2,500 nits on the foldable screen, making them brighter than on Oppo’s last foldable, but behind Motorola’s latest, most luminous foldable.

The Find N6 also has another custom 7-core Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 processor — the flagship processor of the moment. The more impressive spec may be the battery: a huge 6,000mAh Silicon-Carbon power pack. That’s 400mAh more than the Find N5 and 1,600mAh more than the ZFold 7. And it goes and goes: Doing a battery rundown test on the front display playing non-stop video lasted just shy of 30 hours, while using the bigger internal screen still hit 24 hours.

Another area where it bests Samsung is in charge speeds, supporting up to 80W SUPERVOOC wired charging through Oppo’s proprietary adapter and up to 55W with other high-wattage chargers. There’s also 50W AIRVOOC wireless charging — again, only if you have Oppo’s particular flavor of wireless charger, which I do not. Sadly, there are no Qi2/PixelSnap/MagSafe docking magnets.

The cameras

Image by Mat Smith for Engadget

Oppo has made major improvements to the cameras with several features showcased on the Find X9, now making their way to its foldables. There’s a new 200-megapixel main camera with an f/1.8 lens and a new 50MP ultrawide camera that lets in 50 percent more light. The telephoto camera captures 50MP images, with 3X periscope optical zoom and telemacro focus up to 10cm away. All three cameras also support 4K 60 fps Dolby Vision video capture, with the main sensor also capable of 120 fps recording.

Image by Mat Smith for Engadget

Oppo’s new foldable has cameras that rival those of Samsung’s Galaxy Z Fold series. The addition of the high-resolution 200MP main sensor adds more detail to images and more versatility, too. The company continues to collaborate with Hasselblad on camera hardware and software. A new Hi-Res mode that captures stills using the full pixel count of each sensor, while other shooting modes from previous devices are still here. That includes the Hasselblad Master Mode, with full control over the camera settings and the iconic XPAN mode for 65:24 panoramic stills and video.

While I was already impressed by Oppo’s recent Find X9, the Find N6 still surprised me. It’s versatile, consistent, and it’s almost the best foldable camera phone — if only its telephoto matched the Pixel 10 Pro Fold’s 5x zoom.

Software

Image by Mat Smith for Engadget

When it comes to multitasking, the Find N6 really wants to deliver, even if the end result is a little messy. You can run a full-screen app, while three Free-Flow Windows each run a different app or web page, all concurrently. Every window is interactive and it almost immediately gave me a stress headache. Oppo has baked in a system of swipes and pinches to aid navigation, but I’d argue that even an 8.1-inch screen isn’t enough for all those windows. Still, for the true power user, there is a lot to tap into. If you’re the kind of person who bounces between work chats in Slack, your calendar and umpteen Chrome tabs — this phone is aimed at you.

Oppo wasn’t done with the productivity bonafides. It’s added a new stylus to its foldable series, which comes with its own holster/case that attaches to the back of the Find N6. In most instances, this would make a chunky foldable too bulky, but the base phone is so slim that it’s passable. The case also serves as a charging cradle that can recharge the stylus via reverse wireless charging. I’m not a huge stylus user, but for those who miss the S Pen, this is an option if you live in a country where it’s being sold.

The stylus, officially called the Oppo AI Pen (hate that name), has a button to summon an onscreen palette of tools and features. Double-pressing the button switches between writing and erasing, which is pretty handy. Screen-off note-taking will apparently arrive in a later software update.

Oppo is also continuing to bridge ecosystems with iPhone Connect, which adds AirDrop-style file sharing to Apple phones. Remote PC control is still a cute feature, making the Find N6 into a tiny pocketable PC, if you’re willing to work on your laptop through a tiny screen.

Wrap-up

Image by Mat Smith for Engadget

It’s another impressive foldable from Oppo, one that sadly most folks will never be able to buy. What’s stopping Oppo from testing the waters outside of Asia? The Find N6 is an incredibly powerful, technically impressive device. What is Oppo afraid of?

The foldable will arrive in both silver and orange, although the latter is a little more muted than I’d hoped. For now, Oppo is launching the Find N6 on March 20 in China, Japan, Malaysia, Thailand and other Asian territories. The company just announced that prices will start at ¥9999 in China (approximately $1,450), with 12GB of RAM and 256GB of storage.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/mobile/smartphones/oppos-find-n6-might-be-the-foldable-of-your-dreams-131036055.html?src=rss