Tag Archives: Gadgets

AYANEO’s Ice Pink Handheld Makes Its Hardware Part of the Decoration

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AYANEO’s KONKR Pocket ADVANCE Ice Pink Limited Edition brings a softer palette to a familiar handheld shape. Its translucent pink shell reveals the structure beneath, giving the enclosure a mechanical character alongside its candy-like color. This newly announced version of the company’s Android gaming handheld borrows the Game Boy Advance’s rounded silhouette, then makes the case part of the appeal before a game starts.

Translucency gives the enclosure more to work with than color alone. Ribs, mounting points, and darker internal layers become part of its visual texture, softened by the pink tint. A black bezel gives the screen a boundary, while the pale D-pad, face buttons, and shoulder controls remain distinct. The hardware supplies the decoration, so the outside doesn’t need much added to it.

Designer: AYANEO

That familiar outline remains compact. The standard Pocket ADVANCE measures approximately 5.96 by 3.24 by 0.87 inches and weighs about 7.9 ounces. Its curved sides leave room for physical controls on either side of the central display. There are ridges around the back where your fingers rest, but the modest size shouldn’t be mistaken for a guarantee of comfort for every hand.

The screen gives that nostalgia a practical foundation. Its 3.5-inch LCD uses a 3:2 aspect ratio and a 960×640 resolution, matching the proportions of Game Boy Advance games. With fourfold integer scaling enabled, each original game pixel can become a block four pixels wide and four pixels tall. That preserves the artwork’s proportions without stretching characters across a display shaped for something else.

There’s a limit built into that control layout. Four face buttons and additional shoulder inputs give it more flexibility than Nintendo’s original two-button arrangement, but there’s still no analog stick. For a game designed around a D-pad, that keeps your thumbs on physical controls instead of covering a phone screen. Games built around analog movement ask for compromises this shell can’t solve.

Other details suit the small rituals around playing. A volume wheel lets you adjust sound without opening a menu, and a headphone jack accommodates wired listening without an adapter. USB-C handles charging and data, while a microSD slot provides expandable storage. Those aren’t glamorous additions, but they’re the connections that keep a compact handheld useful after the initial attraction to its color.

Behind the translucent enclosure, the Pocket ADVANCE platform uses a MediaTek Helio G90T processor, active fan cooling, and a 4,000 mAh battery. Android supplies the software foundation, making this an emulation handheld rather than a cartridge-playing Game Boy replacement. That freedom brings software choices and setup with it, so the familiar shape doesn’t mean the experience works exactly like an original.

AYANEO plans to open sales in mid-November 2026, though pricing and shipping schedules haven’t been confirmed. Those details matter for a finish whose appeal comes from changing how an existing device looks, rather than what it can play. Current Pocket ADVANCE owners have a different finish to consider, but no documented hardware upgrade to justify replacing theirs.

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AULA’s Neos 75 keyboard has a tiny hi-fi deck bolted to the side

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A company named after a tarantula just launched a keyboard with finishes named after gods, and I’m still processing it. AULA’s Chinese name translates to tarantula, and the brand built its reputation on RGB-soaked gaming boards that cost less than a decent pizza night. Creepy-crawly branding and rainbow lighting were basically the whole identity. Then the Neos 75 showed up with an all-aluminum body, metal keycaps, a color screen, and a launch manifesto about the Renaissance. Somewhere inside AULA, a team of designers clearly read a little too much art history, and I’m thrilled about it.

The Neos 75 comes from AULA.New Renaissance, a new in-house team of product designers, structural engineers, and keyboard nerds, and it’s their first product. It’s a 75% low-profile mechanical keyboard with 84 keys, a CNC-machined aluminum chassis, and custom Kailh switches. The party trick sits on the right, where a color screen, two slotted metal knobs, and chunky round media buttons form a console that looks borrowed from a Teenage Engineering synth. Preorders opened in China on October 23, with a global release listed as coming soon.

Designer: AULA.New Renaissance

A Tiny Hi-Fi Deck Lives on the Right Side

Two slotted metal knobs crown the console, each shaped like an oversized screw head you could almost turn with a coin. The upper one is removable and damped, handling volume and mute. The lower knob flips through screen pages and even pulls up a built-in calculator, which spreadsheet people will appreciate more than they’ll admit. Below them sit three round metal buttons for rewind, pause, and fast-forward, plus a pill-shaped NÉOS button and a small round key. All of these controls can be remapped in AULA’s driver.

That cluster recalls Dieter Rams’s Braun radios and record players of the 1950s and 1960s, with their round buttons and tidy control layouts. The same influence runs through Teenage Engineering’s OP-1, the OP-1 Field, and the all-black OP-XY. The Neos 75 borrows that visual language and places a 2.3-inch, 480 × 360 color display beside the controls, showing the clock, battery level, and artwork. The whole corner looks like a portable music player attached to a keyboard. Some Chinese forum users called the console a lump, but I’d call it the entire personality.

Dressed Like a Museum Piece, Named Like a Pantheon

AULA CNC-machines the one-piece chassis from aluminum, then finishes it in one of four colors named after deities. Venus is anodized silver, Hades anodized black, Selene anodized gray, and Athena gets an electrophoretic white coating. Bonus mythology lesson: Venus is Roman, so one deity snuck in from the neighbors. The keycaps are aluminum too, flat around the edges with a gentle curve in the center. Full metal keycaps are still a rarity on mass-produced boards, and on a walnut desk the whole thing looks like it belongs in a museum gift shop.

AULA’s manifesto argues that the Renaissance put people back at the center of the world five centuries ago, and that the Neos 75 now puts the keyboard back in human hands. It’s a big claim for a typing device, and the copywriting got roasted online. The details are more interesting. Lowercase legends like “ho.me” and “p.up” give the keys a playful voice, and “Reason & Emotion” is printed on the Enter key. A line of text runs along the spacebar, and the screen’s default face pairs the clock with a glowing statue. Teardowns also show a custom curve across the letter keys and fold-out feet.

Gasket Guts and a Price Tag Worth Talking About

Inside, a gasket mount cushions the typing assembly, backed by layers of PORON foam, an IXPE switch pad, and a PET sheet intended to shape the sound. The switches are custom low-profile units built with Kailh, sitting in hot-swappable sockets, with linear and tactile options available. The board supports wired, 2.4GHz, and Bluetooth connections, with a 4,200mAh battery housed in its own compartment. VIA compatibility and AULA’s A HUB 3.0 software provide remapping options on Windows and macOS. The board measures about 14.7 × 4.8 × 1.2 inches (372.8 × 122.3 × 29.65mm), including the extra console.

China preorders opened at ¥1,299.1 (roughly $180), down from a list price of ¥1,599.1 (about $225). Official US pricing hasn’t been announced, and AULA lists the global launch as coming soon. This is the brand’s first move into four-figure RMB pricing, putting it up against low-profile favorites like the NuPhy Air75 and the Lofree Flow. Neither combines a screen, metal knobs, and aluminum keycaps in one package.

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A rare Sony Walkman now powers this gorgeous wooden cassette tape wall

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Cassettes are selling again, which means more people own tapes and have nowhere sensible to put them. US buyers picked up 436,400 cassettes in 2023 according to Luminate, up from about 80,000 in 2015, and storage has mostly stayed stuck in the plastic-rack era. Love Hultén’s fix is a wall-mounted unit built for a client named Melted Veldt, combining a rack for around 54 tapes with a player built from a late-1990s Sony Walkman WM-EX655. Up top, a brushed aluminum panel holds a tiny oscilloscope screen, a speaker grille, and keyboard-style transport keys. Hang it up, slide in a tape, and your music collection becomes the decor.

Hultén works out of Gothenburg, Sweden, and has spent years turning old tech into handmade wooden oddities, from an IBM-inspired tape cabinet to a crane-driven record player. This piece is calmer than most of his work, but the details are pure Hultén. Engraved lines on the faceplate connect the knobs and buttons like a circuit diagram. The oscilloscope wiggles along to whatever’s playing, which is useless in the best possible way. A slot under the screen shows off the current tape’s J-card, so guests know exactly what you’re making them listen to.

Designer: Love Hultén

Sony built the WM-EX655 between 1997 and 1999, wrapping it in a diamond-patterned aluminum shell it claimed was 2.8 times tougher than its predecessor’s. It also packed auto reverse and Dolby B, a noise reduction system that tamed the hiss every tape fan knows by heart. Hultén mounts the mechanism behind a rounded window, so you can watch the reels spin while the music plays. He said this would probably be his last such build, since grade-A Walkmans are getting hard to source. Battery figures for this unit aren’t public, though his original C-52 reportedly managed more than 40 hours per charge, which is long enough to forget where the cable lives.

Brushed aluminum, a gridded speaker grille, and a screen with rounded corners recall 1960s and 1970s electronics, when Braun radios and portable TVs made metal panels feel like the future. The transport keys are sculpted like mechanical keyboard caps, three in gray and one colored play key that stands out at a glance. Two toggle switches marked PW-ON and CH-ON sit above them, next to a red indicator LED. Two small aluminum knobs sit under the screen, each set into an engraved dial reminiscent of an old TV’s tuning controls. The panel looks complicated from across the room, but up close, the controls are straightforward.

Below the deck, three columns of slots hold roughly 54 cassettes, each lying flat with its spine facing out. Hultén made a point of the horizontal storage in his post, and it turns the collection into something you browse like a bookshelf. Judging by the standard cassette cases, I estimate the whole unit stands about 25 inches tall and 15 inches wide (roughly 65 x 38 cm). That makes it a bit shorter than the C-52, which measured about 31 x 14 x 3 inches (78 x 35 x 7 cm) and used dual round speakers instead of a single grille. The flat top doubles as a tiny shelf, already home to a vase and a spare clear tape.

If you just want to play tapes, FiiO’s CP13 costs around $90, with an aluminum shell that nods to Sony’s original 1979 TPS-L2 Walkman. Your tapes still need somewhere to go, though. Hultén’s piece keeps the player and the collection together, with every spine on display. This one is a one-off commission for Melted Veldt and isn’t for sale, but if cassettes keep selling like this, I hope somebody builds a production version and copies the keycaps exactly.

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Kord and Bark Give a Power Strip a Wooden Case Worth Leaving on Display

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Power strips tend to get the least glamorous spot in a room, usually behind furniture or underneath a desk. That’s understandable when the alternative is leaving a plastic block beside your carefully chosen furnishings. Kord and Bark Sweden offer another option with their Wooden Case for Cuboid+, wrapping the compact power strip in reclaimed elm that looks more at home beside wooden furniture.

The shape remains fairly simple, with a broad square top, softly rounded edges, and circular openings around the sides. Those openings leave the sockets accessible, while two smaller cutouts accommodate the USB-C ports and a notch clears the cable. The wood changes the surrounding surfaces rather than disguising what the object does. It still looks like somewhere to plug things in, thankfully.

Designer: Gustav Rosén (Kord) x Bark Sweden

The case doesn’t add any outlets or charging features, of course. The Cuboid+ underneath still supplies three sockets and two USB-C ports, letting a lamp and charging cables share one compact connection point. Kord says the shell slides on and off, so changing its appearance doesn’t require buying another power strip simply because the old one no longer suits the rest of the room.

The material has a more specific history than the usual reference to Scandinavian forests. According to Kord and Bark, the elm grew beside the River Tidan at Åreberg Farm in Sweden’s Skaraborg region. When Dutch elm disease forced the tree to be felled, Bark reclaimed the timber. Its natural variations now give the cases different patterns, despite their otherwise identical shapes.

Getting that timber around an existing electrical product takes more than carving out a rough opening. Bark uses precision woodworking and CNC machining to shape the cases, which are designed and manufactured in Sweden. The curved edges and carefully placed apertures follow the Cuboid+’s layout, leaving the elm to supply the decoration. There’s no need to print a pattern when the material already provides one.

There’s a personal connection behind the two companies, too. Kord’s co-founder and Bark’s founder studied mechanical engineering together at KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm before following their own paths in design and manufacturing. Their reunion is a fairly practical meeting of those skills, matching the existing Cuboid+ geometry with Bark’s experience in machining reclaimed hardwood into everyday accessories.

Kord’s Swedish list price is SEK 695 (about $70) starting November 14, 2026, with the Cuboid+ sold separately. For US consumers, there’s another consideration before getting attached to that grain. The Cuboid+ uses European Schuko Type F outlets, rather than the sockets found in American homes.

Of course, a wooden shell won’t untangle the leads or hide the chargers plugged into those round openings. It also adds material around a perfectly functional device, even if that material has been reclaimed. What changes is where you might be willing to leave it. Reaching beside the sofa to charge a phone sounds preferable to fishing behind it for a power strip you’ve hidden.

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Sony puts a glass-free 3D anime display on your desk with ELF-MN1

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Sony has just launched the ELF-MN1, a compact but screenless 3D LCD for viewing compatible digital figures, special content, and anime avatars without glasses or a headset. The 6-inch glass-free display is based on a transparent acrylic stand and allows you to view media from a laptop or smartphone.

The ELF-MN1 display is designed to use eye-tracking that allows the best view of the 1,080×2,160 3D image to the viewer. According to Sony, the new media display, with a pixel density of 403ppi, which is easily the highest among Sony’s Spatial Reality Devices, measures 77mm wide, 154mm high, and 94.5mm deep. It has an approximate weight of 300g, making it compact and convenient to place on a desk or side table.

Designer: Sony

The new one is easy to connect to a smartphone or laptop, but it would require them to have a certain configuration. For instance, the phone needs to have a fast processor and a USB-C port with DP Alt Mode, or a desktop/laptop with at least 16GB RAM and USB-C supporting 4K 60P output. A compatible, fast processor is a prerequisite as well. If you have the conditions checked, you can get the ELF-MN1 home with its 3,840 x 2,160-pixel, 60 Hz LCD panel that touts a 1,350:1 contrast ratio.

Interesting to the viewer, the display has a maximum brightness of 470 nits and offers a premium 403 ppi pixel density. But the 3D image can be created for one user looking at the screen only; for others, the displayed anime avatar may look distorted. The built-in IR sensor on the display tracks the viewer’s eyes in real time to detect their position in the environment and then accordingly adjust the stereoscopic image.

The stereoscopic image is created with real-time video generation technology that can be viewed best from 30cm to 80cm away. According to the information, the eye tracking presents different perspectives to each eye, creating the appearance of depth without the need for glasses or a headset. And the 3D effect thus created can hold its effect and image clarity when the viewer changes position.

Sony says the ELF-MN1 supports HoloModel digital figures from Gugenka. So, you get licensed anime characters from the service’s content library as 3D collectibles that can appear on the display without a physical model. The display features a one-watt stereo speaker so that you can even hear the sounds that the digital figures and anime avatars make.

According to information shared by Sony, the ELF-MN1 will be available for in-person testing in Sony Stores in Japan starting November 20. It will, however, go on sale in Japan on December 11 for 54,000 yen (approximately $340).

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SOOOT Box Prototype Turns Punched Paper Cards Into Audio Controls

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Starting a podcast shouldn’t require navigating past messages, notifications, and whatever else your phone has decided needs attention. Of course, that phone also holds the controls for much of what you’re trying to enjoy. The SOOOT Box offers another arrangement, using punched paper cards to select sounds and functions. This working prototype makes choosing digital content feel closer to picking from a deck.

The box itself keeps things rather restrained, with a black, elevated body, a tilted front, speaker grilles on either side, and a slot across the top. A sparse red LED matrix supplies animation without turning the front into another screen full of menus. The colorful cards provide the more conspicuous decoration, staying visible above the enclosure so you can see what’s been asked to play.

Designer: three-2-one GmbH

Those cards aren’t miniature storage devices, despite having content associated with them. Made from playing-card stock, they contain no electronics, with their identity determined by their pattern of punched holes. Insert a content card and playback starts; pull it out and playback stops. You can write or draw on the surface, giving a favorite sound a label that actually means something to you.

The more interesting trick comes when you insert several cards together. SOOOT accepts up to four at once, letting one function modify another. Its sourdough example pairs a 30-minute timer with a x4 card to mark four rounds of stretching and folding. Rather than find a setting buried inside a timer app, you assemble the instruction from pieces sitting on the kitchen counter.

That logic follows you to the bedside table. Combine an audio card with a Sleep Timer card, and the sound gradually fades after the selected time. A Motion Sensor card changes the routine again, enabling playback when someone enters the room. Leave several soundscape cards inserted, and the box can greet each arrival with something different, without anyone reaching for a phone.

A built-in battery lets the box move between those spots without trailing a power cord. Soundscapes, timers, and stored audio files also work offline, although streaming still needs a connection. There’s a microphone for functions such as Party Mode, which turns surrounding sound into red LED animations. The studio says it activates only when needed, with an indicator showing when it’s listening.

The smartphone hasn’t been banished completely, of course. A companion app for iOS and Android handles Wi-Fi setup, settings, and preparing Custom Cards for your own content or functions. It’s still in development, so this isn’t a finished alternative you can already put through its paces at home. The aim is to leave that app alone once the everyday controls are ready.

SOOOT was presented at Dutch Design Week this month, with a commercial launch planned for 2027. There’s an appealing tradeoff here: fewer things to hunt for inside a screen, but more little objects to keep track of around the house. A deck of paper controls might be easier to understand than another menu, provided your favorite podcast hasn’t disappeared underneath the sofa.

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Arctic Fox’s Super Mouse Doubles as a Touchscreen Control Console

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Computer mice have gained extra buttons and faster sensors, but most still leave the complicated work to your keyboard. Arctic Fox’s Super Mouse takes a rather different approach, putting a 3.1-inch touchscreen where you’d normally expect a plain palm rest. The idea is to bring shortcuts, quick typing, and even your calendar onto the device sitting underneath your hand throughout the working day.

That screen gives the mouse an unusual silhouette, closer to a tiny control console than the rounded pebble many of us are accustomed to. A broad, almost rectangular body has flared sides, with conventional click buttons and a black scroll wheel at the front. Yellow, white, and gray finishes offer personalities, although the yellow version isn’t interested in disappearing into your desk.

Designer: Arctic Fox

The 720×720 display changes what those fingers can do once they’ve finished clicking. Through the Flow app, you can build layouts for different programs, assign shortcuts, and create macros for repeated tasks. A designer could keep editing commands nearby, then switch to playback controls for another project. Two physical Hyper Keys offer another way to trigger commands without tapping the glass.

That same surface can become a multitouch trackpad, letting you navigate without sliding the mouse around. An on-screen keyboard offers swipe typing for short messages or quick edits, though squeezing a keyboard onto a mouse doesn’t make it a sensible place to write a novel. Arctic Fox promises haptic feedback, giving touchscreen interactions a physical response instead of relying on visual confirmation.

There’s more ordinary housekeeping tucked into that little screen, too. Google Calendar integration is intended to put appointments and reminders within reach, while a calculator saves you from opening another window just to check a number. The Rapid Task feature goes further, launching multiple browser tabs together. Preparing a familiar workspace could become one action, rather than the same routine repeated every morning.

Some controls don’t involve the screen at all. Built-in microphones support voice-to-text for notes or labels, while gyro controls let tilting and rotating the mouse trigger commands for presentations or media. These are different ways of interacting with the same object, rather than more buttons to memorize. Their usefulness, however, depends on how reliably the software translates those movements and spoken words.

The Super Mouse connects through a USB-C cable, with Windows and macOS listed as supported platforms. Flow handles the customized layouts and integrations, so this isn’t a miniature computer you can use independently. That cable might feel rather old-fashioned beside the colorful touchscreen, but it also makes the relationship clear. The software behind the screen matters as much as anything you can press.

Of course, putting more controls underneath your hand doesn’t automatically make them any easier to use. Reading a calendar or choosing an unfamiliar shortcut still means looking down, and that broad screen changes where your palm can rest. The interesting test will be finding which tasks deserve a place on the mouse before another collection of tiny icons becomes its own distraction.

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Amazon Puts a Camera in an Echo Speaker and Alexa in a Photo Frame

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Smart home gadgets have a habit of looking like smart home gadgets, even when they’re supposed to disappear into the living room. Amazon’s latest Echo and Alexa devices try to make themselves more useful company, from a speaker that can see what you’re holding to a picture frame that finds family photos. The five-device lineup gives familiar household objects rather different jobs around the house.

The more interesting changes aren’t simply about putting Alexa into another room. Echo Studio with Home Camera adds a lens without adding a screen, while Alexa Photo Frame hides its touchscreen behind the conventions of a framed print. Most of the lineup is available now, though Echo Show 16 remains on preorder. Certain features require Alexa+, included with Amazon Prime or available separately for $19.99 a month in the US.

Designer: Amazon

The $249.99 Echo Studio with Home Camera keeps its rounded, fabric-covered body, but a small lens now shares the circular control panel. Amazon says you can hold up a board game and ask Alexa+ to explain its rules, or check on the dog through Live View. Dolby Atmos remains part of the audio package. A button disables the microphones and camera, although there’s no physical shutter covering that new eye.

The Alexa Photo Frame, meanwhile, goes out of its way to look less technological. A 10-inch anti-glare touchscreen sits inside textured white matting, with Black starting at $199.99 and real Birch or Walnut frames at $229. Amazon Photos supplies the pictures, while voice requests find people, pets, or trips. Amazon says Alexa+ skips screenshots and receipts, which is reassuring when your camera roll doubles as a drawer for digital clutter.

The $99.99 Echo Dot keeps the familiar fabric-wrapped sphere, available in colors including Agave Green and Coral Pink. There’s more happening underneath than another speaker refresh, however. Its built-in hub supports Zigbee, Matter, and Thread devices, while eero owners can extend their compatible network. That gives the little ball a useful second job, controlling lights and compatible accessories without requiring yet another hub to find room for on a shelf.

The bedroom gets a more deliberate omission. Echo Time has a 3.2-inch circular touchscreen and no camera, thankfully, with hundreds of clock faces to change its personality. The $199.99 clock dims at night and gradually brightens before an alarm. Amazon says its optional sleep sensing uses ultrasound to help time your wake-up, without a wearable. Camera-free doesn’t mean sensor-free, of course, though you can leave that monitoring switched off entirely.

Echo Dot

Kids Echo Dot

Echo Time

Echo Time

The Echo Show 16 gives the kitchen a much more conspicuous 16-inch Full HD display surrounded by an anodized aluminum frame. Screen Styles let you prioritize calendars, smart home controls, or photos, while built-in Fire TV supplies entertainment. Standard pricing is $499.99, or $569.99 with Nanomatte glass, with $100 off preorders. Shipping starts later this year. Stands cost extra, so keeping it off the wall means adding something to the bill.

There’s something appealing about a smart home that doesn’t require every room to look like a gadget showroom. These designs give Alexa a more familiar place to settle in, but the choices still matter. A camera beside the sofa deserves more thought than a new fabric color. Before clearing another shelf, it’s worth deciding which household routines could actually use the help, and which are doing perfectly well already.

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This DIY PlayStation 2 Handheld Gives a Foldable Phone Screen a New Job

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The PlayStation 2 was never something you could casually slip into a bag, unless you planned to bring a screen and controller along for the ride. The PlayStation 2 DUO brings those pieces together in an unofficial DIY handheld with an unusual trick. Its screen actually bends in the middle, letting you fold the console when it’s time to put the game away.

There’s plenty of familiar territory around that unfamiliar fold. A purple shell surrounds the display, with a D-pad and the four recognizable PlayStation symbols sitting above two analog sticks. Start and Select occupy the upper corners, while speaker grilles sit below the controls. The arrangement looks reassuringly conventional, which is probably helpful when the screen between your hands is doing something rather unconventional.

Designer: LCLDIY

That screen is a single flexible panel, rather than two separate displays interrupted by a hinge. The project’s earlier development notes describe a 7.8-inch screen salvaged from a foldable phone. It gives the DUO a generous central canvas when opened, without committing the handheld to that same width inside a bag. Of course, making a screen bend doesn’t make its limitations magically disappear.

The panel needs room to curve, and forcing it into a sharp fold would damage it. That requirement shaped the casing and its hinge, leaving a broad bend instead of squeezing the halves completely flat together. It’s a less tidy package than a closed clamshell might suggest, but the extra space has a practical purpose: keeping that delicate display in one piece.

There’s genuine PlayStation 2 hardware inside as well, rather than a newer computer pretending to be Sony’s console. Getting it to fit required cutting down the original motherboard and rearranging its supporting electronics. A 3D-printed enclosure brings everything together, turning equipment once tethered to a television into something you can hold between both hands. The nostalgia extends beyond the buttons, in other words.

The folding body makes the electronics more complicated, of course. Separate control boards occupy the two sides, with a ribbon cable linking them across the center. The trimmed motherboard also carries a small cooling fan and heatsink. There’s quite a bit happening underneath that playful exterior, particularly for a device whose moving parts include the surface you’re supposed to be staring at.

Folding it up reduces the footprint, but doesn’t automatically make this a pocket console. The published project information doesn’t establish its weight, closed dimensions, or battery runtime, so there’s little reason to start planning an entire flight around it. More importantly, this is a completed hobby build, not an upcoming Sony handheld with a price tag and a place on store shelves.

Enclosure printing files and a PCB archive are available on the project page, although they don’t amount to a complete assembly guide. Recreating the DUO still involves board modification and careful work around a flexible display. That might temper the urge to make one immediately, especially if your experience with PlayStation hardware mostly involves inserting discs rather than cutting up circuit boards.

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Logitech’s MX Master 4 Developer Edition Is a Mouse Full of Coding Easter Eggs

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Productivity mice aren’t usually the most expressive things on a desk. Their unusual curves and extra buttons often say more about work than the person doing it. Logitech’s MX Master 4 Developer Edition takes a slightly different approach, covering its familiar shape in programming references. The limited-edition mouse keeps the standard model’s features, but gives developers something a little more personal to reach for.

Rather than stick to a single muted color, the mouse pairs light gray buttons with a dark palm rest and bright yellow-green accents. Fine circuit-like lines spread across the front, while coding symbols sit beside the controls. It’s a busier treatment than the regular version, of course, but the graphics follow the mouse’s existing divisions instead of covering everything in one continuous pattern.

Designer: Logitech

Some references are easier to recognize than others. A Hello, World greeting runs along the thumb rest, while smaller markings include 0xFF + 1 and 09.17. Logitech links those last two to Programmers’ Day and the Linux kernel’s release date. You don’t have to understand them to use the mouse, thankfully, although knowing the references does make its decoration feel rather less random.

Underneath that artwork, the familiar sculpted body remains, including a raised back and a broad platform for your right thumb. That thumb gets quite a few responsibilities, with a horizontal scroll wheel, side buttons, and the Haptic Sense Panel within reach. The asymmetric shape hasn’t become ambidextrous for this edition, so left-handed programmers are still left admiring the graphics from the wrong side.

The MagSpeed wheel handles the more familiar business of moving through long documents and code. It switches between stepped scrolling and free-spinning movement, letting you work line by line or move farther through a page. The thumb wheel provides horizontal navigation, which is useful when the thing you’re working on refuses to fit neatly inside a window, as spreadsheets have a habit of doing.

The ripples on the thumb panel hint at another kind of feedback. Rather than relying entirely on what happens onscreen, the mouse can deliver vibrations for supported actions and notifications. Logitech lets users adjust their intensity and customize app-specific feedback through Logi Options+. That doesn’t mean every application suddenly gains a sense of touch, but compatible interactions can have a physical cue.

Pressing the panel also opens Actions Ring, an onscreen collection of shortcuts arranged around the cursor. You can assign tools and macros through Options+, putting frequently used commands near where you’re already working. There is a small irony here, however. Despite the Linux reference on the shell, Logitech doesn’t provide a Linux version of Options+ for configuring that particular shortcut system.

The Developer Edition is listed for US preorder at $119.99, with shipping scheduled to start October 31, 2026. Since its functions match the standard MX Master 4, the choice comes down to how much personality you’d like under your hand. Existing owners won’t find new capabilities here, though the temptation to coordinate a keyboard, desk mat, and everything else remains.

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