Tag Archives: phones

Huawei Finally Fixed the One Flaw That Followed Its Tri-Fold Phone

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Huawei’s original tri-fold phone made headlines for unfolding into a tablet, but closing it back down left one part of the flexible screen exposed to scratches and pocket grit. The Mate XT 2 Ultimate Design fixes that flaw at the architecture level, not with a case. Instead of the old zigzag fold, a new wing-style hinge tucks both sides of the screen inward, so every part of the display faces itself once it’s closed.

That trick rests on a second-generation hinge system built around a dual-axis wing structure and an industry-first connecting-rod synchronization mechanism, keeping both folding axes moving in perfect step. The load-bearing core uses 2,400 MPa steel arranged in a five-arm arc, an upgrade that pushes overall impact resistance up 100 percent and drop resistance up 90 percent compared to the outgoing model.

Designer: Huawei

Unfold it fully, and a 10.2-inch 3K OLED panel spreads out at a 90Hz refresh rate, easily the largest screen tri-fold owners have gotten yet. Keep it folded and a 6.5-inch cover display takes over instead, running at 120Hz with peak brightness reaching 6,500 nits. Switching between the two feels less like opening a phone and more like choosing between a notebook and a full tablet.

A hardware privacy mode sits at the center of that inner display too, using an independent dual-pixel design that narrows the viewing cone from the sides while keeping the view sharp head-on. A double tap on the cover screen or a dedicated shortcut key switches it on, so a crowded train seat or an open-plan desk doesn’t turn into a screen-sharing session anyone asked for.

Protection extends to the materials themselves. The cover glass gets a Kunlun treatment that survives 30 times more drops and 16 times more scratches than ordinary glass, while the inner screen layers ultra-thin aerospace-grade steel and carbon fiber beneath the display for 200 percent better impact resistance. Over 120 sealing points across the body also make this the first tri-fold rated IP58 and IP59 for dust and water.

The rear camera module carries the distinctive octagon shape that Huawei’s flagships have been sporting for quite some time now. Underneath sit a 50MP main sensor with a variable aperture, a 40MP ultra-wide lens, and a 50MP periscope telephoto capable of 100x digital zoom. A third-generation color engine tunes the results for tones that hold up without heavy editing.

Powering all of it is the Kirin 9050 Pro, built on Huawei’s LogicFolding architecture rather than a conventional layout, which the company says raises transistor density by 53.5 percent and clock speeds by 12.7 percent. HarmonyOS 7 takes advantage of the extra room by running three apps side by side on the unfolded display, treating the tri-fold shape as a genuine workspace instead of a novelty.

None of this bulks up the phone the way its spec sheet suggests. A 5,600mAh battery charges at 66W over a cable or 50W wirelessly, and the whole device still folds down to 12.3mm while weighing 299 grams. Pricing starts at CNY 19,999 (approximately $2,800) in China, climbing to CNY 29,999 (approximately $4,200) for the privacy-screen version bundled with a stylus.

The post Huawei Finally Fixed the One Flaw That Followed Its Tri-Fold Phone first appeared on Yanko Design.

Xiaomi 18 Fold Hands-On: Got Here Before Apple, Can It Beat Samsung?

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Xiaomi has chosen an interesting moment to return to foldables. The company has not released a book-style foldable since the Mix Fold 4, which launched in 2024, and now it is back with the Xiaomi 18 Fold just as compact foldables are starting to get more attention. Samsung has also added a foldable in this compact format to its lineup, and Apple is widely expected to unveil its first foldable iPhone at its September 9 event with a similar form factor in mind.

That puts the Xiaomi 18 Fold in an interesting spot. It is not just Xiaomi coming back to foldables after a break. It is also arriving just as this smaller book-style format looks like it could become the next big thing.

Designer: Xiaomi

Xiaomi is positioning the 18 Fold as its first mid-size flagship foldable. It weighs 7.73 ounces (219g), measures 0.42 inches thick when folded (10.68mm), and opens out to just 0.20 inches thick (5.02mm), with a folded footprint of 4.64 x 3.29 inches (117.8 x 83.6mm). In person, it feels thin, though not unusually thin by the standards of today’s premium foldables. More importantly, it feels expensive in a good way. The matte texture on the back and frame gives it a softer, understated finish, while the rounded corners and flat frame help the phone look clean and modern.

The unit I handled was the deep red version, and it is a bold color in person. It stands out more than the usual black or silver foldable palette without feeling too loud. It also happens to echo the deep red finish rumored for Apple’s first foldable, which makes the comparison hard to miss. The 18 Fold comes in Black, White, Red, and a Ceramic Version.

In practice, though, this is still a two-handed phone whether it is folded or unfolded. Even closed, the body is compact in one sense but still broad enough that I did not think of it as something built for easy one-handed use. That is not really a criticism. It just comes with the territory.

The outer display is a 5.38-inch panel, while the inside opens up to a 7.58-inch main screen. Xiaomi says both displays share the same aspect ratio, which is meant to make the transition from one to the other feel more natural. I could not fully judge how well that works in daily use from a short demo, but one benefit stood out right away. Video felt more immersive than on squarer foldables because there was less black bar space above and below the image.

The software also looked well suited to the shape. Animations felt smooth in my brief demo, and I did see split-screen and floating window support in action. The unfolded UI felt more like a small tablet than a stretched phone, which is what you want on a device like this. Xiaomi has also placed one speaker on the top edge and another on the bottom edge on the opposite side, which should help give the phone a more balanced stereo effect when it is open.

The hinge left a good first impression too. I cannot really say whether it felt especially firm or especially smooth, because my time with the device was limited, but it did feel sturdy. The crease was handled well too. Looking straight at the display, I only really noticed it from certain angles rather than all the time. More importantly, I could barely feel it when running a finger across the center, which was better than I expected.

Left: Xiaomi 18 Fold, Right: Galaxy Z Fold 8

Left: Galaxy Z Fold 8, Right: Xiaomi 18 Fold

Left: Galaxy Z Fold 8, Right: Xiaomi 18 Fold

I also compared the Xiaomi 18 Fold side by side with Samsung’s Galaxy Z Fold 8. Samsung’s device measures 4.88 x 3.22 x 0.38 inches when folded (123.9 x 81.9 x 9.7mm), 6.35 x 4.88 x 0.18 inches when unfolded (161.4 x 123.9 x 4.5cm), and weighs 7.09 ounces (201g), so it is a little lighter and a bit thinner than Xiaomi’s foldable in some areas. But the difference was not just about dimensions. Samsung’s inner screen was noticeably brighter to my eyes. At the same time, the Xiaomi 18 Fold had one practical advantage that stood out immediately. When placed on a desk, it did not wobble, while the Samsung did.

Left: Galaxy Z Fold 8, Right: Xiaomi 18 Fold

Left: Galaxy Z Fold 8, Right: Xiaomi 18 Fold

Top: Xiaomi 18 Fold, Bottom: Galaxy Z Fold 8

The biggest surprise for me was the camera. Xiaomi is using a 200MP Leica triple-camera system, led by a 200MP main camera and backed by a 50MP Leica periscope telephoto with an 80mm equivalent focal length. In my short time with the phone, the telephoto camera was the part that stuck with me most. I tried zoom, and the 3.5x telephoto setup immediately felt like one of the most interesting parts of the device. Stability also felt good even at higher magnification, which made the zoom feel more usable, not just more dramatic. The camera bump also did not seem overly large, and its oval-shaped, two-step raised design gives it some presence without taking over the whole back.

My time with the Xiaomi 18 Fold was brief, and this hands-on really only scratched the surface. Even so, the phone already feels like a polished return to book-style foldables. Pricing starts at RMB 10,999, or roughly $1,640, for the 12GB/256GB model, and Xiaomi said it will be available in China only for now.

The post Xiaomi 18 Fold Hands-On: Got Here Before Apple, Can It Beat Samsung? first appeared on Yanko Design.

Most Rugged Phones Hide From Heat, This One Has Two Fans to Fight It

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Rugged phones have always made a quiet trade-off. Sealing a device against water and dust means sealing in heat too, and that trapped warmth forces powerful chips to slow themselves down right when gaming or heavy use needs them most. OUKITEL’s WP600, unveiled at IFA 2026, treats that compromise as something worth engineering around, building visible cooling straight into its armor rather than hiding the problem under a tougher shell.

That solution shows up immediately on the back of the phone, where two turbine-style fans sit inside an octagonal housing next to the camera lenses. Rather than tucking cooling components away, OUKITEL frames them as part of the visual identity, finished in a gunmetal tone with RGB lighting that shifts through purples, oranges, and blues while the fans spin during demanding sessions.

Designer: Oukitel

Underneath that display sits a MediaTek Dimensity 8300 chip running at 3.35GHz, paired with up to 24GB of RAM and a full terabyte of storage in its top configuration. Active airflow means that hardware can stay at full speed through a long gaming session in direct sun, instead of throttling the moment internal temperatures climb, the usual fate of sealed devices pushed hard outdoors.

A 10,000mAh battery backs up that sustained performance, large enough to outlast a full day of mixed use, camera work, and gaming without needing a midday top-up. When charging is needed, 45W wired input gets things moving again quickly, keeping downtime short for anyone relying on the phone through fieldwork, travel, or a weekend away from outlets.

Privacy gets a physical answer instead of a software toggle buried in settings. A dedicated switch, styled as a bright red accent against the phone’s black and metallic paneling, physically disconnects the camera, microphone, and GPS at once. It is the kind of control that matters to fieldworkers or anyone stepping into a sensitive meeting who wants certainty that nothing is listening or tracking, not just a setting that claims to be off.

The rest of the chassis carries that same rugged-but-considered language throughout. Exposed hex screws, ridged texture strips along the frame, and a carbon-fiber-patterned panel insert surrounding the camera module all read as intentional detailing rather than leftover industrial parts. A 6.8-inch, 120Hz display handles the front, while the whole package comes finished in either black or yellow, playing into the tool-like character rugged phones usually lean into.

None of this asks buyers to choose between toughness and capability anymore. A phone built to survive drops and submersion can still run demanding software at full tilt, provided the cooling behind it gets treated as a design feature rather than an afterthought bolted on for a spec sheet.

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TECNO’s 6mm Phone Has 6,000mAh Inside and a Van Gogh Finish Outside

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Most slim phones treat thinness as the entire pitch, shaving millimeters off a slab until battery life and durability quietly take the hit. TECNO’s CAMON Slim 5G, unveiled at IFA 2026, refuses that trade-off outright. At 6.39mm thin, it still packs a 6,000mAh battery and passes military-grade drop testing, treating slimness as one part of a larger design statement rather than the whole point.

That statement starts with a body borrowed from unlikely references. TECNO built the CAMON Slim 5G around a swan-neck curve, pulling its lines from ballet dancers and automotive silhouettes rather than the usual flat rectangle. The result reads less like a spec sheet decision and more like an object shaped by motion, something that happens to also fit comfortably into one hand during a commute.

Designer: TECNO

Color does the rest of the storytelling. Burgundy Red pairs fiberglass with a velvet matte finish for a warm, wine-toned grip, while Neo Mondrian hides its personality entirely, appearing plain white until ultraviolet light coaxes out a Piet Mondrian grid across the back. Matisse Black punches a fluorescent green accent through a black fiberglass shell, and Van Gogh Blue uses a gradient coating that makes Starry Night’s swirl look like it is actually rotating.

Photography gets the same attention to intent rather than raw numbers. A 50MP Sony LYTIA 700C sensor anchors the main camera, but the standout is Super-Zoom FlashSnap, which watches for a moment rather than waiting for someone to press the shutter. A dance leap, a soccer strike, or a dog mid-jump gets frozen automatically, with shutter speeds fast enough to catch motion that would blur on slower hardware.

TECNO also ships a small magnetic companion called the Mag Badge, snapping onto the back with its own battery and a 1.73-inch AMOLED display. It works as a photo badge, a remote shutter from up to 10 meters away, and a selfie preview screen, turning group photos or tripod shots into something that does not require sprinting back to check the frame.

Software leans practical rather than flashy. AI Snap Poster lets small merchants turn a quick product photo into a styled listing image, dropping items into a home or beach setting without a photo studio. AI LightMaster 2.0 cleans up shadows and glare after the fact, while AI Recording Notes turns lecture audio into structured notes synced to whiteboard photos, useful well beyond a classroom.

Underneath the art direction sits an IP69K-rated shell built to survive kitchen splashes, gym sweat, and actual rain, backed by touch recognition tuned for wet or oily fingers. A MediaTek Dimensity 7300e chip handles daily performance, paired with 5 years of security updates, a commitment that outlasts what most phones in this segment promise. Pricing and availability will roll out market by market in the coming months.

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PITAKA Turned a Berlin Bunker Into a Wheat Field For Their New Aramid Case Collection at IFA 2026

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There is a long gold tapestry cascading down a concrete bunker wall in Berlin right now, and it feels nothing like what it is actually made of. Run your hand across it and your brain says silk. Your eyes say wheat field caught mid gust. Neither answer is correct. What you are actually touching is aramid fiber, the same aerospace grade material that shows up in body armor and fighter jets, rated at up to five times the strength of steel by weight. PITAKA spent 10,000 plus hours figuring out how to make something this tough feel this soft, and the payoff is standing right there on the wall.

This was the setting for Signals in the Wind, PITAKA’s first ever solo brand event, held during IFA week at The Feuerle Collection. The whole night revolved around one new case collection called Wind Over Wheat, and honestly, once you have felt the tapestry, the name stops sounding like marketing copy and starts making a lot more sense.

Designer: Pitaka

The venue choice alone deserves its own article.. Feuerle is a converted WWII telecommunications bunker with two meter thick walls, the kind of building that was engineered to survive things silk never has to think about. PITAKA filled that stripped back concrete shell with almost nothing except the tapestry, a handful of case displays mounted on slim black stands, and a soundscape by Berlin based composer Temple Rat, built from field recordings of wind moving through wheat. The cases themselves stood at uneven heights along the walk, which sounds like a small styling choice until you realize it is doing exactly what real wheat does in a field, growing unevenly, catching light differently depending on how the wind hit it that day.

Wind Over Wheat comes in three finishes, each named like a tiny poem. Golden Drift is wheat under full sun. Surging Awn is younger wheat still gathering strength. Berlin Nocturne is the same field fading into night, a nod to the city hosting the whole thing. All three are built using Trace Form, PITAKA’s new technique that intentionally lets certain fibers stray from their programmed path, so the texture ends up looking a little different every single time. Less assembly line, more happy accident.

Then the night ended in the best possible place. Guests moved up from the bunker’s underground galleries to Feuerle’s terrace, which turned out to have its own patch of tall, wheat like grasses growing right there in the open air. It is the kind of detail you cannot plan around unless you got extremely lucky with venue selection, and it closed the loop on the whole theme in a way no projector or soundscape could. Standing on a rooftop with real grass swaying next to a case built to mimic that exact motion is a pretty satisfying way to end an event about materials and perception.

Wind Over Wheat’s limited Trace Form Edition launches September 17, with pre-orders opening September 9th. If you are at IFA Berlin this week, PITAKA’s main booth is in Hall 5.2, Booth 209.

The post PITAKA Turned a Berlin Bunker Into a Wheat Field For Their New Aramid Case Collection at IFA 2026 first appeared on Yanko Design.

TCL’s P80 Pro and Ultra Are the Phones That Replaced Your Kindle Too

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TCL’s P80 Ultra and P80 Pro prove a phone screen doesn’t have to pick one personality and stick with it. Unveiled at IFA 2026 in Berlin, both handsets fold a vivid AMOLED panel and TCL’s paper-like NXTPAPER technology into the same sheet of glass, letting the display shift moods with a flick of a switch instead of forcing a trade-off between color and comfort.

Run a finger along the frame, and you’ll find a thin slider, a small physical detail that carries plenty of weight in daily use. Slide it, and the 6.83-inch panel drops its saturation, taking on a warmer, textured look that mimics a printed page. A commuter buried in a novel or someone proofreading a document late at night gets a screen that behaves like paper, without losing the sharpness underneath.

Designer: TCL

Push that same slider one notch further, and the screen drops color entirely for Max Ink Mode, a stripped layout that silences notifications except for calls and texts. It reads like a design decision as much as a software one, TCL betting people want to quiet their phone rather than mute it completely. The payoff is a battery that can stretch across roughly a week of steady reading.

That reading-first mindset carries into the software too. Both phones can convert e-books into audiobooks or podcast-style narration using on-device AI, giving Max Ink Mode a voice to lean on when eyes need a break instead of ears. It is a small addition, but it treats the slower, paper-like mode as a genuine feature rather than a bolted-on gimmick for a keynote slide.

None of that would matter if the screen looked washed out the rest of the time, so TCL leaned on a 1.5K AMOLED panel that hits 3,200 nits and covers the full DCI-P3 color range. A Nano Crystal Shield coating cuts glare enough to keep the display readable under direct sun, marking TCL’s first pairing of NXTPAPER with OLED rather than the LCD panels it used before.

The frame wrapping that screen is aluminum rather than the plastic often found at this price, giving both phones a sturdier grip without piling on bulk. TCL backs that up with an IP68 rating against dust and water, plus MIL-STD-810H certification for the inevitable drop. Buyers get to pick between Sunlit Gold, Burgundy, and Midnight Blue, three finishes that lean more toward jewelry-box color choices than typical slab-of-glass smartphone palettes.

Where the two models part ways is around the back. The P80 Ultra carries a 50-megapixel main camera next to a 50-megapixel periscope lens for 3x optical zoom, tucked into a housing shaped to avoid throwing off the phone’s balance. The P80 Pro drops the periscope for a simpler dual-camera arrangement, trading reach for a slimmer build that still shares the same main sensor and 8-megapixel ultrawide.

TCL is rolling both phones out across Europe first, with the P80 Ultra priced from €549 (around $635) and the P80 Pro starting at €429 (around $500), before a Latin American launch follows in October. A wider release is expected to reach additional regions afterward. In a category full of identical glass rectangles, these two phones actually behave differently depending on what someone needs from them that day.

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TECNO and Tonino Lamborghini Prove You Can’t Fake a Real Collab

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Slapping a famous badge on a phone’s back panel is the easy version of a brand partnership. TECNO and Tonino Lamborghini clearly wanted the harder version instead. The POVA 8 Pro 5G Tonino Lamborghini Limited Edition builds its entire identity around a black-and-red palette and a hexagon pattern lifted straight from Lamborghini’s mechanical heritage, then carries that language past the glass and into the software running underneath.

The rear panel does the heaviest visual lifting. A dual-layer stacking process gives it a reflective quality built from countless internal mirror structures that refract and redirect light, so red accents seem to surface and sink back into shadow as the phone tilts in your hand. A physical height difference between the two layers adds genuine spatial depth, echoing the layered geometry found in actual mechanical engineering rather than faking it with a printed graphic.

Designer: TECNO x Tonino Lamborghini

That commitment doesn’t stop at the hardware. A bespoke interface theme reworks dozens of icons in matching black-and-red tones with glass-like material effects, while a custom boot animation and ringtone carry the same mechanical energy into everyday use. Opening the phone in the morning feels less like waking up a generic Android device and more like starting an engine built around a specific mood.

Underneath the styling sits a dual-chipset setup pairing a MediaTek Dimensity 7400 Ultimate platform with a TECNO-built P1 Graphic Chip, backed by a vapor chamber cooling system spanning over 22,000mm² of dissipation area. That combination pushes supported titles as high as 144FPS, turning a commute or a lunch break into legitimate gaming time instead of a compromise. A dedicated one-tap button on the side keeps favorite apps and gaming shortcuts one press away.

Photography leans on a Sony-engineered LYTIA 700C sensor with a larger light-sensitive area, giving low-light shots and handheld video noticeably steadier results thanks to built-in optical stabilization. A 50MP high-pixel mode and 2x lossless zoom cover the detail-obsessed shots, while an 8MP ultra-wide lens handles group photos and landscapes without anyone needing to step backward to fit everyone in frame.

The 6.78-inch AMOLED display pushes brightness to 4,500 nits and refreshes at 144Hz, numbers that matter most outdoors under direct sun or during fast-paced gaming sessions where lag ruins the moment. A touch layer rated for wet and oily fingers keeps the screen responsive through rain, sweat, or sunscreen-covered hands, useful for anyone who refuses to put their phone down just because the weather did.

Durability rounds out the package rather than acting as an afterthought. Corning Gorilla Glass 7i, IP69-rated water and dust resistance, and SGS 5-Star Drop certification mean the phone can survive a dropped call turning into a literal drop without ending the relationship. A 6,500mAh battery retains over 80% of its health after 2,000 charge cycles, translating to roughly six years of daily use before a real decline sets in.

TECNO and Tonino Lamborghini spent more effort here proving that a licensing deal can produce something with actual mechanical thinking behind it, rather than a badge glued onto commodity hardware. The result reads less like a co-branded accessory and more like a phone that happens to share a bloodline with the cars.

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Motorola’s Swarovski Razr Was Designed to Be Seen, Not Hidden

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Motorola built a phone that asks to be noticed before it’s even unfolded. The 2026 motorola razr with Crystals by Swarovski joins the Brilliant Collection at IFA 2026, pairing Pantone’s color expertise with Swarovski’s craftsmanship on a foldable that reads less like consumer electronics and more like a clutch bag someone forgot was also a smartphone. It’s Motorola’s clearest statement yet that a phone’s exterior deserves as much attention as its chipset.

That statement starts with PANTONE Meteorite, a deep, understated shade that never competes for attention against the crystals resting on top of it. Instead, the finish creates contrast, revealing different dimensions of light and sparkle as the phone moves, so a simple pocket check under a restaurant table catches light differently than the same motion under office fluorescents. Color, in this case, does the quiet work of making everything layered on top of it shine harder.

Designer: Motorola x Swarovski

That layering happens across a quilted, leather-inspired texture that already feels premium before a single crystal enters the picture. Set against that padded surface, 35 hand-positioned Swarovski Crystals in Silver Night catch light from nearly any angle, each one placed with enough precision that the pattern reads as intentional rather than scattered. It’s the kind of detail that rewards a second glance rather than exhausting itself after the first one.

One crystal earns special treatment. A signature 32-facet Swarovski Crystal sits directly on the hinge, catching light with every flip in a way that turns the phone’s most mechanical motion into its most theatrical one. Razr’s flip has always been a small performance, and Motorola clearly understood that placing its biggest crystal exactly where the hinge pivots would turn an everyday gesture into something worth watching happen.

Motorola ships the device with a clear protective case built to frame the design without hiding it, a detail that matters more than it initially sounds. Plenty of phone cases exist purely to protect a device at the cost of concealing whatever made it desirable in the first place. Here, the case reads more like a museum vitrine than a rubber shell, letting the crystal work stay visible through daily handling.

None of that styling comes at the expense of the hardware underneath. A 6.9-inch Extreme AMOLED display unfolds for daily use, backed by a dual 50MP main camera system and a 4800mAh battery rated for more than 36 hours on a single charge. The external 3.6-inch display still runs full apps and handles notifications without requiring an unfold, keeping the phone functional even when someone’s more focused on how it catches light in a bag.

Motorola frames the Brilliant Collection as proof that technology can be both beautiful and intelligent, and this razr backs that framing with hardware that would hold its own even without a single crystal attached. Pricing lands at $899.99 when the phone arrives on Motorola.com and Amazon on September 10, with Verizon carrying it starting September 24, putting genuine jewelry-adjacent design within reach of anyone willing to treat a phone as an actual accessory.

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Acer’s Packard Bell Crashed IFA 2026 Like a Box of Crayons

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Packard Bell spent a century teaching people that new technology doesn’t have to feel intimidating, and its 100th birthday present to itself leans hard into that idea. Under Acer’s ownership, the brand relaunched at IFA 2026 with a philosophy it calls “Tech it easy,” built around a lineup that trades beige plastic and quiet corporate design for colors loud enough to notice from across a room. Four products anchor that comeback, and each one argues that everyday tech gains something when it stops taking itself so seriously.

The DotBook carries the heaviest expectations as the collection’s flagship, a 14.5-inch laptop finished in a red-orange shell bright enough to spot on a crowded coffee shop table. Weighing under 1.3 kg and measuring just 17.9mm thin, it’s built for browsing, streaming, and everyday work rather than chasing benchmark scores, backed by up to 512GB of storage and 16GB of memory running quietly under Windows 11. It’s a laptop designed to disappear into a bag, not a spec sheet debate.

Designer: Acer

Where the DotBook plays it relatively straight, the DotLoop commits fully to spectacle. Housed inside an actual briefcase shell with a 1970s silhouette, the turntable pops open to reveal a working tonearm flanked by RGB-lit speaker grilles that glow while a record spins. Two built-in 3W speakers handle sound on their own, though Bluetooth and RCA outputs let the DotLoop hand audio off to a proper stereo system whenever the moment calls for something louder.

That willingness to have fun with format extends into the DotLine, a feature phone built for anyone tired of feeding a smartphone’s constant appetite for attention. A 2.8-inch display and physical keypad keep the experience deliberately simple, while an 1800mAh battery stretches across roughly two weeks between charges, a number that sounds almost mythical next to a modern flagship’s overnight anxiety. Four color options keep it from feeling like a consolation prize.

Rounding out the focus lineup, the DotCombo bundles a keyboard and mouse into a single color-matched purchase, eliminating the usual mismatched beige-on-black desk setup that so many peripherals default to. Both pieces run on rechargeable batteries good for hundreds of charge cycles, connecting over Bluetooth or a 2.4GHz receiver without a single AA battery required. Round keycaps borrowed from typewriter design give the whole thing a tactile, almost toy-like presence on a desk.

Beyond these four, Packard Bell rounds out its centennial collection with a portable speaker (DotTune), audio glasses (DotLook), a ring light for creators (DotShine), matching headphones (DotBass), and even a countertop food steamer (Steasy), all sharing the same saturated color palette and straightforward pricing. None of them ask for much attention individually, but together they paint a lineup unwilling to blend into a beige office shelf.

Pricing stays approachable across the board, with the DotBook starting around €499 (around $578), the DotLoop at €149 (around $173), the DotLine at €69 (around $80), and the DotCombo at just €39 (around $45). Packard Bell’s return proves that a century-old brand can still find something new to say, mostly by refusing to whisper it.

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Razer Finally Solved the Bulky Controller Problem at Credit Card Size

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Mobile controllers have always faced the same awkward tradeoff: carry something bulky enough to feel like a real gamepad, or leave it at home and settle for touchscreen buttons. The Razer Prio picks neither option. It folds down to roughly the size of a credit card at 107mm x 67mm x 23mm, then twists open in one motion into a controller with a complete, full-sized button layout.

That twist-to-unlock mechanism is doing more work than it looks like on paper. Rather than hinging flat like a wallet or telescoping outward like most phone-bridge controllers, the Prio rotates its two halves apart, expanding from a dense 101-gram puck into something that spans phones up to 7 inches, including devices as large as the iPhone 17 Pro Max. The motion itself becomes the reveal.

Designer: Razer

Once open, the control surface doesn’t feel like it compromised anything to get small. A tactile 4-way D-pad, full face buttons, bumpers, and triggers all made it into the layout, alongside thumbsticks built on capacitive sensing rather than the usual mechanical potentiometers. Removing physical contact points means there’s nothing inside to wear down over time, which addresses stick drift at the source instead of patching around it later.

Picture a delayed train platform or the ten minutes between classes that usually gets wasted scrolling through a phone. The Prio exists specifically for that kind of narrow window, slipping out of a pocket, twisting open, and plugging directly into a phone’s USB-C port without any pairing screen or Bluetooth handshake standing between the moment and actually playing something worth playing.

That direct USB-C connection matters beyond convenience. Skipping wireless pairing removes the input lag that makes touchscreen controls and some Bluetooth gamepads feel disconnected from what’s happening onscreen, which becomes especially noticeable in anything reaction-based. It also means never worrying about a dead controller battery separate from the phone it’s attached to, since the phone itself is supplying the power.

The Prio’s reach extends past native mobile games as well. It works across Xbox Cloud Gaming, PlayStation Remote Play, Steam Link, and Razer’s own PC remote play service, turning a phone into a display for console and PC libraries rather than limiting the controller to whatever’s built specifically for touchscreens. A pocket-sized accessory suddenly covers a genuinely wide range of what someone might want to play.

At $99.99, the Prio positions itself as the opening entry in what Razer describes as a broader line of ultra-portable controllers still to come. What it gets right immediately is treating portability as a mechanical problem worth solving properly, not just a matter of making something smaller and hoping the compromises go unnoticed once it’s actually in someone’s hands.

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