Xiaomi’s $80 Air Fryer Can Steam, Sous Vide, and Air Fry, Giving You A Crisp Outside and Juicy Inside

Posted on by

There is a reason professional bakers spray water into their ovens right before a loaf goes in. Steam in the early stages of baking keeps the crust elastic long enough for the bread to fully rise before it sets, and then as the moisture burns off, the outside crisps up hard and crackly while the inside stays open and soft. Xiaomi applied that same principle to an air fryer, which sounds obvious in hindsight but somehow took the entire appliance industry a decade to get around to trying. The result is the Mijia Smart Air Fryer Pro Steam and Bake Edition, a 6.5-liter machine that launched on Youpin in March for around $80.

We covered Smeg’s steam-equipped air fryer concept out of Milan Design Week back in April, and the reaction told us something useful: people are genuinely ready for this idea. The hardware behind Xiaomi’s take is straightforward but well thought out. A 1.5-liter water tank sits on top of the unit and feeds a 900W steam generator capable of reaching 130 degrees Celsius, with enough output to run seven continuous dishes before needing a refill. Combined with a conventional 1,850W heating element and a 360-degree hot air circulation system, you get a machine that can switch between dry heat and humid heat within the same cooking cycle. The 304 stainless steel interior handles the moisture without corroding, and the fluorine-free non-stick basket makes cleanup considerably less painful than you might expect from something that gets regularly steamed.

Designer: Xiaomi

Steam-fry and sous vide are the two modes that actually push past what any conventional air fryer can do, rather than just relabeling the same hot-air cycle with a fancier name. Steam-fry layers humid and dry heat in sequence, holding just enough moisture in the chamber to slow surface dehydration while the heat pushes deeper into the food, which is exactly how you get chicken wings that crack rather than just brown. The sous vide mode holds a low, stable temperature over a long period using the water tank as its medium, something a dry-heat machine physically cannot fake its way through. The full temperature range runs from 30 to 230 degrees Celsius with NTC precise control, which in practice means the same machine handles yogurt fermentation at the low end and a proper sear at the high end, a spread that no single-mode appliance on its own can match.

A 234mm horizontal interior sounds like a spec sheet abstraction until you realize it fits a whole chicken, 24 wings, or nine steamed buns in a single load, and the dual-layer rack splits that cavity between two dishes cooking simultaneously at different heights without either one stealing heat from the other. The 1,850W heating element drives the hot air side of things hard enough to cut sausage cooking time to eight minutes versus the twenty-odd you’d wait in a conventional oven, and the 360-degree circulation keeps that heat moving evenly rather than pooling at one side of the basket. Scheduling a cook 24 hours out through Mi Home, or pulling from a library of over 100 cloud recipes, means dinner can be running before you’ve even thought about what you want to eat. The OLED interactive knob handles everything manually for anyone who’d rather just twist a dial than pull out a phone, which is the kind of small considered detail that keeps a smart appliance from feeling like a chore.

The Mijia Pro is crowdfunding in China at 559 yuan, around $81, with a planned retail price of 749 yuan, roughly $109. Smeg’s steam air fryer, by contrast, is a concept with no confirmed price and a launch window no earlier than late 2026. Dreame’s Feast DS50, which takes a different approach to the same problem through dual-zone independent airflow rather than steam, is priced at $229 for its North American launch. Xiaomi is delivering a technically comparable answer to the same cooking challenge at a fraction of that price, in a machine that is already shipping in China and building toward a global rollout. The steam air fryer category is real, it has momentum, and the most affordable entry point currently has a Xiaomi logo on it

The post Xiaomi’s $80 Air Fryer Can Steam, Sous Vide, and Air Fry, Giving You A Crisp Outside and Juicy Inside first appeared on Yanko Design.

Ferrari Made One Last Non-Hybrid V8 Spider Before The Brand Hands Its Future To Jony Ive

Posted on by

Two Ferraris arrived within months of each other in early 2026, and they could not be more different in what they represent. The Luce, Ferrari’s first EV, debuted its interior in February, designed by Jony Ive and Marc Newson’s LoveFrom studio, all Gorilla Glass panels, pivoting OLED displays, and a key fob that docks into the center console like a miniature iPhone. CEO Benedetto Vigna defended the outside collaboration by saying Ferrari needed people with the experience to prove that electric does not have to mean screen-dominated, which is a reasonable argument until you consider that Ferrari’s own designers have been doing exactly that, beautifully, for decades. The HC25 is what those designers produced at the same moment, for a single client, using the last non-hybrid V8 spider platform the brand will ever build.

Unveiled at the Circuit of the Americas by Flavio Manzoni’s Ferrari Design Studio, the HC25 is formally part of the Special Projects One-Off programme, a two-year collaboration between Maranello and one unnamed client who wanted the F8 Spider’s 710-hp twin-turbo V8 reimagined in a body that spoke the brand’s new formal language. The result is 4,758mm of matte Moonlight Grey bodywork, a three-dimensional glossy black central band housing the cooling intakes, bespoke headlamps using LED modules never before fitted to any Ferrari, and an interior that Manzoni’s team designed themselves: grey technical fabric, yellow-stitched leather, physical paddle shifters, analogue warmth. Put the HC25 and the Luce side by side and you are looking at a brand mid-transition, one foot in the cockpit of everything it has always been, one foot somewhere Jony Ive is leading it.

Designer: Flavio Manzoni (Ferrari Design Studio)

The organizing idea of the HC25’s exterior is that black band, and once you see what it does structurally you cannot unsee it. It begins at the base of the rear wheels, sweeps forward with an arrow-like momentum, curves up and over the door, where it conceals a handle milled from a single block of aluminum, then dissolves into the dramatically raked engine screen at the rear. The band houses the radiator air intakes and routes powertrain heat extraction, so every millimeter of it is functional, thermal management rendered as pure form. It divides the matte grey body into two distinct sculptural volumes, front and rear, that read as separate masses held in tension by this single binding element. The car appears to be moving at standstill, which is either a cliché or a genuine design achievement depending on whether the surfacing actually earns it. Here, it does.

The bespoke headlamps feature one-of-a-kind lighting modules that have never appeared on any other car wearing the Prancing Horse badge. The lens profile is exceptionally slim with a central indentation that mirrors the split geometry of the rear lights, reinforcing the car’s dual-volume logic end to end. The DRLs adopt a vertical boomerang arrangement along the leading edge of the front wings, a first for Ferrari, and when lit the front of the car carries the focused, sharp-edged expression of the F80 rather than the softer face of the F8 it replaced. The five-spoke wheels complete the picture with a diamond-cut outer rim and a double-recessed groove that optically enlarges the diameter without adding physical size, a compositional trick borrowed directly from product design.

Inside, the cabin is a lightly evolved F8 Spider, and that is entirely the point. Grey technical fabric meets black leather across deeply bolstered sports seats, yellow graphics trace a boomerang shape across the upholstery that directly echoes the DRL signature outside, and the stitching matches the brake calipers and Prancing Horse badges in the same acid yellow. Physical paddle shifters. Analogue gauges. An HC25 badge on the passenger side of the dash that will mean nothing to anyone who does not already know what they are looking at, which is how bespoke Ferraris have always announced themselves. The yellow is the one chromatic frequency that detonates against the controlled grey and black palette, and it connects exterior to interior with the kind of material consistency that makes a car feel designed rather than assembled.

What the HC25 ultimately represents in Ferrari’s 2026 timeline is the clearest possible articulation of what Manzoni’s studio produces when it works entirely on its own terms. The Luce will be the car everyone talks about when Ferrari’s electric era is discussed, and Jony Ive’s name will be attached to that conversation for years. The HC25 exists for one person, carries no electrification, and will never be replicated. For a brand standing at the edge of its own reinvention, that kind of commission has a particular kind of gravity.

The post Ferrari Made One Last Non-Hybrid V8 Spider Before The Brand Hands Its Future To Jony Ive first appeared on Yanko Design.

$95 Lambertus strap will turn the Audemars Piguet × Swatch Royal POP pocket watch into a wristwatch

Posted on by

High-end collaborations, at times, give us meaningful outcomes that no matter how hard you try, you cannot sidestep. In my recent memory, Audemars Piguet x Swatch Royal Pop – a mindboggling amalgamation of the Royal Oak and the Swatch Pop – is definitely one such example. While everything is a Pop of color and high-end horology, what remains missing is the fact that this collaborative model is not meant to be worn on the wrist; it’s designed as a pocket watch, but one you’d definitely fall for even in 2026.

However, there is a school of thought comprising watch enthusiasts that believes the Royal Pop deserves to rest on the wrist. While the creators themselves don’t believe it, Lambertus, an independent maison, is a firm advocate that it should, and is therefore creating case-straps for the Audemars Piguet x Swatch Royal Pop, now going on pre-order, in whole, for $95 through the Royal Pop Wrist Bands website.

Designer: Lambertus

That amount will reserve a case-strap for you, but there’s a caveat. The creation of these straps has not kicked off the blocks at the time of writing. For the reservation price of $95, therefore, you are banking on Lambertus to carry out all the phases of development i.e., the roadmap from R&D, prototyping, final design, to manufacturing, with no clear deadline for assurance.

The Lambertus creation is called Chapter I. It’s now in the R&D, and should present, on development, as an excellent accessory to the AP × Swatch Royal Pop. The cult timepiece comes in eight different colorways and two design iterations: the Lépine and the Savonnette. The Lépine pocket watch is designed with hour and minute hands and a crown at 12 o’clock. It comes in six color options. Available in two colorways, the Savonnette Royal Pop, features a crown at 3 o’clock and along with the hour and minutes, also has a small second hand at 6 o’clock.

Since Lambertus has a vision to match everything in the Royal Pop portfolio to the T. It will also tailor the straps to match the eight colors of your pocket watch. Even commendable – or you may say requisite – is that the case-straps will be split in two models, like the AP x Swatch collaborative pocket watch itself. The Strap I of the Chapter I will come in six Lépine-style models and the Strap II in two options for the Savonnette-style watches.

Of course, from how it appears as of now, the machined, octagonal watch holder straps from Lambertus will let you snap in the AP x Swatch Royal Pop and flaunt it with passion. But how well the strap material (which remains unclear as I write), of the eight luxury designs in two crown orientations, complements the Bioceramic case of the actual watch is anybody’s guess. And if that’s not as premium as you would like to trust with your AP, we know where the $95 you put in is headed. To ensure the backers have little legal ground to confront, the Royal Pop Wrist Bands website puts out “Our Royal POP compatible straps and wristbands are not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by Audemars Piguet or Swatch Group,” in fine print.

The post $95 Lambertus strap will turn the Audemars Piguet × Swatch Royal POP pocket watch into a wristwatch first appeared on Yanko Design.

Huawei MatePad Pro Max PaperMatte Edition Review: Thinnest 13-inch Tablet Nails Portability and Creativity

Posted on by

PROS:


  • Impressively thin and lightweight

  • Excellent PaperMatte OLED display with ultra-thin bezels

  • M-Pencil feels highly responsive and natural for writing and drawing

  • Glide Keyboard adds useful productivity features, including secure stylus storage

CONS:


  • Wi-Fi only, with no cellular option

  • Glide Keyboard has no backlight

RATINGS:

AESTHETICS
ERGONOMICS
PERFORMANCE
SUSTAINABILITY / REPAIRABILITY
VALUE FOR MONEY

EDITOR'S QUOTE:

The Huawei MatePad Pro Max pairs an ultra-thin and lightweight design with a refined PaperMatte display and excellent stylus experience, making it one of Huawei’s most compelling tablets for creativity and everyday use.
award-icon

MatePad Pro Max PaperMatte Edition is the company’s largest tablet yet, and it arrives with a design that feels almost implausible in person. It is remarkably thin, unusually light for its size, and still positioned as a serious performance tablet rather than a pure showpiece. On paper, the appeal is immediate. You get a full-metal body, a 13.2-inch flexible OLED display, a 94 percent screen-to-body ratio, and a chassis that measures just 4.7mm thin.

Huawei is also aiming for a premium experience that extends well beyond the tablet itself. The ultra-thin bezel, the optional matte display treatment, the large battery, and the refined metal construction all work together to make the MatePad Pro Max feel elevated before the screen even turns on. Add in optional accessories like the Glide Keyboard and M-Pencil Pro, and it is clearly designed to stretch beyond entertainment into productivity and creative work. The real question is whether all of that sleek hardware leads to a meaningfully better everyday experience, or if it is simply a beautiful piece of industrial design wrapped around the usual tablet compromises.

Designer: Huawei

Aesthetics

The MatePad Pro Max is a sleek, premium-looking slate that relies on clean proportions and refined finishes rather than flashy details. It comes in Blue and Space Gray, and the blue version I received is especially striking. Its fine glitter finish catches the light beautifully and gives the back panel a more expressive look.

The full-metal body keeps the design simple and clean, while the round camera bump on the upper right adds a bit of visual weight to one corner, and the centered Huawei branding keeps the back from feeling too plain. Around the sides, the glossy frame adds a bit of contrast, with the power button and fingerprint scanner on the left side from the display view, and the volume rocker along the top. Huawei’s optional accessories also fit the design well, with the keyboard offered in white or black and the folio cover available in black.

Ergonomics

The MatePad Pro Max PaperMatte Edition is surprisingly manageable for a tablet this large. A 13.2-inch display usually suggests a device that is best left on a desk or propped on a stand, but here the physical experience feels far more inviting. At just 4.7mm thin and 509g, it feels notably easy to carry and hold for longer stretches.

Huawei calls it the world’s thinnest 13-inch-plus tablet, and that slimness is immediately noticeable in use. Even so, it does not feel flimsy or overly delicate in hand. The build still feels solid, though I would still handle it with some care, given just how thin the body is.

The Glide Keyboard adds 439g, but the full setup still feels very manageable for its size. What I like most is the integrated pen slot, which stores the M-Pencil more securely than a simple magnetic attachment on the side of the tablet. That small detail makes a real difference if you tend to toss your tablet into a bag and go, since the stylus feels less likely to come loose.

The keyboard itself is pleasant to type on, and the hinge feels sturdy in use. It gives the MatePad Pro Max a more laptop-like feel when you need to get work done. The main limitation is that the viewing angle is fixed to two positions, so it is less flexible than some other tablet keyboard setups. It also lacks a backlight, which makes it less convenient to use in darker environments.

Performance

Performance starts with the display, because it shapes nearly every interaction you have with the MatePad Pro Max. The 13.2-inch flexible OLED panel is large, sharp, and visually immersive, with a 3000 x 2000 resolution, 144Hz refresh rate, and up to 1,600 nits peak brightness. It is the kind of screen that makes reading, streaming, and multitasking feel immediately premium, especially with the PaperMatte finish, which helps cut glare and makes the display more comfortable to use in bright environments.

A big part of that immersive feel comes from the tablet’s extremely thin bezel. At just 3.55mm, the border around the display is slim enough to make the front feel almost all screen, helping the MatePad Pro Max reach a 94 percent screen-to-body ratio. Even more impressive is how Huawei has tucked the front camera into that narrow bezel so discreetly that it nearly disappears from view. The result is a front design that feels remarkably clean and uninterrupted, making the display look even more expansive and giving the tablet a more refined, almost futuristic presence in everyday use.

The display quality also lives up to the tablet’s premium design. OLED gives the MatePad Pro Max the deep contrast and rich color you want from a flagship tablet, while the 144Hz refresh rate keeps motion looking fluid and responsive. Whether you are scrolling through documents, flipping between apps, or watching high-quality video, the screen carries a polished sense of smoothness that fits the hardware well. Huawei also gets the basics right when it comes to unlocking the device. Both face recognition and the side-mounted fingerprint scanner worked reliably in my testing. Face unlock was even able to recognize me in the dark, which made the tablet feel quicker and more seamless to use throughout the day.

The MatePad Pro Max runs HarmonyOS 4 out of the box. Huawei does not specify the chipset, but in day-to-day use, performance feels strong and responsive. Apps open quickly, multitasking feels smooth, and the tablet has no trouble keeping up with entertainment, browsing, note-taking, and general productivity. It feels like a flagship tablet in everyday use, even without Huawei sharing much detail about the chip inside.

HarmonyOS also makes decent use of the large display. You can keep up to three apps active and move between them easily, though only one is fully visible at a time in that setup. For more direct multitasking, split-screen lets you run two apps simultaneously, either side by side in landscape or stacked vertically in portrait. On top of that, you can open up to two floating windows, which appear as smaller, resizable panels for quick access to other tasks without fully leaving your main app.

The M-Pencil is also a big part of the experience. It feels very responsive, with no noticeable latency in writing or drawing, and pressure sensitivity works very well. Combined with the PaperMatte display, the writing and sketching experience feels closer to paper than on many other tablets, which makes the MatePad Pro Max especially appealing for note-taking, annotation, and creative work.


Huawei also has one genuinely compelling creative advantage in GoPaint. It is a surprisingly sophisticated painting app that feels much more advanced than a basic bundled sketch tool. You get a wide range of features, including more than 100 brush options, color picking tools, and effects like a splatter brush, which makes it feel like a serious canvas for illustration rather than a simple note-taking extra. Paired with the M-Pencil, it gives the MatePad Pro Max a stronger identity as a creative tablet, not just a productivity device with stylus support.

The bigger consideration is software rather than speed. Because of ongoing U.S. trade restrictions affecting Huawei, the MatePad Pro Max does not come with Google Services, so users who rely heavily on Google’s apps and services will need to find workarounds.

Audio also helps sell the experience. Huawei includes a 6-speaker crossover system with a quad-driver bass unit, and the sound has enough scale to match the size of the display. It gives movies, music, and games more presence than you would expect from something this thin, which makes the tablet feel like a stronger all-around entertainment device rather than just a beautiful screen.

Battery life is also a strong point, given the 10,400mAh battery. Huawei also includes 40W reverse charging, which adds some practical versatility if you want to top up another device in a pinch. The MatePad Pro Max is clearly designed to deliver a premium media and productivity experience, with the display doing most of the heavy lifting and the rest of the hardware supporting it well.

Sustainability

Huawei’s sustainability story here feels understated, which is often the case with premium tablets that prefer to lead with design and experience. The full-metal body should help the MatePad Pro Max feel durable over time, and there is something inherently longevity-friendly about hardware that feels physically refined. A device that remains pleasant to touch, carry, and look at tends to stay in use longer, and that matters even if it is not framed as a sustainability feature.

At the same time, there is not much information that speaks directly to repairability, recycled materials, or long-term software commitments. That absence is worth mentioning because sustainability is no longer just about whether a product looks durable. It is also about whether it can remain relevant, supported, and serviceable over the years. Without stronger messaging around those areas, the MatePad Pro Max feels more premium than progressive on this front. The tablet feels built to last physically, but the broader ownership story remains less defined.

Value

The MatePad Pro Max is priced like a premium tablet. The 12GB + 512GB model with the Folio Cover costs EUR 1,399, or roughly $1,520 USD. The 12GB + 256GB version with the Smart Keyboard is EUR 1,499, about $1,630 USD, while the 16GB + 512GB model with the Smart Keyboard goes up to EUR 1,649, or around $1,790 USD.

At those prices, the MatePad Pro Max is really selling its hardware. The thin and light design, matte OLED display option, slim bezels, and strong stylus experience help it stand out from other large tablets. That said, it is worth noting that this is a Wi-Fi-only tablet with no LTE or cellular option, and there is no microSD card expansion. Storage tops out at 512GB, which should be more than enough for most users, but heavier users who install a lot of AAA games, edit high-resolution video, or keep large media libraries may want to factor that in.

Verdict

The Huawei MatePad Pro Max gets a lot right where it matters most. It is impressively thin and light for a tablet of this size, and that alone changes how approachable it feels in daily use. The 13.2-inch OLED display is the star of the experience, not just because it is large and vibrant, but because the ultra-thin bezel and discreet front camera integration make the whole front feel unusually clean and immersive. The matte screen is also a real treat, giving the display a more comfortable, paper-like quality that makes watching, reading, writing, and drawing feel more enjoyable over longer stretches.

What makes it stand out is how well the hardware and creative experience come together. The writing and drawing feel is excellent, GoPaint is more capable than expected, and the Glide Keyboard adds real utility without making the setup feel cumbersome. There are still a few tradeoffs, including the keyboard’s limited angle adjustment, lack of backlight, and the Wi-Fi-only setup with no microSD expansion, but for many users, those will be secondary to the overall experience. Huawei’s software situation also still requires some adjustment depending on your workflow.

Even with those caveats, the MatePad Pro Max is a thoughtfully designed tablet that feels distinct in a crowded category. It is not simply trying to be a bigger screen with flagship specs. It is trying to offer a more refined, paper-like, design-conscious experience, and for the right user, it succeeds very well. If your priorities are portability, display quality, and creative work, this is one of the most compelling large tablets Huawei has made.

The post Huawei MatePad Pro Max PaperMatte Edition Review: Thinnest 13-inch Tablet Nails Portability and Creativity first appeared on Yanko Design.