If you’re on the lookout for one of the best screen recorders for your Mac or PC, you’ll find yourself in a crowded market. One candidate, which happens to be cross-platform, is TechSmith’s Camtasia, and to entice you to give it a try, it comes with a free 7-day trial.
We last reviewed the software in 2022, back when the free trial was a generous 60 days. That aside, how does Camtasia compare to rivals now? We put the screen recording software to the test.
Camtasia: Pricing & plans
Premium pricing, premium product
We’ve taken a look at many apps which offer subscription-based services, some as low as $3 a month, like ScreenPal, and some of the best free screen recorders, albeit with limitations, such as Flashback Express.
Camtasia is a more expensive beast. If does offer different prices depending on the subscription tier you choose. For instance, Camtasia Essentials offers screen and webcam recording, video editing tools, and text-to-speech transcription, for $180 / £171 a year.
Camtasia Create brings in AI-generated scripts, text-based video editing, audio cleanup, and over 200 voices and styles, for $250 / £237 per year.
Whereas Camtasia Pro includes video reviews and collaboration, AI-translated captions, AI-generated chapters, titles and descriptions, AI-generated avatar videos, and millions of premium assets, for $500 / £474 a year.
If you’re looking for a perpetual licence, these are still available if you’re part of a business, in education or the government, and will cost a one-off $300, $213 or $270 per user respectively. Do be aware though that unlike subscriptions, future updates will not be included for that price.
So yes, it’s at the top end of the price range, but we’d recommend you do download the trial version to at least give it a go. Not only did we find it a breeze to set up, Camtasia also includes some of the best video editing software tools in its field, a feature lacking in many other competing software we’ve tested.
Plans & pricing: 3/5
Camtasia: Setup
Camtasia’s Homepage is simple, letting you check out tutorials, open recent projects, or start a fresh new one (Image credit: TechSmith)
Really simple authorisation process to enable all needed features
Like all other apps of this type, you’ll need to authorise it for recording your screen, webcam, along with any audio sources.
Other software can make this process opaque and confusing, but Camtasia does an excellent job at simplifying the process as much as possible: click on your webcam, and it’ll ask you to authorise the process. The same for your microphone, computer’s audio, and of course, your screen.
Camtasia will also open up your computer’s settings at the right location for you to do all of this. You’ll have to restart the app for the preferences to take effect, but once done, you won’t have to do it again, and Camtasia is ready to record.
Setup: 5/5
Camtasia: Capturing
Record your full screen (the default option) or delve into the parameters so you can brag just the parts you need (Image credit: TechSmith)
Easy to set up your many recording parameters
Setting up a recording session is as easy as can be: you’re presented with a simple welcome screen offering you access to your most recent recordings, the option to create a new project from scratch, one based on a template (a wealth of which are available through Camtasia’s Asset Store), open a project not in the list of recent ones, or start a new recording.
By default, when setting up a new recording, Camtasia will capture your entire Desktop, but there’s a drop down menu to let you select a specific size or region, with a green border appearing to show you what’s going to be in the shot, and what won’t be.
You also have the option of changing the frames per second value from 5 to 60 (the default is 30). If your webcam supports it, you can control its resolution. You get to choose which microphone to record the external audio from, and whether or not to capture the system audio as well.
Once you’re ready, click on the big red ‘Rec’ button. You’ll be given a 3-second countdown, and the controls will disappear, letting you capture with no windows or menus getting in the way.
Stopping the recording is done via a handy keyboard shortcut displayed during the countdown, or via the menu bar on your Mac. You’ll then be taken to the Workflow area.
Capturing: 5/5
Camtasia: Workflow
Workflow is a great way to quickly polish your recording with a slew of templates and ready-made effects (Image credit: TechSmith)
A series simplified list of templates you cannot customise, but could be more than enough to give your project a professional look with next to no effort
Think of the Workflow as a staging area for your recording. You might be very happy with what you achieved during the recording, and don’t need to do any editing, so you can use Workflow to pretty up your project. For instance, you have 16 different layout templates to choose from, placing the webcam and your screen recording in different areas of the screen, with different effects applied to each. Should you need one, you can add a coloured background, or select additional effects such as increasing the size of the cursor, changing its colour, adding a reflection to your screen recording, a white border, etc, and finally you’ve got a bunch of filters to play with.
This is a great midway option, letting you quickly create a style you might like as long as you’re happy with the inability to fine tune the results. Still, this could satisfy most users, helping them finish in next to no time. If however you’re more of a hands-on, sweat-the-details kind of person, then it’s time to take a trip to Camtasia’s Editor (by clicking on the green button, top right of the interface).
Workflow: 4/5
Camtasia: Editing
If you want to get down to the nitty-gritty, Camtasia’s editor is excellent, and very powerful (Image credit: TechSmith)
Camtasia includes some of the best video editing software for its market. Of course, this is no Premiere Pro, but it really sets Camtasia apart from most of its competition. It’s essentially a fully fledged non-linear video editing suite.
To the left is a sidebar giving you access to your recorded media, as well as a library of effects, transitions and animations, to help you professionally edit and composite your project.
The lower part of the interface is devoted to the timeline. This is where you build your project, adding clip after clip on multiple layers. You’ll notice that your webcam footage has been saved separately to the screen capture. The same applies to your microphone and system audio (which is why it’s advisable to always record with headphones on, otherwise the sound from one will bleed onto the other, making it very hard, if not impossible, to separate).
The advantage of having all these layers is flexibility. You can move your webcam footage around the timeline, resize it, and even remove sections as you see fit. The same is true from your screen capture, and any other media you’d care to add to your project.
Essentially, you have full control over your clips. You can trim them, split them, move them to different layers, apply effects and transitions, etc. All the tools you find in the sidebar can be dragged onto a clip, and the properties parameters found on the right can be altered until you get the exact look you’re after. Any effects or filter you’ve added while in Workflow are preserved when you switch to the Editor, and are now fully customisable.
If you want to add additional media or effects, locate them from the left sidebar, and drag them to your project, or onto the clip you wish to alter. Some Assets are labelled as ‘Premium’ (their thumbnail has a little crown top left of them). From our understanding, they’re included with the Camtasia Pro subscription, but you can also subscribe to them separately, for $200 a year.
Once you’re happy with your project and are ready to share it with others, the Export button can save your work to your local drive or upload directly to services such as YouTube, Google Drive, and TechSmith’s own online offerings.
This last process is as simple as they can make it: simply choose your format (mp4 is the default), and click on Export. If you want to get more technical, click on Option to gain access to all changeable parameters. Bear in mind the trial version will watermark your output. Once you’ve paid, that hindrance will no longer be in effect.
Editing: 4/5
Own a Mac? You can seamlessly hook up with your iPhone, giving you a much higher quality camera than your computer’s built in webcam (Image credit: TechSmith)
Should I buy?
You can save your project to your computer, upload it directly to YouTube, or to one of TechSmith’s online services (Image credit: TechSmith)
Buy it if...
You need a screen recorder that will take care of the complex stuff for you, while you focus on the recording, and also require either simple and template-based, or powerful and versatile editing capabilities, all wrapped in a single package.
Don't buy it if...
All you want to do is record something quickly, and you find all the extra bells and whistles an expensive hindrance.
Why pay money when you could get a tool that does the same thing for free? That’s the idea behind open-source software, where knowledgeable fans of the software work in their spare time to improve a tool for the benefit of all.
Sounds great, right, but where’s the catch? More often than not, it lies with a complicated and unattractive interface, with little to no explanation of how the software actually works. But if you’re looking for one of the best free screen recorder apps we've tested on PC, ShareX easily fits the bill. We were big fans of this bit of kit when we last tried it out - but how does the latest version compare to competitors?
ShareX: Setup
Sparse and uncluttered
Hop on over to getsharex.com to download the screen recording software, launch the installer, and after a few clicks, ShareX is ready for use.
The interface is as sparse as they come. You have a series of menus in a sidebar to the left, and this is pretty much where everything you need to control the interface resides. The bulk of the interface is devoted to thumbnails of the screenshots you’ve recently taken, organised from most recent onwards.
Setup: 3.5/5
ShareX: Screenshots
Look at the plethora of tools available to you (top of the image) when you take a screenshot (Image credit: ShareX)
Multiple, very interesting tools are at your disposal
ShareX’s functionality is devoted to taking and manipulating screenshots, and you have various options open to you, such as grabbing just a specific section of your screen (referred to as a ‘region’), the entire screen, or just an open window.
When you choose a region, you’ll find a toolbar at the top of the screen. From there you can select the type of region you’re after, which even includes its shape, from a traditional rectangle to an ellipse or even a freehand shape. There’s a lot of freedom and flexibility there, even if some might find such choices odd or superfluous.
The Rectangle Region tool has a really cool feature: it’s usually selected by default. Mouse over your screen, and you’ll see it resize itself automatically as it tries to guess which part of the interface you’d like to screenshot.
The traditional Rectangle tool automatically creates a thick coloured border around your selection. Changing its shade is a simple matter, but what we liked best was the ability to resize it and even move it around to capture the perfect section.
The ‘Line’ and ‘Arrow’ tools are great to point to a specific section of your screenshot. There are even text box options to populate your screenshot with information. We quite liked the ‘Step’ tool, which adds sequentially increasing numbers as you click on the screen, and ‘Magnify’ which, as its name implies, increases the size of a selected section.
If there’s sensitive information on the screen you’d rather not share with others, you’ll find the ‘Blur’ and ‘Pixelate’ tools essential.
None of these alterations are set in stone, and they can be moved around, resized and edited thanks to the ‘Select and Move’ tool.
There is a lot to enjoy here, more than most other screenshot tools we’ve encountered. Essentially, you’ve got yourself a free image compositor with your screenshot app, saving you the trouble of having to go to one to do further work on your screenshot after the fact.
Since we last explored ShareX, some new options have appeared which could prove very useful to many users. ‘Region (Light)’ for instance, does not show an overlay with all the tools mentioned above, while freezing the screen, giving you time to frame the perfect screenshot, if you’re trying to capture a frame of a video for instance. ‘Region (Transparent)’ doesn’t freeze the screen, but the overlay is also absent, letting you focus on what you wish to capture, rather than the tools on offer.
Screenshots: 5/5
ShareX: Screen Capture
All your tools and controls are located in the left sidebar (Image credit: ShareX)
Easy to use, once the default settings have been personalized
Screen Capture is an advertised tool of ShareX, but if your system doesn’t have ‘ffmpeg.exe’ installed, you won’t be able to use it right away. Thankfully, ShareX makes it a cinch to get it and install. Once done, you’ll have no problems performing screen captures.
You might find though that the screen was being recorded with no audio. If this happens to you, go to ‘Task Settings’, and choose ‘Screen Recorder’. This is where you can control how many frames per second you’ll be recording in, even set a delay prior to the commencement, as well as limiting your recording to a fixed duration.
You’ll find audio preferences in the ‘Screen Recording Options’ section. This is where settings for recording quality, and audio codec are located. There’s also ‘Audio Source’ which may be set to ‘None’ (it was in our installation). Set it to ‘virtual Audio desktop’ and it will record sound coming from your computer. Choosing your attached microphone will allow you to record any external sound, although we couldn’t find a way to record both on separate channels.
Screen capture: 3.5/5
ShareX: Hotkeys
Customize keyboard shortcuts to your heart’s content (Image credit: ShareX)
A nice feature, well implemented and easy to use
ShareX hosts many additional features that are designed to complement its core functionality. One of these is the ability to create your own keyboard shortcuts.
You’ll see at a glance which settings clash with those from other software packages, as they’ll have a bright red rectangle next to them. Those that work without issues are green instead.
To fix the offenders, select one, type a different keyboard combination, and once it turns green, you’re good to go. You’re also completely free to alter the green ones as well to create shortcuts to suit your workflow. Now all you have to do is remember them.
Hotkeys: 5/5
ShareX: Saving & uploading
Drill down the preferences to make sure your audio source is properly selected when performing a screen capture (Image credit: ShareX)
Default options can be easily altered to suit your workflow
You will notice that by default, ShareX is designed to send your screenshots to image hosting website Imgur. This can be changed to other photo storage and sharing sites in the ‘Destinations’ settings, where you’ll find a host of other options, such as ImageShack, Flickr, Twitter (aka X), and Google Photos, among others.
If this doesn’t appeal, you have the option of simply saving the shots to your computer. To change this, pop over to ‘After capture tasks’, and click on ‘Upload image to host’ to disable it (all enabled options are displayed in bold). This is but a sample of the modifiable parameters available to you.
For an app with a very unassuming interface, ShareX possesses many impressive tools, which can put other competing paid-for services to shame. It doesn’t take long to get to grips with the available options, even customizing them to suit your needs. If you’re in the market for a powerful, PC-only, versatile screen recording and capture tool, you could do far worse than choose ShareX as your default.
Saving & uploading: 4.5/5
Should I try?
Choose which online service to automatically send your screenshots to (Image credit: ShareX)
Try it if...
You like having numerous options to fully customize your screenshots, annotated them, and record your screen all from the same software.
Don't try it if...
You prefer a more polished interface, with clearer explanation as to how everything works, and won’t need all the bells and whistles that come with ShareX.
The Simbatex Foam Mattress was added to the Simba range in September 2022, with a four-layer, foam-only design that's available in two variants – the Simbatex Foam (which we're reviewing here) and the Simbatex Essential Foam, which is a pared-back, even cheaper version.
As an all-foam option, the Simbatex branches away from the hybrid models the brand has built its reputation on. Our favourite of those, which you can read about in our Simba Hybrid Pro mattress review, sits high up in our best mattress ranking. But it's a lot more of an investment than the Simbatex, so we were excited to try this new addition out and see how it holds up. Read on for our full Simbatex Foam mattress review.
Simbatex Foam Mattress review in brief
Does a great job of keeping sleepers cool
Good motion isolation but edges dip and slope a little
Perfect choice for those who like a firm mattress
The Simbatex Foam Mattress may be at the cheaper end of Simba's lineup but that doesn't mean the brand has skimped on materials. The all-foam construction includes Simba's proprietary Simbatex foam – an open-cell structure foam that encourages airflow and is infused with graphite particles to filter heat away. Simba says it provides 30 times more airflow than traditional memory foam and, for an all-foam mattress, we agree that the Simbatex Foam Mattress keeps sleepers impressively cool at night.
Simbatex Foam Mattress specs
Best for: Back and front sleepers, heavier sleepers. Type: All-foam mattress in a box Firmness: 7.5/10 Materials: Knitted cover, soft CertiPUR Simbatex foam, open-cell foam, high density foam. Depth: 25cm Sizes: Single, Small Double, Double, King, Super King Weight: 23.5-43kg Trial period: 1 year Guarantee: 10 years
The mattress is far firmer than a traditional memory foam mattress, making it a great choice for back and stomach sleepers as well as heavier weight sleepers, who should feel supported without sinking too far into the foam. That's not to say that it will suit everyone. Side sleepers will most probably find it too firm, with a lack of adequate pressure relief at the shoulders and hips. And our lightweight tester found the mattress too firm overall, feeling as if they were lying on top of it rather than being supported.
Simba offers a year-long mattress trial period, giving you plenty of time to decide if it's right for you. Overall, we think this is a well-made and comfortable firm bed that belies its relatively low-price tag. We'll expand on all these points throughout the rest of our Simbatex Foam mattress review.
(Image credit: Jo Plumridge)
Simbatex Foam Mattress review: price and deals
Simba's second cheapest mattress
All sizes often reduced by up to 40%
Not as cheap as some all-foam mattresses
Although the Simbatex Foam Mattress isn't Simba's cheapest mattress, it's extremely well priced for a firm mid-range mattress. The RRP for a UK double is £799, with other mattresses of comparable firmness often coming in at over £1,000. Simba mattress sales of 40% off are a fairly regular occurrence, so you shouldn't have to pay that RRP if you buy at the right time (the Black Friday mattress deals are an especially good time to buy).
Here's the official pricing for the Simbatex Foam Mattress in the UK:
Single RRP: £679(usually £539.40)
Small Double RRP: £799 (usually £407.40)
Double RRP: £799 (usually £479.40)
King RRP: £899 (usually £539.40)
Super King RRP: £999 (usually £599.40)
The Simbatex's closest rivals are probably the Emma Original and the Nectar Memory Foam Mattress. The price for a UK double from both these brands isn't dissimilar to the Simba, with the Emma coming in at £759 (RRP) and the Nectar at £879 (RRP). And, as with the Simbatex Foam Mattress, you'll see regular mattress sales from both these brands.
View Simbatex Foam Mattress at Simba Sleep The Simbatex Foam Mattress is one of Simba's newest mattresses, but the company regularly offer discounts and have sales with around 40% off. This means you should be able to pick up a double size for around £479.40, which is a great price for a good quality firm mattress that will suit lots of sleepers. Simba offers a generous year-long trial period for mattresses and a 10-year warranty, plus there's free delivery and returns if the mattress doesn't suit you.View Deal
Simbatex Foam Mattress review: materials
The Simbatex Foam Mattress is, as the name suggests, made entirely of foam. Simba is better known for hybrids – in fact, it has even put springs in one of its pillows (read about it in our Simba Hybrid Firm pillow review).
There are four layers in the mattress, which is a relatively small number of layers for a Simba model. However, the mattress is solidly constructed and doesn't feel lacking in support. Simba's all-foam construction is different to the best memory foam mattresses on the market, so let's look at what it's made up of.
(Image credit: Simba Sleep)
The mattress is wrapped in an anti-allergy removable knitted cover that's incredibly soft to the touch and to lie on. It's also got a zip for easy removal and washing (a removable cover is fairly rare in cheaper mattresses, so this is a welcome addition). Beneath that is a layer of CertiPUR Simbatex foam, with an open cell structure to circulate airflow and infused with graphite to help keep sleepers cool at night.
Underneath is the Simba-Response foam layer, which gives the mattress its support and also helps to maintain airflow. Last up is the high-density foam base, providing zoned pressure relief and structure to the whole mattress.
Simbatex Foam Mattress review: firmness and comfort
A firm mattress with a rating of 7.5 out of 10
Provides great pressure relief for back and front sleepers
Zoned support helps to keep your spine aligned
When we first tried the Simbatex Foam Mattress we were surprised by how firm it was, as we were expecting an all-foam mattress to be softer. The feel of the Simbatex Foam Mattress did take a little getting used to.
We asked a variety of testers to try out the mattress of different body weights and with varied sleeping positions. Our two main reviewers were of light and average weight respectively.
Our average weight reviewer found the mattress incredibly supportive as a back sleeper and noted the softer support at the shoulders. They felt that the mattress moulded well to their body and that their hips, back and shoulders were cradled with excellent pressure relief. They were also delighted by how cool the mattress kept them as a generally hot sleeper. The cooling properties of the foam do an excellent job of keeping sleepers cool at night.
(Image credit: Jo Plumridge)
However, our lighter weight tester felt that the mattress was too firm for them and that they were lying on top of it, rather than sinking in slightly and being supported. It was also too firm for dedicated side sleepers, who felt too much pressure on their shoulders and hips.
Those with a heavier body weight were pleasantly surprised by how supported they felt, although we wouldn't recommend the mattress for individual sleepers over 18 stone (although the mattress will happily support two separate sleepers of up to 18 stone). Of course, firmness and comfort are subjective, which is why the long trial period with Simba's mattresses is so useful.
Simbatex Foam Mattress review: performance
Good motion isolation
Edge support isn't great, with the mattress sloping at the edges
Keeps sleepers cool throughout the night
We slept on a single size mattress for just under a month, looking at all the major areas of performance. We rated it on pressure relief, motion isolation, edge support, cooling and ease of set up; all of which should help you to decide if this is the right mattress for your sleeping style.
It's difficult to gauge the durability of a mattress after only sleeping on it for a short amount of time and, with the mattress being relatively new, there aren't any long-term reviews on the subject either. However, with the quality of the foams used and judging by the durability of other mattresses in the Simba range, we think the Simbatex Foam Mattress will last well. (Read our Simba Hybrid Pro review for a closer look at that one.)
Setup
(Image credit: Jo Plumridge)
Score: 4.5 out of 5
The Simbatex Foam Mattress was incredibly simple to set up. The mattress arrived rolled in a box and, as it was a single, was easy for one tester to move around. However, if you've ordered a king or super king, we think you'd need two people to move it around and avoid injuring yourself. Inside the box, the mattress is vacuum packed into a bag.
Lay the mattress on the bed before cutting the plastic, as this will break the vacuum seal and make the mattress expand. We found this process painless and the mattress was, as Simba suggested, ready to sleep on in three to six hours. The mattress did continue to expand a little over the next couple of days, but it's fairly minor compared to the initial rise.
(Image credit: Jo Plumridge)
Off-gassing
Score 4.5 out of 5
Off-gassing, where organic chemicals and gases are released from the foam as a mattress expands, is normal and to be expected when buying a mattress in a box. The chemical-like odour that's produced can last several days with some mattresses.
However, the Simbatex Foam Mattress isn't one of them. We noticed a slight odour on taking the mattress out of the box and packaging, but this dissipated quickly over a few hours and wasn't never too strong to begin with. It was certainly produced some of the least amounts of off-gassing in mattresses we've tested.
The Simbatex Foam Mattress is made from CertiPUR approved foams, which are made without mercury, lead and other heavy metals, carcinogenic chemicals and phthalates.
Pressure relief
Score: 4 out of 5
To test the sinkage of the Simbatex Foam Mattress we placed a 20kg weight in the middle of the bed, where the mattress sank by 3.75 inches. Surprisingly, considering that the edges slope and dip a little, the mattress sank by exactly the same amount at the edges. Placing a hand into the mattress, the foam sprang back extremely quickly.
(Image credit: Jo Plumridge)
The above fits well with our assessment of the mattress as firm, but how did it translate when it came to pressure relief for our testers? Our average weight tester felt that their pressure points were well supported on the mattress. They mainly sleep on their back and felt that their spine was kept well aligned throughout the night. Heavier weight sleepers also felt supported – both on their back and front. We wouldn't recommend the mattress for lighter weight sleepers, as they're likely not to sink in far enough for decent pressure relief and the mattress is too firm for side sleepers. We'd recommend the Nectar Memory Foam mattress if you sleep on your side, as the mattress is softer.
Motion transfer
Score 4.5 out of 5
If you share your bed with a restless sleeper, a mattress that absorbs motion transfer can be a godsend. We performed a simple drop test with a 6kg weight and an empty wine glass to see how well the mattress isolated motion.
We dropped the weight from around 4-5 inches above the mattress at various distances from the wine glass, getting closer in increments to see whether the wine glass wobbled or fell over. At 25 inches there was absolutely no movement from the glass and at 10 inches there was a little bounce, but the glass remained upright. The glass fell over at 5 inches, but fairly gently.
(Image credit: Jo Plumridge)
We weren't particularly surprised that the wine glass remained fairly stable as the Simbatex Foam Mattress is made entirely of foam. However, because it is such a firm mattress there was a little bounce with a lighter weight object.
Temperature regulation
Score 5 out of 5
We tested the Simbatex Foam Mattress with a 4.5 tog summer duvet and a fleece blanket in a bedroom that was around 15C. Our tester who tends to sleep hot in most mattresses found that the Simbatex kept them cool throughout the night, with them waking at a pleasant temperature.
This is largely due to the cooling materials used in the mattress. Simba use open cell foam that circulates 30x more airflow than traditional memory foam mattresses and it's also infused with heat absorbing graphite to keep the mattress breathable and cooling. If you're a hot sleeper we'd certainly recommend this mattress over other foam mattresses such as the Nectar Memory Foam Mattress and the Emma Original.
Edge support
Score: 3.5 out of 5
Decent edge support on a mattress not only increases the sleeping surface of a mattress, but also helps you get in and out of the bed alongside providing a stable surface to sit on whilst getting dressed. Unfortunately this was one area where the Simbatex Foam Mattress fell a little short.
Although our heaviest weight of 20kg didn't sink any further at the edges than in the middle of the mattress (3.75 inches), we noticed a little dip and slope at the edges of the mattress. It's noticeable when you're sitting on the edge of the bed, but it isn't so bad that you'll feel like you might slide off.
The slight dip and slope is also noticeable if you sleep right up to the edge of the mattress and this does reduce the sleeping area slightly. If you're sharing your bed with a partner, we would recommend investing in a slightly larger size if you're a fan of spreading out through the night.
Durability
Whilst it's difficult to gauge the durability of a mattress after just under a month sleeping on it, we feel that the Simbatex Foam mattress should perform well for years to come. This is a well-made mattress, using high-quality foams and a well-fitting, removeable cover that can be bunged in the washing machine to freshen up. Simba is clearly confident about the Simbatex's durability with a yearlong trial and a 10-year warranty on offer.
You can help keep the mattress in good condition by investing in one of the best mattress protectors available and cleaning the mattress regularly (see our guide on how to clean a mattress for more help on this).
Simba also recommends you rotate your mattress once a month for the first three months of its life and then every three to six months after that.
As the Simbatex Foam Mattress has only been on the market for a short while, there are only a very small handful of customer reviews available. Of the three reviews left by customers so far, all three left 5 out of 5-star reviews.
These reviewers all raved about the comfort of the mattress and how much better they slept, with the heat regulation technology being popular as well. And one reviewer also reported no longer having back pain. These early reviews would indicate that this is, so far, a popular mattress with customers and their reports mirror much of what we feel about the mattress.
Should you buy the Simbatex Foam Mattress?
The Simbatex Foam Mattress belies its cheaper price tag in our opinion, offering a great night's sleep for back and front sleepers. Average and heavier weight sleepers will feel supported and cushioned, with excellent pressure relief at the shoulders, back and hips.
The mattress also does a great job of keeping sleepers cool at night, with its open cell foam structure infused with graphite. Its heat regulation technology does a great job throughout the night, making this a great choice for those who sleep hot.
Simba uses Certi-PUR non-toxic foams and all their mattresses are 100% recyclable. They're also made in the UK (or in local factories if you're buying in other countries) and all deliveries are carbon neutral. However, if you're after a thoroughly eco-friendly mattress, the more expensive Simba GO Hybrid mattress is as green as they come, with organic latex rather than memory foam, and it's 100% recyclable as well as providing excellent pressure relief, although it may be too soft for front and heavier weight sleepers. See our Simba Hybrid GO review to learn more.
We wouldn't recommend this mattress to lighter weight or side sleepers. Instead, the Nectar Foam Mattress is a great choice for side sleepers, allowing them to sink further into the mattress and feel supported at pressure points. If you'd prefer a slightly softer mattress overall the DreamCloud Luxury Hybrid has softer foam and springs to provide a more cushioned feel.
Update: February 2024. The Focal Bathys launched at a price that signalled that they're in a rarified strata of quality among the best headphones, and little has changed since then. They see occasional discounts, but even those still leave them well above even premium headphones from the likes of Bose and Sony. Which means that our feelings on them hasn't really changed either: they're a sumptuous treat for Hi-Res Audio aficionados, a remarkable achievement in wireless headphones sound, and sightly lacking in smarter features and active noise cancellation power. We still thoroughly recommend them for those interested in what they offer, but those looking for something lighter, cheaper, with better ANC (but still with impressive sound quality, even if not this good) should consider the Bose QuietComfort Ultra Headphones. The rest of this review remains as previously published.
Focal Bathys: two-minute review
Let's get it right: sonically, the Focal Bathys are more than worthy of their enviable heritage. And aside from the quality wireless listen, chuck in the USB-C cable in DAC mode and you've got hi-res up to 21bit/192kHz too. Oh, and in case it needs to be stated, they're utterly stunning to look at. So, why the four-and-a-half star review instead of a resounding five? It's not that simple at this price – and the competition is fierce.
The Focal Bathys are not the French audio specialist's first foray into beautiful cans – indeed, the company makes some of the best over-ear headphones we've ever had the pleasure of placing over our ears. But this is Focal's first foray into wireless headphones and (there's no easy way to say this) the Bathys are expensive. We understand the reasons behind the asking fee – those patented aluminium/magnesium "M”-dome speaker drivers are made in France using technologies from the finest Focal headphones don't come cheap; neither does the backlit flame emblem in the center of each beautiful earcup – but they're more expensive than the AirPods Max and the new Bowers & Wilkins PX8, which is significant and comes with it no small amount of pressure to perform.
Put them on and you feel beautiful, buoyed up by their detail, insight and clarity, but deploy ANC (you get 'silent', 'soft' and 'transparent' options) and you might find you want a little more – which you can't tweak.
None of our gripes regarding the Bathys pertain to their sound, irrespective of the noise-cancellation profile you select – and although the cheaper Sennheiser Momentum 4 Wireless (launched in August 2022) boast double the battery life at 60 hours versus 30 hours, the Sony WH-1000XM5 (which launched in May 2022) also come bearing 30 hours of stamina and that is more than sufficient for us.
The Bathy's companion Focal and Naim app (you swipe right for Focal or left for Naim, like some sort of audiophile dating app) is also likeable and has every necessary feature to aid your listening pleasure, including a five-band EQ tab with helpful presets.
Perhaps confusingly, our issues refer to the build – odd since we've just said how beautiful they are, but stay with us. The on-ear physical buttons feel a bit flimsy and prototype-esque, and we do find them hit-and-miss during use. Also, the headband occasionally clicks during wear which impacts the otherwise excellent sound.
Again, for this kind of sonic prowess, we're prepared to forgive most things – for us, sound is paramount. But the big selling point here is wireless listening, so we do need to point out these minor shortfalls in what is still a glorious-sounding set of over-ears.
Whether the backlit flame is illuminated or not, they're good-looking cans (Image credit: Future)
Focal Bathys review: price and release date
Released on October 4, 2022
$799 / £699 / €799 (around AU$1,210)
The Focal Bathys are available now, priced $799 / £699 / €799 (around AU$1,210).
This makes them more expensive than all of the class-leaders in this space, including the Bowers & Wilkins PX8 ($699 / £599 / AU$1,150), Sennheiser's Momentum 4 Wireless (at $349 / £300 / AU$549) and the class-leading Sony WH-1000XM5, which will set you back $399 / £380 / AU$550.
And let's not forget that the aformentioned Sennheiser over-ears boast double the stamina of the Focal Bathys (and the XM5, and the Bowers & Wilkins PX8 while we're on the subject) the pricing feels bordering on arrogance…
But it isn't – because whatever else we're about to say, the sound quality here is exceptional and worthy of the price-point.
The on-ear controls are just a little flimsy for us (Image credit: Future)
Focal Bathys review: features
USB-C wired DAC mode for glorious hi-res audio
ANC is standard rather than exceptional
On-ear controls are unreliable during testing
The big draw here is the bundled USB-C to USB-C cable, because it grants you access to decoding in up to 24bit/192kHz, depending on how good your file is. We grab our Samsung Galaxy S21 and plug in, switching the slider on the Bathys' right earcup to 'DAC' and start listening to Fontaines D.C., downloaded in High-Res Lossless on Apple Music. It is sublime – but it's interesting to note that the glorious wired performance is a major selling point given that this is billed as a Focal wireless product.
Perhaps it is best to think of Focal Bathys as premium wired over-ears that merely offer the option of wired listening, because this is Focal's inaugural set of wireless over-ears and it does show. Focal devotees won't care, but if you're used to wireless listening gear from the likes of Sony, there are things you'll miss.
The Focal Bathys' spec sheet is fine, but given the Bluetooth-only competition out there in 2022, excellent it is not. For example, the two ANC profiles and one transparency option cannot be tweaked, there's no scope for optimizing the mics or voice pickup when you're in a call (beyond Focal's implemented Clear Voice Capture tech), and there's also no wearer detection, so your music won't automatically pause when you remove them. These are small omissions, but at this premium level we would expect them – and anyone used to their music pausing when they lift an earcup will soon miss it when it doesn't happen.
There is auto-standby (which sends the cans into low power state after a period of inactivity) and a button to access your voice assistant of choice. Focal's flame symbol, illuminated with a white backlight on each earcup, can also be switched off in the slick yet enjoyable Focal and Naim companion app.
Then, there's the intuitive five-band EQ tab, which includes presets or can be tweaked manually – and which we really enjoy. Perhaps we might have wanted a little more stamina than the 'standard' 30-hour battery life, although this beats both the Bose QuietComfort 45 and Bose Noise Cancelling 700, which offer between 24 and 30 hours. Also, a quick 15 minute charge gets you five hours playback – a claim we can vouch for.
As you might expect, Focal has adopted a traditional approach here to the on-ear controls in that they are all physical buttons, with volume, playback, power and a dedicated button to access to your voice assistant of choice (Alexa, Google Assistant, Bixby and Siri are all supported) on the right ear cup, plus an ANC button on the left ear cup, which scrolls between 'silent' (the highest ANC the Bathys can muster), 'soft' (low-level noise-nixing) and 'transparent' to filter external noise in.
Interestingly, Focal suggests that if you want maximum ANC but aren't listening to music, to "be on the DAC position", but this essentially means switching the Bluetooth off, so your headphones are no longer paired to your phone. This in turn means you lose access to the app and are limited to scrolling these profiles using the button on the Bathys' left earcup, which doesn't announce which profile you're on. For us, while there is certainly a degree of noise cancellation happening when we do this (and we think we're in 'silent' mode) , we still hear car engines outside the office window… it's not the all-encompassing bubble of silence you might be hoping for, but then again, neither is it nauseating (you may laugh, but some solutions are like a vacuum tunnel).
The Bathys' Bluetooth 5.1 codec includes support for both aptX and aptX Adaptive for the best Bluetooth (and lowest latency) wireless resolution currently available – oh, and in case you were wondering, the name Bathys comes from the word ‘bathyscaphe’, the first submarine exploration vehicle. What you won't get is support for Sony's higher-resolution LDAC codec – but that's a relatively minor issue what aptX Adaptive is on the menu.
Features score: 3.5/5
There's a dedicated button for ANC, but it doesn't announce which profile you're on (Image credit: Future)
Focal Bathys review: design
Stunning 'backlit flame' illuminating ear cups
Very comfortable
Buttons feel a little flimsy
When worn (especially with the backlit flame on each ear cup illuminated on 'high') this is a striking set of cans indeed.
Anyone familiar with the Focal Stellia will know that the St. Etienne-based audio specialist's cutaway, almost web-like ear cup accents sparkle and shimmer under the light, but although the build-quality here suggests high-ticket jewellery, the magnesium and aluminium combination feels a tad insubstantial rather than strong (dare we say plasticky?), and that real leather headband, although well-padded, does click a bit during use, which in time impacts the overall enjoyment.
Bathys' foldable design means the ear cups lie flat to fit neatly into the included carry case, but note that the Bathys echo the current move towards cans with cups that do not fold up entirely into the headband, including the Bowers & Wilkins PX8, Sony WH-1000XM5 and Bowers & Wilkins PX7 S2 (over the older, foldable Sony WH-1000XM4, say).
Within their hard-shell, fabric covered carry case, we also find a USB-C to USB-C cable for both charging and for the USB-C DAC mode (which incidentally nets you an extra 10 hours of battery for up to 40 hours of listening), a 3.5mm to 3.5mm headphone jack cable (which gives you 35 hours of playtime – yes the mode must be in 'on' to use this, so you're not listening passively) and a USB-C to Lightning dongle.
The comfort levels are really very good, but during use we find the on-ear buttons just a little flimsy and unreliable. The skip-forward option (which should be as simple as a double-press of the central button between the volume up/down options) to move to the next rack proves particularly illusive for us – the Bathys either ignore us, or pause the music and resume it, which is a shame.
Design score: 4/5
The Focal/Naim app is slick and likeable, but there are a few omissions in the features set (Image credit: Future)
Focal Bathys review: sound quality
Stunning musical clarity, depth and space
USB-C DAC mode is a joy
Agile presentation across the frequencies
We stream Fontaines D.C.'s Big Shot in High-Res Lossless downloaded on Apple Music, and the rock guitar reverb in our left ear coupled with the rhythm in our right is energetic, agile and exciting. This is an angry track and no mistake, and the Bathys aren't afraid to get with the program. Grian Chatten's vocal is borderline mocking and brimming with emotion as it arrives in the middle of this wide and talented soundstage.
The rhythmic joy in Hootie & the Blowfish's Only Wanna Be With You is something else entirely in terms of tone – and it is celebrated just as effortlessly. The texture in the raucous intro is expertly layered, from the bass to the percussives, guitars, backing vocal and Darius Carlos Rucker's relaxed vocal stylings.
Stormzy's Vossi Bop is a stiff challenge for the bass weight of any headphones, and the Bathys pass it with flying colors. Cymbals come through each ear as the intro sinks easily down to the grimy depths, but the Bathys deliver the low end with agility and panache. Anything we throw at these can is beautifully held in check throughout, across the frequencies.
Our playlist continues to Big For Your Boots and the sense of the track quickly arriving and abruptly washing over you is beautifully handled. In what is nothing short of a war cry, Stormzy's vocal is every bit as three dimensional as it should be.
Compare them to the new class-leader at the level, the Bowers & Wilkins PX8, and we hear a marginal difference in terms of the exuberance and fun of the PX8 versus the detail, expanse and refinement of the Focal Bathys. Which you think best will largely come down to whether you prefer an integrated, detailed, expansive, refined listen (Bathys), or something boasting agility and an extra ounce of dynamic build and oomph over a fractional modicum of expanse (PX8) but again, it's a very closely run race here – both cans are a stone cold five stars for sound.
Sound quality score: 5/5
Just look at those illuminating ear cups with the Focal flame, though… (Image credit: Future)
Focal Bathys review: value
High-end sound for high-end money
ANC can be bettered at the level though
Good rather than excellent battery life
This is far from budget-friendly territory (remember, the Bowers & Wilkins PX8 are arguably their nearest competition, but even these premium cans are cheaper by $100/£100 – and the minor issues we had with the build quality coupled with the few omissions on the Bathys' spec-sheet do affect the value given their high-end pricing.
The lack of auto-off wearer detection, the fact that the three ANC profiles are limited to Silent, Soft and Transparent – and you cannot forego them completely since it's impossible to have the ANC 'off' entirely – and the buttons which have us dig out our phone rather than use them also impact the judgement.
The ace up the Focal Bathys' sleeve is that they are essentially powered, wired over-ears which just happen to offer wireless Bluetooth listening, and the sound when listened in either way is excellent. And it's hard to put a price on that – so if sound quality is paramount to you, the Focal Bathys should still be on your list.
Value score: 4/5
Should you buy the Focal Bathys?
Buy them if…
Don't buy them if…
Also consider…
If our Focal Bathys review has you considering whether to buy them or to seek out other wireless over-ear headphones, take a glance at these three competing cans at the level.
Figma is a free web development toolthat you can use in your browser. Designers can easily create wireframes and prototypes before full development begins.
The importance of good UI and UX can’t be understated. It’s effectively the key to attracting new users - and retaining them for longer. Users expect refined, intuitive apps with friendly user interfaces. Mockup tools like Figma help businesses develop realistic prototypes and spend time developing apps people want to use.
Launched in 2016, Figma was bought by Adobe in September 2022. You might consider it a blend of Photoshop and Canva for professional designers. It aims to be simple, and has a strong focus on online collaboration.
(Image credit: Figma)
Figma: Plans & pricing
Figma is a free interface design app with premium monthly and annual subscriptions for power users. Four plans are available: free, Professional, Organization, and Enterprise.
The free version is limited, of course. Users can create three Figma files and work on unlimited drafts. That’s not bad for casual users and freelance designers.
Professional adds unlimited files, team libraries, and advanced prototyping. It also adds a Dev Mode with annotations and a some admin tools. These add unlimited version history and private project sharing. Costs are $15 / £14 / $24 AUD per full seat (or user/editor) per month. For annual subscriptions, the prices drop to $12 / £11 / $19AUD per editor per month.
Students and educators can use Professional free, with verification.
Organization offers everything included in Professional, alongside org-wide libraries, analytics, centralized file management, and branching and merging projects. It also includes single sign-on and more admin tools like unified admin. Dev Mode adds the ability to build private plugins for use across all projects. Professional is only available on an annual subscription, with costs broken down to $45 / £41 / $71 AUD per full seat per month. Dev Mode only is also available, at $25 a month.
For larger operations, the annually-billed Enterprise option is available for $75 / / AUD per full seat per month. The Dev Mode only option is $35/month. With Enterprise, advanced theming is added to the package, alongside REST API support, and setting default libraries. Dev Mode gains default coding languages and plugins can be auto-run. Meanwhile, admin tools are enhanced with dedicated workspaces for teams, guest access, user management, and advanced link sharing.
(Image credit: Figma)
Figma: Features
Figma offers all the design tools you need for advanced prototyping. These range from templates and device-specific frames to importing projects from the Mac-only design app Sketch (which Figma resembles).
Once you begin creating your wireframe or mockup, each component or element is added to the left-hand Layers pane. It’s here where Figma most closely mirrors Adobe’s top photo editor. But by opting for the familiar layer-based system, it offers greater control over each element - and makes it much easier to adopt across the team.
Easing the design process further, you’ll find templates for different devices under the Prototype tab to the right. This covers Apple products, large and small Android screen sizes, Microsoft Surface Pro 8, and even TVs. Designs can be previewed on a virtual device matching the frame template.
(Image credit: Figma)
You can share designs and the tool grants a good level of control over how (and what) you send to others. From there, users can write comments, leave feedback, and - on the Professional and Organization plans - even have audio conversations with colleagues for real-time collaboration.
If you rely on collaborating online, Figma’s sister product, FigJam, will play a large role in this. Like Figma, this whiteboarding tool is simple to master, but comes with its own price plan. Helpfully, design files work in both tools, to help boost productivity and the creative process.
Post-sign off, Figma lets you export to PNG, JPEG, SVG, and PDF. That’s not a huge variety, but they are accessible formats - and, again, it means everyone involved in the process can view the finished design.
Alongside the browser app, Figma is available on macOS, Windows, iPhone, iPad, and Android. Note that the mobile versions have reduced functionality and are instead optimized for testing and discussion.
(Image credit: Figma)
Figma: Ease of use
If you know how to position and resize shapes and lines, then you can use Figma. Basic design-work relies on dropping shapes, images, and text boxes onto a blank frame, then tweaking the properties to achieve the desired result.
Don’t underestimate Figma, though. The prototyping tool is vastly more powerful than it first seems. You’ll find all major tools - from scaling tools and text to smart pen tools - housed at the top of the screen. Keyboard shortcuts are also fully supported, for increased efficiency and better creative workflows.
(Image credit: Figma)
Online collaboration is another strength. With hybrid and remote working now the norm, it’s a non-negotiable feature for most design teams. Figma makes it easier to work together, from initial concepts to final hand-over.
Elsewhere, the team library ensures style guides and branding is maintained across projects. That helps teams build more consistent designs and maintain branding across the entire workflow - and, hopefully, fewer issues or back-and-forths once the product goes to the developers.
There’s also support for free and paid-for stock design components, widgets, and plugins created by the wider Figma community.
(Image credit: Figma)
Figma: Customer support
A vast resource of answers can be found on the Figma support pages at help.figma.com. Here, you can find everything from guides and courses to direct help via a dedicated search box. If you can’t find the answers you need, communications can be opened. However, there is no indication of an expected response time, and our question was left unanswered.
Figma has garnered a Trustpilot score of 2.9, with opinion split on key matters. These include the tool’s often sluggish performance, and concerns over customer support.
(Image credit: Figma)
Figma: The competition
A collection of rival prototyping tools are also vying for your attention. How does Figma compare?
While competing tools (such as Framer and Proto.io) offer a desktop-like interface in a browser environment, only Figma attempts to deliver a desktop Adobe app in a browser.
Feature-wise, Figma has everything you need for effective prototyping with attractive design. It’s affordable, too, and the free version is excellent. Unfortunately for Figma, competing tools offer superior performance and easier access to advanced features.
(Image credit: Figma)
Figma: Final verdict
Figma delivers modern, intuitive UI and UX design that is accessible to all. On the face of it, Figma should be easy to use, but while it appears to do everything a designer needs, performance is an issue.
Trustpilot issues aside, our testing showed that Figma’s browser app suffered from performance issues that didn’t affect other tools. The interface was laggy, and often unresponsive, even with the demo materials. This may be due to the plan selection, or some remote issue. Either way, it is worth keeping in mind when selecting a new UX prototyping tool.
Writer's note [March 3, 2023]: we originally published the Meta Quest Pro review with a rating of 3.5 stars. However, following a permanent price drop from $1,500 / £1,500 / AU$2,450 to $999.99 / £999.99 / AU$1,729.99 we have adjusted our rating to 4 stars to reflect its new position in the market.
The Meta Quest Pro is an impressive device, but it’s not quite the ultimate VR headset we were anticipating.
Sure, it comes with 12GB of RAM, a more powerful Snapdragon XR2 Plus processor, and 256GB of storage space, which will enable it to run all Oculus Quest 2 games comfortably. But, based on our experience with the headset, it’s clear that the Quest Pro is a powerful mixed-reality device – not a headset that completely takes you out of the real world.
Its new color passthrough feature, in conjunction with the gap around the sides and bottom of the headset, gives you a clear view of the real world even while you’re immersed in an experience. However, while this makes experiences that blend the real and virtual worlds feel more immersive, true-VR games can suffer.
We’re also disappointed by the headset’s lackluster battery life, and we’re not convinced that face-tracking is more than a gimmick right now. Face-tracking and eye-tracking have promise, but there’s not yet a strong suite of software that justifies their inclusion quite yet.
That said, if you have the budget to splash out on next-gen XR hardware the Meta Quest Pro is a great pick; but if money is tight, or you're not interested in mixed-reality, then the $999.99 / £999.99 / AU$1,729.99 price may seem a bit steep.
Meta Quest Pro: Price and availability
From March 15 the Meta Quest Pro will cost $999.99 / £999.99 / AU$1,729.99, significantly less than its original $1,500 / £1,500 / AU$2,450 price.
Here's what comes packaged in the Meta Quest Pro box; you get a headset, controllers, and a boatload of cables plus a charging dock. (Image credit: Meta)
This is still a hefty price increase over the Oculus Quest 2 – it's around two times more expensive – though the upgrades the Quest Pro affords are a better fit at its new price.
It also better matches what other premium headsets will set you back. A Valve Index-powered VR setup will cost you $999 / £919 (about AU$1,430) for the headset (and at least $500 / £500 / AU$800) while the upcoming HTC Vive XR Elite is priced at $1,099 / £1,299 / around AU$1,625.
Meta Quest Pro: Design
Straight away it’s clear that the Meta Quest Pro is sporting some major design changes compared with the Oculus Quest 2 – and we’re not just talking about its all-black exterior, as opposed to the Quest 2’s all-white finish.
The first upgrade is the strap. The Quest 2’s all-elastic one is swapped out for a plastic strap that’s near-identical to the Elite Strap that’s an optional extra for the older hardware. The Meta Quest Pro’s strap is equipped with additional padding to make it comfier and uses a wheel for adjusting the fit, which makes it easier to get a secure yet not-too-tight fit.
The strap isn’t just for comfort – it also houses the Meta Quest Pro’s battery. This means that unlike the Quest 2, the Meta Quest Pro isn’t front-loaded in terms of its weight distribution; instead, the weight of the headset is spread out across your head. Because of this, even though the Pro is 7.7oz (219g) heavier than the Quest 2 at 1.6lbs (722g), it actually feels easier to wear.
Our reviewer is able to see the world around them while painting in mixed reality (Image credit: Meta)
Another major change is one necessitated by the fact that the Meta Quest Pro is a mixed- reality, or MR, headset, rather than a VR-exclusive device.
Unlike the Quest 2, which creates a seal around your eyes that entirely blocks out the outside world, the front padding of the Quest Pro is designed to give you a pretty good view out of the sides and bottom of the headset while you’re wearing it.
For mixed-reality experiences, this is perfect. Your view of the real world provides you with context and a sense of continuity while you’re wearing the headset that helps to sell its virtual creations as real. Case in point: when we were looking at our virtual hands and arms we could follow them off-screen and see them morph into our real arms through the gap, which helped to make our avatar’s limbs feel more real.
But in virtual reality experiences, this constant view of the real world can be off-putting. This reviewer personally had very little issue with it, and when we used the Quest Pro’s included clip-on blinders – which obstruct your view to the left and right – the experience wasn’t noticeably different from a Quest 2 in terms of immersion. However, others who’ve tried the device – including this reviewer’s partner and many folks online – have expressed their dislike of the setup, finding it immersion-breaking.
The issue can be solved by purchasing a Quest Pro add-on which creates a full seal around your eyes; however, that will set you back $50 / £50 / AU$79.99, and when you’ve already spent $999.99 / £999.99 / AU$1,729.99 you may not be keen to shell out more.
The last big change to the Quest Pro is its controllers. The button, trigger and thumbstick layout is generally unchanged from what Meta/Oculus has given us before, but while the original Quest and the Quest 2 were powered by replaceable AA batteries, the battery that’s built into the Quest Pro's headset is rechargeable.
The Meta Quest Pro's controllers look like the Quest 2's, just without the big ring on top (Image credit: Future)
The other alteration to the controllers is that the tracking ring has been removed. Instead of a ring that allows the headset to follow the handsets as they move, these controllers use cameras to track their position relative to the headset. This allows players to move the controllers out of sight of the headset’s sensors – for example placing them behind your back – without losing tracking.
However, this alteration does make the Quest pro’s controllers weightier than their predecessors – the Quest 2’s handsets clock in at about 5.3oz (150g) with a battery in while the Quest Pro’s are 5.8oz (164g) – though based on how heavy they feel we’d have guessed the difference would be larger.
One other big upgrade is that the controller’s straps can be replaced with a nib that turns them into a stylus – in certain apps this allows you to write on a physical surface and see virtual words appear in the space. The feature is neat, but we’re worried the tiny nibs will be easy to lose, especially as there’s no obvious place to store them except back in the original packaging.
Meta Quest Pro: Performance and specs
In terms of performance, the Quest Pro is one of the best standalone VR headsets we’ve used. Its new souped-up Snapdragon XR2 Plus chip and 12GB of RAM were able to easily handle everything we threw at the headset with no noticeable lag or other issues.
On top of that, the Quest Pro boasts Wi-Fi 6E support, 256GB of storage, and new miniLED LCD panels that offer 37% more pixels per inch, 10% more pixels per degree, and 75% better contrast. These improved panels made the headset’s visuals much more vivid and crisp than those produced by the Quest 2.
One other upgrade to the device is the hand-tracking. Using the Meta Quest Pro without controllers is generally a much better experience than on its older hardware. The feature is by no means flawless, but if you enjoy playing controller-free VR this headset could be a great fit for you.
When we puffed out our cheeks the alien avatar in front of us mimicked us; it was very amusing (Image credit: Meta)
The only minor letdown is that the headset’s display is capped at a refresh rate of 90Hz, whereas the Quest 2 can deliver 120Hz. Meta didn’t provide a definitive answer as to whether the Meta Quest Pro will in the future support a refresh rate of 120Hz, only saying that it’s “not optimized” for rates that high. 90Hz is the minimum required to prevent most users from experiencing motion sickness while wearing the headset, but it would have been nice to have the option to use a higher frame rate for even smoother experiences.
Meta Quest Pro: Features
It’s not just the design that makes the Meta Quest Pro feel like a device that’s dedicated to mixed reality; its features do too.
Color passthrough is a major upgrade to the Quest lineup’s mixed-reality capabilities, and based on our experience, titles like Wooorld, Painting VR, and Tribe XR are all better for its inclusion. The Quest Pro’s video feed of the real world is far from lifelike, however – the image is somewhat grainy and the color is off, especially in spaces that aren’t well-lit.
The other big new features of the Quest Pro are its eye and face tracking, although there isn’t yet a proper practical demonstration of what eye-tracking means for the experiences we can play (when we played Horizon Call of the Mountain during a PlayStation VR 2 demo session and were able to interact with the characters in realistic ways).
The Quest Pro’s technology did, however, enable the headset to detect what changes we needed to make to our fit to ensure that we were wearing the headset correctly, and had the lenses in the best spot for our eyes.
As for face tracking, we’re not yet the biggest fan – and we're glad to hear that it's a feature we can easily switch off. While other people at the Quest Pro’s pre-launch demo absolutely loved it, we found that the alien avatar that was meant to be mimicking us could only muster a terrifying grimace when we were in fact smiling and laughing.
Behind the Quest Pro's lenses lie some really solid displays, and its face-tracking sensors (Image credit: Future)
Over time we expect these features will get a tune-up, but more importantly we hope some must-play software that takes advantage of them is released sometime in the near future.
As things stand, color passthrough, and face and eye tracking, feel fairly gimmicky. While some games and apps are already putting the features to use, we wish more software existed to make the Quest Pro’s roughly $500 / £500 / AU$1,200 worth of upgrades over the Quest 2 feel completely justified.
Thanks to its March 15, 2023 price cut there's the Quest Pro feels much better bang for your buck, but we still hope to see Meta and its collaborators release experiences that prove to us why you need to pick up a Quest Pro instead of a Quest 2. At least in terms of their passthrough and face-tracking capabilities.
Meta Quest Pro: Battery life
One of our biggest concerns before testing the Meta Quest Pro was its battery life – and unfortunately, we were right to be a bit worried.
Meta had told us at a pre-announcement briefing that the headset can last for around one-and-a-half to two hours between charges – which felt so remarkably poor that one journalist let out an audible “oof” during the briefing when they heard it.
For comparison, the Quest 2 lasts for around two to three hours, with the optional Elite Strap with battery add-on bringing it up to around four. Considering that the Quest Pro costs roughly four times the price of the Quest 2, and around three times the price of the Quest 2 plus the battery upgrade, we would have expected its battery life to be just as good.
The Meta Quest Pro and its controllers on the charging dock, somewhere it'll have to spend a lot of time (Image credit: Meta)
While Meta has argued that people won’t really spend longer than a couple of hours at a time in VR / MR on the Quest 2 – and those who do can use it with the charging cable plugged in – the Quest Pro’s comfier design might encourage users to stay immersed for longer.
If you want to use the headset for short bursts then the battery life is more than acceptable, but based on our testing it won’t be a good fit for players who like to enjoy longer, uninterrupted VR and MR experiences.
We pride ourselves on our independence and our rigorous review-testing process, offering up long-term attention to the products we review and making sure our reviews are updated and maintained - regardless of when a device was released, if you can still buy it, it's on our radar.
This model has slightly different names and product codes in different territories:
US: Shark Stratos Cordless Vacuum IZ862H UK: Shark Stratos Anti Hair Wrap Plus Cordless Vacuum IZ400UK AU: Shark Stratos Cordless Pet Pro Vacuum With Clean Sense IQ IZ400
In the UK, there's also a version with added Pet Tool (IZ400UKT) and a Pet Tool plus extra battery (IZ420UKT). For this review, I tested the US version. There may be minor differences between different countries' models.
The Shark Stratos Cordless comes with Clean Sense IQ technology, which automatically adjusts the suction to pick up dirt and debris that you may not be able to see, and tells you when the floor is clean.
In my testing I was greatly impressed with the suction capabilities, especially the vacuum’s ability to remove hair from my couch when used in handheld and Boost mode. In fact, it holds a spot in TechRadar's best Shark vacuum guide as the top pick for people with a lot of carpet in their homes, as well as ranking highly amongst the best vacuums for pet hair. The MultiFLEX wand makes it easy to clean under furniture, and the flexible rotating head proved effective at picking up dirt in corners and around awkward pieces of furniture such as chairs.
The Stratos is reasonably priced for a high-performance cordless vacuum, although less of a strong prospect following the 2024 launch of the Shark PowerDetect Cordless vacuum, which promises the same suction but with added automation features. However, Shark deals are common, and it's still a good pick if you can find a good price-drop – and and it’s more affordable than some models with similar dust-detection technology like the Dyson V15 Detect.
Keep scrolling to find out more then, head to TechRadar's best cordless vacuum guide to see where it ranks the Shark Stratos Cordless vacuum cleaner.
Heavily discounted in all territories at time of update
At full ticket price, the Shark Stratos Cordless is $499.99 in the US, £399.99 in the UK, and AU$999.99 in Australia. At that price, it's right at the boundary between mid-range and premium price brackets. (Note that the AU version comes with a wider range of accessories.)
However, at time of update, it was significantly discounted in all territories when purchased via Shark – $399.99 in the US, £249.99 in the UK and AU$499.99 in Australia. That puts it into the middle of the mid-range price bracket.
That's not a bad price at all for a vacuum of this quality. However, it's less appealing when you consider the newer PowerDetect has a list price of $429.99 and promises the same amount of suction, with more advanced detection features.
The other line worth considering is the Detect Pro (read about the closest model for comparison in TechRadar's Shark Detect Pro Cordless vacuum cleaner review). The Detect Pro is slightly cheaper all round: $379.99 (discounted to $249.99 at time of updating), £349.99 (down to £229) and AU$799.99 (down to AU$499.99). This model is less powerful, but lighter and more advanced in terms of features than the Stratos – see exactly how the two compare in our Shark Stratos vs Detect Pro vacuum article.
Two brands you'll often find yourself comparing in this area is Shark vs Dyson. While the latter is typically pricier – and sometimes considerably so – there are reasons to factor Dyson into the equation. It's vacuums are unmatched when it comes to maneuverability, and technologies like the floorhead lights and dirt detection capabilities are more advanced than what Shark's vacuums offer. However, I'd still say Shark offers better value for money.
LED display shows battery level and lets you swap cleaning modes
At 8.9lb / 4kg, the Shark Stratos Cordless is fairly lightweight as cordless vacuums go, and the floor head can be removed to turn it into a handheld. Rather than an extendable wand it has a flexible wand – a popular feature referred to as 'MultiFLEX technology', which appears in a few of Shark's vacuum cleaners.
Releasing a catch on the back of the wand enables you to fold it forward for compact, freestanding storage, or for cleaning under furniture. The vacuum head swivels, and can effectively turn at a 90-degree angle with just a simple twist of the handle. Between this swivel action and the flexible wand, you can clean pretty much any place that the head can fit.
The Shark Stratos Cordless helpfully has a MULTIflex wand which bends to increase the reach under furniture (Image credit: Future)
An odor-neutralizing puck is inserted into the top of the vacuum head to keep it smelling fresh, and an LED headlight lets you see dirt and dust in dark corners. But the most significant aspect of the vacuum head design is the Clean Sense IQ indicator. When you’re vacuuming, a strip of light becomes illuminated on the top of the vacuum head. The longer the strip of light, the dirtier the floor. When the strip of light recedes, it means the floor is clean.
The Shark Stratos Cordless is designed for use on either carpet or hard floors. On the underside of the floor head you'll find two brush rolls, with fins designed to boost cleaning power. The rolls are designed to detangle hair and direct it into the dust cup as you clean, so you don't end up with a matted mess to remove from the floor head at the end of each vacuuming session.
The floorhead houses the Odor Neutralizer Technology, Clean Sense IQ indicator and LED headlights (Image credit: Future)
To empty the 0.72qt / 0.68L dust cup, which is fitted with a seal to prevent dust and allergens escaping into the air, you detach the main unit from the wand, and release a catch on the cup to deposit the contents into a bin.
At the top of the handle is a LED screen that displays the selected power mode and the remaining battery life. Built into this are buttons for turning the vacuum on and off and switching between Eco, Clean Sense IQ, and Boost mode. The vacuum doesn't have a charging station or base, making it easy to store it away in a closet or other space between uses (newer Detect Pro models add a self-empty base that doubles as a charging stand, but that's not an option with the Stratos Cordless at time of updating this review – see TechRadar's Shark Detect Pro Cordless vacuum cleaner review for an example).
The tools provided vary depending on which territory you're in, but with the US version I tested, there was a Duster Crevice Tool (which can be used as a crevice tool or a brush), and a flat Anti-Allergen Dusting Brush.
Design score: 4.5 out of 5
Shark Stratos Cordless vacuum review: performance
Excellent suction; automatic power adjustment works effectively
Flexible hose is a revelation for getting under furniture
Anti hair wrap works well
The Shark Stratos Cordless performed impressively during my testing. I used the vacuum in both stick and handheld mode on various surfaces including hardwood floors, vinyl floors, thick low-pile rugs, baseboards, a couch, and window treatments. The suctioning capability of this vacuum was superb, and I never had to run over the same area more than twice.
That said, cordless vacuums can rarely match corded options when it comes to sheer power, so if you really need to be able to deep clean, consider a corded option. There are a few options in this same range – read TechRadar's Shark Stratos Corded vacuum cleaner review for a closer look at our favorite.
While I did test out the Eco and Boost power modes, I generally used the vacuum in Clean Sense IQ mode as I wanted to get a good feel for how the automatic adjustment technology worked. When there was lots of dirt or debris on the floor, the suction was increased automatically and then returned to normal when the area was clean. It's a useful feature if you want effective cleaning that's kind to your battery; check out our Shark PowerDetect Cordless Stick Vacuum review to see a newer, similarly-priced model with more advanced dirt detection.
The floorhead can twist at a 90-degree angle (Image credit: Future)
Because I live in a period home with lots of nooks and crannies, it can be difficult to vacuum in certain corners or tight spaces. The vacuum head has a 10-inch cleaning path width and its low profile makes it easy to push it under cabinets. I appreciated that the floor head has an LED headlight and could twist at a 90-degree angle with just a slight twist of the handle. This made it far easier to clean corners, under dining room chairs, and around stands, in a way that's not possible with other vacuums.
I had never used a Shark cordless vacuum before, and the biggest revelation was the MultiFLEX wand. With a click of the button on the back of the wand, it bends in half, so you don’t have to squat down or lean over to vacuum under a bed or couch. When bent, the vacuum isn’t as easy to control as it is when it’s locked into a straight position, but you can still steer it well enough.
Testing out the Shark Stratos Cordless in my living room (Image credit: Future)
The Shark Stratos Cordless vacuum converts easily to handheld for cleaning furniture and upholstery. In boost power mode, it seemed to pick up hair from furniture much more effectively than other, similar vacuums I've tested.
Thanks to the self-cleaning dual brushroll, hair never wrapped around the brush. The 0.72qt / 0.68L dust cup is large enough to hold quite a bit of dust and debris – I didn’t manage to fill it even after vacuuming my entire house three times. I also found the lack of charging station a benefit, because it makes the vacuum easy to store in a closet or other space between uses.
The Shark Stratos Cordless can be neatly folded for storage, and stays upright (Image credit: Future)
The extra attachments vary depending on which territory you're in. For my review, I also tested out the Duster Brush Tool on my floorboards, switching to the Crevice Tool when I needed to get into tight corners. In this configuration, the vacuum was light enough to use the to clean the corners of my 10-foot ceilings and atop door frames. I was excited to try the Anti-Allergen Dusting Brush on my window blinds as they get very dusty, although it wasn't as effective as I'd hoped.
Performance score: 4.5 out of 5
Shark Stratos Cordless vacuum: battery life
Up to 60 minutes of runtime on ECO mode
Battery recharges in three hours
LED display shows remaining battery life
The vacuum’s battery is housed in the back of the handle. You don’t need to remove it from the vacuum to charge it, but you can do so if you find that more convenient.
It takes three hours for the battery to charge, and on a full charge you can get up to 60 minutes of runtime in ECO mode. Other modes sap the battery quicker – including the Clean Sense IQ mode, in which the vacuum senses how much dirt is on the floor and boosts the suction power as necessary.
Battery display on the Shark Stratos Cordless (Image credit: Future)
When testing the vacuum, I never came close to running down the battery when vacuuming my 1,600sq ft / 150sq m home, and I'd often end a vacuuming session with about 40% of battery left.
The only time I got close to running down the battery was when I vacuumed the whole house on Clean Sense IQ mode, and then followed it up by using the Anti-Allergen Dusting Brush to clean the dust off four large window blinds, before using the duster crevice tool to clean floorboards in two rooms; even then I still had 20 per cent left in the tank.
Battery life score: 4.5 out of 5
Should you buy the Shark Stratos Cordless vacuum?
Lasts long enough to clean most mid-to-large-sized homes, and automatic mode adjusts suction based on how dirty the floor is, for efficient battery use.
Buy it if...
It's difficult to see dirt on your hard floors or carpet
The vacuum's Clean Sense IQ technology uses an infrared sensor to spot dust and dirt, and automatically boosts the suction power for a better clean.
You want to be able to easily get into nooks and crannies
The wand bends in half, making it easy to clean under furniture without having to bend down or move items.
You want a vacuum that can be used handheld
The Shark Stratos Cordless with Clean Sense IQ converts to a compact and lightweight handheld vacuum for cleaning pet fur off furniture or a long handheld vacuum that can be utilized with other attachments.
Don't buy if...
You dislike having to use attachments to reach into narrow spaces
The vacuum head for the Shark Stratos Cordless is fairly bulky, so you’ll have to either break it down into a handheld vacuum, use it without the main vacuum head, or utilize one of the extra tools to get into narrow spaces.
You want a vacuum that comes with a self-emptying station
You need to empty the Shark Stratos Cordless dust cup manually. Shark does have a self-empty dock, but it's not currently available with this model.
• Original review date: October 2022 • Launch price: MSRP at $1,599 / £1,649 / AU$2,959 • Lowest price now: $2459 / £1,999.99 / AU$2,999
Update – April 2025: The Nvidia RTX 4090 is currently the second most powerful 'consumer' graphics card on the market today, so it's definitely still worth buying after the release of the Nvidia GeForce RTX 5090.
Whether it's gaming or creative work, this is one of the best graphics cards you can get, capable of some of the fastest 4K framerates around with creative chops second only to the RTX 5090.
Its market price is way higher than its launch MSRP (often close to double its launch price, at least in the US), but if you're in the market for an RTX 4090, chances are money isn't as big of a concern as it is further down the premium GPU stack, and this might be an excellent alternative to the RTX 5090, whose price right now is simply offensive. Your biggest problem, though, is going to be finding this card, which is increasingly difficult as most retailers selling new cards are completely sold out and aren't expecting restocks, so you might have to look to the RTX 5090 or RTX 5080 instead.
Original unedited review follows...
Nvidia GeForce RTX 4090: two minute review
Well, the Nvidia GeForce RTX 4090 is finally here, and there's no question that it delivers on many of the lofty promises made by Nvidia ahead of its launch, delivering stunning gen-on-gen performance improvement that is more akin to a revolution than an advance.
That said, you won't find four times performance increases here, and only in some instances will you see a 2x increase in performance over the Nvidia GeForce RTX 3090, much less the Nvidia GeForce RTX 3090 Ti, but a 50% to 70% increase in synthetic and gaming performance should be expected across the board with very rare exceptions where the GPU runs too far ahead of the CPU.
On the creative side of things, this card was made to render, completely lapping the RTX 3090 in Blender Cycles performance, which makes this the best graphics card for creatives on the market, period, hands down.
On the gaming side, this is the first graphics card to deliver fully native 4K ray-traced gaming performance at a very playable framerate, without the need for DLSS, showing the maturity of Nvidia's third-generation ray tracing cores.
Even more incredible, Nvidia's new DLSS 3 shows even more promise, delivering substantially faster framerates over the already revolutionary DLSS 2.0. And while we did not test DLSS 3 as extensively as we did the RTX 4090's native hardware (for reasons we'll explain in a bit), from what we've seen, Nvidia's new tech is probably an even more important advance than anything having to do with the hardware.
On trhe downside, the card does require even more power than its predecessor, and when paired with something like the Intel Core i9-12900K, you're going to be pulling close to 700W of power between these two components alone. Worse still, this additional power draw requires some very strategic cable management to practically use, and for a lot of builders, this is going to be a hard card to show off in a case with a bundle of PCIe cables in the way.
The price has also increased over its predecessor, though given its incredible performance and the price of the previous graphics card champ, the RTX 3090 Ti, the RTX 4090 offers for more performance for the price than any other card on the market other than the Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080 and Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080 Ti. So even though the Nvidia RTX 4090 is a very expensive card, what you are getting for the price makes it a very compelling value proposition if you can afford it.
In the end, the Nvidia GeForce RTX 4090 is definitely an enthusiast graphics card in terms of price and performance, since the level of power on offer here is really overkill for the vast majority of people who will even consider buying it. That said, if you are that enthusiast – or if you are a creative or a researcher who can actually demonstrate a need for this much power – there's isn't much else to say but to buy this card.
It is more powerful than many of us ever thought it could be, and while I'd definitely argue that the Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070 Ti or AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX is the better purchase for gamers given their price, the RTX 4090 was always going to be a card for the early adopters out there, as well as creatives who are out to spend the company's money, not their own, and the RTX 4090 will give you everything you could want in an enthusiast graphics card.
Nvidia GeForce RTX 4090: Price & availability
(Image credit: Future)
How much is it? MSRP listed at $1,599 (about £1,359, AU$2,300)
When is it out? It is available October 12, 2022.
Where can you get it? Available in the US, UK, and Australia.
The Nvidia GeForce RTX 4090 goes on sale worldwide on October 12, 2022, with an MSRP of $1,599 in the US (about £1,359/AU$2,300).
This is $100 more than the MSRP of the RTX 3090 when it was released in September 2020, but is also about $400 less than the MSRP of the RTX 3090 Ti, though the latter has come down considerably in price since the RTX 4090 was announced.
And while this is unquestionably expensive, this card is meant more as a creative professional's graphics card than it is for the average consumer, occupying the prosumer gray area between the best gaming PC and a Pixar-workstation.
Of course, third-party versions of the RTX 4090 are going to cost even more, and demand for this card is likely to drive up the price quite a bit at launch, but with the crash of the cryptobubble, we don't think we'll see quite the run-up in prices that we saw with the last generation of graphics cards.
Finally, one thing to note is that while this is an expensive graphics card, its performance is so far out ahead of similarly priced cards, that it offers a much better price to performance value than just about any other card out there, and it is far ahead of its immediate predecessors in this regard. Honestly, we don't really see this kind of price-to-performance ratio outside of the best cheap graphics cards, so this was definitely one of the biggest surprises coming out of our testing.
Value: 4 / 5
Nvidia GeForce RTX 4090: features & chipset
(Image credit: Future)
4nm GPU packs in nearly three times the transistors
Substantial increase in Tensor Cores
Third generation RT Cores
Nvidia GeForce RTX 4090 key specs
GPU: AD102 CUDA cores: 16,384 Tensor cores: 512 Ray tracing cores: 128 Power draw (TGP): 450W Base clock: 2,235 MHz Boost clock: 2,520 MHz VRAM: 24GB GDDR6X Bandwith: 1,018 GB/s Bus interface: PCIe 4.0 x16 Outputs: 1 x HDMI 2.1, 3 x DisplayPort 1.4a Power connector: 1 x 16-pin
The Nvidia GeForce RTX 4090 features some major generational improvements on the hardware front, courtesy of the new Nvidia Lovelace architecture. For one, the AD102 GPU uses TSMC's 4nm node rather the Samsung 8nm node used by the Nvidia Ampere GeForce cards.
The die size is 608mm², so a little bit smaller than the 628mm² die in the GA102 GPU in the RTX 3090, and thanks to the TSMC node, Nvidia was able to cram 76.3 billion transistors onto the AD102 die, a 169% increase in transistor count over the GA102's 28.3 billion.
The clock speeds have also see a substantial jump, with the RTX 4090's base clock running at a speedy 2,235 MHz, compared to the RTX 3090's 1,395 MHz. It's boost clock also gets a commesurate jump up to 2,520 MHz from 1,695 MHz.
It's memory clock is also slightly faster at 1,325 MHz, up from 1,219 MHz, giving the RTX 4090 a faster effective memory speed of 21.2 Gbps versus the RTX 3090's 19.5 Gbps. This lets the RTX 4090 get more out of the same 24GB GDDR6X VRAM as the RTX 3090.
When it comes to the number of cores, the RTX 4090 packs in 56% more streaming multiprocessors than the RTX 3090, 128 to 82, which translates into nearly 6,000 more CUDA cores as the RTX 3090 (16,384 to 10,496). That also means that the RTX 4090 packs in 46 additional ray tracing cores and an additional 184 Tensor cores, and next-gen cores at that, so they are even better at ray tracing and vectorized computations than its predecessor.
This is immediately apparent when cranking up ray tracing to the max on games like Cyberpunk 2077, and especially when running DLSS 3, which makes the jump to full-frame rendering rather than just the pixel rendering done by earlier iterations of DLSS.
Features & Chipset: 5 / 5
Nvidia GeForce RTX 4090: design
(Image credit: Future)
Yeah, that 16-pin connector is a pain to work with
A little bit thicker, but a little shorter, than the RTX 3090
The Nvidia GeForce RTX 4090 Founders Edition looks very much like its predecessor, though there are some subtle and not-so-subtle differences. First off, this is a heavier card for sure, so don't be so surprised that we need to start adding support brackets to our PC builds. It might have been optional in the last generation, but it is absolutely a necessity with the Nvidia RTX 4090.
The Founders Edition does not come with one, but third-party cards will likely include them and manufacturers are already starting to sell them separately so we would definitely suggest you pick one up.
Otherwise, the dimensions of the RTX 4090 around that much different than the RTX 3090. It's a bit thicker than the RTX 3090, but it's a bit shorter as well, so if your case can fit an RTX 3090 FE it will most likely fit an RTX 4090 FE.
The fans on either side of the card help pull air through the heatsink to cool off the GPU and these work reasonably well, considering the additional power being pulled into the GPU.
Speaking of power, the RTX 4090 introduces us to a new 16-pin connector that requires four 8-pin connectors plugged into an adaptor to power the card. Considering the card's 450W TDP, this shouldn't be surprising, but actually trying to work with this kind of adapter in your case is probably going to be a nightmare. We definitely suggest that you look into the new PSU's coming onto the market that support this new connector without needing to resort to an adapter. If you're spending this much money on a new graphics card, you might as well go hog and make your life – and cable management – a bit easier.
Design: 4 / 5
Nvidia GeForce RTX 4090: performance
(Image credit: Future)
Unassisted native 4K ray-traced gaming is finally here
Creatives will love this card
So here we are, the section that really matters in this review. In the lead up to the Nvidia GeForce RTX 4090 announcement, we heard rumors of 2x performance increases, and those rumors were either not too far off or were actually on the mark, depending on the workload in question.
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Across our synthetic benchmark tests, the Nvidia RTX 4090 produced eye-brow raising results from the jump, especially on more modern and advanced benchmarks like 3DMark Port Royal and Time Spy Extreme, occasionally fully lapping the RTX 3090 and running well ahead of the RTX 3090 Ti pretty much across the board.
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This trend continues on to the GPU heavy creative benchmarks, with the Nvidia RTX 4090's Blender performance being especially noteable for more than doubling the RTX 3090 Ti's performance on two out of three tests, and blowing out any other competing 4K graphics card in Cycles rendering.
On Premiere Pro, the RTX 4090 scores noticeably higher than the RTX 3090 Ti, but the difference isn't nearly as dramatic since PugetBench for Premiere Pro measures full system performance rather than just isolating the GPU, and Adobe Photoshop is a heavily raterized workload, which is something that AMD has an advantage in over the past couple of generations, which is something we see pretty clearly in our tests.
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Gaming is obviously going to see some of the biggest jumps in performance with the RTX 4090, and our tests bear that out. Most gaming benchmarks show roughly 90% to 100% improved framerates with the RTX 4090 over the RTX 3090, and roughly 55% to 75% better performance than the Nvidia RTX 3090 Ti.
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These numbers are likely to jump even higher when you factor in DLSS 3. DLSS 3 isn't available in any commercially available games yet, but we were able to test DLSS 3 on a couple of special builds games that will be available shortly after the release of the RTX 4090. A few of these games had in-game benchmarks that we could use to test the performance of DLSS 3 using Nvidia's FrameView tool and the results showed two to three times better performance on some games than we got using current builds on Steam with DLSS 2.0.
Since we were using special builds and Nvidia-provided tools, we can't necessarily declare these results representative until we are able to test them out on independent benchmarks, but just eyeballing the benchmark demos themselves we see an obvious improvement to the framerates of DLSS 3 over DLSS 2.0.
Whether the two to three times better performance will hold up after its official release remains to be seen, but as much as DLSS 2.0 revolutionized the performance of the best PC games, DLSS 3 looks to be just as game-changing once it gets picked up by developers across the PC gaming scene. Needless to say, AMD needs to step up its upscaling game if it ever hopes to compete on the high-end 4K scene.
Now, there is a real question about whether most gamers will ever need anything coming close to this kind of performance, and there is such a thing as diminishing returns. Some might find that the native 4K ray tracing is neat, but kind of redundant since DLSS can get you roughly the same experience with an RTX 3090 or even an RTX 3080 Ti, but that's a judgment that individual consumers are going to have to make.
Personally, I think this card is at least approaching the point of overkill, but there's no doubt that it overkills those frame rates like no other.
Performance: 5 / 5
Should you buy an Nvidia GeForce RTX 4090?
(Image credit: Future)
Buy the Nvidia GeForce RTX 4090 if…
You want the best graphics card on the market There really is no competition here. This is the best there is, plain and simple.
You want native 4K ray-traced gaming DLSS and other upscaling tech is fantastic, but if you want native 4K ray-traced gaming, this is literally the only card that can consistently do it.
You are a 3D graphics professional If you work with major 3D rendering tools like Maya, Blender, and the like, then this graphics card will dramatically speed up your workflows.
Don’t buy the Nvidia GeForce RTX 4090 if…
You're not looking to do native, max-4K gaming Unless you're looking to game on the bleeding edge of graphical performance, you probably don't need this card.
You're on a budget This is a very premium graphics card by any measure.
Also consider
Nvidia GeForce RTX 3090 The RTX 3090 isn't nearly as powerful as the RTX 4090, but it is still an amazing gaming and creative professional's graphics card and is likely to be very cheap right now.
Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080 The RTX 3080 is a far cry from the RTX 4090, no doubt, but the RTX 3080 currently has the best price to performance proposition of any 4K card on the market. If you're looking for the best value, the RTX 3080 is the clear winner here.
AMD Radeon RX 6950 XT In another universe, AMD would have lead the Big Navi launch with the RX 6950 XT. It is a compelling gaming graphics card, offering excellent 4K gaming performance on par with the RTX 3090 and generally coming in at the same price as the RTX 3080 Ti.
We tested the UK version. There may be minor differences between different countries' models.
The Shark FlexStyle – or to give its full name, the Shark FlexStyle Air Styling & Hair Drying System – is a tube shaped dryer onto which a variety of tools can be attached to achieve a range of styles. We tested one out to see how it compares to the rest of the best hair stylers on the market, and were pretty impressed.
This is Shark's answer to the perpetually popular Dyson Airwrap. Just like that multi-styler, the FlexStyle has the all-important auto-wrap curl barrels, shape strands of hair into coils as it dries them, without the need for the scorching heat of traditional curling tongs. Functionally, these work pretty much identically to the Airwrap, although here you'll have to swap over barrels when you want to move from clockwise to anticlockwise curls. That minor annoyance aside, this is one of the very best Dyson Airwrap dupes we've tested.
Overall, the design is balanced, comfortable to use, and feels well-built. It packs a good amount of power too – although not quite as much as one of today's best hair dryers. Beyond the auto-wrap barrels, there's a wide range of compatible accessories, which make this tool suitable for a range of hair types and lengths. In some countries you can pick the ones you want included with your FlexStyle bundle, so you're not stuck with a bunch of attachments you don't need, too.
On test, we found results varied by tool, with some impressing more than others. Note too that, while using the Coanda effect to create curls is undoubtedly better for your hair, it's fiddlier and the results tend to drop far quicker than when using a traditional curling tong. That's the short version; read on for our full Shark FlexStyle review.
(Image credit: Future)
Shark FlexStyle review: price & availability
List price: $279.99 / £269.99 / AU$499.99
Launched: 2022
The Shark FlexStyle launched back in 2022, and has a list price of $279.99 in the US, £269.99 in the UK and AU$499.99 in Australia. You can purchase direct from Shark or via a range of third party retailers. Shark is no stranger to a sale, so if you're smart about when you buy, you can avoid paying full price (keep an eye out for a Shark promo codes, too).
If you go direct to Shark in the US or UK, you can build your own bundle. You get the base model, and then pick four from the wide range of compatible accessories (the left and right curlers count as one, don't worry!). That's a clever system as it means you can choose only the tools you need for your hair type and routine. You can also purchase accessories individually from Shark.
You can pick up styling tools at any price, but you should expect to pay a bit of a premium for one that uses the Coanda effect for curling. The build quality here is good, and wide selection of compatible attachments and convenience of the auto-wrapping curl barrels goes some way towards justifying the expense.
The main competitor in this area is the Dyson Airwrap. The previous model (which it's still possible to get hold of... for now) comes with a list price of $599.99 / £479.99 / AU$849.99, and the newest iteration, the Airwrap i.d., is $599.99 / £479.99 / $849. So a lot pricier than the Shark. That styler does feel more premium, though, and does some useful things the FlexStyle cannot.
Attachments are sturdily built, and come on and off easily
The design comprises a tube-shaped dryer with various attachments. The main barrel feels balanced and fairly lightweight, with a 5.5-inch circumference that fits neatly in the palm of your hand. On the barrel you'll find the controls – an on/off toggle, buttons to adjust windspeed and temperature (there are three settings for each, with indicator lights showing which mode you're in), and a button higher up the barrel for the cool shot.
The dryer itself looks and feels high quality, although not quite as premium as the Airwrap. We've tested both the gold and back colorways, and far prefer the latter – the beige attachments on the gold model look rather cheap, and become dirty easily.
(Image credit: Future)
The top section pivots and locks at a right angle, reducing the length from 11.3 inches to around 8.5 inches and making it very comfortable to use as a hair dryer.
Adding attachments makes it rather long – the 6-inch auto-wrap barrels take the total length of the styler to a somewhat cumbersome 17.5 inches – but it's a testament to Shark's engineering that it remains well balanced no matter which attachment you use. This, coupled with its light weight, makes even the most complex and long-winded styles comfortable to complete.
(Image credit: Future)
While it’s true the Shark FlexStyle can replace a number of your existing hair tools, don’t expect it to save you a lot of space in the process, as many of the attachments are rather bulky. One of our review samples came with a display box, which is large but looks smart and at least gives you somewhere to stash away all the various bits neatly. (The box isn't generally included as standard, but is one of the options in the build your own bundle.)
(Image credit: Future)
A minor complaint is that the cable is thick and has a power pack around a third of the way down. This makes it difficult to wrap or coil neatly for storage, and the power pack adds what feels like an unnecessary amount of bulk when lifting the styler above and around your head. Said cable is also slightly shorter than we'd ideally like, at 8ft / 2.4m.
Attachments
The FlexStyle initially launched with a relatively limited range of attachments, but in the years since has added more options. Now, it boasts one of the widest ranges of compatible attachments of any multi-styler... although the selection still isn't quite as comprehensive as the Airwrap's. (Note these may vary slightly by country.) For our review, we tested the following attachments:
1.25" auto-wrap curlers
Concentrator
Paddle brush
Oval bristle brush
Diffuser
Also available, but not tested here, are:
0.95" auto-wrap curlers
Round bristle brush
Wide tooth comb
'FrizzFighter' finishing tool (to rival Dyson's popular Flyaway tool).
These all snap on easily, and can be released by pulling down the lock button. They also have cool-touch areas so you can remove them without burning your fingers.
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(Image credit: Future)
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(Image credit: Future)
The auto-wrap curlers have a classy matte finish and are marked with arrows so you can see at a glance if it's a clockwise or anti-clockwise barrel. Both the oval and paddle brushes are on the large side, much larger than the size of a regular hairbrush, and certainly geared towards those with longer, thicker hair (it looks like the round bristle brush would be a better fit for mid-length locks). The diffuser is also rather chunky, and features a slider switch that enables you to extend the length of the prongs, making it suitable for longer hair.
Design score: 4 out of 5
Shark FlexStyle review: performance
Intuitive controls and easy to get started with
Fast overall drying speeds
Performance and finish vary depending on the attachment
Overall, the styler is well balanced, not too heavy, and comfortable to use. It's also easy to get started with, although mastering each of the attachments can take a bit longer – as we'll get into in a second.
The settings buttons are placed at the bottom of the barrel, rather than higher up where they might be accidentally switched while gripping the styler. They're easy enough to reach if you do need to make changes mid-style, and the fact they're on a flattened section means you can locate them fairly easily by touch. However, they do sit alongside the air vents for the motor, which means you can block airflow when switching between modes.
(Image credit: Future)
To set the styler into right-angled hair dryer mode, you pull down a switch on the barrel’s handle and twist the top section. In this mode, it's easy to direct the airflow precisely where it's needed. It also makes it comfortable to use with the diffuser or diffuser attached.
The hair dryer on its own is fast and effective. It took our fine-haired tester 2 minutes and 47 seconds to go from wet to dry hair, putting it on par with the original Dyson Supersonic. Her hair was a little frizzy and flat when dried in this way, but no more or less than when drying with other hairdryers.
(Image credit: Future)
To add attachments, turn and lock them into place and then use the unlock switch on the barrel to release them with ease. The use of an unlock switch may seem unnecessary, but it prevents the attachments from twisting and moving mid-style – a common complaint of other hair dryers and cheaper multi-stylers we've used in the past.
(Image credit: Future)
Auto-wrap curl barrels
Probably the biggest selling point of the FlexStyle is the promise of effortless curling with minimal heat damage using the auto-wrap curlers. To get the most out of these attachments, you should start by drying hair until it's around 80% dry – you can use the styler in hair dryer mode to take care of this. Achieving the optimum level of moisture in the hair requires a bit of trial and error – too wet or too dry, and the curls won't hold.
Mastering the Coanda technology also takes a bit of time, although once you've got it, it's fairly straightforward. You want to section off a bit of hair, switch the styler on and position the barrel in the bottom third of the hair. You'll see the strands start twisting around the barrel, and moving the wand backwards and forwards slightly will cause the rest of it to wrap too. The hot air then shapes the curl as it finishes drying the hair. For best results, you'll need to hit the cool shot button to set the curl before removing the wand.
(Image credit: Future)
Here, the matte finish on curl barrels adds slight grip on the hair, which one of our thick-haired testers found hindered the wrapping process a little, although those with finer, slipperier hair might actually find it helps.
It's not a perfect system. Swapping over the barrels when you want to change the direction of curl is annoying. The air can pull in hair from other sections, or blow it in various directions while you’re setting each curl, creating frizz and flyaways. All three of our testers found their curls dropped much faster than those created using a traditional tong (although our tester with thick, straight hair found that curls on day-old hair had more staying power than on freshly washed hair).
We will emphasize, though, that this is true of all Coanda effect curlers we've tried. You won't end up with perfect, long-lasting curls with this method, but you can achieve good body and waves with minimal heat damage.
If you opt to pay more for an Airwrap i.d., you'll get the convenience of not having to swap barrels to change from clockwise to anticlockwise, and there's a switch that kicks off a curl cycle (wrap, curl, cool shot) timed to your hair type, so you won't need to mess around with changing settings mid-curl. However, functionally the wrapping process and results will be very similar.
Brush attachments
If you're using the oval or paddle brush, you can expect drying times to be a little longer, because you're styling as you dry. These are both fairly intuitive in use, and require far less of learning curve than the auto-wrap barrels. The large size means they're best suited to longer, thicker hair.
To get real volume using the oval brush, you’ll need to spend time working on the roots, holding your hair straight up (or at right angles to your head), placing the brush on the underside of your hair at the base and running it up and through each strand multiple times. You can also hold the brush at the base while it sets the volume, before smoothing the rest of the hair, or rotating it as you move it through to create flicks or large curls and waves.
Our fine-haired tester found this method gave her hair decent volume to begin with, but the style fell flat within half an hour. The large size of the oval brush makes it much better suited to long hair than short.
(Image credit: Future)
The paddle brush is used for creating smooth styles, and to use it you simply run it through strands of hair like you would a regular hair brush, keeping it face-down to smooth the cuticles. If you want to add subtle volume, angle the paddle brush up and under your roots for a few seconds before each pass. On test we found this created a smooth finish, with very little frizz. Our fine-haired tester was particularly impressed, and noted that she usually had to resort to straighteners to gain such a sleek, straight look.
Performance score: 3.5 out of 5
Should I buy a Shark FlexStyle?
Buy it if...
You like to wear your hair in different styles
From curls to waves, and straight sleek finishes to bouncy blow dries, the FlexStyle offers a wide range of attachments to tackle different styles.
You can't afford a Dyson Airwrap
While the Airwrap is better, the FlexStyle does many of the same things for a far lower price. And functionally, the auto-wrap curling is almost identical.
Your priority is hair health
The FlexStyle creates curls with much less heat than a traditional tong, which is good news for hair health in the long term.
Don't buy it if...
You're short on space
The versatility is convenient, but collectively the dryer and all its attachments take up a lot of space.
You tend to do one style only
If you don't need multiple attachments, you'll save money by going for a simpler, dedicated tool.
Your want curls that last
Creating curls using air might be less damaging to your hair, but don't expect them to stick around all day – for lasting curls, traditional tongs win out.
How I tested the Shark Flexstyle
This review combines the experiences of three testers, with different hair types and styling preferences. All used the FlexStyle extensively over at least a couple of weeks, trying out all the supplied attachments. We noted how intuitive and comfortable it was to use, and how the results matched up to other styling tools we'd used. We also assessed how fast it was to style hair, and how long the results lasted.
Update: February 2024. The 1More Sonoflow retains a place in our guide to the best noise-cancelling headphones even following the arrival of the affordable Sony WH-CH720N, thanks to being regularly available for an even lower price. We still rate how good they are all-round, and especially the nice long 50 hours of battery life with ANC. 1More has since released the Sonoflow SE, which we haven't had a chance to test yet, but offers you an even cheaper option. The rest of this review remains as previously published.
1MORE Sonoflow: two-minute review
The 1MORE Sonoflow are the first over-ear headphones that feature noise-cancellation from this likeable, affordable audio tech brand, and they are emphatic proof that you can get a great pair of wireless headphones capable of ticking most of the boxes for under $100/£100.
Again though, the 1MORE Sonoflow are the brand’s first pair of noise-cancelling over-ear headphones. They adopt a no-frills approach – the design of the headphones and their accompanying app is very simple. However, all of the essentials are here. They sound great, noise-cancellation is good, there’s a fantastic 70 hours of battery life (that’s 50 hours with ANC on), and we found them to be remarkably comfortable to wear all day.
Although there are no ground-breaking new features, the 1MORE Sonoflow are solid all-rounders at a price we feel makes them better value than several of the best noise-cancelling headphones and best over-ear headphones you can buy today. With this in mind, they’re bound to have wide appeal for those looking for a great-sounding pair of over-ears. Read on for our full 1MORE Sonoflow review.
The red ear cup lining makes a rather bland design pop. (Image credit: Future)
1MORE Sonoflow review: price and release date
Released in September, 2022
$99 / £89 (approx. AUD$156)
One of the big draws of 1MORE products is that they’re inexpensive, and at $99 / £89 (approx. AUD$156) the 1MORE Sonoflow over-ear headphones continue the tradition. At this price we wouldn’t call them cheap over-ear headphones, like the Sony WH-CH510, which cost $59 / £50 / AU$89, but they’re within what we’d consider the best budget headphones bracket and have a similar price tag to some of our good value favorites.
Take a look at our JBL Tune 750BTNC review, cans which cost $130 / £120 / AU$200 at launch and have a similar comfortable design and strong ANC. However, the 1MORE Sonoflow definitely beat the JBL product in terms of battery life, offering 70 hours with ANC off compared to only 22 hours. They’re also similar to the Urbanista Miami, which cost $149 / £129 / AU$269, but with the Sonoflow you’ll get better ANC and audio.
They’re obviously significantly cheaper than the best headphones you can buy today, like the Sony WH-1000XM4 over-ear headphones, which cost more than three times as much, at $350 / £349 / AU$549. These perform better than the 1MORE Sonoflow in most respects, which you’d expect. But then again this all comes down to personal preference. If you don’t have the budget for high-end headphones and don’t need audiophile-grade sound, the 1MORE Sonoflow headphones do represent better value.
The 1MORE Sonoflow come in a hard shell case, ideal if you need to transport them on the move. (Image credit: Future)
1MORE Sonoflow review: features
App a bit sparse compared to rivals
Touch controls could be more intuitive
Incredible battery life
Pairing the 1MORE Sonoflow with an iPhone is incredibly easy, as was getting the app working within seconds. We also tested them with an Oculus Quest 2 VR headset and the Bluetooth connection was stellar throughout.
The accompanying 1MORE Sonoflow app isn’t bad, but it’s bland in terms of design and sparse when it comes to features, especially compared to rivals with incredibly customizable and slick apps such as the Sennheiser Momentum 4 Wireless – although of course, these are more expensive.
However, the basics are here. You can switch ANC on and off or select transparent mode, which works well for having conversations without taking the headphones off. There’s also an Equalizer, although you can’t fully adjust or tune the headphones with a five-band EQ tab. Instead, there are 12 custom presets to choose from, including ‘Bass Booster’ and ‘Classical’. These might provide enough customization for most listeners, but will be disappointing for those who want more control.
In the app you’ll also find a ‘Soothing Sounds’ section, but these are played on short 10 second loops, which means it’s really jarring when they end and begin again – hardly soothing. There’s also an option called ‘Experimental Features’ where you’ll find multipoint pairing, which works well (but is hardly 'experimental' in 2022, no?) and other than a few supplementary expected features, such as a firmware upgrade option and an FAQ section, that’s about it from the app.
There are button controls on the earcups, including three buttons in total on the front and rear of the right earcup. Each button does a few different things, which is confusing to remember at first. Luckily, it didn’t take long for us to learn them but the experience wasn’t as intuitive as it is with other headphones. There’s also no option to customize the functions. Then again, if you like physical buttons over capacitive on-ear touch controls, these might be more appealing.
An annoying feature that we really noticed, having tested so many pairs of headphones, is that there are no sensors onboard to detect when you take them off, to pause the music accordingly. This won’t be an issue for some people, but we’ve become used to taking out an earbud or slipping off an earcup and having the music pause, and that doesn’t happen here.
One of the main selling points of these over-ears is their impressive battery life. They boast a huge 70 hours with ANC off and a still amazing 50 hours with ANC on. We found these estimates from 1MORE to be spot on during our testing. When you do need to charge them up, you’ll find a USB-C charging cable in your carry case. We loved that a five minute charge could deliver more than 4.5 hours of extra listening and 1.5 hours of charging gets them completely full.
In terms of rivals, this makes them one of the best pairs of noise-cancelling headphones for battery life we’ve ever tested. One of our current favorite pair of over-ears, the Sony WH-1000XM4 have 30 hours of battery life with ANC on. They’re only beaten by the newer and excellent Sennheiser Momentum 4 Wireless headphones, which boast 60 hours of battery life, and that’s with ANC on.
Features score: 3.5/5
The earcups can be adjusted and move on hinges, which is good for those with thick hair and means your head doesn’t feel too squeezed. (Image credit: Future)
1MORE Sonoflow review: design
They look more premium than they should
Incredibly comfortable
Some might find the design boring
The 1MORE Sonoflow over-ear headphones come in a compact and premium-looking zip case with a hard shell to protect them on the move. Handily, the spots where the earcups fit are labelled, which makes folding them up in a hurry much easier.
The headphones have a simple design, quality hinges and there’s a matte-like finish to the plastic casing. The cups are made from a super soft memory foam and we love that there’s a bright red fabric lining on the inside.
The headphones are incredibly comfortable to wear for long periods of time. This is thanks to those soft earpads, the adjustable cups, the lightweight design (they’re only 250g) and a cushioned headband. Refreshingly, we find we can truly keep these cans on all day long, and that is rare.
Granted, some people might find this design a bit boring – they don’t stand out as much as higher-end over-ears, like the Bose Headphones 700 or the Apple AirPods Max– but we think the minimal aesthetic makes them look more luxe than they should at this price.
Assuming you like how they look, the only major downside here is that there’s no water resistance rating, so we’d be very wary about recommending them for fitness or outside if it looks like rain. No, this isn’t unusual for a pair of affordable noise-cancelling over-ears, but an IP rating is still a feature we’d have liked to see.
Design score: 4/5
Some might call the design boring, but we love the minimal styling from 1MORE here. (Image credit: Future)
1MORE Sonoflow review: sound quality
ANC is good
Sound is great (especially for the price)
The EQ presets are fun to use
The noise cancellation on offer from the 1MORE Sonoflow headphones is really impressive for the price. That’s the key here. These aren’t the best noise-cancelling headphones you can buy, but for under £100/$100 you’re getting a great experience and we think most people would be impressed by how well they perform.
During our testing we found that most ambient sounds and lots of standard low frequency noises are drowned out completely. Some high-pitched noises will still get through and we found the steady rumble of a fan in our office remained, as did a loud conversation on the bus that was close by. But there was a huge difference in how bothersome these noises were when ANC was on compared to when it was off. So even though they might not be the best at noise-cancelling, they should suit most office environments and commutes, cutting back most of the lows and mids you’ll hear throughout the day.
The same can be said for the sound quality. No, the 1MORE Sonoflow won’t compete with headphones three or four times the price, but that’s not what most people need. During our testing, we were impressed with the powerful bass and detailed, crisp highs on offer here – thanks to the Sonoflow’s dual 40mm drivers.
What’s more, the (albeit limited) EQ presets did affect music from genre to genre. For example, turning on ‘Bass booster’ during an Âme techno track was seriously impressive, providing thumping bass. Overall the bass was great with the headphones and, crucially, didn’t distort even at high volumes.
Selecting ‘Classical’ while listening to Hildur Guðnadóttir’s beautiful strings added a rich and expansive quality to the sound. In fact, classical music sounded excellent with a strong and clear sense of definition. These presets might seem basic to some people, but others will really enjoy playing around with them.
There’s support for Sony’s LDAC hi-res audio format. But you need a device that supports it as well as audio that offers a hi-res bit rate. There are also SBC and AAC codecs – good news for iOS users –which, again, is a decent range for the price. But there’s no aptX Adaptive, which some people – especially Android users – might consider a dealbreaker.
Sound quality score: 4/5
Thanks to the memory foam cups and padded headband, we wore these headphones happily for more than 6 hours straight during testing – we can’t say that often. (Image credit: Future)
1MORE Sonoflow review: value
Look and feel more premium than they are
Battery life is phenomenal at this price
Better sound is available, but for much more money
Like all 1MORE products we’ve tested, the Sonoflow over-ear headphones are excellent value for money. In many respects they feel more high-end than they should. We think this is thanks to their matte finish, sturdy case and minimal design, which doesn’t give away its budget price.
You will find a more premium experience from an app elsewhere, and although we highly rate the ANC and sound on offer here, other headphones do it better, but, crucially, not for this price.
The battery life is obviously excellent and the comfort levels are high, so these headphones will be ideal for most people who want good sound but need to know they’re dependable enough for all day wear, and these certainly are.
Value score: 5/5
Should you buy the 1MORE Sonoflow?
Buy them if…
Don't buy them if…
Also consider…
If our 1MORE Sonoflow review has you wondering whether to add them to your online shopping cart or to check out other wireless over-ear headphones, take a glance at these three competing cans at the level.
