Split Fiction is an explosive co-op game with a kaleidoscope of mechanics. If you’ve played either of Hazelight Studios’ previous multiplayer masterpieces, then you’ll know what I mean by this – there’s a level where you literally have to navigate your way through one of those colorful rotating toys, but for those of you who have not (go play them now) I'm more so referring to the various game types it has managed to pack into it, from platforming and puzzling to action-adventure role-playing game and racing (and that’s only a small flavor of what you’ll find).
Indeed, the studio is waving the co-op flag high and I’m all for it as it’s great to see such an under-served area of gaming getting the attention it deserves.
Review info
Platform reviewed: PS5 Available on: PS5, Xbox Series X|S, PC Release date: March 6, 2025
Stepping into the incredibly imaginative minds of two writers who get trapped in a simulation of their own fictionalized sci-fi and fantasy worlds is an ingenious premise for a multiplayer, multi-genre game. It’s a lot different to two criminals trying to escape a prison like in A Way Out or a married couple that gets turned into their child’s toys in It Takes Two, making it feel like a completely fresh take on the co-op adventure gaming genre that Hazelight is repping.
I could’ve easily spent more hours wandering around the virtual imaginations of the game’s two main characters (Image credit: Hazelight Studios)
In Split Fiction, you can choose to play as either a decisive sci-fi lover called Mio Hudson (voiced by Kaja Chan) or an emphatic fantasy fan known as Zoe Foster (voiced by Elsie Bennett). Each character has unique abilities – for example, Mio gets to use her dragon to glide in one level as Zoe uses her dragon’s tail to climb up obstacles.
While I played as Mio, who I think has the more exciting abilities, a lot of care has been taken to make sure whichever character you play as you get a chance to experience a new mechanic that’s introduced throughout the gameplay – whether that’s being the one to tilt the screen to help your partner navigate across a series of obstacles or move objects to create new pathways.
(Image credit: Hazelight Studios )
The game's nemesis is the CEO of Radar Publishing, who Mio and Zoe discover is trying to steal their ideas without their consent. However, before you get to inevitably challenge him, you and your co-op partner will have to face a series of bosses, including a rogue AI robot, an evil cat, and a Hydra of Lerna-type mythical dragon beast, just to name a few, as you move through glitches to escape the idea stealing machine. Each battle is different and requires a combination of maneuvers to get past, which you’re introduced to as you proceed through each level, such as timed jumps, shapeshifting, dodges, target shooting, and more.
Any gamers recognize this sword?! (Image credit: Hazelight Studios)
A multiverse game
Despite the back and forth between different sci-fi and fantasy styles, neither style suffers from a dev overload with each level being crafted in absolutely stunning detail. Sure, Hazelight has clearly invested more time and resources into Split Fiction this time as it’s noticeably more polished, but that also means it has less of that rustic indie dev charm that you might find with their previous two games or from titles like Campo Santo’s Firewatch or Moon Studio’s Ori and the Blind Forest.
I'd say it's almost certainly needed for a game with this much ambition, though, and you’ll see why when you get to the final chapter. It’s a AAA game from a passionate indie studio, what more could we ask for?
Best bit
(Image credit: Hazelight Studios)
Split Fiction has taken the best bits of It Takes Two and A Way Out, and made a varied co-op adventure with a dynamic storyline. The final level ties into the title in a way that made for a crescendo of a finale that will forever stay with me.
One aspect I love is how Hazelight's passion for playing games is beautifully integrated into its homages to the mechanics that make great games alongside a huge amount of pop culture references and easter eggs. For example, throughout the game you’ll wallrun and grapple in a similar fashion to Star Wars: Jedi Survivor.
Other times you’ll find yourself in a side-scroller with a simple black and white colorway that’s reminiscent of Limbo or a 2D platformer that will give you those nostalgic Mega Man and Sonic vibes or a dance battle with a monkey that has a section where you play the retro mobile game Snake – there’s even a level where you have to use portals, which is absolutely a nod to the best co-op game ever made: Portal.
Split Fiction is already a co-op icon (Image credit: Hazelight Studios)
This additional consideration becomes a fun activity to spot in itself and provides some of the most enjoyable moments in the game. I loved guessing which movies a section of the game was referencing. Some are more obvious than others, like the cutscene that sees you change into your next character style in true Sailor Moon fashion or the bit of dialogue where one of the bosses says something about, “You think darkness is your ally?”, which felt like a nod to The Dark Knight Rises, while others are less subtle like the level where you’re lowered by your teammate down an air vent having to dodge lasers that had me feeling like Tom Cruise in Mission Impossible. It feels like the developers had a lot of fun weaving these references into the game and they sure make for brilliant sections.
Side note: keep your eye out for the fun little things the devs have had fun including, my personal fav was the revolving doors that would stop if you rushed and tried to push them a nice touch that anyone who’s ever been inpatient in one would have experienced.
My favorite part of the game, though, is the chaotic multiverse final level. This completely blew my mind and is a testament to the creative genius of Hazelight Studios. It’s like nothing I’ve ever played before, mixing different level’s skins with gaming elements in a way I’ve never seen done before.
Is that tree Groot? (Image credit: Hazelight Studios )
Bringing new players together
What I love most about this is that a game like this has really wide appeal – I’m not just talking about veteran gamers who will get a kick out of all the old game references but also those that the closest they’ve ever gotten to a game is something like Tetris. When It Takes Two came out, I noticed people that I never would have thought to play video games, raving about the experience they’d just had, and to me that’s what makes this even more special.
You don’t have to be a serious gamer to enjoy this entertaining adventure. It’s so varied and mixed that I don’t doubt it will be played many times again and again. Split Fiction is another great success in a co-op arena Hazelight is beginning to dominate.
Should you play Split Fiction?
Well, this was unexpected... (Image credit: Hazelight Studios)
Play it if…
You love gaming with a buddy It's an easy one but an important one: Split Fiction is best enjoyed with a pal. However, don’t worry if you don’t have someone in your household, because you can play Split Fiction both locally and online with Friends Pass. Hazelight Studios has also added crossplay options for even more frictionless pairing.
You want a genre-bending game You’ll go from platforming and puzzles to top-down RPG, racing, rhythm battles, and more. This is primarily an action-adventure platformer, but there are so many mini-games within it that it’ll keep you on your toes. Split Fiction manages to incorporate all this while still following a linear storyline.
You enjoy high-quality graphics Split Fiction is truly gorgeous. Given that the two main styles are fantasy and sci-fi, it’s mesmerizing to navigate through each level but the mini-games are even more different as some completely abandon the two main styles to bring you a new whacky, weird, and wonderful game look.
Don’t play it if…
You’re looking for challenging puzzles Compared to It Takes Two, the puzzles weren’t as challenging in Split Fiction. This does mean that you and your buddy will likely not get stuck on any level, so don’t expect anything like the Water Temple conundrum in The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time to keep you scratching your head.
You’re not an adaptive gamer The camera perspectives change at the drop of a hat in Split Fiction as you enter new mini-games and levels, making some of the transitions a bit jarring. If you’re familiar with the game references, you’ll likely intuitively know what to do but if you’re not familiar with these then I expect there will be a sight learning curve for some.
Who else loved SSX 3? (Image credit: Hazelight Studios )
Accessibility features
Hazelight Studios has added plenty of features to make Split Fiction a very frictionless experience. The checkpointing is generous, with an option to jump between saved points. There are plenty of settings to modify the buttons, including key binding, camera rotation assistance, and reducing enemy damage. Unfortunately, you can't change the size of subtitles but you do get the option to add solid backgrounds to the text to boost its visibility.
Meanwhile, the voiceovers of the characters in Split Fiction have been recorded in seven different languages, including English, German, French, Spanish, Italian, Chinese (simplified) and Japanese. There are also nine different language subtitles – German, French, Spanish, Italian, Brazilian Portuguese, Polish, Japanese, Chinese (traditional and simplified), and Korean. Like It Takes Two, the game has an ESRB rating of teen for 13-year-olds and upwards, which makes it more widely accessible for different ages (unlike A Way Out, which has a mature rating due to its subject matter).
Tron anyone? (Image credit: Hazelight Studios )
How we reviewed
I played Split Fiction for around 19 hours on a PS5 Pro and still didn’t earn every trophy. Out of the 21 available, I only got three for completing all side stories, finishing the game, and feeding a dragon (although this was purely accidental as I had not seen all the trophies until after I finished). I don’t doubt that anyone taking more time could clock up even more hours on this game, making it great value for the completionists out there.
The graphics looked incredible on a Sky Glass TV and the audio was fully immersive on a Sonos surround sound setup made up of the Beam (Gen 2), two Era 100s, and the Sub Mini.
Designed for desktop use, and living rooms where even bookshelf monitors claim too much space, this compact Bluetooth speaker package from Audioengine punches above its weight when it comes to versatility and design. But can the A2+ also hit the right notes when it comes to musicality?
I fostered a pair, eager to find out if pint-sized speakers really can deliver a reassuringly big sound to match the best stereo speakers.
The Audioengine A2+ Bluetooth speakers are tailored for near-field listening. Measuring a mere 152 x 101 x 134mm, these titchy enclosures offer a wealth of connectivity, including Bluetooth aptX-HD, USB, and analogue stereo input/outputs via RCA phonos and 3.5mm minijack. They lack a digital audio input though.
Available in a choice of matte (blue or black), and gloss finishes (red or white), build quality is excellent. My glossy red review set oozed premium appeal, their reflective glossy finish contrasting beautifully with the black drivers.
The cabinets themselves have decent heft. Made from MDF, they stand just slightly taller than a Snickers bar and should be easy to accommodate on untidy desks, or even as part of a minimalist Hi-Fi setup.
The left speaker is the active model, with connectivity, built-in amplification and volume control, while the right is its passive partner. The power supply is separate from the active enclosure, thankfully the brick isn’t too large.
Each cabinet houses a 70mm aramid fibre woofer and 19mm silk dome tweeter, with venting at the base to enhance low-frequency performance.
Unsurprisingly, given their size, these speakers are not volume monsters. The system is rated at 15W RMS per channel at 4 ohms, with a peak power output of 30W per channel.
When it comes to system configuration, there’s the option of USB audio, stereo RCA inputs, and a 3.5mm minijack input. There’s also a subwoofer output should you want to add extra bass, in the form of Audioengine’s S6 subwoofer.
(Image credit: Future)
Despite this versatility, I expect most buyers will probably do the majority of their listening via Bluetooth. Here, aptX HD ensures high-resolution wireless audio streaming (when connected to an aptX HD compatible smartphone), though there's no Wi-Fi, unlike most of the best wireless speakers. My system was ready to connect as soon as it powered up.
Also included in the box are 2m of connecting speaker wire, a minijack audio cable, plus a USB lead to connect your PC. All of this, plus the speakers, comes packed in microfiber cloth bags for protection. There’s no remote control included (although you probably don’t need one).
Setup is nice and straightforward: just connect the passive right speaker to the powered left with the included speaker cable, connect the power brick, and you’re good to go.
It’s worth noting that the A2+ is not a smart system; there’s no voice assistance from the likes of Amazon Alexa or Google Assistant.
(Image credit: Future)
Straight from the box, the A2+ are an enjoyable listen, not least because they’re capable of true stereo imaging, something of a rarity in the predominantly one-box Bluetooth speaker market. Tracks like Stevie Nicks’ Edge of Seventeen showcase this well, with the choppy guitar riff anchored on the left and percussion neatly spread across the stage. Their spatial presentation is coherent and involving.
Clarity and detail are also good; the A2+ reward hi-res audio sources, finding subtle nuance in Pearl Jam’s Present Tense (24-bit/48kHz) and Radiohead’s sonically layered Burn the Witch (24-bit/48kHz). They definitely have a knack for detail retrieval.
Given their compact size, low frequency performance is understandably limited. Chase and Status’ thumping Baddadan lacks the visceral low-end thump associated with this drum and bass belter. If you want more slam, you’ll need to add that subwoofer.
The mid-range is the sweet spot here. From Dire Straits’ Sultans of Swing, where the interplay between tweeter and woofer handles intricate riffs effortlessly, to the soaring piano of In This Moment’s Into the Light, the A2+ system proves adept across genres – those treble highs always as clear as crystal.
I’d hesitate to call the A2+ speakers musical, though. I never felt myself carried away by its beats, and I was always aware sounds were emanating from the two shiny enclosures, rather than hanging in the air before me. That said, what the A2+ offers is precise and performative.
Loren Allred’s pleading vocals in Never Enough, from The Greatest Showman soundtrack, manages to elicit an emotional tingle, exactly as it should.
While 15W per channel is perfect for desktop use (Audioengine optimistically quotes 60W peak power output), these speakers struggle to serve larger rooms. They’re also quite directional, sounding sharpest when aimed squarely at eye/ear level, so position accordingly.
(Image credit: Future)
Audioengine A2+ review: Price & release date
£255 / $269 / AU$449
Launched August 2024
The Audioengine A2+ Bluetooth speakers are available now for £255 or $269 (US), which undercuts many of their main rivals, including the likes of the Kanto Ren, which are around twice the price.
The S6 subwoofer (£299 / $299) pushes up the system price quite considerably, though, and you certainly can find other Bluetooth stereo speakers for a similar price or cheaper, including from the likes of Edifier and Majority.
Audioengine A2+ review: Specs
Should you buy the Audioengine A2+?
Buy them if…
You want big sound from small speakers You’ll have no problem sitting them either side of a PC monitor, and they’ll look great in situ too. It’s worth springing for the bespoke stands from Audioengine, which help angle the drivers upwards.View Deal
You want multiple connectivity options Bluetooth aptX HD is the big draw, but there are plenty of other options, including USB for direct connection to a PC or laptop, and analog stereo for a turntable (if it has a built-in phono stage) or DAP (digital audio player).View Deal
You want premium design and build There’s nothing cheap looking about the A2+. The design is stylish and the quality of finish is high.View Deal
Don't buy them if…
You want big bass out of the box One inevitable consequence of the A2+’s diminutive design is a lack of bass. It’s not that they sound thin, it’s just that they can’t drop deep. For desktop use this shouldn’t be an issue, but for open space listening, adding a subwoofer makes sense.View Deal
You want advanced wireless features The inability to connect more than one wireless device at a time could prove an issue for households with multiple users, and there's no Wi-Fi streaming.View Deal
Audioengine A2+ review: Also consider
Ruark Audio MR1 Mk2 Perennial favourites, these compact Ruark desktop speakers are known for both their clarity and overall musicality. They go surprisingly low, thanks to a canny bass reflex design, but can be augmented with an additional subwoofer if required. Bluetooth aptX is available for streaming, and there’s both analogue and digital audio inputs for local source devices. Read our full Ruark Audio MR1 Mk2 review for more.View Deal
Kanto YU4 Active Bluetooth speakers Slightly larger than rivals, these well specified compact speakers are another strong compact hi-fi option. In addition to Bluetooth connectivity, there’s a pair of optical digital audio inputs, as well as analogue phono (with ground) and a 3.5mm Aux minijack. The driver complement comprises silk dome tweeters and Kevlar mid-range woofers, and if the bass reflex cabinet design doesn’t go low enough for you, there’s also a subwoofer output.View Deal
How I tested the Audioengine A2+
Over the course of a week, I evaluated the Audioengine A2+ in various settings, focusing on near-field desktop use. Material was streamed via aptX HD Bluetooth and played through a wired high-resolution music player. Tracks ranged from classic rock to EDM and orchestral pieces, allowing me to assess tonal balance, clarity, and stereo imaging.
Speaker width was dictated by the supplied speaker cable which links the two enclosures, which were positioned at head height (or thereabouts) for optimal performance.
A lot of promises were made about the Nvidia GeForce RTX 5070, and in some narrow sense, those promises are fulfilled with Nvidia's mainstream GPU. But the gulf between what was expected and what the RTX 5070 actually delivers is simply too wide a gap to bridge for me and the legion of gamers and enthusiasts out there who won't be able to afford—or even find, frankly—Nvidia's best graphics cards from this generation.
Launching on March 5, 2025, at an MSRP of $549 / £549 / AU$1,109 in the US, UK, and Australia, respectively, this might be one of the few Nvidia Blackwell GPUs you'll find at MSRP (along with available stock), but only for lack of substantial demand. As the middle-tier GPU in Nvidia's lineup, the RTX 5070 is meant to have broader appeal and more accessible pricing and specs than the enthusiast-grade Nvidia GeForce RTX 5090, Nvidia GeForce RTX 5080, and Nvidia GeForce RTX 5070 Ti, but of all the cards this generation, this is the one that seems to have the least to offer prospective buyers over what's already on the market at this price point.
That's not to say there is nothing to commend this card. The RTX 5070 does get up to native Nvidia GeForce RTX 4090 performance in some games thanks to Nvidia Blackwell's exclusive Multi-Frame Generation (MFG) technology. And, to be fair, the RTX 5070 is a substantial improvement over the Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070, so at least in direct gen-on-gen uplift, there is a roughly 20-25% performance gain.
If we're just talking framerates, then in some very narrow cases this card can do that, but at 4K with ray tracing and cranked-up settings, the input latency for the RTX 5070 with MFG can be noticeable depending on your settings, and it can become distracting. Nvidia Reflex helps, but if you take RTX 4090 performance to mean the same experience as the RTX 4090, you simply won't get that with MFG, even in the 80 or so games that support it currently.
(Image credit: Future / John Loeffler)
Add to all this the fact that the RTX 5070 barely outpaces the Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070 Super when you take MFG off the table (which will be the case for the vast majority of games played on this card) and you really don't have anything to show for the extra 30W of power this card pulls down over the RTX 4070 Super.
With the RTX 5070 coming in at less than four percent faster in gaming without MFG than the non-OC RTX 4070 Super, and roughly 5% faster overall, that means that the RTX 5070 is essentially a stock-overclocked RTX 4070 Super, performance-wise, with the added feature of MFG. An overclocked RTX 4070 Super might even match or exceed the RTX 5070's overall performance in all but a handful of games, and that doesn't even touch upon AMD's various offerings in this price range, like the AMD Radeon RX 7900 GRE or AMD's upcoming RX 9070 XT and RX 9070 cards.
Given that the RTX 4070 Super is still generally available on the market (at least for the time being) at a price where you're likely to find it for less than available RTX 5070 cards, and competing AMD cards are often available for less, easier to find, and offer roughly the same level of performance, I really struggle to find any reason to recommend this card, even without the questionable-at-best marketing for this card to sour my feelings about it.
I caught a lot of flack from enthusiasts for praising the RTX 5080 despite its 8-10% performance uplift over the Nvidia GeForce RTX 4080 Super, but at the level of the RTX 5080, there is no real competition and you're still getting the third-best graphics card on the market with a noticeable performance boost over the RTX 4080 Super for the same MSRP. Was it what enthusiasts wanted? No, but it's still a fantastic card with few peers, and the base performance of the RTX 5080 was so good that the latency problem of MFG just wasn't an issue, making it a strong value-add for the card.
You just can't claim that for the RTX 5070. There are simply too many other options for gamers to consider at this price point, and MFG just isn't a strong enough selling point at this performance level to move the needle. If the RTX 5070 is the only card you have available to you for purchase and you need a great 1440p graphics card and can't wait for something better (and you're only paying MSRP), then you'll ultimately be happy with this card. But the Nvidia GeForce RTX 5070 could have and should have been so much better than it ultimately is.
Nvidia GeForce RTX 5070: Price & availability
(Image credit: Future / John Loeffler)
How much is it? MSRP/RRPstarting at $549 / £549 / AU$1,109
When can you get it? The RTX 5070 goes on sale on March 5, 2025
Where is it available? The RTX 5070 will be available in the US, UK, and Australia at launch
The Nvidia GeForce RTX 5070 is available starting March 5, 2025, with an MSRP of $549 / £549 / AU$1,109 in the US, UK, and Australia, respectively.
This puts it at the same price as the current RTX 4070 MSRP, and slightly less than that of the RTX 4070 Super. It's also the same MSRP as the AMD's RX 7900 GRE and upcoming RX 9070, and slightly cheaper than the AMD RX 9070 XT's MSRP.
The relatively low MSRP for the RTX 5070 is one of the bright spots for this card, as well as the existence of the RTX 5070 Founders Edition card, which Nvidia will sell directly at MSRP. This will at least put something of an anchor on the card's price in the face of scalping and general price inflation.
Value: 4 / 5
Nvidia GeForce RTX 5070: Specs
GDDR7 VRAM and PCIe 5.0
Higher power consumption
Still just 12GB VRAM, and fewer compute units
The Nvidia GeForce RTX 5070 is a mixed bag when it comes to specs. On the one hand, you have advanced technology like the new PCIe 5.0 interface and new GDDR7 VRAM, both of which appear great on paper.
On the other hand, it feels like every other spec was configured and tweaked to make sure that it compensated for any performance benefit these technologies would impart to keep the overall package more or less the same as the previous generation GPUs.
For instance, while the RTX 5070 sports faster GDDR7 memory, it doesn't expand the VRAM pool beyond 12GB, unlike its competitors. If Nvidia was hoping that the faster memory would make up for keeping the amount of VRAM the same, it only makes a modest increase in the number of compute units in the GPU (48 compared to the RTX 4070's 46), and a noticeable decrease from the RTX 4070 Super's (56).
Whatever performance gains the RTX 5070 makes with its faster memory, then, is completely neutralized by the larger number of compute units (along with the requisite number of CUDA cores, RT cores, and Tensor cores) in the RTX 4070 Super.
(Image credit: Future / John Loeffler)
The base clock on the RTX 5070 is notably higher, but its boost clock is only slightly increased, which is ultimately where it counts while playing games or running intensive workloads.
Likewise, whatever gains the more advanced TSMC N4P node offers the RTX 5070's GPU over the TSMC N4 node of its predecessors seems to be eaten up by the cutting down of the die. If there was a power or cost reason for this, I have no idea, but I think that this decision is what ultimately sinks the RTX 5070.
It seems like every decision was made to keep things right where they are rather than move things forward. That would be acceptable, honestly, if there was some other major benefit like a greatly reduced power draw or much lower price (I've argued for both rather than pushing for more performance every gen), but somehow the RTX 5070 manages to pull down an extra 30W of power over the RTX 4070 Super and a full 50W over the RTX 4070, and the price is only slightly lower than the RTX 4070 was at launch.
Finally, this is a PCIe 5.0 x16 GPU, which means that if you have a motherboard with 16 PCIe lanes or less, and you're using a PCIe 5.0 SSD, one of these two components is going to get nerfed down to PCIe 4.0, and most motherboards default to prioritizing the GPU.
You might be able to set your PCIe 5.0 priority to your SSD in your motherboard's BIOS settings and put the RTX 5070 into PCIe 4.0, but I haven't tested how this would affect the performance of the RTX 5070, so be mindful that this might be an issue with this card.
Specs: 2.5 / 5
Nvidia GeForce RTX 5070: Design
(Image credit: Future / John Loeffler)
No dual-pass-through cooling
FE card is the same size as the RTX 4070 and RTX 4070 Super FE cards
The Nvidia GeForce RTX 5070 Founders Edition looks identical to the RTX 5090 and RTX 5080 that preceeded it, but with some very key differences, both inside and out.
One of the best things about the RTX 5090 and RTX 5080 FE cards was the innovative dual pass-through cooling solution on those cards, which improved thermals so much that Nvidia was able to shrink the size of those cards from the gargantuan bricks of the last generation to something far more manageable and practical.
(Image credit: Future / John Loeffler)
It would have been nice to see what such a solution could have done for the RTX 5070, but maybe it just wasn't possible to engineer it so it made any sense. Regardless, it's unfortunate that it wasn't an option here, even though the RTX 5070 is hardly unwieldy (at least for the Founders Edition card).
Otherwise, it sports the same 16-pin power connector placement as the RTX 5090 and RTX 5080, so 90-degree power connectors won't fit the Founders Edition, though you will have better luck with most, if not all, AIB partner cards which will likely stick to the same power connector placement of the RTX 40 series.
The RTX 5070 FE will easily fit inside even a SFF case with ease, and its lighter power draw means that even if you have to rely on the included two-to-one cable adapter to plug in two free 8-pin cables from your power supply, it will still be a fairly manageable affair.
Lastly, like all the Founders Edition cards before it, the RTX 5070 has no RGB, with only the white backlight GeForce RTX logo on the top edge of the card to provide any 'flair' of that sort.
Design: 3.5 / 5
Nvidia GeForce RTX 5070: Performance
(Image credit: Future / John Loeffler)
Almost no difference in performance over the RTX 4070 Super without MFG
Using MFG can get you native RTX 4090 framerates in some games
Significantly faster performance over the RTX 4070
A note on my data
The charts shown below offer the most recent data I have for the cards tested for this review. They may change over time as more card results are added and cards are retested. The 'average of all cards tested' includes cards not shown in these charts for readability purposes.
Boy howdy, here we go.
The best thing I can say about the performance of this card is that it is just barely the best 1440p graphics card on the market as of this review, and that DLSS 4's Multi Frame Generation can deliver the kind of framerates Nvidia promises in those games where the technology is available, either natively or through the Nvidia App's DLSS override feature.
Both of those statements come with a lot of caveats, though, and the RTX 5070 doesn't make enough progress from the last gen to make a compelling case for itself performance-wise, especially since its signature feature is only available in a smattering of games at the moment.
On the synthetic side of things, the RTX 5070 looks strong against the card it's replacing, the RTX 4070, and generally offers about 25% better performance on synthetic benchmarks like 3DMark Steel Nomad or Speed Way. It also has higher compute performance in Geekbench 6 than its direct predecessor, though not be as drastic a margin (about 10% better).
Compared to the RTX 4070 Super, however, the RTX 5070's performance is only about 6% better overall, and only about 12% better than the AMD RX 7900 GRE's overall synthetic performance.
Again, a win is a win, but it's much closer than it should be gen-on-gen.
The RTX 5070 runs into similar issues on the creative side, where it only outperforms the RTX 4070 Super by about 3% overall, with its best performance coming in PugetBench for Creators' Adobe Premiere benchmark (~13% better than the RTX 4070 Super), but faltering somewhat with Blender Benchmark 4.3.0.
This isn't too surprising, as the RTX 5070 hasn't been released yet and GPUs tend to perform better in Blender several weeks or months after the card's release when the devs can better optimize things for new releases.
All in all, for this class of cards, the RTX 5070 is a solid choice for those who might want to dabble in creative work without much of a financial commitment, but real pros are better off with the Nvidia GeForce RTX 5070 Ti if you're looking to upgrade without spending a fortune.
It's with gaming, though, where the real heartbreak comes with this card.
Technically, with just 12GB VRAM, this isn't a 4K graphics card, but both the RTX 4070 Super and RTX 5070 are strong enough cards that you can get playable native 4K in pretty much every game so long as you never, ever touch ray tracing, global illumination, or the like. Unfortunately, both cards perform roughly the same under these conditions at 4K, with the RTX 5070 pulling into a slight >5 fps lead in a few games like Returnal and Dying Light 2.
However, in some titles like F1 2024, the RTX 4070 Super actually outperforms the RTX 5070 when ray tracing is turned on, or when DLSS is set to balanced and without any Frame Generation. Overall and across different setting configurations, the RTX 5070 only musters a roughly 4.5% better average FPS at 4K than the RTX 4070 Super.
It's pretty much the same story at 1440p, as well, with the RTX 5070 outperforming the RTX 4070 Super by about 2.7% across configurations at 1440p. We're really in the realm of what a good overclock can get you on an RTX 4070 Super rather than a generational leap, despite all the next-gen specs that the RTX 5070 brings to bear.
OK, but what about the RTX 4090? Can the RTX 5070 with DLSS 4 Multi Frame Generation match the native 4K performance of the RTX 4090?
Yes, it can, at least if you're only concerned with average FPS. The only game with an in-game benchmark that I can use to measure the RTX 5070's MFG performance is Cyberpunk 2077, and I've included those results here, but in Indiana Jones and the Great Circle and Dragon Age: Veilguard (using the Nvidia App's override function) I pretty much found MFG to perform consistently as promised, delivering substantially faster FPS than DLSS 4 alone and landing in the ballpark of where the RTX 4090's native 4K performance ends up.
And so long as you stay far away from ray tracing, the base framerate at 4K will be high enough on the RTX 5070 that you won't notice too much, if any, latency in many games. But when you turn ray tracing on, even the RTX 5090's native frame rate tanks, and it's those baseline rendered frames that handle changes based on your input, and the three AI-generated frames based on that initial rendered frame don't factor in whatever input changes you've made at all.
As such, even though you can get up to 129 FPS at 4K with Psycho RT and Ultra preset in Cyberpunk 2077 on the RTX 5070 (blowing way past the RTX 5090's native 51 average FPS on the Ultra preset with Psycho RT), only 44 of the RTX 5070's 129 frames per second are reflecting active input. This leads to a situation where your game looks like its flying by at 129 FPS, but feels like it's still a sluggish 44 FPS.
For most games, this isn't going to be a deal breaker. While I haven't tried the RTX 5070 with 4x MFG on Satisfactory, I'm absolutely positive I will not feel the difference, as it's not the kind of game where you need fast reflexes (other than dealing with the effing Stingers), but Marvel Rivals? You're going to feel it.
Nvidia Reflex definitely helps take the edge off MFG's latency, but it doesn't completely eliminate it, and for some games (and gamers) that is going to matter, leaving the RTX 5070's MFG experience too much of a mixed bag to be a categorical selling point. I think the hate directed at 'fake frames' is wildly overblown, but in the case of the RTX 5070, it's not entirely without merit.
So where does that leave the RTX 5070? Overall, it's the best 1440p card on the market right now, and it's relatively low MSRP makes it the best value proposition in its class. It's also much more likely that you'll actually be able to find this card at MSRP, making the question of value more than just academic.
For most gamers out there, Multi Frame Generation is going to be great, and so long as you go easy on the ray tracing, you'll probably never run into any practical latency in your games, so in those instances, the RTX 5070 might feel like black magic in a circuit board.
But my problem with the RTX 5070 is that it is absolutely not the RTX 4090, and for the vast majority of the games you're going to be playing, it never will be, and that's essentially what was promised when the RTX 5070 was announced. Instead, the RTX 5070 is an RTX 4070 Super with a few games running MFG slapped to its side that look like they're playing on an RTX 4090, but may or may not feel like they are, and that's just not good enough.
It's not what we were promised, not by a long shot.
Performance: 3 / 5
Should you buy the Nvidia GeForce RTX 5070?
(Image credit: Future / John Loeffler)
Buy the Nvidia GeForce RTX 5070 if...
You don't have the money for (or cannot find) an RTX 5070 Ti or RTX 4070 Super This isn't a bad graphics card, but there are so many better cards that offer better value or better performance within its price range.
You want to dabble in creative or AI work without investing a lot of money The creative and AI performance of this card is great for the price.
Don't buy it if...
You can afford to wait for better Whether it's this generation or the next, this card offers very little that you won't be able to find elsewhere within the next two years.
Also consider
Nvidia GeForce RTX 5070 Ti The RTX 5070 Ti is a good bit more expensive, especially with price inflation, but if you can get it at a reasonable price, it is a much better card than the RTX 5070.
Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070 Super With Nvidia RTX 50 series cards getting scalped to heck, if you can find an RTX 4070 Super for a good price, it offers pretty much identical performance to the RTX 5070, minus the Multi Frame Generation.
I spent about a week testing the Nvidia GeForce RTX 5070, using it as my main workstation GPU for creative content work, gaming, and other testing.
I used my updated testing suite including industry standard tools like 3DMark and PugetBench for Creators, as well as built-in game benchmarks like Cyberpunk 2077, Civilization VII, and others.
I've reviewed more than 30 graphics cards for TechRadar in the last two and a half years, as well as extensively testing and retesting graphics cards throughout the year for features, analysis, and other content, so you can trust that my reviews are based on experience and data, as well as my desire to make sure you get the best GPU for your hard earned money.
Early in co-op gameA Way Out, my partner and I found ourselves starving in a forest after a taxing escape from the police. While a burger was definitely out of the question, we came across a riverside camp with fish rushing in its shallow waters. To catch our lunch, one of us needed to splash the water and funnel the fish into a tight spot, while the other used a wooden spear to finish the job. It was an archaic process that made for a thoughtful moment in a game occupied by chaos, and put into focus the clarifying themes of teamwork and survival that define Hazelight’s prison-breaking adventure game.
Review info
Platform reviewed: PS5 (PS4 via backward compatibility) Available on: PS4, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, PC Release date: March 23, 2018
In A Way Out, you and a partner play as the criminals Leo Carusa and Vincent Moretti as they seek to escape their incarceration after being led astray by the same rotten apple. Landing somewhere between a playable film and an action-packed adventure game, A Way Out’s opening act sets the tone for its silver-screen story. Introduced in tandem, Leo’s character is confident despite being locked in a corrupt system and surrounded by danger. He wanders the halls, chatting and nearly getting into fights as if it’s nothing new.
In contrast, Vincent is just learning about the starkness of his new home, as he is hosed down and marched through the concrete trappings, talking to other new prisoners who have abandoned all hope. The difference in their personalities becomes a central theme throughout the prison-breaking plot, despite their shared goal of escape and ultimate freedom.
(Image credit: Hazelight Studios)
Wrong place, wrong time
Across A Way Out’s mayhem-tinged levels, you’ll choose dialogue threads to follow and perform an array of actions like stealthily taking down cops or commandeering getaway cars. Most tasks require the other player to create a distraction or assemble to lift doors and clear obstacles, though there are many pursuits that can be enjoyed on your own. The shared workload works well for the most part, but on a few occasions, one character's exploits can be cut off by the other if they accidentally trigger a key cutscene or interaction, which can be frustrating if you want to immerse yourself in A Way Out’s detailed environment.
Additional quick-time events also crop up in moments of heightened tension and require precision to succeed, like tapping the right button to avoid taking a punch or holding down a trigger to catch yourself before falling from a great height. To account for the shifting attention between the pair, A Way Out trades between a classic 50/50 screen split and a flexible one that offers more display real estate to the player performing a key action. This dynamic blend of perspectives meant that my partner and I both had a chance to feel like the central anti-hero. Occasionally, other characters can also claim a space on the screen for themselves, which adds palpable tension to your actions. Seeing this pressure manifest as a gun-wielding menace pervades the screen is an electric feeling and enough to get you sweating as you force solutions and desperately try to proceed.
Levels are broken up by story events that require you and your co-op buddy to vote and follow a particular narrative path – Leo’s or Vincent’s. Your choices shape the story and give each playthrough a more bespoke feel, even if the overarching narrative remains largely the same. Many of the differences in their personality can feel intangible. However, these impactful decisions help to give them depth by weaving those differences into the gameplay. In my playthrough, I was confident in my choice to play as Vincent, as I thought his analytical mind was more reasonable than Leo’s brash one. However, as the story played out and I became acquainted with them, I began questioning Vincent's motives. A Way Out is keen to keep you in the dark just enough to make you unsure what to choose without making you feel disconnected from the characters or the decision – an aspect I thoroughly enjoyed.
(Image credit: Hazelight Studios)
Brains or brawn
A Way Out’s world is a harsh and unforgiving one. The prison is cement and grey, with sparse spotlighting offering little escape from the oppressive mood. Metal bars and staircases shine between tarnish, with matte posters hanging from walls, faded with age. Outside, the surrounding farmland and rural areas feel hazy and vulnerable. Throughout A Way Out, you dance between these cold and warm spaces, with each location thoughtfully dressed with accessories like leaking aircon vents and playable mahogany pianos. Moreover, while many objects are just there to gawk at, some kick-off competitive games like wheelchair balancing or horseshoe pitching. While unnecessary to the story, these optional side objectives do well to offset A Way Out’s heavier themes with some lighthearted fun.
Best bit
(Image credit: Hazelight Studios)
On the surface, Vincent and Leo are two protagonists who could not be more different. Leo’s short-tempered sharpness rubs against Vincent’s careful eye, resulting in tense moments as well as warm ones. As you learn more about them and watch their relationship unfold, it’s hard not to be drawn into their strange chemistry.
Whether you’re mainlining the plot or goofing off in a minigame, A Way Out is made all the better courtesy of Vincent and Leo’s voice actors, Fares Fares and Eric Krogh, who deliver their lines with attitude and grit. And despite solid writing throughout, some of my favorite deliveries came from the casual one-liners rather than the more significant and plot-relevant cutscenes. During the initial prison break, you can find an antique globe in one of the rooms. While interacting with it doesn’t offer anything substantial to the plot, if you spin it enough, Leo dreamily mutters, “Ah, the Pacific Ocean… that sounds nice.” Later, in the hospital, Vincent encounters an old couple bickering about a car accident. After asking their age, the old man makes a poor guess and quickly admits fault. Instead of showing empathy, Vincent sarcastically agrees that he is actually too old to drive. These small, punchy moments offer comic relief to A Way Out’s otherwise heady story and champion the protagonist’s humanity, despite the game’s often unforgiving setting.
A Way Out feels like playing through all the twists and turns of a high-end HBO show – emotionally taxing but very hard to put down. The game’s simple prison break premise quickly gives way to a complicated story about family and friendship, and I thoroughly enjoyed struggling through its immersive set pieces with the help of a friend.
Should you play A Way Out?
Play it if...
You like classic dramas A Way Out strikes a careful balance between dramatic storytelling and game mechanics, putting players in pole position to not only impact the story but also sit back and enjoy their choices in intense and rewarding ways.
You want to stress test your friendship It turns out escaping prison takes a lot more than just blind belief, and you’ll need to think your way through many complex situations, often deliberating with your co-op partner about which path to take. Due to the high-stakes nature of the story, disagreements are likely to come up, giving you a measure of how close you and your co-conspirator are under pressure.
Don't play it if...
You want a lighthearted co-op game A Way Out is packed with emotive themes, violence, and plenty of swearing. While it features Hazelight’s well-curated cooperative gameplay, the story leans much darker than the likes of It Takes Two.
Accessibility
When it comes to controls in A Way Out, many settings can be toggled per character, so one player can play with different preferences. Inversion horizontal and vertical) and aim/focus sensitivity can be toggled individually. Vibration can be toggled on and off from the settings menu as well. Where audio is concerned, players can toggle on and off subtitles, as well as choose their audio preset (TV, Headphones, and Home Theatre).
(Image credit: Hazelight Studios)
How I reviewed A Way Out
I reviewed A Way Out in a local co-op on a PlayStation 5 playing the PlayStation 4 release via backward compatibility and did so alongside It Takes Two, in the run-up to Hazelight's latest game, Split Fiction.
A couples counselling puzzle platformer might sound like a strange elevator pitch. Yet, this quizzical pairing is the backbone of Hazelight Studios' co-op game. Following the studio's success with its prison-breaking simulator A Way Out, It Takes Two inspects a new kind of high-stakes relationship… marriage.
Review info
Platform reviewed: PlayStation 5 Available on: PC, PlayStation 5, Xbox X, Xbox Series S, Nintendo Switch Release date: March 25, 2021
Here, you play as a separated couple, Cody and May, whose consciousness is magically transported into doll versions of themselves after their daughter makes an unorthodox wish to a secret magic romance book. From this sudden transformation, the duo are forced to navigate a jumbo-sized version of their home, where inanimate objects and carelessly tossed junk have gained sassy omnipotence. As they determine bric-a-brac friend from foe, their issues frequently rear their head, giving you an impression of how their marriage slid towards breakdown not by one incident but rather a series of slow nudges.
In co-op, players split control, working through the couple's issues in a literal and metaphorical sense by communicating their way across increasingly complex platforming levels. To navigate this danger-filled toy box, you can sprint, jump, dash and equip yourself with level-contextual tools that complement each other. Platforming across the game has a fluid and floaty feel, hammering home the plaything nature of the pair’s new doll bodies.
What’s your love language?
(Image credit: Electronic Arts)
Despite levels being so full of detail, Hazelight manages a sense of progression and flow well. Points of interest like breakable glass bottles draw your attention, naturally calling you towards the next checkpoint. While it's not always the case, the obstacles often require you to use your special attack to interact with them, which also helps set the tone for future boss battles and teases puzzle solutions within the level.
Bouts of platforming are bookended with multi-stage boss battles based on the surrounding clutter of the area. The connection between each particular boss and the level made the world feel cohesive and thoughtful and helped to immerse me in Cody and May’s tragic love story. The grumbling, rusted toolbox that marks the end of the first zone requires players to work together using their respective hammer and nail tools to deal damage as it cuts away at your fragile metal stage one attack at a time.
This casually instructive style is especially noticeable as puzzles grew in complexity. Despite stopping and starting play sessions, my partner and I maintained solid momentum throughout It Takes Two. That’s not to say we were without arguments or mistakes when navigating the levels, though.
Best bit
(Image credit: Electronic Arts)
There’s nothing more hilariously frustrating than trying to time and execute a specific move with your co-op partner, especially when it keeps going wrong. It Takes Two frequently requires you to synchronise carefully, whether it be one player throwing a nail for another to swing on or grinding across electrical wires to turn off switches. No matter how often my co-op partner and I prepared for a sequence, we always fell into the same disorganised traps, laughing or accosting each other as we hit the reset button.
What did cause irreparable damage to my co-op relationship, however, were the PVP minigames that allow you and your partner to take on challenges head-to-head. Found across the map, the parlour games allow you to vent frustrations and brutally thwart your bestie.
Early in the campaign, my partner and I happened upon a game called ‘Flip the Switch’, which involved one player hammering buttons while the other shoots them with nails from an aerial perspective. The player who shoots the most within the timer wins – simple, right? Wrong. What ensued was a series of upsets that ended in a solemn vow not to engage with these distractions ever again — until the next one arrived, and it was just as challenging and interesting. Toys-out-of-the-pram moment aside, It Takes Two does well to surprise you with these unique offshoots throughout its story.
Trust fall
(Image credit: Electronic Arts)
The thoughtful set dressing and character designs are a standout feature across It Takes Two, with precious tidbits of lore hidden throughout the levels. For example, if you turn up a pathway in their daughter's room, you can find action figures that pay homage to the protagonists of Hazelight’s previous co-op prison-breaking game, A Way Out. Other hidden areas reveal more tender references to games from the past, such as Super Mario and The Legend of Zelda. As I explored each micro world, I was often reminded of The Borrowers or Stuart Little, gawking at how everyday objects could be repurposed as obstacles or idiosyncratic decor.
The care for world-building applies to Cody and May’s doll designs, too, which were clearly handmade by their creative daughter, Rose. May’s fuzzy wooden tendrils and Cody’s rope belt feel haphazardly crafty in a way that represents Rose’s endearing affection for them. The softened, comforting nature of the dolls also feels like a sharp contrast to the couple’s real-world attitude, which is often barbed and biting. The longer they spend outside their bitter, bickering bodies and in their patchwork personas, the more they resemble Rose’s view of them, which feels like a warm visual metaphor for the overarching themes.
Hazelight has built its newest puzzler with plenty of care, allowing you to immerse yourselves in gorgeous fantasy worlds with considerable depth. In exploring Cody and May’s family home and interpersonal trouble, It Takes Two is a surprisingly grounded game, and I adored flipping and dashing through the family's tricky lives.
Should I play It Takes Two?
(Image credit: Electronic Arts)
Play it if…
You want a challenging co-op adventure From a surprisingly violent vacuum cleaner with a vengeance to a sequence of agility testing time-sensitive platforming puzzles, It Takes Two doesn’t pull punches when testing your dexterity
You want a co-op game that mixes up its gameplay As you progress through It Takes Two’s shifting levels, Cody and May are awarded new weapons that diversify how you can solve puzzles, keeping the gameplay fresh across the familiar base platforming elements.
Don’t play it if…
You aren’t a forgiving person No matter how much you care for your co-op partner, It Takes Two will inevitably lead to moments of anger as either of you make a mistake. No matter how often you become mulch, you’ll need to swallow pride and forgive each other to survive the ordeal.
Accessibility
In the accessibility menu, you can adjust both the contrast and brightness. From here, there are also three color blindness options to choose between (Tritanopia-Blue Weak, Protanopia-Red Weak, and Deuteranopia-Green Weak). You can toggle on Text-To-Speech and toggle the option to convert voice chat to text. Subtitles and vibrations can additionally be toggled on for either May or Cody.
Where camera settings are concerned, you can toggle settings per character. You can invert the vertical and horizontal cameras and choose how strong the automatic camera rotation is (None, Weak, or Strong). You can also adjust the camera and aim sensitivity for both the horizontal and vertical camera from 1 to 100.
How I reviewed It Takes Two
In anticipation of the launch of Spit Fiction, I played through the entirety of It Takes Two in local co-op on a PlayStation 5 and also replayed A Way Out for comparison.
I used an AOC CQ27G2 27-inch QHD VA 144Hz gaming monitor with my PS5, and for audio, I used my external Creative Pebble V2 computer speakers.
The biggest problem with Assassin's Creed Nexus VR, a VR (virtual reality) entry on the long-running stealth action series exclusively for Meta Quest headsets, is that it feels more supplemental than any fully-fledged Assassin’s Creed installment. All the franchise’s key mechanics are well represented, be that the trademark parkour, delightfully slick hidden blades, or those iconic leaps of faith from high vantage points into nearby piles of hay, but the focus on existing protagonists and familiar settings holds it back.
Review info
Platform reviewed: Meta Quest 2 Available on: Meta Quest 2, Meta Quest 3, Meta Quest Pro Release date: November 16, 2023
This is a game that doesn’t really have its own distinct identity, seeming more like a ‘best of’ compilation geared towards existing fans rather than something that, like many of the best VR games, newcomers might be incentivized to pick up a new VR headset in order to play. It’s a shame as, otherwise, this is a remarkably solid VR experience elevated by some seriously impressive elements like its massive maps, formidable length, and abundance of side content, and only a handful of frustrations to overcome.
Clip compilation
(Image credit: Ubisoft)
Unlike a traditional Assassin’s Creed experience, Nexus VR is divided into distinct episodes that alternate between protagonists from some of the best Assassin’s Creed games.
You begin in 1500s Italy, catching up with fan-favorite Ezio Auditore years after the events of Assassin’s Creed 2. Your home has been infiltrated by bandits and your first task is to navigate through its hidden passages and retrieve your stolen gear. These early segments are very linear, introducing you to the parkour systems (the most impressive part of which sees you able to grab onto practically any surface and hoist yourself along like some kind of spider monkey) and outlining the combat mechanics in some encounters with basic armed goons.
The parkour works fantastically, channeling that simulated physicality that makes VR climbing experiences like Horizon Call of the Mountainso satisfying, but the combat never felt quite right to me. It’s fine on paper, at its most basic level it challenges you to hold your sword in the correct direction of an incoming hit to block it or swing as an enemy strikes for a parry.
Unfortunately, the collision detection seems off and no matter how hard I focus on holding my sword in the right places, it always seems like a fifty percent chance that it would actually register properly. This was despite multiple attempts to recalibrate the game to my height and position in the settings menu.
There’s a chance that this was due to the fact that I was playing on the slightly older Meta Quest 2 headset, which doesn’t have as advanced tracking capabilities as the Meta Quest 3, but it’s not something that I’ve experienced while trying any other VR game thus far.
Lots to do
(Image credit: Ubisoft)
Mercifully, you’re not expected to fight your way through every single encounter and you’re soon thrust into the ancient sandals of Kassandra - the protagonist from Assassin’s Creed Odyssey. Exploring the Greek island of Delos in about 400 BC, her sections are easily the best of the bunch and impressively open despite their small size. While you always have an objective on screen to pursue, there are loads of optional side activities that mean that you can easily squeeze much more out of the already meaty 13 or so-hour runtime.
There are fantastic parkour challenges which have you racing through a series of checkpoints on tight time limits, collectibles that unlock interesting historical facts to browse, and plenty of hidden relics to track down in secret chests. Even if you only focus on the main tasks, you’re completely free to approach objectives as you wish which is where the stealth really starts to shine. It’s nothing hugely complex, but crouching behind boxes and throwing distractions to lure nearby guards over for a one-hit hidden blade takedown was never not satisfying, and truly felt like I was embodying an assassin.
There’s a lot of mileage in experimenting with your arsenal of useful tools like smoke bombs, throwing knives, or your bow too, and I’m still keen to dive back in for more sneaking action even now that the credits have rolled. On top of Ezio and Kassandra’s stories, there are a handful of missions where you play as Ratonhnhaké:ton, or Connor, in the build-up to the American Revolution.
Connor was always my least favorite Assassin’s Creed protagonist and, unfortunately, he is still just as unappealing in Assassin's Creed Nexus VR. His monotone voice lines are faithful to his original characterization in Assassin’s Creed 3 but are glaringly uncharismatic when presented between the amusing innuendos dispensed by Ezio and the brash confidence of Kassandra. His aggressive, edgy attitude to even the most inoffensive non-playable characters (NPCs) often made me cringe too - this is one hero probably best left in 2012.
Best bit
(Image credit: Ubisoft)
When playing as Connor you have access to his tomahawk rather than your usual sword. This opens up some great new gameplay possibilities, like throwing it in the middle of a fight to stun your opponent or tossing it at unsuspecting guard patrols from a hidden location for long-range stealth takedowns.
These three plotlines are all brought together by an overarching storyline set in the real world that’s centered around the futuristic Animus (the device that lets you look into the past) and the seemingly endless battle between the ancient order of Assassins and the evil Templars. It’s a thread that has run through the series since the beginning and, while it starts engaging enough in Nexus (and makes interesting use of your headset’s front camera for a novel augmented reality effect), it soon devolves into characters standing in practically blank environments lecturing you on the conflict for extended periods of time when you’d much rather be doing literally anything else.
I often resorted to sitting on the floor of my living room while these played out and would have likely skipped them entirely were I not evaluating the game for the purpose of this review. The real-world storyline has always been a sticking point in Assassin’s Creed games, so much so that the upcoming Assassin’s Creed Shadowshas simply opted to relegate it entirely to a separate menu, but it’s still a big shame that it’s just so uninteresting here.
(Image credit: Ubisoft)
As I’ve previously mentioned, I experienced the whole of Assassin’s Creed Nexus VR on the Meta Quest 2 headset. This is far from the company’s latest offering (the flagship Meta Quest 3 or even more budget-oriented Meta Quest 3S), but the visuals still manage to be a highlight.
It's not perfect, with a few cutbacks to overall image quality and the resolution of textures, but the bright sunny streets of Italy or Greece and the moody fog of colonial America oozes with atmosphere. This would, however, seem even more impressive if these weren’t well-worn settings that we have seen represented in even more life-like detail by other games in the series.
This all raises the question, is Assassin's Creed Nexus VR worth playing? The great graphics and stellar stealth would definitely suggest so in spite of the wonky combat, especially given the relatively low $39.99 / £34.99 price of admission. If you’re an existing fan of Assassin’s Creed like me, there’s also some extra enjoyment in revisiting familiar characters from games gone by (yes, even Connor) - though an original setting and cast would undeniably be much more appealing and approachable to newcomers.
Should I play Assassin's Creed Nexus VR?
(Image credit: Ubisoft)
Play it if…
You love all things Assassin’s Creed Assassin's Creed Nexus VR is a solid VR take on the Assassin’s Creed series, letting you live out your assassin fantasy with first-person leaps of faith, lots of sneaking around, and historical settings to explore.
You’ve played the old games With protagonists returning from Assassin’s Creed 2, 3, and Odyssey, Assassin's Creed Nexus VR is a treat for long-time series fans.
You want a lengthy VR experience Many VR games tend to be on the shorter side, so the 13+ hour length of Assassin's Creed Nexus VR helps it stand out from the crowd. It’s brimming with side content to help get that number up even further too.
Don’t play it if…
You down yet own a Meta Quest 2 or 3 Is it worth running out to buy a Meta Quest 2 or 3 to play Assassin's Creed Nexus VR? Definitely not. This is very much an optional spinoff, not a system-selling must-play VR installment à la Half-Life: Alyx over on PC.
Accessibility
Assassin’s Creed Nexus VR has lots of accessibility features designed to improve your comfort in VR. There is a dedicated accessibility menu with features such as hand stabilization, multiple control layouts, and more. The game has four different comfort presets to choose from, with the option for continuous motion or teleportation movement. The game also offers a fear of heights mode, which adds a visible floor beneath your character when you’re high up in the virtual world. On top of this, the entire game can be played while seated.
You also have the option of turning on a vignette or virtual nose, which can help prevent motion sickness. There is a dedicated crouch button and the game can also be played either seated or standing. There are also multiple difficulty levels to choose from. As far as VR games go, these are some of the most fully-featured and comprehensive accessibility options that I’ve ever seen - so props to Ubisoft here.
How I reviewed Assassin's Creed Nexus VR
I played Assassin’s Creed Nexus VR for over 13 hours using a Meta Quest 2 headset. During that time I completed the missions of the main story and also spent a bit of extra time exploring the more open areas of the world to track down collectibles.
My playthrough mainly focused on stealth, though I was also careful to evaluate the quality of the combat by engaging in a few head-on fights.
The importance of connectivity is such a given these days, it's normally hard for a monitor to stand out by that metric. But the new 34-inch ultrawide HP Series 7 Pro 734pm meets that challenge handily thanks to one of the most comprehensive features sets around, putting it immediately in the running among the best business monitors we’ve tested.
Highlights include Thunderbolt 4 in and out, an additional USB-C input, a multi-port USB hub, ethernet and more. Along with the explicit connectivity of physical ports, this monitor's 5MP pop-up webcam further adds to its connected functionality by enabling a great video conferencing experience.
The 34-inch widescreen form factor also makes for a great basic productivity proposition and the use of LG's IPS Black panel technology puts it at the cutting edge of LCD technology when it comes to inherent contrast and colour performance.
All that said, this is a very expensive display, especially for a 34-inch ultrawide model. That makes the relatively low 3,440 by 1,440 resolution and mediocre pixel density that comes with that a little hard to stomach. Likewise, the limited HDR support included is that much more conspicuous at this price point.
HP Series 7 Pro 734pm: Design & features
(Image credit: HP)
Nicely engineered
Fantastic connectivity
Strong productivity package
Specs
Panel size: 34-inch
Panel type: IPS Black
Resolution: 3,440 x 1,440
Brightness: 400 cd/m2
Contrast: 2,000:1
Pixel response: 5ms GtG
Refresh rate: 120Hz
Colour coverage: 98% DCI-P3
HDR: VESA DisplayHDR 400
Vesa: 100mm x 100mm (bracket included)
Inputs: DisplayPort 1.4 x1 in, DisplayPort 1.4 x1 out, HDMI 2.0 x1, Thunderbolt 4 in with 100W PD, Thunderbolt 4 out with 15W PD, USB-C with 65W PD
HP's latest ultrawide productivity monitor, the HP Series 7 Pro 734pm, is very nicely put together. The stand base and vertical support are both made from robust alloy and the rest of the chassis is plastic but fairly high quality. Of course, that's the least you'd expect at this elevated price point.
With slim bezels on three sides and a mix of black and silver surface finishes, it's a tidy, reasonably slick device even if you probably wouldn't pick it purely on looks. More likely to swing it in your favour is the outstanding array of connectivity. For starters, you get both Thunderbolt 4 in and out, the former with fully 100W of power delivery for keeping a laptop charged.
There's also a further USB-C input with 65W of power delivery, plus a KVM switch, multiport USB hub and ethernet. That means you could actually share this monitor across two different laptops, keeping both charged and connecting them to a range of peripherals like keyboard, mouse and external storage, all hooked up to the display.
(Image credit: HP)
Oh, and you can also use those inputs to run two PCs fully in parallel thanks to split-screen capability, which includes HP's Device Bridge 2.0 for secure file sharing. For the record, HP Device Bridge 2.0 supports both PC and Mac.
Notably, all the ports including the power connector are located within easy reach on the rear of the chassis. You don't have to reach or peer under the lower bezel to connect any cables and the manner in which they all exit perpendicular to the rear of the chassis helps with cable management, too.
To that you can add a 5MP AI webcam. It pops out of the top bezel, which ensures full physical security and offers built-in AI functionality including face tracking and lighting adaptation.
As for the 34-inch LCD panel itself, it's the latest IPS Black technology from LG with enhanced contrast. However, it offers a pedestrian if conventional 3,440 by 1,440 native resolution, which makes for unimpressive pixel density.
It also only meets VESA's DisplayHDR 400 standard, which means that it's not a true HDR display and doesn't support local dimming. Still, there's decent colour coverage at 98% of DCI-P3 gamut.
HP Series 7 Pro 734pm: Performance
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(Image credit: HP)
Punchy IPS panel
Great webcam
Low pixel density
The HP Series 7 Pro 734pm sports LG's cutting-edge IPS Black panel tech. On paper it offers much higher inherent contrast than competing IPS screens at 2,000:1. Anything from 1,000:1 up to 1,300:1 is more typical for IPS.
In practice, however, it's hard to see the difference in subjective terms. If you want really good inherent LCD contrast, VA panel tech offers up to 4,000:1 and a more noticeable upgrade in terms of black levels. Of course, OLED and its per-pixel lighting is the ultimate in contrast performance, but that's a whole different type of display.
Either way, IPS Black does make for very accurate colours, something which HP has capitalised on with a very nice factory calibration setup in sRGB mode. You can also choose from DCI-P3 and a range of other gamut presets or go with a user-defined solution.
Strictly speaking, this isn't a professional grade content creation monitor. But it is Pantone Validated and well enough set up for mainstream image and video editing workflows. The HDR 400 certification means there's no local dimming and indeed limited actual HDR support. But it does ensure 400 nits peak brightness and a very punchy over experience. This is a vibrant, pleasant display to use day-to-day.
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The exception to that is the mediocre pixel density. The 3,440 by 1,440 native resolution stretched over the gently curved, 21:9 aspect, 34-inch LCD panel makes for a pixel density of just 109DPI. For context, a 32-inch 4K monitor comes in at about 140DPI, a 27-inch 4K screen at 165DPI.
The result of that lower pixel density includes slightly rough looking fonts and a very slightly pixelated look and feel compared to higher density displays. This is far from unique to the HP Series 7 Pro 734pm, it's the norm for most 34-inch ultrawide panels. But given the four-figure price tag in both the US and UK, that's a little hard to swallow.
Still, the 120Hz refresh and reasonably zippy pixel response, the latter adjustable via four levels of pixel overdrive, certainly make for a versatile display. This isn't a gaming monitor, for instance, but it will turn its hand to that task very well, indeed.
Another highlight is the 5MP AI-powered webcam. It's certainly a cut above the norm for integrated webcams. It offers sharp, clear image quality and good colours. The AI face tracking also works reasonably well, even if it's a little laggy.
Less impressive are the integrated speakers. They put out plenty of volume, but it's a pretty thin, unpleasant din and not even a decent substitute to good laptop speakers, let alone a full desktop audio solution.
HP Series 7 Pro 734pm: Final verdict
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HP is asking a lot of money for this 34-inch ultrawide display. In return you get fantastic connectivity and productivity features. There's Thunderbolt 4 in and out, support for two laptops attached and charging at the same time, KVM functionality, split screen, file sharing, ethernet, the works.
The 34-inch widescreen form factor is also great for multi-tasking and generally getting things done, while the IPS Black panel technology makes for a great viewing experience in terms of colours and vibrancy, even if the heightened contrast compared with "conventional" IPS technology isn't exactly obvious.
The 5MP AI webcam also performs better than most integrated webcams and adds to the overall utility and connectedness of this monitor. The one really obvious shortcoming is the 3,440 by 1,440 resolution and resulting low pixel density.
That's very much the most common resolution for a 34-inch ultrawide panel. But at this price point, the low pixel density is pretty conspicuous, something an upgrade to the 5K2K resolution of 5,120 by 2,160 pixels would fix.
Normally, 5K2K wouldn't be in the mix, it's a fairly rare and premium option. But with a price tag into four figures in both the US and UK, you'd be justified to expect a premium experience. As it is, if you're OK with the pixel density, this is otherwise a really excellent productivity display and an exceptional feature set.
The Nothing Phone 3a Pro (officially Nothing Phone (3a) Pro but I’m not typing that many parentheses) is the most interesting phone you can buy for less than $500 / £500 / AU$850, and if you’ve been craving something different than the cheerful bubblegum styling of cheap Android phones, you should consider the Nothing Phone 3a Pro no matter your price range.
For a full $140 / £150 / AU$150 less than the cheapest iPhone, the iPhone 16e, you can get the Nothing Phone 3a Pro, which has a larger screen with a 120Hz refresh rate, a bigger battery and faster charging, plus more storage and more RAM.
You also get a camera with 3x optical zoom, a feature unheard of at this price range. Most cheap phones give you wide, ultra-wide, and macro cameras, not a real zoom lens.
And all of that comes before I get to the Nothing Phone 3a Pro’s unique design (unique except for the nearly-identical Nothing Phone 3a), which takes a stripped-down approach so far that you can literally see into the back of the phone as if you have x-ray vision.
This see-through look a signature of Nothing Phone devices, along with the cool Glyph LED lights, though the Nothing Phone 3a Pro looks a bit more restrained and polished than previous models. It looks more like a circuitry subway map than an accidental phone autopsy.
The Nothing Phone LED lights are here, in a simple ring rather than an enigmatic ‘Glyph’ arrangement like I saw on the first two Nothing Phone devices. The Glyph system is more than just decorative, it’s actually quite functional and a bit nostalgic.
I remember when the LED lights were a key selling point for cell phones and I’d spend time customizing my friends’ light cues along with their designated ringtone. Nothing Phone 3a Pro let me do that again, assigning light patterns to my friends and family. I even had fun banging out my own patterns on the glyph-maker software.
I give Nothing a lot of credit – there are few phones with a feature like the glyph that is this fun. Most phones are just a slab of glass with cameras on the back. Samsung might give you a pen, but you pay a lot for it. With the Nothing Phone 3a Pro (and Nothing Phone 3a), you get the unique glyph feature that's entertaining on its own and adds unique flair to your calls and alerts.
That said, this is still a decidedly bargain phone, with a less-powerful chipset inside and limited support for US networks. I saw plenty of lag and stuttering performance on this phone, more than I’ve see on slightly more expensive and powerful phones like the OnePlus 12R or even the Google Pixel 8a.
I had no problem using my Nothing Phone 3a Pro on AT&T’s network in the New York area. Nothing says some users might have to call AT&T or Verizon to have their phone’s IMEI (a network identifier) whitelisted, or approved, by the carrier. T-Mobile fans should have no problem at all.
Performance issues aside, it’s almost sad that Nothing hasn’t created an even more premium device above the Nothing Phone 3a Pro, because it’s clear that plenty of work went into the interface and design, and phone fans who normally shun cheap phones might enjoy the minimalist and unique NothingOS. Don't knock it until you've seen it.
The Nothing Phone 3a Pro feels special. This isn’t a pared back phone like the Galaxy A56, which is like a Diet Galaxy S25. The Nothing Phone 3a Pro improves on previous Nothing Phones with a more durable design, a better display, versatile cameras, and faster performance all around. This is the best Nothing Phone ever, and this is one bargain phone you shouldn’t ignore.
Nothing Phone 3a Pro review: price and availability
$459 / £449 / AU$849 with 12GB of RAM and 256GB of storage
Available in the US through Nothing Beta program
(Image credit: Philip Berne / Future)
The Nothing Phone 3a Pro will be available worldwide in one configuration for $459 / £449 / AU$849. You can choose a white or shiny grey exterior and get 12GB of RAM and 256GB of storage inside. That’s a respectable amount of storage and RAM for the price – much more than the 8GB/128GB you'll get on the Samsung Galaxy A56.
While not quite this cheap, for a bit more you can buy the Google Pixel 8a or OnePlus 12R. Both of those phones get discounted frequently to match the Nothing Phone 3a Pro’s price, but those phones were both new in 2024. Samsung’s new Galaxy A56 will cost about the same as the Nothing Phone 3a Pro, but that phone won’t hit the US until much later this year.
Most of the world can simply order the Nothing Phone 3a Pro through Nothing.tech or a retail partner, but in the US there are a couple of hoops to jump through. Nothing saves money by cheaping out on radio bands, so the Nothing Phone 3a Pro doesn’t support every single band on the three major US carriers.
If you use T-Mobile in the US, you’re in luck with the most supported bands, but AT&T support lags a bit, and Verizon users will be missing enough bands that it might make sense to look elsewhere if you need the best cell service possible.
For this reason, Nothing sells the Nothing Phone 3a and Phone 3a Pro in the US under a ‘Beta’ program so that users will be aware of what they are missing. I used the Nothing Phone 3a Pro in the New York area on AT&T. I got a text message from AT&T right away that my phone wasn’t supported. I ignored the message and used the phone normally for the rest of the week and I had no noticeable issues. Network speeds were good.
Value score: 5/5
Nothing Phone 3a Pro review: specs
The Nothing Phone 3a Pro uses a Qualcomm Snapdragon 7s Gen 3 chip, which is a fairly new platform from Qualcomm, so it can support all of the latest software as well as upcoming AI features, should Nothing decide to add more machine learning.
The most outstanding spec is the 3x optical zoom camera, which is unique in this price range. Nothing uses periscopic lens technology, like you’ll find on the Galaxy S25 Ultra’s 5X zoom lens, to add reach.
Otherwise, the large display is noteworthy for its high refresh rate and brightness, both of which top Apple’s latest supposed-bargain iPhone 16e. Across the board, you won’t find much better specs on a smartphone without spending hundreds more, and Nothing also gives you the unique Glyph lights around back.
Nothing Phone 3a Pro review: design
Totally unique transparent design with LED Glyph lights
A bit thick and heavy, but not too much
(Image credit: Philip Berne / Future)
The Nothing Phone 3a Pro stands out, even in the muted grey and white color options available. At first glance, friends who saw the transparent back, with its roadmap of flat ribbon cables and antenna lines, asked what was going on with my phone.
Folks who caught a glimpse when the Glyph lights flared always wanted to know what phone I was using.
The design is decidedly tech-forward, and the Glyph light patterns, with their matching sound cues, and the minimalist NothingOS interface only reinforce this feeling. Most phones try to disappear behind the display and the content, but the Nothing Phone 3a Pro begs to be seen from every angle. I was looking for opportunities to place this phone face down so I could watch it ring.
The design is so unusual that you won’t notice it feels a bit cheap. The seams are not as perfectly aligned as the edges on a Galaxy S25 or iPhone 16. The phone is thick – at 8.4mm, it’s thicker than an iPhone 16e or Galaxy A56.
The transparent back is glass: a Chinese knock-off of Gorilla Glass called ‘Panda Glass’ instead of plastic like previous Nothing Phone devices. The camera bump is huge and unapologetic, with textured lines that draw a circle around the frame. The Glyph lights ring the cameras, and can also act like a ring light when you’re shooting.
The Nothing Phone 3a Pro features a new Essential Key, which is a button that will take a screenshot or record a voice memo. It won’t just store these entries, it feeds them into an Essential Space app that analyzes your notes with AI to give you summaries and answers. In practice… it needs work. I hope the Essential Key gets repurposed in a future NothingOS update so that it can do a bit more.
Design score: 3/5
Nothing Phone 3a Pro review: display
Big, bright display with a fast refresh rate
Not as bright in our tests as Nothing claims
(Image credit: Philip Berne / Future)
The Nothing Phone 3a Pro features a huge, 6.77-inch AMOLED display that can refresh at a variable rate up to 120Hz. It looked bright, colorful, and smooth in my time reviewing the Phone 3a Pro. There was some stuttering, but I suspect the slower chipset was to blame, as the display could handle whatever video content or fast-scrolling lists I threw its way.
I wonder if this display is overkill for Nothing Phone 3a Pro. NothingOS is nearly monochromatic, and in fact there is a monochrome mode if you want to eliminate all colorful distraction from your phone. Maybe Nothing should have developed a unique display to play into those strengths, instead of competing on color and brightness with Samsung and Google.
Nothing claims the Nothing Phone 3a Pro can hit 3,000 nits at peak brightness, but in our Future Labs tests we couldn’t manage half that brightness level. We still saw peak brightness well over 1,000 nits, which is great, but not what Nothing claims.
Display score: 3/5
Nothing Phone 3a Pro review: software
NothingOS offers a unique look and plenty of widgets
Nothing Phone 3a Pro gets 3 years more Android, 6 years more security
(Image credit: Philip Berne / Future)
The Nothing Phone 3a Pro uses NothingOS on top of Android 15, and NothingOS could really be considered a Theme and Widget combo pack. It doesn’t add a whole lot of useful features to Android, but instead it succeeds by taking away distractions.
By distractions, I mean color and shapes. The look of NothingOS can best be described as a monochrome, low-resolution, dot matrix theme. There's an actual monochrome mode you can enable, but the basic NothingOS theme is mostly black and white, with graphics that reduce iconography, like clouds and the sun in the weather app, to a series of large dots.
It kind of works, if you like this style. Nothing even includes an AI wallpaper generator, a feature very en vogue with the smartphone elite, though in this case the choices are much more limited than you’ll find on a Galaxy or Pixel phone.
On my Galaxy I might create a ‘lamp of flowers in pink and purple,’ with thousands of possible combinations of nouns and colors. On my Nothing Phone 3a Pro I can choose ‘flora’ and ‘iridescent’, and up to 30 total combos. What you get ends up looking like a wallpaper that Nothing might have included with its phone anyway.
If you press the new Essential Key twice, you open a new Essential Space app, where you can find the screenshots that you took and the voice memos you saved. Only the screenshots that you capture using the Essential Key end up here. If you press the power button and volume down, you get a screenshot in your Gallery, but not in the Essential Space. Weird.
Honestly, I didn’t have any use for the Essential Key or Essential Space during my time with the Nothing Phone 3a Pro, and I didn’t feel I was missing anything except a better use for the new button. I rarely take screenshots or record voice memos, and I’m not going to change my behavior for this phone, so if you’re like me, you won’t see the benefit. Hopefully Nothing will add more to make this useful for more people.
Software score: 3/5
Nothing Phone 3a Pro review: cameras
Good cameras (but not as good as Nothing's bragging)
A 3x optical zoom lens is unique at this price
(Image credit: Philip Berne / Future)
The people have spoken, and people say they want three cameras, so most cheap Android phones come with three cameras, but none of them give you optical zoom like the Nothing Phone 3a Pro. The Nothing Phone 3a Pro has a clever, versatile array of cameras, making it a solid pick if you need a real zoom lens.
Most phones at this price give you a fine wide-angle camera, a mediocre ultra-wide, and a terrible, low resolution macro camera. The Galaxy A55 and the Motorola Edge 2024 offer that camera setup, for instance. Nothing gives you a lot more camera bang for your buck.
You get a real 3x optical zoom with a periscope lens, which just means it’s more compact than a normal zoom lens. You also get a big 50MP sensor on that zoom lens, in addition to the 50MP main sensor. The ultra-wide sensor is only 8MP, but who cares when you have all that zoom.
The selfie camera is a 50MP sensor as well, which is too much for selfies. I ended up with a file that is six times as large as an iPhone 16 Pro selfie, even though it doesn’t have as much detail or clarity.
The image quality from the Nothing Phone 3a Pro is fine, but not incredible. The Pixel 8a will give you better images in this price range, at least with its main camera, though it only shoots up to 12MP. The Nothing Phone 3a Pro can shoot 50MP images, but you have to dig through settings to make that happen, otherwise you get a standard 12MP file.
It’s clear from the image samples that there is a lot of AI processing going on with the Nothing photos. On the zoom photos, I could get a pretty good shot overall, but if I look closely the image takes on an oil paint quality that makes it clear a computer filled in a lot of gaps and erased all the noise.
Before this phone launched, Nothing teased us by claiming that its new cameras would be as good as an iPhone. It’s not even close, but the Nothing Phone 3a Pro is not a bad camera. It takes much better photos than any Motorola phone I’ve used, and it has more versatility than comparable Samsung Galaxy A-series phones. It’s a solid camera setup for the price.
Camera score: 4/5
Nothing Phone 3a Pro review: camera samples
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Nothing Phone 3a Pro review: performance
Performance is good enough to get by
There are more powerful phones with less style
(Image credit: Philip Berne / Future)
Nothing took a step up with a Qualcomm Snapdragon 7s Gen 3 chip inside both the Nothing Phone 3a and Phone 3a Pro, but the platform still isn’t quite fast enough to keep up with the demands of Android 15 and NothingOS. I encountered plenty of lag in my time with the phone, often bad enough that the screen would stop responding to taps and then would catch up all at once. It was frustrating, but it didn’t happen too often, not every day.
The Nothing Phone 3a Pro isn’t going to be the best phone for hardcore games like Call of Duty Mobile or PUBG, but it will do fine with casual games like Balatro and Marvel Snap. Vampire Survivors choked the phone when the screen filled with enemies, but it recovered quickly enough that I didn’t lose the round.
Frankly, the competition at this price doesn’t offer much better performance – the Pixel 8a isn’t winning any benchmark crowns. If you want a fast phone for less, the OnePlus 12R is your best bet, otherwise you’ll just need to spend more if you want a serious mobile gaming machine.
Performance score: 2/5
Nothing Phone 3a Pro review: battery
Great battery life and excellent charging speeds
No wireless charging
(Image credit: Philip Berne / Future)
Battery life on the Nothing Phone 3a Pro was excellent, and the phone had no trouble lasting me a full day on a single charge with battery to spare. The phone also charges very quickly, though Nothing skimps by not offering any charger in the box, fast or otherwise.
The Nothing Phone 3a Pro can charge up to 50 watts, and I tested it with my own variable charger that can charge up to 50W or more. The Phone 3a Pro charged very quickly, and I got to 100% in just over 50 minutes, which is even faster than Nothing claims. That’s faster than the Galaxy S25 and the iPhone 16.
With a 5,000mAh battery inside (and a very dark, black interface), the Nothing Phone 3a Pro conserves power nicely. In our Future Labs tests, the Phone 3a Pro lasted just under 15 and a half hours, almost the same amount of time as the Samsung Galaxy S25. In my real world tests, I had no trouble taking photos and working through a full day on a single charge.
Battery score: 5/5
Should you buy the Nothing Phone 3a Pro ?
Buy it if...
You like the look You won’t find anything that comes close to the Nothing Phone 3a Pro design, with its unique transparent back glass and minimal interface.
You like the lights It’s surprising no other phone maker is using LED lights for notification, but Nothing gives you lights, sounds, and a composer to make your own rings.
You love the price For everything you get – the versatile cameras, unique design, great battery and charging – this phone is a steal, and worth a look over phones that cost much more.
Don't buy it if...
You play a lot of mobile games This is not a powerhouse phone; its Snapdragon 7s Gen 3 processor could sputter at times. Skip it if you need real smartphone power.
You don’t like the look or the lights There’s not much else going for the Nothing Phone 3a Pro that is unique, besides the design and the low price. But that’s enough for many folks.
You plan on keeping your phone for years The Nothing Phone 3a Pro will get three years of Android updates, but after that this phone will be far behind even mid-range performers and you may have problems.
Nothing Phone 3a Pro review: also consider
Google Pixel 8a The Pixel a-series phones are a great value, offering many of the features you’ll find on the flagship Pixel phones, with very similar camera image quality as well. Read our full review of the Google Pixel 8a
Samsung Galaxy A56 The brand-new Galaxy A56 gives you tons of Samsung AI features and great specs for a price that is comparable to the Nothing Phone 3a Pro. Read our hands-on review of the Samsung Galaxy A56
How I tested the Nothing Phone 3a Pro
I used the Nothing Phone 3a Pro for a week before this review was published. In that time, I tested the phone extensively, alongside the Nothing Phone 3a, using the same work and personal apps and accounts on each.
I used the Nothing Phone 3a Pro for taking photos, communicating with work colleagues using messages and Slack, and conducting video conference calls. I played games, and edited photos from my Google Photos library.
I connected the Nothing Phone 3a Pro to a Pixel Watch 3 and Nothing Buds. I also connected an Xbox wireless controller to play games. I connected the Phone 3a Pro to my car for multimedia and to other Bluetooth speakers for audio.
I tested the Nothing Phone 3a Pro on my personal AT&T Wireless account in the New York City area, including Connecticut, the Hudson Valley, and New Jersey, with no trouble.
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This review first appeared in issue 354 of PC Pro.
Jabra’s PanaCast 50 video bar ensures that no-one feels left out, with its triple 13MP 4K camera turret presenting a full 180° horizontal field of view (FoV). What’s more, lurking inside this 650mm wide cylinder is an 8-microphone beamforming array teamed up with pairs of 50mm woofers and 20mm tweeters.
Speaker tracking is a cut above the rest, too, as the PanaCast 50 incorporates no fewer than nine Edge processors, including two Edge AI chips. These allow it to provide integral video analytics, apply always-on people counting and use Jabra’s Virtual Director technology to focus on the active speaker and zero in on them with its automatic 6x digital zoom.
The camera provides a USB-C port for BYOD meetings or connection to a permanent room computer. Jabra also offers two-room system solutions where one partners the camera with its Android-powered touchscreen tablet while another comes with Lenovo’s ThinkSmart Core + Controller devices.
The kit includes a wall-mounting bracket, with the optional aluminum table stand costing £63. We also checked out Jabra’s Bluetooth remote pad (£39), which provides camera and audio controls plus direct access to whiteboard sharing.
We reviewed the model with a grey fabric cover, but Jabra also offers a black version for the same price. Whichever model you choose, you’ll find integral Wi-Fi 5 services plus a 10/100 Ethernet port at the back for remote management using Jabra’s free Xpress web portal.
BYOD installation is easy: you simply connect the camera to a USB port on a Windows or macOS host computer and wait for the drivers to load. It will work happily with any UVC-compliant VC app, but don’t forget to download Jabra’s Direct app otherwise you’ll miss out on a wealth of features.
The app’s camera controller window allows you to play with the image quality, set a zoom level, move the camera view and save two presets that can be accessed from the remote. From the general settings tab, you can control people counting, enable the Virtual Director and turn on the new dynamic composition feature, which puts the four most recent speakers in a split screen.
The PanaCast 50 can be remotely managed and delivers superb video quality(Image credit: Future)
A large monitor is recommended, since the highest resolution is a very wide 3,840 x 1,080 pixels. The PanaCast’s army of Edge CPUs come into play here as they apply Jabra’s patented video-stitching technology to produce a single image from the three camera feeds.
This works perfectly as we couldn’t see any joins and the cameras deliver a pin-sharp image with great color balance and contrast. Speaker tracking is very responsive, too: we could walk around our meeting room and, even without speaking, the camera followed us while we were moving.
Jabra’s microphone expertise shines through. Remote participants could hear us clearly at a five-metre distance, and the quad speaker combo was just as impressive. Jabra won’t beat Biamp’s 2023 Excellence award-winning Parle VBC 2500 as the PanaCast 50 lacks a little in the bass department, but it delivers a clean and clear sound quality with a 65% volume level quite sufficient for our 24m2meeting room.
Remote monitoring and management are good, with the Xpress portal providing analytics on camera and room usage. “Packages” group camera settings together and, when you install the local Jabra Direct app, just copy a package URL to it.
You can remotely apply settings that override the local app. During room creation, you add a device serial number and apply maximum and safety participant capacities. The camera uses its people-counting skills to provide room usage details and will warn you if the room is over capacity.
This sleek cylinder delivers great video and audio quality, fast speaker tracking and a wealth of advanced features. Jabra’s Xpress web portal offers smart remote management services, and the super-wide view helps make the PanaCast 50 ideal for all-inclusive meetings.
This review first appeared in issue 354 of PC Pro.
Fedora Linux is refreshed every six months, with version 39 shipping in November 2023, 20 years (and one day) since the first iteration’s debut. It was originally a spin-off of Red Hat Linux, but the tables have been turned and it now forms the basis of Red Hat Enterprise Linux and CentOS Stream.
Of the five versions on offer, we reviewed the desktop build, which sits alongside server, cloud, containerized and IoT editions. Each release receives support for 13 months, with version 40 scheduled to appear in April 2024, and build 39 reaching end of life in November 2024.
Fedora has a free-to-download media creation tool, much like Microsoft’s equivalent for Windows, and the Raspberry Pi imager for the single-board computers. This writes the latest build to a bootable thumb drive. Use this to start up, and you’ll encounter one of the best installers we’ve come across. It’s simple, straightforward and painless.
System requirements are 4GB of memory and a 40GB SSD, although Fedora Project notes that it’s possible to run the OS on less than this.
Our installation featured a slim selection of pre-installed applications, including Firefox 119, Rhythmbox Music Player, Boxes virtual machine environment and the latest edition of LibreOffice – release 7.6. However, we needed to install our own email client, as well as common creativity tools such as GIMP and Inkscape. You can do this through the integrated software tool, where we found 61 updates waiting to be processed on first launch. This isn’t as drastic as it sounds, as many of them were fonts and codecs.
The Flatpak package manager is enabled and, if you prefer to update manually, Fedora uses the DNF package manager for RPM.
Where some distributions are just now managing the transition from the X11 display server technology to Wayland, Fedora began that process several releases back, and release 39 marks the 14th edition since it completed the transition. Wayland’s frequently touted benefits, not just by Fedora but in general, include greater security and better performance.
The selection of pre-installed apps includes the latest edition of LibreOffice(Image credit: Future)
The default desktop environment is Gnome 45, which isn’t a huge step up from 44. There are some welcome touches, though, such as subtly redesigned window elements, where two-tone colorways and full-height sidebars tidy things up. There’s also an improved workspace indicator in the top left corner. Click it once and you get an overview of your open windows, some of which might otherwise be hidden, alongside a quick way to switch between desktops. It’s useful, but you can achieve the same result by pressing the Super key.
There’s also a new Image Viewer, which Fedora notes has also been rewritten for high performance, while Gnome search has also been reworked with a focus on speed. The improvements don’t only apply in the Files app, but across several core Gnome tools, such as Software and Characters.
If you don’t get on with Gnome, there are several alternative builds – Spins in Fedora parlance – running the lightweight XFCE desktop, KDE Plasma or Cinnamon, among others. Cinnamon, as used by Linux Mint, is often touted by advocates of Windows-to-Linux switching as a reason to choose that distro.
There’s also a handful of immutable deployments, which keep OS code and apps separate, as with Nitrix. By making the core of the OS read-only, it can’t be hijacked by malicious actors or corrupted by a bad or incomplete update. The result is a more secure environment, for use in sensitive workplaces such as finance and government.
Fedora scored 1,105 in our Geekbench single-core test and 3,053 in the multicore section. These figures were broadly similar to what we saw in the Red Hat Enterprise Linux-based Rocky Linux, which, while slightly lagging in the single-core tests, was around 1.8% faster on the multicore tests. In neither case should it make any noticeable difference in day-to-day use.
With one of the best thought-out installers and a wide choice of desktop environments, there’s much to like about Fedora, which is why it’s our runner-up to Ubuntu. The default installation was minimal, but many will appreciate this, and all the tools you could possibly need are waiting in the software manager.
That Fedora is a primary source for Red Hat Enterprise Linux should fill you with confidence, and the fact it’s available with a variety of desktops will make it immediately familiar, whether switching from Windows or a Debian-based rival.
