Premium Bluetooth noise-cancelling cans combine comfort with extensive connectivity and a user-replaceable batterySennheiser’s latest Momentum Bluetooth headphones build on the German audio specialist’s renowned sound quality with improved noise cancelling, exceptional comfort and a user-replaceable battery to keep pace with rivals.The Momentum 5s cost £330 (€400/$400/A$749) and directly replace their three-year-old predecessors, facing strong competition from Bose, Sony and Sonos. Continue reading...

06 Jul 2026 06:00 ✍️ RSS THE GUARDIAN

Slimmer, longer lasting and much easier to live with, new Oura sets a very high new bar for health-tracking wearablesOura’s new Ring 5 is a massive upgrade for smart rings, dramatically shrinking in size and weight to bring them right into line with standard wedding bands and other jewellery. It is finally a smart ring you can genuinely forget you’re wearing.The Ring 5 is a straight replacement for the popular Ring 4 and costs from £399 (€399/$399/$A649), though it requires a £5.99 (€5.99/$5.99/A$9.99) a month subscription to access anything but basic daily metrics. An Oura is not a cheap proposition. Continue reading...

30 Jun 2026 06:00 ✍️ RSS THE GUARDIAN

Camera, wifi and design updates bring welcome upgrades to Ring’s top model in wired or battery flavourRing’s recent revamp of its popular video doorbells with a more modern design is led by the top-of-the-line Video Doorbell Pro 3, which gains much-needed upgrades with a 4K camera and better wifi plus new interesting AI features.The new doorbells are sleeker but keep the unmistakable two-tone Ring colour scheme, button, logo and ringtone. Battery models start at £80 or equivalent, with the top model costing £219.99 (€249.99/$249.99/A$329.99) with either a battery or wired, which is roughly in line with the competition. Continue reading...

29 Jun 2026 06:00 ✍️ RSS THE GUARDIAN

Pokémon outlived the moral panic of its early days in Australia and its staying power has proved that simple joy can cross bordersThere’s a generation of Australians for whom Cheez TV was a religion. Every morning before school, I’d sit in my little white plastic chair about three feet from our big wooden television and watch 90 minutes of cartoons “curated” by the show’s teenage hosts, Jade and Ryan.Premiering in 1995, Cheez TV dominated the children’s breakfast market by 1998, stealing the crown from Channel Seven’s bogan-muppet icon Agro. A daily dose of Cheez TV was such an important ritual to me that I remember feeling active resentment towards Princess Diana’s death because the news coverage bumped Earthworm Jim. Continue reading...

16 Aug 2026 15:00 ✍️ RSS THE GUARDIAN

Creative Assembly could strike gold again with this follow-up to their fan-favourite, film-inspired game … if you’re brave enough to venture outdoorsAlien: Isolation redefined Alien games on its release in 2014, bringing the original taut, haunted house theme of the first movie to fans who had mostly been fed action-packed shooters. Cowering under desks and inside lockers wasn’t a new thing; being hunted by an intelligent and lethal xenomorph that could spring down from a duct at any moment was.“I was thinking about what we could do for a sequel while we were still finishing the first game,” reveals Creative Assembly’s Alistair Hope, creative lead on Alien: Isolation and its sequel. “But we didn’t actually start the project until around the time of the 10th anniversary. We’ve seen the response grow over time, watching [Alien: Isolation] continue to find new players, even though it’s a relatively old game. And they’re surprised there isn’t a sequel.” Continue reading...

14 Aug 2026 12:00 ✍️ RSS THE GUARDIAN

PC; Replicant D6This GoldenEye 007-styled retro shooter is an agreeable set of straightahead shooting missions that hark back to a simpler time, with simpler controlsWith 007 First Light, 2026 has already given us the best James Bond game in more than three decades, since the release of Rare’s N64 classic GoldenEye 007. But what about those players whose loyalties lie not with the super-spy himself but the particulars of that 90s interpretation of his adventures?Enter Agent 64: Spies Never Die. Made almost entirely by a single developer (who goes by the very cloak-and-dagger alias Replicant D6), its production values couldn’t be much further from the blockbuster First Light. There’s no voice acting, with all dialogue instead delivered via subtitles, while each location on your globe-trotting adventure is depicted by a repeating texture wallpapered over scenery so blocky you can count the individual polygons. Continue reading...

13 Aug 2026 13:00 ✍️ RSS THE GUARDIAN

As millennials return to the games of their youth, remakes of Star Fox and Halo suggest there is still plenty to learn from the past• Don’t get Pushing Buttons delivered to your inbox? Sign up hereAs much as some people more or less cease to listen to new music in their 30s, I have noticed a retreat to safe, familiar gaming territory among some of my fellow millennial gamers.Retro collections are started, or resumed; jewel-cases of PS1 classics or cardboard boxes with SNES or Mega Drive games have started to colonise the living-room shelves. People are replaying things from their university days, or sticking to comfort games such as Stardew Valley. Many of the friends I used to game with never bothered to pick up a PlayStation 5 at its launch, and now that current-generation consoles are becoming prohibitively expensive, they see no need. With thousands of great older games, why bother playing something new? Continue reading...

12 Aug 2026 14:00 ✍️ RSS THE GUARDIAN