Young characters suddenly looked aged and haggard because of extra detail and texture. Cloud from Final Fantasy VII becomes Scarlett Johansson in a Mötley Crüe wig. And the cost for such dubious graphical enhancements is a massive performance drop with tests throwing up frame rate reductions of up to 40–50%.

It's "objectively horrendous", one gamer argues. But some think there are cases where the tech could offer a genuine upgrade.

Nvidia's DLSS 5 AI controversy

Nvidia said back in March that its next-generation DLSS would bring "photorealism" to gaming through the use of a new generative AI model designed to enhance frames and add detail to lighting, textures and materials in real time. But the GPU maker's own early demo immediately sparked controversy by giving Grace from Capcom’s Resident Evil Requiem a glamour makeover.

Now leaked through the nvngx_dlssnr.dll library via NBA 2K27, modders have been testing DLSS 5 for themselves and sharing the videos and screenshots on social media. Faces are the main area of contention, with some modders complaining that Nvidia's new tech makes characters look uncanny and AI-generated or makes them look older than they're supposed to be by sharpening skin texture.

One ResetEra user called it "one of the most unsettling things I've ever laid my eyes on in gaming".

But, characters aside, other modders have found a lot to like in DLSS 5, particularly in the realism of environments, reflections and foliage in games like Ubisoft's Avatar.

But the biggest debate is that around artist intent. One of the biggest criticisms of DLSS 5 has been the argument that Nvidia's tech is intervening between the artist and the player, changing what the artist intended.

But some developers disagree with that view. Writing on X, Daniel Vávra of Warhorse Studios, developer of Kingdom Come: Deliverance II, argues that the tech doesn't alter the geometry of the models or the appearance of characters, and that, moreover, it can actually take a game closer to artists' visions by helping to overcome issues caused by the game engine's limited lighting system.

"It makes ambient occlusion look like it’s on steroids," Daniel wrties. "You have no idea how terribly—and I mean really, really—annoyed I was that in KCD2 we couldn’t render shadows from hats, hoods, and helmets on characters’ heads, or even shadows from small details on character models (buckles, laces, pouches). DLSS5 does this, and it does it absolutely brilliantly!. On top of that, it improves the rendering of shadows in hair, so they finally have the right density and darkness.

We also have to remember that this is an unfinished technology being tested in games that weren't built around it. Nvidia hasn't said when DLSS 5 will be officially released. It's also assumed that support will be limited to the current RTX 50 series of GPUs (see our guide to the best graphics cards).

Alas, the tech giants' furor for AI has ramped up global demand for both RAM and long-term data storage. With major players like Samsung, SanDisk and Crucial focusing on supplying the data centre market, consumer prices have gone through the roof. List prices are higher, and there are fewer discounts.

Fortunately, occasional portable SSD deals still comes up, and they're worth grabbing when they do. That's definitely the case with Amazon's current discount of 24% off the Samsung T7 1TB, reduced from $287.99 to $219.99.

These are today's highlights in the US and UK, both of them on SSDs that we've tested and highly rate.

• Shop Portable SSD deals at Amazon

Content warning: this article discusses graphic violence, disturbing imagery, and mature themes in an 18+ game.

I’ve been waiting a long time for Onimusha to come back, and Way of the Sword does a pretty good job of reminding me why I loved the series in the first place, because when you’re actually fighting something this is one of the most satisfying sword-fighting games I’ve played in years, a gloriously brutal mix of timing, counters, dodges and supernatural weaponry that makes even a corridor, castle keep and Kyto back alley full of disposable Genma feel like an opportunity to show off.

Way of the Sword takes the familiar ingredients of the original games – the Issen counters, Oni Gauntlet, soul absorption and the comically horrific Genma – and rebuilds them around Miyamoto Musashi, dropping the wandering swordsman into an Edo-period Kyoto being consumed by Malice and then throwing the whole thing through the visual trickery of the RE Engine. It’s a very Capcom way of bringing an old series back, retaining the things that made Onimusha distinctive while giving the combat enough modern flexibility that it never feels like I’m playing a remake.

Peeling back Onimusha's combat

Combat is where Way of the Sword really gets going, because underneath the straightforward business of hitting things with a sword is a surprisingly deep system of timing, positioning, stamina management and supernatural attacks, with parries, counters and dodges all feeding into the returning Issen system where you strike an enemy at precisely the right instant, just before their attack lands, and turn their own momentum into a very nasty death.

It’s one of those mechanics that feels impossibly precise when you first see it and then, after a few hours, becomes second nature. Get the timing right, and Musashi slips inside an attack and cuts through an enemy with clinical efficiency; miss it, and you’re reminded that these things are quite capable of ripping you apart instead; even the general fodder found between boss encounters can do serious damage if you switch off and fumble the timing.

There are layers underneath the core combat system, with enemy stance and stamina giving you ways to throw them off balance with battering attacks or combos, cause damage with Issen counters and Issen Break finishers, while objects in the world can be used as makeshift weapons – a door is a handy shield. The Oni Gauntlet enables Musashi to absorb the different coloured souls left behind by defeated Genma. Yellow souls restore health, red souls are used for upgrading weapons and abilities, and blue souls feed the Oni Armaments, the supernatural weapons that give Musashi some particularly nasty ways of dealing with tougher enemies. Later you get an Oni Awakening transformation ability that runs on purple orbs, and in this form a new balance emerges, as Issen Counters keep the form in play so every attack comes down to high risk-and-reward timing.

It sounds like a lot when you write it down, but in action it’s remarkably instinctive, and before long I’m looking at an armoured Genma and thinking about counters, seeing a faster ninja-like shrouded Genma coming at me and instinctively preparing to dodge, while the basic fodder gets the full Musashi treatment as I simply get on the front foot and start hacking and slashing, deftly moving between the enemies like the a practiced swords-slinger.

The Oni Armaments are particularly useful because they give the combat a bit of variety beyond sword against sword, and some enemies are designed around them, including one enormous creature whose armour needs to be stripped away before you can really start doing damage, turning the encounter into something resembling a supernatural can-opener as Musashi works through its defences with the dual Oni hammers. Other Oni specials offer screen-filling sweeps of slashes from a 'naginata'', a piercing lightning-infused spear and an Issen-enabled katana just for harvesting purple orbs.

The animation sells it all beautifully. Musashi twirls enemy swords away, blocks attacks one-handed over his shoulder, ducks under enormous swings, pirouettes away from grapples and slices through Genma according to the path of his blade, with Capcom’s Dynamic Dismemberment system making the results particularly gruesome because you can genuinely see the difference between a slash across the torso and one that catches an enemy cleanly through the middle, halving them as they spill to the ground in pieces.

Even after 20 hours, I was still seeing little animation details I hadn’t noticed before, a counter where Musashi twists an enemy around and throws him into his mates, the way he changes his stance when dealing with a different type of Genma, the tiny movements between attacks that make him feel like a brash swordsman filled with bravado. It’s wonderfully showy without getting in the way of the fighting, and that balance is harder to achieve than it looks – and have no fear, you can cancel mid-animation to keep things flowing nicely.

It helps that Musashi himself is such a good fit for all this, because he’s not the solemn, endlessly noble samurai I might have expected when Capcom announced the game. Instead, he’s a swaggering, occasionally sulky wandering swordsman who just wants to prove himself, live his life and generally be left alone, only to find himself lumbered with an Oni Gauntlet and a city full of demonic monsters.

Capcom based Musashi’s face on late legendary Japanese actor Toshiro Mifune, and there’s something suitably old-school about his presence, but it’s the animation and performance that make him work, particularly in those quieter scenes where he looks less like a heroic statue and more like a bloke who has suddenly realised he’s got another day’s worth of supernatural nonsense to deal with, kicking puddles of blood nonchalantly after an epic battle with a Genma boss.

He swaggers, sulks and chews through scenes, and the character gradually becomes less selfish as the story pushes him towards accepting what the Oni Gauntlet means and what’s happening to Kyoto, so there’s a genuine arc underneath all the sword swinging without Capcom needing to make him suddenly serious and miserable for the sake of it. The villains get a similar amount of personality, particularly Sasaki Ganryu, Musashi’s unhinged rival who spends much of his time laughing manically, while the various Genma bosses are given enough personality and theatricality that fights rarely feel like simply working your way through another oversized health bar.

Recurring mini-bosses such as Byakue, a hulking samurai covered in paper talismans, are as detailed as the mains, like Ganryu's accomplice, the snake-necked Dokyo, who fight together at first, but Dokyo's solo battle strips the game back from sword duals to bullet hell dodges, showing Capcom has a way of keeping things fresh even when you're battling the same cast at intervals.

The finale, a brooding confrontation with Yoshitsune, is particularly good, with the villain stalking Musashi around the arena, circling him and throwing out taunts, spinning and bragging, before launching into beautifully elegant attacks, and there’s a real sense of the two characters performing for each other as much as they’re trying to kill one another. It’s pure samurai cinema, and it’s all too easy to simply watch in awe, because somehow you need to counter everything he throws your way.

Way of the Sword's Kyoto explored

The other thing Capcom absolutely nails is Kyoto itself, because Way of the Sword is a gorgeous game and then, almost immediately, it makes that beauty deeply unpleasant.

Malice has infected the city with this stone-and-coral growth made from distorted faces, bodies and limbs, spreading across buildings and landscapes until the familiar architecture of historical Kyoto starts to look as if something has been growing underneath it all along. Temples, castles and bamboo forests are given this lovely mixture of warm firelight and deep shadow, while ruined buildings sit beneath moonlight with bodies scattered around them, and the RE Engine does a great job of making everything feel tangible, particularly once the Malice starts consuming it.

One sequence takes Musashi down into an abandoned underground research facility and turns the whole thing into Japanese horror crossed with horrible shadow-puppet theatre, with people and animals stitched together as the snake-necked Shuten-dōji moans and screams behind Fusuma screens stained red with blood.

It’s one of those areas where I’m spending as much time looking around as I am worrying about what’s coming next, because Capcom has clearly had a lot of fun imagining what happens when a historical Japanese setting gets infected by something this grotesque.

The Oni Refuge is another good example, a strange maze of broken temples and floating rocks where the normal rules of the world have gone slightly wrong, and there are some light environmental challenges involving moving objects around to find a route through. I kept expecting these areas to become more ambitious, because the game has clearly got the visual design for it, but the environmental interaction never really develops into anything substantial.

Which brings me to the bit that stopped Way of the Sword from being the game I wanted it to be. The combat is brilliant, and the world-building is fantastic, but outside of those two things, Way of the Sword can feel surprisingly light, with the main story anchoring things, but the activities around it tend to fall into the same handful of categories.

You can help the people of Kyoto and uncover their stories, hunt for treasures, find lost puppies and take on archery challenges, and while these give you reasons to revisit areas and collect more souls and materials for upgrading Musashi, they aren’t particularly challenging or involved. The structure becomes quite predictable: a new story chapter opens, I sweep through the new activities, collect the loot, upgrade my gear and then get back to the story, before the same thing happens again in the next chapter.

There’s a lot of running through areas I’ve already visited, circling Kyoto’s streets and fighting the same Genma in the same places, and even the enemy variety begins to show its limits because some of the mini-bosses return in areas and some of the main bosses need to be fought more than once without really developing their attacks or design – except perhaps the pair of Ifuu and Burai, you fight these ‘dudes’ individually and then eventually together as a pair, and it changes how they feel to fight, so it’s a shame this approach wasn’t developed across all repeated encounters.

The original Onimusha games had little Resident Evil-style puzzles that forced you to stop swinging your sword and think for a second, work out what an object was for or figure out how to get somewhere, and I kept waiting for Way of the Sword to bring some of that back. Instead, the game gives me glimpses of it and then moves on. The Oni Refuge is the obvious tease, because it looks like the sort of place where Capcom could have gone with environmental puzzles, but the challenges remain fairly light, and there’s never a point where I’m genuinely scratching my head over how to unlock a route (shoot the block, always shoot the block). It leaves the game feeling a little narrower than the world deserves, particularly because Capcom has created such a fantastic playground and then mostly asks me to run around it killing Genma.

Onimusha's story delivers

The main story itself is engaging enough and has that familiar Capcom rhythm, moving between character drama, big cinematic encounters and increasingly horrible supernatural set pieces, and Musashi’s journey from reluctant wanderer to someone more willing to take responsibility for what’s happening around him gives the campaign a decent emotional spine.

It’s getting to those moments that can feel like a slog. You’ll face the same core enemies repeatedly, revisit some mini-bosses and, in some cases, fight major bosses multiple times, so while the combat remains good enough to make another encounter enjoyable, the structure starts to feel more like the game is trying to stretch its 20-hour run than finding another reason to keep me interested.

Once the story is finished you can continue playing, or jump into New Game+ and take on Carnage difficulty while unlocking new costumes, which has a bit of that familiar Capcom replayability to it, but it doesn’t fundamentally alter the experience, so if you’ve already spent 20 hours doing the story, the prospect of doing essentially the same thing again is going to depend on how much you enjoyed mastering the combat.

For me, the answer is quite a lot, because I could happily spend hours just fighting Genma, particularly when everything clicks, and I’m chaining counters, dodges and Issen attacks together while sucking up souls and swapping between Oni abilities. That’s the strange thing about Way of the Sword: the thing I’m doing most often is also the thing I never get bored of doing. I just wish Capcom had put more interesting things around it.

Because when Musashi is fighting, Onimusha: Way of the Sword is fantastic, and when the game is showing me another ruined temple, grotesque Genma creature or beautifully staged boss encounter, it’s often fantastic to look at too, but the connective tissue between those moments can feel like filler, particularly when I’m retracing a familiar street for the fourth time or taking down another group of enemies I’ve already learned how to deal with.

Still, after more than 20 years away, I’m very happy to have Onimusha back. There’s an old-fashioned pleasure to Way of the Sword that I really like, because it doesn’t need to turn Musashi into an open-world samurai simulator or bury the swordplay beneath dozens of progression systems and become a me-too Sekiro. It knows that the fun is in stepping into a room full of Genma, reading the attacks, finding the opening and cutting through them with a sword that feels as good in your hands as anything Capcom has made in recent years. I just wanted Kyoto to give me a little more reason to stay there.

We've tested hundreds of laptops over the years, and the four below are our reviewers' current top picks the best laptops for graphic design on a budget. We think these provide the optimum balance of performance, visual fidelity, portability and price for a range of different needs. You can click through to find more details on our experience with each device in our full hands-on reviews.

The best budget laptops for graphic design students

Best budget laptop for graphic design students overall

The ASUS Zenbook A14 is a budget laptop for graphic design that could easily pass as a more premium machine with its sleek looks. At under 1kg, it's one of the lightest 14-inch laptops we've tested, and our real-world video-loop test for battery life gave us an excellent 20 hours and 39 minutes – even more than we got from Apple's latest MacBook Air 13.

This all makes it an excellent laptop for graphic design students commuting to and from college. The lovely OLED display delivers excellent contrast and colour coverage and accuracy for this price point.

It lacks the power of ASUS's higher-end models but can tackle 2D, vector and layout software without problems. We tested a Snapdragon X1 CPU configuration with 16GB of RAM and found it to be on a par with Apple's M1 and M2 chips, able to handle work in Illustrator, InDesign and Affinity as well as Photoshop editing.

The integrated Adreno GPU isn't going to stand up to 3D rendering or GPU-accelerated video work but you can up the RAM to 32GB if you want to handle general video editing or more complex design projects. While the list price starts at £1,099.99, you can often find discounts at online retailers.

Read our full ASUS Zenbook A14 for more details.

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Best budget Apple laptop for graphic design students

MacBooks remain a perennial favourite among graphic designers. That's partly due to tradition since some graphic design software was initially only available for Mac, but it's also because they just work. Some find Apple's operating system to be less troublesome, while others admire the sleek minimalist design and reliable build quality.

The newest addition to the family is Apple's first attempt at a budget laptop, and we were pleasantly surprised when we reviewed it. The mere 8GB of memory makes it relatively low powered, but we found the A18 Pro chip could efficiently handle most Photoshop and Illustrator work, although large multi-layered Photoshop files and complex Illustrator documents with many linked assets can start to hang a little.

There's no OLED display, and colour coverage spans around 98% of the sRGB gamut, and just 74% of DCI-P3. That compares to 100% of both on our top recommendation above and on Apple's own MacBook Airs. In practical terms, it should be sufficient for students of graphic design, but those working in motion design or video editing may want a better screen (and larger storage option, because a 256GB or 512GB will fill up fast with video files).

At 1.23kg and 1.27cm thick, the Neo is compact and bag-friendly. We measured up to 16 hours of battery life, which is decent but notably shorter than the Asus A14 above. Nevertheless, at just $599/£599, this is a great-value entry point to the Apple ecosystem.

Read our full MacBook Neo review.

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Best budget 2-in-1 laptop for graphic design students

The HP Envy x360 is sleek, compact and provides added versatility for graphic design students since it doubles up as a tablet thanks to its 360 degree hinge and touchscreen capabilities. You can turn it into tent mode or even completely flat into a tablet to draw, and the stylus is included.

It's well-built, with a sturdy aluminium chassis, and the hinge feels reliable enough for regular use. Despite this, it weighs just 1.38kg, making it a handy 2-in-1 for commuting or using remotely in your favourite coffee shop.

Tablet mode can feel a little clunky since the keyboard doesn't detach, but it's the nearest we have to the best of both worlds and could save you from having to invest in an iPad or a dedicated drawing tablet if you want a stylus input device.

The HP MPP2.0 tilt pen is responsive and comfortable to work with. It's an active pen so needs charging but this is fairly convenient via USB-C. There's no dock as such for the pen, but there is a magnetic strip you can attach it to, which can also be handy for stowing a pair of AirPods, for example.

The OLED touchscreen FHD display delivers brightness of 400 nits covering 100% of the DCI-P3 colour space – more than the MacBook Neo above. We reviewed an Intel Corei7 1250U, 16GB RAM configuration and found it capable of multitasking and design in Photoshop and InDesign, although there was more lag large Illustrator projects.

Read our full HP Envy x360 review.

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Best budget laptop for graphic design students with a large screen

A budget laptop for graphic design generally means going for a smaller device. That has the benefit of more portability, but some prefer a larger display for working in multiple panels in software like Photoshop or across multiple windows.

Enter the Acer Swift 16 AI, a 16-incher that's been designed to be as light and portable as six inches of laptop can be. Acer's got it down to just 1.5kg (3.4 lbs). The emphasis on keeping the weight down means it can feel a little bendy with its super-thin plastic and metal chassis, but it's worth that sacrifice if you're commuting with a large machine.

We found the Intel Core Ultra 7 and 16GB RAM configuration could handle 2D design work in Photoshop and Illustrator and light video editing without colour grading or effects. The 3K OLED display provides a wide colour space with 100% DCI-P3 coverage. It's Eyesafe 2.0 certified for limiting potentially harmful blue light too, and there is a Display HDR feature that's True Black 500 certified, making it a very reasonable display for this price point.

Read our full Acer Swift 16 AI review.

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FAQs

How to choose

When choosing a laptop for graphic design on a budget, you need to choose your priorities in terms of power, portability, display size and cost. To keep the cost below around $1,200, you'll often have to sacrifice a dedicated GPU in favour of more affordable integrated graphics.

If you plan to take your laptop to college, the library or a cafe for working, we recommend opting for a lighter 14-inch laptop even though it makes working across multiple panels or windows less comfortable.

How we test

We've tested over 100 laptops over 10,000 hours of use in the last two years. As explained in our how we test laptops for graphic design article, we run extensive benchmark tests and also put laptops through their paces with real-world scenarios by completing test projects in software including Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator. We also test colour accuracy and brightness.

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Coming in at £1,999 on its May release, it has currently got a whopping £500 off for absolutely no other reason than Honor likes to give massive discounts off their most recent phones. I have no other explanation for it! It's currently down from £1,999 to £1,499 over at Honor.

Flagship quality at a discount

When I reviewed the Honor Magic V6 earlier this year, I was really impressed by its super-fast features, especially its camera. I'm not a fan of the mega zoom that Honor are so proud about, but otherwise, you get some really nice snaps, and I love using the expended, fully unfolded phone for taking and looking at photos.

The other notable feature of the V6 is that it comes with a really handy case included. And that case has a stand that will prop up the camera phone, so you can enjoy watching whatever you want while traveling.

I feel that it's a bit pricey at full price, but at £1,499, it's a really compelling product.

For context, I thought it's older brother, the Binary Acoustics EP321 was one of the best treble-forward IEMs of last year. And both IEMs share some similarities. Both are clear and favour focus on an extended treble, with accents on the mid treble and air regions. But they both have solid bass, too, and elevated upper mids to bring vocals forward in the mix.

In short, they offer fairly similar sound profiles, but with this Amazon deal, the 1900 is almost £100 cheaper! That's not quite low enough to make my list of the best budget IEMs, but it's definitely in the affordable range of things. Bottom line: for £218, this is really good sound quality.

What's in a number?

The Binary Acoustics 1900 stands out in the crowded £200 category with its clearly though-out sound profile, and its better-than-average design. Paying homage to the Ennio Morricone-led, 1998 film The Legend of 1900, its stainless steel faceplates have an elegant turn of the century design on top of lightweight 3D-printed resin shells. Inside, there's a six-driver hybrid setup: a 10mm dynamic driver paired with a 6mm passive radiator for bass, alongside four balanced armatures managed by a three-way crossover.

Now, as I've said, these are clean and clear, but rather than chasing hyper-clinical frequency curves, the 1900 delivers a warm, lush, analogue sound. The bass has authoritative, physical impact without muddying the detailed midrange or the airy, non-fatiguing top end.

Against rivals like the strictly Harman-tuned Truthear Nova (£140) or the leaner, more analytic Letshuoer Cadenza 4 (£228), the 1900 is a bit more emotional – you get a sophisticated v-shape. The main trade-off lies in the uninspired accessories; the included silver-plated cable lacks modular plugs, which is a big fail at this price point. Nevertheless, for listeners who favour rich sound, excellent comfort, and textured bass over stark neutrality, the Binary 1900 hits a sweet spot that easily competes with the best of its peers.

Below, they present four pieces of character art as part of our series of features on digital artists. If you need to build your own art setup, see our guides to the best drawing tablets or the best laptops for drawing.

Voyager

“This piece depicts a retired Grim Reaper’s life after leaving fierce duties behind. I placed him on a slow yet spirited ox with a delicious drink, enjoying some well-earned leisure time.”

Reapers' Order

“Captured here are novice Grim Reapers from Korean folklore, embodying a fresh yet tense emotion. The supervisor cat is watching from the front to ensures that these beginners stay on track.”

Incarnation

“Inspired by the bear from the Korean creation myth, this piece depicts a benevolent mother spreading mercy and peace. Buddhist monastic robes perfectly complement her serene and compassionate character.”

Justiciar

“Based on Hyunmu, a folklore creature of immense power, this character exudes soft warmth. Through his careful gaze, I emphasised the profound connection and tenderness shared with a tiny child.”

You can see more of Grayboxx's work on his ArtStation profile.

Today's best drawing tablet deals

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Suddenly everything from your local church's car boot sale to the food truck on the pavement outside it is presenting itself with AI-generated visuals. And despite the theoretically infinite creative possibilities that AI image generators afford, most of them look mediocre, if not outright traumatic when it comes to AI menus and food imagery.

On social media, graphic designers are trying to make the world see sense.

The vast array of AI flyers cropping up all over social media and even printed in physical form suggests that many small businesses see such assets in purely informational terms: an inconvenience needed to communicate a product or service rather than a vital piece of branding that can say a lot about a business and the people behind it.

The fightback is in full swing on Instagram and YouTube, with a recent flurry of posts and videos that seek to highlight that ethical issues and simply the cheap generic look of AI-generated visuals could put customers off.

Designers and illustrators are also taking AI-generated flyers from the internet and trying to show how they would have approached the brief, leading to much more unique, eye-catching and coherent results.

Some designers are using the process like a real brief to practice their skills and others to promote their services.

Others are so tired of seeing bad AI designs that they're imploring businesses to design their own assets in any other way.

Some people appear to have got the message. At least, there's a simultaneous trend running of small businesses declaring on Instagram that they'll be communicating using pen and paper instead of AI flyers. Others have been sharing simple tips for other businesses on how to make a flyer without using AI.

The AI proponents will say bad users are the cause of generic-looking flyers, not AI itself. All you need to do is prompt better. But even with the most detailed 1,000-word prompt followed by multiple rounds of generations, there's an inherent tendency for AI image generation to gravitate to a statistical average of its data set and the verdicts of data annotators.

Before AI, we had bad Photoshop fails and the classic 'graphic design is my passion meme'. But at least amateur design had some personality. With AI, everything just looks a bit mid. For some businesses, that might be enough, but I think the trend towards rawer hand-crafted work may be building.

The firm is hoping to repeat the trick with the EH13, a pair of closed-back over-ear headphones with ANC – a pair that looks and feels premium, but somehow costs just $49!

• Buy the FiiO EH13 for $40 at Amazon

I was initially sceptical about the EH11 when I reviewed it – the price just seemed too low for it to be worth anything – but I was ultimately won over by just how good this no-frills headphone sounded. Proven wrong once, I had fewer reservations about the EH13, and dived in eagerly to see if it could join the ranks of the best ANC headphones.

Sound profile

As always, I spent some time listening to the FiiO EH13 straight out of the box, resisting the temptation to touch the full parametric EQ that I knew was waiting for me in the app. This is how most people use headphones, after all, and I’d wager a guess that this is even more the case for people who use headphones that cost $49.

I’m happy to report that the stock sound of the FiiO EH13 is fine. There’s been a lot of discourse around this headphone on audiophile Reddit, calling it terrible, muddy, soupy, disastrous, etc – but in my view it is perfectly fine, especially for the price. Powered by the kind of 40mm dynamic driver you’d expect to find in a headphone costing octuple the price, the sound is warm, rich, and… I think the word I’m looking for is ‘polite’.

In tuning the EH13, FiiO seems to have taken pains to produce a sound that’s going to be palatable to the majority of people. Bass is present but rarely overbearing, giving your tracks a level of mid-bass oomph mostly without the swamping thunder you can sometimes get from a headphone that is trying to impress you – though a few times, notably while listening to Jungle’s Sunshine, I had the urge to rein it in just a tad.

With trebles it’s a similar story. Top-end notes are present and assert themselves, but I never experienced a hint of sibilance or distortion. Listening to Phoebe Bridgers’ Lost Weekend, I was able to pick out all sorts of delightful high-end detail, with the softly finger-picked guitars in ‘The Governor's Waltz’ clearly delineated. Cymbals and hi-hats ring and wash off cleanly.

So, with neither high-ends nor low-ends rushing to take centre-stage, that leaves an opening for the mids, which do an admirable job of filling it. With good clarity and detail, the midrange sound is kind to male and female vocals alike. They are very forward in the mix, but this can be quite lovely with softer tracks, giving them a distinct feeling of intimacy. I gained a new appreciation for the slower moments of Olivia Rodrigo’s you seem pretty sad for a girl so in love, with the vocals so close and clear that I could discern every breath, every plosive pop.

The sound isn’t spectacular. I didn’t get the ‘wow’ feeling I got when I first donned the Sennheiser HDB 630 – not that I could seriously expect to at this price. But in general, I found the FiiO EH13 to be a versatile companion for a host of different listening experiences.

Features

Let’s talk parametric EQ. Download the Fiio Control app and you get access to a 10-band EQ with +/-12Db of adjustment available. Should you not like some aspect of the stock sound, you can dive in and change it – I found that I had room to dial up the trebles even more, while I could also rein in the sub-bass just a touch. The app also offers genre-based EQ presets, but to be honest, I didn’t like these when I tried them with the EH11, and I don’t like them here either.

Then there’s also the ANC to look at! It still seems scarcely credible to me that a headphone this affordable can come sporting ANC, but the EH13 does indeed do so – and it’s pretty good! Offering three intensity settings and a transparency mode, the ANC is easy to tweak to the user’s liking, and it does an effective job of shunning outside noise. It’s not as good as industry leaders like the Sony WH-1000XM6 or the Bose QuietComfort Ultra Gen 2, but it’s perfectly fine for commuting, for busy work environments and for ignoring a cat who has decided to try his luck for an hour-early dinnertime. One thing I did notice was that when I was out and about, I was getting a bit of perceptible wind noise in a way that I haven’t done with more premium ANC headphones.

I know I keep calling things ‘surprising’ and words to that effect, but honestly this headphone is so cheap that I really did keep being surprised by features that FiiO has managed to cram in. Like the battery. It’s slated to last up to 45 hours with ANC, or a whopping 75 hours without it, and I can attest that the meter really does tick down very slowly. Over more than a week’s use with daily listening, I’ve only had to charge the headphone once.

There’s also wired listening too via the 3.5mm jack – though the headphone does need to be powered for the full experience, as it makes use of the internal electronics and isn’t an entirely passive mode.

There are some bits of oddness that betray the FiiO EH13 as a cheap headphone. The app is badly translated and can be confusing at first. As far as I can tell, the headphone doesn’t have an automatic power-off or sleep function – a couple of times, I disconnected my phone and went off to do something else, only to come back some time later and notice that the EH13 was still flashing blue and red lights like a cop car in distress.

Value

A little peek behind the reviewing curtains here. We’ve discussed the price of this headphone quite a bit already, but when I first received it, I spent some time listening before looking up the price, and when eventually I did, I was genuinely quite shocked.

I knew that since it was made by FiiO the EH13 would be cheap, but I really was not expecting it to be as cheap as just $49 / £49. For everything you get here – ANC, long battery life, a closed-back design, 40mm drivers, full PEQ, LDAC – that is insanely good value.

Comfort & build

I have worn this headphone solidly for over a week now, and I am drumming my fingers on the desk trying to magic up something to complain about. Honestly, comfort-wise, I have no notes. The FiiO EH13 feels lightweight and inoffensive, with a well-judged clamping force and the earcups are nicely padded and of a good size to enable multi-hour listening sessions.

Granted, the immense variability of the size and shape of human heads means that the comfort of a headphone is always going to be a matter for the individual wearer, but all I can say is that I’ve worn a lot of headphones, and comfort-wise, this was nowhere near the worst.

The design is non-folding. This is a bit of an annoyance when it comes to transporting the headphone, and as you might expect given the ultra-cheap price tag, there’s no carry-case or protective pouch included in the box. You do at least get a 3.5mm cable for wired listening, as well as a USB-C to USB cable for charging.

I’ll also say that I found the button placement weird. When you’re wearing the headphone, the volume controls sit at the front, the power button in the middle, and ANC control at the rear. This feels off to me – backwards. I kept reaching to turn off the headphone and accidentally toggling ANC instead. This backwards placement reminds me of something that consistently annoyed me about the EH-11 – the way it asked you to rotate a knob forwards to skip a track back, and backwards to skip a track ahead. Honestly, I think someone at FiiO might be putting these controls on the wrong way round.

Should you buy?

Yeah, man. At $49, why the hell not? Assuming that you don’t already own a much more expensive (and superior) headphone like the Sennheiser Momentum 5, this is an absolutely fabulous entry-point into the world of closed-back headphones, at a price that simply cannot be beaten. You get the long battery life and effective ANC that commuters and office workers crave, and the sound is both good out of the box and highly adjustable thanks to the PEQ.

You might want to add the cost of a pouch or protective case to your budget – and personally, I travel a lot with headphones and prefer them to be folding. You also may simply prefer the Walkman-esque retro styling of the FiiO EH11 – the EH13 is undeniably a bit boring visually. But otherwise, I can very happily recommend this headphone to any budget-conscious buyer looking for good sound. I can’t see you being disappointed.

If you're merely slicing existing models to print, you don't need a very powerful laptop at all. However, your hardware requirements will be greater if you want to start creating your own original designs, and a budget 3D printing laptop won't be as affordable as the best budget laptops for graphic design students, for example.

Nevertheless, we have still reviewed some fairly economical laptops that provide a good entry point for anyone looking to start experimenting with design for 3D printing without committing to making a hefty investment in one of the best laptops for 3D modelling. Below, I've picked out our top four recommendations based on our testing and reviews.

The best budget laptops for 3D printing

Best budget laptop for 3D printing overall

The Acer Nitro V 16S AI isn't cheap exactly, but it's more affordable than most gaming laptops that have the graphics power to handle the design in CAD programmes. It's more than what you need if you're just slicing existing models, but that means you're less likely to outgrow it too quickly if you become interested in creating your own pieces.

The base configuration starts at $1,299 and comes with an AMD Ryzen AI 5 340 Processor, Nvidia GeForce RTX 5060 graphics, 16GB of RAM. We got reliable benchmark scores across Cinebench and ON1 Resize AI, and we found it handled character creation in Reallusion's Character Creator and modelling in Blender with no problems.

The gaming aesthetic isn't too full on, and at 2.18kg, it's reasonably portable for a 16-inch machine. It also has a WQXGA-resolution display rather than FHD, which provides more detailed visuals, which will be of more importance to people who want to print smaller models. This all makes the Nitro V 16S a sound pick for hobbyists and semi-professionals who want reliable slicing and moderate CAD work without overspending.

Read more in our full Acer Nitro V 16S AI review

Best budget laptop for 3D printing for beginners

If you're a beginner who's mainly interested in slicing and printing existing 3D models, you don't need such a high-powered machine. However, I would still recommend choosing a laptop that allows at least some leeway for you to be able to grow and start preparing your own designs.

The classic HP Victus 15 fits the bill as a solid value 3D printing laptop with enough power to handle CAD work at a hobbiest level. It's available for less than $1,000 / £900, and that's still with dedicated Nvidia graphics albeit starting from the RTX 5050. Even so, when we reviewed the previous-gen iteration, we experienced only occasional stutter while moving the camera around a model in Fusion 360 or rendering previews in Orca Slicer.

We were impressed by the build quality for this price too, and again it's a relatively discreet design for a gaming laptop. With an FHD display, the screen resolution is lower than our top choice – it's sufficient for basic resin printing and running slicer software but could be an issue if you want to print very tiny things.

See our full HP Victus 15 review

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Best durable budget laptop for 3D printing

If you're looking for a budget laptop for 3D printing that you can regularly take along to workshops and makerspaces, you might want a machine that offers more durability and mobility. For that, I'd consider the Asus TUF Gaming A15.

This is another great-value gaming laptop, but, despite weighing around the same as the HP Victus above at 2.3kg / 5.1lb, it feels more it feels more reliably rugged.

The Ryzen 7, RTX 4056 16GB RAM configuration performed well in our benchmark tests, including in the GeekBench 6 test, which models real-world use. The GPU stood up well to 3D modelling both in CAD software and Blender.

Most impressively for a laptop of this class, it gave us good battery life: almost ten hours on PCMark 10’s battery test. That's another factor for portability. It charged quickly in our testing too, achieving a 50% charge in around half an hour, making it a great laptop for carrying around without constantly keeping an eye out for a free plug socket.

See our full Asus TUF Gaming A15 review.

Best budget Apple laptop for 3D printing

Apple's since released the 2026 M5 MacBook Air, but last year's M5 model is still plenty of laptop for slicing 3D models, and the M4 chip is capable of running CAD software if you're starting to dabble in making your own.

The 15-inch display is the brightest on this list of laptops, reaching 532 nits, which is great for working in direct light. It also provides 100% DCI-P3 coverage, making it good enough for colour-critical work.

Crucially, the starting model now comes with 16GB instead of 8GB of unified memory as standard, finally addressing our most persistent criticism of Apple's Air range. Our testing gave us a Geekbench 6 single-core score of 3,721, which is pretty remarkable for a passively cooled, fanless laptop, and battery life is as fantastic as we have come to expect from Apple, providing 18 hours of video playback.

Just be aware that while many popular programs do run natively on macOS, including Blender, Cura, Tinkercad, FreeCAD and Autodesk Fusion, the industry-standard CAD programs 3ds Max and SolidWorks remain Windows-only

Read our full Apple MacBook Air (M5, 2025) review for more details.

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How to choose

Choosing the best budget laptop for 3D printing for you requires forming a clear idea of your expectations. Slicing 3D models (converting them to G-code instructions that 3D printers can understand) does not require a very high-spec laptop, but the situation changes if you want to create your own designs for 3D printing. The best CAD software can put significant demands on a system in terms of CPU, GPU and RAM requirements.

If you're a beginner or you haven't tried 3D printing at all yet, I would experiment with a budget laptop like the HP Victus 15, which still has enough power to start begin exploring design work. That said, if you're already fairly sure that you want to advance further in 3D printing, whether as a hobby or to create objects to sell, I would recommend investing a little more in a laptop like the Acer Nitro V 16S AI, which you'll be less likely to outgrow quickly.

Make sure you consider what else you want to use the laptop for. A screen with a fast refresh rate may be important to you if you also enjoy gaming. And even if you're only dabbling in 3D printing, you may want a laptop with a better GPU and more RAM if you also plan to edit videos or do other creative work.

You'll also want to consider how much storage space you need. 3D printing files are generally small, so a 1TB or 2TB SSD is not a requirement for 3D printing alone unless you're building a vast library or large pieces, but storage could be an important consideration if you also do video editing.

How we test

To make our laptop recommendations on Creative Bloq, we run extensive benchmark tests and also use them to complete realistic projects in design software to see how they perform in actual uses, depending on the reviewer, their specialism and the laptop's intended user base.

To test laptops for 3D printing, we use CAD software for design work and programs like Cura and PrusaSlicer to slice models for printing.

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A couple of weeks back, Spotify said it would start labelling AI-generated artists with “AI Persona” profile tags and ban them from both editorial and algorithmic recommendations. Apple Music have also introduced a 'Made With AI' label, while TIDAL has cut AI tracks off royalties entirely. 

There are many more examples, but the direction of travel is clear. Music platforms are being overwhelmed with AI slop, listeners hate it, and the companies are taking action. 

So you'd expect the same dynamic, logically, to be playing out in online video. But here, well, things start to get a bit murky.

A shrinking view

Take, for instance, YouTube's recent change in what it counts as a "view". Up until now, long-form videos needed to be watched for around 10 to 30 seconds, before a public view was registered. Since 24 August, though, YouTube is registering a view the moment playback begins.

That might sound like a small technical change. But creators are fuming, because they believe it will reward exactly the kind of low-rent AI slop that's already flooding the system.

So what's YouTube playing at? Why do they not seem to be cracking down on AI slop in the way the music platforms are? The answer, I think, lies in the very different way the two camps make their money.

Limited crackdown

First, though, it's important to qualify this: YouTube isn't doing nothing. Under its Inauthentic Content policy, it's pulled entire channels for mass-produced, low quality videos. And in July, it spelled out three categories that can't be monetised (generic and repetitive content, "off-putting" or emotionally manipulative content, and AI personas).

Sounds impressive. But here's my problem. It's enforcement after the fact, applied to channels that have already been uploaded, recommended and, in some cases, watched by millions. There's no badge on the video, no warning before you hit play. Compare that to TIDAL switching off royalties, or Spotify excluding an AI act from your Discover Weekly. The latter is prevention; the former is papering over the cracks.

Worse still, I don't think that's an accident. I think it's the business model working as it's been designed to.

Ads vs subs

The key here is that Spotify, Apple Music and TIDAL are largely paid for by subscriptions. Every stream draws from the same royalty pool, and every fraudulent or AI-farmed stream takes a slice of that pool away from a legit artist.

YouTube doesn't have that problem, because it's less a subscription business, more an ad business. And ad businesses thrive on attention. So while Spotify's main interest is keeping the best artists on its platform, in order to keep subscribers happy, YouTube doesn't have that "problem". From the point of view of its business, the more videos, more watch time, more slots to sell against, the better… whether viewers enjoy them or not.

From that perspective, a mediocre AI-generated video doesn't steal revenue from a better one. It just adds another shelf to the shop. Whether the thing on that shelf was made by a person or a prompt matters less than whether someone pressed play.

Which brings us back to that view-count change. Registering a view the instant playback starts rewards precisely the thing AI slop is best at: getting a thumbnail clicked. YouTube deny this, of course, and frames the change as tidying up its metrics to match TikTok and Instagram. But my cynical old journalist mind says: follow the money.

And with a business model that demands views and view time above all else, it doesn't seem to be in YouTube's financial interests to care too much about quality of their content.

Below, he shows us two examples of his work as part of our series of features on digital artists. If you need to build your own art setup, see our guides to the best drawing tablets or the best laptops for drawing.

Spirit Flying Through the Forest

“I wanted to create something poetic and elegant, with a sense of movement, as if a wave were breaking in the middle of the forest. For this piece, I chose to preserve the inking from my sketch and blend it together with the painting.”

Le Scribe De La Tempête

“This piece began as a personal challenge: I wanted to draw special effects, particularly electricity. I found it more compelling to involve a mage casting a spell.

You can see more of Andy's work on his ArtStation profile.

Today's best drawing tablet deals

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The furniture giant surprised shoppers and commuters in its native Sweden with a series of ordinary-looking billboards that had a surprise hidden behind them. The clever OOH installation was designed to reveal the secret of every neat and tidy home: plastic packaging crates, and lots of them.

Ikea's billboards sought to reveal "the other side" of tidy homes by hiding is storage solutions in plain sight. "Behind every tidy room, there's a Samla," reads the copy on the front of the billboard posters.

Behind the street vitrines, the creative agency NoA Åkestam Holst stacked piles of said Samla boxes filled with everything from toys to clothes, vintage records, half-finished drawings, and, yes, that Ikea monkey toy.

"The front of the billboards like any typical ad for home furnishing. But when you look again, there's an honest twist. Everyday life is messy, then tidy, and then messy again. We think it's nice to show both sides of the story," says Tiago Pinho, Art Director at NoA Åkestam Holst.

The ad was inspired by Ikea's own research that found that 83% of people in Sweden feel they have at least one room at home that's hard to keep tidy. The aim was to show that the mess can be contained.

"Keeping your home clean is always a battle, regardless of if it's a small flat, a castle, or something in between. We wanted to remind people of our great storage boxes in an out-of-the-box way – hopefully we can stop people in their tracks," Ikea Sweden's marketing comms leader Jonas Westberg said.

The best billboard ads have to grab attention on a busy high street. Surprise is one of the best ways to do that, but Ikea shows that communication is most effective when this isn't surprise for its own sake. Its ads often use unexpected juxtapositions to reveal a common truth and to provide a practical demonstration of how it can solve an everyday problem.

However, the Martian Pro packs a surprising tech twist: it’s motorised. That doesn’t mean you can zoom around your office (more's the pity), but it incorporates electrically powered settings such as chair tilt, lumbar support, massage functionality, plus cooling and warming in the seatpad. While this may sound like a bit of a novelty, I’ve actually found it surprisingly useful, and the Martian Pro could be an inadvertent contender for one of the best office chairs for back pain.

Comfort & ergonomics

If imitation is the most sincere form of flattery, it’s also the most comfortable. The DXRacer Martian Pro copies the Titan Evo to an almost millimetre level, which is no bad thing because Secretlab’s chair is wonderfully well thought-through. The armrests shift in all directions to a similar degree, the uncannily similar magnetic headrest slides up and down, and the gas lift and tilt controls are laid out identically.

The result is that you can tailor the chair to your desk and how you sit, and I experienced almost indistinguishable levels of ergonomics, unsurprisingly. The Martian Pro comes in two confusing sizes: L / Regular and XL / Plus; I was sent the L / Regular and found it was fine for my 6' 4" frame (it's rated up to 6' 2"), but I can see how the XL / Plus would have added a little more height for the headrest to line up with the base of my skull.

The Martian Pro’s backrest doesn’t quite recline or lean forward quite as much as the Titan Evo’s, but it makes up for it by being motor powered. But this is where DXRacer packs the chair's pièce de résistance: a series of massaging bubbles arranged down the sides of the centre of the chair.

Press a button and these inflate and deflate one at a time, pushing gently into pressure points on the sides of your spine — and it’s the single most pleasurable sensation I’ve experienced from a chair, even if it does feel like you’ve got alien eggs growing around your backbone.

I tend to sit on chairs with the best intentions, and usually start with a bolt-upright posture, but as the day wears on, I find myself sliding down into a more slouched position. The unexpected benefit here is that I find myself tucking my butt right into the seatpad and pressing my back against the backrest to make the most of the Martian Pro’s massage experience, which also encourages me to achieve the perfect posture.

The Martian Pro’s lumbar support works in a similar way to the massage balls, gently inflating larger bladders to support the curve of your spine, giving a firm and customisable level of pressure — although it’s not quite as aggressive as some chairs, such as the Hinomi H2.

There’s one more little bit of electro-comfort lurking in the Martian Pro: a heating and cooling system in the seatpad, which warms up or blows cool air where you need it most, making the recent British heatwave just a little more bearable.

Design & aesthetics

While the Martian Pro may have aced the Titan Evo in terms of techno-comfort, it doesn’t quite match it in terms of luxury. The Martian Pro is faced with a similar leatherette, but it feels more plasticky and thicker, the armrests are less squidgy, and its adjustment levers are a little wobbly. It feels just a little bit cheaper, but it’s still a solid chair that won’t rattle about or slip out of adjustment easily.

The silhouette is basically identical, with a shallow bucket seat and backrest, but the Martian Pro is more detailed and panelled, embracing more of a ‘gamer’ aesthetic. It doesn’t scream that it’s a gaming chair like some models; it more drops it into casual conversation. It’s more exciting than the Titan Evo, but it is less suited to classy office environments — although there is an all-black version available that calms things down a bit.

Of course, all the Martian Pro’s techno wizardry needs power. A big power pack snaps onto the underside of the chair, and you can either charge the battery and use it wirelessly, or plug in to the mains and use it directly. If you’re doing the latter, make sure not to spend five minutes just spinning around on it, because the lead will coil around the gas lift, pull your extension lead off your desk, and send your laptop and coffee crashing to the floor. I definitely didn’t do this.

Specs

Assembly

Even the Martian Pro’s unboxing experience is almost identical to the Secretlab Titan Evo: a massive, heavy box, an idiotproof card telling you what to do, foam sheets to protect the chair and your floor during assembly, and a remarkably similar assembly process.

Where the Martian Pro differs is in its electronic componentry, which becomes a fairly convoluted network of cables to connect together. DXRacer knows exactly who its target audience is here, and those who are used to tinkering with PC graphics cards and PSUs will feel right at home. It’s not rocket surgery or brain science, but figuring out how it all fits together does take a little bit of time.

At over 30 kg, this is a big and heavy chair, too, so it’s a good idea to get someone to help you put it together, and to build it near wherever it’s going to end up.

Price & value

You will never guess what I’m about to compare the DXRacer Martian Pro to. At $699 / £699, the DXRacer is in the same ballpark as Secretlab’s Titan Evo NanoGen Edition, so it’s a question of whether you want smoother materials and more comfortable cushioning, or inflating spinal balls and groin-aircon. Tough choice!

The LiberNovo Omni is motorised, and it includes a similar spinal massage function. It’s less gamer-centric than DXRacer’s chair, but attractive in a biotech kind of way, and it has the advantage of following your back as you move around. It costs a little more though, at about $929 or £916.

Should you buy?

The DXRacer Martian Pro may be an utterly shameless copy of Secretlab’s bestseller, and it is slightly disappointing that it’s copied the Titan Evo to such an infinitesimal level. But the Martian Pro’s added electrical goodies really do elevate it from mere carbon copy to something far more interesting. It’s become one of my favourite chairs because it adds so much pleasure to the simple act of sitting.

Yes, it does feel a bit cheap and tacky in places, and the design could be toned down a little, but that massage function makes up for so much.

The Nitro V 16 AI is one of five Nitro V laptops that Acer is currently selling and is the second largest in the series, only outdone by the Nitro V 17, which boasts a whopping 17.3-inch FHD display. The Nitro V 16 AI is a laptop for creatives and gamers alike with a top-end AMD CPU and the very latest NVIDIA® GeForce RTX™ 5070 GPU.

Based on the spec alone, I expected the Nitro V 16 AI to excel in AI and compete for a place amongst the best laptops for 3D modelling and the best laptops for graphic design. My benchmark testing suggested one thing, but my experience another.

Key specifications

Design, build and display

• A functional design with jagged edges and RGB lighting
• A bright and high-resolution 16-inch display with a 180 Hz refresh rate

It appears that when Acer was planning the design of the Nitro V 16 AI, and in fact the whole Nitro V range, they decided to prioritise function over form. I'm not knocking Acer for this, but if you're looking for a laptop that's going to turn eyes, then I advise you to take your search elsewhere.

The laptop is solidly built with a tank of a hinge that will no doubt sustain many thousands of openings and closings. And, as you'd expect from every gaming laptop that has ever been made, the chassis features sharp-angled edges and an RGB-lit keyboard.

Unfortunately, this dull and predictable aesthetic does very little justice to the gorgeous 16-inch display that it houses. I found it to be bright, vibrant, and clear, and I loved that extra wiggle room that a 1200-pixel height affords. As well as 100% sRGB colour coverage, the display refresh rate goes right up to 180 Hz, which animators and gamers will love.

To help ensure optimal cooling, Acer has introduced a large grille above the keyboard. This is evidence, again, of function over form, but on the plus side it ensures optimal air flow. Under the hood there is a dual-fan, dual-intake, and dual-exhaust cooling engineered for consistent thermal control. You'll appreciate this during long creative sessions.

As for connectivity, you'll find everything you need to create an optimum setup with extra monitors, peripherals, and audio. There's even a MicroSD card reader for creatives who use this type of media. As for internet and data transfers, the Nitro V 16 AI boasts Wi-Fi 6E and Killer™ Ethernet E2600.

Design score: 4/5

Features

• A high-end NVIDIA GeForce RTX™ 5070 GPU
• An AMD Ryzen AI 7 CPU built for content creation

The biggest selling point for creatives is the GeForce RTX™ 5070 GPU with NVIDIA Blackwell and AI. This is guaranteed to enhance your creativity with a range of technologies, including NVIDIA DLSS 4.5 with Dynamic Multi Frame Generation and advanced path tracing for true-to-life graphics. The NVIDIA GPU also opens up access to NVIDIA Studio and tools such as NVIDIA Broadcast, which accelerate creativity and enable creatives to harness AI for a superior output.

If you're a gamer on the side, then the GeForce RTX™ 5070 GPU offers some of the very best performance boosts, increases in FPS, and reductions in latency. Not to mention game-changing realism thanks to the fourth-gen RT Cores and neural rendering technologies accelerated with fifth-gen Tensor Cores.

The NVIDIA GPU is backed up by an AMD Ryzen AI 7 CPU, which claims to provide "intelligent multitasking, console-class visuals, and adaptive AI performance for creation, gaming, and productivity." Read our Performance section below to find out whether the Nitro V 16 AI actually delivers on this.

Beyond this, the Nitro V 16 AI offers a range of software applications to enhance the user's experience. This includes NitroSense for real-time control over fan speed and system performance as well as Acer My Key for keyboard tuning. There's also Acer Intelligence Space for easy access to AI-ready tools designed to boost productivity and creativity.

Feature score: 4/5

Benchmark scores

We test every one of our laptops using the same benchmarking software suite to give you a thorough overview of its suitability for creatives of all disciplines and levels. This includes:

• Geekbench: Tests the CPU for single-core and multi-core power, and the GPU for the system's potential for gaming, image processing, or video editing. Geekbench AI tests the CPU and GPU on a variety of AI-powered and AI-boosted tasks.
• Cinebench: Tests the CPU and GPU's ability to run Cinema 4D and Redshift.
• UL Procyon: Uses UL Solutions' Procyon software suite to test the system's ability for AI image generation in Stable Diffusion, its Microsoft Office performance and its battery life in a looping video test.
• Topaz Video AI: We use Topaz Video AI to test the system's ability to upscale video and convert video to slow-motion.
• PugetBench for Creators: We use the PugetBench for Creators benchmarking suite to test the system's ability to run several key tasks in Photoshop and Adobe Premiere Pro, as well as its performance when encoding/transcoding video.
• ON1 Resize AI: Tests the system's ability to resize 5 photos to 200% in a batch process. We take the total time taken to resize the images and divide by 5.

Performance

• Respectable AI performance and everything required for creative workflows
• One of the worst-performing batteries I've ever seen

We'll get to more positive conclusions in a minute, but let's begin with the most glaring issue about the Nitro V 16 AI. During my Procyon Video Battery Life benchmark test, which plays a video file continuously until the battery empties, I found that the battery could only eke out 95 minutes of performance.

This amount of battery life is pitiful considering it wasn't even being asked to perform a high-intensity 3D rendering or memory-intensive AI task. Suffice to say, its portability credentials are limited, and you'll need a charger with you at all times.

Moving on to AI performance. My Procyon Stable Diffusion 1.5 threw up a workload error, and Topaz Video / ON1 Resize AI benchmarks report lower figures than expected for the hardware. It's worth noting that this reality is true of a lot of AI-branded laptops, which are in reality targeted towards Copilot users rather than hardcore creative AI professionals.

In actual experience, I had no problems running a wide range of AI software for image generation with ComfyUI, background generative AI in Photoshop, and AI video effects with NVIDIA Broadcast. These applications were quick, responsive, and wholly reliable.

As respectable as the Acer Nitro V 16 AI's AI performance is, where the laptop really comes into its own is with photo and video editing. Photoshop and Premiere applications were zippy and responsive, a reality that was backed up by the benchmarks. Colour grading was also performed without a hitch.

The bottom line is that the Nitro V 16 AI is a very capable laptop, but if you forget to pack a charger, your hope of getting anything done is pretty non-existent.

Performance score: 4/5

Price

The Nitro V 16 AI retails at £2,099.99 on the Acer Store. If you're still getting used to heightened prices in the laptop market, then this will seem like an awful lot of money to pay for a workstation. But if you want the latest AMD Ryzen processor, a dedicated 5-series NVIDIA GeForce RTX GPU, a solid amount of RAM, and a 16-inch display, then this is unfortunately the going price.

If you're OS agnostic, then you might consider buying a MacBook Pro. The 16-inch M5 model costs £700 more than the Acer, but the slightly smaller 14-inch alternative is actually £200 cheaper. If you don't care about display size, then the MacBook Pro is a very powerful and capable machine.

Value score: 4/5

Who is it for?

• Creatives with traditional workflows and a little generative AI

Acer states that the Nitro V 16 AI delivers serious gaming and AI performance. Our benchmarks show that AI performance for image generation and manipulation is below standard, so I wouldn't buy it if that's your core workflow. More traditional creative workflows, including photo editing and video editing, perform significantly better, making the Nitro V 16 AI a laptop to consider for creatives using related applications.

Buy it if...

• You're a professional creative and a gamer on the side
• Your creative workflows demand a dedicated GPU
• You spend a lot of time without access to a second monitor

Don't buy it if...

• You rely on image-generative AI workflows
• You need a super-compact portable laptop
• You don't need a dedicated NVIDIA GPU

Also consider

But concept art is still art. It appears in art books and behind-the-scenes footage pored over by fans. And if a movie becomes sufficiently iconic, it becomes a historical artifact. The recent auction of Disney art is a reminder of the artistic (and monetary) value such work can attain.

Just days after we were admiring the sheer amount of characters that Disney managed to fit into its D23 poster design this year, a batch of rare artwork and posters came up for auction as a reminder of the animation studio's rich legacy.

Heritage Auctions’ latest big sale of Disney art last weekend generated $3.43 million across 1,346 lots, spanning from the Golden Age through the Disney Renaissance and into the films of the 2000s.

The highlights were the original concept paintings by Gustaf Tenggren for Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, including an atmospheric painting of Snow White listening as the Prince sings One Song, which fetched $85,400. A panoramic painting of six dwarfs returning home sold for $41,480, while an image of the Prince on horseback sold for $36,600.

The leading lots also included two works by Mary Blair. A colourful concept painting for the Japan section of It’s a Small World reached $31,720, while a concept and colour-key painting depicting Alice, the Mad Hatter and the White Rabbit at the tea party from Alice in Wonderland reached $29,280.

From the Joe Ranft Family Archive, there were storyboards and concept art from Pixar movies like Toy Story, A Bug’s Life, Monsters, Inc and Cars.

“The response reflects the global affection for Disney and the growing appreciation for animation art as a significant art form,” Jim Lentz, Heritage’s vice president of animation and anime art, said.

Using AI for concept art might speed things up. But is anyone going to be saying things like this about AI-generated Spider-Man art in 50 years time?

Below he shows us three examples of his work as part of our series of features on digital artists. If you need to build your own art setup, see our guides to the best drawing tablets or the best laptops for drawing.

Lichtar

“Lichtar is an original character. I did a lot of cards for Blizzard, so I wanted to make this for a friend who was going through a difficult time.”

Elf

“This one is just a little character practice. I wanted to make something cute and warm that’s lit with a cozy mood via light and colour.”

Star Wars splash art

“I’m always excited when I look at Riot Games’ splash art pieces for League of Legends. I also love Star Wars, so I wanted to try something in the same style.

You can see more of Pavel’s work on his ArtStation profile.

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So why do I care? Well, for one thing, I was lucky enough to visit Samoa myself last year, and fell in love with its lush tropical landscapes, turtle-rich swimming spots and warm hospitality. And for another, I've just fallen head over heels for the 2026 contest's new logo.

Released to promote the 2026 Polynesian Cup and Women's Polynesian Cup, ahead of the Pacific Games 2027 in Tahiti, the design is built around a turtle rendered in the style of Polynesian tatau art (which is where we get the English word for tattoo, fact fans).

With its carved linework, weave-pattern shell and a red and white roundel at its centre, the design looks like something you'd see on a temple wall. It's rich in detail, very resonant of Polynesia and looks, at least to my untrained eye, pretty authentic.

That's what FIBA's press release suggests, too. In their words: "These new visual identities carry the weight of culture, community, and sporting ambition, designed to honour the traditions of Polynesia while celebrating the energy and global spirit of basketball. The creative direction draws from the cultural elements with motifs that speak to heritage, craftsmanship, voyaging, guardianship, and the deep connections between islands.

"The patterns are more than aesthetic choices; they are storytelling devices. They reflect the artistry found in tatau, weaving, carving, and Tahitian iconography, and they anchor the basketball silhouette in a distinctly Polynesian narrative."

All of which rings true to me. And as I've said, the design as a whole is very lovely to look at. But… does that mean it works as a logo? That, I'm not so sure.

Does it work as a logo?

A logo, lest we forget, isn't just designed to appear on a press release, viewed on a backlit MacBook display with the brightness turned all the way up. It needs to work at tiny sizes too. In the corner of a TV screen while you're watching the match. On a social avatar in your Insta feed. As an tiny icon on a watch display. You get the idea.

Unfortunately at that scale, I'd expect this design to be reduced to a murky, illegible smudge. The very detail that makes it so beautiful to view at large sizes is going to disappear. The fine linework and negative space is going to die. None of which will be good.

Oh, and here's another thing: does this design, at any size, say 'basketball' to you? Yes the turtle shell could be seen as doubling for a ball… maybe. But a specific ball in a specific sport? Absolutely not.

Yes, it's light years from being a generic design, and for that, FIBA gets full marks. But as a logo that has to survive a broadcast graphics package, a mobile screen and four long years of use across multiple media – some of which may not yet have been invented – I worry that it's storing up trouble.

The Polish AAA game developer behind The Witcher and Cyberpunk 2077 has updated its mythological firebird symbol to make it look more the part, with sharper lines, an open beak and more aggressive claws. And somehow that's led to it getting dragged into the strange culture war going on in the US.

CD Projekt Red won a lot respect among this week with its Gamescom announcement of The Witcher 3 Remastered as a free upgrade. It's an astute way to maintain brand loyalty and engagement with the franchise ahead of the Songs of the Past extension in 2027 and The Witcher 4 in 2028. But is such unusual generosity from a big corporation a sign of – gasp – COMMUNISM?

Of course, it isn't. CD Projekt, the developer's parent company is listed on the Warsaw Stock Exchange and is very much a capitalist enterprise, but that's not the impression you would get reading some of the responses to the new logo design over on X.

CD Projekt Red calls its bird emblem a rárog, a tiny fiery spirit from Slavic folklore. The previous design in use since 2014 was very clearly modelled on the very real northern cardinal, a mid-sized bird that eats seeds and fruits and doesn't exude flames despite its striking red colour.

The studio says the redesign is intended to be more modern and adaptable, as well as "more mature, confident, and energetic". And it does. The new bird looks sharper and and has more personality, making it more fitting for the creature it's supposed to represent. The rebrand also makes more use of the colour red, which seems like a bit of a no brainer given that it's part of the studio's name, originally inspired by the red bricks of its first office in Łódź.

On the face of it, the rebrand is more evolution than revolution. But some people on X claim that it's "giving the woke vibes", which seems strange considering the bird looks like it's just started taking testosterone shots.

"Modernized and DEIfied," one person writes about the redesign. "This is what happens when your business is so rotten to the core by the woke mind virus," another person exclaims, while someone else describes the rebrand as "white erasure in favour of posting commie colours".

And there I was thinking the Cold War had ended over three decades ago.

It seems the shift from red on white to black on red is being taken by some to be a sign of allegiance to the US anti-fascist movement Antifa. I guess that makes Netflix and Coca-Cola Zero communist threats too.

It is true that black and red have been associated with rebellion since as far back as the Paris Commune and the Spanish anarcho‑syndicalists of the early 1900s. But that connotation was part of the original brief.

Co-CEO Adam Badowski explained the symbolism clearly at the time of the last rebrand back in 2014, saying “we are rebels, and rebels are free. Just like birds. The northern cardinal what we see ourselves in the industry: intrepid, bold and confident; flying high and aiming even higher.

"The colour, cardinal RED, is something that connects it with another bird, a mythological creature close to our cultural roots and heritage–the Raróg, a small firebird believed to bring luck to people. RED stands for energy, the inner fire that drives us; it represents something very close to everyone here in the studio–the creativity and passion we harness from within ourselves to make the best RPGs in the world."

The rarog has been updated, but what it symbolises hasn't changed.

Let me know in the comments what you think of the new identity.

While we still have Black Friday coming in three months' time, some of these savings are easily good enough to consider now if you're looking to upgrade your studio or home office. You can visit the main Amazon Tech Week page to browse all the deals, or see below for our 10 favourites on products that we and our sister sites have tested.

If you want help choosing the best creative tech for your needs, see our top buying guides for creatives. In the meantime, here are our Amazon Tech Week recommendations while the deals last.

10 Amazon Tech Week deals for creatives

But, as I recently discovered with the Logitech G305 Lightspeed mouse, you really don't have to pay loads of money for high-end performance and wrist-saving ergonomics. You just have to look at the 'gaming mouse' market.

• Shop for budget mice on Amazon

Amazon is packed with bargain gems that punch far above their weight, giving digital artists, editors, and designers top-tier tracking and comfort without draining the bank account.

Whether you’re looking for super-quiet clicks for late-night editing sessions, vertical ergonomic designs to ease forearm strain, or customisable buttons to streamline your macro shortcuts, I’ve rounded up six of the absolute best budget PC mice available today.

With the release of the Chromebook Plus Spin 514, Acer has attempted to bring this hybrid technology to a Chromebook workflow. Acer advertises the device as a "multitasking machine that delivers AI-powered productivity", and the brand has packed it with hardware to achieve this.

But multitasking and AI-powered productivity sound seriously dull. So, in my testing I was keen to see how it stood up to creative workflows. Did it have sufficient hardware to compete for a place in our best laptops for graphic design or best laptops for 3D modelling guides?

The bottom line was that I wanted to know if it could replace my Apple MacBook and whether having a 2-in-1 rather than a traditional laptop provided sufficient benefits to make the switch worth making. Read on to find out how it fared.

Key specifications

Design, build and display

• A slick-looking 2-in-1 with a high-resolution display
• All the connections most people need and nothing more

The primary design feature of the Acer Chromebook Plus Spin 514 is its 2-in-1 laptop/tablet functionality. This is provided by a hinge that allows for the required 180-degree rotation. If you're purchasing this type of device, the last thing you'll want is the hinge failing you after a few months' use. Thankfully, Acer has engineered a robust hinge that is strong and smooth.

When in tablet mode, the display sits neatly in front of the keyboard panel, and the device is comfortable to hold. The overall thickness sits at just 1.55 cm, which is incredibly thin, although obviously thicker than almost all traditional-style tablets. The only issue with Acer's design is that the speakers are then located on the underside, which hampers audio performance a little.

The display is where the Plus Spin 514 really shines. Despite the hinge and webcam sides restricting the display from an edge-to-edge aesthetic, it still feels like you're getting a fantastic amount of screen real estate compared to the surrounding frame. The fact that it's 14 inches makes it feel huge in tablet mode and beautifully portable when being used as a laptop.

The display also features a 2.8K resolution with a 16:10 aspect ratio, which looks clear, sharp, and vibrant. It offers an outstanding experience when editing photos and videos, as well as watching YouTube or browsing the web. My only gripe with it is that it's slightly too reflective, which can make it difficult to use when there are bright light sources around.

The Plus Spin 514 boasts a simple mix of USB-C and USB-A ports as well as a 3.5mm combo audio jack. This is all that most modern users need, although if you're looking to connect it to a monitor, then you'll need to either make sure it is USB-C enabled or settle for using an adapter. Additional connectivity specs include a fingerprint sensor, Wi-Fi 7, and Bluetooth.

Design score: 4.5/5

Features

• Everything you'd expect from a Chromebook⁣
• On-device AI for image generation and editing

The Plus Spin 514 is, at the end of the day, a Chromebook. It therefore offers a stripped-back user experience centred around a range of web apps. With the upsurge of AI, the lack of a traditional OS is less important because more advanced production tasks can be carried out by AI on the cloud.

Every Plus Spin 514 purchase qualifies the customer for 12 months of Google AI Pro. Considering this would ordinarily cost £228, it's a pretty sweet deal if you rely on AI for your creative workflows already. Google AI Pro will enable you to boost your productivity and creativity and now includes NotebookLM.

Speaking of AI, on the Plus Spin 514 it's possible to edit photos inside the Gallery app using AI. This feature makes it possible to remove background clutter and even create personalised stickers of your pets or faces. Unfortunately, I couldn't make this feature work with the error "Can't edit right now. Come back soon" was being displayed every time I tried.

In addition to the design specs mentioned in the 'Design' section above, the Plus Spin 514 is also engineered with military-grade MIL-STD-810H durability and aluminium top and rear covers. This type of durability is normally reserved for adventure-focused smartwatches, but Acer has seen fit to design this device with that benchmark in mind.

Video calling is made possible by the 5MP webcam, microphone, and DTS Audio with dual speakers. The video quality is actually surprisingly good for a webcam. In fact, it's so good you'll have no problems using it for your video calls with not just family and friends but also clients.

Feature score: 4/5

Benchmark scores

We test every one of our laptops using the same benchmarking software suite to give you a thorough overview of its suitability for creatives of all disciplines and levels. This includes:

• Geekbench: Tests the CPU for single-core and multi-core power, and the GPU for the system's potential for gaming, image processing, or video editing. Geekbench AI tests the CPU and GPU on a variety of AI-powered and AI-boosted tasks.
• Cinebench: Tests the CPU and GPU's ability to run Cinema 4D and Redshift.
• UL Procyon: Uses UL Solutions' Procyon software suite to test the system's ability for AI image generation in Stable Diffusion, its Microsoft Office performance and its battery life in a looping video test.
• Topaz Video AI: We use Topaz Video AI to test the system's ability to upscale video and convert video to slow-motion.
• PugetBench for Creators: We use the PugetBench for Creators benchmarking suite to test the system's ability to run several key tasks in Photoshop and Adobe Premiere Pro, as well as its performance when encoding/transcoding video.
• ON1 Resize AI: Tests the system's ability to resize 5 photos to 200% in a batch process. We take the total time taken to resize the images and divide by 5.

Performance

• Excellent performance but you're limited to ChromeOS apps
• Solid battery life and no overheating

As well as a superb implementation of 2-in-1 functionality and a delightful design, the Plus Spin 514 is also an excellent representation of what Chromebooks are capable of. When we reviewed the lesser-specced Acer Chromebook Spin 514 back in 2023, we said it "may just change your mind about ChromeOS." The Plus Spin 514 proves the case again, but with even greater fervour.

With a superior MediaTek Kompanio Ultra 910 CPU and 12 GB RAM rather than 8 GB RAM, the Plus Spin 514 is fast across all on-board apps, including Chrome, Gmail, Photos, and YouTube. If you're a student or creative professional who is 99% of the time using web-based apps, then your experience will be snappy and hassle-free. Most YouTube creators will have everything they need.

And with the increasing availability of AI tools featuring cloud-based processing, the need for top-level CPUs and next-level GPUs is becoming increasingly redundant for large swathes of users. Google Gemini, for example, is available straight out of the box on the Plus Spin 514, enabling users to generate photo content quickly and efficiently.

But what about more serious creatives? Well, with Photoshop not available in the Google Play Store, I installed Snapseed to test the laptop's ability to handle photo-editing tasks. I was pleasantly surprised with the laptop's ability to effortlessly perform all types of colour corrections, add masks, and fine-tune the image without any lag or hang-ups.

The results were the same for video editing with the InShot app. I was able to work with multiple clips, add text, apply effects, and add filters without any trouble at all. This is a lightweight editing app, though. If your workflow demands the most advanced features found in Adobe Premiere or DaVinci Resolve, then this Chromebook is not for you.

Without so many overheads associated with power-hungry creative workstations, the Plus Spin 514 just keeps on going. It also charges via USB-C, which means you don't have to lug around a hefty power pack. The device also stays cool even when used for extended periods of time.

Performance score: 4.5/5

Price

The Acer Chromebook Plus Spin 514 retails for £899.99, which isn't bad given the 2-in-1 laptop/tablet functionality, but if you have no need for a touchscreen, then it's more expensive than a lot of other Chromebooks.

If you're not fixed on having a Chromebook and would like to save £200, then I'd recommend going for the Apple MacBook Neo. With prices starting at £699, it's not only more affordable, but you'll also get the creative-friendly macOS experience.

Value score: 4/5

Who is it for?

• Generalist creatives needing one device to do it all

The main selling point of the Acer Chromebook Plus Spin 514 is that it can be used as both a laptop and a tablet. This makes it perfect for creatives who demand flexibility. The device is equally suited to working at home, in the office, or out in the field. Use it to carry out on-location photo edits or get some project admin done while you're on the train. Alternatively, you could use it in tablet mode to show off your work and get client feedback.

Buy it if...

• You prefer having one device rather than a separate laptop and tablet.
• You are happy with all that ChromeOS offers in terms of functionality.
• You find yourself working here, there and everywhere and need a versatile device.

Don't buy it if...

• The cheaper MacBook Neo would serve you better.
• You have demanding creative workflows and need a lot of power.
• You need a dedicated GPU to power your graphical pursuits.

Also consider

As reported on VGC, it started with NBA 2K27, where the DLSS 5 Neural Rendering files were reportedly discovered in the game's early-access build, giving curious players access to the same technology Nvidia is preparing to roll out officially. It didn't take long for the files to escape their intended home, with modders on gaming forum ResetEra now experimenting with DLSS 5 in other games, including Control and Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth.

That is handy for the rest of us, because while Nvidia has been talking up what DLSS 5 can do, these experiments give us an early look at what happens when you drop the technology into an existing game to see what survives. The results? According to users over at gaming forum ResetEra, it's "objectively horrendous", "uncanny crap" and "horrifying". On the bright side, one gamer did point out, "It looks really good with foliage in particular, and I think it will work pretty well with racing and sports games".

DLSS 5's AI controversy

DLSS 5's Neural Rendering system is designed to use AI as part of the final rendering process, with Nvidia promising improvements to things such as lighting, reflections and materials, essentially giving the finished frame another layer of visual processing before it reaches your screen. The company sees it as a way to push games toward more convincing photorealism without asking developers to build and render everything traditionally.

The leaked version is interesting because the games modders are testing it on haven't been built around it. The artists haven't spent months preparing assets for DLSS 5, technical artists haven't been tuning materials specifically for it, and lighting teams haven't been working out where Nvidia's neural rendering should and shouldn't be allowed to interfere.

Sometimes the answer is better-looking lighting and more convincing surfaces; other times it's less convincing, particularly around faces and characters, where the AI processing can produce distinctly odd results. That's the caveat here: this isn't quite how DLSS 5 was intended, because a game's developer and artists haven't been involved in setting the boundaries of how it can be used, but they do show just how much the system can potentially change the image after a game has already done all the hard work of rendering it.

This is exactly the sort of thing that happens when new graphics technology gets loose on PC. Developers can spend months working out how a new system should be implemented, then somebody finds the files and starts trying it in Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth, and all of a sudden Cloud looks like Scarlett Johansson in a Mötley Crüe wig. One ResetEra user called it "one of the most unsettling things I've ever laid my eyes on in gaming".

Nvidia still has plenty of time to show us what DLSS 5 is supposed to look like when it's properly integrated, but for now the PC modding community has got there first, and they're already finding out what happens when you let the new AI rendering tech loose on pretty much anything they can get running.

I actually got to play Penguin Colony a few months ago at BitSummit where I also got to meet game director Tali Faulkner at Melbourne-based indie studio Origame Digital, which previously made the award-winning Umurangi Generation. While there's a considerable leap in scope and ambition between the two games, that distinct lo-fi 3D aesthetic that harkens back to early console generations is still very much there. But where Umurangi Generation was described as a dystopian Jet Set Radio, Faulkner describes Penguin Colony as "a souped up PS2 game. Kind of like if you were making a PS2 game and had the power of a PS3."

There were also reasons that making a game set in the Antarctic was a better choice for the team's next project after it had to pivot away from another idea that was going to be more of a systems-driven detective game.

"Partly due to the current games crash, there's not a lot of money going around or people taking risky ideas, so how can we make a smaller game on a cheaper budget and rein in the scope?" Faulkner says. "Well, the Antarctic is just ice, right?"

Penguin Colony's large level design

That the environments can be just simple ice textures means that Penguin Colony can actually afford to have quite large levels. "It's not Death Stranding scale, but it's like a linear open world, and the idea is that each level is sort of a small open world," he clarifies. Another important thing was to make this open world fun to traverse, a response to the team's own critique that Umurangi Generation had pretty janky controls. So even though waddling penguins are not the type of species you would expect to have terrific mobility, they do feel good to control.

And you're not just controlling one penguin. There are different species of penguin available, which the team had just researched and modelled based off photos on Wikipedia, from the common Adélie penguin to the towering Emperor penguin. Get close to one and there's a prompt allowing the player to sort of leap from control of one to the other, which you'll want to do as each have their own distinct abilities, like the emperor being able to slide around at a higher speed to compensate for its slower walking speed, or the rockhopper who can traverse steep terrain.

Faulkner finds it especially fun to design an open worldish game that's also not human-centred. "If this was a game where you were a human character, you would essentially just be walking through the snow with a gun, and we want to sort of give something that's just a bit different," he explains. "This game gives you the fantasy of playing as a penguin who can slide and hop, and swim. With that water, we wanted to make it feel like an alien world underneath, and also if it was a human game, you probably wouldn't be able to go in the water."

But as I play the demo's opening, switching between penguins as I traverse the Antarctic, it all leads up to the cosmic horrors originally hinted at. Through their perspective, you observe a larger story involving two rival human groups that have come to your home in search of a mysterious eldritch god. While one of these groups are the Maori Kaitiaki, the other faction turn out to be the Nazis, itself a significant reason why this adaptation happens to be set in 1939, a few years after Lovecraft had already died.

It's not just a bold creative choice to confront Lovecraft's racism that's also reflected in his fiction but also makes it comparable to the depiction of Nazis also hunting for ancient artefacts in Indiana Jones films.

"The idea is this expedition believes that the thing that has been calling people to the Southern Hemisphere isn't a Lovecraft abomination, but it's an Aryan god," Faulkner explains. "The Nazis are sort of there to myth-make around that. Because we know from history and also films like Indiana Jones, the relic hunting missions that the Nazis went on were purely propagandistic and they were to rewrite history, such as prove that Jesus wasn't Jewish. One of the things we explore in the story is this idea of myth-making, what the Cthulhu mythos is, and it's sort of fun to play with the idea that these guys are just archeologists who don't understand their place in history."

Penguin Colony is coming to PC and Switch 2 in 2026, and a demo is playable on Steam.

When I attended Figma's Config conference in San Francisco last year, I was surprised to hear Jonze wax lyrical about Marvy Uchida's range of LePen pens. These fine-tipped pens come in a delightful array of colours, and most importantly, they're cheap. I've been using them for years, but this was the first time I'd heard anybody, let alone one of my favourite film directors, mention them.

LePen pens come in an endless array of colours, and are a delight to use. With an ultra-thin 0.3mm fineliner tip, they offer unrivalled accuracy, and they're also incredibly light. also light is the price. At $17.50 for a pack of 12, these are $1.48 per pen. Which, when you consider that some of the most beautiful pens cost thousands, is nothing short of a steal.