The anticipated Switch 2 exclusive officially launches on 5 November 2026.

• Pre-order Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time for $59 at Amazon

As we've seen from Nintendo's recent Zelda 40th Anniversary Direct, this is far from a simple HD texture do-over. Series producer Eiji Aonuma calls it a “faithful interpretation using modern technologies,” which translates to a pretty ambitious visual overhaul (if the many stills that have been released are to be believed).

Between the soft shadows, realistic materials, and a funky new mechanic that lets you hum into the Switch 2 microphone to play the ocarina (yes, really), Nintendo isn't just remaking a 1998 classic, they’re messing with our memories of it.

Naturally, the fans that don't hate the concept of making a 90s classic 'modern pretty' are rushing to secure their copies.

If you're eager to get your hands on the physical edition, you'll be treated to a gorgeous special foil cover while supplies last. The physical game retails for $69.99 / £54.99, while the digital version comes in slightly cheaper at $59.99. Crucially, physical collectors can breathe a sigh of relief: Nintendo is shipping the full estimated 27 GB game on the Switch 2 cartridge, meaning no game-key codes in sight.

In the US, Amazon and Walmart are currently leading the pack with an early discount, dropping the physical release down to a tempting $59.88. Meanwhile, in the UK retailers like Smyths Toys, Argos, and Currys are fully stocked, with Smyths and Currys even shaving a few pounds off the launch price.

If you're an absolute design purist or a die-hard collector, you might want to brave the queues at the official Nintendo UK online store. They are offering an exclusive pre-order bonus that’s already causing severe FOMO across the internet: a stunning set of 3D replicas of the Spiritual Stones.

Whether you think the new art direction looks like an Unreal Engine 5 fan demo (you’re wrong, it looks ace) or the absolute pinnacle of modern Zelda aesthetics, this remake is shaping up to be a technical marvel. We'll definitely be playing it come November.

I'd argue there's no strict formula for creating the best movie posters, but there certainly needs to be a little curation to make a memorable design. With all the charm of early 2000s clip art, it's safe to say that the new Musk poster is iconic (albeit for all the wrong reasons).

Leaning heavily on typography, the Musk poster features a bold font filled with what appears to be a low-res explosion graphic. Be it the poster's barren design or the strange, warped letters of the film's title, the design has a distinctly amateurish feel that doesn't quite match the grandeur of the documentary’s 4-hour runtime (be thankful it was reduced from the reported 6-hour director's cut).

"This poster has Tropic Thunder fake movie vibes," one Redditor wrote. "It looks like the kind of shit I used to do back in school for media studies," another wrote, while one commenter added, "Thankfully great art direction isn't anything I'm really looking to find from this documentary because this poster is horrible." Ouch.

I'd like to give the Musk poster the benefit of the doubt – surely the low-res look and awful font scaling are a conscious choice to appear countercultural and edgy? Then again, given its mammoth runtime, I'm unsure whether self-awareness was a factor in production.

For more poster design news, check out this ridiculous film poster that made me wish movies would get silly again or take a look at why horror movie poster design has a problem.

According to US Secretary of the Air Force Troy Meink, the development of an "on orbit" weapon was a necessity to protect US forces against hostile enemy action. Meanwhile, the US Space Force has confirmed that its capabilities are both defensive and offensive. But the new Space Force uniform designs don't exactly help dispel fears that things won't swing be more towards the latter. They look more than a little Third Reichy.

If you're going to redesign the US Space Force uniforms, I'd say you have one main task: make sure they don't look like Star Wars, Star Trek or the SS. As noted by many people on social media, the new designs posted by US president Donald Trump on his Truth Social platform appear to fail that test spectacularly.

“Designing the Space Force uniforms to look like the evil bad guys from Star Wars, who are led by an elderly, power hungry tyrant, who lose, repeatedly, is a bit too on brand, no?” one person writes on X.

Worse still, it seems that the costume design fail was not accidental. The description on the document shared by Trump states in all earnestness that the service unform design was “inspired by the discipline and the functionality of the Starship Troopers uniform. Modernised for the guardians of the space domain."

For those who haven't seen Paul Verhoeven's 1997 sci-fi movie, it's a satire of fascism and authoritarian. The director intentionally used aesthetics inspired by Nazism to parody the Third Reich's propaganda movies. In the US, famous for allegedly not understanding irony, many critics didn't get that and condemned the film as a "fascist movie". Now, the current US administration appears to be embracing that.

It's not the first time that the regime has openly depicted itself as evil through sci-fi movie references. Previously, it's been Star Wars. Campaign manager Brad Parscale compared Trump's 2020 reelection campaign to the Death Star, the White House comms team has depicted the president with a red lightsaber, and the Department of Homeland Security posted an AI video depicting itself as Darth Vader and gang members and human smugglers as the good guys.

There has already been much mockery of the Space Force logo and the Star Force insignia designs for their resemblance to Star Trek.

Could this be one of the best chairs for back pain sufferers? We’re seeing more chairs that feature electronic lumbar support — such as DXRacer’s Martian Pro — but it’s something Hbada needs to get right to make it worthwhile, especially when the X7 is priced over $1,000 / £1,000.

I've spent a couple of weeks with the Hbada X7, and while it might seem like a dream chair, it doesn't quite live up to its promises.

Comfort & ergonomics

The Hbada X7’s big selling point is its AI-powered lumbar support, which follows the curve of your back as you move around the chair. Lean back and it will automatically recede into the chair; move forwards and it follows you. I like the way that it takes the guesswork out of lumbar support settings, but I found that its constant robotic shuffling with every infinitesimal micromovement became deeply distracting rather than comforting.

This autonomous lumbar support also includes a massage system, which feels like fingers manipulating the small of your back, in a pleasant enough way, helping relax and recharge in both work and play. In AI mode, it kicks in automatically every now and then while you’re working, which is ... terrifying! It's like a ghost is trying to push you off your chair.

The back is also heated, which is a nice touch, and the base can get cool thanks to a couple of fans. The whole thing is controlled via a quaint wired remote with an LED display. You can also charge an onboard battery, which provides about five days of power, with a magnetic charging adapter that snaps on easily and snaps off when you forget it’s there and trip over it.

The X7 is definitely a chair that prioritises adjustments, and there are a lot. The headrest, backrest, lumbar support, seatpad and armrests all move in all manner of directions to ensure you’re supported. At 6’ 4” I often find that chairs come up a little short for me, but here I was able to dial in the adjustments to keep me supported and comfortable throughout the working day.

One final detail is a flip-out footrest which, when used with the reclining backrest, transforms the chair into a more horizontal position which feels relaxing. I’m currently writing this review in this semi-curled position, and the fact that I’m not hunched over a desk seems to be making me much more productive. I live in a small house and I’m a frequent loser in our bloodthirsty battles for the living room, but with this chair I’m able to work and relax in the same place.

The X7 is one of the more comfortable chairs I’ve used, and it’s versatile and supportive, but the lumbar support’s usefulness is outweighed by its intensely annoying nature.

Design & aesthetics

Hbada’s design team has raided the history books of human-focused design. The thick, sturdy grey plastic carries a 1970s aeroplane interior vibe, while the silver-plated curvaceous back support and accents look like something from a 1990s hi-fi catalogue, with the wired remote adding to the retro feel. I actually like this jet-age aesthetic, but the black version tones it down a bit if you’re not a fan.

The overall design makes the X7 a very bottom-heavy chair, with a chunky seatpad and a bulging column at the back, presumably because this is where all the tech has been stuffed in, but it tapers upwards gracefully and helps the chair fit in at the office.

However, there are details that feel cheap for such an expensive chair. The seatpad may look like it’s cushioned, but closer inspection reveals that it’s mesh, and you can literally see the cooling fans beneath it if you look close enough. The headrest doesn’t always slot into the right place, and some of the bits that look chrome are actually plastic.

I’m sure it’s solid enough, and Hbada includes a five-year warranty, but it feels as if the company’s focus on cramming it with tech has resulted in neglect elsewhere.

Specs

Assembly

Tech-heavy chairs also tend to be heavy, and the X7 is no exception: at 38 kg it’s about the same weight as a leopard, although it has fewer dangerous pointy bits. This heft makes assembly tricky, especially the herculean task of attaching the backrest. Everything else is straightforward, and there’s only one connector for the electronic components, which can become remarkably complicated on other chairs.

While most of the chair is preassembled or easy to put together, there is the chore of bolting the legs onto the five-star base. This annoyed me because bases are usually ready to rock from the box on chairs cheaper than this one. At the base you’ll also find a silver cover that’s made entirely from plastic, which again feels like a corner cut on a chair with a premium price tag.

Price & value

The Hbada X7's RRP is an eye-watering £1,509 / $1,509, but it's currently on sale for £1,169 / $1,169, which is marginally less eye-watering: more chopping onions than end-of-Titanic.

Strip the tech out of the X7 and you’d basically have Hinomi’s H2 ($759 / £759) a remarkably similar chair that I loved for its comfort and intricate adjustability. While the X7 includes its smart lumbar support plus a footrest as standard, the H2’s flippable armrests, folding design, and more reasonable price just about edge it out.

DXRacer’s Martian Pro ($699 / £699) also includes massage goodies, warming and cooling, and electronic lumbar support. It lacks the X7’s AI-powered automations, but I think this is a good thing. I really liked the Martian's electronic features, and its lower price makes it more accessible.

Should you buy?

The Hbada X7 feels like a chair that's not quite ready for mainstream. While the massage functionality and versatility of the chair make it perfect for both work and play, the much-vaunted motorised lumbar support and oddly horrifying massage feature is just so annoying that I ended up turning it off.

This is not a chair that I’d want to pay anything north of £1,000/$1,000 for: there are a few elements, such as the sketchy headrest and self-assembled base that are usually reserved for budget units. They’re small things, but they add up. If the Hbada X7 is on sale for a reasonable price then it's worth investigating, but for now it's not enough chair for too much money.

Looking towards Spring 2027, the new defining colours embody a boldness and zest for life, with lime greens, rosy pinks and fiery oranges dominating fashion's near future. If you're looking for a fashion-forward way to shake up your interior design, there are plenty of deals to snag to help you stay on trend. From stylish Smeg coffee machines to Le Creuset crockpots, these are the best kitchen accessories to bring a fashion week flavour to your space.

If you're getting started yourself, see our guides to the best 3D modelling software and the best laptops for 3D modelling.

You can see more of Tian's work on her ArtStation profile.

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That got me looking at some of the other marketing assets, and I was struck by the original teaser poster. The bold typography-led design dig deep into the annals of movie graphic design history and borrows more than a little inspiration from one of the greats (see our feature on famous graphic designers).

Digger is a disaster movie with a difference. Instead of an alien invasion or an asteroid heading for Earth, the calamity in this satirical black comedy is of a human-made kind. Tom Cruise stars as Digger Rockwell, a super rich oil tycoon whose aggressive drilling in places like Greenland trigger a global ecological disaster and ground fissure.

The teaser poster design is the work of BLT Communications in Los Angeles. Depicting the movie's title arranged to form the shape of a character carrying a spade, it's guaranteed to stand out in a foyer full of floating-head designs.

It takes its cues from the legacy of the great Saul Bass, deconstructing the movie's narrative into a single, powerful visual symbol. The result is as much a work of art as a piece of marketing.

Heavily influenced by modernist and Bauhaus design principles, Bass removed anything unnecessary from his designs and relied on flat colors, geometric shapes, strong negative space. He favoured symbolism over realis, combining minimalist design, cut-out shapes and bold high-contrast palettes. He also integrated raw, hand-drawn, kinetic or broken typography that often interacted directly with the graphic imagery rather than sitting separate from it.

These are techniques that today are more often reserved for book cover design than movie posters. Film studios usually want to show the faces of the main stars, sometimes because it's a contractual obligation, but also because of the belief that it's the star that sells the movie.

Modern movie poster design tends to prefer clarity over mystery. They show us what to expect, from the lead actors to the villain, the major action scenes or visual effects, all crammed into a crowded canvas with names, quotes and franchise branding.

Saul Bass posters feel different because they were designed to sell an idea rather than a product. For the Man with the Golden Arm, a broken arm represented addiction. For Hitchcock's Vertigo a spiral represented obsession and disorientation. The fragmented body in the poster for Anatomy of a Murder represents both the victim and the complexity of the case.

Bass asked "What is the essence of this story?", and his interpretation of the answer created curiosity. At least for me, the Digger teaser poster works in the same way today. It makes me more interested in seeing the movie than a key art poster showing Tom Cruise in prosthetics.

The Lenovo Yoga Pro 2710-UD solves that issue. This Ultra HD monitor doesn’t just have a remarkable screen; it also comes with a detachable 4K webcam, six built-in Dolby Atmos speakers, and a USB4 setup, making it ideal for anyone who wants to get rid of desk clutter for a seriously minimalist look.

None of this comes cheap, and this monitor does attract a premium price tag. But if you want everything all in one, it’s a great option. Here’s what I thought of the Lenovo Yoga Pro 2710-UD and whether it should be on the shortlist for your next monitor purchase.

Key specs

Resolution: 3840 x 2160

Refresh rate: 120Hz

Screen size: 26.5in

Response time: 0.03ms

Panel type: QD-OLED Penta Tandem

Ports: 4 x USB C, 1 x HDMI 2.1, USB4, DisplayPort Out

Speakers: 4 x 7W, 2 x 3W certified by Waves MaxxAudio & Dolby Atmos

Aspect ratio: 16:9

Webcam: Modular Camera with 4K Video at 30 FPS and Full UHD Video

Design and build

• It comes ready to go right out of the box; no assembly required
• The detachable webcam is perfect for straight-to-camera vlogging or video calls

I’ll be honest, the unboxing of a monitor isn’t usually something that I’d mention, but Lenovo have done something a little different with this one. The box lies flat and opens up rather than making you battle to retrieve the monitor between two clumps of polystyrene, so it gets extra credit for coming in very recyclable packaging. But also, the stand is already attached so you don’t have to balance it while you clip on the screen; it’s just ready to roll right out of the box. OK, so it’s not going to save you tons of time, but it’s a little touch that does make a big difference.

Once the monitor is up and running, it looks really good. It has slim bezels and doesn’t look chunky or plasticky; it’s the sort of screen you imagine to be featured in one of those “look at my desk” pictures on Instagram (which I could’ve obviously done if the rest of my desk didn’t look like it had been involved in a fight).

The camera, however, is the one design feature that really sticks out. It comes in the box separately and attaches to the top magnetically. No fuss, and if you don’t want a camera pointing at you all day long, you can just take it off. It does have a handy lens cover, which automatically turns the camera off so you don’t have to worry about any embarrassing moments where you didn’t realise it was on. Plus, there are four integrated microphones, so no need to worry about separate audio accessories.

Around the back is where you’ll find all the ports. And there are plenty of them. There’s a USB4 with daisy-chaining, HDMI, DisplayPort, a VESA bracket if you’d rather wall-mount your monitor and a light sensor that will adjust the brightness automatically.

The stand is a little disappointing; it’s not very easy to make adjustments. There’s also no way of flipping this monitor into portrait mode, and yes, I know that’s not something that everyone needs, but it is kind of a given that you can rotate the screen when it comes to modern monitors.

Score: 5/5

Features and Performance

• The QD-OLED panel delivers excellent colour accuracy out of the box
• The webcam and speakers really make this monitor stand out

Let’s start with the screen, because that’s what it’s really all about. It’s a 26.5-inch, 4K QD-OLED panel. It has superb colour accuracy; the blacks were very black, and it also held up well, whatever angle you looked at it from. It runs at 120Hz, so perfect for day-to-day use and video editing; it’s also pretty good for some basic gaming. I did notice that the brightness wasn’t as bright as some other monitors I’ve tested, such as the BenQ MA270S, but for everyday work, it’s not really noticeable.

The webcam, of course, is the star of the show when it comes to features. Rather than it being a slapped-on afterthought, Lenovo have really thought this one through. It uses a Sony IMX678 sensor and shoots at 4K at 30fps with continuous autofocus. This is what makes it great for bloggers who like to do their piece to camera and (like me) have a tendency to shift around in their seat a lot. The four built-in microphones mean that you’ll also get crystal-clear recording and negate the need for any external mic setups. Honestly, for anyone doing talking head videos, tutorials or podcasts on camera, this is a step above what you’d find on most laptops, let alone monitors.

And then there’s the sound. I have tested a lot of monitors, and usually the speakers are awful. This one, they are amazing. The Dolby Atmos speakers give proper spatial sound rather than that tinny thing that built-in speakers usually do.

There’s also a neat little trick if you have a Lenovo laptop. If you pair this monitor with a Yoga Pro, for example, the built-in Colour Sync will match the colour between the two screens, and the speakers will all work in tandem. Of course, that is only a great feature if you already own or are planning on buying a Lenovo laptop.

Score: 5/5

Price

• You’re paying a premium over rival OLED monitors just for a webcam
• It’s still cheaper than an Apple Studio Display

The Lenovo Yoga Pro 27UD-10 retails at £1,000 / $1,499, so it’s certainly a monitor for those with deep pockets. I don’t think that Lenovo are aiming to compete with the Apple Studio Display in the same way that companies like BenQ do, but if you want the Apple, this does make a good alternative, and if you’re in the UK, it’s a lot cheaper too.

Price: 4/5

Who’s it for?

• Users who use a webcam a lot, so ideal for vloggers, streamers, podcasters etc
• Anyone doing colour-sensitive work and wants a screen they can trust

This is a monitor for people who make things, not just those who look at spreadsheets. However, if you are looking for a monitor for productivity purposes, you still won’t be disappointed. If you’re using a webcam daily, whether it be for video calls or recording content, then this is a no-brainer. It is also a great choice for anyone working with images and video where having a monitor that offers great colour is essential. The Yoga Pro 27UD-10 really earns its keep, especially with the OLED screen and those built-in speakers. If you’re after a big, sharp screen and don’t care about the camera or speakers, go for something cheaper, but if you want an all-in-one package, this one is perfect.

Buy if…

• You want to declutter your desk without having to give up on awesome speakers and a decent webcam
• You do colour-sensitive work and need an OLED that will give you great colour accuracy.
• You’ve got or you’re planning to get a Lenovo laptop

Don’t buy if…

• You’re watching your budget, there are 4K OLED screens out there for less
• You’ve already got a webcam and speakers that you like
• You’re a hardcore gamer who needs competitive refresh rates

Just days later, rumours suggest that Apple's developing its first gaming hardware since the best-forgotten Pippin in the form of two controllers. But is there a market for them?

The probable development of Apple gaming controllers was first noted by a MacRumors reader, who highlighted references in the latest macOS 26.7 release code to devices named T6502 and T1057. These identify themselves to Apple's Game Controller software framework as “Made For iPhone" gamepads.

The regular Apple rumour purveyor Mark Gurman of Bloomberg has confirmed that two controllers have been in development for over a year. They're said to feature usual controls like D-pad, dual thumbsticks, shoulder buttons, and analogue triggers.

One seems to be a fairly basic wired controller. The other reportedly supports Bluetooth and adds an accelerometer and gyroscope, which makes it sound like a potential 'Pro' version.

Aside from jokes about the possibility of a charging port in a frustrating location, (looking at you, Magic Mouse), the news has been hailed as confirmation that Apple's finally going all in on gaming, aiming to make the iPhone a genuine competitor for the likes of the Nintendo Switch and the Steam Deck, including for AAA games.

But there's a detail that's raised eyebrows. The reports suggest that the controllers will be released under the Beats brand, not the Apple name.

It seems the Cupertino tech giant wants in on gaming but is still worried that gamers don't click with the Apple brand. The bolder, more youthful Beats might be a better fit – but only just. Beats doesn't have rep with gamers either. It's branched out into speakers and iPhone cases, but it's still essentially a headphones brand. A move into gaming peripherals is a big leap.

So why make a foray into gaming hardware with a secondary brand that's only known for one thing? Some people would buy an Apple controller for the aesthetic and for brand loyalty.

There's an argument that using Beats would allow Apple to avoid sullying its main brand through the use of the less premium materials, allowing it to ensure a competitive price point. There's no shortage of third-party controllers for iPhone, from peripherals from Backbone or SteelSeries that clamp to the phone to universal controllers like the Sony's DualShock 4 and DualSense, the Xbox Wireless Controller, Nintendo Switch Pro Controller and devices from brands like Razer.

Beats is also a platform agnostic brand, suggesting that the potential Apple controllers would be marketed as a universal mobile gaming accessory rather than for iPhone specifically.

But if Apple's really is serious about gaming, the controllers should be less about hardware sales and more about strengthening its gaming ecosystem, from Apple Arcade to potential Apple TV gaming, Vision Pro integrations and better cross-device experiences. The Beats name might detract from that.

But I suspected there's also another consideration. From Apple Watch to the Vision Pro to new iPhone Duo, Apple enters mature markets late only when it thinks it has something it can present as a new innovation, or as the perfection of what everyone else has been aiming for. If it's launching gaming controllers under the Beats name, that suggests it doesn't have an innovation: they're just more controllers in an already crowded market. So why bother at all?

Two years after we tested it, the Sihoo M18 remains the only budget office chair in this price range that we've awarded a 10 out of 10 review. We think it combines ergonomic comfort and adjustability, good looks and a very attractive price – as we note in our guide to the best office chairs for back pain.

Not in the US? See budget office chair deals in your region below.

That's still a lot o money for a set of headphones, and it makes Apple's AirPods Max look cheap – a current deal has them reduced from $549 to $429, also at Amazon. But then the build quality, comfort and sound of the MG is really in another league as we noted in our ears-on Focal Bathys MG review back in June (for more options, see our guide to the best wireless headphones).

Today's best headphone deal

Behind the Focal Bathys MGs' striking design

Last month, we spoke to Edgar Paccoud, innovation project manager at Focal, about the unusual design of the Bathys MG headphones. He told us that those striking grilles on the cans are much more than just a pretty decoration: every design decision has an acoustic or mechanical requirement.

"The choice of skin, fabric, perforation patterns and even the foam density has a measurable impact on the acoustic performance of the headphone," he said.

That said, the design was also clearly influenced by an aesthetic vision. Edgar said the company aimed to shut out other headphone designs and instead seek inspiration in high-end car design and watch making.

"We intentionally use sharp edges, precise surfacing and dynamic proportions to create a sense of tension and performance," he said, arguing that where most competitors chase minimalism, Focal wants, "the object to express the technology it contains."

But it seems Sweeney isn't letting it hold her back, after starring in a new campaign for US sports prediction market company Novig. With the fresh controversy causing backlash online, even catching the attention of Olympic athletes, it's clear that the new ad has only added fuel to the fire.

The ad in question features Sweeney 'performing' (and I use that term lightly) various sports in several states of undress, under the guise that it's "just sport". With an overtly sexual tone to the ad, there's no denying that Novig is taking a 'sex sells' approach to branding – one that many believed was a thing of the past.

The comments were ablaze with criticism from women who felt the ad was sexist, setting us back to the Y2K era of sexualised branding. "Thank you for undoing everything women try to build in sports," one Instagram commenter sarcastically wrote. "As a former athlete and a woman who has personally experienced sexualized comments, I’m genuinely disgusted and deeply disappointed by this campaign. We’ve spent years fighting to be seen and respected for our talent, strength, and achievements-not reduced to our bodies…" another added.

It wasn't long before female athletes began speaking out against the ad, with Olympic swimmer Ariarne Titmus saying, "Not only is it a kick in the face to every woman who had dedicated her life to perfecting her craft, but every women who enjoys sports for what it really is – teamwork, friendship, dedication, excellent, unity … How do we live in a world where monetising a woman’s body and sexualising women’s sport is still a thing?”

In a post-race interview, Team GB runner Amy Hunt took a shot at Sweeney, gesturing to the arena behind her, claiming, "Sydney Sweeney, this is what women in sport look like."

Sweeney later responded to the backlash by posting images of female athletes like Serena Williams, Ronda Rousey, and Megan Rapinoe in stripped-down shoots. While the Instagram stories may have been an attempt to quell the backlash, they only highlighted the glaring issue with Sweeney's ad.

There's a stark difference between a female athlete stripping down in the name of empowerment and an actress masquerading as a sportswoman for male gaze ragebait. Given Sweeney's controversial history with American Eagle, I have strong suspicions that Novig knew it could stir up some controversy with her behind the campaign.

It might not be a graceful way to attract attention, but rage-bait marketing is certainly effective (albeit short-lived). Like we've seen with endless controversial billboards and divisive rebrands, getting the internet riled up will work for a time, but brands built on rage rarely stand the test of time.

There's also the question of portability. If you want something you can put in your bag and run around with, you'll be looking for the best Macbook for content creators. But if you're only going to use it in one place, you can get more power and value from a desktop-bound Mac mini.

So to make things easy for you, in this article I've picked out the best Mac for content creators and the best Macbook for content creators, for both light work and heavy content creation.

If you're after laptops for graphic design too, these machines will double up nicely, and if your content occasionally strays into laptop for 3D modelling territory, I've flagged where that changes the calculation.

Best Mac for light content creation

By light content creator work, I mean editing footage that doesn't make to many demands on your Mac's processor: no dense colour grading, no huge multicam projects. In other words, if you're making video with your phone or shooting on compact cameras (in automatic mode and not in massive formats like Log), these are your best options.

The MacBook Air is our top recommendation for anyone who needs to do some light editing on the go. Despite being super-thin, its powerful M5 chip will handle Photoshop and lighter Premiere workloads without ever breaking a sweat.

Since the arrival of the MacBook Neo, the Air is no longer the cheapest Mac on the market. Yet it's still much closer to the M5 MacBook Pro in real-world performance. In our Geekbench 6 testing it came in only a few percentage points behind the entry-level Pro, and in Photoshop it was just 14 per cent slower, while more than doubling the Neo's scores.

Where it does fall away is in heavier video tasks: pushing raw footage through Premiere, it delivers roughly half the performance of the Pro. But don't worry about that too much: for anyone editing phone or compact camera footage in automatic mode rather than Log, that gap simply won't be felt.

The base 16GB model with a 512GB SSD is plenty for most light workflows, although it's worth noting the Air tops out at 32GB of RAM, so it's not a machine to grow into if your ambitions are likely to grow over time.

For a fixed setup, the Mac mini is hard to beat on value. It's tiny, quiet and its CPU performance outpaces machines costing far more, making it the perfect option for anyone doing photo editing or light video work from a permanent desk. The lack of a screen and keyboard means you'll need to budget for those things separately, but that's the only real compromise here.

In our benchmarking, the entry-level Mac mini's multi-core Geekbench score outdid an older Mac Studio, which gives some idea of just how much has been packed into such a small box. It starts with 16GB of unified memory and a 256GB SSD, which is enough for everyday photo editing, general productivity and non-3D graphic design work, and configuration options stretch up to 64GB of RAM and 8TB of storage if you want the same box to last you a few years.

Three Thunderbolt 4 ports, HDMI, Ethernet and a headphone jack round out the connections, and it supports up to three external displays depending on resolution. The only real limitation is graphics: the integrated GPU is respectable for photo editing and light video, but it's not intended for 3D work or gaming, so if that's what you're looking for, you may be better with number 4 on our list.

Best Mac for heavy content creation

What do I mean by heavy content creator work? Well, if you film in Log footage, shoot 10-bit, and lean on lots of effects, plugins and multicam timelines, you need more sustained power and more memory headroom than the light-work machines can comfortably offer. In that case, here are the best Macbook for content creators and the best Mac for content creators to choose between.

This is the sweet spot for most serious content creators. The standard M5 MacBook Pro performs similarly to the Air, so it's not worth the upgrade on its own, but stepping up to the M5 Pro model brings a big jump in multi-core performance and a proper cooling system that keeps it running at full pace for longer. Aim for 48GB of RAM if your budget allows it, though the stock 24GB will still cope fine with most Log and multicam work.

The extra cores make a real, noticeable difference to multi-core performance over the standard M5, and battery life remains excellent despite that extra power on tap, comfortably seeing you through a full day's editing. SSD speeds are startling too; easily fast enough for shunting large ProRes or RAW files around without a second thought.

Where it's less convincing, though, is GPU-heavy work. Windows laptops with a dedicated Nvidia GPU will outpace it for tasks like AI image generation or transcoding 8K proxies, so bear that in mind if your workflow leans that way.

The M5 Max model, by contrast, is probably overkill for most content creation. It'll give you significant extra headroom and is an excellent chip in its own right, particularly for those doing heavy 3D or VFX work, but for the majority of creators it comes down to cost versus value: you're paying a lot for performance you may rarely touch.

If your heavy workflow happens at a desk rather than on the road, the Mac mini with M4 Pro is currently your best desktop option. With up to 64GB of unified memory, a 16-core GPU and Thunderbolt 5 on the higher configurations, it comfortably handles Log footage, colour grading and effects-heavy timelines.

Here's something important to bear in mind, though. I said "currently". Apple has already launched the next model of Mac mini, which is available for pre-order and arrives on 22 September.

On paper, that model looks like the natural successor to the machine we're recommending here. It boasts a new M6 chip alongside a M5 Pro option, offering up to an 18-core CPU, a 20-core GPU and Neural Accelerators for AI-heavy workflows. So it's likely to be the better buy for anyone starting from scratch.

But "likely" is doing some work in that sentence: Apple doesn't always deliver a big leap between generations: the M3 MacBook Pro, for instance, was a distinctly underwhelming step up from the M2. So we're not certain the M5 Pro Mac mini will comfortably beat the M4 Pro in every respect until we've tested it ourselves.

In the meantime, the Mac mini with M4 Pro remains an excellent machine for heavy content creator work, and it's likely to become even better value once the new model lands and the price (hopefully) starts to drop.

When I was a kid, a friend claimed he could finish Flying Shark on one credit. The game was a regular fixture at the local ice rink, sitting there alongside the other machines quietly eating our pocket money, and every now and then this friend would announce that, yes, he'd done it again: one credit, no continues. I'm fairly sure he was lying, because, like many games of the era, it was hard. Life lessons from video games, huh?

But playing Toaplan Arcade Garage: Flying Fire Shark now, with Flying Shark (1987) and Fire Shark (1989) together in one package, it’s made me realise there was a very particular point in arcade history when difficult could mean two quite different things. One kind of difficulty made you want to learn the game, remember its patterns and have another go. The other was hoping you'd put in another 10p. These two games demonstrate both rather neatly, and Flying Shark is the one I keep coming back to because it's just more playable.

Flying Shark still feels right

I've played a fair few versions of Flying Shark over the years, and this M2 version is the best I've played. The controls are lovely and sharp, the pixel art is clean without losing its arcade character, the scrolling is silky, and the colours have exactly the sort of punch I want from an old Toaplan game. The audio is great too; the classic explosions and weapons have a proper crack to them; the whole thing feels much more physical than you'd expect from a game this old, and to my ears it sounds considerably better than the Flying Shark emulation in the Evercade Toaplan Arcade Collection Vol. 1. You don't really notice how important that arcade sound is until you play a version where it doesn't quite have the same bite.

M2 has done the usual preservation work here, faithfully reproducing the arcade game and then going a bit over the top with the options. You can swap between original and remade assets, alter scanlines, change the display and mess around with the presentation, while Easy mode and adjustable lives and continues. Some of the modern conveniences, including rewind after taking a hit, are kept for Challenge mode rather than being dropped straight into the main Arcade experience, so if you want to play Flying Shark as it was intended, you can, but if you're here to see how far you can get without throwing the Switch across the room, there's help available.

You'll need it too, not because Flying Shark is unfair; this is not bullet hell, and shots are aimed at your little plane, so as long as you move, you stay alive, and that makes the game feel surprisingly personal. That's the magic of Flying Shark, as you're not simply trying to survive but building a mental map of the game, one mistake at a time. The enemy that caught you out five seconds ago becomes something you expect, then something you barely notice, and eventually you're wondering why you ever found that section difficult.

Fire Shark still wants your lunch money

Fire Shark is considerably less friendly because the sequel is faster and much less forgiving. While I'm sure there are players who know every inch of it, playing it now feels much closer to the old arcade experience where the game would suddenly become impossible, whether it's the number of shots, patterns of enemies or bosses that soak up shots, and you'd be reaching for another coin. Only I'm playing on Switch 2 – there is no coin, so it's death, continue, death, continue, death, and eventually I just drop into the menus and head back to the comfort but still demanding draw of Flying Shark.

Two-player co-op does make things more interesting, and there's something about having another plane on screen that takes some of the pressure off, but Fire Shark doesn't pull me in the same way. Maybe that's exactly what some players want. For masochists, Fire Shark is probably a lovely afternoon. For me, it's the second game in a package where the first one is still the main attraction, like Piranha and Piranha DD.

The M2 Gadgets system is another big part of both games, and this is one of those things I really appreciate up to a point. Because the original games were designed for vertical screens, you've got all that empty space around the playfield when playing on a normal display, so M2 fills it with… stuff. There's a little map showing your progress, indicators that tell you which waves are going to drop items, and a blind-spot radar that warns you about enemies before they appear. All useful, I’m sure, but also distracting in games that demand all your attention all of the time. They're brilliantly detailed, and there's a lot of thought behind them, but sometimes I just want the screen to shut up and let me dodge things.

The menus have a similar problem, and there's a lot going on, and the graphical logos used for the games – World and Japanese versions of both titles – don't always make it immediately obvious what you're selecting, so finding your way around takes a little getting used to. It's very M2, in that sense: an enormous amount of care has gone into giving you options you may eventually love, but the first time you open everything up, it can feel like you've walked into the cockpit of a small aircraft, and everything is in Japanese, and someone has told you to find the radio.

One little thing to note: the extra game versions – NES, SEGA Mega Drive and SEGA Genesis – and the bonus game, Wardner, cost extra as DLC if you've bought this collection digitally, but everything is included with the more expensive physical edition.

TATE is the way to play

The antidote to M2’s Gadgets is TATE mode, and it’s easily my favourite part of the Switch version. Turn the Switch on its side, detach the Joy-Cons, and Flying Shark occupies the screen vertically the way you remember it from the arcade. The playfield stretches vertically, the tiny plane has room to move, and the whole thing feels much closer to that machine at the ice rink than it does when you're looking at a horizontal Switch screen with a big border around it filled with animated gubbins.

One little thing to note: the extra game versions – NES, SEGA Mega Drive and SEGA Genesis – and the bonus game, Wardner, cost extra as DLC if you've bought this collection digitally, but everything is included with the more expensive physical edition.

And once you've got it set up, and DLC aside, M2's work really shines. Both games look and sound great – M2 has made near-perfect versions – and respond exactly as you'd want and remember, though Flying Shark has aged better, and all those years between the ice rink and now don't seem quite so important. Until you die, obviously. And no, I still don't believe my mate finished Flying Shark on one credit.

If you need the tools to get started, see our guides to the best 3D modelling software.

Getting an object to sit still in a 3D scene is one thing, but the whole point of working with 3D tools, compared to 2D applications, is the ability to move around the model – to see every angle – and to also get the model itself to move. There are, unsurprisingly, plenty of ways to move things in 3D software, and quite a lot of them can be automated to enable you to art direct when needed, and retain the human element in terms of creating animation.

However, if you’re new to the animation process, it’s reassuring to know that the basics are there, such as keyframing – where a model, or parts of a model, are positioned at various points along a timeline, much as if you were animating stop-motion puppets. But whereas that involves moving for literally every frame of film, 3D software (like 2D animation software) can create movement between two keyframes that are seconds apart.

The only catch with animation in 3D is that the extra dimension can create weird, outlying animation, unless you are across your points of rotation (as we touched on in last issue’s article). Practically all 3D software will have some form of keyframing animation within it. Some have extra ways of moving objects, such as motion graphics tools, which use a hidden object called deformers.

The ultimate expression of this is the third form of motion: simulation. This is where the 3D software can automate the motion of water, cloth, explosions and so on, based on real physics. Although potentially complicated, it can be a huge time-saver for creating complex animations.

Gear up

If you need to build your own art setup, see our guides to the best drawing tablets and the best laptops for 3D modelling.

This article originally appeared in ImagineFX. Subscribe to ImagineFX to never miss an issue. Print and digital subscriptions are available.

Creative Bloq is now easier to access than ever before with our on-the-go app, which brings you all the content you know and love from our website, but in a super-streamlined design.
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The good news is that Nintendo's decided to give something back to US gamers after they ended up bearing the cost. It's launched the two-week Nintendo Customer Appreciation Sale, with discounts until 26 September on Nintendo Switch games, accessories, amiibo, apparel.

Nintendo says the Customer Appreciation Sale is one of its biggest promotions yet. It's "our way of saying thank you to Nintendo players for their continued support and is made possible in part by tariff-related refunds,” the company says. Sadly, the generosity doesn't extend to recent Switch 2 exclusives at this point, but there are discounts of 30% on Switch games compatible with all consoles. There are some additional Switch game deals at Amazon too.

Here's my pick of the best.

• Browse Nintendo Customer Appreciation Sale
• Shop Nintendo Switch games at Amazon

If you don't have a console yet and you're not sure which is right for you, read why the Switch 2 has become our digital art/3D editor's console of choice.

The scene takes place in an imposing and gloomy fortress, characterised by large, vaulted columns and the ruins of the battle. The atmosphere needed to be inspired by classic epic fantasy.

This aesthetic is what I grew up with, meaning that it was easy for me to imagine a scene reminiscent of these types of covers, the works of the master illustrators who have always inspired me. The tone needed to be warm, with reds and oranges dominating; Joe Abercrombie’s novel The Devils was recommended to me by way of an example.

If you want to follow a similar process, you'll need digital art software, and you might want one of the best drawing tablets to work on.

Today's best drawing tablet deals

This article originally appeared in ImagineFX. Subscribe to ImagineFX to never miss an issue. Print and digital subscriptions are available.

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Original Force, the studio leading production alongside series director Rodrigo Blaas, has shown off a batch of work-in-progress material from the series, including character designs, storyboards, animation tests and a preview film, and the early artwork has a loose feel I didn’t expect from a big CG adaptation, and joins Pixar’s Gatto in trying something new.

The three character designs for Sandpaw, Rusty and Graypaw are a good example, as they all start from the same basic feline anatomy, but the artists have pushed the proportions, faces, markings and silhouettes enough that you can tell them apart immediately. The eyes are particularly expressive, while the bodies have that slightly elongated, springy quality that makes the cats feel ready to move rather than simply stand around looking pretty.

Designing personality in Warrior Cats

The storyboard work, my favourite of the new behind-the-scenes images released so far, shows the cats being thrown into big, exaggerated poses, with legs stretched out, tails curling around the action, and bodies twisting in ways that would be unreal. That's exactly why it works, I thought, because good animation needs a little licence with anatomy, especially when characters are fighting, running or reacting to something, and the trick is pushing those shapes without losing the feline character underneath.

That's something Original Force says the team has worked on from the start, looking at skeletal structure, fur, movement, character silhouettes and camera language, with a particular focus on keeping the cats readable during fast action. When you're dealing with hundreds of creators and thousands of shots, those decisions have to become more than good ideas in a concept artist's sketchbook; they need to become a visual language everyone working on the series can actually follow.

These early drawings reveal the rules being worked out in real time: how far a cat can stretch before it stops looking like a cat, how much expression you can put into a face before it becomes too human, and how much personality can come from the way a character moves. With Warrior Cats, it’s a unique approach, though not too different from many animations, because these aren't meant to be ordinary animals wandering around a photorealistic forest. The books' appeal comes from the cats' strong personalities, and the animation has to make those personalities visible without turning them into furry little humans.

If the finished animation can hold onto some of that expressive energy, rather than smoothing everything into generic CG perfection, Warrior Cats might have found a strong visual identity.

Visit the Warrior Cats website for more on the animation, books, games, and more.

Throughout his career, Tom has created impactful work like the Foundation to Combat Antisemitism’s “Stand Up to Jewish Hate” campaign, which was awarded a Gold Effie. As part of our 5 Questions series, I caught up with Tom to discuss the danger of chasing relevance, imposter syndrome and his ultimate creative pet peeve.

Over on X, people have been flagging up poster designs for traditional art classes and graphic design courses that use what appear to be AI-generated illustrations and graphics. Some of the flyers are from social media posts, while some of them were spotted out in the wild as on-street advertising.

But would anyone be prepared to take drawing and painting lessons from a teacher who resorts to AI art?

The irony is not lost on those commenting on the posts on X. Some suggest that the as well as casting doubt on the teachers' art skills, the use of AI imagery is an insult to the budding artists they want to attract amid concerns about the impact of AI on creative jobs. It's not exactly placing great value on the skills the students will supposedly be learning and practising.

"Promoting something artistic made with AI just kills any desire to actually learn the craft. Even a shitty scribbled portrait would’ve looked more pro," one person writes. "How can you trust them if they don't even believe it themselves?" another person wonders.

"The worst part is that it isn't all that complicated to get AI to create a decent poster. But even that requires brains and design knowledge. That said, knowing how to draw isn't the same as knowing how to put together a decent poster," someone else points out.

Elsewhere, there are complaints that high schools and universities are also resorting to AI imagery for internal comms.

"When schools use generative AI to create their flyers, logos and art deco, they're telling their art students that their work does not and will not matter," one person writes on Reddit. "They are making it clear that the arts, which are already hard to make a career out of, is now even more fruitless".

To be fair, there are some creative courses in which AI has a place in the curriculum itself. Graphic design and digital art, for example. Students today need to know how AI tools work and what can be done with them – and need an understanding of the issues around law, ethics, quality and control.

That doesn't mean it's a good idea to use fully AI-generated assets to promote a course. That just smacks of laziness. As for drawing and painting tuition, it's like someone advertising cookery classes with a photo of a KFC bucket or a Big Mac.

While many of the best logo designs are often abstract marks, they can also tell a story about a brand and its product in ways that you can feel even if the exact inspiration isn't immediately apparent.

Designed by Nouvelle Idée, the new identity for the Montreal bakery chain Toledo is based on the shape of the irregular air pockets formed in laminated dough. These organic shapes turned out to be a highly practical design inspiration, providing for the creation of a flexible visual system that adapts be adapted for packaging, signs and decor.

A contemporary sans serif wordmark contrasts with the ornamental details, while a warm colour palette draws on the hues of flour, butter, coffee and fresh bread. The result is a rebrand that feels both classic and fresh: a visual language rooted in French baking traditions but designed to appeal to a new generation.

That's exactly what creative agency hasan & partners did when they were approached by Train Factory, a new food, drink, sport and culture destination built inside a historic locomotive manufacturing site in Finland's capital, Helsinki.

The site was once central to Finnish rail manufacturing; a place where the majority of the country's locomotives were built. That's a lot of history to carry, and some designers might have leaned on it too literally. Happily, the studio instead went the extra mile, and set out to look for something more specific.

Inspiration strikes

The essence of a place is often found in the small details, and so it proved here. Inspiration struck in the form of a small, unglamorous piece of industrial signage: a graphic used on the sides of train cars to indicate where the vehicle could be safely lifted during maintenance.

It's the kind of symbol most of us would walk past a thousand times without registering. But for this rebranding project, it turned out to be the perfect foundation. They repurposed and redesigned this utilitarian mark into the brand's primary 'T' logo.

It's a lovely bit of lateral thinking: a symbol whose entire purpose was mechanical and instructional, telling a crane operator exactly where to attach a hook, becomes the symbol of an entirely new kind of elevation: elevating a disused industrial site into a vibrant, bustling place for people to gather together for fun and friendship.

Why this matters

There's been a lot written in the last few years about the declining use of minimalist, geometric, sans-serif logos. Some of this by yours truly. And I certainly think that the tech world definitely has taken a design style that had a lot to offer and wrung it dry, by repeating it unvaryingly, across seeming every logo and redesign known to man.

But that doesn't mean there's anything wrong with using clean, minimalist, geometric sans-serif typography in general. It's just a question of doing it unthinkingly, simply because it's "on trend", rather than using it because it's the right choice for the story you're telling.

That's why this case study is such a great example of how to do utilitarianism right. This sans-serif wasn't picked off a shelf because it was what everyone else is doing. It evolved organically out of a graphic stencilled on train cars, and it carries the weight of that history in every squared-off letterform.

In short, clean, minimalist sans-serif typography isn't dead, and nor should it be. It just needs a reason to exist. And in the case of The Train Factory, hasan & partners gave it one.

One of these is Zoner Studio, which comes with a subscription, albeit a lower one. It offers similar organisation and raw image processing features to Lightroom alongside a layer-based editor that brings retouching, sharpening, painting and morphing tools before moving on to printing or exporting. And there's video editing too.

So can Zoner Studio join the big boys on the list of the best photo editing software? It’s certainly got a huge list of features, so let’s find out.

Zoner Studio: how I tested

I used Zoner Studio to import raw files from a Sony mirrorless camera, as well as opening the images already on my PC. I used all the features I'd usually turn to as part of my raw processing workflow, and tried out many of the new ones from Zoner's latest update. I also made sure to use the AI tools that are included in the app to compare them against others on the market.

Zoner Studio: plans and pricing

• Free trial
• Two subscription levels available

Zoner Studio is only available with a subscription, but there's a seven-day free trial before you'll need to start paying. With the individual and family plans, you get 20GB of storage on Zoner Photo Cloud, as well as a premium account on the Zonerama online gallery service where you can upload unlimited photos and create online albums to show them off.

Interestingly, the Family Plan is limited only to the number of people 'in your household,' without a hard limit on the number of people who can sign up. It's also less than twice the price of an individual subscription, making it good value if you're signing up three or more people.

Value score: 4/5

Zoner Studio: setup and getting started

• Requires account
• Simple installer

Zoner Studio is Windows-only and installs easily. Make an account, set up a subscription, and you can download an app installer that logs you straight in.

The app is split into modules and opens in the Manager screen, from where you can import photos from memory cards or access folders of image files already on your PC. The app claims support for more than 500 camera types, and can make use of the Adobe DNG Converter app if your body isn’t on the list. One oddity we noticed is that, at the time of writing, the Sony A7CII wasn’t supported, even though the A7CR and original A7C were. Yellow exclamation mark icons show files Zoner can’t deal with, and while they will still appear in the Manager, you can’t take them through to the Develop or Editor windows. Pointing the app to the Adobe DNG Converter’s installation folder in its preferences pane fixed the issue.

And while the app is fairly straightforward to get to grips with - folders on the left, tools on the right, big preview in the middle - there are also loads of tutorial videos on the Zoner Studio YouTube channel, accessible to anyone, to talk you through things such as removing shine from skin in portraits, focus stacking, exposure bracketing and using the app’s search function.

Setup score: 4/5

Zoner Studio: features

• Fully featured
• AI tools easy to spot

As an app that attempts to cover both of the main image editing workflows - raw image development and layer-based editing - as well as video, Zoner Studio has a whole lot of features. So many, in fact, that it can be intimidating at first contact. If you’ve used something like Lightroom, PhotoDirector, On1 Photo Raw or Capture One Pro before, you’ll be able to pick out how it works, but starting afresh with a new app can always be a slow process.

The Manager lets you assign ratings, colour codes and keywords to your files. You can also sort them according to a dizzying number of criteria, including ISO sensitivity, orientation, and GPS coordinates displayed on a map if they’re embedded in the raw file.

Over in Develop you’ll find tone curves and sliders for common edits such as exposure and white balance, along with an AI-powered auto enhancement option. There is also a pop-out menu of one-shot presets, including some with an AI flag on them that will isolate your photo’s subject, sky or background before running. What Zoner doesn’t have is AI noise reduction like Lightroom or On1, though it does have extra noise reduction sliders that will target separate colours and levels of brightness.

Moving your image over to the Editor window reveals a Layers palette on the right of the interface, with tools and adjustments harder to find. The folder structure always stays on the left unless you turn it off, and the same is true of the filmstrip of images at the bottom of the screen, but there's no separate toolbar here: if you want to paint or crop further, they are to be found in an unusual horizontal bar across the right-hand sidebar, while a pop-out Adjustments menu contains other tools such as Levels, document resizing (including content-aware and AI options), vignetting, text overlays and effects filters. Again, there's a lot here, and it has been laid out in a sensible way that might take a bit of time to get used to, but once you’ve edited a few folders of images with it, it starts to make more sense, helped by the ability to add tools to a favourites list that appears at the top of the menu.

Feature score: 4/5

Zoner Studio: user interface and experience

• Could be tough for beginners
• Lots of tutorials

Zoner Studio makes some odd UI choices that can be off-putting at times, especially if you’ve been using another company’s products for years. Why, for example, is the Preferences option on the View menu instead of Edit, where it’s found on many other apps? It’s also found on the account dropdown that displays the email address you’ve registered with, and to the left of that you’ll find a small ‘?’ menu that is the only place you can find out which version of the software you’re using and manually check for updates.

There's a lot of good in Zoner Studio’s interface beyond these niggles, though, including tabs so you can have multiple images in multiple modules open at the same time, a menu that handles displaying the app on multi-monitor setups, and the ability to choose whether full-screen mode covers the Windows taskbar or not.

This is a complex app with a lot of functionality, and so can be daunting for beginners, making a trip to the online tutorials more or less mandatory. The fact that everything is kept very clean is a bonus once you’re familiar with the tools’ locations, but can lead to lots of hunting around when you’re new. The ability to highlight new features is a nice one to have, allowing you to home in on a recently added tool and try it out.

The video section offers a small timeline to organise your clips, snapping them together and adding transitions. It is perhaps a strange thing for such a photography-focused app to have, but as all our mirrorless cameras and most DSLRs are capable of shooting video, not to mention smartphones, perhaps it has a place here.

User Experience score: 4/5

Zoner Studio: AI tools

• Fast on a discrete GPU
• Unclear which model is being used

All the AI tools are clearly marked (though the ‘AI’ flash is a bit small), so you know what you’re getting into and can avoid them if you’d rather. In the app's preferences, there's an option to use your local GPU (you can choose between them if you have more than one installed) for not only AI, but more vaguely defined ‘calculations’ too. An integrated GPU is supported for image display, but Zoner really wants a separate card. On our test PC with an RTX 5080 on board, we heard the fans spin up occasionally, especially when running auto-enhancement, AI resize or noise reduction tools.

And while auto-edits aren’t really the point of an app like this, the AI option here didn’t apply heavy-handed saturation boosts as it can elsewhere. Instead, it gave the colours a subtle kick, especially in the mid-tones, while increasing contrast and retaining detail. It’s not as good as the fully manual approach, but it’s not bad. The same is true of the AI resizing, which increased an image from 7000 to 14000 pixels across while retaining detail in properly focused areas and without the appearance of patterns or additional noise in the defocused background. Zoner doesn’t divulge what model it’s using, but it seems effective and is fairly fast at smaller size boosts; increasing from 7000 to 28000 pixels across took a lot longer even on the RTX 5080.

Automatic selection and masking allow you to remove the background from your subject with a single click, with the option to save a layer mask too. This left a rather soft edge, especially where the border fell out of the plane of focus, but the AI masking available in the Develop module appears fast and accurate.

Support score: 4/5

Zoner studio: who is it for?

• Photographers

Zoner Studio is fully featured and will suit those looking for an all-in-one editing app that doesn’t require them to keep on top of multiple subscriptions and updates. Those used to the way other apps do things may become frustrated and take some time to come around, but for beginners, there are many online resources that will help them pick up the app and make the most of it. The low price helps here too.

Buy it if...

• You edit a lot of raw files
• You want an all-in-one app
• You don’t want to spend too much

Don't buy it if...

• You’re set in your ways, and those ways are Adobe’s
• You prefer even more AI
• You use a Mac

Key specifications

Design, build and display

• Thin and light
• No colour options

Well built and stylish, the Galaxy Book 6 Pro is going to have people wondering where the Apple logo is, as it uses a wedge-shaped casing reminiscent of MacBook Airs of the pre-2024 era. The casing feels like plastic rather than metal, but it’s nice and stiff and, importantly, extremely light. At just 1.24kg, it’s barely going to notice once you’ve slipped it into a messenger bag or executive attache case, and as the machine is barely half an inch thick, it’s all very impressive.

It is rather grey, however, with only one colour option available no matter which model of Galaxy Book 6 you choose. Would it have hurt Samsung to offer the same rather splendid Cobalt Violet or Sky Blue colour options as the Galaxy S26 Ultra smartphone? Just because something’s got ‘Pro’ in the name doesn’t mean it has to be boring.

Among all the grey on the back of the lid there's a small Samsung logo, with the same below the screen that’s almost lost in the black bezel, but there's no Galaxy Book branding anywhere. It’s exquisitely understated, and as a result does more to concentrate attention on the 3K AMOLED touchscreen, which is bright at 500 nits and covers 98% of the P3 colour gamut (as well as 100%of sRGB and 95% of Adobe RGB).

Design score: 4/5

Features

• Thunderbolt 4
• Fingerprint reader

It’s good to see that Thunderbolt has settled into PCs now, rather than being an Apple peculiarity. The versatile USB-C ports mean manufacturers don’t need to have things like HDMI or USB, but Samsung has chosen to put both on the Galaxy Book 6 Pro, with a full-sized HDMI and a USB Type-A alongside the two TB4s. What you don’t get is a dedicated charging port, as all that’s handled by a Thunderbolt, which makes it much more convenient for use with a dock or a monitor’s powered USB hub. And there's no SD card reader either.

Around the front there's a white-backlit keyboard that wouldn’t look out of place on a MacBook, if it weren’t for its Copilot key, which has a discreet fingerprint reader at its top right corner and a curiously stiff action that may require more force than some light typists are used to applying, even with the shallow travel required to fit them in such a thin laptop. There's no numpad, so even on this 14in chassis the keys aren’t tightly crammed together, though the F row and arrow keys are rather small. The touchpad is comfortable and responsive, with a good click action when you press down on it.

Feature score: 3/5

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

• Efficient CPU
• Not a strong GPU

The new third-generation Core Ultra processors are a bit of a step forward for Intel, as they make gains in both efficiency and graphics processing. The Ultra 7 356H installed here is a 16-core chip that has only four Performance cores, splitting the rest between Efficient (8) and Low-power Efficient (4). It’s a conservative choice, hitting just 4.7GHz, but it makes a good match to what’s likely to be the executive’s choice, as this restrained performance not only matches the machine’s design but allows it to eke out the battery life: it managed nine and a quarter hours in our looping video test,

And so, when subjected to the battery of tests Creative Bloq requires of its review candidates, we see it sitting slightly behind machines such as the HP OmniBook X Flip 14 and the MSI Prestige 13 AI+ Evo, both of which use second-gen chips (an Ultra 9 in the case of the MSI). It even loses out to the Geekom IT13 Max mini PC, which has a first-gen Ultra 9 in it (but isn’t as thin, giving it more room for cooling).

This result is repeated across rendering and AI tests, though the Samsung does better in the Procyon office productivity test, which sees it juggling spreadsheets and presentations, and rises to the level of Apple’s M4 in Geekbench 6’s multi-core workout (it sits halfway between the MacBook Air and MacBook Pro of that generation). The little integrated GPU - with four cores rather than the 12 of the flagship Arc B390 module in chips like the Core X9 388H - supports ray-tracing, but there's little reason you’d want to try that out. That said, it is possible to play games on this GPU, as long as you’re happy with 1080p and low to medium settings. However, in the Geekbench 6 GPU test, it scores half as much as the graphics cores in the Apple M5, the 2025 ASUS Zenbook Duo and even the Geekom mini PC, leading to the conclusion that this isn’t a strong GPU for creative work.

Performance score: 3/5

Price

Just as Samsung and Apple vie for supremacy in the smartphone arena, so they will in the court of the laptop. The Galaxy Book 6 Pro starts at $1,799/£1,799, which is slightly more than the base-model MacBook Pro, but is far more than the 13in MacBook Air. The model tested here is a little more, at £2,499/$2,449.99, which makes it more expensive than the ASUS ProArt PZ14 and only a tiny bit less than the Zenbook Duo.

Value score: 2/5

Who is it for?

• The boss

The Galaxy Book Pro is beautifully thin and light, and looks understated and smart. It doesn’t matter if you’re not the former, as walking into a meeting with this under your arm will make you look the latter.

Buy it if...

• You want to look like a pro
• You want something thin and light
• Integrated graphics are enough

Don't buy it if...

• You need a bigger screen
• Or more graphics power
• Or really like RGB backlights on your keyboard

Also consider

To get that maximum discount, you'll need to trade in a high-spec configuration of last year's flagship and commit to sticking with a carrier with your new iPhone. You can also claim up to three months of Apple Music and one month of Apple TV free if you're a new or returning subscriber.

Not for you? See the best current foldable phone deals and dumb phone deals.

iPhone 18 Pro deals in the US

• Best Buy: Browse iPhone 18 Pro deals
• Apple: up to $885 off with trade in, or lease from $34.99/mo
• AT&T: up to $1,200 off with a trade-in
• Verizon: up to $1,200 off with a trade-in
• T-Mobile: iPhone 18 Pro free with switch or trade in
• Xfinity Mobile: 18 Pro Max free with trade in and line

iPhone 18 Pro deals in the UK

• Apple: up to £855 off with trade in

iPhone 18 Pro details