AI memory demand is making even broken smartphones increasingly valuable to buyers
Old phones are gaining value as replacement components become harder to source
Grade D devices remain abundant despite stronger prices for salvageable hardware
A global shortage of memory chips driven by artificial intelligence demand is pushing millions of consumers toward the resale market.
Owners who once let broken or outdated smartphones sit in drawers are now finding that even damaged units carry unexpected monetary value.
Buyers across the refurbishment and repair industries are competing for parts that were previously considered worthless scrap.
Salvage values climb as parts become scarce
Marketplace figures from B-Stock, a large business-to-business platform for used smartphones, show pricing for both Apple and Samsung devices rose in the second quarter of 2026 compared with the prior two quarters.
Grade D handsets, the lowest condition tier, made up the bulk of units sold last year, with millions changing hands through the platform.
In the first half of 2026, mid-tier C-condition phones actually overtook the lowest tier by volume, accounting for 37.8% of sales versus 31.6% for the bottom grade.
The iPhone 17 Pro Max fetched the strongest average price among Apple models, reaching $940 across all condition levels during the quarter.
Samsung's top-selling models were the S23 Ultra, the S22 Ultra and the S24 Ultra, with the S22 Ultra pushing the older Z Fold5 out of second place.
After the Galaxy S26 launched, prices for previous-generation Samsung flagships climbed as well, with a well-kept S23 Ultra reaching $425 in June, its strongest month of the year.
Repair industry sees new value in broken parts
B-Stock has cautioned against assuming shoppers are simply rushing to dump unwanted hardware.
The company points out that people are keeping their phones for extended periods, a pattern that itself drives up the volume of low-grade listings as devices age.
Manufacturers are not yet routinely pulling memory chips from damaged phones to install in new products, since testing, compatibility and reliability checks complicate that approach.
According to the company, the economics of recovering usable components are shifting as memory prices climb, making it worthwhile to salvage parts that once were not worth the labor involved.
Displays, camera assemblies, batteries, charging ports, housings, speakers, cables and circuit boards can all retain value even when a phone itself is beyond repair.
A single low-grade device does not necessarily mean every part inside it shares that same poor rating.
A phone traded in after four or more years often fails battery health testing alone, which is enough to place it in the bottom tier under standard platform rules.
The current trend feels less like a sudden environmental awakening and more like a market correction.
Consumers are not necessarily recycling out of ecological conviction, and retailers are sweetening trade-in offers to keep the supply of parts flowing.
Whether the shift meaningfully reduces electronic waste, or simply redirects it toward a more profitable pipeline, remains an open question worth watching.
There's a version of this Soundpeats Pop Clip2 that you'll never read. After several weeks with the Soundpeats Clip1's cheaper successor, I was half-way through writing a five-star review which declared them the best open earbuds you could buy. That version is, as you can already tell, not this version of the review.
You see, the longer I used the Soundpeats Pop Clip2, the more I had to contend with some annoying issues; the kind of problem which often emerge after months or years of use, especially in cheaper tech, but shouldn't be affecting the buds after just a few weeks.
For example, I had an issue with the charging case, where it wouldn't reliably power up the buds. Sometimes I'd take them out, only to find them drained. My biggest problem, though, was with connectivity: they'd often fail to connect to my phone, or repeatedly drop out while I was running. A few times, when I needed some buds for a cycle or run, I'd just use the recently-reviewed Baseus Bowie MC2 rather than try and fight with the Pop Clip 2.
It's a shame, because aside from these common cheap-bud problems, the Soundpeats Pop Clip 2 are genuinely fantastic earbuds. Or is it the Soundpeats UU2? Depending on where you live, they're called one or the other, but in many countries the brand is using both names. Confusing. I’m going to be using the former name, because it simply makes more sense.
The Soundpeats Pop Clip2 have to be some of the best-sounding clip-style earbuds I’ve heard: they have a nice simple V-shaped sound, offering bass with ‘oomph’ but tone, and clear crisp treble. They don’t re-invent the wheel, but nimbly avoid all the issues that come with audio in buds of this form factor.
They tick loads of other boxes too: they last longer than most rivals, fit really well, and offer a solid list of features like spatial audio, sound leak prevention and water drainage.
Perhaps most importantly, Soundpeats has defied our price-hike current state of living by dropping the price of the Pop Clip2 (compared to the predecessor). And not by a few pennies either: $20 in the US, £15 in the UK, $9.99 in Australia (okay, that one’s not a dramatic drop). The brand already had some of the best value open-ears on the market, and it’s really pressing its advantage here.
But because of the connection problems, they're a write-off, right? Uh, I'm not so sure. These problems were persistent, but not consistent. I frequently went for hours without a connection drop or problem, and found ways to cater for some of the quirks. As I write this mini-review, I've been seated at my desk and listening for three hours straight, without any problem. But I know if I went outdoors, they'd be less reliable.
I wish I could recommend the Soundpeats whole-heartedly, and the issues make that impossible. But it's possible that your mileage will vary, or that the brand will fix some of the connection issues through software patches.
Soundpeats Pop Clip2 review: Price and release date
(Image credit: Future)
Launched in August 2026
Sells for $49.99 / £59.99 / AU$70
Cheaper than predecessors and other rivals
The Soundpeats Pop Clip2 were unveiled on August 10, 2026, just nine months after the unveiling of their predecessors, the Soundpeats Clip1. That’s not a long time to wait for them to… pop out.
At launch, the buds were tapped for a $49.99 / £59.99 / AU$70 asking price, which is cheaper than the $69.99 / £74.99 / AU$79.99 asking price of the last model. But just two weeks after release, I’m finding them available for £36 in the UK, so they may be even cheaper than reported. Let me be clear: this is rock-bottom prices territory from a trusted brand.
OK, they’re not technically the cheapest open earbuds around — there are options in the backrooms of Amazon and AliExpress that are much cheaper — but they’re the cheapest from a known, respected name in audio (notwithstanding sales on Soundcore, Baseus and Earfun products, which see them dip below Soundpeats’ cost).
The thing is, value only comes into effect if the performance is worth even the nominal outlay you'll have to part with to own them. So let's dig into that.
Soundpeats Pop Clip2 review: Specs
Drivers
12mm
Active noise cancellation
No
Battery life
10 hours (buds), 42 hours (case)
Weight
5.1g (buds), 47.7g (case)
Connectivity
Bluetooth 6.0
Frequency response
Not specified
Waterproofing
IPX5
Soundpeats Pop Clip2 review: Features
(Image credit: Future)
Solid 10h/42h battery life
App offers loads of features
Connectivity problems plague experience
The Soundpeats Pop Clip2 offer a 10-hour battery life per bud, and in testing they lasted that long regularly. According to the brand, the case offers a total of up to 42 hours. Both of those sums are a little above average, and I'd say they're enough for most uses.
There's no ANC here, but the Soundpeats app offers basically every other feature under the sun. There's spatial audio, find my earbuds, a low-latency gaming mode, a privacy mode to reduce sound leakage, a drainage function to shake water droplets out if the buds get wet, a dynamic EQ tool which adjusts your sound on the fly, and of course an equalizer.
This latter lets you choose between a range of presets based on genre, though it turns off dynamic EQ and spatial audio. There's an adaptive and custom mode too, but for some reason, you can only use these if you create a free Soundpeats account. Locking an essential tool unless someone hands you their email? Thumbs down from me.
In the Soundpeats app, you can also toggle LDAC and set up multi-point connection, as well as change what the gesture controls do.
(Image credit: Future)
Now, it's time to get to the elephant in the room, the one I mentioned in the review introduction. I had a bad time with the Soundpeats Pop Clip2's connectivity (or lack thereof).
Frequently, I'd remove the buds from the case, only for one to fail to connect. I never figured out a solution to this issue, though sometimes holding the 'on' button kicked it into gear, and it often prompted me to just pick up a rival pair of buds which actually connected.
Even when the Clip2 did connect, I'd sometimes have to contend with drop outs or a stuttery connection, particularly on whichever of the buds was furthest from the phone. And I wasn't using the buds at the extreme of their connection range; my phone could literally be in one hand, and the bud on the other side of my face would keep dropping out.
So, despite the use of Bluetooth 6.0 (and, of course, my attempts to fix the problem by changing phones and updating the firmware), connection is a real issue here. Depending on the root cause, it could be fixable with a software patch, but it might be an intrinsic problem with the buds.
Features score: 3.5/5
Soundpeats Pop Clip2 review: Design
(Image credit: Future)
Few differences from predecessor
Case is small, but with problems
Earbuds fit reliably and comfortably
The big Soundpeats Pop Clip2 difference from its predecessor is the case, which is smaller and more convenient to tote around. It's a small pebble, weighing 47.7g, which fits in a pocket with no problem.
There is a problem, but it's inside. Like in some other cheap earbuds I've tested, the charging pins in the Clip2 case can often get stuck down. These are those shiny needles which touch the connectors on an earbud, in order to power it up while it's in the case, depressing as they do. In some cases, they can fail to spring back up, sometimes stopping working entirely.
I often managed to free the charging pins by pressing them down and wiggling, but often I only knew to do this when a bud had failed to charge. That is to say, there's a manual solution, but I would've preferred earbuds that just worked.
(Image credit: Future)
Charging issues aside, the buds work great, which is no surprise given that they're almost identical from the wonderful previous-generation Clips. they're light, at roughly 5g per unit, and you can easily forget you're wearing them.
The fit is solid, and I never found any issues with them shaking or falling out of place while I was on a run. When it comes to the Pop Clip2's actual earpieces, I have no notes.
This extends to the on-bud controls. Instead of relying on a large and vague tap control, Soundpeats has placed a physical button on each bud, which is easiest to press by pinching the body of the device. This is easy to trigger, even when you're active, and a satisfying 'click' lets you know your gesture has been accepted.
A note to buyers: head to the app and customize what single, double-, triple-tap and long-held functions do. I didn't love the default options, but luckily it's easy to change.
Design score: 4/5
Soundpeats Pop Clip2 review: Sound quality
(Image credit: Future)
These are the best open earbuds I've heard
Lovely balanced sound with plenty of customization
12mm drivers, LDAC and Hi-Res Audio Wireless
Several open earbuds makers have experimented with different multi-driver set-ups in order to solve the core problem with the form factor – getting good sound is incredibly tricky when the bud is far from your ear – and yet somehow Soundpeats has made the biggest leaps with a single driver.
Put simply, the Pop Clip 2 are the best-sounding open earbuds I’ve used to date, a compliment that’s a little limited in its reach but no less earnest for it. Each bud has a 12mm dual-magnetic driver, which according to Soundpeats has been tuned for “deep bass”, and seems on paper at least to match the Clip1’s driver. In practice, though, it performs a lot better.
By default, the earbuds have a fairly neutral sound profile, not favoring bass, mids or treble too heavily, and that’s pretty rare for exercise buds. In Handle With Care by Traveling Wilburys, I was surprised to hear the various rhythmic and harmonic instruments alongside the vocals and bass, and in Cinnamon by The Long Winters, it was easy to pick out the various simultaneous guitar lines which, in worse earbuds, blur together.
(Image credit: Future)
Despite this neutral focus, treble and bass are both handled well: the latter is bright, clear and crisp, the latter well-defined and energetic. And, thankfully, my Clip1 gripe about the max volume being too low has been fixed.
The buds’ sound can be pulled six ways from Sunday if you’ll let them too. In the dynamic mode, the bass and treble were boosted for a lovely V-shaped audio which gave Two Door Cinema Club’s Sleep Alone a lovely, bouncing energy.
Contributing to the sound is the Bluetooth codec support which Soundpeats has added — at least the connection works in one way. The buds support LDAC, and are certified for Hi-Res Audio Wireless, which isn’t something you can say about every set of open earbuds.
Of course, much of your enjoyment will depend on how you listen. No matter how good open-ears sound in the comfort of your home, the sound quality will plummet when you step outdoors into the busy word. But that’s the nature of the beast with these buds, and the dynamic equalizer went further than most in balancing for these issues.
Sound quality: 5/5
Soundpeats Pop Clip2 review: Value
(Image credit: Future)
Should be top-value earbuds
Unfortunately, longevity isn't guaranteed
The Soundpeats Pop Clip2 sound fantastic and offer a solid range of features, despite being some of the cheapest open earbuds worth buying. They should be five-star buys.
Unfortunately, that appraisal would be forgetting the connection and case issues, two problems which sadly aren't uncommon in low-cost earbuds.
With that in mind, you're basically getting what you pay for, matching the promise of other same-price rivals: these are buds which work very well, but may stop working well before their time.
Value: 3.5/5
Should I buy the Soundpeats Pop Clip2?
Soundpeats Pop Clip2 score card
Attributes
Notes
Rating
Features
The feature set is impressive, but consistent connection problems make using the buds a drag.
3.5/5
Design
The buds are smartly-designed and fit reliably and comfortably. Unfortunately, the case has a flaw.
4/5
Sound quality
They're the best open-ear buds I've ever tested (admittedly, of a limited pool).
5/5
Value
It's a fantastic package, but the various problems suggest a short lifespan.
3.5/5
Buy them if…
You need good-sounding open-ears Most don't buy this form factor for the sound quality, but if you want something great-sounding, the Clip2 are second to none.
You want open-ears which fit reliably Not once during many weeks of testing did the Clip2 ever fall out of my ears or ache during a workout.
You're on a budget Don't buy super-cheap options for pennies. This is the cheapest option you should consider.View Deal
Don’t buy them if…
You need something reliable My Clip2 worked well when I found my way around their flaws. If you want something that works perfectly without having to put in the work, just skip these.
You want something that sounds good, full stop. Just because these are the best-sounding open earbuds, doesn't mean they're fantastic in the grand scheme of things. If you want workout headphones with fantastic sound, you need something with an in-ear seal, or over-ears.
Soundpeats Pop Clip2 review: Also consider
Looking for other affordable clip-style earbuds? Here are a few we've tested and would recommend.
Soundpeats Pop Clip2
Baseus Bowie MC2
Anker Soundcore AeroClip
Drivers
12mm
11mm
12mm
Active noise cancellation
No
No
No
Battery life (ANC on)
10 hours (buds), 42 hours (case)
11.5 hours (buds), 55 hours (case)
8 hours (buds), 24 hours (case)
Weight
5g (buds), 47.7g (case)
5.1g (buds), 51g (case)
6g (buds), 42g (case)
Connectivity
Bluetooth 6.0
Bluetooth 6.0
Bluetooth 5.4
Waterproofing
IPX5
IP67
IPX4
Baseus Bowie MC2 The buds I tested before the Clip2, which I kept cheating on the Soundpeats with, don't sound as good or have the same feature set. But they're more reliable and last for longer between charges. Read our full Baseus Bowie MC2 review
Anker Soundcore AeroClip These earbuds have decreased in price since they were released, so they now rival the Soundpeats. They sound great and have an app that is chock-full of features, even if other specs aren't as impressive. Read our full Anker Soundcore AeroClip review
How I tested the Soundpeats Pop Clip2
Tested for roughly four weeks
Paired with two different Android phones for music, podcasts, movies and games
Used on runs, at gym, at desk and during travels
To write this full review, I used the Soundpeats Pop Clip2 for the best part of one month. In that time, I used it paired to two different Android smartphones: the Fairphone 6 Plus and Samsung Galaxy Z Fold.
To test the earbuds, I used them for various fitness activities including walks, runs, cycles and trips to the gym. I also used them while working at my desk, on the train and on a flight. Mostly, my listening was done on Spotify, but I also used Tidal and several video streaming services, played games and conducted calls with them.
I've been reviewing for TechRadar since early 2019, and over the last few years, that's included plenty of open earbuds, including the stablemates of the product here, the Soundpeats Clip1. I've also used various other Soundpeats headphones and earbuds.
Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei calls for frontier model pacing
He has a detailed plan
It'll require cooperation from other AI companies and, yes, even China
Maybe you're tired of hearing the three-year AI industry veteran, Jacob Coxon, warn us on every available media platform that AI could kill us all by the end of the decade.
It sounded hyperbolic, and maybe it is. But when the longtime CEO of Anthropic (Coxon's former employer), Dario Amodei, tells us frontier model development is going too fast and we "risk losing control of AI systems," you might be inclined to listen.
In a roughly 3,000-word blog post, Amodei outlined on Saturday the growing risks of unfettered, global frontier model development and laid out a multi-part plan for gaining some level of control and safety.
In a way, Amodei's post echoes Coxon's concerns, who also called for "pacing."
"Carefully wielded, AI can be the latest in a long line of technological miracles that have uplifted and ennobled humanity," wrote Amodei. He warns, though, that we are facing "the risk of losing control of AI systems, misuse of AI for cyberattacks and bioterrorism, and serious economic disruption."
An internet takeover
Naturally, Amodei points to the summer's incidents, the most notable of which is when OpenAI's AI models escaped the sandbox and then attacked Hugging Face's system in a coordinated effort to complete its objectives.
Amodei contends that despite no one getting hurt, the incident should serve as a warning about what could come next.
"A similar level of misalignment could have caused catastrophic damage...it’s my worry that in 6–12 months such a swarm could be capable of taking over the entire internet with a persistent botnet."
Amodei's post differs from Oxon's alarmist X post in that it offers a framework for global frontier pacing, basically slowing down and managing model development without calling for a pause.
Evaluation and coordination
It's an ambitious plan that includes an internal but independent ombudsman at each AI company who might have a series of checkpoints they can use to evaluate ongoing work and to ensure that the AI companies are following standardized guidelines and rules. They can also be there to offer a point of clarity, without the cloudiness of commercial demands.
Amodei also wants "Democratic Coordination," which would mean companies like OpenAI, Google, and Anthropic agree on standards, which of course the third-party evaluators can then use. He even proposes global coordination, though Amodei seems less certain that it can even work.
More interestingly and perhaps in response to recent news that AI's new agentic and recursive model capabilities are making them more inscrutable than ever, Amodei thinks pacing will provide more time for better interpretability. "Despite all the progress," Amodei writes, "we still only understand a tiny fraction of what goes on inside these models."
Slow down, but don't stop
Throughout the document, though, the theme remains almost entirely on "pacing" and not "pausing". In fact, Amodei is quite clear that we can't afford to slow down too much, lest we fall behind the chief AI global competitor, China: "Thus, a key part of pacing within democracies is to keep democracies’ AI lead over autocracies as large as possible, to give us the breathing room we need in order to pace effectively." Not doing so would create a "significant national security risk."
Amodei briefly floats the idea of a global frontier model development pause as participating governments reach an agreement on the pace of AI development, but also adds that such an agreement is "unlikely."
Part of Amodei's plan, and to help, maybe, keep China in line, is a call for us to stop selling AI chips to China, something Nvidia's Jensen Huang will surely have something to say about (he actively lobbied the White House to let his company sell AI chips to the CCP). He also calls for penalties for "frontier model distillation," basically China and other countries using Anthropic and, perhaps, OpenAI models to train their own.
Naturally, Amodei also calls for a "global standards body, though he admits that it won't be easy to give it "real teeth."
A study in contrasts
Coxon's comments created a firestorm of debate around the safety of AI and the advisability of allowing development to continue at this pace. That debate, though, was couched in "consider the source." Coxon worked for just three years as a model trainer and at two different companies. Some wondered if his posts and subsequent media blitz were just a cry for attention.
Amodei's post and plan, by contrast, carry the gravitas of deep experience and a macro view of all the pieces at play. Amodei knows the capabilities because he sees them up close every day; he knows the benefits from a global and a financial perspective, and he understands the risk, likely even better than Coxon does.
While much of his plan is based on "only if everyone cooperates and is generally on their best behavior," it's impossible to ignore the warning. Amodei admits his plan "won't be easy" but thinks we must try because "we owe it to humanity.
Amodei dropped the post over the weekend, perhaps hoping to give his counterparts at Google, Amazon, Meta, and, especially, OpenAI time to consider it before responding on Monday. Amodei actually name-checks Google's Demis Hassabis in the post, but doesn't mention Altman. The OpenAI chief and Amodei have a notoriously chilly relationship, which might make Altman embracing Amodei's seemingly sensible plan a long shot.
I’ve always been a fan of roguelike games. One of my first PlayStation Plus downloads was an indie known as Tower of Guns, where you blast your way through the titular tower, only to start again each time you die. It hooked me immediately — I spent pretty much an entire summer holiday shooting through the tower’s many floors, only to get kicked back down to the start with each defeat.
From the Backlog
Every gamer has a backlog — and that’s no different for us at TechRadar Gaming. From the Backlog is a series about overdue first-plays, revisiting classics, returning to online experiences, or rediscovering and appreciating established favorites in new ways. Read the full series here.
That type of cyclical gameplay loop just scratches a deep itch in my brain. I’m the kind of player who plays carefully and hoards items for moments that may never appear. However, the high stakes of roguelike games have always given you focus, while the temporary nature of your loadout, abilities, and progress encourages experimentation.
In most story-driven games, player deaths have few consequences – dying in God of War or Control might set you back a few minutes, but you’ll typically carry on as if nothing happened. In contrast, the roguelike genre is defined by hard resets with each death. The issue is that it’s hard to tell an engaging story when you’re constantly sending the player back to square one.
But what if dying was part of the story? That’s the question at the centre of Returnal, the 2021 roguelike third-person shooter from Finnish developer Housemarque that launched as a PS5 exclusive before making its way to Windows. Crucially, Returnal makes its cycle of death and reawakening the central theme of its dense, mysterious narrative.
This summer, about a decade after downloading Tower of Guns, PS Plus delivered me another unforgettable roguelike experience with Returnal – and while I had heard some high praise for its gameplay, I wasn’t prepared for just how much its story would affect me. Keep reading for my take on why Returnal is worth returning to.
Life on loop
(Image credit: Sony)
Returnal follows space-farer Selene Vassos, an astronaut and explorer who crash-lands on the uncharted world of Atropos. After emerging from the wreckage of her ship, Helios, players guide Selene through the jungles and ruins of Atropos, fighting through rooms of alien animals and humanoids to track the ‘White Shadow’ distress beacon she hopes to use to escape.
In theory, you can do this all in one life – but Returnal quickly makes it clear that everything on Atropos wants to kill you. And unless you’ve got the reaction times of an Olympic gymnast, something on Atropos is going to kill you. When you do eventually fall to one of the planet’s many hostile creatures, the game flashes through a series of visions before Selene wakes up at the crash site, which becomes the starting point for each subsequent run. In fact, the screen displays the message ‘Helios Abandoned’ each time you leave camp, to really set the mood.
On these follow-up attempts, you’ll come across corpses – your own corpses. Versions of Selene that didn’t make it to the White Shadow are dotted around Atropos, sometimes accompanied by voice recorders that begin to explain the planet’s war-torn history.
SonySonySony
The core gameplay of Returnal is that of a competent third-person shooter with light movement mechanics. It’s Dark Souls meets Titanfall meets Resogun after three cups of coffee – you move quickly, shoot quickly, and dodge dozens of on-screen projectiles. The controls are tight; the game feels incredibly responsive, fast but never floaty.
Various gameplay aspects come together to make Returnal feel addictive and alive. The game offers ten satisfying weapons, each with a few dozen modifiers, and carefully designed combat rooms that are rearranged with a dash of random number generation (RNG) on each new run. About a third of the way through the game, you unlock the best grappling hook in gaming since Just Cause 3, which is naturally a huge plus.
And while Returnal can be punishingly hard – looking at the PlayStation trophies reveals just under a third of players have beaten the first boss – it’s always incredibly fun to play. Even after beating the main game, I spent a few weeks scaling the Tower of Sisyphus, the endless mode added with a free DLC in 2022.
Our Returnal review has a more detailed breakdown of the game’s mechanics, but it’s the game’s story that, in my opinion, makes it a must-play.
I was quickly hooked by Returnal’s enigmatic premise. It takes a relatively small idea – making the gameplay loop an essential part of the story – and runs with it, filling every spare moment with symbolism and intrigue.
An impossible Apollo-era astronaut stalks Selene around Atropos; Selene’s house appears in the overgrowth, seemingly plucked from its place on Earth and becoming a doorway to surreal cutscenes, and all the while Selene’s visions become infected with robotic beings and eldritch tentacles.
Mystery and mythology
(Image credit: Sony)
Being a fan of games like Outer Wilds and Firewatch, Returnal’s approach to scavenging lore and building your own interpretation of the narrative really clicked with me. The game has a Nolan-esque way of revealing its story (only with much better female characters). Its twists and turns work their way through the player’s expectations like the tentacles that plague Selene’s post-mortem hallucinations, and many of the big twists are hinted at from the beginning.
The first comes halfway, when Selene finds the White Shadow escape signal, is rescued and returned to Earth, lives a normal life, passes away, and wakes up… back on Atropos. The second comes at the end of the game, when it’s revealed that, back on Earth, Selene crashed into a lake after seeing the Astronaut that follows her around Atropos on a bridge, her own ‘white shadow’. In the back seat, a young boy is trapped – Helios, abandoned.
YouTube essayists and Reddit commenters have spent the last five years analysing this game to Atropos and back – some theories suggest that the planet is a manifestation of Selene’s guilt over the crash, while others point to the ghostly astronaut as an avatar of her emotionally distant mother, Theia.
(Image credit: Sony)
Others point to Returnal’s layered Greek mythology references – Selene and Theia are named for the goddesses of the Moon and sky, with Atropos being the goddess of destiny. If you’re a lore-obsessive like me, now’s a great time to explore.
To me, Returnal is a fundamentally abstract piece of art that allows its themes to resonate with one another beyond the confines of a rigid narrative structure – at times, it feels like a sort of conceptual web, tying up ideas of motherhood, trauma, ambition, and release with no prescribed interpretation. Not bad for a shoot-em-up.
In fact, I found Returnal genuinely moving. In the second half of the game, as you fight through frozen wastelands and infinite ocean depths, Selene goes totally mad, talking only in prayer and prophecy. Actor Jane Perry does a phenomenal job of making her character seem both tragically lost and genuinely enlightened. Late-game cutscenes and lore drops put the focus on how much Selene gave up to become an astronaut, again tying this story to roguelike gameplay as Housemarque links sacrifice to pushing forward.
Housemarque released its latest game, Saros,earlier this year. Like Returnal, Saros offers Housemarque’s iconic third-person bullet hell gameplay and cryptic environmental storytelling – the difference is I won’t be waiting 5 years to play it.
Few audio brands have made as much noise on social media as Heavys. In the best headphones arena, the company made heavy music (sound)waves with its Heavys H1H headphones, a couple of years ago, and now it has attempted to translate that sound to the wireless earbuds format.
And largely, the H1E True Wireless Earbuds achieve the low-end sound and punchy prominence needed for a specialised listening experience within this music genre, although sadly, it makes them a poor choice for listening to any other kind of music.
Carrying an MSRP of $209 / £185 / AU$321, the Heavys H1E True Wireless Earbuds are far from the cheapest set of in-ears around, although we have seen them discounted to $169 in the US and down to £150 in the UK recently. They're priced to rival mid-range heavy-hitters such as the Samsung Galaxy Buds4 (and arguably even the flagship, hugely popular Apple AirPods Pro 3) rather than the truly elite end of the spectrum — think Technics EAH-AZ100 or Bowers & Wilkins Pi8.
But where those brands aim to provide a broader, more general listening experience, the H1Es are more specialist; instead of an everyday pair, these earbuds are more situational. You're spending around the $200 / £200 / AU$300 range for something that's purpose-built, for better or worse.
In the words of Gojira: Born for one thing. And listening to heavy metal music does sound solid through the Heavys H1E earbuds for the most part, with the vast majority of sub-genres within this spectrum accurately represented. What's particularly noticeable is just how good the dynamic drivers can be. The company promises a "concert-like experience," and even with what are (presumably) 10-14mm drivers (the size hasn't been publicly disclosed), under the right conditions, this has been delivered.
I can praise the Heavy's H1E earbuds' build quality too. A tactile case which can be customized with shells is neat, but the real advantage here is the multiple silicon and memory foam ear tips provided, which make them genuinely really comfortable over time. There's a wealth of sizes available, so you can find the right fit.
This helps to elevate the H1E's otherwise decidedly middling user experience though: a so-so seven hours of playback (24 hours from the case), and some of the most mediocre active noise-cancelling I've seen from earbuds at this price point.
A similar frustration can be levied at the connectivity options of the Heavys H1E earbuds. Low-latency Bluetooth 5.4 multi-connectivity is great when it works, but it doesn't always work. Countless times in my months with the earbuds, I was caught in a loop: the earbuds 'forgot' my phone, forcing me to re-pair and even to re-connect between charges as they don't seem to be intelligent enough to remember my Apple iPhone 15 Pro Max. That's to say nothing of times when only one earbud would work, with the other refusing to connect, which meant restarting the whole process over again. To be clear, this is something I've never experienced with any other earbuds or headphones.
The Heavys H1E True Wireless Earbuds are niche and not without issues, but the listening experience ultimately helps them stand out from the crowd. If you're someone who exclusively listens to heavy metal music, then they could be of value. As a metal musician myself, and someone who has seen thousands of metal bands play live over the last 15 years, I found them to be worthwhile, even if they won't rival what the best wireless earbuds and best earbuds overall can do outside of their specialism. Continue reading my full Heavys H1E review further down the page to find out why.
Heavys H1E review: Price & release date
The Heavys come in a compact case. You can customize the lid with various designs based on metal bands as well. (Image credit: Future)
Officially unveiled on September 22, 2025, via social media
Available now, shipping worldwide for $209 / £185 / AU$321
After being revealed on social media late last year, with pre-orders being fulfilled throughout early 2026, you can now get your hands on the Heavys H1E True Wireless Earbuds for $209 / £185 / AU$321, depending on your region. With that said, it isn't uncommon for these wireless earbuds to be available at a reduced rate through the deals the company runs on its store page, knocking anywhere from 10-20% off, depending on the season. Keep an eye out for the green banner around a peak sales time, and you could save some cash.
The price tag positions the Heavys H1E earbuds against the mid-range and higher-end competition. Chiefly, that means more well-known consumer models such as the aforementioned Galaxy Buds4 and the Apple AirPods Pro lineup. It also means a comparable price tag to "enthusiast" class earbuds, as can be seen from the Technics AZ100, and the Noble Audio Osprey. Both of these earbuds (and many more) hover around the $200 / £200 / AU$300 mark, so it's a fairly crowded space. For the audio performance on display, they're priced a little high. More on that further down the page, though.
Heavys H1E review: Specs
Drivers
"Dynamic" (Size not stated)
Frequency range
20 Hz - 20 kHz
Battery life
Up to seven hours (Up to 24 hours with case)
Charging time
90 minutes for earbuds; two hours for the case
Microphone
Dual-mics
Active noice canceling?
Yes. "Hellblocker" ANC paired with passive noise isolation
Software
Heavys app for adjusting EQ and updating firmware
Water resistance?
IPX5 rated water and sweat resistance
Connectivity
Bluetooth 5.4
Heavys H1E review: Design & features
The different sizes of ear tips are available in memory foam and silicon for a comfortable fit for long-term use (Image credit: Future)
"Hellblocker" ANC
Dual microphone setup
Excellent range of comfortable, changable tips for comfortable use
The Heavys H1E True Wireless Earbuds excel from a design perspective. They're made of a matte molded plastic which feels both premium and incredibly durable; there's IPX5 water and sweat resistance, meaning they can handle a splash of liquid as well. What impresses me most are the multi-sized ear tips that are shipped in the box, as you get a variety of sizes in different materials: memory foam and silicon, for a comfortable fit to suit most (if not all) ear sizes.
I'm someone who struggles with earbuds for long stretches of time, having previously ditched the likes of the Razer Hammerheads because they were too uncomfortable for long periods of use. Having multiple ear tips in various sizes meant I could find the fit that was right for me; whether I was out walking my Belgian Malinois, on a plane, commuting via train, or just working in the house. Once I found the right fit for me, I was away. Hours would go by, and I'd forget I was even wearing them; that's good ergonomic design right there.
A key design element present in the H1H headphones has been applied to the H1E earbuds too. However, instead of interchangeable ear cup shells, decorated to represent your favorite bands, the customization options apply to the case. There's a fair amount of official designs available, including Currents, Testament, Carnifex, Dream Theater, Opeth, and Whitelabel. Additionally, there are some original designs, including profanity-laden options or purple smoke to add a splash of color and personality. The case itself charges via USB-C and takes around two hours to juice up to full, giving you around 24 hours of total use, or around three full recharges of the earbuds' playback time. It's OK rather than great, as those numbers go.
Also so-so in the world of wireless earbuds in 2026 is Heavys' claim of up to seven hours of playback from the H1E earbuds, although your mileage may vary depending on your reliance on that "Hellblocker" ANC, as well as how you dial your EQ settings.
I've used dozens of wireless earbuds and headphones that feature great ANC over the years, and Heavys' Hellblocker solution just isn't it. The feature was also present on the H1H headphones with a dedicated switch to enable it, and worked well enough thanks (almost certainly) to the far larger drivers and mic array on the large ear cups. However, given the small size of the H1E earbuds, any real noise cancellation is pretty poor.
I tend to go out and walk my dog with the H1Es in, and even after hearing the gruff man on voice prompts announce "Hellblocker activated", I was still hearing other dogs barking, passing cars, wind noise, and all other background noise that should have been filtered out. All it really did was make the audio quality a little more muffled.
A good companion application can really elevate a pair of wireless earphones, giving you smart and reactive EQ options, helping you get the best listening experience possible. We've seen this before with Bowers & Wilkins' excellent Music App, to support its lineup of earbuds.
Unfortunately, the official Heavys app is nowhere near as good. Aside from updating the firmware, all it gives you is a basic EQ settings slider, and you're better off leaving it at the default, as it's hard to gear it towards one genre or another. My partner also experienced issues with having the H1Es connect to her Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra via the app, as it wasn't as user-intuitive as you would hope for from earbuds released in 2026.
Design & Features score: 3.5 / 5
Heavys H1E review: Sound quality
(Image credit: Future)
Prominent bass and good overall low-end presence
Depending on the mixing, you get decent mids
'Hellblocker' ANC changes the listening experience for the worse
The Heavys H1E True Wireless Earbuds are good for metal music most of the time. It's situational and circumstantial, though. As touched upon above, they can sound incredible for metal music, with the major caveat being the trappings of the genre itself. Metal is the most diverse genre of music on the planet, separated into dozens of sub-genres with niches within them. For example, if we look at black metal, you have your classic first and second waves (Venom and Celtic Frost to Mayhem and Emperor) to the likes of atmospheric black, black/death, symphonic black, melodic black, black 'n roll, blackgaze, and the list goes on.
There's no true way to be geared towards all metal music, just as you can't fine-tune an EQ between bands within the same sub-genre of a sub-genre. It can get as granular as different audio balancing for the likes of Archgoat, Belphegor, Behexen, and Behemoth, and that's just scratching the surface. In blanket terms, the Heavy H1E earbuds excel with anything forcing the low-end, particularly with sub-genres such as death metal, grindcore, deathcore, and anything that benefits most from a down-tuned guitar, five-string bass, and percussion cutting through the mix.
In my months with the Heavys H1Es, I've listened to hundreds of metal records, and the best listening experiences I can recall most come from streaming Vomitory, Batushka, Blood Red Throne, Korpse, Vulvodynia, Death, Conan, Kanonenfieber, Mgła, and Imperial Triumphant. The drivers are incredibly punchy, differentiating harsh vocals against bass and lower-tuned guitars, or guitars tuned to E standard that are soaked in distortion; there's good distinction, with no muddiness or fizziness that we see when heavier music genres are played from more general earbuds.
Other metal sub-genres don't really benefit from the low-end tuning of the audio drivers though. I'm nearly 30, and nowadays just as likely to put on some Black Sabbath, Clutch, or Green Lung as anything recorded from the frostbitten valleys of Scandinavia, and it's when listening to clean-sung vocals, or any metal music with more traditional production that the H1Es feel just... okay. Solstafir, Zeal & Ardor, Katatonia, Candlemass, Sleep, Metallica, Slayer, and Acid Bath sounded fine, but the listening experience was about on par with just about any (cheaper) wireless earbuds I've used over the last 10 years.
I really would recommend listening to music without the Hellblocker ANC active, as enabling it via touch controls can drastically impact the overall listening quality. Depending on the mix, things can go from a little muffled to quite tinny. It's not a unique complaint against the H1E earbuds, as ANC can do that, but it's particularly disappointing when the passive noise isolation doesn't filter the outside world out, and you end up having worse-sounding music when trying to fix it. It's not sophisticated enough to do its job, and it really just annoyed me rather than being all too useful.
Sound quality score: 3.5 / 5
Heavys H1E review: Value
Expensive for what they are
Poor overall ANC when compared to the competition
Stellar situationally, for certain genres of metal music
I've been critical of the Heavys H1E True Wireless Earbuds in this review. Considering the fact that I enjoy using the H1H over-ear headphones so much, I was expecting more of that sound quality and feature set to be carried over, but it hasn't translated as smoothly as I expected.
For the asking price of $209 / £185 / AU$321, there's no getting around the fact that you can get a far superior listening experience from a competitor. USP aside, unless you're really into death metal (or its offshoots), the cons may outweigh the pros here.
The Heavys H1Es are well-designed and comfortable for extended periods of time, and the case is well-made and holds a respectable charge, allowing for 24 hours of total use.
However, the ANC is poor, the Bluetooth connectivity can be spotty, the companion app is mediocre, and they're priced a little too high for what is (essentially) a marketing ploy. Under the right set of circumstances, these earbuds can be exceptional, but with a higher mid-market asking price and stiff competition, they're a hard sell in 2026.
Value score: 3 / 5
Should I buy the Heavys H1E True Wireless Earbuds?
Section
Notes
Score
Design & features
The H1Es are well-built with a sturdy case and have a respectable battery life. Sadly, the ANC is poor and the companion app is lacking
3.5/5
Sound quality
Some metal music sounds incredible coming through the dynamic drivers of the H1Es, with lower-tuned sub-genres, like death metal, metalcore, and deathcore singing. However, that extra weight and low-end prominence can result in a decidedly average sound for everything else
3.5/5
Value
The Heavy H1E True Wireless Earbuds aren't hugely expensive, but they're not a great value buy either when compared to their similarly priced competition from Apple, Google, and Samsung
3/5
Buy them if...
You love metal music above everything else With the right bands and albums on, the Heavy H1Es deliver an exceptional listening experience, particularly if you're into the proper heavy death metal sub-genres.
You sometimes struggle to get buds to fit properly The different ear tips included (in different, premium materials) with the Heavy H1Es give you plenty of choice for the most comfortable fit during long wear sessions. They also happen to be durable and lightweight in your ear.
You're fine with middling battery life from your buds So they're not the longest-lasting earbuds on the market; does it bother you? The Heavy H1Es can go for up to seven hours on a single charge, and the case can juice them up three times between charges. The case itself only needs two hours to be able to go again as well. And given the punchy audio, it's not a bad claim.
Don't buy them if...
You want top-tier value for money At $209 / £185 / AU$321, the Heavys H1E are far from the cheapest wireless earbuds available, comparable to flagship options from Google, Samsung and Apple but without really offering the versatility of their competitors.
You don't listen to *heavy* music The Heavys H1Es are best when listening to down-tuned guitars, guttural vocals and percussion that's raised high in the mix, such as you'll find in death metal, deathcore, grindcore, and similar sub-genres. If you're into the softer sub-genres, or rock and roll, these are unlikely to do much for you.
Good ANC is a must Hellblocker ANC technically works but it messes with the audio balancing of certain songs and doesn't do a great job of actually blocking out the outside noise. The trade-off in audio quality isn't worth it.
Heavys H1E review: Also consider
Bowers & wilkins Pi8
Cambridge Audio Melomania M100
Bose QuietComfort Ultra Earbuds (2nd Gen)
Price
$399 / £349 / AU$599
$219 / £169 / AU$299
$299 / £299 / AU$449
Drivers
12mm carbon cone
10mm driver, recycled Neodymium magnets
9.3mm
Active noise cancellation
Yes
Yes
Yes
Quoted battery life
6.5 hours (buds); 20 hours (case)
10 hours (buds) 33 hours total (with case) with ANC on
6 hours (buds) 24 hours total (with case)
Weight
7g per earbud
6.65g per earbud
7.7g per earbud
Connectivity
Bluetooth 5.4 with aptX, aptX Adaptive, aptX Lossless; USB-C with two cables in the box for case retransmission
Bluetooth 5.3, aptX Lossless, aptX Adaptive, AAC, SBC (USB-C and wireless charging)
Bluetooth 5.3, USB-C, aptX Adaptive, Snapdragon Sound
Frequency range
Not stated
Not stated
Not stated
Waterproofing
Yes, IP54
Yes, IPX4
Yes, IPX4
Other features
Triple core processor architecture; class A/B amplification; three mics per earbud with noise suppression for calls
High performance audio mode
The Technics EAH-AZ100 are a little more expensive than the Heavys H1E True Wireless Earbuds, but wow do they deliver best-in-class ANC, with a balanced feel, and great ergonomics, making them hard to beat. Read our full Technics EAH-AZ100 review for more
Meanwhile, these guys are cheaper! Cambridge Audio Melomania A100 earbuds punch well above their weight with a pleasing overall sound and strong noise canceling, all for a price that's hard to beat. Read our full Cambridge Audio Melomania A100 review
How I tested the Heavys H1E True Wireless Earbuds
Tested for a period of three months while comparing them to other wireless earbuds, headphones, and gaming headsets around my office.
Primarily used when outside walking my dog, commuting via plane or train, and running errands.
Throughout my listening experience, I mostly used Apple Music's Loseless tracks, Spotify, Bandcamp, and YouTube Music depending on the artist's availability.
I've been using the Heavys H1E True Wireless Earbuds over the last few months when I've been out and about, heading somewhere for work, walking the dog, or doing chores. They've lived in the case in the pocket of my jacket or my shoulder bag, and were actively used during commuting. For testing purposes, I did actively switch between them and the Heavys H1H over-ear headphones to compare sound quality and features.
Most of my time using the Heavys H1Es was spent with the earbuds connected to my iPhone 15 Pro Max. Although I did try them out on several occasions with my partner's Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra, as well as my MacBook Air M1 (2020), to gauge how well the Bluetooth connection would be.
I am a metal musician (guitarist and vocalist) who has been recording and playing music for over 10 years. I have mixed and mastered many different metal albums, and have seen literally thousands of metal bands play live over the years at gigs and metal festivals, such as Damnation, Incineration, Bloodstock, Snuff Fest, Download, Brutal Assault, and countless others.
153 million US driving licences have been leaked on a Russian cybercrime platform
Among those apaprently discovered in the stolen data is US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth
The FBI is now investigating the leak, which has been traced to an identity verification company
A data leak of 153 million US drivers licenses is said to have been shared on a Russian cybercrime forum, with US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth among those leaked prompting an FBI investigation.
Security researcher Brian Krebs identified the leak – which included his own data – as originating from a hack of an identity verification service. Louisiana-based IDScan provided ID verification for various well-known companies, including FedEx and Hertz car hire.
The data was shared on a Russian forum called Exploit, a long-established online community of cybercriminals. Following news of the leak, the identity theft service “Nexus” has apparently scrubbed its existence from the Dark Web.
Driving licenses and more
It wasn’t just US driving licenses that were found in the archive of recently-collected personal data. Krebs’ investigation found that Nexus claimed other types of data, and found a further 1.1 million driving licenses from Canada.
Other identity documentation alleged to be in the leak include 10 million identification cards, three million travel documents and international IDs, and 579,000 medical cards. The data was available to browse, notes Krebs, with Nexus providing details: “Records are available to preview before purchase with pertinent information redacted. Customer photos are displayed if available.”
The leak has a personal dimension for Krebs. Not only was his driving license in the collection, so was that of his mother. It has proved to be a useful coincidence, one that has enabled the security and privacy researcher to establish how the data was sourced by Nexus.
Both licenses were used for a car hire, which Krebs traced to Hertz. Others affected by the leak had also used the service, which has used New Orleans-based IDscan for identity verification.
The company, which claims to perform 21 million verifications a month, is yet to issue a statement on the matter. Its marketing and operations leader, Jillian Kossman, told the journalist: “At this point I’m not able to share any additional information, but the updates you have provided have been welcome, and helpful to our team’s investigation.”
Where is the data?
Krebs reports that he was alerted to the data on August 31, 2026, little over a week ago. Regular checking noted that the data was still being added to, increasing by “nearly 400,000” records prior to publishing his investigation on September 1.
Since then, however, it seems that Nexus has vanished, along with the data. But how widely was the data downloaded before that happened? While the FBI investigates, it falls on the American and Canadian public to be extra vigilant and wary of identity fraud.
When Steve Jobs launched the iPhone in 2007 he famously posed the rhetorical question “Who wants a stylus?”. His argument was that you already have the best stylus you’d ever need with you at all times — your fingers.
Touchscreen displays have gone on to dominate smartphone and tablet design, and have proved far superior to the stylus as a way of navigating a software interface; but the humble stylus has always had its advocates, and it has never really gone away.
Some Samsung devices in particular can be used with a stylus — the S Pen. And, of course, Apple eventually capitulated and introduced the Apple Pencil for the iPad Pro, turning the tablet into a digital drawing pad for illustrators, artists and anyone who simply likes to sketch out ideas.
Perhaps I should clarify that Apple's first successful stylus was the Apple Pencil (2nd edition), rather than the original Apple Pencil. The original Apple Pencil had a terrible design that meant you had to remove a tiny, easily lost cap to charge it, and worse, the Pencil’s Lightning connector plugged directly into the iPad. That left the Pencil sticking precariously out of the tablet, so it was easy to knock, and seemingly designed to snap either the connector or the iPad’s port at some point. It also had no built-in way to attach securely to the iPad for storage.
Sketching on an iPad Pro using an Apple Pencil 2. (Image credit: Apple)
In terms of Apple’s design failures, the original Apple Pencil is right up there with the Apple Magic Mouse, which has the charging port placement underneath, so it can’t be charged and used at the same time. Amazingly, that’s still the current design of the Magic Mouse, but Apple quickly did something about the Apple Pencil.
The Apple Pencil was fixed with the second-generation, which was released alongside a redesigned iPad Pro in 2018. Instead of plugging directly into the iPad’s Lightning port (such a bad idea) it attached magnetically to the iPad’s side, where it effortlessly paired, charged wirelessly and stayed stored. That eliminated both the precarious protruding connector and the removable cap.
So would Steve Jobs really be turning in his grave right now to know that Apple’s new phone works with its stylus? I’m not so sure.
I went back and watched the original iPhone keynote from 2007. Talking about styluses Jobs said, “Yuck! Who wants a stylus? You have to get ‘em, put ‘em away and you lose them. Nobody wants a stylus! [...] We’re going to use the best pointing device in the world. We’re going to use a pointing device that we’re all born with. We’re born with ten of them, we’re going to use our fingers. We’re going to touch this with our fingers.”
Looking back, we can forgive him some of the hyperbole about the stylus at the launch of the iPhone because he was introducing what, for many people watching, was previously unthinkable — a way of using a screen-based smartphone that relied on just your fingers, and he had a battle to win people over and a point to make. In the broadest sense, he was right — touchscreen displays have proved far superior to the stylus as a way of navigating an interface; but the stylus has never really gone away.
The iPhone Duo’s secret weapon
Of course, back in Apple’s history there was another device that had a stylus, the Apple Newton MessagePad. It launched in 1993, came with a plastic stylus for writing, tapping and using its much-mocked handwriting recognition software. Jobs killed off the Newton in 1998, shortly after his return to Apple.
An Apple Newton MessagePad 2000
Apple generally called the Newton’s stylus a pen, rather than giving it a standalone product name. So the Apple Pencil wasn’t Apple’s first stylus. It was the company’s return to pen input after Steve Jobs had famously ridiculed styluses when introducing the iPhone.
The Apple Pencil was introduced four years after Jobs’ death in 2015, but I think he would have approved. People genuinely seem to love the Apple Pencil, despite it still having some flaws (there’s no eraser on the other end, for example) and it could even be the secret weapon in Apple’s new iPhone Duo’s success.
The fact that you can use the Apple Pencil with the new iPhone Duo immediately locks Apple’s new foldable phone tightly into Apple's ecosystem of connected devices. The Apple Pencil is expensive, but a lot of iPhone Duo buyers will already own an Apple Pencil, because Apple households tend to have quite a number of Apple devices already in them. (It would be wise to check which version of the Apple Pencil you own though, since the Apple press release only says the "iPhone Duo will support Apple Pencil with USB-C).
And that’s what could make Apple Pencil support much more than another feature on the spec sheet. The iPhone Duo’s folding screen gives people a larger canvas, but the Pencil gives them a reason to use it — for drawing, handwriting, annotating documents and editing photos with precision. Jobs’s real objection was to a stylus you needed simply to operate a phone; on the iPhone Duo, your fingers would still handle that perfectly well, and the Pencil would step in when it was genuinely the better tool. Far from turning in his grave, I suspect Jobs might have appreciated the distinction.
It’s been a hot minute since ChatGPT last updated its Images feature. Its last update, to Images 2.0 in April 2026, was pretty solid and I’d say put it ahead of Google’s Nano Banana 2, even if its images still took longer to create, which was a bit frustrating.
Today's new Images 2.5 update adds a whole bunch of extra features and tools to the existing image generation engine that make it a lot easier to use, and it's quicker too.
In fact, there are so many features now in Images that to say it’s overcrowded would be an understatement. Because of that, it can be a little hard to locate the best new features amongst everything else, so I’ve pulled out the ones you should definitely look out for, because they make a real difference.
1. Much improved editing tools
(Image credit: OpenAI)
I’ve pulled these features out first because, despite not sounding that exciting, the improved editing tools are actually a real game-changer for how I use ChatGPT Images, and probably will be for you, too.
OpenAI appears to have quietly been rolling out its new image-editing toolbar in ChatGPT during August, although the company hasn’t formally announced it, so it might not be totally accurate to call them part of the new ChatGPT Images 2.5, but I’m including them because they are, effectively, new.
At the moment, we’re used to generating an image, then when it’s not exactly what we want, we type in another description using the prompting tool, like ‘make it brighter’ or ‘remove the people in the background’, and try again. After ChatGPT hasn't got quite right a number of times, I usually give up and start again.
Now I don’t need to. The new editing tools let you pinpoint the exact spot in the image you’d like to change, and tell ChatGPT exactly what you’d like to do with it.
The new Edit toolbar contains Markup, Comment, Remove BG, Erase and Resize.
In the web version of ChatGPT, just click on the new Edit button that appears over a generated image and you'll enter the Edit mode, where you’ll see this new toolbar. In the app version of ChatGPT, just tap on any image to enter Edit mode.
Let’s start with the most obvious tool: Remove BG. This keeps the foreground elements of your image and removes the background, making a transparent PNG file when you download it. It’s perfect for dropping your image into another document, such as a presentation you’re making.
Resize is a quick way of changing the aspect ratio of the image and contains all the usual suspects, including Portrait 3:4, Widescreen 16:9 and Landscape 4:3.
Erase makes it easy to remove elements from your image. To remove a person from the background, for example, just brush over them with the Erase brush and ChatGPT removes them entirely. You don’t need to be super-accurate with your brush — just cover enough of the object so that it’s obvious what you want to remove.
Markup is for adding markup elements to an image, but the Comments feature is where it gets really interesting. Instead of doing what you’d expect — just adding comments to an image — these are actually points for ChatGPT to act on. Click on any element of an image and add a comment like ‘remove this’ or ‘change this to blue’, and ChatGPT will follow your instructions when you tap the Send button. This makes editing images so much easier.
The final feature worth noting with the Edit mode is that you can easily roll back to every previous version of your image — each edit is saved as a separate file, so just scroll up or down in Edit mode to access previous versions of your image.
2. Sketching out an image first
Scroll down to see what my sign sketch on the right turned into… (Image credit: OpenAI)
The new Sketch tool enables you to sketch out an image, then ChatGPT transforms your rough sketch into a proper AI-generated image. It's useful when it would be quicker to draw your idea out than describe it.
Choose Images from the main menu and then Sketch at the top of the available options.
The Sketch tool does look a little bit like MS Paint from 1995, but it’s good enough for doing a quick sketch with your finger, or mouse. Once you’ve done that click or tap the blue tick button and ChatGPT loads in a prompt telling it to convert the sketch into a full image. You can add any details you want here.
Of course, once you’ve got your finished image you can still enter Edit mode to tweak it further.
Here's the finished image (Image credit: OpenAI)
3. Templates have finally arrived
(Image credit: OpenAI)
The new Templates make it a lot easier to create the sort of things people actually want to do with ChatGPT Images, such as make posters, logos, icons, stylish product shots and much more. Each different task now has its own template, which you can work through with ChatGPT.
Each template starts with a basic prompt, then it asks a series of follow up questions so that it can find out exactly what you want.
For example, choose the Product photo template and it asks you to upload a photo of the product you want to feature, then when you’ve done that it asks for a style, asking you to choose between styles like Clean Studio, Editorial, Lifestyle and Dramatic, amongst other choices. Then it gives you a choice of a setting, like Dark Studio, then finally it starts to create your image.
If you’re going to ChatGPT to create something specific then the new Templates are going to be a great place to start.
And there's more!
That’s not all that’s changed in the new ChatGPT Images 2.5. The images it creates are more personalized, so you get better results when working with recognizable people and portraits. It’s better at infographics than before, and it’s now faster than ever, which is great because I did find it a bit on the slow side previously.
Finally, when you tap to share an image, you now also have the option of sharing the prompt that created the image, too, so people can make their own versions of whatever image you created more easily.
All in all these improvements are welcome, if not groundbreaking. I can see why they didn’t call this Images 3.0. It’s essentially a much improved version of the previous Images, but it’s certainly going to change the way I use ChatGPT images from now on.
