Bill Bennett: Reporter's Notebook

Originally published on 12 Jul 2020.

For the second year in a row, Apple held a developers conference that should frighten its competitors. Relying on a nearly maniacal obsession with the user experience, Apple is removing oxygen from every market that it plays in._

At the same time, the tech landscape is riddled with increasingly bad bets, indifference, and a lack of vision. Apple is pulling away from the competition to a degree that we haven’t ever seen before._ Source: Above Avalon: Apple Is Pulling Away From the Competition

Above Avalon analyst Neil Cybart says Apple is stealing a march on other technology companies. He says the company has made long-term decisions that mean its rivals will struggle to catch up.

The story needs to be read through a careful filter. Cybart writes about the company both from an investment point of view and from a Silicon Valley perspective.

This doesn’t necessarily make his analysis biased or wrong, it isn’t, but it can lack broader context.

Coherence

Cybart’s main idea is that Apple has pulled now all its strands together. The range of products and services has a new coherence and a clear direction.

This, according to Cybart, comes at a time when rivals are weakening. Together these two trends have set up conditions that will move the company even further ahead of rivals over the next decade. He makes a good case. Yet there are flaws in this line of thinking. Maybe flaw is too strong. Let’s say questions.

Samsung lack of vision

In the middle of the web post Cybart lists the ways Apple is beating key rival technology companies. He, rightly, notes that Samsung “remains rudderless from a product vision perspective.”

While that’s true, Samsung is a major component supplier to Apple and other hardware companies. If you look closely at Samsung’s financials, it’s clear the areas that compete with Apple are not central to Samsung’s profits. The areas where the two companies co-operate are more important to Samsung.

Cybart correctly dismisses Google and Amazon as direct rivals. In the greater scheme of things their hardware products are inconsequential. Yet both remain on growth trajectories that could yet pose a threat to Apple.

Microsoft hardware

Microsoft’s hardware move has failed to alter the balance of power between Macs or iPads and Windows hardware. Cybart is right on the money when he says Surface mainly takes business away from Microsoft’s Windows partners.

Yet like Amazon and, to a lesser degree Google, Microsoft is powering ahead with cloud computing. These companies are building a significant digital world where Apple doesn’t play.

This is not a criticism of Cybart’s story. He is on the money as far as personal computer hardware and its immediate successor technologies are concerned. Apple does look set to dominate.

Beyond this there are parallel markets where Apple is, at best a bit player. These markets interact with Apple’s market. In the future they may interact in ways that are not yet clear.

Shorn of context, Apple is powering ahead. But let’s not forget Amazon and Microsoft are also powering ahead. Technology is not a simple zero-sum game.

Here are my notes from today’s appearance on RNZ Nine to Noon show.

Listen online here: www.rnz.co.nz/national/…

Joint venture between One NZ and 2degrees

One NZ and 2degrees want to set up a joint venture that would combine their mobile radio networks while allowing them to continue competing as separate companies.

The Commerce Commission is investigating what this could mean for competition.

The joint venture, RanCo, would own and operate the companies’ active radio access network equipment. This includes the antennas and base stations.

One NZ and 2degrees would each buy network services from the new business but retain control of their own spectrum rights, core networks, fibre backhaul, satellite services and retail operations. They would continue competing on price, products, service and innovation. The proposal is subject to regulatory approval, with completion planned for the first half of 2027.

The key question is whether the companies can remain effective competitors when they no longer operate independent radio access networks. Not everyone thinks they can.

The companies argue that they will retain the assets and business decisions needed to differentiate themselves. Opponents question whether that separation will be sufficient, particularly when it comes to network investment, quality and the incentives to compete.

I’ve looked at the submissions to the Commission. Some warn that we risk ending up with the same problems as the supermarket sector: two dominant players, high prices and little room for new entrants.

Others fear the joint venture could be a first step towards a full merger between the two companies. Another submission argues that the deal would help 2degrees compete more effectively.

The arrangement also raises questions about how much each company will learn about the other’s network. Sharing infrastructure and its operation could give them access to commercially sensitive information about capacity, costs and investment plans. That could affect how effectively they compete, even if they remain separate businesses.

Reverse engineer anything

AI is making it much easier to take apart existing software, reproduce its features and modify devices that manufacturers have locked down or abandoned.

What was once a specialist activity requiring considerable technical knowledge is becoming a hobby. A project called Reverse Engineer Anything on GitHub, promises to let AI agents examine software without access to its source code, explain how features work and build copies.

People are using AI to strip advertising and unwanted software from smart TVs, simplify their menus and revive gadgets manufacturers have bricked or stopped supporting. One guitar-pedal maker claimed to have reproduced the effects algorithms of three competitors in 72 hours, potentially allowing him to sell copies of their products.

There are clear benefits. Consumers can regain control of the devices they have paid for, restore abandoned functionality and escape software clutter. But the same tools make it easier to copy other people’s work without permission, raising questions about intellectual property and the viability of businesses that depend on proprietary software.

There are also technical risks. AI-generated copies often contain bugs or reproduce only part of the original functionality. People using them may lack the expertise to identify and fix problems. Poorly written, insecure code could end up running on internet-connected devices, creating opportunities for hackers to introduce malware.

The biggest commercial threat may be to smaller software and hardware companies. Competitors could reproduce products that took months or years to develop, then undercut their creators. The result could be a flood of cheap, unreliable copies alongside genuinely useful modifications that give consumers more control over their devices.

AI not delivering promised payoffs for businesses

A prominent US investment analyst says artificial intelligence has yet to deliver measurable financial benefits for most companies outside the technology sector.

Torsten Slok, chief economist at Apollo Global Management, says revenue per employee and profit margins are rising among the seven largest US technology companies but remain flat across the other 493 companies in the S&P 500 index. He also sees no clear evidence of an AI-driven lift in productivity growth.

The argument echoes a debate dating back to the 1980s. Economist Robert Solow famously observed in 1987 that computers were everywhere except in the productivity statistics.

Despite decades of investment in information technology, productivity growth remained sluggish. The picture changed in the late 1990s, when computers, cheaper processing power and better business systems helped lift US productivity.

However, the expected economy-wide gains from subsequent waves of digital technology have proved less impressive. The OECD says digitalisation has improved productivity, but the gains have not been large enough to offset broader economic headwinds.

New Zealand faces its own productivity challenge. Almost all local businesses use digital tools, while MBIE’s 2026 research found that half believe they would benefit from using them more effectively. The question is whether AI will deliver measurable improvements in revenue, costs and output rather than simply add another item to technology budgets.

Slok argues that AI’s commercial value depends on whether ordinary businesses can turn increasingly cheap computing intelligence into higher revenue and profit. That requires judgement, organisational change and accountability, not just access to powerful models. The technology may be impressive, but the business case still needs to be proved.

Slok’s claim that AI has delivered “zero financial payoff” is based on the evidence of mainstream US companies, He isn’t saying that there has been. no businesses benefit.

New Zealand research commissioned by 2degrees has reported higher revenue among businesses adopting AI, although that association alone does not prove AI caused the difference.

Meta faces record fine for data privacy lies

A New Mexico judge has ordered Meta, the company behind Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, to pay US$25 billion after a jury found it misled users about how Facebook handled their personal data. The case followed the Cambridge Analytica scandal, in which a political consultancy obtained information from about 87 million Facebook profiles for political targeting. The judge found that misleading statements continued from 2010 to 2021 and involved senior executives, including Mark Zuckerberg.

The penalty was calculated at US$219 billion under state law before the judge reduced it to US$25 billion. Meta says it will appeal. The judgment follows a US$5 billion Federal Trade Commission settlement in 2019 and separate US litigation over child safety, including a New Mexico judgment of about US$942 million.

The case illustrates the growing legal risks facing technology companies whose business models depend on collecting and using personal data. Meta and other large technology companies have also become increasingly active in US politics, lobbying for less regulation and legal liability. Critics argue that their political spending is partly intended to limit the laws and enforcement measures that hold them accountable. The New Mexico judgment is not final until Meta pursues its appeal.

AI is not delivering promised payoffs for businesses

This is something I have been wondering about for some time.

A prominent US investment analyst writes:

Despite massive investments and widespread hype around artificial intelligence, the technology has delivered zero financial payoff to corporate America outside of tech.

www.apollo.com/wealth/in…

We’ve been here before with earlier digital technologies.

In 1987 Nobel prize winning economist Robert Solow said:

We see computers everywhere except in the productivity statistics.

Computers had been commercially available since the 1950s, and personal computers became widespread in the 1980s. Nevertheless, the anticipated productivity gains were slow to appear.

Now there was some evidence of a pay off a decade later in the 1990s, but not before or after. It’s not entirely clear that was from IT, it could have been some other economic effect.

HP’s OmniBook Ultra 14 is an impressive ultraportable, with a powerful processor and an excellent OLED display. It is also expensive. While the high price makes it difficult to recommend without reservations, it has a lot going for it.

OmniBook Ultra is HP’s flagship premium consumer laptop brand. Ultra models are the successors to HP’s Spectre line. HP says OmniBook Ultra laptops combine a focus on on-device AI acceleration, high-end craftsmanship and elite performance for professionals and creators. That squares with the OmniBook Ultra 14 review experience.

The exact laptop tested is the HP OmniBook Ultra 14-inch Next Gen AI Laptop, model 14-kd0002TU. HP says this exact model is not currently available in New Zealand.

HP’s Australian website lists it at A$3500, discounted from A$5000. Converted to New Zealand dollars at an exchange rate of 1.24 and adjusted for GST, the sale price is about NZ$4500, compared with about NZ$6500 at the original list price.

The company’s New Zealand website lists a different model, the 14-kd0064TU, for around NZ$7000. While the two laptops have similar specifications, they differ in some respects, including their operating systems and memory specifications.

HP says the New Zealand model runs Windows 11 Pro, while the review unit runs Windows 11 Home.

Omnibook lineage

It’s clear the HP OmniBook Ultra 14 comes from the same stable as the OmniBook 7, reviewed here in May 2026. The basic Windows laptop formula remains. However, this time HP has opted for a considerably more powerful processor: the Intel Core Ultra 9 386H.

That’s important because while the OmniBook 7 hit most of the right notes, it was underpowered for a premium laptop. The OmniBook Ultra 14 feels more like the real deal. Mind you, that feeling comes at a hefty price. Prices for the OmniBook 7 started at NZ$2100. The OmniBook Ultra 14 costs NZ$7000.

The earlier OmniBook 7 review made comparisons with Apple’s M4 MacBook Air. In some respects that model remains a valid comparison, but in terms of price the OmniBook Ultra 14 is closer, but still more expensive than a MacBook Pro with the M5 Pro chip. Prices for the M5 Macbook Pro start at NZ$3900.

Apple’s MacBooks with Apple Silicon set a high standard for performance and power efficiency. However, most people buying a Windows laptop are not considering a switch to macOS. Within the Windows market, the OmniBook Ultra 14 is a powerful machine.

One disappointment is the lack of a discrete graphics processor. At this price, buyers might reasonably expect more graphics capability, particularly for demanding creative work or gaming.

Battery life

Battery life is good, although not exceptional for a 2026 laptop. The OmniBook Ultra 14 can run for well over 12 hours without needing a charge. A review work session lasted for 16 hours. That’s a respectable result.

The 14-inch OLED display has a resolution of 2880 × 1800 pixels and a 120Hz refresh rate. That compares favourably with the MacBook Air’s 2560 × 1664 Liquid Retina display, which has a 60Hz refresh rate. The HP’s screen is excellent, although the higher refresh rate makes little difference to most everyday work.

My ageing eyes appreciate the brightness of the HP screen. The OmniBook Ultra 14 peaks at 1,100 nits. Blacks are blacker on the OmniBook and the colour accuracy on photographs is outstanding.

The 120Hz refresh rate is most noticeable in applications involving a lot of movement or interaction. That may include games, but was not tested as the review stuck to looking at business uses. High refresh also makes high-quality video look smoother.

HP’s OmniBook Ultra keyboard is one of the best seen on any Windows laptop. That’s despite the laptop being very thin. It is a strong point for anyone who spends much of their day typing.

At about 1.27kg, the OmniBook Ultra 14 is light enough to carry easily. The pre-installed software is a disappointment, especially given the laptop’s price. A premium laptop should not make users spend time clearing away applications they don’t want. Bloatware cheapens the experience.

Verdict: HP OmniBook Ultra 14

The OmniBook Ultra 14 is fast, light and fitted with a superb display and one of the best keyboards on a Windows machine. Battery life is solid rather than class-leading. The missing discrete graphics and the bloatware are hard to forgive at this price.

At the Australian sale price it would be an easy laptop to like. At around NZ$7000, which is more than a MacBook Pro with the M5 Pro chip, it is a luxury. The OmniBook Ultra is worth considering if you want the best Windows ultraportable available and money isn’t a concern. Everyone else will find better value elsewhere.

Motorola describes Signature as an “ultra-thin, lightweight flagship phone offering top-tier performance and premium design features at a competitive value”.

While the words are pure marketing, they are not far off the mark. This leaves the question: Is the Signature good enough to justify being considered alongside the best premium phones?

Premium phone

Premium phone handsets have become remarkably good. There are few phones with serious flaws at the top of the market. They all have excellent cameras. They all offer far more features and functions that any of us will ever use. There’s no question the hardware works well.

It’s a segment that is dominated by Apple and Samsung. To compete against those two brands, the Signature needs either to offer something exceptional, or to get close enough to the established leaders while undercutting them on price.

Motorola is trying to do both: the thinness is its standout feature, while the NZ$1700 price puts it well below comparable premium phones.

Any differences between 2026 premium phones are increasingly about trade-offs, refinements, consistency and familiarity. Although the premium phone bar is high, there’s no question that Motorola’s Signature clears it.

That’s not the question this review needs to answer. The real issue is whether Motorola has made the right compromises to deliver that combination of thinness and price.

Motorola’s promotional material uses the term “ultra-thin”. That’s hyperbole. It is merely a little thinner than other phones. That’s still an engineering and design achievement.

It’s also the defining characteristic of the Signature. The question is what does that thinness bring to the party and how much are you prepared to trade off other phone characteristics to get that thinness.

Thinness

Motorola’s specification says the Signature is 6.99 mm thick and weighs 186 g. That’s remarkably precise. You might notice the difference between something that is 7 mm and 8 mm thick, but worrying about the second digit after the decimal point is ridiculous unless you are measuring with callipers.

For comparison, my iPhone 16 Plus is 7.8 mm thick and weighs 199g. The difference in thinness is only detectable when the two are next to each other. Out in the wild the Motorola doesn’t feel any thinner or lighter: It just feels normal. I don’t have a Galaxy S26+ to compare, but its dimensions are 7.3 mm and 190 g, which means any difference is less pronounced.

Against the iPhone 16 Plus, the Signature is:

• 0.81 mm thinner
• 13 g lighter
• about 10 percent thinner
• about 6.5 percent lighter

That 13 g does not amount to much when you’re dealing with a roughly 190 g phone.

Camera bump

The 6.99 mm thickness applies to the phone body. That’s not the maximum thickness of the device. A camera bump covering roughly 20 percent of the phone’s rear adds considerably to that.

Not having callipers to hand, I measured with a ruler to find the phone is around 10 mm thick where there are lenses. While it’s still thinner than the iPhone 16 Plus and its camera bump, that’s a lot thicker than 6.99 mm.

In other words, extraordinarily thin is more impressive on paper than in the hand. A few years ago 6.99 mm would have turned heads. Today it is just a statistic.

Trade-off

Having established the thinness is less of a plus point than it might seem, what about the flip side of the equation? Are there trade-offs when compared with other premium phones?

The potentially most serious trade-offs are how the phone’s thinness affects the experience.

There are two areas of concern. First, the slim case may not have enough surface area to adequately dissipate heat from the Snapdragon 8 Gen 5 processor under extreme conditions. I tested this using the 3DMark app and found the stability percent dropped to 67.6 percent, which means considerable thermal throttling. The phone lost a third of its graphical rendering capability.

During the test, the temperature climbed from 30C to 45C and the back of the phone became very hot. The battery drained about 11 percent in 20 minutes.

In practice, the Motorola Signature trades some performance for its slimness. This isn’t a huge deal: few phone owners push their devices as hard as the 3DMark test. Most get nowhere near that kind of use. But it does mean that keen gamers should look elsewhere.

The other compromise that thinness brings is in the battery. Fitting the 5,200 mAh silicon-carbon battery into a slim case makes for high energy density. We saw what that might mean in practice when the 3DMark test chewed through 11 percent of the battery life in a 20-minute test.

Artificial intelligence

Phone makers feel that AI is now a must-have for a premium handset. Motorola doubles up on AI. There is Motorola’s Moto AI and Google Gemini to choose from. Moto AI has its own dedicated button on the left of the handset. You can’t reprogram its function to, say, act as a camera button.

You can use Moto AI to remember things and to take notes. You can get a summary of incoming messages, create a music playlist and generate images. You need to be signed in to a Moto account to use the Moto AI, just as you need to be signed into a Google account to use Gemini.

I’m not a fan of phone-based AI, but it’s hard to see Moto AI and its associated button as anything more than bullet points to add to a marketing feature list. The button doesn’t solve any real-world problems. If you choose not to sign into a Motorola account, that dedicated button effectively becomes dead weight on the side of your phone.

As AI systems go, Moto AI is fine. But it feels superfluous when Google Gemini is just a click away.

Camera

The triple 50 MP camera system delivers crisp, vibrant photos in daylight, but relies heavily on generative AI processing at higher zoom levels. It’s a dependable everyday setup, though it lacks the absolute night-mode consistency of top-tier rivals.

None of this matters if you’re a casual photographer. The images are more than good enough for most purposes. If you want more from a phone camera you should look elsewhere and expect to pay a hefty premium for the extra hardware.

Design and fabric finish

Motorola scores points with its choice of back materials. Instead of the slippery, fingerprint-prone glass or plain matte aluminium found on almost every other premium phone, the Signature uses a textured, linen-feel weave finish. The review model’s weave is a military green colour.

This feels comfortable and more secure to hold than its competition. Whether that finish holds up over years of absorbing skin oils, sweat and Lord knows what else remains an open question. The Apple FineWoven case I temporarily used with my iPhone was ruined when I answered a call after eating hot chips.

Verdict: Motorola Signature

At the top of the page, the question asks: is Motorola’s Signature good enough to justify being considered alongside the best premium phones? It’s a very good phone. But in 2026, being a very good premium phone only gets you into the game.

The Signature’s thinness is impressive, but less important than Motorola’s marketing suggests. It feels normal within hours.

What matters more is the $1700 asking price: you get a lot of premium phone for considerably less than the leading alternatives. For me, the compromises are acceptable at that price. They mean the Signature is a compelling alternative rather than a direct competitor to flagships from Apple and Samsung.

Most people won’t get much value from Norton 360 or any other security suite. ‌How to know if you need PC security software explores why in more detail.

It is worth buying if you have a business insurance policy that covers you against online risks but insists you take precautions. Showing that you use the most widely recommended protection should convince your insurance company that you have done enough.

There’s another strong case for buying security software: you are not confident about your ability to deal with threats on your own. If that applies to you, then the best strategy would be to spend some money on training. If that’s not how you operate or isn’t practical, by all means let Norton take charge, but take care.

Managing risk

Paying for Norton or one of the alternatives is less about what the security software does or does not and more about risk management and covering your backside.

Read what reviewers, even independent reviewers, have to say about Norton 360 online and you’ll see it is widely talked about as the best security suite. I’m not convinced of that.

Yet Norton is the obvious choice. It is the easiest to justify. If you need a comfort blanket, you may as well play it really safe and choose the most popular option.

That way, you’ll minimise friction, satisfy compliance, sleep better at night and tick an important box for, depending on which plan you choose, around NZ$150 a year.

What do you get for the money?

Norton 360 comes with a long list of features. There’s antivirus, a firewall and a VPN. You also get a password manager, a degree of cloud backup and device optimisation. Norton also includes parental controls, which indicates the company is aiming beyond the small business market into the consumer sector.

There are versions for Windows and Macs, but while they cost the same, they are not equal. If you use Macs, a number of features are either missing or have less functionality.

Once you’ve installed Norton on one device, you can expect to see nagging emails suggesting you install it on your other devices. If you’re not a fan of junk mail, the constant neediness can quickly become an irritant.

Pop-ups, notifications and other disruptions are constant. That alone is enough to interrupt your productivity.

Yet another sales pitch

Another irritant I came across early on my Norton 360 journey was the ‘would you like fries with that’ sales pitch. This comes up so often that you might wonder how much the $150 paid for and how much more Norton expects to squeeze from you.

Before using the software for long I came across a sales pitch for Norton Antitrack. This costs an extra $70 a year for one device, $80 for five devices. The tool makes it harder for advertisers to track your online activity.

Then there was Ultimate Help Desk which is $82.49 for the first year and then renews at $150 a year. Utilities update will set you back $60 a year.

I could go on. Needless to say, if you fall for every add-on you’ll soon be paying more than $500 a year. It starts to feel like a protection racket.

How much of it is essential?

Very little of Norton 360 is essential. For almost every major component, there is at least one high-quality, often free, alternative available.

Take Norton’s headline Antivirus & Malware Protection feature. It does little more than the free Microsoft Defender which is built-in to Windows. Macs also come with built-in security tools like XProtect and Malware Removal Tool (MRT).

While Macs don’t have a single, built-in antivirus as powerful as Microsoft Defender, they are less prone to malware attacks. That may change as threats evolve, but people have been saying this for ages and we’re not there yet.

If you want more than the free malware tools that come with your operating system there are high-quality free antivirus apps from Avast or AVG that perform just as well as Norton.

Virtual private network

Likewise Norton’s Password Manager is no better in practical terms than the free tool that comes bundled with MacOS. If you run Windows there is Bitwarden among other free tools.

Norton’s built-in VPN is better than you might get elsewhere for free, but as previously noted, you probably don’t need a VPN.

If you occasionally find yourself in need of a VPN, then the free ones are usually good enough. Frankly, the only practical advantage I found to having Norton’s VPN during the test period was that it meant I could watch geo-blocked BBC analysis shows after World Cup football matches.

For some reason Norton doesn’t mention circumventing geo-blocking in its marketing.

Norton’s Firewall has some value, but again, Windows comes with a built-in firewall which is more than enough for most users. MacOS has an inbound firewall. Norton’s firewall is more powerful than the Windows free firewall and a lot fuller featured than the MacOS firewall. Yet we’re back to the same question, how much firewall do you really need?

Back-up

It took me ages to discover that Cloud Backup is not actually available for Mac users. There is no indication of this when you attempt to use the software. I tried clicking on the cloud backup tab and didn’t get anywhere. I only realised the Mac version doesn’t exist when I gave in and asked the AI chatbot how to set it up. Again, both Windows and Macs already have great cloud back-up options.

Like many other Norton 360 features, Parental Controls are part of Windows. And, like Cloud Backup, the Norton version is not available for Mac users.

The System Optimisation tools don’t amount to much, sure they can help identify unnecessary files to save space, but, like with so much else here, there are very good free alternatives. Saving space was a huge deal 25 years ago and, with today’s memory shortages and SSD price hikes, can be a sensible move, but it just isn’t that great.

Norton 360 isn’t a bad product. That is almost beside the point. For most people, it isn’t worth $150 a year. If you feel you do need it, take care: don’t confuse buying the bundle with buying immunity and watch out for the constant upselling.

You can hear me on RNZ Nine-to-Noon talking to Kathryn Ryan about UK government moves to clear up what children and younger teenagers can access on phones and laptops.

www.rnz.co.nz/national/…

Here are the raw notes I made while preparing for this section of the show, you can see how I anticipate potential questions:

UK government asks tech companies to block access

Starmer tells Apple and Google to ban nude images on children’s phones (BBC)

The UK prime minister says:“This is not an impossible challenge. These are some of the most innovative companies in the world and I believe they can solve it.”

Not everyone agrees with this and there’s a lot of noise in the UK saying it doesn’t address the underlying problems of online harm.

The UK government is pioneering a new, more aggressive phase in online safety regulation, shifting the focus from technology companies handling content moderation to baking the protection in a the device-level.

Supporters argue that drastic measures are necessary because the status quo is a catastrophic failure with hundreds of victims.

There are a couple of good aspects to the idea:

Top of the list it takes the burden off of children and their parents. At the moment young people or their parents are expected to report if they see abusive material and parents are expected to quickly become expert in dealing with online safety while the big tech firms, some of the most profitable businesses in the world with huge resources take little responsibility.

The other part of this is that the technology already exists and is in use, but only in limited places and rarely switched on by default. No other nation has managed to do this

The **EU **depends on voluntary codes of conduct and age verification under the Digital Services Act.

**Australia **is developing a Children’s Online Privacy Code and, in theory, has a social media ban for under-16s that does not appear to be working in general.

While the US has nothing, some US states do have age verification laws for pornography sites, but these are regularly challenged on First Amendment grounds.

The UK is becoming something of a leader in this kind of regulation and many other nations will watch closely.

Critics argue that turning on on-device image scanning for every child effectively creates a state-mandated monitoring system.

And banning images doesn’t fix the main problem which is online grooming although many parents and former victims think it will reduce the harm.

Whether this move protects children or overreaches into dangerous surveillance territory is the big question.

PC, laptop and gaming console prices are rising much faster than inflation

AI data centres use huge numbers of memory chips.

Memory chip makers such as Samsung and Micron have decided to prioritising the higher-margin chips used by these data centres.

Which leaves less production and supply for PCs, laptops and consoles. Supply and demand means the chips that do turn up are more expensive. The extra costs can be absorbed by companies buying more expensive business-class devices, but prices of consumer devices are shooting up.

There’is some, but less impact on phones.

Experts (research companies like Gartner and IDG) expect this to continue well into 2027, so you might want to take better care of your laptops and iPads.

On top of that, our dollar has fallen substantially.

AI data centres are squeezing memory supply worldwide, but the weak NZ dollar means local buyers feel the pain more acutely than consumers in countries with stronger currencies.

What’s going on in New Zealand

Sony put up the price of the Playstation a year ago…Nintendo is about to raise its Switch console price by 20%.

New Zealand prices are going up a lot faster than Australian prices, but that is more to do with our falling dollar.

PC makers are sneakier. They don’t announce price rises, they launch new models with the similar specifications to old models but with higher prices.

So far this year the prices of a low-end laptop has gone up 10%. Upmarket laptops have gone up between 5 and 8%. Gaming PCs are up by 15%.

If you buy memory or solid state storage for your computer, prices have gone up by as much as 40%.

You can expect to see prices go up by at least the same amount again over the next six months.

The golden age of streaming is over

Streaming and fast broadband have changed how we watch sport and other video entertainment, but the golden age is over. Where will digital media go next?

Based on story on my main website: Streaming ain’t what it used to be.

The “golden age” of streaming (roughly 2015–early 2020s) is over. What was once cheap, ad-free and simple has become fragmented, expensive and consumer-hostile.

What SpaceX’s IPO means for NZ telecommunications

Also based on a story at my main site.

What SpaceX’s IPO means for NZ telecommunications.

This was written and broadcast before the float completed.

Starlink is no longer a niche service. It is starting to act like a mainstream telco. The IPO will accelerate this.

This post was written in 2016.

At the New York Times, Ian Austin writes about the demise of Blackberry’s last remaining qwerty keyboard phone:

…struggling Canadian smartphone maker BlackBerry made a sharp detour from its history on Tuesday when it announced it was discontinuing the last phone to have the traditional version of the company’s iconic physical keyboard and trackpad.

BlackBerry qwerty keyboard phones were essential business tools back when most other so-called smartphones were toys. They were also considered prestigious in some circles, in part because you needed either a corporate account or a more-expensive-than-usual mobile phone plan to use one.

The tiny, chiclet-style qwerty keyboard meant you could handle mail while on the move, write memos and short notes.

Tiny keyboard, hard work

While only a few journalists typed news reports using the tiny keys, it definitely happened. I once tried it while out of town on an assignment. Filing a thousand words to a newspaper from a BlackBerry was hard work.

The ergonomics bordered on criminal. It came into its own when typing emails or SMS text messages.

As everyone knows, BlackBerry fell from favour as Apple’s iPhone and Android climbed to success. It’s amazing the business has lasted this long, Nokia did not.

When, last year, BlackBerry returned to the qwerty keyboard design with the BlackBerry Classic phone, it was so retro I described it as a Steampunk phone.

Blackberry’s productivity claim is massively overstated

BlackBerry claimed typing on a tiny keyboard was more productive than using a screen keyboard. My testing found that simply wasn’t true. While it is satisfying to feel keys move as you type, it does nothing for my writing speed. In fact, the tiny screen made me less productive.

That said, modern screen keyboards are far better than they were when the first Blackberry models appeared. And they are bigger. At the time the ergonomics of both were poor.

Today, bigger screens, better detection and innovative software means glass keyboards are the best option. And if you really need a keyboard, you can buy an add-on.

This post was written in March 2016.

Canon’s EOS 1300D is an affordable low-end digital SLR camera.

From the marketing material looks like an ideal choice for people who have grown up with phone cameras and want to move to the next level without committing to expensive professional gear. It is a beginner’s camera.

The EOS 1300D has an 18-megapixel sensor. There are phones that can capture more pixels. What they don’t have is size. This makes a huge difference to your pictures.

Pixels, sensors – a real camera

Even the best phone cameras squeeze a huge number of pixels onto a tiny sensor, then expose those pixels to the world through a small lens a few millimetres from the image plane.

A larger sensor makes it possible to capture more detail. You get better colour.

Larger lenses also mean you can get depth of field. Phone pictures tend to have a flat feel, with a digital SLR you can bring people to the fore.

Print on the go

Canon has a companion portable, battery-powered photo printer to go with the EOS 1300D: The Selphy CP1200. The pair communicate by WiFi so you can get instant prints while on the move.

There are phone apps so you can send images to your phone using Wi-Fi or NFC which is also built-in.

Other specs may be modest by modern standalone camera standards but trump any phone camera.

The sensor chip is an18-megapixel CMOS (APS-C). There’s a Digic 4+ image processor. The EOS 1300D has a high ISO of 12,800 and can handle 3-fps continuous shooting. If you want video you can record 1080p videos at 24, 25 and 30 fps, or 720p at 50 and 60 fps.

For most of us, most of the time, the cameras in our phones are good enough.

As the saying goes: the best camera is the one you have with you. As a journalist I find it helpful to snap an image on the fly without carrying extra hardware.

Apple says more pictures are taken with iPhone cameras than with any other device.

Phone pictures can be great. Modern phones have resolution to burn.

Poor light

Yet even with optical image stabilisation and heavy duty software, they struggle to deal with poor light conditions. And guess what? As a journalist I often have to take shots in poor light.

Phone camera zoom is almost always digital. In effect you’re choosing a subset of the captured pixels.

Again this is often unsatisfactory. And again, zoom is important for a journalist. Often I have to sit at a media table at the back of a conference venue where my phone sees only tiny remote figures.

You’ll notice I rarely use my own photos to illustrate stories on my site. When I do, the image is a mere record of events, not a work of art.

Where possible I use photos taken by professionals at the event. But that’s not always possible.

Which explains why I’m always on the lookout for an affordable real camera.

Canon EOS 1300D

I’ve long been a fan of Canon’s affordable digital SLR cameras. There are professional models and consumer models. I sometimes use a Canon PowerShot SX60 HS for work, when I can prise it from the hands of family members. The pictures are good enough to use in printed newspapers and magazine.

Canon is coy about the New Zealand price of the EOS 1300D, that is left to dealer discretion. Going by overseas prices the basic camera plus a lens kit will leave change from what you’d spend on a premium phone. In comparison, buying a real camera is not expensive.

This story was written in July 2020.

The Samsung Galaxy Z Flip is by far the best foldable phone to date. There’s a satisfying feel to the way it folds.

The way the screen copes with being folded again and again is also satisfying. When you hold and fold the Galaxy Z Flip you are not left wondering if you are dealing with classy engineering.

Impressive

The Flip is technically impressive, cool looking and fun to use. Sadly these three qualities do not necessarily make a great phone.

Mind you, no-one can accuse the Galaxy Z Flip of being boring.

Nor can you accuse it of being cheap.

You could spend the NZ$2400 Samsung asks for the Flip elsewhere, even with Samsung, and get better value for your money. The Galaxy S20 Ultra is $200 cheaper but does more.

The cost of folding

Samsung’s much vaunted foldability adds about NZ$1200 to the device price. Which would be fine. Yet it turns out being able to fold the Flip is not always a huge benefit.

Yes, the neatly folded square is about half the length of and the same width as other premium phones. It also happens to be twice the depth.

In other words, the Flip occupies the same volume of pocket space as any other phone. The difference is that Flip redistributes the volume.

It’s fine in the jacket pockets and loose trouser pockets that might otherwise contain a normal size phone. It’s a problem in the tighter pockets that would struggle with bigger phones.

So while folding could be helpful, it might not always be NZ$1200 worth of helpful.

Samsung Galaxy Flip shown with Apple IPhone 7 for size comparison

Flipping futuristic

Despite all of this, I find myself liking the Flip more and more. It feels right. It also feels futuristic.

Let’s not discount that emotive and subjective response. When you buy a phone you commit to spending a lot of time with the device, you don’t want it to not feel right.

One aspect of being able to open and shut a phone is the distance this activity puts between you and the device. This can be positive or negative.

Most of the time I like the fact that it requires more effect to respond to every incoming stimulus. On the other hand, you can’t surreptitiously glance at the screen without others noticing.

The Galaxy Z Flip has been around for months. You can find plenty of in depth reviews elsewhere. Look harder and you’ll find some long term test drives. For what it’s worth here are my observations:

Screen:

The display is tall and narrow. When you turn it sideways to watch a movie you get black bars unless you watch a widescreen version.

In everyday use the crease stays out of the way although I wouldn’t go as far as to say you don’t notice it. You will, but your eyes and brain adjust so it is less of an issue.

Yet, you constantly feel it with your fingers. There’s also a shallow dip at the top above the selfie camera.

External display:

When the phone is folded there is a tiny display on the outside. You can see the time and date without opening the phone. That turns out to be more useful than you might imagine if you don’t wear a watch.

The small screen will show remaining battery life. I’m not convinced that’s much help.

There are notifications on the small screen. They wizz past fast. Often before you can read them.

By double tapping the power button, you can take pictures with the camera without opening the phone. When you do this, the tiny external display works as a selfie viewfinder.

Samsung Galaxy Z Flip closed showing small screen

Durability:

Open or shut, there’s a solid feel to the Galaxy Z Flip. It seems robust enough to take the kind of treatment we usually mete out to phones.

Unlike almost every other modern phone you can buy in 2020 there is no water or dust resistance. This could be a problem for many potential buyers.

I also found dirt, pocket fluff and even hair could get trapped in the fold. It’s not clear what that might mean over the long haul. In the short term it isn’t a problem.

Camera:

Phone makers usually make a great song and dance about the cameras on their handsets. There’s a feeling in the industry that people choose cameras rather than phones. I’m not convinced of that. Some will. Others won’t.

Samsung has used the same camera technology as the Galaxy S10. It’s good, but not up there with, say, the iPhone 11. Few people will buy the Samsung Galaxy Flip for the camera.

Verdict

Samsung has got screen folding technology right with the Galaxy Z Flip. You get a phone that looks and feels a little ahead of its time. On paper you might not get a huge amount of phone for the price, in practice this matters less than you might expect.

After a few days with the Flip I found myself coming back to it again and again. Yep, I’d like one of these. But there is one problem that I’m saving for another post.

Traditional laptop for mobile professionals

We don’t often hear the term ‘power users’ any more, but this is the market HP has in its sights with the thin and light OmniBook 7 Laptop AI. It’s a beautiful, highly portable machine, but its focus on everyday office productivity means demanding creative users may be better served by alternatives.

Looks the part

You won’t find a better-looking traditional clamshell Windows laptop than the HP OmniBook 7 Laptop AI. The aluminium case is smoothly finished and looks capable of stopping bullets. HP’s marketing says it is ‘military grade’. This gives the OmniBook 7 all the protection it needs to navigate airport terminals or the challenges of daily public transport commuting.

If the OmniBook 7 oozes style before you turn it on, then it goes one better when the gorgeous OLED touchscreen display lights up.

HP’s OLED display is the OmniBook 7’s standout feature. It is one of the best we’ve seen to date. Colours are vibrant and accurate. Blacks are solid and dark.

This makes it a great laptop for sustained reading text or writing without eye strain.

While the screen is excellent for photo-editing, the processor is not ideal for heavy-duty photoshopping.

The touchscreen and haptic touchpad are both first class. Keyboards are often a matter of taste. This one is excellent although there is less travel than you might find elsewhere. It would pay to test the keyboard before buying in case this low-profile approach is not for you. In testing, it felt ideal for fast typists and those, like me, who learned to touch-type.

There are four ports plus power and a retro audio jack for those who don’t do Bluetooth. There are two legacy USB-A ports, two USB-C ports. You’ll use one of these for power. There is also a full-sized HDMI 2.1 port for connecting to an office display or your home TV.

Performance: A mixed bag

Everything about the HP OmniBook 7 Laptop AI says premium laptop except the performance. It’s good, but not workstation class.

The Intel Core Ultra 5 and the 32GB of Ram can power through massive spreadsheet models or tons of open browser tabs with aplomb. If you multitask productivity apps you’ll be more than satisfied.

We’ve already said the OmniBook 7 can handle some photo-editing. Its integrated Arc GPU is built for light creative tasks. You would not buy this machine to handle video rendering or 3D modelling.

Price and options

The review laptop came with an Intel Core Ultra 5 and a 512GB solid state drive. At the time of writing this version is no longer listed on HP’s New Zealand website. Prices for models with the Intel Core Ultra 7 start at $2100, which is a bargain.

Confusingly a Core Ultra 7 can be slower than the Ultra 5 in terms of raw processing. That said, it uses considerably less power giving you longer battery life.

The Core Ultra 7 model includes a more powerful Intel Arc 140V graphics processor which makes the laptop more appropriate for creative work and is around 20 percent faster when playing games. The review configuration is not great for gamers or creatives: the Ultra 7 version is much better.

The box label says “HP OmniBook 7 Laptop Al”. That’s not untrue. You can run AI jobs on the laptop and you’ll see the benefit of the Neural Processor Unit at times with Windows Studio camera effects. Yet those two letters appear to be more about marketing than delivering AI capabilities. Much the same applies to the Copilot button on the keyboard.

Battery life

Intel’s Core Ultra 5 225H does great work matching power consumption with use. You’ll easily get all-day battery life even if you work long hours. When the battery needs charging, HP’s FastCharge can get the power back to 50 percent in around half an hour.

HP is the dominant laptop brand in New Zealand. It is especially strong in the corporate world, so if your workplace buys your hardware, there is a good chance one of these will land on your desk.

If you are comfortable with Windows you won’t be unhappy with the hardware. The software is another story. HP can’t resist loading annoying bloatware on its laptops. That cheapens an otherwise impressive early experience.

The OmniBook’s likely competitors would be Lenovo’s ThinkPad X1 Carbon and Apple’s MacBook Air. The ThinkPad has a better keyboard with more travel and, if you like it, a more striking look. HP offers a far better screen than you’d find in a similarly priced Lenovo.

Comparisons with MacBooks are less head-to-head. Apple’s MacBook Air has no fan. It is completely silent and beats the OmniBook 7 on video editing. To fully match HP’s display and 32GB Ram you’d need to move up to a more expensive MacBook Pro.

Verdict

If you work for an employer who supplies laptops, there is a good chance you’ll see one of these models. HP is New Zealand’s dominant personal computer brand. In 2024, the last year figures are available for, the company accounted for around one third of the total market and half the business PC market.

The HP OmniBook 7 Laptop AI gets most of the important things right for business users.

It is slim, light and easy to carry. The OLED display is excellent. Battery life is strong enough for a full work day and the 32GB memory configuration makes multitasking painless.

Its weakness is comparative value at the premium end of the market. Buyers spending close to MacBook Air or ThinkPad X1 money may expect more outright performance. The base model with a Core Ultra 7 processor at $2100 is exceptional value.

If your priority is a highly portable Windows laptop for writing, research, presentations, web applications and day-to-day office work, the OmniBook 7 is easy to like.

HP OmniBook 7 Laptop AI at a glance

Review by Johanna Egar

I have long had a soft spot for robot vacuum cleaners. And not just because they make vacuuming under beds a breeze. A job that strains the back. 

The Ecovacs Deebot T80S Omni is the third robot I have tested and every new generation sees improvements. In this case, it’s the app especially. The smooth connection of the robot to Ecovacs online proved an unexpected delight. So, hats off to Dennis 2  - I christened him this because, well, men do (should) clean as well. Also, he is my second Dennis. 

This is how Dennis 2’s test drive went: 

Opening the box, I found Dennis 2 to be a lot heavier than Dennis 1. The wall-unit docking station is much bigger too, but it does feature a dustbin and two water containers. These fill and then empty the robot’s internal mop bucket. Meanwhile, the dustbin automatically empties the dust collected from the robot when it returns to the docking station. 

Connecting to the Ecovacs app is relatively straightforward. It connected to the website smoothly. However, I didn’t like the permissions request to “track your activity across other companies and app websites”. Cheeky. Obviously, I declined. Otherwise, connecting to my home WiFi, via Bluetooth, was smooth as silk. 

Mapping

I let Dennis 2 charge (3.5 hours) before creating my main map. This Deebot robot is a multi-floor model. I also filled the wall unit water tank with plain water as I wasn’t provided with Ecovacs’ custom cleaning fluid. I don’t like this as it could prove expensive and it isn’t easy to get either. It’s not stocked in supermarkets. However, Dennis, who mops as well as vacuums, did a fine job on my moderately dirty wood look floorboards with just plain water. The floor dried quickly too, which was appreciated as the “wood” can swell if it stays wet too long. 

Now, the mapping: this proved straightforward and was achieved via the Bluetooth-enabled app. Dennis even stopped at the edge of our French doors. As these lead to a leaf-strewn deck I was happy he didn’t venture out there. 

I put Dennis on “clean and mop”. You can select just clean, that is vacuum-only. Then I  realised I should have chosen to vacuum only first as I had left the floor a little dirty to give Dennis a challenge and he didn’t pick up everything, but it was a “quick clean’”. You can also select for longer clean. 

On-ramp issues

Then we hit a small problem: the on-ramp tray. It pulled away when Dennis tried to dock post-work. I had to manually dock him, which confused the app, but we got sorted eventually. The ramp slots are a tad flimsy and could do with an upgrade. 

Once docked, I selected ‘wash mop’ on the app and got another surprise: washing and drying the mop takes two to four hours depending on what you select. This makes sense, but I wonder about electricity use in these power-cost-challenged days. However, I did like the little green battery icon on the app that lets you know how much power your robot has stored. Dennis also powered up at the same time as his mop was being automatically cleaned and dried. This is a hateful manual job, so is an excellent feature overall. 

More than one floor?

Now for the multi-floor challenge. Adding the second map via the app was straightforward. I then chose “clean-only” and, boy, did those under-bed dust bunnies get a fright. Magic. 

Then things got difficult: how do I help Dennis return to the dock given there is a small flight of stairs in his way? Solution: I carried him. I later learned from Reddit commentators that this is what everyone does, although Ecovacs doesn’t make this clear. The app then told me that “after moving the Deebot, re-mapping is recommended”. A clumsy process.  

I always thought stairs would be an engineering issue. And so it proved. But the fact that this Deebot is multi-floor - there is a third-floor option too - is a real advance. Stairs will remain a problem and the app doesn’t quite deal with this. But overall, this Deebot is a good product. The biggest pluses for me were that connecting to the app was a smooth process and those dust bunnies. They’re just gone. And Dennis 2 didn’t get stuck in corners, which happened a lot with his older brother. 

Update: The latest T80S Pro model can climb stairs. Great news.

Now the price: the Deebot T80S Omni is available in stores for NZ$2,000. A little steep, but this is a complex beast.

A short guide for curious non-technical readers who come across the term Open Source.

Open source software is free.

Anyone can download open source programs, run them, copy them and pass them on to friends and colleagues without paying a licence fee and without breaking any laws.

That’s a big deal and yet the cost, or lack of cost, is not the most important point. Open source advocates say the word free should be regarded in the same context as ‘free speech’ rather than ‘no payment’.

Open source is freedom

This freedom means that users can change the program to suit their own needs – something that is illegal with most other forms of software. The only stipulation is that the same set of freedoms must be passed on.

Altered open source programs must be made available to everyone. The logic of this approach is that control is decentralised – that way the software is continually improved.

At the same time, having large numbers of people looking at and improving on programs means that bugs are quickly eliminated – this is a powerful form of quality control.

Independence

Another aspect of open source is that it frees users from the clutches of the tech giants. In general they can’t control what happens, they can’t easily use open source software to feed their surveillance or AI engines. Open source users are generally independent of tech giants.

There are open source applications, games, operating systems and utilities. Any form of software can be open source.

You’ll find open source software embedded in proprietary software. Parts of Apple’s MacOS are open source. While the Android phone operating system is based on open source, the relationship between the version of Android on a phone and its open source roots is complicated.

There are different definitions and conflicting views on many of the nuances around open source. And, confusingly, there are hundreds of different open source licences to navigate, but, in general, if the software is free, if you can see and modify the code, it is open source.

There’s a lot more to open source than mentioned here. This is a simple guide for non-technical readers..

Originally posted August 2016

“You like the iPad because it’s simple. But if you’re using the iPad as your primary computer, you may just like it because it’s a challenge.”

Watts Martin hits a nerve writing iPad-only is the new desktop Linux.

Martin says people who use only iPads for their computing do it because it’s a challenge.

He says: “Figuring things out is part of the allure”. This, he says, is just like things were, maybe they still are, with desktop Linux.

When desktop Linux roared

Remember desktop Linux? Kids ask your parents. It was huge in the late 1990s and peaked around the year 2000.

At the time many thought Linux would replace Microsoft Windows for day-to-day desktop computing. Although a handful of organizations imposed it on their workers, it never got beyond being a fringe option. Yet it shook Microsoft and had a widespread effect on commercial PC software.

Desktop Linux was hard work.

There were practical reasons to use it. Linux needed fewer computing resources, it would work well on older, cheaper computers. Eventually Microsoft responded by trimming the fat on its software.

Free and open

Linux fans would find political or philosophical justifications for choosing a more difficult personal computing path. They’d talk about it being free, about how it was open source and so on.

One common idea at the time was that Linux forced users to get down and dirty with how computers worked at a basic level. This, the theory says, increases people’s understanding of computing. The knowledge would, in turn, make them safer and more productive.

This idea sounds great until you realise it takes a day to recompile an obscure but necessary piece of code that everything depends on.

Freedom has a price

While the freedom to tinker aspect of Linux could be useful. More often it was a terrible time sink. You could spend hours or days down software rabbit holes.

Desktop Linux was more difficult than Windows or Apple’s operating system. Maybe it didn’t challenge developers so much. They spend all day using esoteric commands and compiling code.

But for those of us with little coding experience, desktop Linux was challenging. At times it was an ordeal.

Martin writes:

Don’t deny it, folks who prefer the iPad to the Mac or PC: you like the challenge. It was awesome to check out and edit files in my company’s Github repo and make a pull request, all from the iPad.

Myke Hurley made an observation on his Analog(ue) podcast that even if you could prove that a given task was easier on the Mac, he’d still rather do it on his iPad because it’s just more fun. I absolutely get that.

Pioneering

Now, this is fine. There’s nothing wrong with people choosing difficult paths. They are pioneers, they find ways through the thickets for the rest of us to follow.

One of the reason that OS X is so good today is Apple built it on FreeBSD. OS X stands on the shoulders of open source giants.

FreeBSD isn’t Linux, but the two have a lot in common. Both are Unix-based and both are open source. Many commands are similar. Hacking around in the OS X terminal is a piece of cake for anyone who mastered Linux.

Tweakers of the world unite

Moreover, open source pioneers wrote and tweaked a lot of code powering modern desktops. Some of today’s iPad-only pioneers may be developers who fix code. It’s unlikely they’ll fix or improve iOS because it is a proprietary operating system.

Even so, they will be helping to find ways through technical thickets for the rest of us to follow later. They’ll figure out how to cope with, say, the iPad’s lack of a formal file system. They’re more likely to be writing useful new apps than parts of the underlying system.

What’s more, they’ll won’t all be passive consumers of technology. Many will submit bug reports and feature requests to Apple’s developers. We’ll get better tablets and tablet software thanks to them.

So while Martin is right about iPad-only pioneers doing it for the challenge, their curiosity and exploration isn’t a waste of time. iPads and other tablets are the future of personal computing, it may take years until they are the mainstream, but the pioneers will help us get there sooner.

📢 If you plan to use an iPad as your main computer, take a look at: A practical guide to writing on the iPad.

This week on the NZ Tech Podcast Paul Spain and I discuss UNESCO’s call to ban phones in school classrooms just hours before New Zealand’s main opposition National Party announced it plans to impose similar rules if it wins this year’s election.

See Momentum building for school phone bans for more on what is happening elsewhere in the world.

The discussion links to a plan by the Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC) to limit children’s use of phones to under two hours a day. This is also covered in the story linked above. We cover some of the negatives about imposing bans and, if such bans are good for children’s mental health, what that might imply for the rest of us.

Elsewhere in the podcast we cover Wisk and what is happening with NZ’s Airspace Integration Trials. There is discussion about using AI to combat text scams and we cover One NZ’s late arrival on the eSIM for wearables scene and look at the contradictions in Zoom’s edict for its workers to return to the corporate office.

FineWoven was a rare misstep for Apple. It was a brand name for what Apple generously described as a ‘premium’ material used to replace leather on phone cases and other accessories.

Apple has stopped using it for phone cases. If you want an Apple branded case for a new iPhone 16, you’ll have to make do with one made of silicone or plastic.

The FineWoven MagSafe Wallet lives on for now, but, presumably. once stocks are sold, any replacement will use a different material. And Apple continues to sell Watch straps, or what it calls Watch bands, made from the material.

Leather replacement

FineWoven was noble enough idea, by replacing leather with the largely recycled FineWoven material, Apple could reduce its carbon footprint. We can assume the carbon footprint will go back up if it is replaced by plastic.

Reviewers, myself included, gave FineWoven a drubbing.

In hindsight my review was fair, but incomplete. The testing I reported was genuine enough, but in the weeks after my test, the stains and the material didn’t get any worse.

That said, I soon stopped using the case and continued with a naked iPhone 15. The phone never came to any harm with or without the FineWoven case.

Leather remains the best material for phone cases

While plastic and silicone cases appear to be popular, they are nothing like as good as a leather phone cases. Every time I’ve had a leather phone case it has outlasted the phone. The material more robust and looks better. It’s that simple.

In my experience silicone cases aren’t great either. I’ve had the layers of the material peel away making them ugly to look at. Apple’s decision to move away from leather cases has left the market wide open for third party case makers. It’ll be interesting to see if Apple does a U-turn and returns to selling leather cases.

In September 2024 I returned a review iPhone 15 Plus and pulled an eight-year-old iPhone 7 Plus out of a cupboard. How did that work out?

Living with an eight-year-old iPhone

✓ Hardware still handles basic tasks
✓ Battery can last a work day, just
✗ App compatibility is the biggest problem — stuck on iOS 15
✗ Modern screens are a major step up

Verdict: Workable for light users, but expect app frustrations.

The plan was simple: see how well a 2016 flagship copes in 2024. The iPhone 7 Plus became my main phone for two months.

It performed better than expected, but there were frustrations. In the end, I upgraded to an iPhone 16 Plus.

Today’s bigger displays matter

The biggest change is the screen.

Moving from 5.5 inches to 6.7 inches does not sound dramatic, yet the newer phone offers far more usable space. The difference is obvious within minutes.

Compared with that, most other improvements feel marginal.

Software is the real problem

The iPhone 7 Plus is stuck on iOS 15. It runs iOS 15.8.1, which remains secure enough and performs well.

The problem is app support.

Many apps no longer run on iOS 15. When I flew to Wellington, the Air New Zealand app would not update. I had to use a paper boarding pass.

That alone is manageable. The wider issue is that more apps are dropping support. During my test, one of my regular apps updated and stopped working.

That was the turning point.

What I did not miss

Some newer features are easy to live without.

Face ID is more convenient than Touch ID, but not essential. Wireless charging is useful, but I rarely depend on it.

Carrying a Lightning cable when travelling is a minor inconvenience.

Performance and battery

On paper, modern chips are far ahead. In practice, I noticed little difference for everyday tasks.

That says more about how I use a phone than about the hardware.

Battery life is more of an issue. The iPhone 7 Plus can last a long day, but only just. I was more cautious than usual.

Newer iPhones remove that concern.

The phone lacks 5G, but this was never a problem. For everyday use, there is little noticeable difference between 4G and 5G performance.

Camera: good enough

Newer phones have far better cameras. The difference on paper is huge.

In practice, the iPhone 7 Plus camera is still good enough for everyday use.

If anything, I preferred the simpler image formats. Photos were easy to send without conversion.

This helped clarify my thinking. I did not need to pay extra for a top-end camera phone.

Update: January 2026

More apps have dropped iOS 15 support since late 2024, especially social media.

Apple has continued to issue security updates. The latest, iOS 15.8.5, arrived in September 2025.

These are now maintenance updates. Full support has effectively ended.

The phone still works, but its usefulness continues to decline.

What this taught me

The hardware has held up well. At a stretch, I could live with the smaller screen and older design.

Software is the limiting factor.

An eight-year-old iPhone is close to the end of its useful life if you rely on apps. A six-year-old model would fare better.

What should you buy instead?

If you already own an iPhone 7 Plus, you can keep using it for light tasks.

If you are buying used, there are better options:

• iPhone XR (2018): Larger screen and longer software support. Often priced similarly.
• iPhone 11 (2019): Still well supported with a much better camera. Expect NZ$300–400.
• iPhone SE (2nd generation, 2020): Smaller, but faster and more capable. Also around NZ$300–400.

If you need a reliable everyday phone, it is worth choosing a newer model.

The 2025 MacBook Air M4 handles Logic Pro and other demanding apps with ease, making it a surprisingly capable choice at NZ$2400. This was originally posted in May 2025.

Basics

Apple sent a review model 13-inch MacBook Air with 16GB of RAM and 512GB of storage. This configuration sells in New Zealand for $2400.

I used it as my daily work computer for four weeks. The biggest change isn’t raw performance, but how quietly and consistently it handles everyday work.

From the outside, it’s indistinguishable from the 2023 or 2024 models apart from the pale metallic finish. Apple calls this colour “sky blue”, replacing space grey.

Otherwise, nothing has changed. It’s thin, light and solidly built. The ports, screen, keyboard and trackpad are all carried over. There was nothing to fix.

Apple doesn’t mess with a formula that works.

Screen nit-picking

The 13-inch Liquid Retina display is excellent. At 2560 × 1664 pixels, text is crisp and colours are vivid. Photos and video both look great.

Apple sticks with a 60Hz refresh rate. MacBook Pro models offer 120Hz, which is smoother, but for most users it’s a nice-to-have rather than essential.

If you’re gaming at high frame rates or scrubbing video timelines all day, the Pro still makes more sense.

Fewer pixels than the MacBook Pro

The Air has fewer pixels than the MacBook Pro’s 3024 × 1964 display, and it’s slightly smaller at 13.6 inches versus 14.2 inches.

Brightness is also lower: 500 nits compared to the Pro’s 1000 nits sustained (1600 peak). On paper that sounds significant, but in practice the Air is bright enough for almost any job.

During testing I had cataract surgery. Beforehand I needed higher brightness, which hit battery life. Afterwards, I could turn it down. That’s not a typical benchmark, but it did underline how usable the display is across conditions.

If one screen isn’t enough, the M4 Air now supports two external displays while the lid remains open.

Keyboard, trackpad and ports

You’ll struggle to find a better laptop keyboard. As someone who types all day, I find the MacBook Air the best laptop for writing.

At the top right, the power button doubles as a Touch ID sensor. It’s fast, reliable and works for logins, passwords and payments.

Competitors come close on keyboards, but Apple’s trackpad remains unmatched. It’s precise, fluid and natural.

Ports are unchanged: MagSafe for charging, two USB-C ports and a headphone jack. Some complain about the lack of HDMI or Ethernet, but USB-C covers almost everything now.

Webcam and video calls

The upgraded 12MP webcam is a big improvement. Apple’s Center Stage keeps you framed and in focus during calls.

It works automatically. You don’t think about it, and that’s the point.

Apps like Zoom, Teams and FaceTime now feel like first-class experiences rather than compromises.

More computing power

If you’re upgrading from last year’s model, the performance bump is noticeable mainly in demanding apps.

Apple has doubled base memory to 16GB. Last year, that upgrade cost extra. Now it’s standard.

That matters. With 16GB you can comfortably run multiple apps at once. It’s the practical minimum for anything beyond basic office work.

Performance without noise

The M4 chip delivers strong performance without fan noise. The Air stays cool under normal use and only gets warm under sustained load.

I ran a demanding game in the background to stress the system. It became warm, not hot. For everyday work, it stays cool.

It won’t make you type faster, but it will render video, process images and handle 4K workloads without hesitation.

I tested it with Logic Pro and FL Studio. Even pushing towards the limits, there was still headroom.

Productivity: external displays

The ability to run two external monitors with the lid open is a meaningful upgrade.

With multiple screens, it’s easier to spread out research, documents and apps. It’s a genuine productivity boost, especially for writing or editing work.

Earlier Apple silicon Air models had limitations here. The M4 removes them.

Battery life

Apple claims up to 18 hours. In practice, I saw around 13 hours.

Higher screen brightness and external drives both reduce battery life. Even so, it’s enough for a full working day.

Long battery life has been a MacBook strength since Apple moved away from Intel.

Windows laptops have caught up in endurance, but often by trading performance. The M4 Air delivers both.

Running Logic Pro and other demanding apps

At $2000, this is Apple’s cheapest laptop. Yet it handles workloads that once required a MacBook Pro.

Logic Pro runs smoothly, even with large projects, multiple instruments and real-time effects. There’s no stuttering.

That’s a big change from Intel-era MacBook Air models, which struggled with even modest sessions.

The M4 handles advanced features, including AI tools, without breaking a sweat. I only found limits by deliberately overloading it.

FL Studio shows a similar story. Where older Air models hit limits quickly, the M4 runs cleanly and reliably.

Memory and storage options

The M4 MacBook Air supports up to 32GB of unified memory. That’s important for demanding workloads.

While 16GB is enough for most users, serious music or video work benefits from 32GB. It’s expensive, but it adds long-term headroom.

Storage is another constraint. The base model fills quickly if you work with media. Realistically, 1TB is a better starting point, with 2TB worth considering if budget allows.

A fully loaded 13-inch model reaches NZ$4400. The 15-inch version goes higher.

Verdict

You won’t find a better mix of performance, features and usability at this price.

It’s faster, more capable and now slightly cheaper than before. That’s rare.

The keyboard, trackpad and speakers remain best-in-class. Battery life is strong. Performance is more than enough for almost any task.

Upgrades are still expensive, but worthwhile if you need them.

Last year’s M3 MacBook Air was arguably the best all-round laptop available. The M4 version takes that title and strengthens it.

Frequently asked questions

Q: Does the MacBook Air M4 support two monitors? A: Yes, unlike previous models, the M4 Air supports two external displays while the laptop lid is open.

Q: Is the M4 MacBook Air good for music production? A: Yes. In my month of testing, it handled Logic Pro and FL Studio sessions that would have made older Intel models stutter.

Q: Is 16GB of Ram actually enough for professional audio in Logic Pro? A: Surprisingly, yes. While the 32GB upgrade offers more “future-proofing,” the new 16GB base configuration handles serious Logic Pro and FL Studio sessions with dozens of tracks and multiple real-time effects without stuttering. Because the M4’s unified memory is so fast, the “memory pressure” stays in the green for most home studio and mid-level professional projects. Only those working with massive orchestral sample libraries or high-end 4K video editing should feel the need to spend the extra $800 on the 32GB model.

Motorola Moto G56 5G at a glance

New Zealand’s 3G shutdown means some older phones will soon stop working. Motorola’s Moto G56 5G is a low-cost replacement.

It is a mid-range handset ready for today’s 5G networks. That means faster downloads and more reliable connections in crowded places.

If you are price conscious, the hardware could last for years. The weak point is software support.

Toyota Corolla of phones

Motorola makes few bold claims. This is a workhorse.

If it were a car, it would be a Toyota Corolla: dependable, affordable and aimed at buyers who value function over flair.

It focuses on a decent screen and clean software rather than camera tricks, AI features or raw speed. For some, that is enough. Others may find it too plain.

A good display for the price

The phone has a 6.7-inch FHD+ display with a 2400×1080 resolution.

Motorola uses a tall 20:9 aspect ratio. It can look unusual at first, but feels comfortable in the hand.

At 391 pixels per inch, it is below premium phones and at the lower end of mid-range devices. Even so, it is good for the price.

Text is clear. Colours and brightness are solid. In everyday use, the screen is more than adequate.

Clean software, unclear support

Motorola’s My UX overlay is light. It feels close to standard Android and includes useful gestures, such as a double chop to turn on the torch.

Software support is less impressive. The phone is likely to get one major Android update and three years of security patches.

That is well behind Samsung’s policy for similar devices and far short of Apple’s longer support window.

The hardware could last many years, but the software support means it may not be safe to use for that long. If longevity matters, look elsewhere.

There is also unwanted software. Apps such as TikTok, LinkedIn, Copilot and others are preinstalled and cannot all be removed.

Motorola says the phone supports One NZ Satellite TXT. This allows messaging when you lose mobile coverage, provided you have a compatible plan. The feature is not obvious, but works through the standard messaging app.

Adequate performance, average camera

The phone uses a MediaTek Dimensity 7060 processor. It is a budget chip.

The New Zealand model comes with 8GB of RAM and 256GB of storage. That is generous for the price.

Performance is fine for everyday tasks. Scrolling and basic apps are smooth. Demanding apps and games will struggle.

Battery life is strong. The 5000mAh battery can last a full day or more. No charger is included in the box.

The 50MP main camera performs well in good light. Photos are fine for sharing, but unremarkable.

An 8MP ultra-wide camera adds flexibility, but quality drops in low light. This is typical at this price.

The phone has IP68 and IP69 ratings for dust and water resistance. It is tougher than many rivals.

How it compares with rivals

Samsung’s Galaxy A17 5G and Oppo’s A5 Pro 5G are close competitors.

Samsung offers better software support and a stronger screen. Motorola counters with better durability and water resistance.

Oppo stands out for fast charging. Its camera processing is more aggressive, which may or may not appeal.

Verdict: safe choice with little excitement

The Moto G56 5G is a sensible Android phone.

It gets the basics right: a good screen, clean software and solid battery life.

You give up performance, camera quality and long-term software support.

At the full NZ$430 price, there are stronger options. At under NZ$300, it is a bargain.

Update January 2026: Now available for NZ$309 at the Oppo New Zealand online store. This makes a huge change to value comparisons. At the price it is a steal.

Value tablet handles modest workloads with style

Oppo’s NZ$500 Pad SE (Matte Display Edition) is priced squarely between no-frills bargain basement tablets and Apple’s $700 base model iPad.

In its marketing, Oppo describes the Pad SE as “a dependable, family-ready tablet that doesn’t break the bank”. That’s a fair summary. It’s not as powerful or as versatile as an Apple iPad, but it’s a cut above most other Android tablets. If you need a device for basic tasks, surfing the web, consuming music or video, handling email, video conferencing or social media, then this will meet your needs.

For Android phone users who are comfortable with Google software, the Oppo Pad SE is one of the best tablet options right now. If money is tight and you only need to produce occasional simple documents, then couple the Pad SE with a Bluetooth keyboard and you can avoid the expense of a laptop.

Don’t buy this if you use other Apple hardware such as an iPhone or Mac; get an iPad instead, the integration between Apple devices is so powerful.

Display is a strength

The Pad SE screen measures 11 inches across the diagonal. That’s the same as the base-level iPad, yet if you put the two side-by-side, you’ll notice they are different shapes.

Oppo’s Pad SE’s screen is long and narrow with a 16:10 ratio. The iPad is squarer, with an aspect ratio of 10:7. Which one suits you best can be a matter of taste; one is not necessarily better than the other, but they are distinct. The matte anti-reflective coating helps when using the screen outdoors. It’s bright enough for almost any application; you can read it outside on a sunny day.

Fast screen refresh rate

Oppo uses a 90 Hz refresh rate. That’s middle of the pack in late 2025. Today’s tablets can range from 60 Hz to 120 Hz. Apple’s base model iPad refreshes at 60 Hz.

In theory, this should mean you get smoother video and a more responsive feel on the Oppo, but not the wow factor you find when movies and games play at 120 Hz. In practice, there’s no noticeable difference between the Oppo and the iPad.

This could be because of screen resolution. The Pad SE has a full high definition (FHD) screen, which is modest by late 2025 standards. It has a pixel density of 207 pixels per inch. This means images and text are not as sharp as you’d find on almost everything other than bargain basement devices.

For comparison, the base iPad has 2360-by-1640-pixel resolution at 264 ppi. The iPad is also a smidgeon brighter. That makes the iPad easier to read.

That’s a lot of words and a lot of technical description to say that the Pad SE has a good display, which you may or may not prefer to the iPad. But either way, you won’t be disappointed in this department.

Cameras

You might be disappointed by the camera. Realistically, few people choose a tablet based on the device’s camera. That’s just as well. The Oppo SE has a single rear camera. Like most other tablets, there’s a camera mound. It contains a single, large lens.

Both the rear and front cameras are 5 megapixel, that’s modest in late 2025. Apple’s camera is 12 megapixel and includes zoom and image stabilisation. You’ll probably notice immediately that the photos you take with the Pad SE are not as good as the ones you get from your phone.

In use, people on the other end of video calls will see a poor image. If that’s important to you, then perhaps you might look for another tablet.

Solid build

Build quality is good for the price. The case is sturdy and can take the normal rough and tumble you might get from young users. The back is mainly made of a solid metal with a strip of plastic so that the WiFi and Bluetooth antennae don’t run into problems. The review model came in a muted shade of blue.

Four speakers sit two at each end of the unit. The sound won’t knock your socks off… what do you expect from a tablet? But the speakers are more than adequate for making video calls. There’s no SIM in the review model and WiFi 5. You’d normally expect to see at least WiFi 6 in a device sold in late 2025. Apple’s iPad has WiFi 6.

Processor performance

On paper, Oppo’s choice of processor is the Pad SE’s weakest point. The chip is the MediaTek Helio G100. When it comes to raw processing power, this offers around half the performance of the A16 processor in the base model iPad. It also has less Ram, 4GB compared with 6GB in the iPad.

This performance difference is noticeable when running demanding apps. Yet that’s the interesting aspect of this comparison: few people will buy an Oppo Pad SE for demanding tablet apps.

If you’re planning to run a business, build websites, edit movies or produce audio, if you want to go beyond basic photo manipulation, this is not the right device for you. For that matter, neither is the base model iPad. You should consider either an iPad Pro or a laptop.

Why to buy

✅ Matte display is excellent for outdoor reading. ✅ Exceptional battery life for the price point. ✅ Sturdy, metallic build quality. ✅ Affordable alternative to the base iPad.

Why to avoid

❌ Modest camera quality for video calls. ❌ Lacks WiFi 6 support. ❌ Not suited for heavy video editing or gaming.

Verdict: Oppo Pad SE Matte Display Edition

The Oppo Pad SE is good value for money and a step up from lower-priced generic tablets. As an aside, I recommend you avoid cheap, the word ‘cheap’ causes problems with some companies, tablets unless you are desperately short of funds; they aren’t worth bothering with.

You’ll find the Pad SE performs much better in the areas that matter for everyday use. The screen is more comfortable and outperforms those on cheaper tablets. Battery life is exceptional. The audio is passable, and having enough Ram and storage removes many of the frustrations with low-end tablets.

That said, you couldn’t describe the Pad SE as a premium tablet. You need to spend upwards of NZ$700 to move into that class. It doesn’t offer much in the way of camera resolution, very high refresh rates, ultra-fast chipsets, or very sharp screens.

Oppo’s Find X8 Pro is a flagship Android phone that shows the Chinese handset maker can go head-to-head with Samsung. It may be more phone than you need, or can afford, but it does a lot to promote Oppo’s brand. This story was originally posted in December 2024.

Cameras have been the headline feature in premium phones for a decade. There’s a reason for that.

Little changes in a handset’s ability to make calls or send messages from year to year. Processors are more powerful, but have long been good enough for most apps. Many apps that demand extra power are little more than digital trinkets.

Most other changes are cosmetic or incremental.

Peak phone camera

This camera-first trend reached a new peak when Oppo launched the Find X8 Pro in Auckland.

Speakers at the event focused almost entirely on the cameras. A guest photographer said he now uses the phone for professional work.

This is not the first handset to put the camera front and centre. From the outside, though, it looks more like a camera than most.

Distinctive camera ring

The rear is dominated by a large circular camera ring with four prominent lenses.

Early camera clusters tried to blend in. Not here. Oppo has gone out of its way to make the module stand out.

There is also branding from Hasselblad, the Swedish camera maker.

Hasselblad Master Camera System

The Find X8 Pro includes the Hasselblad Master Camera System. It sounds impressive, even if the name will mean little to many buyers.

Oppo itself may be unfamiliar. The company is New Zealand’s third largest phone brand behind Samsung and Apple.

Globally it ranks fourth. Xiaomi sells more elsewhere, but Oppo outsells it in New Zealand. In effect, it has taken the place Huawei once held.

Even so, it trails the leaders. Samsung and Apple account for about 85 percent of local sales. Oppo has roughly 10 percent.

Zoom with periscopes

The headline feature is a 50-megapixel camera system with a 135mm (6x) periscope lens and a 23mm wide-angle sensor. It is the first phone with two periscopes, giving a wider zoom range.

The technology is impressive. You can capture a clear image of a car on the Auckland Harbour Bridge from a kilometre away at Birkenhead Wharf.

The question is whether you need it. A 60x zoom is striking, but hard to justify in everyday use. Most people will rarely need that reach.

At times it feels close to voyeurism.

Artificial intelligence

No 2024 phone arrives without AI features. Oppo uses AI to enhance zoom images, filling in detail to improve quality.

The results can feel uncanny.

There are also AI editing tools. You can remove reflections, sharpen images or deblur shots. Another tool can remove unwanted people from photos.

This is powerful, but raises questions about how much we can trust images.

Apple and Samsung offer similar features. Comparisons are difficult and largely come down to taste.

Other AI tools include text summarising, transcription and grammar checking. These are useful, but now standard at this price.

Other features

The review unit did not include a charger, so fast charging was hard to test. Using a standard USB-C charger, the phone reached 30 percent in about 20 minutes and a full charge in just over an hour.

The 5910mAh battery is larger than most rivals. In practice, it delivers up to two days of normal use. Heavy photography will reduce that.

Verdict: Oppo Find X8 Pro

It is a bold move to charge NZ$2300 for a phone without the Samsung or Apple badge. You can buy a high-end iPhone or Galaxy for similar money.

If you are considering one, handle it in a store alongside rivals before buying.

Zoom aside, there may not be enough here to tempt committed iPhone users to switch. Samsung users, however, have a credible alternative.

If you want extreme zoom and can justify the price, this phone delivers.

More broadly, Oppo is a brand worth taking seriously. The technology is strong and its mid-range phones are often keenly priced.

HP’s OmniBook 5 14-inch promises next-generation AI performance. In practice, its strengths are battery life, portability and value. It is a smart, efficient machine, as long as you don’t expect the AI branding to change your workflow. Review oringally posted in October 2025.

You can buy the HP OmniBook 5 14 for a shade under NZ$1500. It suits anyone who values portability and battery life over raw performance. Think senior school students, undergraduates or office workers.

It is also a good fit for journalists.

Performance is fine for web apps, office software, media streaming and light creative work. You will need to spend more for video editing or 3D rendering.

Despite the AI branding, battery life is the key feature. This is not a laptop for GPU-heavy tasks or demanding games.

Build quality

Build quality is serviceable rather than premium. It should cope with normal home or office use, but not rough handling.

It is less robust than Microsoft’s laptops and not as solid as an Apple MacBook.

Commuting is fine. A building site or farm may be a step too far. It is not ideal for users who are hard on their gear.

Even so, it represents good value. This is a well-balanced mid-range Windows laptop with strong battery life, a decent screen and a good keyboard.

You may find more powerful processors at this price if you shop around. Even so, this model deserves a place on a mid-range shortlist.

Snapdragon X Plus processor

HP uses a Qualcomm Snapdragon X Plus chip. The review unit has the base X1-26-100 model: an 8-core processor built on a 4nm process with a 45 TOPS NPU. It is tuned for efficiency rather than speed.

HP claims up to 34 hours of battery life. I could not verify that, but saw consistent results of more than 24 hours between charges.

That is still excellent for a Windows laptop.

The review unit has 16GB of Ram, which is at the low end for 2025. It will handle multiple apps, but heavy multitasking will slow things down. The 512GB storage is typical at this price and limits large media libraries.

Keyboard, trackpad, display

The keyboard is spacious and comfortable. Keys are close to full size and typing feels natural. This is as good as you will find at this level.

The trackpad works well, but does not match the smooth feel of a MacBook.

HP describes the display as “2K”, which is generous. In practice, it is a 1920×1200 OLED panel with a 60Hz refresh rate.

The screen is good for the price. Text is sharp, colours are strong and contrast is excellent. It is bright enough indoors, but struggles in direct sunlight.

Verdict: HP OmniBook 5 14

You get a lot for less than NZ$1500. Battery life is excellent, the keyboard is strong and the overall package is well judged.

What you do not get is high-end performance. That may matter if you are buying into the AI message in HP’s marketing.

Otherwise, this is a balanced, practical laptop for everyday use.

Worth knowing: do you need an AI laptop?

Most mid-range and premium laptops now come with some form of AI branding.

In practice, you may not notice much difference in day-to-day use.

Even so, this is the direction the market has taken. Unless you buy at the low end, your next laptop will almost certainly be sold as an AI device.

That is not necessarily a bad thing. These machines can offer good value. It does mean you should treat some of the marketing claims with caution.

Tiny, powerful and pricey, the Oura Ring 4 tracks sleep, fitness and stress without a bulky watch. For some people, skin reactions could be a real risk. This post was written in October 2025..

Review: Oura Ring 4

The Oura Ring 4 is the latest version of a popular smart ring that tracks fitness, sleep and stress. This is not a full review. Testing finished early because of an adverse skin reation. Think of it as a snapshot.

Many readers will like the idea. I could not live with the reality. In testing, it did not last 24 hours on my finger.

I’ll explain in more depth why this happened later. First, some background.

The ring is a neat piece of engineering. It weighs five or six grams and sits quietly on your finger while monitoring vital signs.

There are limits. Small devices can only hold so many sensors. Physics and thickness still matter.

The Oura phone app

There is no display on the ring, so you use a phone app to view data. The ring connects over Bluetooth.

The app is well organised and easy to navigate. Some details take a little digging, but it works well.

You can see heart rate in real time. A sleep score appears soon after you wake.

Other insights take longer. You need to build up a body of data before recommendations appear.

Sizing kit before you buy

The ring is about the size of a large wedding ring. Before shipping, Oura sends a sizing kit. There are 12 sizes.

There are multiple colours and finishes. Buying direct, prices start at US$350 for silver. Most models cost about US$500. At the time of writing that’s roughly NZ$850 to NZ$900, plus GST. New Zealand pricing is exchange-rate dependent and may date quickly.

You can also buy from retailers such as JB Hi-Fi. At the time of writing, a gold model sells for NZ$979.

This is not a product you should buy blind. Fit matters.

Oura is expensive for a smart ring. It costs more than rivals from Samsung. At this price, you could also consider an Apple Watch.

Even basic functionality requires a subscription

There is a controversial catch. The ring is of limited use without a subscription.

When you register, you are asked to complete account setup. That includes payment details.

The fee is US$6 a month or US$70 a year. It is not huge, but it feels steep after the upfront cost.

By comparison, Samsung does not charge for its ring app. Apple does not charge for core Apple Watch health features, although that could change.

There is a wider trend here. Hardware makers are looking for ongoing revenue from connected devices. Not everyone will like that.

Without a subscription, you see only basic scores for readiness, sleep and activity, along with battery alerts.

Battery life

The lack of a display helps battery life. Oura claims up to eight days on a charge.

That sounds plausible. I could not test it. My experience did not last long enough.

Why I had to send the ring back

I found the ring less comfortable than a smartwatch.

It is light, but noticeable. If you are not used to wearing rings, you may feel strange.

In my case, things got worse. Ten years ago I had a serious skin reaction to an early Apple Watch.

I kept that in mind during testing. At first, the ring felt fine, if slightly irritating. Later, my finger became itchy, then faintly red.

At around 1:30am I woke in pain. My finger was swollen and throbbing. It was hard to remove the ring. Another hour or two and it might not have come off.

By morning, the swelling remained. I did not wear the ring again.

Oura acknowledges this risk. Its safety advice says you should remove the ring if irritation occurs and seek medical advice if symptoms persist.

Verdict: Oura Ring 4

It is unusual to deliver a verdict after limited use. Even so, the idea is sound.

Oura has built a device that can track health data without getting in the way. For most people, it will be unobtrusive.

It may even flag health issues early. That alone could justify the cost.

For a minority, comfort and skin reactions will be a barrier.

First posted February 2025: HP’s OmniBook Ultra Flip 14 is a thin, light and flexible 2-in-1 Windows laptop. Battery life is impressive for an Intel machine and the hardware rarely puts a foot wrong. Yet it falls short of HP’s promise of delivering “the ultimate AI experience”.

OmniBook Ultra Flip 14 at a glance

For: Long battery life, solid build quality, practical 2-in-1 design.
Against: Expensive for a consumer laptop, similar money buys more powerful hardware, underwhelming AI features.
Maybe: Odd port placement, Intel still comes with trade-offs.
Verdict: A strong choice if you want a thin, light Windows laptop with good battery life and full Intel compatibility.
Price: Officially NZ$3700, although retail pricing can dip closer to NZ$3000.

Familiar design, well executed

At first glance, the OmniBook Ultra Flip 14 looks like a business-class hybrid. In reality, it sits in HP’s consumer range.

The plastic chassis is a surprise at this price, but it works. Where some plastic laptops feel flimsy, this one is sturdy and well put together. It feels capable of handling the knocks that come with everyday travel.

The hinge is another potential weak point on 2-in-1 devices. During a month of testing, it proved reliable and smooth in operation.

As a hybrid, the device can be used as a standard laptop, folded flat into a tablet or propped up in a tent configuration. The latter may appeal for presentations, although it is not something everyone will use.

Display and everyday use

The 14-inch OLED touchscreen has a 2880 by 1800 resolution and supports refresh rates up to 120Hz.

Indoors, the display performs well. Colours are rich and the higher refresh rate helps with smooth scrolling and general responsiveness. Outdoors, it is usable in shade or overcast conditions, but struggles in direct sunlight.

Speakers are adequate for calls and general office work, although they sound thin when playing music. This is typical for laptops of this type.

The keyboard spans the full width of the device and is comfortable for extended typing sessions. The trackpad is responsive and accurate.

Price and positioning

With a list price of NZ$3700, the OmniBook Ultra Flip 14 sits in a competitive bracket.

At this level, buyers could opt for a well-specified MacBook Pro or a fully loaded MacBook Air. Windows alternatives include premium models from HP, Lenovo and Microsoft, some offering more raw performance.

The key distinction is the processor. While many rivals are moving to ARM-based chips, this model sticks with Intel. That means fewer compatibility concerns, even if it comes at the cost of peak efficiency.

Retail discounts make a difference. At closer to NZ$3000, the OmniBook Ultra Flip becomes easier to justify.

Performance and battery life

In everyday use, the OmniBook Ultra Flip 14 is quick and responsive. It handles typical workloads with ease and should remain capable for years.

Battery life is the standout. For an Intel-powered laptop, it lasts far longer than expected and comes close to what you might see from ARM-based machines.

For many users, this combination of performance and endurance will be more than enough. Those needing sustained high performance may still be better served by a business-class machine.

Windows 11 holds it back

The weakest link here is not the hardware, but the software.

Windows 11 continues to feel inconsistent. During testing, there were occasional crashes, including while the machine was asleep, along with driver issues that appeared without warning.

Even when stable, the experience lacks the polish found elsewhere. For users coming from macOS, the difference is noticeable.

AI: more promise than delivery

HP leans heavily on AI as a selling point, particularly through its integration with Microsoft Copilot.

In practice, this is not a compelling reason to buy the laptop. The AI features feel underdeveloped and add little to the day-to-day experience.

HP’s own AI tools are still in beta, which shows. Some features, such as performance optimisation, are difficult to assess and did not make a clear impact during testing.

For a device at this price, buyers could reasonably expect more mature software.

Verdict

The HP OmniBook Ultra Flip 14 is a well-built, thoughtfully designed hybrid with strong battery life and dependable performance.

It does not redefine what a Windows laptop can do, and its AI ambitions are not yet realised. Even so, the hardware is solid and the overall package is easy to recommend for those who want flexibility and full compatibility.

If you are committed to Windows and want a premium 2-in-1 with long battery life, the OmniBook Ultra Flip 14 is worth considering.```

HP’s EliteBook Ultra G1 is a business-class Windows laptop with a solid build, strong security and a heavy emphasis on corporate features. It costs far more than a typical consumer notebook. That makes it attractive if your employer is paying, but a harder sell if you are spending your own money.

Smart, corporate design

From the outside, the EliteBook Ultra G1 looks exactly as a corporate laptop should. The matte magnesium case, rounded corners and clean lines give it a restrained, professional appearance.

At 1.2kg and around 18mm thick, it is light and portable without feeling fragile. There is a clear sense this is a premium device designed for executives who travel.

Screen and media

The 14-inch OLED touchscreen has a 2880 by 1800 resolution and a variable refresh rate.

At 400 nits, brightness is adequate for most environments. It is not the brightest display in its class. Users accustomed to more luminous screens may find themselves wanting more headroom.

The screen can fold flat, allowing the laptop to double as a makeshift desktop tablet. In practice, this is useful in limited scenarios rather than everyday use.

Audio is a highlight. The quad-speaker system performs well for a device this thin. Calls are clear and voice-based applications sound excellent. Music playback is respectable, although still constrained by the form factor.

Keyboard, touchpad and ports

HP gets the fundamentals right. The keyboard is responsive and comfortable for long typing sessions. The haptic touchpad is equally well executed and adds a sense of precision.

Port selection is generous for a modern laptop. On the left, there is an audio jack, a USB-A port hidden behind a pull-down cover and a USB-C port with a charging indicator. On the right, you will find two more USB-C ports, another charging light and a lock slot.

Like Apple, HP has dropped the microSD slot.

Connectivity

The EliteBook Ultra G1 supports WiFi 7, putting it at the leading edge of wireless connectivity. While many users will still be on earlier standards, this ensures the laptop is ready for faster networks as they become more common.

Performance and battery life

On paper, the combination of an Intel Lunar Lake processor and 32GB of Ram suggests strong performance.

In practice, it is less impressive. Everyday tasks run smoothly, but at this price you might expect more headroom. Comparable MacBook Air models, costing significantly less, can outperform it in a range of applications.

One notable detail is how quiet the system remains. Even under load, the fan rarely makes itself known.

Battery life is solid. Around 14 hours of video streaming is realistic, which is enough for long-haul travel. It is not class-leading, but it is more than adequate for business use.

AI: not the main event

HP positions the EliteBook Ultra G1 as an AI laptop, but the reality is more modest.

The machine lacks a dedicated GPU and the Intel processor is not heavily optimised for AI workloads. As a result, it feels more like a traditional business laptop with a few AI extras.

HP’s AI Companion is essentially a branded interface for GPT-4. It requires an internet connection and offers little beyond what you can already access through standard tools, aside from some system-specific functions.

There is also a dedicated Copilot button for Microsoft’s AI assistant. It is convenient, but not a compelling reason to choose this laptop.

Security sets it apart

Where the EliteBook Ultra G1 distinguishes itself is security.

HP Wolf Security for Business adds multiple layers of protection beyond standard Windows tools. This includes anti-phishing measures, BIOS tamper protection and system hardening features.

The trade-off is usability. Security prompts can interrupt workflows, particularly when installing software that is not on an approved list. Unlike some systems, there is limited scope to override these restrictions.

For individual users, this may feel intrusive. For corporate IT departments, it is a significant advantage. The ability to manage and secure fleets of devices will appeal to organisations concerned about risk.

Verdict

The HP EliteBook Ultra G1 is a premium business laptop aimed squarely at corporate buyers.

It excels in build quality, security and manageability. Performance is competent rather than exceptional, and the AI features do little to justify the marketing emphasis.

For individuals, there are better-value options with more power. For organisations that prioritise security and control, the EliteBook Ultra G1 makes a strong case, even at a high price.