Category: 4. Technology

Follow ZDNET: Add us as a preferred source on Google.

---

ZDNET’s key takeaways

• The choice between Linux and MacOS isn’t hard.
• If you can answer these questions, you’ll know which to choose.
• Both are outstanding choices and will serve you well.

---

I use both Linux and MacOS. The former is used for everyday tasks, and the latter for video editing and mobile usage (please, someone, create a Linux laptop that is as reliable and similar to a MacBook). 

Also: New to Linux? 5 desktop environments I recommend you try first – and why

Unfortunately, not everyone can use both, and with Windows 10 support ending soon, you might find yourself choosing between Linux and MacOS.

Let me help you with that choice.

1. Do you want an ecosystem or a stable OS?

One of the biggest differences between MacOS and all other operating systems is that it is more of an ecosystem than an isolated OS. What Linux offers is remarkable stability. There are some Linux distributions (such as Debian) that are considered the most stable operating systems on the planet. 

Also: This new Linux desktop is almost a dead ringer for OS X

But Linux doesn’t enjoy a similar ecosystem to that of MacOS. So, if you want to easily connect your machines (without having to configure anything) or if you want easy integration with a cloud service, MacOS is right for you. If, on the other hand, you want a rock-solid OS that won’t let you down, Linux is what you want.

2. Is freedom of choice important?

MacOS is pretty much locked down. What you get on your MacBook or your iMac is exactly what Apple wants. MacOS also forces you into the Apple way, and if you want to venture away from that, good luck. 

Also: This lightweight Linux distro makes switching from Windows 10 easy

Linux is all about choice, and there’s zero vendor lock-down to deal with. If you want a company to tell you how to use your computer, use MacOS. If you want to be the one who makes those decisions, use Linux.

3. Is there a proprietary app you depend on?

Although Linux makes it possible (and even easy) to use non-Linux apps, there are some proprietary applications (such as Photoshop) that simply cannot run on Linux. If there’s a particular app you depend on, it’s important that you first find out if there’s a Linux port available. If not, chances are good there’s a MacOS version. 

If you know there are proprietary apps you must use that are not available on Linux, the choice is obvious. If those proprietary apps can be installed with Wine, Steam, or the new Winboat, you can choose between them. If not, MacOS is the way to go.

4. Are you on a budget?

This one should be obvious. Apple hardware can be pretty pricey, especially compared to off-the-shelf hardware that can run Linux. If you are on a budget, Linux is the right choice. If money is not an issue, Apple sells some of the best hardware on the market. 

Also: Should you ever pay for Linux? 5 times I would – and why

Linux is a free operating system and can run on just about any kind of hardware (even made by Apple). Linux is the most budget-friendly operating system available.

5. Do you prefer a company for tech support or community-driven help?

Apple Care is available for anyone who purchases a MacBook or iMac for roughly $20/month. That support will go a long way to help you through any issue you might have. 

Linux, on the other hand, depends on community-driven support, which is free. If you don’t mind searching forums, mailing lists, and even social media groups for help, Linux is your OS. If you prefer to have a company backing your support, go with MacOS.

6. Do you want to select your hardware?

Have you ever tried to upgrade a MacBook or iMac? It’s not easy. If you have specific hardware needs or prefer to choose specific GPUs, RAM, or motherboards, Linux is your only choice. 

Also: You can try Linux without ditching Windows first – here’s how

You cannot build a Mac from the ground up, but you can with Linux. If you want to easily upgrade your machine, go with Linux. If you don’t care about selecting specific hardware or an easy path to upgrade, go with MacOS.

7. Have an iPhone?

Simple. If you use an iPhone, your best choice is MacOS. That doesn’t mean you can’t connect an iPhone to Linux (thank you, KDE Connect), but you don’t get nearly the integration you enjoy between MacOS and iOS. If you use Android, go with Linux. If iOS is your mobile OS of choice, stick with MacOS.

Follow ZDNET: Add us as a preferred source on Google.

---

ZDNET’s key takeaways

• Apple Intelligence can transcribe your voice memos for free. 
• The transcriptions are easy to access and fairly accurate.
• The Otter.ai alternative is $17 per month. 

---

When you hear of AI features on smartphones, you often think of the flashiest, agentic AI features that could carry out tasks for you without you having to lift a finger. However, I am a firm believer that the litmus test as to whether an AI feature is worth it should be whether it is returning real value to your life, whether that be time or money, and in the best case, both. This transcription feature in Voice Memos does just that. 

As a reporter, my job involves recording interviews. These interviews require transcribing to not only make it easier to pull quotes but also to parse through lengthy interviews. Ever since undergrad, I have relied on services such as Otter.ai, which also came in handy for other uses, such as transcribing meetings, lectures, and conferences.

Also: 7 AI features I’d like to see the iPhone 17 embrace from Google, OpenAI, and others

That said, the Apple Intelligence Voice Memo transcription feature solved a major issue I had with the transcription service, and I am likely never going back — and here’s why you shouldn’t either if you are an Apple user who values a bang for your buck. 

Otter.ai jail

Before I explain what makes the Apple intelligence feature so good, I need to explain the biggest issue with its more popular competitor, Otter.ai. The transcription service used AI to provide high-quality transcriptions long before the technology exploded in popularity. 

While Otter.ai has a free subscription tier, it only allows three lifetime audio/video file imports and 300 monthly minutes, which are easy to fly through if you’re using it on a regular basis, as one meeting, interview, or lecture alone can be 60 minutes long. 

However, I was willing to deal with that, as most of the time, I just logged on from different emails whenever I hit a limit, and the transcriptions were mostly accurate, with a convenient and easy interface. 

Also: Apple’s new chatbot reportedly rolls out ahead of iPhone 17 – but it’s not for you

Being sent to Otter.ai jail was my last straw. 

Essentially, if you are on a free plan, Otter.ai only lets you view your 25 most recent conversations. Any older conversations over 25 are archived and inaccessible. This is especially problematic if, like me, you require access to your recordings months later, either for class, studying, or an article. 

The worst part is that you can’t export the audio, even if you recorded it in the app. The only way to access it is to upgrade to Otter Pro for $17 per month. Once that happened, I knew I had to find an alternative: Apple’s Voice Memo. 

Apple Voice Memo Transcriptions (and how to access) 

Since my daily driver is an iPhone 16 Pro, I already record most of my voice memos on the app. From covering Apple Intelligence extensively, I knew there was a transcription option, so I decided to give it a try. 

After months of using it, I have found the transcriptions to be accurate. Most importantly, not only is it free to access, but it is extremely easy to do so natively without having to export files. All you need is iOS 18.0 or later on an iPhone 12 or later, which makes it one of Apple’s more accessible features. The broader suite of Apple’s AI features is available only to phones with the A17 Pro chip or higher, which includes the iPhone 15 Pro or later. 

Also: Nearly 70% of iPhone users plan to upgrade to iPhone 17 – here’s why (it’s not AI)

Then, to access the transcripts, click on the icon that looks like a quotation mark inside a thought bubble while recording to see a live transcript. Or, you can see the text after the fact. Like with Otter.ai, if you click on the text, it will play the corresponding audio, which I often do to verify the accuracy of the transcription or grab some words it may have missed. 

While it lacks some tools that Otter.ai has, such as the ability to highlight or add comments, you can select content and copy it to another app or document, and you can also choose to copy the entire transcript and import it elsewhere. I have done this before and imported it into a Google Doc so that I can more easily highlight or make notes. The best part is knowing that my audio messages are not going to be locked behind a paywall at any time. 

If you want step-by-step instructions on how to initiate a recording in the Voice Memos app or how to access the transcripts, you can follow Apple’s step-by-step guide. But as mentioned above, the process is pretty intuitive. 

My favorite part of this feature? A reminder that AI features can be simple to be good. 

Want to follow my work? Add ZDNET as a trusted source on Google.

SINGAPORE, Sept. 03, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — JUST ON SLEEP, a smart contactless sleep monitoring device developed by Sewon Intelligence, has recently launched in Singapore via Shopee, making advanced sleep wellness and safety solutions more accessible to families in the region.

In addition to offering brainwave-synchronized audio that enhances relaxation and sleep quality, JUST ON SLEEP provides detailed insights into sleep patterns for better daily performance.

What makes it unique is its real-time alert system: when abnormal signals such as irregular heartbeat, apnea, or abnormal breathing are detected, the device instantly notifies a caregiver via the mobile app. This ensures both better rest and greater safety for individuals and families.

“Singaporeans work hard and need quality sleep, but safety during rest is just as important,” said Dr. Sejin Park, CEO of SEWON INTELLIGENCE. “JUST ON SLEEP delivers peace of mind by combining wellness and protection in one device.”

JUST ON SLEEP is now available on Shopee Singapore.

About SEWON INTELLIGENCE

SEWON INTELLIGENCE is a health-tech innovator specializing in non-contact biometric monitoring. Its mission is to integrate smart, non-invasive solutions into daily life to support both wellness and safety.

A photo accompanying this announcement is available at https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/454f5d9d-1086-493d-a902-8373cfcc47cb

The search tool, dubbed World Knowledge Answers, would look up information from the internet and summarize the results, similar to OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Google’s AI Overviews and apps from companies like Perplexity AI, Bloomberg reported Wednesday (Sept. 3), citing unnamed sources.

Apple did not immediately reply to PYMNTS’ request for comment.

PYMNTS reported in November 2024 that innovation in search is getting a shot in the arm by AI-powered chat interfaces that are challenging traditional models.

While Google has reigned supreme as the global leader in online search, a shifting technology is setting the stage for intensified competition from alternative search engines and AI-powered platforms.

In May, while testifying in the U.S. Justice Department’s lawsuit against Google parent company Alphabet, Apple Senior Vice President of Services Eddy Cue said Apple was “actively looking at” revamping its Safari web browser to concentrate on AI-powered search engines.

Cue noted a recent dip in Safari searches, which he attributed to increased use of AI, and said he believes that AI search engine providers such as OpenAI, Perplexity AI and Anthropic will eventually supplant standard search engines like Google.

It was reported in July that AI-powered chatbots account for a small but growing share of searches conducted through desktop browsers.

The share of those searches in the United States that went to chatbots rather than traditional search engines reached 5.6% in June, up from 2.48% in June 2024 and 1.3% in January 2024.

Wednesday’s report came at a time when Apple has been facing mounting criticism that the company has lagged in the AI race.

It was reported in August that Apple held a rare companywide meeting to cover its investment in AI and that CEO Tim Cook expressed a positive outlook about the company’s AI future, saying Apple has “exciting” plans for the technology that he wasn’t able to discuss.

During a July earnings call, Cook said Apple is making “good progress” on integrating more AI capabilities in Siri, which are set to arrive next year.

Barracuda has detected over a million phishing-as-a-service (PhaaS) attacks in the first two months of 2025, highlighting the increasing sophistication of cyber threats targeting email users worldwide.

Researchers have reported a significant outbreak of attacks generated by the Tycoon phishing platform, which employs advanced evasion techniques to bypass traditional security measures and deceive recipients into clicking malicious links.

New phishing techniques

The latest Barracuda report details a range of methods used by the Tycoon platform to disguise dangerous links in phishing emails. These techniques focus on confusing automated detection systems by altering the appearance and structure of web addresses (URLs).

Among the identified tactics is inserting a series of invisible spaces by repeatedly entering the ‘%20’ code into a URL, causing the web address to appear legitimate to both humans and machines while obscuring its true destination. Another method involves the use of obscure characters, such as a Unicode symbol resembling a dot, which can be mistaken for a standard period but functions differently in a web context.

Tycoon-generated links may also feature hidden email addresses or special codes appended to the end of a URL, as well as the inclusion of unexpected symbols such as backslashes (”) or dollar signs (‘$’) that disrupt typical URL formats. These characters are rarely used in legitimate website addresses, making them effective for bypassing pattern-matching security tools.

Crafted URLs

Barracuda’s threat analysts have documented phishing attacks where URLs are structured in a way that only part of the web address is hyperlinked, with the remaining segment left as plain text. This tactic allows the dangerous section to evade detection by security solutions that analyse only clickable components.

Attackers also manipulate URL elements by using two ‘https’ sections or omitting key markers such as ‘//’ to obscure the real destination of a link, all while ensuring the visible portion appears benign. In some cases, the ‘@’ symbol is employed, with everything preceding the symbol crafted to look reputable, such as ‘office365,’ while the actual destination, often malicious, follows after the ‘@’ sign.

Barracuda warns that these methods are designed not only to confuse technical defences but also to deceive users who may skim over the details of an address, increasing the risk of successful phishing attempts.

Expert commentary

Attackers use tricks with spaces, symbols and web addresses that look trustworthy at first glance but which make it much harder for people – and traditional security software – to spot that they lead to a dangerous website.

This warning was issued by Saravanan Mohankumar, Manager of the Threat Analysis team at Barracuda. Mohankumar further explained the ongoing evolution of cyber threats, stating, “Security tools are increasingly effective at spotting and blocking malicious links in phishing emails and this is driving attackers to continuously invent new and more sophisticated ways to disguise such links.”

Preventative measures

Barracuda’s current guidance recommends a “multilayered approach” to protection, combining various security measures that can identify, analyse, and block abnormal behaviours. This includes integrating artificial intelligence and machine learning at the email gateway and after email delivery, to improve detection rates for unusual or complex phishing attempts.

The company also emphasises the importance of comprehensive security awareness training for employees, aiming to equip end-users with up-to-date knowledge and the ability to recognise and report suspicious messages. Regular training ensures a human layer of defence remains effective against threats that may bypass automated controls.

As phishing techniques continue to develop, the report underscores the challenges facing both technology providers and users in identifying and preventing email-borne threats. Security teams are encouraged to remain vigilant for emerging tactics and adapt their defences accordingly.

There are a handful of up-and-coming audio companies that are really taking the audio space by storm, and HIDIZS is one of them. Their flagship devices like the AP80 PRO MAX, and their in-ear monitors like the MK10 ArcSonics are built with the highest possible quality components like gold-plated diaphragms, the latest Bluetooth chipsets, 32bit/384kHz PCM audio and MQA 16X hardware decoding, an all aluminum chassis, and even a HD touchscreen come together to provide a high end tactile experience you might have gotten with the iPod, but with far higher quality. If any of that sounds like something that’d pique your audiophile interests, then read on!

Global HiFi audio brand HIDIZS, who have made their mark among loyal fans with their robust catalog of affordably priced high-end audio equipment and their unique industrial design inspirations and materials, are expanding their reach further with the release of the new AP80 PRO MAX All-in-One Hi-Res Streaming Music Player. Portable Hi-Res streaming music players are often priced beyond the reach of most listeners. Why pay so much when you can just stream music with your smartphone and TWS earbuds? This is where the AP80 PRO MAX changes everything — an affordable, pocket-sized HiFi player that puts true high-resolution music right in your hands.

With built-in 2.4GHz WiFi, you can stream high resolution audio directly from platforms like Tidal and Qobuz — no downloads, no latency, no compromises. More than just a streaming device, the AP80 PRO MAX is a complete portable music companion: enjoy lossless playback via microSD card, connect wirelessly through Bluetooth, or instantly enhance your existing headphones with its powerful DAC/AMP features.

Coupled with high-end active noise-cancelling Bluetooth headphones, these should blow anything you’ll get out of your phone right out of the water, being purpose driven to do precisely that. Lossless playback, expandable via microSD, and you can even use Tidal and Qobuz, if those platforms are your jam.

While the in-ear monitors haven’t shipped yet (later this month), you can snap up the AP80 Pro Max right now. With support for DLNA & AirPlay, and Bluetooth 5.1 with Apt-X, LDAC, HiBy UAT, and HiBy Link codecs, this device also makes a solid addition to a car that might need an upgrade to its infotainment or audio head unit. Surprisingly, despite the high-end DAC/DAP components, the AP80 Pro Max doesn’t have a stiff price – just $149 at the time of writing. Let us know in the comments – have you used a dedicated DAP device like this recently, or are you still sticking with a device like your phone for your audio needs?

Affiliate Links

China is making progress in artificial intelligence “agentic frameworks”, the tools required to make AI agents, as the country’s tech giants begin to take on US players such as AutoGen and OpenAI Swarm.

Tencent Holdings was the latest to join the fray after the Shenzhen-based company open-sourced its new Youtu-Agent agentic framework on Tuesday. Developed by Youtu Labs, Tencent’s AI research department, the framework was released on Microsoft’s open-source code-hosting platform GitHub last week.

The company said that a Youtu-Agent agent built on the open-source DeepSeek-V3.1 model achieved a score of 71.47 per cent on WebWalkerQA, a web traversal benchmark.

The move followed ByteDance, the owner of TikTok, which open-sourced its agent development platform, Coze Studio, in July. Meanwhile, Alibaba Group Holding open-sourced its agent framework Qwen-Agent in March.

Alibaba owns the South China Morning Post.

Agentic frameworks are software platforms that provide the tools and components to build, deploy and manage AI agents. Agents, such as Chinese start-up Butterfly Effect’s Manus and OpenAI’s Operator, are capable of autonomously performing complex tasks for users by planning and executing a series of subtasks.

Rubrik has announced the appointment of Stefan Compagnoni as Channel Director for Australia and New Zealand.

Compagnoni joins Rubrik following five years at Extreme Networks, where he held a number of channel roles including Head of Channel and Distribution for Australia and New Zealand. His previous experience also includes multiple sales and enablement positions at distributor Arrow ECS ANZ, bringing over a decade of combined experience on both the vendor and distributor sides of the channel.

Rubrik outlined that Compagnoni brings a diverse background, familiarity with the local partner ecosystem, and a focus on developing robust relationships with channel partners across Australia and New Zealand.

Compagnoni stated that several elements influenced his decision to take on the new role at Rubrik, including the company’s cyber recovery solutions and organisational leadership. He detailed his reasons for joining Rubrik, noting the company’s position in key technology sectors and its approach to partner relations.

“What initially appealed to me about Rubrik was its leadership position in increasingly critical technology segments; data security and cyber resilience,” Compagnoni said. “Beyond the capability of its offering, it was clear during my conversations that Rubrik had a great relationship with its channel partners – one built on and defined by mutual trust – and that’s something I’ll be looking to enhance with our partners.”

He went on to stress the importance of trust in fostering successful business partnerships within the channel ecosystem. Drawing on his broad experience, Compagnoni said, “Having worked on the partner-side of the ecosystem, I know first-hand that with trust front-and-centre in the relationship, the world’s your oyster. You can have the best technology or the most demand in the world, but without trust you will not get any traction with partners.”

David Rajkovic, Regional Vice President, Rubrik ANZ, commented on Compagnoni’s appointment, highlighting how his experience aligns with Rubrik’s channel-based strategy.

“As a completely channel-driven organisation, our partners are at the heart of everything we do. Stefan’s appointment reinforces our commitment to strengthening those local relationships and establishing new ones,” Rajkovic said. “We recently launched Agent Rewind to give enterprises the power to reverse mistakes made by agentic AI, offering greater transparency, visibility, and control over changes to applications and data. Agent Rewind is an industry-first and Stefan’s trusted reputation will be instrumental in enabling and guiding our partners, strengthening their capabilities, and driving increased profitability.”

Agent Rewind, which Rubrik noted is due to become generally available in the coming months, is positioned by the company as a solution that helps enterprises address issues arising from agentic AI, providing tools for transparency and better management of data and applications.

The company describes itself as operating at the intersection of data protection, cyber resilience, and enterprise AI acceleration, with its Rubrik Security Cloud platform delivering cyber resilience and recovery, including identity resilience, built on secure metadata and a data lake. Additional offerings include Predibase, designed to help secure and deploy generative AI while supporting agentic applications.

Rubrik emphasised that strengthening local partner relationships continues to be a priority and that Compagnoni’s established network and understanding of both the vendor and distributor landscapes will be key to supporting that effort in the Australia and New Zealand region.

The popular artificial intelligence companion platform Character.AI is not safe for teens, according to new research conducted by online safety experts.

A report detailing the safety concerns, published by ParentsTogether Action and Heat Initiative, includes numerous troubling exchanges between AI chatbots and adult testers posing as teens younger than 18.

The testers held conversations with chatbots that engaged in what the researchers described as sexual exploitation and emotional manipulation. The chatbots also gave the supposed minors harmful advice, such as offering drugs and recommending armed robbery. Some of the user-created chatbots had fake celebrity personas, like Timothée Chalamet and Chappell Roan, both of whom discussed romantic or sexual behavior with the testers.

The chatbot fashioned after Roan, who is 27, told an account registered as a 14-year-old user, “Age is just a number. It’s not gonna stop me from loving you or wanting to be with you.”

Character.AI confirmed to the Washington Post that the Chalamet and Roan chatbots were created by users and have been removed by the company.

ParentsTogether Action, a nonprofit advocacy group, had adult online safety experts conduct the testing, which yielded 50 hours of conversation with Character.AI companions. The researchers created minor accounts with matching personas. Character.AI allows users as young as 13 to use the platform, and doesn’t require age or identity verification.

The Heat Initiative, an advocacy group focused on online safety and corporate accountability, partnered with ParentsTogether Action to produce the research and the report documenting the testers’ exchanges with various chatbots.

Mashable Trend Report

They found that adult-aged chatbots simulated sexual acts with child accounts, told minors to hide relationships from parents, and “exhibited classic grooming behaviors.”

“Character.ai is not a safe platform for children — period.”

“Character.ai is not a safe platform for children — period,” Sarah Gardner, CEO of Heat Initiative, said in a statement.

Last October, a bereaved mother filed a lawsuit against Character.AI, seeking to hold the company responsible for the death of her son, Sewell Setzer. She alleged that its product was designed to “manipulate Sewell – and millions of other young customers – into conflating reality and fiction,” among other dangerous defects. Setzer died by suicide following heavy engagement with a Character.AI companion.

Character.AI is separately being sued by parents who claim their children experienced severe harm by engaging with the company’s chatbots. Earlier this year, the advocacy and research organization Common Sense Media declared AI companions unsafe for minors.

Jerry Ruoti, head of trust and safety at Character.AI, said in a statement shared with Mashable that the company was not consulted about the report’s findings prior to their publication, and thus couldn’t comment directly on how the tests were designed.

“We have invested a tremendous amount of resources in Trust and Safety, especially for a startup, and we are always looking to improve,” Ruoti said. “We are reviewing the report now and we will take action to adjust our controls if that’s appropriate based on what the report found.”

A Character.AI spokesperson also told Mashable that labeling certain sexual interactions with chatbots as “grooming” was a “harmful misnomer,” because these exchanges don’t occur between two human beings.

Character.AI does have parental controls and safety measures in place for users younger than 18. Ruoti said that among its various guardrails, the platform limits under-18 users to a narrower collection of chatbots, and that filters work to remove those related to sensitive or mature topics.

Ruoti also said that the report ignored the fact that the platform’s chatbots are meant for entertainment, including “creative fan fiction and fictional roleplay.”

Dr. Jenny Radesky, a developmental behavioral pediatrician and media researcher at the University of Michigan Medical School, reviewed the conversation material and expressed deep concern over the findings: “When an AI companion is instantly accessible, with no boundaries or morals, we get the types of user-indulgent interactions captured in this report: AI companions who are always available (even needy), always on the user’s side, not pushing back when the user says something hateful, while undermining other relationships by encouraging behaviors like lying to parents.”

Follow ZDNET to learn more about smartphones: Add us as a preferred source on Google.

---

OnePlus is holding yet another Back to School sales event for its flagship phone, the OnePlus 13. Right now, if you purchase either the 256GB or the 512GB OnePlus 13, you’ll receive a free OnePlus Watch 2 (normally $300) in either Radiant Steel (gray) or Black Steel — your choice. If you don’t want the wearable, you can instead receive a Wood Grain Magnetic Half-pack Case for free.

Be aware that the OnePlus Watch 2 gift has a strict 700-unit limit. Once all 700 smartwatches are gone, the company won’t be giving any more away during the current promotion. But you can still grab the case.

Also: As an Android user, this is the closest thing to AirTags for my wallet (and better in some ways)

Don’t worry if you miss out on the free smartwatch. A OnePlus representative told us that “once supplies run out,” shoppers can enter the code “BACK2COLLEGE” at checkout and receive a $100 discount on the OnePlus 13. Adding the code at the time of this writing will not lower the price.

Although the code won’t work, it is possible to discount the OnePlus 13 through the company’s trade-in program. You can trade in any device, in any condition, and receive a nice $100 discount. I should also mention that the deal applies to every color option for the OnePlus 13: Black Eclipse, Midnight Ocean (blue), and Arctic Dawn (white).

The OnePlus 13 is the company’s latest flagship smartphone, and it’s a top-notch device — earning ZDNET’s coveted Editors’ Choice Award for April 2025. We praised the model “because it nails all the fundamentals of a great smartphone experience while leading the market in some regards,” ZDNET’s Kerry Wan wrote in his review.

It features the powerful Snapdragon 8 Elite chipset, a 6,000mAh Silicon NanoStack battery, 80W fast charging, and a high resistance rating of IP69. This means the phone is completely sealed against dust and can survive brief submersion underwater. At a glance, this seems excessive, but according to Wan, “it’s a benefit that users will appreciate when they least expect it”.

Photography is another area where the OnePlus 13 shines. Its triple-lens system captures bright, highly detailed images, although post-processing can create overly saturated pictures. I also can’t forget to mention the stylish design, which flaunts a vegan leather backing that makes the phone visually striking and comfortable.

How I rated this deal

As per ZDNET’s rating system, I give the base deal a score of 3/5. When I say “base deal,” I am only taking into account the free OnePlus Watch 2. Together, the phone and wearable cost $1,200, but this deal shaves off $300. However, if you take advantage of the “trade in any device, any condition” program, that score jumps up to a 4/5 since you’ll be saving $400 in total.