While the release roadmap for the iPhone has remained pretty consistent for the last decade, Apple’s MacBook schedule is a little harder to predict. New models can pop up at WWDC in June, at one-off events throughout the year, or via a quiet press release on the Apple website.
But thanks to new leaks, and a touch of sleuthing from AppleInsider, we now have a pretty solid idea of what to expect from Apple on the Mac front through to the end of 2026 – with no less than fifteen(!) Macs allegedly on the roadmap. We’d better start making space in our roundup of the best laptops for graphic design.
M5 MacBook Pros are imminent (Image credit: Apple)
(Image credit: Apple)
AppleInsider has got hold of a full list of product identifier codes for upcoming Macs, which, thanks to the predictable pattern used for said codes, can fairly easily be attributed to future models.
Most of this isn’t particularly surprising. In 2025, apparently we can expect 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro models with M5 (and M5 Pro / Max) chips. Meanwhile, a new Mac Studio with the same chip looks set for release before the end of 2025.
Could a new low-cost MacBook see the return of a 12-inch model? (Image credit: Apple)
In 2026, we’re likely to get, surprise, surprise, MacBook Pros featuring M6 chips. The MacBook Air will likely get the M5 chip that year (it tends to lag behind the Pro), and an M5-equipped iMac and Mac mini is set to follow.
So far, so predictable. But there are a couple of surprises. A redesigned MacBook Pro is apparently in the works for the end of 2026, which could feature an OLED display and thinner and lighter chassis.
And then there’s one unattributed product code identifier, which is speculated to belong to a rumoured low-cost MacBook which could feature, instead of the M-series, the A18 chip from the iPhone. Could this be the 12-inch MacBook revival we’ve been waiting for?
Daily design news, reviews, how-tos and more, as picked by the editors.
While news has been quiet on the MacBook front, this latest leak suggests Apple is planning to come out all guns blazing for its laptop line up over the next 12 months.
I passed on last year’s Samsung Galaxy A35. I couldn’t justify spending that kind of money on an Exynos 1380 chipset and 6GB of RAM, when so many fantastic midrange options were available for only a few dollars more. Even Samsung offered a better choice, with the excellent Galaxy A55 selling for around the same price. Unfortunately, the Galaxy A55 was never released in the US, leaving buyers to scour Amazon and hope for carrier compatibility.
It’s a tale we’ve seen quite a few times from Samsung, and it leaves US midrange buyers out in the cold. I’m tired of seeing the company sell more powerful variants of the same phones overseas, while we’re stuck with the base models. I was hyped for this year’s Galaxy A36, with its gorgeous display and Snapdragon 6 Gen 3 chipset, but the phone fell short. Samsung needs to try harder in the US, and it shouldn’t be that difficult.
Read our review
The Samsung Galaxy A36 has flagship looks but lags behind the competition
A mixed bag of results
Samsung’s midrange lineup is a mess
More confusion on the way
Samsung produces too many phones for its own good. I appreciate that the company wants to service multiple price points, but there’s a limit. There comes a point when phones start competing against each other, and Samsung has to create artificial barriers to keep each in its lane.
It offers the Galaxy A16, A26, and A36, with a $100 price difference between each. I love that the Galaxy A16 features a vibrant display and six years of software support for $200, but I’d absolutely pay an extra $50 for the higher RAM variants sold overseas. Unfortunately, we’re not given the opportunity.
Related
The Samsung Galaxy A16 delivers where it counts — without punishing your wallet
A gorgeous display with decent performance
When the Galaxy A56 is eventually released in the US, the conversation gets even more complicated. Having used the Galaxy A56, I can tell you there’s zero reason to opt for a Galaxy A36, even if you have to spend a few dollars more. And to make matters even more confusing, the A56 is routinely on sale through Amazon for less than what Samsung sells the Galaxy A36 for.
Performance suffers as a result
I wouldn’t mind if the phones kept up
I wouldn’t have any beef with Samsung if the phones performed well against the competition, but that’s not the case. It’s hard for me to find fault with the Galaxy A16 for only $200, but the phone is limited to 4GB of RAM. Other regions have the option to purchase more, and 6GB would have a significant impact on performance. I’d gladly pay $240 for a Galaxy A16 with more RAM, as the rest of the phone is an outstanding value for money.
If Samsung were a company that only made a couple of devices, I’d give them a pass for not offering more variants in the US.
The same applies to the Galaxy A36. I’ve used a Snapdragon 6 Gen 3 in the Moto G Stylus 2025, with much better results. Yes, Moto’s software is more lightweight than the One UI, but the G Stylus also has 8GB of RAM. It’s a smoother overall experience, and it’s a shame that Samsung doesn’t offer the same variants as those available overseas. I even had users comment on my review, mentioning that the 8GB version of the Galaxy A36 is smoother, but we’ll never know in the US.
This doesn’t have to be that difficult
It’s not for a lack of resources
If Samsung were a company that only made a couple of devices, I’d give them a pass for not offering more variants in the US. However, with the M-series, S-series, and A-series, Samsung has a diverse and complicated lineup. Unfortunately, the US market is often limited to the weakest variants that Samsung ships, and this can be easily corrected. Simply give us more options. Unlock the choices afforded to overseas buyers and let the marketplace dictate which phones you should keep selling and which deserve to be relegated to the dustbin.
The Galaxy A16 with 6GB of RAM is a strong recommendation for most budget buyers, and the Galaxy A36 with 8GB of RAM competes effectively with the Moto G Stylus 2025. It’s hard to credit Samsung for its significantly longer software support compared to the Moto, when its performance lags behind. I’ve noticed this trend for some time, but the Galaxy A36 was the most glaring example I’ve seen.
Samsung needs to try harder
I’d love to see the Galaxy A56 released in the US sooner rather than later, and I’d appreciate it if Samsung refined its midrange lineup. The company does an excellent job of bringing quality features and support down to more affordable price ranges, but it doesn’t quite hit the nail on the head. I’m only asking for the choices and conveniences already afforded overseas buyers — it’s time Samsung brought that to the US.
This article is part of our AI Phone Face-Off. If you’re interested in our other comparisons, check out the links below.
Translation is one of those things that has benefited from AI integration for a long time now. It’s not always about swapping one word for another, which is why companies like Google have been utilizing AI to ensure we get as few “all your base are belong to us” gaffes as we can.
The question is, how successful are they at doing this? To test out how different AI translation platforms actually perform, we put three different rivals to the test. A head-to-head between Google Translate on the Google Pixel 9 Pro, Galaxy AI on the Samsung Galaxy S25 and Apple Intelligence on iPhone 15 Pro Max.
We’ll be testing all three phones in three separate languages: French, Spanish and Mandarin. We’ll be looking at how well those three languages are translated with text translation, using camera/image translation tools and finally audio translating real speech. Which one does the best? Let’s find out.
Text translation
Unless you’re off travelling the world, or hanging out in particularly touristy areas of your hometown, the one place you’re most likely to come across a foreign language is online. We’ve all been in that situation where we click on a link, and are suddenly met with a wall of indecipherable text.
Fortunately there are tools to help you figure out what’s going on, and in a way that is significantly easier than copying it all into a translation app. Samsung, Google and Apple all have translation tools built into their respective browsers, and can convert entire webpages into a different language at the tap of a button.
For Google Chrome on the Pixel 9 Pro, the translate option is found in the three dot menu at the top right side of the screen. Safari on iPhone 15 Pro Max has a “Translate to English” option in the reader button on the left side of the URL bar. Samsung Browser on the Galaxy S25 has the most outwardly AI-looking option, with a “translate” option when you tap the AI-logo at the bottom of the screen.
For this test I utilized the Apple Newsroom, since Apple posts localized versions of different press releases in countries around the world. That means I had content available in French, Spanish and Mandarin, and an official English version to refer back to.
French
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Original English(Image credit: Future)
Original English(Image credit: Future)
Google Translate(Image credit: Future)
Google Translate(Image credit: Future)
Apple Intelligence(Image credit: Future)
Apple Intelligence(Image credit: Future)
Galaxy AI(Image credit: Future)
Galaxy AI(Image credit: Future)
First French, where I translated this press release about Apple Maps updates released for the Monaco Grand Prix. All three phones were able to translate the entire page in a fraction of a second, which is a good start.
Almost immediately you can see some of the differences between the translation and Apple’s official English release.
The headline in English is “Apple Maps brings a custom Detailed City Experience to the Formula 1 Grand Prix de Monaco”. However, the translations read “Apple Maps unveils a detailed exploration of the city of Monaco especially for the Formula 1 Grand Prix”. Which isn’t exactly the same wording, but it is easily understood.
Interestingly, aside from a single letter “A” in the Samsung translation, and a few different capitalizations of words, the headline was identical across all three devices, with one exception. Galaxy AI was not able to register that “Apple Plans” is the French name for Apple Maps, something Apple and Google had no issue with.
Reading a bit further and you start to see a few more variations here and there. For instance, Apple and Samsung translated the phrase “grâce à” as the more literal “thanks to” while Google went for the less literal but still correct “with a.” Nothing serious, but small changes that show they’re not translating in exactly the same way.
All the phones’ translations deviate from the official English quite a bit. One thing that stood out to me in particular was a quote from Apple’s Eddy Cue, who said that “Apple Maps is the best way to navigate and explore the world” while all three translation tools changed best to “perfect”. Since Eddy Cue likely gave that quote in English, I’m guessing the difference was so uniform thanks to being translated into French and then back to English.
In any case, while the translated text may not completely synchronize with the official English, you can still understand what’s being said without issue. And the fact that all three devices have more or less the same translation goes to show how relatively easy it is to translate from one European language to another — as weird and cobbled together as English may seem at times.
Spanish
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Original English(Image credit: Future)
Original English(Image credit: Future)
Google Translate(Image credit: Future)
Google Translate(Image credit: Future)
Galaxy AI(Image credit: Future)
Galaxy AI(Image credit: Future)
Apple Intelligence(Image credit: Future)
Apple Intelligence(Image credit: Future)
For Spanish, I opted for this press release from the Mexican version of Apple’s Newsroom — covering the official announcement of Apple’s WWDC 2025 developer’s conference.
The very first sentence of the release is where things change. The English release talks about the WWDC “lineup”, whereas Apple’s translation of the Spanish uses the word “schedule”. Obviously not the same word, but close enough that nobody is going to be confused. However, both Google and Samsung refer to the “program,” which threw me off because I’ve never actually seen the word used in this context. It’s a valid translation (think of the paper program you get at theaters and other live performances) but not the most obvious one.
Again, there are some minor differences in the headline, no doubt thanks to Apple using the phrase “kicks off” in the English version. Idioms generally don’t translate directly between tongues, so it’s understandable that the Spanish-to-English translation uses “begins” instead.
Going further down and there are other examples of this going on. For example, the English release says that “Apple will also welcome more than 1,000 developers and students to celebrate in person during a special event at Apple Park.” The Apple translation says that Apple will “receive” those guests while Google and Samsung both say “host.”
Apple’s translation also says that the guests will “participate in person” rather than celebrate, while Samsung expands that to “physically participate”. Google Translate opted for “special in-person event.” None of this is wrong, per se, but you’re getting rather different expectations of what that event might be based on the translation.
Weirdly, the English version refers to “Apple engineers, designers, and evangelists,” whereas the translations swap the final word for “experts.” It’s an odd word for Apple to pick for the English release, given its strong religious connotations.
Mandarin
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Original English(Image credit: Future)
Original English(Image credit: Future)
Google Translate(Image credit: Future)
Google Translate(Image credit: Future)
Galaxy AI(Image credit: Future)
Galaxy AI(Image credit: Future)
Apple Intelligence(Image credit: Future)
Apple Intelligence(Image credit: Future)
Translating between English and romance languages is fairly easy. They share a lot of common ground, which makes sense given that English is essentially three languages in a trench coat that mugs other languages to cherry-pick their lexicon. Meanwhile, Mandarin, the main language spoken in China, is often referred to as the most difficult language for English speakers to learn.
I’ve opted for this press release, focusing on how Apple has blocked $9 billion in fraudulent transactions from the App Store over the past 5 years.
What immediately stands out is that all three translations have a very different sentence structure compared to the English release — mentioning the five-year timeline first, rather than at the end of the sentence. Samsung also translated the headline as saying “cumulatively blocked” rather than the simple “blocked” and “prevented” used by Apple and Google. But the general idea of the topic is still there.
For the most part, the translation of Mandarin is pretty clear. The general wording and structure do deviate from the English version by quite a bit at times, especially compared to French and Spanish, but the majority of the text is easily understandable.
There were a few confusing word choices, though. In the English press release it mentions that criminals “continue to evolve” their tactics to try and defraud users. But the Apple translation turned “evolve” into “renovating”, with Samsung making the more bizarre switch to “refurbish”. Google didn’t use evolve either, but the choice of “innovating” at least better captures the meaning of the original sentence.
Another minor goof involved Apple’s translation saying “activate after passing audit” rather than “activated,” which was employed by Samsung and Google. The iPhone also seemed to have an accident with the caps lock key, by replacing a word with “unSPECIFIED” rather than producing the whole word in lower case.
The others weren’t so perfect, though. In a section detailing “problematic apps” in English, Samsung’s translation referred to them as “hanging sheep’s heads and selling dog meat” apps. I know a single word of Mandarin, so I’m no expert, but I feel like something went spectacularly wrong there. Especially since Apple and Google used the phrase “problem apps” and “dummy apps.”
This issue stuck around after I refreshed and retranslated the page, which suggests it wasn’t a one-time glitch. I didn’t find any other examples of serious screw ups in the rest of the press release, and for the most part all three offered a clear and concise translation — even if it isn’t a word-for-word copy of the original English release.
Other text translation tools to note
It’s also worth mentioning that there are a lot of tools capable of doing the same thing. Apple Intelligence allows you to ask Siri to translate what’s on your screen, which it does with the aid of ChatGPT. Once you’ve asked, Siri will send a screenshot to ChatGPT, which then returns a text translation at the top of your screen. No need for you to go anywhere, though the downside is that you only capture a small snippet of what’s on offer.
Google Gemini isn’t quite so helpful in that regard. You can ask it to translate URLs that you paste into the chat bar, but I found it defaulted to summarizing the webpage for me instead. Asking Gemini to offer a full translation rather than a summary didn’t help either, and I was instead pointed towards Google Maps. However, Circle to Search can do what Apple offers, albeit with a gesture rather than a voice command
Camera translation
Sometimes you need a quick and easy translation of something you’re looking at, something that isn’t already on your phone. This is where camera translation comes into play, with the iPhone 15 Pro Max, Galaxy S25 and Google Pixel 9 Pro all offering their own take on camera-based translation.
The Google Pixel 9 Pro probably has the most versatility when it comes to translating via the camera — because you can do it with either Google Lens or Gemini Live. Both the Google Translate camera mode and Circle to Search can translate through the camera, but since they are powered by Lens, all three are functionally the same thing.
Gemini Live is arguably the most inconvenient of the lot. While it will translate foreign text when prompted, it only seems capable of reading it out to you. Not to mention the fact you have to open and activate Gemini Live first. As for Google Lens, it depends on how you access it. Personally, I found that opening the camera with the double-tap shortcut and then using Circle to Search was the best way of translating quickly.
Google offers a clean translation experience too, completely blocking out the original text and overlaying the translation in an easily readable way. Or at least as clean as the source actually allows.
Apple also has two options: Visual Intelligence and the Camera mode in its translation app. The one that’s most convenient for you will all depend on whether you have one paired to the Action Button or not. Meanwhile, Samsung’s Bixby Vision won’t show a Translate option until you activate it in the settings. It’s not clear why it isn’t on by default.
Bixby Vision is also the hardest of the lot to find. The easiest way to do it is to go through the Bixby voice assistant, and ask it to open Bixby Vision. The only other way is to go through the Camera app’s “more” menu, or search for it in the app drawer — because there isn’t even an option to pin a shortcut to your home screen. Plus, unlike Google and Apple, Samsung doesn’t appear to have a camera option in its first-party translation app.
French
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Original English(Image credit: Apple)
Original English(Image credit: Apple)
Original English(Image credit: Apple)
Google Translate(Image credit: Future)
Google Translate(Image credit: Future)
Google Translate(Image credit: Future)
Apple Intelligence(Image credit: Future)
Apple Intelligence(Image credit: Future)
Apple Intelligence(Image credit: Future)
Galaxy AI(Image credit: Future)
Galaxy AI(Image credit: Future)
Galaxy AI(Image credit: Future)
The first thing I notice when looking at these is how much nicer Google’s translation looks than the other two. Apple’s isn’t bad, but it certainly could look better. Sadly Samsung’s translation looks like an absolute mess, almost like a ransom note made with cut-out letters from newspapers.
Google probably has the cleanest translation of the three, and while it seems the French press releases skipped the idioms for obvious reasons, I can’t spot any serious gaffes in the end result. Meanwhile, Apple’s translation has some questionable syntax in places.
No sane person would write the sentence “by benefitting from access to Apple’s embedded model intelligence”, since both Samsung and Google opted for “with access to.” You can still understand what’s being said, but it’s not ideal.
While all three phones did a good job of translating the text within a reasonable amount of time (and auto-detecting the language in question), I can’t ignore the fact that Apple’s sentence structure was a little out of whack, and that Samsung really needs to work on making its camera translations more legible.
Spanish
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Original English(Image credit: Apple)
Original English(Image credit: Apple)
Original English(Image credit: Apple)
(Image credit: Future)
(Image credit: Future)
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Apple Intelligence(Image credit: Future)
Apple Intelligence(Image credit: Future)
Apple Intelligence(Image credit: Future)
Galaxy AI(Image credit: Future)
Galaxy AI(Image credit: Future)
Galaxy AI(Image credit: Future)
It’s a similar kind of story when it comes to Spanish too, which isn’t hugely surprising. All the text on all three platforms is legible, but there are some issues that certainly need to be addressed — especially with Samsung’s whole layout.
Some of the syntax is a little bit weird, but that seems to be present across all three platforms, especially with phrasing like “Apple today announced” coming up twice. The actual translation itself is fairly good and consistent, and while not a direct like-for-like translation, it is easy to understand.
However, I did spot that Apple and Samsung struggled to pick up the correct text in places, Samsung dropped in “Global Voices” seemingly out of nowhere, and translated “Design” to “Challenge” at one point. Meanwhile, Apple apparently missed a whole sentence of text, though what it did translate was usually fairly readable.
Mandarin
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Original English(Image credit: Apple)
Original English(Image credit: Apple)
Original English(Image credit: Apple)
(Image credit: Future)
(Image credit: Future)
(Image credit: Future)
Apple Intelligence(Image credit: Future)
Apple Intelligence(Image credit: Future)
Apple Intelligence(Image credit: Future)
Galaxy AI(Image credit: Future)
Galaxy AI(Image credit: Future)
Galaxy AI(Image credit: Future)
When it comes to Mandarin, it feels like Samsung really dropped the ball. Not only does it seem to struggle to pick up whole chunks of text, the formatting is totally illegible at times. Though what it does manage to translate seems to be equal to that of the English version, the camera itself seems to be struggling with large segments of Chinese script on the screen.
Apple also had some problems with the iOS 26 press release, revealing a bunch of random characters in place of whole words in the headline. It also seemed to skip half a sentence when discussing Apple’s new universal Liquid Glass design. Interestingly, Google missed a couple of words here too, with the sentence starting with “launch brings” instead of “this launch.”
There’s a lot more variation in the Mandarin translations on all three devices, and the fact that Apple and Samsung seem to be missing whole chunks of text doesn’t do the final result any favors. Still, what is actually translated is understandable, even if some of the word choices seem a little bizarre — like the repeated uses of the word “beautiful.”
Speech translation
All three phones offer a bunch of different spoken translation modes, with support for individual lines and conversations where two different languages are being spoken. Unfortunately, as best I can tell, the built-in chatbots aren’t able to do this for you.
Instead, you have to use the official translation apps, and do everything manually. Needless to say the experiences are rather different depending on which app you choose — though they all utilize AI to varying degrees.
Pixels utilize Google Translate, which is available on iPhone and Samsung Galaxy Phones as well. However Apple Intelligence has its own translation app, while Galaxy AI has a dedicated “Interpreter Mode” specifically for translating conversations. And there’s a clear quality difference between the two.
Apple’s translation app was by far the worst of the three, not because of the quality of the translation, but because of how little it was actually able to pick up. Any pause in the flow of speech, no matter how brief, could cause it to stop listening and translate what it heard — even if the speaker is in the middle of a sentence.
Overall, it felt like Samsung’s Interpreter Mode was at an advantage because it was capable of listening in without you telling it to stop. The standard “listening” mode did this the best, though the two-way conversation mode typically needed me to tell the phone when to start listening in for the second language.
It could detect when the language changed by itself, but not right away. So you’d miss at least half a sentence before the phone registered that someone was talking.
Google Translate was somewhere in the middle, usually (but not always) listening in for longer periods of time than Apple Translate. But it would eventually stop when it thought there was a break in the speech. Which could still be very frustrating at times — and it should take a leaf out of Samsung’s book.
French
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(Image credit: Future)
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(Image credit: Future)
(Image credit: Future)
(Image credit: Future)
For French speech, I translated segments of a Netflix Documentary, “The Greatest Painters of the World: Van Gogh.”
In a surprise twist, during my first stint using Apple Translate the app was actually very good at picking up French, and listening in for more than a few words at a time. But not consistently. In fact, any kind of pause in the flow of speech caused the app to stop listening, making translating large portions of speech very frustrating.
Samsung again excels at picking up extended speech, translating in near real time, while Google was something of a middle ground. While a lot of what the phones picked up was translated correctly, or near enough, there do appear to be plenty of missteps along the way.
A couple of good examples come from how Google and Samsung picked up the word “Van Gogh”, with the former hearing it as “vingts-coque.” Vints is 20, and coque has a lot of different translations — including “hull” or “shell”. Neither of which are correct. Likewise, Google heard “Gogh” as “Coq”, which means rooster.
In this instance, I’d argue that Samsung has the worst translation of the three. While it seems to be able to pick up individual words and phrases, a lot of what it’s producing is quite difficult to read — no doubt because it was struggling to pick up the words correctly.
Google and Apple did a much better job, with a few mistakes here and there, but mostly managed to produce more legible translations. Sadly, the fact the two cut off so frequently, especially Apple Translate, meant that extra errors did slip through the gaps.
Spanish
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(Image credit: Future)
(Image credit: Future)
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(Image credit: Future)
(Image credit: Future)
With Spanish, I opted for a different documentary, “Money Heist: From Tokyo to Berlin,” which focussed on the making of Netflix’s hit series Money Heist.
While you’d expect translation apps to have the most trouble with languages with the difficult languages like Mandarin, they actually seemed to face the most problems with Spanish. Admittedly I was translating speech based on European Spanish, which is different from dialects spoken in the Americas, but I had accounted for that by picking the “Spanish (Spain)” option where available.
It didn’t actually help, and at times it would come out with complete gibberish.
One of the things that stood out most was when one of the cast said what the translation apps thought was “ostras”, which means oysters. Google also suggested it could be Ostrass”, which means “oops”, but the Netflix subtitles had that line as “wow.” Which is quite the difference.
Another example is when Samsung picked up “Se creaban en conteos del fondo del banco Sagrado,” which it claims means “they were created in counts from the bottom of the sacred bank.” Trying again and it said the line was “Esta se quedaban ahí goteo, abriéndoes port todos lados”, which translated to “they were dripping there, opening up everywhere.”
The subtitles said the line was “they stayed inside the helicopter taking photos, hugging.” I know Netflix subtitles don’t have a very good reputation, but the disconnect there is quite extreme to say the least.
Meanwhile, Apple Translate really struggled to pick up anything at all, and when it could it managed to pull in half a sentence. To the point where I wanted to give up many times. How that’s such a different performance to French is something I’ll never understand.
Mandarin
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(Image credit: Future)
The translation apps’ issue with Spanish was similar to my experience testing Mandarin. Here, my source video was a 2020 Huawei shareholders’ meeting, since the stream featured a professional translator working between English and Mandarin.
On the very first line I tried to translate, discussing the then-new COVID-19 pandemic and how it was hoped the virus and epidemic could be brought under control. But Google decided that the speaker wanted “this group of people” to be “brought under control as soon as possible.” Which has some very different connotations.
At another stage, the phrase that was translated as “unforgettable memory” ended up being called “family department” by Apple, and “memory of the original win” by Google. Samsung got the “permanent memory” part, but had already claimed that “every person will become” one.
In another instance of a discussion about the possibility of China banning American 5G chips, Samsung managed to get the gist of what was being discussed, but Google and Samsung did not.
Google talked about connecting to “the same website for 5G”, and Apple talked about using “the same website management.” Neither of which make the slightest bit of sense, even with context.
Samsung certainly came out best with Mandarin, and while Google and Apple could translate the general idea of what was being said, they still struggled. The fact that Apple also kept cutting off mid-sentence was definitely not helping things, either.
Verdict
All three AI platforms have their own respective positives and negatives, and with performance that is roughly on par with everything except voice translation. Text translation seems to be roughly equal across all three devices, even if some of the words differ on occasion.
Likewise, the camera translation tools work quite well, though Samsung certainly comes in last. Not because of any major performance issues, but because it’s hard to access the camera translation tools, and the AR tool itself makes the translation rather hard to read. These would likely be easy things for Samsung to fix, though.
Translating real speech is a clear low point for all three. Apple, for cutting off the recording far too quickly even if the translation was generally rather good. Samsung, meanwhile, was the opposite: Continually recording and translating until told otherwise, but regurgitating nonsense in the process. Google Translate probably had the best middle ground, but still struggled at times — especially with the Spanish.
So if you’re going to translate speech in real time, make sure the people are speaking slowly and clearly. Otherwise you’re just going to miss stuff, and get dodgy translations in the process.
Plus, don’t forget, Google’s translation tools are not restricted to Pixel phones. Google Translate, Lens and the Chrome browser are all available on the Apple App Store and Google Play — giving Samsung and iPhone users access to all the same translation tools alongside their first-party options.
The Oppo Find X8 debuted in late 2024, and the Find X9 will adopt an identical release schedule. (Image Source: Oppo)
Oppo has now confirmed the release schedule for its next-gen flagship lineup. The Oppo Find X9 series will debut later this year as direct successors to the Find X8 generation but new models will launch in 2026 as well.
Oppo already has its next-gen premium smartphone lineup in the works, with the Find X9 series expected to debut as a rival to Vivo’s X300 series and the Xiaomi 16 lineup. While that may still be months away, the company has now provided clarity on when exactly the Find X9 series will be released.
As shared by Zhou Yibao, Oppo’s Find series Product Manager, on Weibo, the Find X9 series will have an identical release schedule to the current-gen Find X8 lineup. The company executive confirms that the Oppo Find X9 and Find X9 Pro can be expected to debut later this year, while the Find X9s and Find X9 Ultra are scheduled to launch in the first half of 2026. Additionally, future generations of the series are currently planned to follow the same release schedule.
As with previous Find series generations, the Find X9 lineup can be expected to adopt flagship chipsets from both MediaTek and Qualcomm—in this case, the Dimensity 9500 and Snapdragon 8 Elite 2 respectively. All four phones will feature straight screens, and both the Find X9 and Find X9 Pro could be set to get overhauled rear camera housing designs. The Find X9s, a direct rival to the vanilla Xiaomi 16, is also tipped to be a compact phone featuring a triple 50 MP rear camera setup and an ultrasonic fingerprint reader.
Ricci Rox – Senior Tech Writer – 3014 articles published on Notebookcheck since 2017
I like tech, simple as. Half the time, you can catch me writing snarky sales copy. The rest of the time, I’m either keeping readers abreast with the latest happenings in the mobile tech world or watching football. I worked as both a journo and freelance content writer for a couple of years before joining the Notebookcheck team in 2017. Feel free to shoot me some questions on Twitter or Reddit if it so tickles thine fancy.
Amazon Prime Day can be a good time to upgrade your home theater setup thanks to all the tech deals we usually see. As was to be expected, Amazon has discounted nearly all of its own streaming devices, including the Fire TV Stick 4K Max, which is on sale for only $35 right now. That’s nearly a record-low price and it represents a 42-percent discount.
While we still prefer Amazon’s Fire TV Stick HD as a budget streaming option, the Fire TV Stick 4K Max could be worth the upgrade for you. Amazon’s device supports 4K video, Dolby Atmos, HDR10+ and if you have a newer router, Wi-Fi 6E. It’s the best option if you’re committed to the dongle-lifestyle — the even-more-powerful Fire TV Cube needs a TV stand to rest on — and a surprisingly great choice if you’re looking for a capable retro game console.
Amazon
Amazon’s premium streaming stick is available for $25 off this Prime Day.
$35 at Amazon
Amazon’s also added in several features to the Fire TV Stick 4K Max that take it beyond a basic streamer. The built-in Ambient Experience lets the dongle display art and widgets when you’re not using your TV, not unlike Samsung’s The Frame and The Frame Pro. The Fire TV Stick 4K Max can also stream games from Xbox Game Pass using the Xbox app or Amazon Luna.
The only real reasons to not consider Amazon’s platform is if you don’t like using Alexa, which acts as the main voice interface for all Fire TVs, don’t want to be pushed towards Amazon’s services or your subscriptions are tangled up in another platform. You can buy subscriptions to a variety of streaming services and live channels through Amazon Prime Video, but if you’ve already done that on Apple TV+ for example, you might want to wait out your subscription before jumping ship.
This is just one of a few Fire TV deals you can snag for Prime Day. Others include the Fire TV Cube for $90 and the Fire TV Stick HD for $18.
Pope Leo has unexpectedly become a trending topic among Pokémon fans after viral images surfaced claiming he signed a Popplio Pokémon card.
The surprise moment originated from a social media post on X by user @ItsMeKingTheo, who wrote, “MY HOMIE GOT HIS POPPLIO POKEMON CARD SIGNED BY POPE LEO.”
The post included three images: one showing a standard Popplio card, another showing a man meeting Pope Leo, and the last appearing to display the Pope’s signature on the card itself.
While no official confirmation has been made, the internet was quick to respond with a mix of amusement and amazement.
Popplio, a water-type starter from the seventh generation of Pokémon games, first appeared in Pokémon Sun and Moon on the Nintendo 3DS.
The card, now allegedly graced by the Pope’s signature, has been dubbed “blessed” by fans in jest.
It’s unclear what the Vatican’s stance is on Pokémon, but the moment has already sparked countless memes and speculation about which Pokémon might be next to receive papal approval.
Microsoft has laid off about 9,000 workers in the midst of a newly-announced $80 billion AI investment — and apparently, those who just lost their jobs should be talking to ChatGPT about it.
As Aftermath reports, an executive producer at Microsoft-owned Xbox ended up with egg on his face after suggesting that laid off workers pour their hearts out to AI.
“These are really challenging times, and if you’re navigating a layoff or even quietly preparing for one, you’re not alone and you don’t have to go it alone,” that producer, Matt Turnbull, said in a since-deleted LinkedIn post that Aftermath thankfully screenshotted for posterity. “No AI tool is a replacement for your voice or your lived experience. But at a time when mental energy is scarce, these tools can help get you unstuck faster, calmer, and with more clarity.”
“I know these types of tools engender strong feelings in people, but l’d be remiss in not trying to offer the best advice I can under the circumstances,” he continued. “I’ve been experimenting with ways to use [large language model] Al tools (like ChatGPT or Copilot) to help reduce the emotional and cognitive load that comes with job loss.”
Yes, you read that right: a Microsoft boss was telling those just laid off by the tech giant that they should use chatbots — run or funded by the company that just fired them — to avoid crying on a company shoulder.
Following that phoned-in introduction, Turnbull offered a few potential prompts for AI as a job loss grief counselor, including those that help with career planning, resume-building, networking, and, our personal favorite, “emotional clarity [and] confidence.”
“I’m struggling with imposter syndrome after being laid off,” Turnbull’s “clarity” prompt reads. “Can you help me reframe this experience in a way that reminds me what I’m good at?”
It comes as little surprise, given how absolutely tone-deaf those suggestions are, that folks on social media had quite a lot to say to the Xbox executive.
“The new Severance season is insanely good,” joked one commentator on X-formerly-Twitter.
As another irked observer wrote on the r/gaming subreddit, “anyone that tells people who were fired to talk to a computer chat algorithm for therapy is insane.”
Indeed, gamers seem to be the most affronted by Turnbull’s attempt at sensitivity and advice, with another X commentator remarking that his response to those layoffs was one of “the most tone-deaf and cruelest things” they’d ever seen.
“I hope this finally shatters the illusion for some people that Xbox is not your good buddy,” that same user quipped.
Though it’s hard to say whether the Xbox producer’s sentiments were sincere or not, it’s clear from the subsequent deletion of the post that he was made to feel some type of way about it after putting it out into the world — and honestly, that potential embarrassment is the most we can hope for with these sorts of tech bros.
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The latest iPhone software update, iOS 18.5, brought with it a surprise new feature for iPhone 13 users: access to a particular kind of satellite connectivity. The service that will first connect to it, T-Satellite from T-Mobile, goes live on Wednesday, July 23. Here’s all you need to know.
Apple iPhone 13 Pro
Future Publishing via Getty Images
Who’s It For?
First off, this service is available to most Android phones and all iPhones from the iPhone 13 onwards. It’s not the same as the satellite connectivity on the iPhone 14 and later, which uses Globalstar — that depends on hardware the iPhone 13 doesn’t have.
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This service is what’s called carrier-supported satellite connectivity, and the only carrier supporting this right now is T-Mobile (though other networks will follow). It uses Starlink satellites, though, unlike many reports earlier in the year, it emphatically does not install Starlink on your phone.
What It Does
It means that if you are outside the regular cellular network, your phone can stay connected via satellite, for text messages on iPhones. More services will be added and when the service goes live, other features will be available to Android users, including multimedia messaging, picture messaging, and short audio clips.
This kind of satellite connection has been called a “game-changer” because you don’t have to point the phone at the sky for the satellite to see the phone. It can stay in your pocket, even.
When It’s Live
The T-Satellite service is in beta testing but from July 23 will be accessible to any mobile phone user with a suitable device, including AT&T and Verizon subscribers.
“T-Mobile will also provide Starlink subscribers with 911 texting via satellite. Later in the year, that capability will expand to any mobile user with a compatible device, even customers on other carriers and those who don’t subscribe to Starlink,” as ZDNET explained.
The beta service has seen more than 1.8 million users, with “tens of thousands of customers from Verizon and AT&T,” T-Mobile said.
How Much It Costs
If you’re a T-Mobile Experience Beyond subscriber, there’s no extra cost above your regular subscription. Others, including AT&T and Verizon customers can access the service for $10 per month.
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Windows 11 uodate causes Firewall error messages, Microsoft has confirmed.
SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images
Microsoft Windows updates: you can’t live without them, but living with them can be tough at times. When high-severity vulnerabilities are uncovered, such as CVE-2025-33073, which can lead to Windows system takeover, updating is a security no-brainer. When vulnerabilities are of the zero-day variety and already subject to ongoing attacks, the need to update is even more critical. The problem that Microsoft has, however, is a history of fumbled update issues that have led to mass confusion at best, and at worst, problems like the startup loop of death that prevent users from being able to use their Windows machines. So, when yet another Windows update problem emerges, the user base heaves yet another sigh of exasperation. Here’s what you need to know about the Windows 11 firewall configuration error, erm, error.
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Windows 11 users are experiencing issues with a Firewall configuration error when using Windows Firewall with Advanced Security, following the June 26 KB5060829 Windows update. One simply cannot ignore the irony of a non-security update leading to security concerns.
Microsoft has now confirmed that the issue is displayed within the Event Viewer under event 2024 for Windows Firewall With Advanced Security. The error appears, Microsoft said, “as Config Read Failed with a message of More data is available.” This error is triggered every time the Windows device is restarted, Microsoft admitted.
The good news in this mess of Microsoft’s own making, is that the error “can be safely ignored,” according to the Seattle tech behemoth. As it does “not reflect an issue with Windows Firewall.”
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So, what is actually going on, beyond the obvious update faux pas? Microsoft’s July 2 update, erm, update, explains this error as being “related to a feature that is currently under development and not fully implemented.” Oh well, that’s OK then, and doesn’t display any lack of proper validation of update integrity before release at all. I mean, it’s good to know that the issue does not have any impact on or to Windows processes and that, as Microsoft has said, it is “working on a resolution and will provide an update in an upcoming release,” but wouldn’t it be better if these things were discovered before the update is made available to one and all?
I have approached Microsoft for a statement.
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