ZTE has used MWC 2022 to launch its latest wares on the cheap smartphone market, bringing out four new models in the Blade V40 range.

The angle is clear for each of these smartphones: focusing on size and battery power, rather than a combination of key features that will improve your way of life, this once again feels like a brute force approach to sales.

The ZTE Blade series of smartphones are often super-affordable Android phones that launch in the US, designed for people who don't need flashy features and want to get a device without breaking the bank.

While we don't know the Blade V40 range release date or prices, the limited specs we have received suggest ZTE is playing that familiar tune.

If there's a unifying feature between the new phones, it's that they all have giant displays and giant batteries - so they'll be a dream for people who like to stream media all day, though they might irritate people with shallow pockets.

Four new mobiles

We don't know everything about these new phones, as the information provided to the press was full of gaps, which is why we call these devices 'confusing'. But we know the key selling points of each device.

The first is the ZTE Blade V40 5G - this is the 'flagship' model from the brand, but all the materials so far are about how speedy and high-strength the 5G signal is going to be, combining 4G, 5G and Wi-Fi to deliver blinding speeds.

This isn't massively new technology, but it will (likely) come at a cheaper price than most other 5G phones.

We assume that a lot of the specs will be similar to the non-5G ZTE Blade V40, which lands with a large 6.67-inch screen at FHD+ resolution. The cameras on the back sound OK - a 48MP main sensor is fine in terms of spec, but with no information on what processing and optimization is going on to improve the image quality, you could end up with many darker, high-res pictures that underwhelm compared to the 12MP images other, more expensive phones can take.

In fact, ZTE says that 'high-quality photography can be realized... without any picture processing' which is a little worrying.

That's joined by a 4cm macro camera - ZTE is clearly flying the 'cheap phone' flag high, because that's a spec we see on many low-cost phones as a way to flesh out specs list. We're dubious that it adds much to the mobile.

However, as you can probably tell, details are rather thin on the ground right now - something that's prevalent in the descriptions of the other two phones.

The ZTE Blade V40 Pro is the real flagship, with a 6.67-inch OLED screen, with a clear focus on adding higher-quality images thanks to the wide color reproduction on offer. 

There's also a large 5,100mAh battery with 65W charging, so in theory you'll be able to juice it up in mere minutes and not worry all day long.

And finally, we've got the ZTE Blade V40 Vita, which is arguably the most interesting of the quartet. Seemingly aimed at the younger market, this is a phone with a huge 6.74-inch display, a 6,000mAh battery and a thin bezel - but a dig at the (limited) specs show a phone that skimps in other places.

Fast charging is capped at 22.5W, which is far slower than the V40 Pro and many other flagship phones (but decent if this is one of the cheaper phones on the market).

The HD+ resolution is far from market-leading, as is the waterdrop display, which sees a notch at the top that's just a small semi-circle - it's design that's just 'fine'.

The ZTE V40 series release date has been set for April this year, and will be landing 'worldwide' - although we've yet to have the exact locations confirmed.

ZTE no longer troubles the rankings of the biggest smartphone manufacturers in the world right now, but it's clear that it sees great opportunity in this budget range - big batteries and screens are the order of the day.

Will the addition of 5G make the difference? It's clear that in lower-cost markets, the tablet-esque displays, faster charging and easier connectivity is attractive - let's see if the Blade range can make a difference in 2022.

• MWC (Mobile World Congress) is the world's largest showcase for the mobile industry, stuffed full of the newest phones, tablets, wearables and more. TechRadar is reporting on the show all week. Follow our MWC 2022 live blog for the very latest news as it happens and visit our dedicated MWC 2022 hub for a round-up of the biggest announcements.

Warning: this Wordle answer is for puzzle #266, for Saturday March 12 - make sure that's the one you're after before scrolling on.

Wordle fans of the world, get ready for some hints and answers on this fine start to the weekend. Yesterday's solution of WATCH caused widespread upset across the internet (including to us), with Wordle 265 X, which indicates a failure, one of the top trending terms all day.

Today's Wordle answer is hopefully more similar (as in not a lot things rhyme with it, which is handy), but also a huge troll from NY Times when you see what it is. However, we're up for helping you slide past the need for the answer by giving you some top Wordle hints - either saving your streak, or helping you start to rebuild from yesterday if you (like us) failed.

But if you just want the answer, scroll on down to the bottom. No worries, it's the weekend, you've got stuff to do.

Today's Wordle hint

Today's Wordle answer is hidden in the title... is that a hint yet? Not really, it's more of a riddle. Let's give you some actual Wordle hints, shall we?

And now we're trained in this practice, having spoken to owners of Wordle solver tools, linguistics experts and more... so here are our three hints to get you thinking about solving today's answer.

1. No letters are repeated
2. It starts with the most popular beginning word letter
3. It ends with AY

Is that a good enough hint? If you figure out 2 and 3, you're pretty much there, in our eyes...

Wordle solver tools

Instead of scrolling to the Wordle answer section below, why not try a 5 letter word generator? There are loads of great tools online that can help you learn a bit more about the world of Wordle and how to get the right letters first - how about you check one of those out?

WordFinderX:allows you to put in letters at the start and the end if you know them and, crucially: allows you to enter any letters that don’t fit.

WordTips:  same as WordFinder X but with a slightly kinder UI. 

The Free Dictionary: lets you use 'contains', 'ends with' or 'starts with' - as well as 'unscramble'.

TryHardGuides Wordle Solver: great for the mobile, pop in the position of the correct, misplaced and wrong letters, and get recommendations based on popularity.

Check out this useful grid that shows the hottest letter pairings - it can really help focus your mind.

Also, try out the analysis from Project Gutenberg, which analyzed nearly 10,000 texts and found the following insights into starting letters, word clumps and more.

Right, now you can have the Wordle answer for today...

Today’s Wordle Answer #266 (Mar 12)

OK, this is more like it. A slightly easier, done-in-three extravaganza. Today's Wordle answer is TODAY.

That's right... TODAY is today's answer, just to really complicate things for people trying to type in 'what's today's Wordle answer?' and getting perplexed by the results.

How did you do?

So let's look back - how did you do two days ago? WordleStats checks all the results published to Twitter and finds the common answer numbers, taking about 30 hours to crunch the data, so the following stats are for LAPSE.

We're surprised that so many people got it in 3 - we'd have thought the -PSE ending would have stumped more. If you did it in under 4, you're a Wordle champ.

Great Wordle alternatives

What about if you fancy a little bit of something else? Check back daily to see our wonderful list of the best Wordle alternatives and see what tickles your fancy.

Scholardle

Like Wordle but find it too easy? Like to read academic journals? Like funny groups off letters?

Then Scholardle is for you. Just the same as Wordle (but with five attempts), players need to try and guess the word with green and yellow letter blocks as an option.

It's fiendishly hard, but if you're into a little world of academia perhaps you might find it easier. 

We did not.

Heardle

Like Wordle but with music, Heardle gets you short little bursts of music to guess and you've got six attempts to do it in.

OK, there aren't that many similarities to the main game, but you do get the same amount of attempts, it does check against a 'dictionary' of songs, you can get a new puzzle daily and it allows you to do the same green-and-yellow posting to Twitter.

Wordle Unlimited

Love a bit of Wordle but annoyed it only lasts one day? Well, why don't you try Wordle Unlimited, the hugely unofficial game where you can play as many times as you like - and we've got all you need to know on how to use and play Wordle Unlimted ready for you.

Nerdle

Such a different game to Wordle, but it gives your brain a different workout. Consider Wordle your long, steady state run and then Nerdle being the HIIT workout you (inexplicably) do next.

You're asked to enter a sum of 8 numbers or symbols long... and apart from knowing it has to have some numbers and an equals in there, that's all you get.

It's a great play - plus there's an 'Instant Nerdle' that shows you one line of semi-correct entries in the wrong place... and it's up to you to get it. Lovely.

You don’t need us to tell you that Wordle is pretty popular - but some people want more than just a single game per day. If that’s you, then Wordle Unlimited is the new bookmark you’re going to want in your expanding list of the best Wordle spinoffs.

The premise is as simple as you might think: when you’ve finished a game (because you’ve become a ninja at how to win Wordle every day), a simple press of Enter will start a new one, and you can spend your train ride, boring dinner or work-avoiding toilet break gloriously swimming in millions of Wordle words.

However, unlike the now-NY-Times-owned ‘standard’ Wordle, there are loads of customization features that users might like on Wordle Unlimited - for instance, you can set your own word length between 4-11 letters, or move the position of the ‘Enter’ key so you don’t accidentally put in a letter when you didn’t mean to.

One of the key problems with a never-ending version of Wordle is that you don't have the community spirit that comes with everyone in the world being challenged with the same word each day. Wordle Unlimited addresses (and in our view, enhanced) that problem: you can start a Wardle, where you challenge your pals to play the same Wordle. This way you still get that community feel of all your closest people all trying to get the daily Wordle.

Better still - for those that want to be a little bit more evil, you can set the word for your circle to all have a go at, so the war can be truly personal.

It’s going to be interesting if Wordle Unlimited is around for much longer - it was brought to life in January, but given it’s using Wordle’s name and a very similar user interface, we can see the NY Times legal team taking a look.

How to ‘install’ Wordle Unlimited on your iPhone

One of the handy features of Safari on the iPhone is the ability to set a website as a pseudo-app. It’s not something you get from the App Store, but if you navigate to the Wordle Unlimited site on Safari, tag the ‘Share’ icon (a box with an arrow pointing upwards) and click ‘Add to home screen’ option.

Clicking the Wordle Unlimited icon on your phone will take you to a site that is shorn of the URL bar, and you can focus on your game. It’s basically similar to a very stripped-down app.

If you’re not certain this Unlimited version is for you - and, to be honest, we’re with you, as the simplicity of the game is what sold us on it - then you can just save the Wordle game now and play in offline mode for years to come, as it could well go behind a paywall at some point and join the rest of the NY Times games.

You don’t need us to tell you that Wordle is pretty popular - but some people want more than just a single game per day. If that’s you, then Wordle Unlimited is the new bookmark you’re going to want in your expanding list of the best Wordle spinoffs.

The premise is as simple as you might think: when you’ve finished a game (because you’ve become a ninja at how to win Wordle every day), a simple press of Enter will start a new one, and you can spend your train ride, boring dinner or work-avoiding toilet break gloriously swimming in millions of Wordle words.

However, unlike the now-NY-Times-owned ‘standard’ Wordle, there are loads of customization features that users might like on Wordle Unlimited - for instance, you can set your own word length between 4-11 letters, or move the position of the ‘Enter’ key so you don’t accidentally put in a letter when you didn’t mean to.

One of the key problems with a never-ending version of Wordle is that you don't have the community spirit that comes with everyone in the world being challenged with the same word each day. Wordle Unlimited addresses (and in our view, enhanced) that problem: you can start a Wardle, where you challenge your pals to play the same Wordle. This way you still get that community feel of all your closest people all trying to get the daily Wordle.

Better still - for those that want to be a little bit more evil, you can set the word for your circle to all have a go at, so the war can be truly personal.

It’s going to be interesting if Wordle Unlimited is around for much longer - it was brought to life in January, but given it’s using Wordle’s name and a very similar user interface, we can see the NY Times legal team taking a look.

How to ‘install’ Wordle Unlimited on your iPhone

One of the handy features of Safari on the iPhone is the ability to set a website as a pseudo-app. It’s not something you get from the App Store, but if you navigate to the Wordle Unlimited site on Safari, tag the ‘Share’ icon (a box with an arrow pointing upwards) and click ‘Add to home screen’ option.

Clicking the Wordle Unlimited icon on your phone will take you to a site that is shorn of the URL bar, and you can focus on your game. It’s basically similar to a very stripped-down app.

If you’re not certain this Unlimited version is for you - and, to be honest, we’re with you, as the simplicity of the game is what sold us on it - then you can just save the Wordle game now and play in offline mode for years to come, as it could well go behind a paywall at some point and join the rest of the NY Times games.

Samsung looks like it's accidentally let slip the (blindingly obvious) name for its new phone - it will, indeed, be called the Galaxy S22.

How have we discerned this unsurprising fact? From the newly-released software for the Samsung Galaxy Watch 4 and 4 Classic, which clearly starts with the fact the update includes: 'Live Wallpaper Watch face update with the Galaxy S22's wallpaper'.

We found the above update when searching through Reddit to find out if the new Watch 4 software had downloaded - and found a classic example of two divisions not fully talking to one another.

The same screenshot has been posted three times, in two languages, as the update is confirmed to be rolling out in parts of Europe, the UK, India and the US already. The same update, with the S22 wording, has been confirmed in Spanish too, so we're pretty confident of its validity.

What does this tell us?

Although Samsung has been pretty open about the fact there's a new member (or, more likely, members) of the Galaxy S series coming at the Unpacked event, it's not said for certain that it will be called the S22.

And while it's been pretty likely, there was the odd moment where Samsung leapt from the Galaxy S10 to the S20 (either to allow the S series to match the year of launch... or to make sure that it had a model number that was greater than the latest iPhone, depending on how conspiratorial you are) so there was always a chance that Samsung might have sprung a naming surprise.

So, when you're watching the Galaxy S22 launch and you hear the S22 name, you can take a deep, relaxed sigh and lean back, safe in the knowledge you knew about this before the multitude of others watching the Galaxy S22 live stream.

(And, for more entertainment, follow our Samsung Galaxy S22 live blog to get our take on the whole event as we bring you all the rumor and leaks before the event, in-depth analysis as it happens and (hopefully) a chance to preview the devices at some point soon).

• For some reason, the Galaxy S22 will also launch in the metaverse too

It’s heavily rumored that Apple’s readying another March event to launch a slew of new gadgets - a new iPhone SE, iPad Air, and possibly new Macs - that’s no surprise, but it could herald one of the most impressive iPhones ever made.

Despite Apple’s spring launch not being an annual thing, the wonderfully-named ‘Spring-loaded’ event last year didn’t feel out of the blue - but there did seem to be a lot of online surprise that a new iPhone SE didn’t land.

The lack of iPhone SE 3 really wasn’t surprising. The first iPhone SE (launched in 2016) took four years to get a successor, as it continued to sell pretty well as a low-cost alternative to the ever-spiralling prices of the new iPhone range, as well as some people enjoying a more palm-friendly device. 

One might have assumed the iPhone 12 mini and 13 mini would have stolen that limelight, but stats suggest that they’ve not been the hit Apple had hoped for (more on that later).

The ‘new’ iPhone SE, launched in 2020, felt like Apple waiting until the very last moment to bring out a new budget iPhone, and following the same SE tradition: using an older design (this time the iPhone 8), offering access to old hardware some people still enjoy (Touch ID over Face ID), and stuffing in a high-power, current chipset to improve things like battery life.

Given the iPhone SE 2020 is still one of our most popular iPhone reviews, I’m surprised that Apple is heavily rumored to be thinking about refreshing it in just a month’s time rather than waiting another year or two… but all the rumors are really ramping up to that, with the much-respected journalist Mark Gurman predicting the device will land alongside the new iPad Air 5.

While there is part of me that can’t see it happening - Apple doesn’t need to refresh this model when it’s currently buoyed by some of the best iPhone sales in years (iPhone 13 range. Not in an adoring, isn’t-Apple-so-generous kind of way, but amazed that it took this long. iPhone 13 users are getting battery life that many Android users have been experiencing for years - the lack of panic when you awake and realize you forgot to plug in the charger is quite a relief.

But, thanks to the A15 Bionic chipset and careful tuning of the components, those that have only ever been on the iPhone train will have been stunned at how little they needed to use a charger when they started using a new iPhone 13… performance that would have sparkled even more during a pandemic when we spent less time away from our power-friendly Wi-Fi.

Now imagine that power and efficiency in a phone using older, less power-intensive hardware. A screen that has fewer pixels to drive. Lower-quality speakers. And a prospective user base that doesn’t use every single feature of their new phone constantly, but just wants an iPhone that won’t let them down - your non-tech family member is the perfect target for an iPhone SE with good battery.

And don’t forget the other thing that Apple managed to do with the iPhone 13 range - that great power longevity while also connecting to 5G networks. The iPhone 12 absolutely failed at this task, with battery life that appeared reduced so Apple could stick in a 5G modem to connect to a network few people were using.

We’re nearly two years on from that moment, and ready for a $399 / £389 / AU$679 5G iPhone that would entice budget-sensitive users ready to make the switch to the faster networks.

A new, old era

By launching an iPhone SE 3 now, Apple wouldn’t be ‘forced’ to use a more modern design. The iPhone 8 chassis is just modern enough to still be desirable - indeed, the curved edges will be appealing to those that haven’t fallen in love with Apple’s more brutalist, industrial design since the iPhone 12.

Apple might want to bring out an iPhone SE based on the current design language - not least because of the cost savings of a single manufacturing process - but I still firmly feel there are millions of people who aren’t that excited about a notch-heavy, all-screen design.

Especially for the higher cost it would command.

If, as heavily rumored, there are no hardware changes on the new iPhone SE, that wouldn’t be the end of the world either. The lack of a dual camera will smart, but I was impressed with the way Apple managed to use the power of its A13 chipset in the last iPhone SE to enhance the photos that came out the older lens… and it’s only got better at doing so since then.

There are even rumors that the sensor inside will be upgraded too. This means the iPhone SE 2022 has even more chance of being a powerhouse with a decent-enough camera on the back - perfect for those that don’t want to spend huge amounts of money just to get a dependable smartphone.

A lot of this is hearsay, of course, and we don’t even have confirmation of the March event yet. But the stream of iPhone SE leaks is starting to build to a river, with reports of testing and production beginning just at the point we’d expect them to.

If Apple does launch the iPhone SE 3 in 2022, that’s a big statement that it’ll be doing the same every couple of years, and puts the prospect of an iPhone 14 mini even further in danger - many people would have bought that just to get a smaller new iPhone, and the iPhone SE 2022 could do that for almost half the price.

So, if I see that event invite land in the next few weeks, and I get one of my regular phone calls from ‘that’ family member asking what new phone they should get… well, I’ll definitely be telling them to hold out for another month or two.

• We used an original iPhone in 2022… and it’s basically useless

Right, we've made it: it's the last day of CES 2022, and we've seen some pretty incredible things appear in the last few days - from color-changing BMWs to foldable laptops from Asus to Samsung using Wi-Fi to power remotes.

We've not seen the things we wanted to see from brands like Garmin (where's the Fenix 7, huh?) and Samsung has been quieter than we thought when it comes to game-changing TVs... they're good, but not quite pushing the barriers that have been broken in recent years.

That said, we've seen massive TVs with Roku onboard, the smallest commercial OLED TV from LG (which is actually a big deal) and a lot inbetween - HiSense making improved ULED displays doesn't sound like much, but it's actually the kind of thing many of us will be buying come Black Friday at the end of the year.

And let's not forget the 'I never saw this coming' popular hits - the new Picoo game for kids is a 'console without a screen', although it really is more like a game of tag with PlayStation Move controllers. Methinks I'll need to crash a kids birthday party to find out if this is going to be popular...

The big announcements

• BMW has made a color-changing car… yes, really
• Invisible headphones are as cool and crazy as they sound
• Oura might be the biggest name in smart rings, but it's got competition
• PlayStation VR2 is official, accompanied by new PSVR 2 Sense controller
• This smart dog collar is one of the coolest things we've seen yet
• This GoPro for cyclists combines a smart tail light with lasers
• These noise-cancelling headphones rival the Sony WH-1000XM4
• Samsung Galaxy S21 FE is official, and now we know how much it'll cost
• Mercedes-Benz Vision EQXX is a solar cell-clad EV with huge range 
• Sony announces the first (and currently only) QD-OLED TV of CES 2022
• Samsung's 2022 QLED TV lineup offers near pixel-perfect contrast
• New Panasonic 4K OLED ditches front-firing speakers for something better
• Sony's making its own EV, with a PlayStation inside

CES 2022: Analysis and insight

• Exclusive: How Samsung is rethinking the gadgets in your kitchen
• Seven Garmin watches missing from CES 2022 (including the Fenix 7)
• Canon's CES 2022 launches are ambitious shots at reinventing cameras
• Forget the 48-inch OLED TV – the 42-inch LG C2 is the true mid-size winner
• Sorry Intel, I’m not sold on folding-screen laptops
• Will the foldable Asus Zenbook 17 Fold OLED actually be worth buying?
• Large appliances are now the latest way to give your home’s decor a refresh

• Metaverse avatars and finger chewing puppies: the robots of CES 2022
• The health tech you didn't realize you needed from CES 2022
• The best TVs from CES 2022: 8 cutting-edge TVs to keep an eye on
• The best phones of CES 2022: Galaxy S21 FE, OnePlus 10 Pro and more
• The best record players of CES 2022 prove vinyl’s still groovy
• The best wearables of CES 2022: Razer, Garmin and more bring new watches
• The best cars of CES 2022:  color-changing BMW to 1,000km range Mercedes 

The weird and wonderful

• SkyDrive air taxi lands at CES 2022 – but no-one's allowed to fly in it
• Volvo is putting YouTube in its cars
• Massage Robotics wants you to come and be touched by a robot 
• CyberPowerPC's Kinetic gaming PC case actually breathes
• This Eufy video doorbell helps solve the problem of stolen packages
• Boston Dynamics once tried to help Sony with AIBO - and a 'Spot Lite?'
• LG’s Omnipod self-driving concept is actually an entire world on wheels
• Oral-B's new electric toothbrush will stop you going cross-eyed
• Toss the batteries! Samsung's new remote uses Wi-Fi to charge
• TCL's new tablet for CES 2022 is like a Kindle, but it's in color
  
  
  

OK, it's time for the final push, as CES draws to a close. Sadly for this liveblogger (and happily for you readers) there's a lot more analysis and insight to come from the TechRadar team, who have been ably finding all the really cool stuff from the show despite not being there.

One of my favorite things so far, and probably of all time, is the Amagami Ham Ham robot bear, which will nibble your finger like a pet, but without all the bacteria.

Shut up, you're weird. Now, onto some highlights from the previous days:

• This adorable stuffed animal robot will nibble on your finger because that's what we need now

Oh man, can you get more CES than a smart dog collar? Smart tech: check. Pet stuff: check. Something like something else but for dogs? Check. This was one of our biggest stories yesterday, and I'm here for it.

This is Invoxia's attempt to bring Apple Watch-esque beauty to your pooch, with the ability to track both respiration and heart rate, using GPs and accelerometers  as well as AI (another CES trend: check) to allow you to monitor the health of your pooch as well as making sure it doesn't go missing.

• This smart dog collar is one of the coolest things we've seen yet from CES 2022

It's funny, the things that, as a child, you think will excite you about being grown up. Late nights, unlimited sugar intake, watching TV all day. 

I still do enjoy doing all of these things, mind you - but what really gets me excited these days are the boring adult things like remote controls.

Not just any remote controls - specifically, the freshly announced Samsung SolarCell remote - and this was another of day 2's biggest stories.

Needing no charging base, the remote uses solar and RF energy harvesting to wirelessly charge, meaning even your end-table lamp can be a part of the process. Wild. 

• Toss the batteries, Samsung's amazing new remote uses your WiFi to charge.

This has been one of our biggest stories over the last three days: headphones that are so invisible that they aren't even there. CES in a nutshell.

This Noveto N1 soundbar will track your head in real time, using facial recognition to stay locked onto you. It will then use beam forming, where it directs the sound, to small audio pockets around your ears, meaning only you can hear the sound.

Is this useful or practical? Probably not - a pair of open-ear headphone could probably achieve the same thing. But it's incredibly cool, and if it works could well be a cornerstone of future offices - meaning instant ability to chat to colleagues with a 'secret' concert going on at the same time.

• Invisible headphones are as cool and crazy as they sound

This came in late yesterday, so it's definitely worth checking out again - the wearables of CES are rounded up here.

In fairness, it's basically just two re-imagined Fossil Gen 6 smartwatches, a couple of new nuggets from Garmin and smart rings.

That doesn't paint the whole picture, in fairness - by not being at the event in person, we weren't able to dredge the fitness pavillion, for instance, and find the cool things that smaller brands are coming up with. There could be smart fitness bands, or advanced face masks that won't make their way into the media for a few weeks - or CES could have just been something of a damp squib.

Either way, the Movano smart ring looks the most exciting to me - grabbing some lovely metrics and ways of making your data more accessible:

"The ring has an impressive list of capabilities, covering sleep monitoring, heart rate, heart rate variability, respiration levels, temperature, blood oxygen readings, step count, and calories burned – and the company is promising that the device is going to get more features over time as well.

"Those features, pending regulatory approval, will include blood glucose and blood pressure monitoring, something that smart rings haven't managed to achieve so far. The Movano device might just hit the sweet spot in terms of price and features."

• The top wearables of CES 2022, all in one place

The Alienware X14 is one of the most popular laptops that's emerged from CES this year, which is a curious thing - it's a gaming laptop that sacrifices spec for portability, but doesn't necessarily make a bad choice, as our US Computing Editor Jackie Thomas highlights:

"The Alienware X14 is the most portable gaming laptop that the luxury brand has ever put out. From what it looks like, it won't lose much on performance but the limited spec options means you really have to be into the portability aspect."

It's limited to an RTX 3060, which tells you where it sits on the gaming spectrum - but like the rise in mobile gaming, it speaks about a world where the hottest and most powerful consoles aren't always the ones people care about the most... and it looks darn striking too.

• Hands on: Alienware X14 review

Welcome to the fourth day of CES 2022, now feeling a long way since the show kicked off with launches from all the big brands on Monday.

That doesn't mean that the show is drawing to a close though - there's a whole slew of news and analysis to come from the world's largest tech show, setting the scene for the rest of the year in terms of what's going to be 'big'.

While we've heard multiple mentions of 'the metaverse' this year, nobody has really given an idea what it actually is, so we can't call that a trend yet. However, EVs are really front and center, with Chevrolet, Togg, BMW and even Sony getting in on the action - CES 2022 is really igniting the notion that our future is going all-electric.

But there's also invisible headphones, color-changing cars and air-purifying headphones to talk about too - this is still the mad world of CES, after all...

The big announcements so far

• BMW has made a color-changing car… yes, really
• PlayStation VR2 is official, accompanied by new PSVR 2 Sense controller
• Samsung Galaxy S21 FE is official, and now we know how much it'll cost
• Mercedes-Benz Vision EQXX is a solar cell-clad EV with huge range and an 8K display
• Sony announces the first (and currently only) QD-OLED TV of CES 2022
• Samsung's 2022 QLED TV lineup offers near pixel-perfect contrast
• New Panasonic 4K OLED ditches front-firing speakers for something even better
• Sony's making its own EV, with a PlayStation inside

CES 2022: Hands on reviews, opinion and roundups

• Forget the 48-inch OLED TV – the 42-inch LG C2 is the true mid-size winner
• Sorry Intel, I’m not sold on folding-screen laptops
• This Alienware ultrawide monitor at CES 2022 makes me happy that mine is dying
• Will the Asus Zenbook 17 Fold OLED actually be a foldable-screen laptop worth buying?

• Hands on: Vivo V23 review - the world's most beautiful phone?
• Hands on: Dell XPS 13 Plus review - if it ain't broke, don't break it
• Hands on: Alienware X14 review - an incredibly luxurious gaming laptop
• Hands on: Lenovo ThinkBook Plus Gen 3 review - a laptop with a second 8-inch screen
  

• The best TVs from CES 2022: 8 cutting-edge TVs to keep an eye on this year
• The best phones of CES 2022: Galaxy S21 FE, OnePlus 10 Pro, Vivo V23, TCL and Nokia

The quirky, fun stuff

• CyberPowerPC's Kinetic gaming PC case actually breathes
• This Eufy video doorbell helps solve the problem of lost and stolen packages
• Boston Dynamics once tried to help Sony with AIBO - and envisions a 'Spot Lite'
• This smart dog collar is one of the coolest things we've seen yet from CES 2022
• Invisible headphones are as cool and crazy as they sound
• LG’s Omnipod self-driving concept is actually an entire world on wheels
• Oral-B's new electric toothbrush will stop you going cross-eyed
• Toss the batteries! Samsung's new remote uses Wi-Fi to charge
• TCL's new tablet for CES 2022 is like a Kindle, but it's in color

Let's go again! It's day four of the biggest tech conference on the planet, and we're back live-blogging the event once more. 

What will be happening today? Well, a lot it seems - we've got a load of analysis of what's happened so far to pick through, as well as a number of new keynotes and launches that will always change the game in some way.

However, as you're likely here to see what's big, here are a few of the highlights from previous days' live blogs:

Oh man, can you get more CES than a smart dog collar? Smart tech: check. Pet stuff: check. Something like something else but for dogs? Check. This was one of our biggest stories yesterday, and I'm here for it.

This is Invoxia's attempt to bring Apple Watch-esque beauty to your pooch, with the ability to track both respiration and heart rate, using GPs and accelerometers  as well as AI (another CES trend: check) to allow you to monitor the health of your pooch as well as making sure it doesn't go missing.

• This smart dog collar is one of the coolest things we've seen yet from CES 2022

It's funny, the things that, as a child, you think will excite you about being grown up. Late nights, unlimited sugar intake, watching TV all day. 

I still do enjoy doing all of these things, mind you - but what really gets me excited these days are the boring adult things like remote controls.

Not just any remote controls - specifically, the freshly announced Samsung SolarCell remote - and this was another of day 2's biggest stories.

Needing no charging base, the remote uses solar and RF energy harvesting to wirelessly charge, meaning even your end-table lamp can be a part of the process. Wild. 

• Toss the batteries, Samsung's amazing new remote uses your WiFi to charge.

The next big innovation in TVs officially arrived yesterday: Sony announced the Sony Master Series A95K. But then weirdly didn't talk about it during its press conference.

Why is it such a big innovation, you ask? Well, let me tell you: inky blacks, better color reproduction and even more impressive contrast ratios - if you thought OLED was good, then Quantum Dot OLED (QD-OLED) is going to blow your mind.

This is the first commercially-available TV using such tech - it'll offer more uniformity to the image without losing the power of OLED, which basically means a better image.

Will this change things massively? No. Will it cost a lot? Yes. But it pushes TV quality on again, and that's a Good Thing to me.

• Sony announces the first QD-OLED TV of CES 2022

This has been one of our biggest stories over the last three days: headphones that are so invisible that they aren't even there. CES in a nutshell.

This Noveto N1 soundbar will track your head in real time, using facial recognition to stay locked onto you. It will then use beam forming, where it directs the sound, to small audio pockets around your ears, meaning only you can hear the sound.

Is this useful or practical? Probably not - a pair of open-ear headphone could probably achieve the same thing. But it's incredibly cool, and if it works could well be a cornerstone of future offices - meaning instant ability to chat to colleagues with a 'secret' concert going on at the same time.

• Invisible headphones are as cool and crazy as they sound

TCL launched a bunch of stuff at CES this year, which it often does, but the two things that got me interested were the NXTPAPER 10S and the NXTWEAR Air.

The NXTPAPER is bit underwhelming to be honest, but the NXTWEAR AIR isn't - it's two screens placed in a pair of glasses so it feels like you're viewing a 140-inch screen from 13-feet away.

OK, there is some underwhelm - they're only 1080p screens, which sounds a bit like a pixellated nightmare... but let's get them on the face first. And they actually look like glasses, which is a massive win in itself.

• Check out all TCL's cheaper announcements from CES this year - there are a lot

This was the big news overnight - the PSVR 2 was shown off in greater detail by Sony and I'm honestly here for it.

I love the notion of VR and I want a system that could just work in my front room - this is what the new option from Sony is promising.

Users can expect the PSVR 2 to boast OLED displays with a resolution of 2000 x 2040 per eye, which is an almost four-fold improvement on the original's 1080p output and will hugely improve the sharpness and feeling of immersion. 

The PSVR 2's built-in headphones will also take advantage of Sony's 3D Audio technology that, again, is crucial to getting that feeling of being actually in the game - you can get a sense of what it feels like in the trailer above (although, spoiler: this is mostly a developer talking about how great VR is, rather than showcasing anything).

Additionally, the PSVR 2 will be capable of 90Hz and 120Hz refresh rates with a 110-degree field of view. The headset will also feature built-in six-axis motion sensing (three-axis gyroscope, three-axis accelerometer), along with an IR proximity sensor - all useful ways of tracking motion and improving that feeling of being inside the game.

The controllers, which we already know a lot about, clearly take inspiration from Oculus' versions - while it would be better to be unique, at least Sony as moved away from the 'sticks with light up balls on' that the previous version used.

• PlayStation VR2 is official, accompanied by new PSVR 2 Sense controller

Uh-oh Dell... the new XPS 13 Plus was supposed to be all exciting, but this opening from US Computing Editor Jackie Thomas tells it all:

"The Dell XPS 13 has been one of – if not the – best laptops on the market for years. A brilliant design and excellent performance made it one of the easiest devices to recommend to anyone. But at CES 2022, Dell took this classic design and tried to transform it into something even more portable and modern – and ruined its best laptop completely. "

Calling it a 'trendy mess' and a (likely) 'nightmare to use day-to-day' this has got me worried - Dell has been making excellent laptops for years, but this could be a step too far.

Dell added a weird touch bar that isn't an Apple Touch Bar (you can't customize it). There's no headphone jack or microSD card slot.

Overall, this doesn't look good, even if the laptop looks good.

• Hands on: Dell XPS13 Plus 2022 review - if it ain't broke, don't break it

Honestly, how has nobody thought of this before? The Eufy Security Video Doorbell Dual (Battery) has a 2K camera with a 160-degree field of view at the top, while the lower-quality Full HD lens, offering a 120-degree field of view, sits on the angled base of the doorbell to capture the ground.

What does that mean in real life? This lets you see a detailed view of the face and body of whoever is at your doorstep, as well as any packages they have resting on the ground. 

It's not cheap at priced at $259.99 / £229.99 / AU$449.99 but will go on sale on February 8 in the US and February 16 in the UK - this is a nice idea indeed and I can see it appearing in a Ring model in the near future...

• This Eufy video doorbell helps solve the problem of lost and stolen packages

This article from our Fitness and Wellness Editor Cat Ellis had me at the strapline: "Like you're always using the cool side of the pillow".

Yes. I'm in. I don't care what it is. I love the cool side of the pillow. I didn't realize how much until I started writing this sentence. It's so good.

Anyway, I'm clearly tiring so let's talk about this properly: US company Chilisleep has a cooled mattress topper that not only keeps your bed the ideal temperature, but also tracks your biometrics overnight so you can see just how much it's improving your sleep.

It uses water to cool the bed, is quiet enough to be close to light rainfall (a sound I like anyway) and is improved to allow for better coverage of the mattress.

It's also possible to pair it with the new Sleepme+ service, which allows you to pair the The Chilisleep Dock Pro with the Sleepme Insight – a sleep tracker that collects stats on sleep stages and duration. 

When the two devices are used together, their machine learning algorithms can automatically change the temperature of your bed to extend deep and REM sleep.

YES. I love sleep data. I love cool nights. This has got me jazzed.

• This smart chilled mattress topper revealed at CES 2022 puts an end to sweaty nights

You know when you have that worry in the pit of your stomach that someone has broken into your house? The sound of broken glass is always a dead giveaway, but can be confused by a number of other sounds.

Some brands have found a way to sense that with their tech, but not Ring, one of the biggest video doorbell brands - and now that's been rectified.

The Ring Alarm Glass Break Sensor uses AI to distinguish between the sound of a window or glass door being smashed and false alarms such as keys being jingled or crockery clattering when you’re emptying the dishwasher. 

The Ring Alarm Glass Break Sensor is a compact white circular device that can be mounted to a wall or ceiling and can detect the sound of breaking glass from up to 25 feet / 7.5 meters away. If it detects glass being broken it will send an alert to your smartphone and give you the option to trigger both the alarm’s indoor and outdoor siren, if you have these installed, even if the alarm isn’t armed.  

The Ring Alarm Glass Break Sensor is priced at $39.99 / £35 (about AU$55) and will go on sale on February 16. 

• Ring’s latest alarm add-on can detect the sound of breaking glass
  

This really happened yesterday: BMW launched a color-changing car. Well, it's a concept, but maybe one day...?

It's properly impressive, with the fully electric BMW iX packing body panels made from E Ink displays - the same technology you find in the screen of a Kindle ereader - in a system it's calling 'iX Flow'.

It's understandably just a concept right now, but the possibilities are high - could the car display charge status from afar? Could it be customized to allow for bespoke art? This is an exciting idea.

John McCann, our Global Managing Editor, said from his demo: "In the virtual demonstration we were shown, the modified BMW iX was switched from white, to black, and back to white. It's a convincing showing, although when white, rather than one clean color, the car has a triangular pattern on the bodywork. 

"This is likely due to the physical makeup of the panels on the car, and something which is less obvious from a distance."

It would be amazing to try this in real life - there were moments where, as a tech journalist, you get to blow people's mind, such as the first time I paid for something with a wearable.

This would surely be comparable. And a little like Grand Theft Auto if you were trying to escape the cops...

• BMW has made a color-changing car… yes, really
  

As far as we’re concerned, Sony unveiled one of the only truly next-generation TVs at CES in the form of the A95K QD-OLED TV.

However, that doesn't mean that there weren't a slew of other great sets announced - whether it's the mid-range marvels from Hi-Sense, a smaller 42-inch OLED from LG or just another nice little unveiling from TCL, there's a lot to talk about - so we've rounded up the best TVs from CES.

Have a look through - your next TV could be in there. Or you could be like me and just marvel at how big / thin / colorful they are these days... 

• The best TVs from CES 2022: 8 cutting-edge TVs to keep an eye on this year

It's all kicking off in the EV space - GM had a big ol' launch last night, where it talked up the Chevrolet Silverado EV – and it looks set to go toe-to-toe with Ford's F-150 Lightning in almost every department. 

The Ford Lightning truck has been getting a huge amount of love since it was unveiled, and was one of the hottest EVs across TechRadar last year - so seeing a genuine challenger is exciting.

The Silverado will ship in two variants, a basic work truck (the WT) and a fully-loaded luxury model (the RST), some time in 2023. The former will start at $39,900, with the latter set to cost an almighty $105,000. 

It's got an impressive 400 miles of range on a full charge, and will segment some power to allow users to charge their home in the event of a power outage. That's useful.

• Chevrolet Silverado EV goes toe-to-toe with the Ford F-150 Lightning
  

We're well into the thick of CES 2022, with this being day 3 of the announcements, but day 1 of the event officially opening - although it looks like actual attendees are a little thinner on the ground this year, according to some on-the-ground visitors on Twitter.

But that hasn't stopped the absolute slew of announcements appearing - both big unveilings from the larger brands and smaller, cooler stuff that make CES what it is, a chance to spot the coming trends for the next year.

Samsung's announcements of new QLED TVs and a Freestyle portable projector are still the big news, as well as Sony unveiling a new concept EV (with a few high-end OLED TVs thrown in too).

But let's not get too bogged down in what's come before - we could revel in the fact that LG has launched a weird caravan or that Garmin has inexplicably not launched the Fenix 7, but this is the start of CES people - it's game time.

This live blog will keep you up-to-date on all the big announcements, the quirky stuff that we only get to talk about during CES and everything inbetween - leave it open in a tab and it'll auto-refresh with everything from CES 2022 for you to pick through.

The big announcements so far

• PlayStation VR2 is official, accompanied by new PSVR 2 Sense controller
• LG brings brighter OLED TVs and a sequel to the C1 and G1 OLEDs
• Samsung Galaxy S21 FE is official, and now we know how much it'll cost
• Hisense might have just announced the best mid-range TV of 2022
• Forget the 48-inch OLED TV – the 42-inch LG C2 is the true mid-size winner
• Mercedes-Benz Vision EQXX is a solar cell-clad EV with huge range and an 8K display
• OnePlus 10 Pro launch date and design revealed, but you won't be able to buy it
• Sony announces the first (and currently only) QD-OLED TV of CES 2022
• Samsung's 2022 QLED TV lineup offers near pixel-perfect contrast
  
  

CES 2022 keynotes: catch up on live coverage

All times in PT

• Jan 4, 7am: AMD CES 2022 Product Premiere event recap: all about the laptops
• Jan 4, 8AM: Nvidia CES 2022 Special Address recap - it's time for the 3090 Ti
• Jan 4, 8AM: LG CES 2022 recap: OLED TVs, weird car offices and indoor gardens
• Jan 4, 10AM: Intel CES 2022 On the Road to the Future recap - more Alder lake from Team Blue
• Jan 4, 11AM: Qualcomm CES 2022 recap - mixed reality, powering cars and 5G again
• Jan 4, 5:00PM: Sony CES 2022 recap: PSVR2, a new car company and an impressive EV 
• Jan 4, 6:30PM: Samsung CES 2022 recap: where were all the TVs?
  

The quirky, fun stuff

• This smart dog collar is one of the coolest things we've seen yet from CES 2022
• Are we all just ignoring that LG's releasing a music album with a virtual influencer?
• Invisible headphones are as cool and crazy as they sound
• Are these the most expensive headphones at CES 2022?
• TCL's new tablet for CES 2022 is like a Kindle, but it's in color
• LG’s Omnipod self-driving concept is actually an entire world on wheels
• LG TVs will soon offer access to doctors and dentists virtually for a flat fee
• Oral-B's new electric toothbrush will stop you going cross-eyed
• Holy future: These smart lights use radar to track your health and movements
• Toss the batteries! Samsung's new remote uses Wi-Fi to charge
  

Welcome to day 3 of CES - it's been a couple of years since I've felt the madness of Vegas, so I can't remember how I would have been about this point. However, I can look back over my Garmin body battery data... and it is not pleasant reading. I was not well-rested come the end of the week.

Anyway, that was the before times, and this is the now times. There are loads of new CES announcements to crawl through as the show opens in earnest - let's get cracking with a few highlights from yesterday.

What's been the biggest story so far? Well, it's been the Samsung Galaxy S21 FE, the phone that's attempting to breathe life into the S21 range 11 months after launch, and just a month before the likely launch of the Galaxy S22.

We've already had extensive time with it, and have published our full Galaxy S21 FE review - this is likely to be the biggest phone of the show by some distance, given it's from a huge brand. But will the OnePlus 10 make an appearance too?

• Samsung Galaxy S21 FE is official, and here's how much it'll cost
• Samsung Galaxy S21 FE review
  

Oh man, can you get more CES than a smart dog collar? Smart tech: check. Pet stuff: check. Something like something else but for dogs? Check. This was one of our biggest stories yesterday, and I'm here for it.

This is Invoxia's attempt to bring Apple Watch-esque beauty to your pooch, with the ability to track both respiration and heart rate, using GPs and accelerometers  as well as AI (another CES trend: check) to allow you to monitor the health of your pooch as well as making sure it doesn't go missing.

• This smart dog collar is one of the coolest things we've seen yet from CES 2022

Yesterday, we thought we might need a plumber - there was a potential leak from CES 2022! The victim? Samsung's QD-OLED TV.

It's not completely out of the blue - we'd heard rumblings of a QLED/OLED hybrid for some time, but has yet to be formally announced. 

So, when it turned up on the CES.tech website, honoring the unannounced television in the CES 2022 Innovation Awards, it looked like the Samsung TV has had a rude awakening from its development stage.

But no! It never appeared during the Samsung press conference. What's that about?

• Samsung's QLED-QLED hybrid TV may have been leaked by CES 2022

It's funny, the things that, as a child, you think will excite you about being grown up. Late nights, unlimited sugar intake, watching TV all day. 

I still do enjoy doing all of these things, mind you - but what really gets me excited these days are the boring adult things like remote controls.

Not just any remote controls - specifically, the freshly announced Samsung SolarCell remote - and this was another of day 2's biggest stories.

Needing no charging base, the remote uses solar and RF energy harvesting to wirelessly charge, meaning even your end-table lamp can be a part of the process. Wild. 

• Toss the batteries, Samsung's amazing new remote uses your WiFi to charge.

If you're anything like me, no power on earth can move you to remember where your phone is. 

This extends to 90% of things that I own, with the 10% representing body parts that are attached to my being and things that never leave the spot they live in.

So, Targus' new Cypress Hero backpack with built-in Apple Find My tracker has got me hook, line and sinker. Announced yesterday, this sustainably-made product is loaded with handy storage and is compatible with Apple's Find My feature. Plus, its onboard tracker shares the same technology as AirTags. 

While Android and iPhone users alike can use the Targus app to track down the erroneous backpack, only iPhone users can use the Find my Phone feature from the backpack itself - which makes sense.

The in-built tracker has a year of battery life, and can be charged via. USB. Simple!

The next big innovation in TVs officially arrived yesterday: Sony announced the Sony Master Series A95K. But then weirdly didn't talk about it during its press conference.

Why is it such a big innovation, you ask? Well, let me tell you: inky blacks, better color reproduction and even more impressive contrast ratios - if you thought OLED was good, then Quantum Dot OLED (QD-OLED) is going to blow your mind.

This is the first commercially-available TV using such tech - it'll offer more uniformity to the image without losing the power of OLED, which basically means a better image.

Will this change things massively? No. Will it cost a lot? Yes. But it pushes TV quality on again, and that's a Good Thing to me.

• Sony announces the first QD-OLED TV of CES 2022

LG's press conference yesterday threw up a couple of interesting things:

This is LG's Omnipod - an office / cinema / dressing room / vehicle / weird camping station that is apparently the future.

You can order food from it, somehow. It stores dresses in the side panel of the cabin. No, I don't understand it either.

Weirder than that is the fact that LG is launching a music album for its virtual influencer, Reah Keem, and it'll be coming later this year. 

What's more confusing is that I did some digging, and it turns out that she is far from the first virtual influencer... it's now a thing, apparently.

• Are we all just ignoring that LG's releasing an album with a virtual influencer?
• LG’s Omnipod self-driving concept is actually an entire world on wheels
  

Now this is the kind of shiz I want to see at CES: invisible headphones. So invisible that they're not even there.

This Noveto N1 soundbar will track your head in real time, using facial recognition to stay locked onto you. It will then use beam forming, where it directs the sound, to small audio pockets around your ears, meaning only you can hear the sound.

Is this useful or practical? Probably not - a pair of open-ear headphone could probably achieve the same thing. But it's incredibly cool, and if it works could well be a cornerstone of future offices - meaning instant ability to chat to colleagues with a 'secret' concert going on at the same time.

• Invisible headphones are as cool and crazy as they sound

TCL launched a bunch of stuff at CES this year, which it often does, but the two things that got me interested were the NXTPAPER 10S and the NXTWEAR Air.

Let's start with the NXTPAPER - it's a tablet that's said to be 'paperlike' but doesn't use E-ink technology or anything similar that you might find in Kindles. It's just a simple tablet with a stylus and an 8,000mAh battery for a little less cash than you might expect - although we don't have the final price or confirmation it's coming to the UK.

If the NXTPAPER is underwhelming, then the NXTWEAR AIR shouldn't - it's two screens placed in a pair of glasses so it feels like you're viewing a 140-inch screen from 13-feet away.

OK, there is some underwhelm - they're only 1080p screens, which sounds a bit like a pixellated nightmare... but let's get them on the face first. And they actually look like glasses, which is a massive win in itself.

• Check out all TCL's cheaper announcements from CES this year - there are a lot

This was the big news overnight - the PSVR 2 was shown off in greater detail by Sony and I'm honestly here for it.

I love the notion of VR and I want a system that could just work in my front room - this is what the new option from Sony is promising.

Users can expect the PSVR 2 to boast OLED displays with a resolution of 2000 x 2040 per eye, which is an almost four-fold improvement on the original's 1080p output and will hugely improve the sharpness and feeling of immersion. 

The PSVR 2's built-in headphones will also take advantage of Sony's 3D Audio technology that, again, is crucial to getting that feeling of being actually in the game - you can get a sense of what it feels like in the trailer above (although, spoiler: this is mostly a developer talking about how great VR is, rather than showcasing anything).

Additionally, the PSVR 2 will be capable of 90Hz and 120Hz refresh rates with a 110-degree field of view. The headset will also feature built-in six-axis motion sensing (three-axis gyroscope, three-axis accelerometer), along with an IR proximity sensor - all useful ways of tracking motion and improving that feeling of being inside the game.

The controllers, which we already know a lot about, clearly take inspiration from Oculus' versions - while it would be better to be unique, at least Sony as moved away from the 'sticks with light up balls on' that the previous version used.

• PlayStation VR2 is official, accompanied by new PSVR 2 Sense controller

One of the big trending terms today is Garmin, and specifically the Fenix 7. There were rafts of rumors that CES was going to show off the next generation in rugged smart fitness watches, but that came to nothing.

Instead we're simply looking at the (still rather attractive) Garmin Venu 2 Plus, an Apple Watch rival that comes with a microphone built in to talk to whichever voice assistant is on your phone.

Why hasn't the Fenix 7 arrived when so many rumors seemed to point to it? My hunch is that Garmin didn't feel like CES was the venue for it - which says to me that there will be something bigger, more dedicated coming in the next few weeks.

• Garmin reveals Vivomove Sport hybrid watch and the long-awaited Venu 2 Plus

Uh-oh Dell... the new XPS 13 Plus was supposed to be all exciting, but this opening from US Computing Editor Jackie Thomas tells it all:

"The Dell XPS 13 has been one of – if not the – best laptops on the market for years. A brilliant design and excellent performance made it one of the easiest devices to recommend to anyone. But at CES 2022, Dell took this classic design and tried to transform it into something even more portable and modern – and ruined its best laptop completely. "

Calling it a 'trendy mess' and a (likely) 'nightmare to use day-to-day' this has got me worried - Dell has been making excellent laptops for years, but this could be a step too far.

Dell added a weird touch bar that isn't an Apple Touch Bar (you can't customize it). There's no headphone jack or microSD card slot.

Overall, this doesn't look good, even if the laptop looks good.

• Hands on: Dell XPS13 Plus 2022 review - if it ain't broke, don't break it

Our phones writer Tom Bedford knows a thing or two about the humble phone - so when he says he can "confidently say it's one of the most beautiful smartphones we've ever used" that's a pretty big thing.

The Vivo 23 and 23 Plus are two top-end phones from the Chinese brand that continue in the vein of quietly impressing us - the design is the thing that sticks out at the start though:

"The gold model has a sparkling textured look that really does seem to glisten. When it catches the light just right, the gold turns to blue."

It's got some interesting specs - a powerful selfie camera is attractive and packs two sensors, one of which is a whopping 50MP, although that could well be overkill.

They both also use the untested Mediatek Dimensity chipsets - 900 and 1200 for the V23 and V23 Pro respectively - so we want to check them out before deciding how great they are.

But at least in our limited hands on time we found them to be appealing - and likely around half the price of a new iPhone too.

• Hands on: Vivo V23 review
• Vivo's beautiful new mobiles could be the best camera phones for selfies

We're well into the thick of CES 2022, with this being day 3 of the announcements, but day 1 of the event officially opening - although it looks like actual attendees are a little thinner on the ground this year, according to some on-the-ground visitors on Twitter.

But that hasn't stopped the absolute slew of announcements appearing - both big unveilings from the larger brands and smaller, cooler stuff that make CES what it is, a chance to spot the coming trends for the next year.

Samsung's announcements of new QLED TVs and a Freestyle portable projector are still the big news, as well as Sony unveiling a new concept EV (with a few high-end OLED TVs thrown in too).

But let's not get too bogged down in what's come before - we could revel in the fact that LG has launched a weird caravan or that Garmin has inexplicably not launched the Fenix 7, but this is the start of CES people - it's game time.

This live blog will keep you up-to-date on all the big announcements, the quirky stuff that we only get to talk about during CES and everything inbetween - leave it open in a tab and it'll auto-refresh with everything from CES 2022 for you to pick through.

The big announcements so far

• PlayStation VR2 is official, accompanied by new PSVR 2 Sense controller
• LG brings brighter OLED TVs and a sequel to the C1 and G1 OLEDs
• Samsung Galaxy S21 FE is official, and now we know how much it'll cost
• Hisense might have just announced the best mid-range TV of 2022
• Forget the 48-inch OLED TV – the 42-inch LG C2 is the true mid-size winner
• Mercedes-Benz Vision EQXX is a solar cell-clad EV with huge range and an 8K display
• OnePlus 10 Pro launch date and design revealed, but you won't be able to buy it
• Sony announces the first (and currently only) QD-OLED TV of CES 2022
• Samsung's 2022 QLED TV lineup offers near pixel-perfect contrast
  
  

CES 2022 keynotes: catch up on live coverage

All times in PT

• Jan 4, 7am: AMD CES 2022 Product Premiere event recap: all about the laptops
• Jan 4, 8AM: Nvidia CES 2022 Special Address recap - it's time for the 3090 Ti
• Jan 4, 8AM: LG CES 2022 recap: OLED TVs, weird car offices and indoor gardens
• Jan 4, 10AM: Intel CES 2022 On the Road to the Future recap - more Alder lake from Team Blue
• Jan 4, 11AM: Qualcomm CES 2022 recap - mixed reality, powering cars and 5G again
• Jan 4, 5:00PM: Sony CES 2022 recap: PSVR2, a new car company and an impressive EV 
• Jan 4, 6:30PM: Samsung CES 2022 recap: where were all the TVs?
  

The quirky, fun stuff

• This smart dog collar is one of the coolest things we've seen yet from CES 2022
• Are we all just ignoring that LG's releasing a music album with a virtual influencer?
• Invisible headphones are as cool and crazy as they sound
• Are these the most expensive headphones at CES 2022?
• TCL's new tablet for CES 2022 is like a Kindle, but it's in color
• LG’s Omnipod self-driving concept is actually an entire world on wheels
• LG TVs will soon offer access to doctors and dentists virtually for a flat fee
• Oral-B's new electric toothbrush will stop you going cross-eyed
• Holy future: These smart lights use radar to track your health and movements
• Toss the batteries! Samsung's new remote uses Wi-Fi to charge
  

Welcome to day 3 of CES - it's been a couple of years since I've felt the madness of Vegas, so I can't remember how I would have been about this point. However, I can look back over my Garmin body battery data... and it is not pleasant reading. I was not well-rested come the end of the week.

Anyway, that was the before times, and this is the now times. There are loads of new CES announcements to crawl through as the show opens in earnest - let's get cracking with a few highlights from yesterday.

What's been the biggest story so far? Well, it's been the Samsung Galaxy S21 FE, the phone that's attempting to breathe life into the S21 range 11 months after launch, and just a month before the likely launch of the Galaxy S22.

We've already had extensive time with it, and have published our full Galaxy S21 FE review - this is likely to be the biggest phone of the show by some distance, given it's from a huge brand. But will the OnePlus 10 make an appearance too?

• Samsung Galaxy S21 FE is official, and here's how much it'll cost
• Samsung Galaxy S21 FE review
  

Oh man, can you get more CES than a smart dog collar? Smart tech: check. Pet stuff: check. Something like something else but for dogs? Check. This was one of our biggest stories yesterday, and I'm here for it.

This is Invoxia's attempt to bring Apple Watch-esque beauty to your pooch, with the ability to track both respiration and heart rate, using GPs and accelerometers  as well as AI (another CES trend: check) to allow you to monitor the health of your pooch as well as making sure it doesn't go missing.

• This smart dog collar is one of the coolest things we've seen yet from CES 2022

Yesterday, we thought we might need a plumber - there was a potential leak from CES 2022! The victim? Samsung's QD-OLED TV.

It's not completely out of the blue - we'd heard rumblings of a QLED/OLED hybrid for some time, but has yet to be formally announced. 

So, when it turned up on the CES.tech website, honoring the unannounced television in the CES 2022 Innovation Awards, it looked like the Samsung TV has had a rude awakening from its development stage.

But no! It never appeared during the Samsung press conference. What's that about?

• Samsung's QLED-QLED hybrid TV may have been leaked by CES 2022

It's funny, the things that, as a child, you think will excite you about being grown up. Late nights, unlimited sugar intake, watching TV all day. 

I still do enjoy doing all of these things, mind you - but what really gets me excited these days are the boring adult things like remote controls.

Not just any remote controls - specifically, the freshly announced Samsung SolarCell remote - and this was another of day 2's biggest stories.

Needing no charging base, the remote uses solar and RF energy harvesting to wirelessly charge, meaning even your end-table lamp can be a part of the process. Wild. 

• Toss the batteries, Samsung's amazing new remote uses your WiFi to charge.

If you're anything like me, no power on earth can move you to remember where your phone is. 

This extends to 90% of things that I own, with the 10% representing body parts that are attached to my being and things that never leave the spot they live in.

So, Targus' new Cypress Hero backpack with built-in Apple Find My tracker has got me hook, line and sinker. Announced yesterday, this sustainably-made product is loaded with handy storage and is compatible with Apple's Find My feature. Plus, its onboard tracker shares the same technology as AirTags. 

While Android and iPhone users alike can use the Targus app to track down the erroneous backpack, only iPhone users can use the Find my Phone feature from the backpack itself - which makes sense.

The in-built tracker has a year of battery life, and can be charged via. USB. Simple!

The next big innovation in TVs officially arrived yesterday: Sony announced the Sony Master Series A95K. But then weirdly didn't talk about it during its press conference.

Why is it such a big innovation, you ask? Well, let me tell you: inky blacks, better color reproduction and even more impressive contrast ratios - if you thought OLED was good, then Quantum Dot OLED (QD-OLED) is going to blow your mind.

This is the first commercially-available TV using such tech - it'll offer more uniformity to the image without losing the power of OLED, which basically means a better image.

Will this change things massively? No. Will it cost a lot? Yes. But it pushes TV quality on again, and that's a Good Thing to me.

• Sony announces the first QD-OLED TV of CES 2022

LG's press conference yesterday threw up a couple of interesting things:

This is LG's Omnipod - an office / cinema / dressing room / vehicle / weird camping station that is apparently the future.

You can order food from it, somehow. It stores dresses in the side panel of the cabin. No, I don't understand it either.

Weirder than that is the fact that LG is launching a music album for its virtual influencer, Reah Keem, and it'll be coming later this year. 

What's more confusing is that I did some digging, and it turns out that she is far from the first virtual influencer... it's now a thing, apparently.

• Are we all just ignoring that LG's releasing an album with a virtual influencer?
• LG’s Omnipod self-driving concept is actually an entire world on wheels
  

Now this is the kind of shiz I want to see at CES: invisible headphones. So invisible that they're not even there.

This Noveto N1 soundbar will track your head in real time, using facial recognition to stay locked onto you. It will then use beam forming, where it directs the sound, to small audio pockets around your ears, meaning only you can hear the sound.

Is this useful or practical? Probably not - a pair of open-ear headphone could probably achieve the same thing. But it's incredibly cool, and if it works could well be a cornerstone of future offices - meaning instant ability to chat to colleagues with a 'secret' concert going on at the same time.

• Invisible headphones are as cool and crazy as they sound

TCL launched a bunch of stuff at CES this year, which it often does, but the two things that got me interested were the NXTPAPER 10S and the NXTWEAR Air.

Let's start with the NXTPAPER - it's a tablet that's said to be 'paperlike' but doesn't use E-ink technology or anything similar that you might find in Kindles. It's just a simple tablet with a stylus and an 8,000mAh battery for a little less cash than you might expect - although we don't have the final price or confirmation it's coming to the UK.

If the NXTPAPER is underwhelming, then the NXTWEAR AIR shouldn't - it's two screens placed in a pair of glasses so it feels like you're viewing a 140-inch screen from 13-feet away.

OK, there is some underwhelm - they're only 1080p screens, which sounds a bit like a pixellated nightmare... but let's get them on the face first. And they actually look like glasses, which is a massive win in itself.

• Check out all TCL's cheaper announcements from CES this year - there are a lot

This was the big news overnight - the PSVR 2 was shown off in greater detail by Sony and I'm honestly here for it.

I love the notion of VR and I want a system that could just work in my front room - this is what the new option from Sony is promising.

Users can expect the PSVR 2 to boast OLED displays with a resolution of 2000 x 2040 per eye, which is an almost four-fold improvement on the original's 1080p output and will hugely improve the sharpness and feeling of immersion. 

The PSVR 2's built-in headphones will also take advantage of Sony's 3D Audio technology that, again, is crucial to getting that feeling of being actually in the game - you can get a sense of what it feels like in the trailer above (although, spoiler: this is mostly a developer talking about how great VR is, rather than showcasing anything).

Additionally, the PSVR 2 will be capable of 90Hz and 120Hz refresh rates with a 110-degree field of view. The headset will also feature built-in six-axis motion sensing (three-axis gyroscope, three-axis accelerometer), along with an IR proximity sensor - all useful ways of tracking motion and improving that feeling of being inside the game.

The controllers, which we already know a lot about, clearly take inspiration from Oculus' versions - while it would be better to be unique, at least Sony as moved away from the 'sticks with light up balls on' that the previous version used.

• PlayStation VR2 is official, accompanied by new PSVR 2 Sense controller

One of the big trending terms today is Garmin, and specifically the Fenix 7. There were rafts of rumors that CES was going to show off the next generation in rugged smart fitness watches, but that came to nothing.

Instead we're simply looking at the (still rather attractive) Garmin Venu 2 Plus, an Apple Watch rival that comes with a microphone built in to talk to whichever voice assistant is on your phone.

Why hasn't the Fenix 7 arrived when so many rumors seemed to point to it? My hunch is that Garmin didn't feel like CES was the venue for it - which says to me that there will be something bigger, more dedicated coming in the next few weeks.

• Garmin reveals Vivomove Sport hybrid watch and the long-awaited Venu 2 Plus

Uh-oh Dell... the new XPS 13 Plus was supposed to be all exciting, but this opening from US Computing Editor Jackie Thomas tells it all:

"The Dell XPS 13 has been one of – if not the – best laptops on the market for years. A brilliant design and excellent performance made it one of the easiest devices to recommend to anyone. But at CES 2022, Dell took this classic design and tried to transform it into something even more portable and modern – and ruined its best laptop completely. "

Calling it a 'trendy mess' and a (likely) 'nightmare to use day-to-day' this has got me worried - Dell has been making excellent laptops for years, but this could be a step too far.

Dell added a weird touch bar that isn't an Apple Touch Bar (you can't customize it). There's no headphone jack or microSD card slot.

Overall, this doesn't look good, even if the laptop looks good.

• Hands on: Dell XPS13 Plus 2022 review - if it ain't broke, don't break it

Our phones writer Tom Bedford knows a thing or two about the humble phone - so when he says he can "confidently say it's one of the most beautiful smartphones we've ever used" that's a pretty big thing.

The Vivo 23 and 23 Plus are two top-end phones from the Chinese brand that continue in the vein of quietly impressing us - the design is the thing that sticks out at the start though:

"The gold model has a sparkling textured look that really does seem to glisten. When it catches the light just right, the gold turns to blue."

It's got some interesting specs - a powerful selfie camera is attractive and packs two sensors, one of which is a whopping 50MP, although that could well be overkill.

They both also use the untested Mediatek Dimensity chipsets - 900 and 1200 for the V23 and V23 Pro respectively - so we want to check them out before deciding how great they are.

But at least in our limited hands on time we found them to be appealing - and likely around half the price of a new iPhone too.

• Hands on: Vivo V23 review
• Vivo's beautiful new mobiles could be the best camera phones for selfies

Samsung's October tech event has wrapped up - it began at 7am PT / 10am ET / 3pm BST today (or 1am AEDT on October 21), and only went on for 20 minutes - that's incredibly short compared to most similar events.

The company held what it calls 'Galaxy Unpacked Part 2', with part one being the launch of the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 3, Galaxy Z Flip 3, and Samsung Galaxy Watch 4 back in August, and part 2 today. 

So what happened? The highlight was the launch of Galaxy Bespoke, or the ability to customize the colors and design of certain Samsung products. At the moment it's limited to the Watch 4 and Z Flip 3 but it could roll out to more devices.

One UI, the company's new smartphone software, was also detailed, as were a few upgrades to the Galaxy Watch 4, most notably gesture controls.

While the event has officially wrapped up now, we're still updating this live blog with our analysis and news as it tumbles out from the event, so keep checking back for more (or just leave this page alone - it updates at random intervals by itself!).

Welcome to our live blog, where we'll be highlighting anything, everything and all the in-between that Samsung announces today.

We're not expecting as many announcements as at the Galaxy Z Fold 3 launch, and in fact there might not be any new products at all, with customization for its existing foldable phones looking the most likely, but Samsung may well have some surprises up its sleeve too.

There's also an outside chance that we'll see the Samsung Galaxy S21 FE, so it's worth following along even if foldables aren't for you.

Today's the day of Samsung's next Unpacked event, the - third? fourth? of the year - and we're a little less confident on what we're going to see at this event.

Our fingers are aching after the Google Pixel event yesterday and the Apple October event the day before, but today is the last day of the (tech) week.

If you want to watch along with the Unpacked event, we've got a guide on that here, or just keep a tab open with this live blog so we can give you all our clever words.

This is the Google Pixel 6, launched last night alongside the Pixel 6 Pro. We're not expecting Samsung to have any close rivals to them tonight - the Galaxy S22 will likely come in early 2022 - but you never know.

Fans of Samsung tech might be happy to know that we recently published our review of the Samsung Galaxy Watch 4 Classic. This took quite a bit of testing, as we had trouble with some of its exercise and fitness tracking modes.

Some rumors suggest we could see new Galaxy Watch 4 features shown off today, maybe bringing new health or lifestyle tools to the premium Wear OS device.

With the Apple Watch 7 recently out, Samsung could overshadow its close rival by bringing some useful new features not available on Apple smartwatches, but we'll have to see.

Samsung curiously hasn't been making much of a big deal about the Unpacked event on its Twitter accounts - this suggests to us there isn't going to be that much happening. 

Case in point: the last post on the Samsung Mobile US account was about taking pictures of people (whose face you can't even see because of motorcycle helmets) and nothing to do with the event.

The brand did make one allusion to its own event...

... in a tweet subtle discussing Google's event last night.

So the brand's not exactly working overtime to build hype for the event, and that's why we're not sure anything big is coming. No Galaxy Tab S8 for sure.

If you're checking out our live blog now you're a little early still, and nothing's really happening yet - so it's a good opportunity to check out some other mobile news doing the rounds.

In the UK, the Royal Mint (which makes physical money, nothing to do with the sweet flavor) has announced it's going to start using the gold from recycled mobiles in cash in the future. Remember physical money?

Mobile gaming fans should check out Townscaper, a popular PC indie game which just had its mobile port released on iOS and Android. Also, we've heard a launch date for the Xiaomi Redmi Note 11 and seen an early image that shows an iPhone-like device.

There are less than three hours to go until Samsung Unpacked kicks off - that's enough time to make lunch, relax, finish your work, watch a few episodes of TV - It's also just about enough time to watch Ridley Scott's The Last Duel which I saw a few days ago and recommend.

We're having to put our Sherlock hats on for this, but there's a tiny bit of evidence to suggest the Samsung Galaxy Watch 4 could get something at the event in a couple of hours.

A tweet from Samsung mobile from two days ago welcomes in week two of the company's Health Project, oriented around the phone, out of a four-week jaunt.  

This is basically a promo for the watch and its health features - but what better way to celebrate this promotion than by unveiling something new about the watch at the Unpacked event?

Sure, we could be reading too far into a tweet, but with little in the way of leaks or rumors letting us know what's coming later, we're having to read way too far into things to make guesses.

Two hours to go until the big event - or little event, depending on what actually shows up - that's enough time to pop to your local coffee shop to pick up a brew, as long as you live about 50 minutes from the shop and don't mind it being cold when you get back.

Still no tweets from Samsung about the event. Hopefully something will happen soon.

Could we see One UI 4 information at the Samsung event? 

That's Samsung's software for its smartphones based on Android 12, and it launched last week for select mobiles. However the company didn't make much of a fanfare about it, so lots of people didn't know it was launched at all.

Maybe the company will make more of a song-and-dance about One UI 4 at the event, perhaps listing its big features and making pledges for which mobiles will get it.

We've got a Twitter poll running about Samsung phones and we want your input:

Basically, if in a parallel world Samsung decided to blitz one of its phone lines out of existence, which would you prefer to go?

We didn't include the Galaxy Note line, because rumors suggest it's gone. Instead we've got:

S - the flagship line

A - the budget and mid-rangers

Z - the foldables

M - the budget phones only available in some regions.

Take a vote and let us know why you voted the way you did.

Less than an hour until the event kicks off. Time to start looking for your TV remote.

Interesting results from our aforementioned Galaxy cancelation poll.

Turns out Galaxy S is the most popular series, with only 16% of voters choosing it as their least favorite line. A third of voters have chosen the Galaxy M line, but that makes sense since it's not as readily available in all regions.

Most curious is that, when we launched this poll, most of the early votes wanted to get rid of the Galaxy Z line of foldables, but it's a much more even split now.

The poll still has 30 minutes until it expires, so everything could change.

Oh, we've had a few people asking: 'Part 2' in the title doesn't mean this is the second part of our live blog. Nope, that's what Samsung is calling this.

So the YouTube premier has officially started, even though the event is still 20 minutes away. Nothing's happening now though - we're just seeing the equivalent of a giant screensaver that's flicking through Samsung Unpacked logos.

You don't need to spring to action and load up YouTube just yet.

There's a link in the intro of this article to our guide on how to watch the livestream, but if you don't want to click through to another link, you can find it here:

10 minutes to go - time to make a hot drink (or get someone else to) and settle down for... whatever is coming. Get some nice snacks too. It doesn't sound like the event will be long enough to justify a whole meal though - not like you'd have time to cook it at this point anyway.

Here we go team, it's starting!

Galaxy Unpacked Part 2 is underway, and we're seeing four pastel-like colors swirling around in square shapes. A hint at something perhaps? It's looks like a folded Flip.

We've got an artist called Somi talked about how their Galaxy Z Flip 3 reflects who they are. We like how the curtains behind them match with the color of the phone.

At the moment, this seems like a showreel of Galaxy Z Flip 3 features, which isn't too useful since the thing already launched months ago. 

You can see the aforementioned curtain and phone combo below.

A few posts ago, we mentioned how the introduction to the Samsung Unpacked showed four pastel colors in a range of square shapes.

The transitions between excerpts of this Unpacked event also use this colors in different ways. Maybe we're reading too far into this, but it seems that these colors are important. Could there be new versions of the Z Flip 3 in these shades?

Now we're into some of the meatier parts of the Samsung Unpacked - it's about personalization.

You'll now be able to personalize the design of your Galaxy Z Flip 3, by choosing different colors for the hinge and two sides: this is called the Flip 3 Bespoke Edition, and you can read much more about it in our news story here.

The four colors we previously talked about are the different shades you can pick, and you can mix and match them. According to Samsung, there are 49 different options in total.

Customizable cases were also mentioned, but we haven't heard more just yet.

We're seeing more adverts for the Galaxy Z Flip 3 Bespoke Edition.

We were on board with the appearance of the basic version of the phone, but after seeing this new version, we're on board - especially the pink-yellow or blue-yellow versions. 

After careful consideration, we prefer the black hinge over the silver one, but it's not a huge difference.

Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 3 Bespoke Edition availability has been announced: it's available right now, but costs a little bit more than the basic version of the phone.

The company has said you'll be able to swap around the colors after you've bought the phone - presumably the colored parts are replaceable, which is pretty cool.

Onto the Galaxy Watch 4 now - they're currently highlighting pre-existing features, like the way you can design your own watch face for the wearable.

Oh, and we're onto One UI 4, the new software for Android phones based on Android 12. It's got a feature similar to Material You, so you can choose a color theme for the entire phone.

You might have missed it, but one one screen, we saw music playing - and it was Samsung's classic Over The Horizon being played by someone from BTS. Is that a hint for the Galaxy S22 line?

Aaand back to more Galaxy Watch 4. They're just listing features that already exist on the phone... again. But mentioning One UI 4 too. This is pretty eclectic.

And some actual news!

The Samsung Galaxy Watch 4 Bespoke Edition takes the same customization principles of the Z Flip 3 - detailed below - but with a smartwatch. They didn't talk much about this, but apparently on the website, you can choose colors for the device beyond the standard ones.

Next, they're discussing a collaboration between Samsung and French-Japanese fashion brand Maison Kitsuné. The logo of the brand is a fox, but not the Firefox one.

Apparently, they're doing Maison Kitsuné-themed Galaxy Buds, with a little fox on them - there's also a Watch 4 version with a designed band. 

We'll be honest, they look a little silly - and they cost more than the basic versions of the gadgets. Hmm...

The Samsung Galaxy Watch 4 is getting a few tweaks and upgrades.

There are some new watch faces, and improvements to fall detection. The interesting addition is gesture controls - so shaking your wrist, or raising it, or rotating it, can trigger various functions.

We'll have to test this feature out more when the update comes to our Galaxy Watch 4 Classic, but it sounds intriguing.

So that's it - the event is over. But we've got some thoughts which we will continue to share for a little while more.

We're currently on the Samsung website playing about with the Galaxy Z Flip 3 Bespoke Edition customization tools.

I'm liking the black-and-white combo more than I thought I would - particularly with a white front and black back - but my penchant for the bright and bold colors is shining through when I see the yellow and pink hues.

This is reinforcing what we thought during the event: replaceable panels would be best. I'd love to be able to customize my phone around whichever of my garish / funky / hipster shirts I'm wearing each day.

We're playing around with the Galaxy Watch 4 Bespoke Edition customization tool now and - well, it's less impressive than the Flip one, but it's fine.

You can choose between a black, silver or gold body for the 40mm watch and black, silver or green for the 44mm, as well as black and silver for either size of the Watch Classic.

There are loads of bands to choose from; hybrid leather ones, sports bands, 'extreme sports' bands, milanese bands, 'ridge sport' bands, we don't know what half of that even means. Most of those have loads of colors too.

While the nature of a watch means the customization affects less of the design, there are quite a few more options here than for the Flip.

TechRadar's Home Entertainment Editor Nick Pino has given the verdict "that Unpacked was kind of weak" and we don't disagree.

There wasn't any new hardware - not unless you count new shades of old hardware - and One UI 4, which was mentioned quite a bit, actually launched last week.

There was no Galaxy S21 FE, Galaxy Tab S8 or anything similar for us to sink our teeth into. This could have been a press release, or an email, not a whole event.

At least it was only 20 minutes long - and skipped lots of the boring preamble lots of similar tech events have.

Interestingly, there's a Galaxy Bespoke section on Samsung's website, as well as specific listings for the Z Flip 3 and Watch 4 Bespoke Editions.

If we were to put our speculative caps on, we'd say that points towards future Bespoke phones in the future. Paint-by-numbers Galaxy Z Flip 4 could be likely, but we'd like to see a colorful Z Fold 3 first - early rumors pointed to RGB lights along that foldable's hinge which would be amazing.

Maybe we'll see a Samsung Galaxy S22 range with customizable designs - we know from the S20 FE that Samsung is no stranger to interesting-colored phones, and this is just the natural extension of that.

If you've got particular thoughts on the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 3 Bespoke Edition, let us know on Twitter.

We've put out a call from the official TechRadar account asking you for your opinions: do you think it's great, or looks lame? Will you pick a colorful Flip, or stick to the original ones? 

And what do you think about the price increase for the Bespoke Edition - do you think it's worth the extra cost? Bear in mind the specs are the same.

We're scratching our heads over something... how can there be 49 different versions of the Galaxy Z Flip 3 Bespoke Edition?

Our reasoning is thus: since there are two different types of hinge, the total number of combinations must be divisible by two: that's because every color combo can either come with a silver or black hinge.

We made a list of every single color combination for the phone, and hit 50. So what's this mystery missing phone? Presumably we're making a mistake - we were hired to handle words, not numbers - but it's going to annoy us until we work it out.

Samsung's Newsroom has an article on the Maison Kitsune collaboration, with some designs that we didn't see in the Unpacked event - you can see the post here.

There's a Galaxy Buds case with the fox on it, which looks much more attractive than the logo one we saw during the event.

We also get a clearer look at the Maison Kitsune watch band, with a cut-out in the shape of a fox, which we did see in the event though only for a short amount of time.

Samsung has a Newsroom blog post that discusses the Z Flip 3 Bespoke Edition a bit more, and in particular Bespoke Upgrade Care.

This is the ability to swap around the colors of your Galaxy Z Flip 3 BE - apparently "Galaxy Z Flip3 Bespoke Edition owners can register to replace their device panel with new colours at Samsung.com".

It sounds like you can't just buy replacement panels and swap them around yourself - you'll need to get someone at Samsung to do it for you. That's annoying, but makes sense - people could easily damage their device by replacing parts poorly.

If we were to rank the tech events of the last three days, we'd say Apple > Google > Samsung.

Apple impressed our computing experts with its new MacBook Pros, which are said to be super-powerful, as well as the AirPods 3. I personally was captivated by the $19 polishing cloth which went on sale too.

Google's event was okay, but the Pixel 6 and 6 Pro had been leaked to high heaven by the time the event started - we also didn't hear anything about the smartwatch, foldable phone or tablet we thought Google was working on.

Samsung was the damp squib of the trilogy, with nothing really new. That's fine, as Samsung didn't promise to change the world, but having the Unpacked after two huge tech events was perhaps poor timing.

Here's a screenshot from the event we just found we took. It shows a cute dog on One UI 4. They look very happy. We've got nothing more to add.

Some people have been querying the Galaxy Z Flip 3 Bespoke Edition's prices. It's slightly pricier than its standard (bes-nope edition?) counterpart.

The original Z Flip 3 costs $999 / £949 / AU$1,499 but for a Bespoke model, that goes up to $1,099 / £1,049 (about AU$1,500). It's a medium price shift, but for someone who wants a new phone, it's definitely something to consider.

As we said, the Galaxy Z Flip 3 BE (we can't be bothered to write out Bespoke Edition every time - you get it) costs more than the standard version, but luckily Samsung's trade-in scheme applies.

This means you can lose up to $600 / £500 off the asking price if you send Samsung one of your older phones. Sure, for the biggest discount you need to trade in a really recent Sammy phone - think Galaxy Z Fold 2 or Z Flip 5G - but it's something.