Author: Press Room

The average TV is much larger than it was before flat-panel units became the norm. Where they used to feature in the corner of a snug or dedicated TV room, they now often occupy much larger spaces, and our home theater systems, whether a basic soundbar and subwoofer setup or a full 7.1 surround sound system, need to meet that requirement. If you struggle to achieve full immersion, experience strained, thin dialogue, or your soundstage collapses during big, dynamic scenes, the issue may not be your streaming quality; it could be that your speakers are underpowered. This doesn’t simply mean…

When it comes to streaming services, most people just pay for Spotify and call it a day, myself included, but make sure you manage your storage and also don’t be tempted by lossless audio. The truth is that other streaming services have come around not only offer a better experience, but also better value. If you’re blindly paying for Spotify every month without considering YouTube Music, you’re missing out because of three key reasons that come down to cost, content selection, and the background listening experience. It’s the most economical When combined with YouTube Premium Credit: Brandon Miniman / MakeUseOf Spotify…

4K is the new benchmark every PC gamer is trying to hit. The highest possible resolution, the highest possible graphics settings, and the highest possible frame rates. But for anyone who doesn’t have absolutely top of the line PC hardware, those benchmarks and performance figures remain a fever dream. But there are decade-old GPUs that refuse to die and are still powering people’s rigs. There is more modest PC hardware out there than you know, and while everyone might be chasing 4K, 1080p is still the sweet spot for gaming for a number of reasons. You likely already own the…

Open-ear earbuds and noise cancellation don’t typically go together. By definition, open-ear buds sit atop your ears versus going inside them, which logically means sound leaks in since your ear canals aren’t sealed. But somehow, Shokz, one of the top brands in this space, has managed to develop a pair that offers noise reduction through its own technology. The Shokz OpenFit Pro earbuds, which were introduced at CES 2026 earlier this year, have been making waves for this reason. I had the chance to test them in a variety of scenarios, including at home while working, listening to music, and…

The British have a history of making top-notch thrillers. Oftentimes, budgets for British shows aren’t as big as those given to American series, so they have to make up for it with solid writing and likable characters. That’s what happened with Red Eye, an ITV series that’s also available to watch on Hulu, which itself is a reliable streaming service for those looking for high-end drama. Red Eye is unpretentious, exciting, and easy to binge. And if you start watching now, you’ll be caught up for the big finish to come. Terror in the sky Big crimes in small spaces…

YouTube is the premiere entertainment platform available today; bigger than TV, bigger than movies, with plans to grow even more. If you’re watching something these days, there’s a good chance you’re watching it on YouTube. Obviously, parent company Alphabet, Inc. is going to capitalize on this. Enter YouTube Premium, a paid subscription that gives you special permissions, including ad-free viewing, the ability to play videos in the background, and the ability to download videos to view later. It’s an appetizing package…but it’s not enough. The ad issue How much is ad-free viewing really worth? If you ask around, easily the…

Looking at the evolution of TVs from dumb boxes to smart TVs, we’ve come a long way. We have also come a long way from the bulky CRT TVs to the standard backlight LCDs. Today, OLED TVs are the absolute standard and holy grail of home entertainment (there is a catch, though). It eliminates the use of backlight and utilizes self-illuminating pixels that deliver incredibly vibrant colors and deep blacks. But the looming threat of burn-in and panel degradation can make one feel like walking on eggshells. I had an OLED TV, which just couldn’t stand the test of time,…

Kodi has always been my go-to media player. However, for me, it’s always been a case of function over form. I never cared for its default skin, and those that I tried felt flat and uninspiring. It was only recently that I decided to revisit the Kodi repository to check out what’s new, and I was pleased to see that some good folks had been hard at work building some excellent skins to embellish the platform’s open-source architecture. A great skin does much more than change colors and fonts; it completely alters the Kodi experience, bringing new visual appeal to…

In 2011, NASA scientists met at the jet propulsion laboratory in California to do something very important: name the most and least scientifically plausible movies ever made, with the aim of nudging Hollywood towards doing a better job of depicting science. They decided that the most scientifically plausible movie ever made was Gattaca, the 1997 film about a future where gene editing had become commonplace. As for the least plausible, the choice was easy: 2012. Somewhat confusingly, 2012 came out in 2009; Sony really missed a branding opportunity there. It was about, simply, how the world would end in 2012…

It’s finally happened: ChatGPT has adverts. OpenAI is displaying adverts on ChatGPT’s free and Go tiers, and at the time of writing, they’re only being forced upon US subscribers. That’s the case for now, but it won’t be long until adverts are rolled out to more countries and more users—not forgetting that ChatGPT Go subscribers are still forking out a subscription fee. Thankfully, there are still numerous excellent ChatGPT alternatives out there that don’t splash adverts in your chat, and better still, deliver arguably better AI experiences than ChatGPT anyway. Confer Super-secret AI chatbot experience Confer is one of the…