Build A Rocket Boy has released the fourth major title update for MindsEye and shared its full patch notes. According to the devs, this patch introduces a range of UX improvements, numerous performance enhancements, and bug fixes. So, let’s take a closer look at it. Patch 4 brings general performance improvements to shaders, assets, and … Continue reading MindsEye Title Update 4 Released – Full Patch Notes→
After the DCEU came to an unceremonious end, we admit to being a tad concerned about another take on the story of the Last Son of Krypton. Thankfully, the iconic character got a movie befitting his own mythos in James Gunn’s 2025 Superman, while also opening the door to a whole new universe.
We gave it an 8 out of 10, saying “Superman is a wonderfully entertaining, heartfelt cinematic reset for the Man of Steel, and a great start for the DCU on the big screen” in our full review.
Superman’s 4K Blu-Ray Is Discounted Ahead of Launch
Amazon doesn’t yet have a confirmed price (or stock) for the Steelbook Edition with its fancy Fortress of Solitude design, but it does have the normal 4K version for $29.95, down from $34.98.
There are an awful lot of characters introduced in this new version of Superman, from Guy Gardner to Mr Terrific, Ultraman, and many more, so being able to pause and catch your breath with the home release might not be such a bad idea.
Lloyd Coombes is an experienced freelancer in tech, gaming and fitness seen at Polygon, Eurogamer, Macworld, TechRadar and many more. He's a big fan of Magic: The Gathering and other collectible card games, much to his wife's dismay.
Both are expected to be released on October 31, so there's just over a month to wait before you can get your hands on them. Head to the links below to secure a preorder for yourself while they're still available.
Preorder Legion Go 2 Gaming Handhelds
The higher spec version of the Legion Go 2 is powered by an AMD Ryzen Z2 Extreme processor coupled with 32GB of RAM. It also features a 1TB SSD, offering up plenty of space to store your favorite games. Those games will be showcased on an 8.8-inch PureSight OLED gaming display, which is sure to make your them look crisp and clear. Your purchase also comes with three months of PC Game Pass, which is an excellent bonus.
The less expensive version of the Legion Go 2 comes with an AMD Ryzen Z2 processor, rather than the Extreme, and 16GB of RAM. Similar to the Extreme model, though, it features the 8.8-inch PureSight OLED display and also comes with 1TB of storage, plus the bonus of three months of PC Game Pass included.
If you've had your eye on the Legion Go 2, then you likely have also been looking at the Xbox ROG Ally and Ally X, which also both arrive in October. The ROG Ally handhelds have yet to be priced, but these new Legion Go 2 models use similar chipsets to those in the Ally and Ally X, and so there's a reasonable chance that they will be comparable in price (that's to say they'll likely be pretty pricy.)
Hannah Hoolihan is a freelancer who writes with the guides and commerce teams here at IGN.
Google’s 2025 Pixel lineup of Android smartphones is here, and the Pixel 10 sets the baseline with an $800 price and a shift to the formula that has previously divided the base model and the Pro versions. Packed with a telephoto sensor of its own and an almost identical design and internals to the Pro, the Pixel 10 looks promising. But looks can be deceiving.
Google Pixel 10 – Design and Features
This year, Google has blurred the lines a bit more between the new Pixel 10 and its higher-tier Pixel 10 Pro. The phones already shared similar form factors in the previous generation, but now the Pixel 10 even carries a triple-camera system to match the 10 Pro – even if they are slightly different cameras. That said, the difference in cameras – and pretty much all the differences between the two phones – is subtle.
The Pixel 10 includes a pleasant matte aluminum frame sandwiched by tough Gorilla Glass Victus 2 on the front and back. It feels good and sturdy, and it offers IP68 protection to keep water out – all what you should expect from a flagship phone.
If you like a small phone, the Pixel 10 may satisfy your hands just like its predecessor. Between its smoothly rounded corners and relatively small 6.3-inch display, the Pixel 10 is pretty easy to manage with one hand. At just over 200 grams, it’s not very hefty, though it does feel a little weightier than I’d expect for a smaller phone. For perspective, the OnePlus 13 only weighs a few grams more and fits a 6.82-inch display.
Despite having a display identical in size to the Pixel 10 Pro, it’s not quite at the same level. The screen offers a lower – but still perfectly solid – 1080x2424 resolution, and it supports 60-120Hz refresh rates, which isn’t quite as impressive as the 1-120Hz refresh rate range of the Pro model, which can benefit more from that efficiency. The display isn’t quite as bright either. The Pixel 10 can reach 2,000 nits for a full white screen in HDR or 3,000 nits for small highlights. That’s plenty bright, though the Pixel 10 Pro goes 10% brighter still. Thankfully, the Pixel 10’s display is already at such a high point that there’s little reason to worry about even higher specs. It simply looks great.
The display pairs with a solid set of speakers. They sound every bit as good as what Google has packed into the Pro model, offering ample volume for listening to music, watching movies, and playing games in a quiet space. They even pass the test of being able to play a podcast loud enough to hear in the shower. And they do that all without noticeable distortion or EQ dips when music gets loud.
The Pixel 10 supports Google’s new Pixelsnap feature, which is essentially a branded version of Qi2, which is itself more or less a wider standard of the MagSafe Apple introduced with the iPhone 12 lineup way back in 2020. This gives the Pixel 10 support for magnetic accessories that attach to the back, including wireless chargers with 15W charging speeds.
The rest of the Pixel 10’s features and capabilities largely carry over from last year. It still offers a USB-C 3.2 port that can send a video signal out for easy screen mirroring. It has a quick fingerprint scanner built into the display for easy unlocking and it supports facial recognition that has proven just as quick. And just like the 10 Pro, the Pixel 10 has dumped support for physical SIM cards entirely, opting exclusively for eSIM, which is an annoying lack of flexibility. Having eSIM as an option is convenient, but going exclusively eSIM isn’t.
Just like last year, it still doesn’t support mmWave 5G or ultra-wideband, and that latter point will leave it out of any advanced device tracking that Google might bring to market. Google also moved the 10 Pro ahead to Wi-Fi 7, but is only offering Wi-Fi 6E on the Pixel 10 – it’s not the end of the world, as even Wi-Fi 6 is more than fast enough for much of what we do on our phones, but it’s still an odd little letdown.
Google Pixel 10 – Software
The Pixel 10 comes running Android 16 and will get seven years of updates. It’s a clean enough version of the operating system, with no major bloatware beyond Google’s extra AI tools. Those are really the star of the show anyway, or at least Google would like them to be. Unfortunately, how well they work or whether they work at all is still a big question.
For instance, Google’s Magic Cue feature is designed to scan information in your apps and provide relevant information whenever it thinks you might need it – say, pulling up your flight itinerary when you get an email from someone asking about it. Unfortunately, even in this exact scenario, I didn’t hear a peep from Magic Cue. On both the Pixel 10 Pro and Pixel 10, I tried to set it up with some easy home runs just to see it in action, and in all cases it was a swing and a miss. Magic Cue never popped up. I did get it to appear once following a specific example Google shared, looking at a list of local restaurants in an article at Eater.com and then opening Google Maps. But even then it was a little slow with the suggestions, and though I had read only the first restaurant on the list – Publican – none of the suggestions Magic Cue made were for that restaurant. Never mind that I wouldn’t have found AI typing a single word into a search bar for me all that compelling.
Another new feature, the ability to ask for specific edits from the Photos app and have them managed automatically by AI, wasn’t available in Illinois at the time of testing. Meanwhile, some features aren’t offered for the Pixel 10. Google’s Pre Res Zoom is limited to just the Pro models, for instance. Based on my testing of that feature for the 10 Pro review, it’s not a huge loss for the Pixel 10.
The varying reliability of these AI features may come down to them needing more time to gather and parse information before they can properly get in the swing of things. But based on my experience with them so far, they don’t justify the purchase of a new device just to get them.
Google Pixel 10 – Gaming and Performance
The Pixel 10 runs on Google’s new Tensor G5 chip, which provides some modest improvements to performance over the Pixel 9 family. It’s great for everyday use, keeping up with most things I’ve thrown at it. And there’s no gap between the Pixel 10 and Pixel 10 Pro where this performance is concerned.
In Geekbench 6, the Pixel 10’s Tensor G5 performed roughly on par with the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 in the OnePlus 13R for multi-core performance and even came out ahead in single-core performance. But it still lags a ways behind the faster Snapdragon 8 Elite and A18 chips in the OnePlus 13 and iPhone 16, respectively.
Respectable though the CPU performance may be, the GPU drags the phone down. It can run games, but not terribly well. To play Delta Force, the phone has to use some dialed back graphics and fps settings. And trying to run the new Destiny: Rising game, I found that not only were the graphics options limited but also that the game had numerous artifacting issues that rendered it unplayable.
3DMark’s graphical benchmarks saw the Pixel 10 beat the Pixel 9 Pro by 24% in Wildlife Extreme, and in the more graphically demanding Steel Nomad Light test, the Pixel 10 actually fell behind that phone. By contrast, the OnePlus 13 offered more than double the performance in those two tests.
The Pixel 10 also builds up heat pretty quickly, so it can get fairly uncomfortable to hold after gaming for a while. Google seems to have performance almost capped even before that heat builds up though. Running 3DMark’s Steel Nomad Light Stress test – a 20-run gauntlet – showed the Pixel 10 retaining 93.4% of its performance even as the internal temperatures grew hotter and hotter. That’s good for consistency, but still looks bad with some perspective: the OnePlus 13 saw its performance drop considerably after the 20-run benchmark, but even its worst run was better than the Pixel 10’s best.
The Pixel 10’s shortcomings at the extreme end of the performance demand spectrum don’t hold it back from being plenty serviceable, though. It’s not a slow phone, and it keeps up with typical use. Its limited horsepower also helps it make the most of its 4970mAh battery – sizable for a compact phone – and run all day with ease.
Google Pixel 10 – Cameras
Cameras have historically been what set Pixel phones apart from the rest of the market. And this year, the cameras are doing more to set the Pixel 10 apart from the Pixel 10 Pro. Rather than borrowing any of the sensors from Pro models as Google had done in previous years, the Pixel 10 simply borrows the zoom ranges, landing it a new 5x telephoto camera while opting for lower-quality sensors all around. In fact, the Pixel 10 actually downgrades the main and ultra-wide sensors from what was on offer in the Pixel 9, instead borrowing those found in Pixel 9a. Here’s a rundown of what the Pixel 10 has onboard:
10.8MP telephoto, 1/3.2" sensor, 5x optical zoom, f/3.1, OIS, EIS
10.5MP Selfie, f/2.2, 95-degree FOV
This isn’t the end of the world. Even with lower-quality sensors, Google does a great job producing a good picture. The main sensor hardly feels like it’s falling behind in most cases, capturing sharp images with natural color. When there is a lot of fine, high-contrast detail in an image, it can appear to oversharpen, giving images a somewhat artificial look. But generally, photos from this sensor look great and prove hard to distinguish from shots taken on the Pixel 10 Pro. I still lean in favor of the images that the OnePlus 13’s main sensor produces for their warmer tone, more vibrant color, and less noticeable sharpening, but all of these sensors are quite closely matched.
The ultra-wide sensor can also look great in bright settings. It captures a wide field-of-view while maintaining the look and feel on the main sensor. It definitely struggles in dim settings though, introducing a lot of noise.
The Pixel 10 having a 5x telephoto sensor isn’t nothing, but it naturally couldn’t be as good as the Pixel 10 Pro’s. And in side-by-side shots, it’s clearly the inferior camera, offering less clarity, less light-gathering, and more washed-out shots. It does give the Pixel 10 an edge on the OnePlus 13’s 3x telephoto sensor, as the Pixel optically gets in a little bit closer, but its quality lags behind enough that the trade-off generally won’t be worth it.
Selfies from the front camera look great. Details are sharp, colors are vibrant, and the angle is wide enough to squeeze a friend or two into the shot. It could be sharper, but unless you’re taking selfies for a living, I think the quality is more than good enough.
Your Nintendo Switch 2’s 256GB of storage is probably starting to fill up at this point, and with more big games on the horizon, you’re going to need more space if you want to keep all your games handy. Unfortunately, microSD Express cards – the only kind the Switch 2 will load games from – are still tricky to find, but at least there are a couple of budget options available right now, like PNY’s $46.99 (128GB) or $60.99 (256GB) cards.
The 256GB PNY card I tested isn’t the cheapest microSD Express card, even if you get it for three bucks less on Amazon than from PNY directly; that honor goes to the $35.77, 256GB card from Walmart house brand Onn – when you can find it in stock. But it’s still relatively affordable compared to bigger name brands like Lexar or SanDisk selling $200+ cards, and a little better performing, in most ways, versus to the Onn card. And you get the bonus of knowing who the manufacturer is. (Unsurprisingly, the Onn card appears to be a repackaged product from another company.) When it comes to just loading games, doing so from PNY’s card is close to as quick as from the Switch 2’s UFS 3.1 storage, and it’s got better read performance than the Onn card.
Throughput
Storage manufacturers love to tout their cards’ read and write speed, and will promote them using the highest possible numbers. For the PNY card on paper, that’s up to 890MB/s read and up to 750MB/s, both higher numbers than the cheaper Onn card (800MB/s and 600MB/s, respectively). But those numbers don’t tell the whole story, because they’re referring to sequential data transfers, or moving around large single files. We’re more interested in how well it handles random data reads and writes, since games are made up of lots of smaller files. That slows the data transfer process way down, as it has to constantly stop and restart – it doesn’t have enough time per file to gather speed.
Even with drastically reduced random file transfer thoughput, microSD Express is a huge improvement versus old-school microSD. As a point of comparison, transferring the 17.2GB Super Smash Bros Ultimate from my original Switch to the Samsung Evo microSD card I have in it took more than 21 minutes, and moving it back to the Switch’s internal storage took 9.5 minutes. Whereas on my Switch 2, I only waited just under 6 minutes to transfer the game to the PNY card, and 4 minutes to move it back onto the console.
Performance: Load Times
Load times are really where the card’s performance matters most; sure, you might shuffle games around periodically when some big new title comes out, but if you’re anything like me, you only find yourself doing so every few months or so.
The PNY’s card consistently got from the Switch 2 menu to the main screen of games like Donkey Kong Bananza, No Man’s Sky Switch 2 Edition, and Fast Fusion a fraction of a second slower than loading from internal storage. The only outliers here were Mario Kart World, which took about 2 seconds longer than from the Switch 2, and Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, which loaded ever-so-slightly faster than when loading from internal storage (15.46 seconds versus 15.7 seconds).
Performance: File Transfers
I started running into issues with the PNY card during file transfers. The Switch 2 seemingly couldn’t get a handle on how much time was left in each one, so it might say there was a minute left before jumping to four or five minutes when writing larger files. Transfers seemed to gradually get slower on each subsequent test until finally, my Switch 2 stopped reading it at all. It’s possible that was due to issues I had transferring all my game files to the card in the first place – the hub I was using disconnected mid-transfer. One long reformat with a Windows PC later, and the card was much more well-behaved, although it still slowed down near the end of writing large files to it.
With that fresh reformat complete, the PNY card showed better read throughput than the Onn card, averaging between 80MB/s and 90MB/s when transferring Mario Kart World and Donkey Kong Bananza to the Switch 2’s internal storage. Its write performance wasn’t quite as impressive, but still a clear improvement over a standard microSD card – transferring the 24.6GB Mario Kart to the card took 7 minutes and 31 seconds (55MB/s), and the 8.6GB Bananza took two minutes and 22 seconds (61MB/s). I saw similar results with older Switch 1 games.
Those write throughput results are on par with, and sometimes slower than, what I saw using the Onn card, despite the PNY’s advertised write speed being 150MB/s higher. But PNY’s card has clearly better read throughput, leading to better game-loading performance and faster file transfers to the system itself. That could be a bigger deal for you, at least if you’re not constantly shuffling files back and forth.
Is Budget microSD Express Worth It?
As I noted in my review of the Onn microSD Express card, how well your microSD Express card performs will vary depending on the card you pick. Digital Foundry ran some tests when the Switch 2 launched, and found that loading games from microSD Express could actually be slightly faster than doing so from the Switch 2’s ostensibly faster UFS 3.1 internal storage. That’s not quite the case for the two cheaper cards I’ve tested, but they’re good enough that you wouldn’t notice a difference without doing direct, A/B comparisons.
Just like the Walmart house brand, you should consider how confident you are that PNY’s slightly-less-budget microSD Express card will last when deciding if you should buy it. My personal experience with cheaper microSD cards and other portable storage has been that they don’t fail unusually quickly under normal use; I had a PNY USB thumb drive in service as a backup storage medium for my Nintendo Wii for 10 years before I finally switched to a hard drive earlier this year. Meanwhile, a 5TB Toshiba hard drive I bought for computer backup purposes gave up the ghost within three years. You just never know.
Connexion
