Insta360's first compact steadicam, the Luna Ultra, made a splash this year by beating DJI to launch with two lenses. Now it's followed the Ultra with a slightly stripped back Pro model, which drops to one lens but has a unique advantage: it can shoot vertical video in 4K. Plus, unlike DJI's Osmo Pocket 4, you can buy it in the US.

At its heart, the Luna Pro is mostly an Ultra with the telephoto lens stripped out. It uses the same 1-inch-type 8K sensor as the Ultra's main camera, has a similar design including the detachable 2-inch touchscreen that doubles as a remote, and the same four-hour battery life and NFC tag for quicker file transfe …

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This is The Stepback, a weekly newsletter breaking down one essential story from the tech world. For more on smartphones and Android, follow Dominic Preston. The Stepback arrives in our subscribers' inboxes on Sunday at 8AM ET. Opt in for The Stepback here.

How it started

Believe it or not, it didn't all start with Samsung. Royole, a now-bankrupt manufacturer of flexible displays, was the first to release a commercial folding phone, the "charmingly awful" FlexPai. Samsung's first Galaxy Fold followed a year later, plagued by a variety of faults that saw review units break within days. That launch went so badly that it prompted Chinese riva …

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OnePlus has confirmed what industry observers have long expected: it's quitting the US and European markets, and will no longer launch new products in either region. Parent company Oppo promises that it will honor existing support and warranty agreements, with devices transitioning to its ColorOS for future updates.

"Software updates and after-sale support will be guaranteed" in both the US and Europe, Oppo's senior PR manager in Europe, James Paterson, told The Verge in a call. The company wouldn't confirm any specifics on how it will honor its warranty and support agreements in the US, where it will now have no presence at all. In Europe, …

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We finally have a price for Grand Theft Auto VI: $79.99. That gets you the standard edition of the game, while the Ultimate Edition will set you back $99.99.

Preorders start at midnight tonight, local time, when you'll be able to reserve a copy on PS5 or Xbox Series X/S. You'll be able to order either digital or physical editions of the game, though Rockstar has confirmed that even the physical editions contain "a download code inside the box." The upside is that they'll ship from November 12th, allowing buyers of either edition to preload the game ahead of its full release on November 19th.

Anyone who preorders or purchases the game befor …

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The Xperia 1 VIII marks an attempt at a step change for Sony's flagship phone line. Not only has it had an aesthetic overhaul, but Sony has also revamped the camera system, dropping the continuous optical zoom telephoto that's defined the last four generations of Xperia phone.

It's not all different. Sony staples like a 3.5mm headphone jack and microSD card slot remain, and a few specific design touches, like a thick front bezel that fits stereo speakers, have stayed intact. Sony's ambitious pricing hasn't changed either: The Xperia 1 VIII isn't launching in the US, but in the UK and Europe, it starts from £1,399 / €1,499 (about $1,850), r …

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Where's the Trump phone? We're going to keep talking about it every week. We don't have the phones we preordered yet, but this week we received unexpected news from Trump Mobile's media relations manager.

If you've been following my reporting on the Trump phone, you'll know that Trump Mobile doesn't exactly keep open lines of communication with the media. That doesn't look to be changing, with the company no longer working with its long-term media relations firm.

Poplar Group has represented Trump Mobile since at least last June, when the company's founding partner Chris Walker gave a statement to USA Today, insisting at the time that "T1 …

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Following its official debut last month, Google is now rolling out Android 17 to compatible Pixel phones, alongside additional exclusive features as part of the June Pixel Drop. Not every feature announced alongside the OS at the pre-I/O Android Show is available today, though.

Android 17 itself is arriving on Pixel phones today, and Google says other manufacturers will be issuing the update throughout 2026. The biggest user interface update is the introduction of Bubbles, floating app windows that you can open with a long press - similar floating windows are already found in many Android skins, but are now an official part of 17. Google is …

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From the day it was announced, on June 16th, 2025, the Trump phone sounded ridiculous. The T1 Phone 8002 (gold version), as it was officially called, was a combination of contradictory specs, product images that were clearly not photographs of a real phone, and the worrying requirement of a $100 deposit to secure a preorder of a $499 phone with no release date. But none of Trump Mobile's outlandish announcements were as bold as the claim that the phone would be "designed and built in the United States."

The US has next to no phone manufacturing infrastructure, few engineers with the required expertise, and little of the affordable, flexible …

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Fox has announced that it's acquiring Roku outright, in a deal that values the streaming company at $22 billion. Once the deal is complete, Fox content will be promoted more heavily than before on Roku streamers and smart TVs.

The deal will see Fox's TV networks and Tubi streamer combine with Roku's network of streaming devices, smart TV software, and The Roku Channel. The companies say in a press release that by combining they'll become the third-largest player in the US TV industry by viewing share.

"This is a defining moment for Fox, and a natural extension of the deliberate and focused strategy we have been executing for nearly a decad …

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On paper, the Honor Magic V6 sounds like a tremendous leap forward for foldable phones: It's the thinnest one yet, with the biggest battery, and the best water-resistance ever. In practice, only the bigger battery feels like a meaningful improvement. The other upgrades are only fractionally superior to what came before.

This isn't entirely Honor's fault. It's getting harder to make a foldable phone stand out; even last year's offerings felt like complete flagship phones. Huawei's Pura X Max stood out for its odd new aspect ratio, which we're expecting to see both Samsung and Apple replicate later this year. Then there are the trifolds, whic …

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The UK is the latest country to follow Australia in implementing a total social media ban for children under 16, Prime Minister Keir Starmer has announced. The ban, which could take effect from early next year, will be joined by wider measures that will also prevent children from talking to strangers in online games, livestreaming, or using sexual or romantic chatbots.

"Do we truly believe that social media creates a happy environment for our children? Do we truly believe that it's a place where they can feel safe?" Starmer asked during a press conference announcing the policy. "I don't think I even need to answer those questions, do I?"

" …

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After getting its hands on a Trump phone and tearing it apart, iFixit has confirmed what I first reported back in February: the T1 Phone is an almost exact duplicate of the HTC U24 Pro.

iFixit partnered with NBC to get hold of the network's media sample of the Trump phone, along with a U24 Pro. They ran the phones through a CT scanner, tore them down to parts, and even put them back together into a functional Frankenstein phone with the U24 Pro's board inside the T1 Phone's chassis, confirming along the way that the two phones are functionally identical.

There are minor differences: The flash has been moved slightly, the speaker grille was …

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Chinese EV colossus BYD has announced plans to speed up its conquest of the European auto market with the rollout of superfast Flash Chargers across the continent. BYD has already installed the first new chargers in Germany and the UK, and plans to roll out 3,000 across Europe by the end of next year.

At an estimated cost of €580,000 (about $670,000) per charger according to the Financial Times, that would mean a total spend of roughly $2 billion to install the network. The 1,500kW charging stations are significantly more powerful than Tesla's 500kW V4 Superchargers, though Tesla already has 20,000 chargers installed in Europe. BYD, which h …

Read the full story at The Verge.