2026-04-04 04:40:40
Just 6 months ago, Lenovo launched their Legion Go 2 handheld PC game console. It came in 2 versions, each with a different chip (AMD Ryzen Z2 or Z2 Extreme) powering the device. They came in at the profoundly premium price points of $1,099 and $1,349.
Now, those are profoundly high price points compared to the competition. The Steam Deck OLED was (and technically still is, but it's been out of stock for over a month) $549-$649 which outside of the OLED screen being nicer, does lag behind in a bunch of specs, so the price difference is somewhat understandable. Still, a bit north of $1,000 for a portable gaming console is pretty wild.
But now the Legion Go 2 has gotten a price increase. And not a small one…
Instead of $1,099 and $1,349, now they cost $1,499 and $1,999. Yes, those are $400 and $650 increases, or put another way, one top-of-the-line Steam Deck more than before.
As I said back at the start of the year, 2026 is going to be a very painful year in tech.
On the plus side, if you did want a portable gaming PC with the power of the $1,999 Legion Go 2, you could look at the seemingly-reasonably-priced-in-comparison $999 ROG Xbox Ally X, which has the same Z2 Extreme chip as the $1,999 model, 24GB RAM (down from the Go's 32GB), and a slightly lower res screen, but honestly I think it's a way better buy, even if the software sucks hard. Install Bazzite on that sucker and enjoy life.
2026-04-03 23:04:46
Nintendo: About Nintendo Switch 2 Game Pricing
Beginning in May 2026, and starting with preorders for Yoshi™ and the Mysterious Book, new Nintendo published digital titles exclusive to Nintendo Switch™ 2 will have an MSRP that is different from physical versions.
Considering Nintendo caught up with Sony and Microsoft and made their first party games $70 this generation (except for Mario Kart World, which cost $80 which is honestly outrageous), it's nice to have at least one video game headline that isn't about how a company is increasing prices further.
2026-04-02 08:00:00
jess77x in a Reddit post about Pluribus:
The discourse around this show is so weird. It's either a masterpiece or a total slog. And everyone is just talking past each other and calling people illiterate/TikTok brained for disliking it or pretentious shills for liking it. And it's a shame because engaging with this show, the ideas presented in it, and how the show goes about exploring those ideas (for better and for worse) could be so interesting, yet so much of this discussion is centered around this unproductive binary.
This is just how it goes with media discourse. It's good or it's bad, there is no in between. There is no space for "art is subjective, there will always be many opinions". Get in line or get wrecked in the comments.
2026-04-02 07:30:00
Ben Thompson: Apple’s 50 Years of Integration
It’s also worth noting that OpenAI has, in its relatively short life, managed to frame itself as a competitor to basically everyone in tech, from Google to Meta to Microsoft, only to find itself forced to pivot in the face of Anthropic and its focused approach on coding and productivity in the enterprise. The audacity of taking on everyone is impressive; the effectiveness of fighting everyone for everything may be less so.
I hadn't really thought about it in these terms before, but OpenAI has effectively positioned itself as competing with literally every single tech company in the world. What can't GPT do, you know? But they kind of have to, don't they? Their investment implies a valuation that makes them effectively as big as all the other big tech companies combined.
I don't know exactly how we're going to come down from this AI bubble, but it certainly seems like it will dawn on people that OpenAI could be a generational company in the long run. We could be celebrating their fiftieth anniversary in several decades, just as we're celebrating Apple's today.
However, several examples are notable deviations from the narrative that AI, and OpenAI specifically, will be taking over the world. Apple was seen as a laggard in AI development, and in fairness, they clearly saw themselves that way and invested billions in trying to catch up to the likes of OpenAI and Anthropic, but they failed miserably. And yet, they seem like they're going to be doing just fine. You need a computer to do all this vibe coding on. You need a phone to talk to an AI agent. Who makes the best computers and phones? Apple does.
Similarly, there's Anthropic, the company that some analysts derided in the past for being an incredibly niche AI player who got too many headlines for the number of users they had. They forced OpenAI to pivot several times because they focused their efforts on work and coding specifically. Now OpenAI has tried hard to pivot to get their Codex app to catch on to even a fraction of the extent of Claude Code.
And they've already entered their Elon era, where now they're talking about building a ChatGPT super app that combines a chatbot, a browser, and a code editor. I don't know if it's a law of nature, but it definitely seems to be a law of the tech space that once you start talking about building a super app, you're kind of flailing as a business.
2026-04-02 07:29:39
2026-04-02 06:58:03
Apple turns 50 today, so I thought I'd take some time to think back on some of the most memorable Apple product announcements. I'm relying entirely on my own memory, so forgive me if I get some small details wrong.
We have to start with the original iPhone announcement. It's the sort of thing people will still be watching decades from now; an absolute masterclass in presenting new tech in a way that is exciting and approachable. I was in awe at the time and I'd never seen anything like it. The scope of what it could do was so far beyond what my little flip phone could do that it was genuinely hard to fathom.
Multitouch in particular blew my mind. You have to understand that in 2007, very few of the computing devices people used had touchscreens at all, and the ones that did tended to require a stylus. The idea that not only was your finger going to be a precise instrument for all interactions with this device (including typing on the keyboard), but that you could have multiple fingers detected at the same time and you could build gestures like pinch to zoom around that…it sounds quaint today, but that really was incredible at the time.
On the more mundane but also pretty damn impressive side, I still think about when he loaded The New York Times website, which isn't something we'd think twice about today, but again, literally was not possible on the phones the vast majority of us were using in 2007. You gotta remember, most people watching this keynote were doing so with a flip phone.
The other big hitter has to be the original iPad, which was demoed differently than basically any other product they've ever done, with Steve Jobs on a comfy chair with an over-the-shoulder camera showing him using what is effectively a large iPhone. The extra screen real estate really made it a compelling device for a lot of people. And then there was also one of the few price reveals I can remember. The rumors leading up to the event were that it would cost $999, so when they dropped that $499 price point at the end, it was amazing.
I can't neglect to mention the original MacBook Air being pulled out of a manila envelope. It's just an iconic moment. Similarly, Steve Jobs revealed the iPod nano by pulling it out of the coin pocket in his jeans. Again, iconic.
I forget the specific model, but whatever the first laptop they shipped with WiFi had a great demo. Phil Schiller connected wirelessly to a router, jumped off a ladder onto a mat, and showed he never lost his connection. Not enough Apple executives perform live stunts during keynotes these days.
I also can't help but think of AirPower, which promised to combat the problem that existed with wireless chargers, which is if you didn't align your device correctly on the pad, you might not get the charge you expected. The AirPower solution suggested that the entire pad should be coiled and you could charge multiple devices on the same pad at the same time. Place up to 3 devices anywhere on this mat and they'll all charge perfectly. Obviously, that never shipped, and the better and more effective solution turned out to be magnets, so that you only have one coil, but you hit it every time.
I remember the iPhone X announcement specifically, the part where they talked about how they managed to not have a chin on the bottom of the device like most other phones had at the time, and they did it by curving the OLED screen back on itself. It's such a minor detail, but that visual stuck with me.
I don't know if I remember any specific part of the Apple Watch announcement, but I do remember my feeling of absolute relief that Apple was actually doing it and my delight that it seemed like they were doing it really well. I was wearing a Pebble as I watched this one, and I'm still wearing an Apple Watch today.
I also think about the events where Apple announced their transition from PowerPC to Intel, and then a decade and a half later, Intel to Apple silicon. I think these announcements are just quintessential Apple to me, because from the moment until those events happened, Apple would proudly state how fast and battery efficient their computers were,. Then at the announcement they'd say, "Oh my god, it's been so bad, now we have a solution." And for what it's worth, in both cases it was exactly the right decision.
The final one I'll mention right now is the announcement of Mac OS 10.4 Tiger, which is one of the all-time great macOS updates in my opinion, specifically because of Spotlight. You have to appreciate that at the time searching your computer sucked. There were some app launchers similar to what we have today, (although far smaller in scope), and Spotlight was a good app launcher, but it also let you search your entire file system effectively instantly. Before this, the way you would do this is you would search in the Finder, or years previous you would have loaded something like Sherlock, and type a query and wait…and wait…and wait. Genuinely, sometimes searches would take over a minute to scan your whole hard drive.
There are more that I could certainly call out, but these are the ones that were front of mind today.