Razer has insisted that optical keyboard switches are the best choice for competitive esports stars and the sweatiest of try-hards, but it’s now relenting slightly by offering cheaper keyboards with magnetic switches and a similar array of gaming features. The $120 Razer Huntsman V3 HE Magnetic Mini and $140 Huntsman V3 HE Magnetic Tenkeyless, both launching today, are the company’s first keyboards to use Hall effect switches. They’re wired-only boards loaded with gaming-first features, and I’ve had a brief chance to test both and take them for a spin.

The new Huntsman boards offer the hallmarks found in many other Hall effect mechanical keyboards, like programmable actuation points, faster key releases with Rapid Trigger, and an 8KHz polling rate. Their linear switches have an average latency of 0.6ms, which is of course very fast but ever-so-slightly slower than the 0.48ms of optical Huntsman boards like the V3 Pro. Razer can stand by its claim that optical analog boards are faster, but we’re really splitting hairs here.

The new magnetic models offer plenty of speed at significantly lower prices, as the optical Huntsman Pro boards start at $220, and they have Razer’s full arsenal of deeply customizable gaming features. This includes things like Snap Tap, which prioritizes your last movement input on the A or W keys and makes for easier counter-strafing (considered cheating by some and banned by Valve); Snap Flex, for setting up keys to trigger specific actions upon release; and Dual-Keypress Priority, preventing an accidental movement input from interrupting two previously held keys (like diagonal movement). Those last two features are also available on the mid-range optical Huntsman V3 Tenkeyless 8KHz, and coming to the higher-end Huntsman V3 Pros via firmware update.

Do these all sound like pretty niche features for specialized use cases? They are. While these cheaper keyboards are designed to appeal to a wider audience, these kinds of features are designed for the most competitive of online shooters — specifically, games with nuances to their movement techniques, like Counter-Strike 2. Razer is primarily competing with Wooting, Asus, and SteelSeries in this space, going feature-for-feature to cater to this hardcore subset of gamers. Wooting’s 80HE and 60HE v2 are some of the most praised gaming keyboards around, but Razer’s new HE boards undercut them by about $60.

I spent some time testing both the 65-percent and TKL versions of the new HE Huntsman pair, and since my Counter-Strike days are long behind me, these keyboards feel more than fast enough for any speedy inputs my aging fingers can muster. There is obviously not much reason to buy either of these boards unless you primarily care about their deep-in-the-weeds gaming features and making detailed customizations in Razer’s software (especially since entry-level mechanicals have gotten so good). The Razer Synapse app is as burdensome as ever, but you can also use a web version if you don’t need to make frequent changes or just don’t want to deal with it constantly running.

Razer’s doubleshot PBT keycaps have a nicely textured feel that’s more coarse than typical keycaps, but boy, do I dislike these shine-through legends. Some lettering and symbols are oddly proportioned and ugly, making an otherwise simple-looking floating keycap design look basic. The plastic base sitting beneath the aluminum top case makes these keyboards pretty light and portable, but the combination feels a bit cheap compared to full-metal keyboards. And there are no added conveniences like a volume knob, included wrist rest, or status screen like on the Huntsman Pro models.

But the magnetic Huntsman pair both sound much better to my ears than Razer’s pricier models. The new HE keyboards create a nice clacky tone, while the Huntsman V3 Pro is louder and clunkier sounding. (I’ve got a high tolerance for noisy keyboards, but the latter can get on my nerves after typing for a while.) Preferred typing sounds are pretty subjective, but as improved as Razer’s new HE boards are in the sound department, I’ve tested other 8K wired Hall effect keyboards that are much more pleasing to the ears.

For the same price of Huntsman V3 HE, you can get more unique looking and nicer sounding keyboards, but if your sole focus is competitive gaming, these new models are a good value compared to other popular (and pricier) boards. Enjoy your speedy keys and all the RGB lighting your heart desires. Just don’t get banned.

Photography by Antonio G. Di Benedetto / The Verge

Last year, Microsoft’s 13-inch Surface Laptop quickly became one of my favorite thin-and-light Windows notebooks. At $900, it was easy to recommend to anyone wanting MacBook Air–like build quality and battery life on Windows — I even convinced my sister to buy one on sale. 

But that was last year. This year, thanks to RAMageddon, that same laptop costs $950, and now that price gets you half as much RAM — just 8GB. It’s the same great hardware on the outside, but it’s not the same laptop on the inside.

It’s been a long time since we tested a Windows laptop with so little RAM. We’ve been saying for years that 8GB isn’t enough. But this is Microsoft’s laptop, and Windows 11 is Microsoft’s operating system. Maybe it’ll be good enough. 

It’s not.

Microsoft Surface Laptop 13-inch (8GB, 2026)

Score: 6

Pros	Cons
Same great build, hardware, and battery life as last year	8GB of RAM on Windows 11 isn’t enough Costs more than last year’s model, and with worse specs 256GB of storage feels more limiting now that SSD prices are through the roof

Where to Buy:

• $949.99 at Best Buy
• $949.99 at Microsoft

All the good things I wrote about last year’s hardware still ring true: The keyboard is nice and tactile, the trackpad is great (only outdone by ones that allow you to click corner-to-corner), the webcam is sharp and clear, and the battery goes and goes — easily lasting 10 hours. The processor, an eight-core Snapdragon X Plus, is nearly identical to the one in the Surface Laptop I reviewed last year. In fact, it has a slightly faster boost speed. In last year’s Surface Laptop, it was a solid performer and could even handle light photo editing in Lightroom Classic. But last year’s model had 16GB of RAM. It turns out that makes a big difference.

While the 8GB Surface was usually fine for basic web browsing or video streaming, I occasionally nudged it a bit too far in everyday use. I was on a Microsoft Teams call (using the app, not a browser) when the host streamed a brief video, which made the whole laptop hang for several seconds. At the time, I had about 10 Chrome tabs open across two desktops, alongside Slack and Signal — not an obscene level of multitasking. And we didn’t even have our webcams on.

The Surface Laptop would hang for a few seconds like this several times a day, even when I thought I wasn’t pushing it too hard. I’ve had these temporary freezes while just working in some Google Docs — no Teams call running or anything streaming in the background. It’s only a couple times a day on average, but that’s still too often.

Keeping the Performance tab open in Task Manager showed I was almost always using around 6.7GB of the available 7.6GB of available memory. After a fresh reboot with bare minimum startup apps running, Windows was using 4.2GB of RAM. That’s around the minimum Microsoft requires just to run Windows 11, highlighting how little headroom there is with 8GB of RAM. Limiting myself to about six Chrome tabs, closing Signal, and refraining from using any virtual desktops kept the memory usage to about 5.5GB. 

Is this all workable for light loads? Yes. Do I want to live my life being super cautious about how many apps I’m running and how many tabs I leave open on a brand-new $950 laptop? Absolutely not. And if it’s choking on day one, how usable is it going to be in five years?

The same concerns can be said of the MacBook Neo, which also has just 8GB of RAM. But macOS is a bit better with RAM — and more to the point, in my testing, the Neo could handle more multitasking. A Neo won’t have the shelf life of a MacBook Air, but it also costs $250 less than the Surface Laptop (even after Apple’s recent price increase).

Microsoft has claimed its focus this year is improving the performance of Windows 11 and making it more reliable, especially for lower-cost hardware, to compete with the Neo. But if we’re really going back to 8GB as the starting point for Windows laptops, there’s a lot more work to be done. It’s of course ironic that Microsoft needs to address this problem when it’s one of the major perpetrators of the ongoing RAM crunch. Perhaps Microsoft doesn’t care that its flagship Surface line will suffer for its AI obsession, but it still sucks to see.

We haven’t reviewed a Windows laptop with just 8GB of RAM in more than three years. Unfortunately, the Surface Laptop won’t be the last. The recent Computex show also brought announcements for upcoming laptops with 8GB of memory from Dell, Acer, and Asus. With the RAM shortage likely to last years, we’re going to see more and more 8GB offerings so manufacturers still have something “entry-level” to offer. 

But if even Microsoft can’t make a Windows laptop that runs well on 8GB RAM, what hope do OEMs have? 8GB is not enough for a Windows laptop in 2026. Barring Microsoft actually de-bloating Windows 11 enough to accommodate lower-spec computers, your best bet is to spend more and get something with 16GB of RAM — like the same Surface Laptop for $1,150, something from another manufacturer that still sees some decent sales, or look into refurbs and open-box models from reputable sources. Or just cop out and get a MacBook Neo.

Prices could still go up. The $950 8GB Surface Laptop of today could very well be the $1,050 8GB Surface Laptop of next year, or the $1,200 8GB Surface Laptop of the following year. 

This is our new normal for computing. The 13-inch Surface Laptop initially offered respectable tradeoffs for a fair discount — “a little less for a little less,” as I put it then. Now the new base model offers even less for more. RAMageddon has altered the deal. It’ll probably get worse.

Photography by Antonio G. Di Benedetto / The Verge

The macOS 27 Golden Gate public beta is here, and anyone with an M-series Mac now has easier access to test-drive Apple’s latest changes — including a more subdued Liquid Glass aesthetic. That’s reason enough to be at least a little excited for macOS 27 (particularly if you’re on Tahoe and disliking all the transparency). But there are other things that make trying out this beta a little more appealing than usual.

There was a rumor earlier this year that this new macOS would focus on performance optimizations, bug fixes, and a bunch of small quality-of-life improvements, rather than being a major overhaul. And aside from dialing down Liquid Glass, that is what Golden Gate feels like. Apple even leaned into this during its WWDC keynote with a wall of text listing such boring but practical tweaks as “Optimized CPU scheduler” and “Support for Mac mirroring in 5K resolution.”

The Golden Gate developer beta has proven stable in my everyday use on an M5 MacBook Air and M5 Max MacBook Pro, which is notable since dev betas often have side effects like tanking battery life or causing hardware to run hotter than normal. So if you’re interested in trying the public beta yourself (if you’re comfortable with the potential for bugs) let me walk you through a few new features — both good and middling alike.

The good stuff

As I covered in my initial developer beta hands-on, the new dialed-down Liquid Glass design, unified corner window radii, and visual improvements to File Explorer / app sidebars are all absolute wins for Golden Gate. Would I still prefer to go back to the flatter design of macOS Sequoia? Yes, unequivocally. But at least Liquid Glass is more tolerable and less distracting now. When the full Golden Gate release comes out in the fall, I’ll tell everyone I know running Tahoe to upgrade right away.

Siri’s new Expressive Voices are now available in preview as of dev beta 3. In addition to the existing canned voices, the public beta of macOS 27 allows you to customize the pacing and expressiveness of Siri’s speech. For now, it’s limited to a female and male American accent with five levels of pace and expressivity each.

While I’m far from the biggest Siri fan, I dig this feature. I immediately turned Siri’s talking speed to the maximum setting and expressivity to the lowest — making it as robotic and to-the-point sounding as it’ll go. I don’t think I’ll ever go back, and I can’t wait to make the change on all my Apple devices. Every voice assistant should have a setting like this. I’d even welcome a third slider for friendliness that lets me set it to DMV Clerk. Just give it to me straight and shut up as fast as possible.

Another nifty new feature I didn’t know I wanted is an overflow button in the Menu Bar. On macOS 26, if you had too many menu bar items, the leftmost ones could end up hidden beneath the left-hand app menus. Now, you can load the top Menu Bar with buttons and drop-downs, and Golden Gate keeps anything on the Menu Bar to the left of the notch hidden, with a double-arrow button temporarily expanding them.

As for all the new Photos app features, I think the best update is for Clean Up. It feels pretty reminiscent of Google’s Magic Eraser, and it did a good job removing a variety of subjects from photos I tested it in. I used it to remove a bit of greenery in the corner of a blue sky from one of my Sony RX10 V photos, but that’s easy and low stakes. What was more impressive was how it convincingly removed a fly from the center of a flower with lots of little details. It won’t replace Photoshop for people who need Photoshop, but it’s nice to have this feature for those who don’t.

The meh stuff

The other big Photos features for both macOS and iOS are Reframe and Extend, allowing you to turn and tilt the composition of your picture and expand the framing beyond what you actually shot. My colleague Allison already tested this on the iPhone, but I took a turn trying it on the Mac — again with photos I shot on non-Apple devices. 

Extend does a decent job of expanding your image with made-up content, but Reframe never looks quite right to my eyes. And both give Apple Intelligence way too much freedom to take liberties and slop things up a little: Reframing a picture of a plane in the sky turned it into a weird fake-looking AI mockup, and doing it to a photo of a bunny gave it odd proportions.

I don’t really use the Photos app on macOS since I’m a Lightroom Classic guy, but I wouldn’t touch these even if I did.

Another thing I still don’t find myself using much is Siri AI. My initial hands-on showed it’s more useful than it was (the bar was so low). But despite Siri’s big upgrade, I still struggle to find its usefulness. I don’t default to asking it questions or looking things up via Siri (either text-based or via voice searches). I still have a hard time trusting AI answers to even simple questions, and I don’t know if that worry will ever go away. Maybe when it stops being wrong so often.

The little annoyances to get used to

There’s a new Ask Siri menu item that sometimes appears at the top of the right-click context menu in the OS and in some apps. It doesn’t always show up, which makes it more jarring when it does, even though the context menu shifts higher to accommodate it. I’m sure I’ll adjust eventually.

The same goes for the updated battery percentage number in the Menu Bar, which matches iOS with a small number within the battery icon. I complained about it in my initial Golden Gate hands-on, and I still don’t prefer it. But I’m already used to it.

Even though I don’t care much for Siri AI and the new Apple Intelligence features, I much prefer Golden Gate to Tahoe. Will it win over those who stuck with Sequoia to avoid Liquid Glass entirely? Maybe not. But some of the little improvements are nice, and if you’re already living the glassy life on your Mac, it’s nothing but an upgrade.

Apple just raised the prices on Macs and iPads in response to the rising costs of memory chips, right in the middle of Amazon Prime Day. That means existing discounts (even small ones) on Apple laptops like the MacBook Neo, MacBook Air, and MacBook Pro just became significantly better deals.

As an example, the 13-inch MacBook Air M5 that used to start at $1,099 and is currently on sale for $949.99 (at Costco) will soon carry a full retail price of $1,299. That initial $150 discount just became a savings of $350 compared to Apple’s upcoming pricing.

There’s no guarantee how long existing sales will stick around, and no official word on when major laptop retailers will reset all their Mac pricing to reflect the increases. Best Buy and B&H Photo have already updated their pricing, but some older prices or even cheaper deals are lingering at Amazon. Costco lists its member-only deals as valid through June 26th or 27th.

If you were considering an Apple computer purchase, it might be best to make a move while you can. We’re outlining all the deals we can find below.

MacBook Neo deals

MacBook Neo

Apple’s most affordable laptop, with a 13-inch display, A18 Pro chip, 8GB of RAM, and optional Touch ID fingerprint sensor. Read our review.

Where to Buy:

• $799 $689.99 at Amazon (512GB, pink)
• $699 $599 at Best Buy (256GB)
• $699 $589.99 at Costco (256GB, citrus)

The base 256GB MacBook Neo is selling for $589.99 at Amazon and Costco (in the citrus color only). Normally that’d be a paltry $10 discount, but with Apple raising the Neo’s base price to $699 it’s now a savings of $110. The 512GB version with Touch ID is $689.99 (a $110 discount compared to the new price) at Amazon and Costco. Best Buy still has the base 256GB model and 512GB model for the old prices of $599 and $699, respectively. That at least saves you the $100 price increase for now.

MacBook Air deals

Apple MacBook Air (M5)

Apple’s 2026 MacBook Air has an M5 chip and starts with 512GB of storage that’s significantly faster than previous generations. It’s still as excellent as ever despite a higher base price. Read our review.

Where to Buy:

• $1599 $1149.99 at Amazon (13-inch, 1TB)
• $1499 $1149.99 at Amazon (15-inch)
• $1299 $949.99 at Costco (13-inch, 512GB)

The base 13-inch MacBook Air with an M5 chip, 16GB of memory, and 512GB of storage is $949 at Amazon, Best Buy, and Costco. That’s such a better price than the $1,299 Apple is now charging, but you have to be a Costco member. The 13-inch Air with two more GPU cores and 1TB of storage is $1,149.99 ($449 off the new price) at Amazon The 15-inch Air with base 16GB / 512GB configuration is currently on sale for $1,149.99 (also $350 off its new price) at Amazon, Best Buy, and Costco.

As good as the Neo is, the Air is still Apple’s best all-around laptop. Its balance of performance, battery life, and portability is still unmatched. And for $949 or $1,149 you’re getting a laptop that should last you the better part of a decade for what’s sadly now such a good deal.

MacBook Pro deals

MacBook Pro (14-inch, M5, 2025)

Apple’s 14-inch M5 MacBook Pro takes everything we loved about the M4 model — including all-day battery life and a 12-megapixel webcam — and improves upon it with an M5 chip. It also offers faster storage and a 10-core CPU / 10-core GPU that’s up to 3.5x faster at AI tasks. Read our review.

Where to Buy:

• $1999 $1549.99 at Amazon (16GB RAM, 1TB SSD)
• $1999 at Best Buy (16GB RAM, 1TB SSD)
• $2199 $2089 at Amazon (24GB RAM, 1TB SSD)

The base 14-inch MacBook Pro with an M5 chip is my personal favorite sweet spot of Apple’s lineup if you do frequent content creation but can’t fathom paying much higher M5 Pro / M5 Max prices. It’s on sale for $1,549.99 ($450 off Apple’s new MSRP) at Amazon, Best Buy, and Costco. The base model revised for 2026 comes with 16GB of RAM, 1TB of faster storage, and has lots of ports. It’s the ideal step up from a MacBook Air, but paying Apple’s new price of $1,999 makes it much less attainable than it was.

Apple MacBook Pro (M5 Pro / Max, 2026)

The M5 Pro and M5 Max versions of the latest MacBook Pro deliver exceptional power and speed, making them ideal for creative work while offering best-in-class battery life. Read our review.

Where to Buy:

• $2499 $2049.99 at Amazon (14-inch M5 Pro, 1TB SSD, 24GB RAM)
• $2999 $2549.99 at Amazon (16-inch M5 Pro, 1TB SSD, 24GB RAM)
• $4099 $3649.99 at Amazon (14-inch M5 Max, 2TB SSD, 36GB RAM)

The higher-end M5 Pro and M5 Max MacBook Pros come in 14-inch and 16-inch sizes. Here’s a rundown of what each one’s base configuration starts at with Apple’s new pricing, and what you can currently buy it for:

• 14-inch MacBook Pro with M5 Pro (15-core CPU / 16-core GPU, 24GB, 1TB): $2,049.99 ($449 off the new price of $2,499) at Amazon and Best Buy
• 16-inch MacBook Pro with M5 Pro (18-core CPU / 20-core GPU, 24GB, 1TB): $2,549.99 ($449 off the new price of $2,999) at Amazon
• 14-inch MacBook Pro with M5 Max (18-core CPU / 32-core GPU, 36GB, 2TB): $3,299.99 ($800 off the new price of $4,099) at Amazon or $3,319 at Best Buy
• 16-inch MacBook Pro with M5 Max (18-core CPU / 32-core GPU, 36GB, 2TB): $3,649.99 ($750 off the new price of $4,399) at Amazon

There are of course many different configurations of current MacBook Pros out there, with RAM and storage upgrades that climb to crazy amounts — too many to neatly list without it getting overwhelming. But even base configs for all of the above models are excellent.

Mac desktop deals

iMac with M4 (16GB RAM, 256GB SSD, 8-core CPU, 8-core GPU)

The latest version of Apple’s all-in-one desktop computer features an M4 chip and support for Apple Intelligence. Unlike its predecessor, the base model now offers 16GB RAM by default, along with a new 12-megapixel webcam. Read our review.

Where to Buy:

• $1499 $1149.99 at Costco (8-core M4)
• $1699 $1349.99 at Costco (10-core M4)

The M4 iMac from 2024 is going from a starting price of $1,299 to $1,499. You can still get a base model with 8-core M4 chip, 16GB of memory, and 256GB SSD in various colors for $1,149.99 ($350 off the new price) at Amazon, Best Buy, and Costco. The 10-core M4 iMac with four Thunderbolt 4 ports instead of just two is $1,349.99 ($350 off the new price) at Best Buy and Costco.

We may not all agree with why the 24-inch iMac still exists or who needs it, but it’s a lovely all-in-one computer. And the Mac Mini and Studio are impossible to find thanks to AI bros and their OpenClaw agents. Womp.

Update, June 26th: Revised copy where applicable to reflect that some retailers have transitioned to Apple’s new pricing. Removed or struck deals / old pricing that’s no longer available. Changed headline.