Eliana Willis

Kerry Wan/ZDNETToday at Samsung’s Unpacked event, the tech giant launched its Galaxy S25 smartphone series, which includes the Galaxy S25, Galaxy S25 Plus, and Galaxy S25 Ultra. The flagship lineup will feature a new exclusive display technology called ProScaler, designed to produce more “lifelike… sharper visuals and brighter colors,” according to Samsung’s marketing material.Also: Everything announced at Samsung Unpacked 2025: Galaxy S25, Gemini AI, moreProScaler is a real-time AI-powered image quality enhancement technology unique to Samsung, delivering visible improvements over the Galaxy S24 series, especially in color accuracy and sharpness.The feature, carried over from the brand’s TV lineup, essentially upscales content on your phone so what was previously low-resolution video appears more crisp. In other words, 480p videos should look closer to 720p videos, 1080p videos should look closer to 1440p videos, and so forth. More

A new year is an excellent time to tidy up your workspace and ensure your devices are charged, running at peak performance, and easily accessible with a laptop docking station. Laptop docking stations, or Thunderbolt docks, consolidate all your connectivity needs by providing a single hub for all your accessories. They allow you to connect keyboards, external monitors, external drives, and more. This is great for people who work from home and want to upgrade their system but may not have the budget (or the desk space). These devices allow you to enjoy improved usability that laptops don’t typically offer, though the toughest part is figuring out which one to get since many options exist.The top laptop docking station offers a wide selection of ports to handle different scenarios, the ability to output video signals to multiple high-resolution displays, fast data transfer speeds, and a compact design. These are features we’d recommend you look for if you’re looking to improve your work-from-home setup.Also: The best laptops you can buyWhat is the best laptop docking station right now?We researched and went hands-on with some of the top laptop docking stations available to find the best device for your setup. Our pick for the best laptop docking station overall is the CalDigit TS4 Thunderbolt 4 Dock More

A laptop feature that often gets overlooked is its cooling system. Processors, graphics cards, and more demand a lot of energy, which results in a lot of heat. Ask anyone with a gaming laptop — they’ll tell you how uncomfortably hot it can get. Unfortunately, you can’t prevent your computer from generating heat, but you can mitigate it with a laptop cooling pad. These devices sit underneath the laptop, absorb the heat created, and actively cool the device with a combination of high-speed fans and clever airflow engineering.   Also: The best gaming laptops you can buyWhat is the best laptop cooling pad right now?We tested some of the top laptop cooling pads on the market, and the Llano Gaming Laptop Cooler More

Kerry Wan/ZDNETSamsung has been everywhere so far this January, from Las Vegas for CES to San Jose for its Unpacked event, where we expect to hear more about the company’s plans for Galaxy AI and the latest S series of smartphones More

Sabrina Ortiz/ZDNETSince its debut, Apple Intelligence has required the extra step of actually turning it on or opting in. But with the next versions of Apple’s operating systems, the AI-powered feature will be enabled by default.Enabled automatically for new and upgrading usersThe release notes for iOS/iPadOS 18.3 and MacOS 15.3 state that Apple Intelligence will be enabled automatically for new and upgrading users, giving them immediate access to its AI-powered capabilities. Anyone who doesn’t want to use the AI will have to manually turn it off.Also: I bought an iPhone 16 for its AI features, but I haven’t used them even once – here’s whyCurrently accessible as release candidates, iOS 18.3, iPadOS 18.3, and MacOS 15.3 are likely to launch within the next week or so. All three versions have been in beta testing since mid-December, giving developers more than a month to evaluate them for new features and fixes.Eligible devices that can run Apple IntelligenceOnly eligible devices can take advantage of Apple Intelligence. These include any iPhone 16, the iPhone 15 Pro, the iPhone 15 Pro Max, any iPad Pro or iPad Air with an M1 chip or later, the iPad mini with the A17 Pro chip, and Macs with an M1 chip or later.Also: What is Apple Intelligence? Everything to knowApple Intelligence now chews up around 7GB of storage, up from 4GB initially. Turning off the technology doesn’t automatically recover that space, at least not right away. But if you don’t plan to use the AI at all, you can certainly disable it. To do so, just go to Settings, select Apple Intelligence & Siri, and then turn off the switch for Apple Intelligence. More

I spend a lot of time testing power banks. Adrian Kingsley-Hughes/ZDNETBig numbers sell. In the minds of consumers, 5,000 is better than 2,000, and 10,000 is better than both. And when it comes to 10 million, well, that beats everything, right? There’s one area of tech where I see big numbers being thrown around a lot, and that is power bank capacities.Also: The best power banks you can buy in 2025Power bank manufacturers have adopted the milliamp-hour (abbreviated as mAh) as the default measure of battery capacity for power banks. This is handy for marketers because even the smallest power banks have capacities measured in the thousands of milliamp-hours. However, mAh is not the best measure of power bank capacity, and I’m here to explain why.The problem with relying on mAh for battery capacityThe issue with using mAh as a measure of battery capacity is that it reflects a battery’s power capacity at a specific voltage output. If you tweak the output voltage, the mAh rating changes.The mAh is calculated using the formula:mAh = (Wh x 1000) / VWhere Wh is the energy capacity of the battery measured in watt-hours, and V is the voltage of the battery.The default voltage that most reputable power bank manufacturers use is the voltage of the battery inside the power bank, which is typically 3.7V or 3.85V. If you remember a few of your math classes, you might have noticed from that equation a few lines above that the lower the voltage, the higher the mAh rating. This is advantageous from a marketing point of view because the default voltage output for an old-school USB-A port is 5V, and USB-C ports can go to 20V and beyond. This makes the mAh capacity rating somewhat meaningless because it changes with that output voltage.Also: The best MagSafe battery packsQuite a lot of people are noticing this because they are going out and buying USB power meters More