[Hardware Weekly] Apple's home hub is reportedly a week away
Apple is reportedly a week away from its biggest smart home push in years, and it may not even bother with a keynote. Meanwhile Qualcomm's mid-tier laptop chip just outscored Intel's premium one, and AOC built a monitor that is faster than any graphics card on the planet.
The Big 3
Apple's home hub is reportedly landing on 13 October
Bloomberg reports Apple will unveil three products on Tuesday 13 October: the long-rumoured smart home hub (nicknamed HomePad), a new HomePod mini, and a new Apple TV 4K, all built around the revamped Siri. Reports point to A19-series chips and Apple's own networking silicon, plus new HomePod mini colours. Apple has confirmed nothing, and in 2024 and 2025 it launched October hardware through press releases rather than events, so do not wait up for a keynote.
Why it matters: if you were about to buy a HomePod mini or Apple TV, stop. Seven days is not a long wait for a far newer chip and Siri that can actually do things.
Qualcomm's cheaper laptop chip just beat Intel's best
A new benchmark study puts the standard 18-core Snapdragon X2 Elite (in a $1,999 Lenovo Slim 7x) ahead of Intel's Core Ultra X7 358H (in a $2,749 Dell XPS 14) by 24 percent single-core and 31 percent multi-core in Geekbench 7. It also won AI vision tests and lasted 11.2 hours browsing in Chrome against Intel's 8.6. Intel kept a 23 percent lead in integrated graphics and won the sustained Office battery test. Qualcomm paid for the study, so treat it as a strong hint, not a verdict.
Why it matters: Windows on Arm no longer needs the flagship chip to make its case, and that is the version most people will actually buy.
AOC built a 1,000Hz monitor. Nothing can feed it
The AGON PRO AGP257FT is a 24.5-inch 1080p oxide IPS panel running 1,000Hz natively and 1,050Hz overclocked, with a quoted 0.3ms response time. It arrives in Q1 2027 with no price yet. LG's 25G590B at $999.99 is the only priced rival. The catch: no GPU maker has published a 1,000 fps figure for any game, and HDMI 2.1 cannot carry the signal uncompressed.
Why it matters: the refresh rate race has officially lapped the graphics card race, so for most players the next real upgrade is the GPU, not the screen.
Quick Hits
Steam Frame gets longer legs. Valve's SteamOS 0.4.3 beta for its Steam Frame headset promises up to 12 percent better battery life, though gains vary by game and frame rate on a 21.6Wh battery that typically lasts one to two hours. Notebookcheck
Xbox Elite Series 3 keeps leaking. Fresh specs surfaced via Microsoft's own Design Lab, adding to earlier regulator filings that point to WiFi 6 cloud play, a removable battery and two new thumb scroll wheels. TweakTown
The OLED MacBook Pro is going on a diet. A new report says Apple's redesigned OLED MacBook Pro will be "significantly lighter" than today's model. 9to5Mac
Retro handhelds slip again. Blaze Entertainment has pushed the C64 Handheld and Spectrum Handheld back to 22 April 2027. Time Extension
Pick of the Week
TP-Link Deco BE65 WiFi 7 mesh
A tri-band BE9300 mesh system that brings WiFi 7 to every corner of a house without a pile of fiddly settings, and it is the upgrade that makes all those new laptops and phones actually feel fast at home.
Who it is for: anyone in a multi-storey home or with dead spots, on a gigabit-plus connection. Skip it if: you live in a flat that one decent router already covers.
Price: typically around £350 to £450 for a two-pack (roughly $400 to $500 in the US), though prices vary a lot by region and retailer. Check the price on Amazon
Worth Waiting For
Oppo Find X10 series, global launch
Leaks point to a global launch for the Find X10 and Find X10 Pro Max on or around 28 October, with India before Diwali in early November and a possible third Pro model in some markets. The series already debuted in China, so the hardware is known; what is still missing is global pricing. Neither the global date nor the pricing is official yet, and availability will vary by region (the US is unlikely). If you want a camera-first Android flagship, it is worth holding off three weeks before buying anything else.
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Happy building. Nath, Future Technology
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