CES is behind us for another year, but that doesn’t mean we didn’t see some major announcements and product launches this week.
Our mobiles editor Lewis was particularly busy this week as the Honor Magic 7 Pro was announced, following the OnePlus 13, Poco X7 Pro and Redmi Note 14 Pro launches last week.
DJI unveiled its latest entry-level drone, the DJI Flip, as Insta360’s best smartphone gimbal for most people received an update that missed one crucial feature.
Nintendo undoubtedly stole the show this week as the company released a trailer teasing the Switch 2, making it this week’s winner. Keep reading to learn more about the Switch 2, along with who we crowned this week’s loser.
Winner: Nintendo
Our winner this week couldn’t be anyone other than Nintendo, as the company finally unveiled its long-awaited Switch sequel, the Nintendo Switch 2.
The Switch 2 is Nintendo’s second major Switch release, and the fourth iteration of the console if you include the handheld Switch Lite and bigger, brighter Switch OLED. The company hasn’t revealed all regarding the Switch 2, but it has teased enough to get us excited for the upcoming Nintendo Direct stream on April 2 when Nintendo has promised to reveal all.
For now, the company has shared the below first-look trailer, giving us an initial glimpse at the console’s design.
The Switch 2 doesn’t look hugely different from the Switch that came before it, though there are some key differences. The console and display appear to be larger, there’s a new U-shaped stand, and the Joy-Cons feature a snapping mechanism to replace the railing system on the first-generation Joy-Cons.
There’s also a mysterious new button below the Home button which some have speculated to be a voice chat shortcut or a casting button.
When it comes to games playable on the Switch 2, Nintendo promised that the console would be backwards compatible with most digital and physical Switch games. The company also teased an update to the Mario Kart franchise a whole seven years after Mario Kart 8 Deluxe first arrived on the Switch.
We’ll need to wait for April’s Nintendo Direct to learn more about the specs and features coming to the console (including whether the screen will be an LCD or an OLED one), but for now you can visit our guide to the Nintendo Switch 2 to discover all the official news and not-so-official leaks surrounding the next-gen console.
Loser: Microsoft
Our loser this week is Microsoft, as the company announced it would be increasing the price of its Microsoft 365 Personal and Family plans in exchange for features some users might not even want.
Microsoft has revealed that it will be integrating its AI-powered Copilot and Designer features into these plans in most locations around the globe. However, the upgrade doesn’t come free. In fact, the company has decided to up the price of its Personal and Family Plans by $3/month (or $30/year), charging existing subscribers this extra fee from the date of their next renewal.
While many users will no doubt be excited to begin generating ideas in OneNote, summarising emails in Outlook and creating images with Designer, there will also be users completely uninterested in inviting AI into their workflow, whether that is for environmental reasons or for more practical ones.
You won’t catch any of the Trusted Reviews team generating articles in Microsoft Word, for example. In these instances, adding AI just seems like an excuse to charge users extra to retain the features they’re already comfortable using and ignore the new AI ones likely to be crowding the menu bar.
Of course, Microsoft isn’t the first company to add a surcharge to its apps in the name of AI. This has been a growing trend in 2024, and we don’t expect it to die down in 2025, either. However, we’d much rather AI features like these be sold as an add-on for those who plan to use them, rather than forcing them upon its user base as a whole.
Thankfully, you can opt out of this particular AI update and retain your usual subscription rate by moving to the new Microsoft 365 Classic plan. This requires you to sign into your Microsoft account and manage your subscription, meaning you do need to take action ASAP if you don’t want to fork out an additional $3 a month in the name of Microsoft’s AI tax.
