Gear News of the Week: A New Privacy Phone Arrives, and Samsung Has a $30K 115-Inch Micro RGB TV

There's a new smartphone promising to protect your privacy: the Up Phone, from a company called Unplugged. Except it's not new. Unplugged has been around for a few years—the company was cofounded by Erik Prince, the founder of private military company Blackwater—and it originally announced the Up Phone in 2023. But this week, the company claims it's “relaunching” the phone, under new leadership.

Like the original, the Up Phone's UnpluggedOS (formerly LibertOS) is built on the Android Open Source Project (AOSP) and isn't connected to Google Mobile Services, which it claims prevents “backdoor data collection.” Unplugged's focus is on limiting who gets access to your data. There's an on-device Firewall app that blocks third-party trackers and a built-in “no logs” VPN. A kill switch separates the battery and cuts power to other circuits when the phone is turned off, and you'll find the Brave browser preinstalled.

Unfortunately, many of the company's early privacy claims were far-fetched, and it doesn't help that it was denounced by established player GrapheneOS in 2024. It's hard to take its renewed privacy claims seriously.

Worse yet, the specs haven't changed since its 2023 debut. That includes a MediaTek Dimensity 1200, a processor from 2021, and a paltry 8 GB of RAM. Also, considering the eye-watering $989 price, it doesn't match the specs you'll find on comparable phones.

More strangely, Unplugged claims it plans to bring manufacturing to the US later in 2025, “creating jobs domestically.” (The Up Phone is currently made in Indonesia.) This rhetoric is reminiscent of the Trump Mobile T1 Phone, which initially claimed would be made in the US, but later backtracked on that promise. Manufacturing the Up Phone in the US would likely skyrocket its already high price.

Don't forget that the privacy services are only free for the first year. After that you'll have to pay $13 per month or $130 per year to access them. The Up Phone ships in September and is available for purchase from Best Buy and Unplugged, but we don't recommend you snag one anytime soon.

2024 was the first year that more women than men bought the Oura Ring, our top recommended health-tracking smart ring. Ultrahuman, the subscription-less smart ring that is the leading contender to unseat Oura’s unquestioned dominance, is addressing this demographic with its acquisition of viO HealthTech, which owns the OvuSense algorithm, a best-in-class ovulation predictor on the market. It was developed over 15 years, trained on a dataset of more than 260,000 cycles collected with medical-grade sensors, and validated in 13 peer-reviewed clinical publications.

Starting on August 15, Ultrahuman Ring Air users will be able to purchase Cycle and Ovulation Pro as a plug-in on the Ring Air app for $4 a month or $40 annually. While the original OvuSense used intravaginal temperature-based tracking, Ultrahuman adapted the algorithm to skin temperature sensing for wellness and personal cycle tracking, not medical diagnosis.

The feature will offer fertility tracking support, symptom and lifestyle tracking, and, most importantly, it’s designed for diverse menstrual cycles. It works for women who have common health conditions such as PCOS and endometriosis, which many other cycle trackers don’t.

Even if you don’t have a health condition or aren’t trying to get pregnant, a reliable, accurate cycle tracker can help women make vacation plans or optimize work or workout schedules. This makes the Ring Air well worth considering, especially since the subscription for the plug-in is optional and still less than Oura’s $6 monthly sub. —Adrienne So

It’s an exciting time for LED TVs. After teasing its newest TV tech with a mysterious prototype at CES 2025, Samsung this week joined similar moves from Hisense and Sony in announcing the launch of its new 115-inch Micro RGB TV. The TV uses Samsung’s proprietary Micro RGB backlighting technology, which “arranges individually controlled red, green and blue micro LEDs … in an ultra-fine pattern behind the panel,” according to Samsung. The company says the TV’s enhanced color control provides an “industry-first” 100 percent color coverage of the next-gen BT.2020 color spectrum. (Many of the best TVs we test tend to cover between 75 to 85 percent of that color space.)

Unlike traditional LED TVs, RGB LED tri-colored backlighting creates colors directly at the light source behind the panel stack. This can provide enhanced brightness, incredibly accurate and saturated colors even in low-lit scenes, and advanced blooming control for less light bleed, among other benefits.

Samsung says its new TV achieves “unprecedented precision,” utilizing multiple complementary technologies, including its Micro RGB AI Engine to finely control color output, along with its latest Glare Free display coating for diminishing reflections. It’s worth noting that the Micro RGB TV does not work like Samsung’s emissive MicroLED displays, which create images at the pixel level like OLED TVs, but have proven notoriously difficult to mass-produce.

Hisense and Sony each showcased their own advanced RGB display technologies earlier this year, which we were able to witness briefly, including a hands-on RGB demo at Sony HQ in Tokyo.

While Sony’s model is still a prototype tentatively slated for a 2026 release, Hisense announced availability for its $30,000 116-inch 116UX RGB miniLED TV, along with a $20,000 100-inch model shortly following Samsung’s announcement. At launch, Samsung’s new Micro RGB TV will be available in Korea and the US for $30,000, with release dates yet to come. —Ryan Waniata

That's not the only screen Samsung announced this week. The company also unwrapped three new gaming monitors in its popular Odyssey lineup. The most exciting is the Odyssey OLED G6, a 27-inch QD-OLED monitor with an insanely high 500-Hz refresh rate. That sounds excessive, and on one hand, it is. But having played with it at CES 2025, the motion clarity is unparalleled.

The combination of 500 Hz with OLED is unmatched, offering the absolute smoothest game experience we've ever seen, and you don't necessarily need frame rates in the 400s to get the benefit. You'll appreciate these features in fast-paced competitive shooters, but it's great that those types of gamers can now enjoy the benefits of OLED. You can buy it now at Samsung.com for $1,000.

The other two are interesting, too. Essentially, there are two versions of the Odyssey G7 G75F: a 37-inch and a 40-inch version. The 37-inch model is a standard 16:9 monitor with a 1000R curve, 4K resolution, and a 165-Hz refresh rate. In the past, I've only liked curved monitors that are in the 21:9 ultrawide format, but I'm curious to see how this one feels, as it's a new screen size that isn't commonly used.

The 40-inch model is a bit more standard, an ultrawide monitor with a 5,120 x 2,160 resolution. Think of this as a larger version of the more common 34-inch ultrawide, such as the Odyssey G8. Both versions of the G7 use a VA (vertical alignment) panel rather than an OLED or IPS, as is common in gaming monitors of this type, so don't expect great HDR performance. The 37-inch model costs $900, and the 40-inch ultrawide is $1,200. —Luke Larsen

I love an electric bike, but there’s one significant downside that comes as the bikes become ever sleeker and more streamlined over time: They become harder and harder to repair. That’s a problem, because any motorized vehicle that you use every day and under varying weather and stress conditions will require repairs at some point. (That’s also why I generally recommend bikes manufactured by larger companies like Specialized or REI; it’s much easier to access services.)

Oregon-based Nomad Cycles wants to change that with its Kickstarter, which launched today. Its two ebike models are the DoubleDown and the KickBack, and both are priced at $5,500. Each have frames that are handmade from chromoly steel—a material that’s favored by bike makers for its durability and shock-absorbing properties—and feature modular, fully repairable motors made by CYC, which makes mountain bike motors.

Each model will come with either a 750-watt or a 1,000-watt motor (1,000-watt motors are legal in Oregon, Georgia, Kansas, Minnesota, Oklahoma, Virginia, Florida, and Mississippi). The batteries also have fully aluminum, waterproof cases, which are necessary in the Oregon rain.

“When [an ebike’s] motor is no longer supported and it breaks down, the whole bike becomes trash in a landfill,” says Nomad Cycles owner Brad Davis. “Even the tip-top brands only commit to maintaining repair parts for motor models for 5 to 7 years.” Building an electric bike with Right to Repair front and center should dramatically extend the life of your ride—and make electric bikes even more popular. —Adrienne So

Sling TV is solving one of the most vexing problems for noncommittal cord-cutters with new Day Pass, Weekend Pass, and Week Pass options. While many people want to stream traditional TV networks with ads, others want to catch a big game or series every so often. Until now, they've been locked into buying a month of streaming service to catch a live game unless they had access to cable TV or it was being broadcast over the air.

Sling's $5 Day Pass, $10 Weekend Pass, and $15 Week Pass come with Sling Orange, which has ESPN (1, 2, and 3) plus TNT and TBS. For a buck a day, you can upgrade that to a sports package that includes MLB Network, NBA TV, NHL Network, and ESPNU. This will be especially useful for sports fans of small-time and less successful teams. A fan of the Ohio State University would be able to watch their team play in the National Championship on ESPN with this pass.

But it's probably even more useful for a diehard Michigan fan who wants to watch the ReliaQuest Bowl without strangers in a bar knowing they are watching the ReliaQuest Bowl, or an Iowa State fan who wants to catch the Pop-Tarts Bowl. —Martin Cizmar