The biggest story in tech this week is not really a tech story: it's a politics story. But it's so big that it's impacting TechRadar's world just as much as it is every other walk of life.
I'm talking, of course, about the US President's tariffs. These may well have changed again by the time you read this, but at the time of writing consist of 10% imposed on most countries (including some inhabited only by penguins), and 125% on China.
It's too early to say what impact these charges will have on the phones, laptops, TVs, smartwatches and games consoles that we all love, but the past few days have given us cause to worry. Nintendo, for instance, announced last week that it was pausing Switch 2 pre-orders in the US while it assessed the situation, and analysts have this week predicted that its price could go up.
There's a similar story with the iPhone; one report this week suggested people are already panic-buying to beat potential price increases. That may or may not be the case in reality, but TechRadar's Editor at Large Lance Ulanoff thinks a bigger concern could be the US government's apparent desire that iPhones are built in the US. He explains why that's a problem below.
In the computing world, meanwhile – the excellent, sustainability-focused laptop maker Framework also paused pre-orders of its latest Laptop 12, before restarting them when the tariffs were reduced. Razer, though, has currently halted pre-sales of its Blade 16 gaming laptop in the US. Expect more – much more – on this over the next few days and weeks.
One device you can buy right now is the Pixel 9a, Google's latest budget flagship. You can read the verdict of our Senior Editor Philip Berne below – and it won't cost you anything to do so.
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The week in Tariffs
Could iPhone prices fall victim to Trump's tariffs? (Future)
Trump's tariffs have sparked fears of iPhone price rises, but also raised the prospect of Apple moving production to the US, which Lance Ulanoff thinks would be a terrible idea.
The TechRadar review of the Google Pixel 9a is the only one you need to read – and while we're impressed by its feature set and price, we're not sure about the design choices.
The original launch of Recall, which monitors your PC activity so you can search it later, was met with a wave of privacy concerns – but Microsoft is now bringing the feature back.
ChatGPT's memory is getting a major memory upgrade: as well as remembering some of your preferences and requests, it can now recall every chat you've ever had with the bot.
TV fans are in for a treat this weekend with 3 big shows - The Last of Us, Doctor Who, and Black Mirror - all returning with new seasons across the world's best streaming services.
