Skip to main content
  1. Home
  2. Emerging Tech
  3. News

The best tech of IFA 2025: a lightweight laptop, thin tablet, unique drone, and more

Our top picks from an action-packed show in Berlin

Add as a preferred source on Google
Best of IFA 2025
Baseus / Lenovo / TCL / Digital Trends
IFA 2025
This story is part of our coverage of IFA Berlin 2025

IFA 2025 (International Funkausstellung or “radio exhibition”) is “Europe’s biggest tech show”, and there were tons of exciting announcements and products for us to check out in the maze of halls in Berlin.

We’re always surprised by the amount of innovation happening when we visit these huge shows and get a chance to see hundreds of new products from a multitude of brands, big and small.

Recommended Videos

From experimental laptops to stair-climbing robot vacuums (yes, really), this was the best tech we saw at IFA 2025.

Acer Swift Air 16

By John McCann

Honestly, the Swift Air 16 was one of the most surprising products I’ve handled in years. You’d expect a 16-inch laptop to have some heft to it – even if the manufacturer is claiming it’s lightweight.

Well, Acer has backed up its claim. When I picked up the Swift Air 16 for the first time I genuinely thought it was a dummy unit without any components in it – as did my colleague Jasmine.

But no, the Acer Swift Air 16 is almost impossibly light.

Samsung Galaxy Tab S11 Ultra

By John McCann

The Galaxy Tab S11 Ultra is Samsung’s thinnest tablet ever, measuring just 5.1mm thick – matching the current generation iPad Pro 13.

It has the iPad beat when it comes to screen size, with the 14.6-inch display offering you plenty of space, plus there’s a redesigned S Pen stylus with a hexagonal grip, cone-shaped nib and a magnetic attachment to the edge of tablet.

Between us, it looks suspiciously similar to the second generation Apple Pencil.

On screen you get Samsung’s new OneUI 8 interface, and the DeX productivity software has been given a chunky update with the ability to use the Tab S11 Ultra as a monitor in a two monitor setup.

Samsung’s made a number of meaningful updates with this tablet, and it’ll keep Apple on its toes.

Tecno Pova Slim

By Nirave Gondhia

Tecno’s new slim phone proves that ultra-thin phones can have big batteries. It features a 5,160 mAh battery that’s 30 percent larger than the Galaxy S25 Edge, but the Pova Slim is just 0.4mm thicker.

A unique camera array on the rear features a single 50MP camera in a symmetrical housing that has unique effects, including a charging animation, and alerts for notifications.

The Pova Slim is the lightest phone in its class at 156 grams, and it feels exceptional in the hand. The 6.78-inch AMOLED display is vibrant, while an IP64 rating rounds out a great phone.

Samsung Movingstyle

By John McCann

One of the more left-field products announced at IFA 2025, Samsung’s oddly named Movingstyle touchscreen TV comes with a built-in carry handle and kickstand.

What you have here is a 27-inch “portable” TV, although its weight means you’re unlikely to want to carry it far.

It also comes with a freestanding podium, which has wheels, allowing you to move the screen around your home. There’s a battery which should last around three hours on a charge, with two USB-C ports and one HDMI, giving you charging and connectivity options.

I’m a little confused as to why it exists and how it fits into our already screen-heavy lifestyles, but there’s part of me which really digs it.

TCL NXTPaper 60 Ultra

By John McCann

If you want to look after your eyes, the TCL NXTPAPER 60 Ultra is an eye-friendly smartphone with the firm’s fourth generation NXTPAPER technology.

The NXTPAPER tech offers seven eye-care benefits, including blue light purification and a reflection-free view, and it uses Circular Polarized Light (CPL) technology to mimic natural light.

And with the flick of a switch on the side of the phone, you can switch the display from the standard colorful option you’re used to seeing, to an almost Kindle-like ink finish, which is much easier on your eyes.

It also comes with several AI features including AI Q&A and AI Audiobook along with a MediaTek Dimensity 7400 chip, 12GB of RAM, 512GB of storage, and a 5,200mAh battery.

Hypershell X Ultra

By John McCann

The Hypershell X Ultra demo I had during IFA 2025 was probably the most fun.

Think of this exoskeleton like an electric bicycle for your legs. You can pedal (walk) as normal, but the bike (exoskeleton) can kick in to provide electric power to help you speed up, travel further, or traverse complex terrain.

It’s a strange feeling at first, but having gone up and down stairs and ramps, and had a spin on an exercise bike, during my demo I could really feel the difference the electric power makes.

For anyone who loves waking, hiking or generally keeping fit, but isn’t as physically able as they’d like to be, the Hypershell X Ultra could well help you continue doing what you love.

Antigravity A1

By John McCann

The Antigravity A1 is the world’s first 360 drone, giving you a fully immersive experience.

The drop is equipped with parent company Insta360’s 360 degree camera tech, and you get a pair of goggles to wear, giving you a live feed from the cameras.

And by moving your head, you can look around the landscape as if you were strapped to the drone yourself.

It marks an exciting milestone for the drone industry, and with its first product it appears Antigravity could well have a hit on its hands.

Marswalker (Eufy Omni S2)

By John McCann

Stairs. The eternal nemesis of Daleks, and more recently, robot vacuums. But not for much longer, thanks to Eufy and its ‘Marswalker’.

The Marswalker is an additional device paired with the firm’s new Omni S2 robot vacuum and mop, designed to carry the S2 up and down stairs.

It has caterpillar tracks and four rotating arms to help it navigate flights of stairs. The Omni S2 will automatically drive into the Marswalker, which will then proceed up and down the stairs.

The demo I saw looked pretty impressive, with smooth operation and a relatively quick ascent and descent.

ThinkBook™ VertiFlex concept

By Nirave Gondhia

When it comes to concept devices, Lenovo is known for some of the best conceptual products in computing, and its ability to bring them to life in a commercial way in a short period of time.

The new ThinkBook Vertiflex concept aims to deliver the perfect display orientation for your needs. It starts as a horizontal regular laptop screen, but the 14-inch display can be pivoted around the two magnetic hinges with a simple push to flip it into vertical mode.

Whether it’s for documents, coding, web browsing or more, this is truly unique and ideal for working on the go. Here’s hoping it makes it out of concept stage.

Baseus XP1 Earbuds

By Nirave Gondhia

The Baseus XP1 shows that great audio doesn’t have to cost a premium, even when it features a sound profile designed by Bose.

The audio experience is fantastic and reminiscent of headphones that cost considerably more, while the Active Noise Cancellation is designed to help you escape the world around you.

The Baseus XP1 feels fantastic in the ear thanks to its ergonomic in-ear design, and it comes in two colors. With a $130 price tag, these offer exceptional sound at an affordable price.

John McCann
John has been a consumer technology & automotive journalist for over a decade.
Smart glasses are finding a surprise niche — Korean drama and theater shows
Urban, Night Life, Person

Every year, millions of people follow Korean content without speaking a word of the language. They stream shows with subtitles, read translated lyrics, and find workarounds. But live theater has always been a different problem — you can't pause or rewind it. That's the problem: a Korean startup thinks it's cracked, and Yuroy Wang was one of the first to try it. The 22-year-old Taipei retail worker is a K-pop fan who loves Korean culture but doesn't speak the language. When he went to see "The Second Chance Convenience Store," a touring play based on a Korean novel that was a bestseller in Taiwan, he expected supertitles. What he got instead was a pair of chunky black-framed AI-powered glasses sitting on his nose, translating the dialogue in real time directly on the lenses. "As soon as I found out they were available, I couldn't wait to try them," he said. Wang is part of a growing audience discovering that smart glasses, a category of tech that has struggled to find mainstream purpose for years, might have just found their calling in the most unexpected of places: live Korean theater.

How do the glasses work?

Read more
Amazon thinks you love AI, so it has launched a special storefront for AI-powered gadgets
Google AI mode mockup showing new feature

You're browsing for a new laptop — one has a better processor, another has more RAM, a third says "AI-powered" in bold letters, and you're not entirely sure what that means. But Amazon has noticed you pausing on that third one, and it has thoughts. The company just launched an AI Store on Amazon.in — a dedicated storefront that rounds up AI-enabled gadgets across categories, from smartphones and laptops to refrigerators and washing machines. So, instead of you wading through spec sheets trying to figure out which "AI feature" actually does something useful, the store spells it out for you.

What the AI store actually is

Read more
Gemini now makes personalized images by understanding your taste from Photos library
Logo, Disk, Symbol

Up until now, using Google Gemini meant being very specific. If you wanted an image, you’d spell it all out, the mood, the lighting, the tiny details, just to get something close to what you had in mind. That’s still how most AI tools operate. But this is where things start to shift. With the integration of Nano Banana 2 and Google Photos, Gemini feels much more familiar. It leans on your preferences, what you like, what you usually capture, and the kind of visuals you gravitate towards, and uses that context to shape what it creates for you.

So instead of over-explaining every prompt, you’re nudging it in a direction, and it fills in the rest in a way that feels personal. The goal here is simple: spend less time describing and more time seeing your ideas come to life, almost the way you imagined them, without having to say everything out loud.

Read more