He is either being insincere – knowing he could buy an entire Apple store if he wanted – or he is genuinely overwhelmed by tech. If it’s the latter, he has my sympathy

Clips of the “epic conversation” (rambling, blokey chat) Rolling Stone orchestrated between Harry Styles and Thom Yorke keep appearing online, and none more often than the one in which Styles declared his laptop has been dead for about six years. “I don’t know where the charger is,” Styles laughed, prompting a predictable rash of “his computer is NOT OK” jokes from 6 Music dads everywhere.

Is this charmingly relatable, or … not? One personal finance influencer declared it “a deeply unlikeable clip”, seeing it as the kind of tech-free flex you can get away with only if you are rich and famous. It’s true that the ability to protect your peace by withdrawing from the brain-liquefying churn of online life is a privilege inaccessible to most people, who need tech to function and earn a living. Opting out means delegating digital drudgery to other people: Christopher Nolan’s determination not to have email must be a massive pain for his entourage. I bet Ed Sheeran not having a smartphone is extremely inconvenient, too – someone else must always have to put the hotel into Google Maps, arrange the Deliveroo dinner and order the Uber.

Snappy performance, long battery life, great keyboard and excellent new haptic touchpad make the best of Windows 11

Microsoft’s Surface laptop for consumers is back, faster and with longer battery life and a hefty price increase because of the high cost of memory and chips.

The Surface Laptop 8 is a straight replacement for the seventh edition from 2024, which was the first of Microsoft’s new generation of ARM-based, Qualcomm-powered PCs designed to better rival Apple’s MacBook Air and other thin and light machines.

Bargains are disappearing and the cost of gadgets such as MacBooks and PS5s is rising as AI competes for memory chips

The end of the cheap laptop, the bargain phone and affordable games consoles may be on the horizon. Not because new models are more hi-tech, but because the cost of computer components has shot up.

Recently, the biggest manufacturers of laptops and phones, including Microsoft, Samsung and Dell, started putting up prices and pulling cheaper models – which is going to make finding budget phones and laptops under £400 much harder.

Apple laptop sets new performance bar with more storage, new chips and plenty of options, but now has two-tier specs depending on processor

Apple’s Macs have been on a roll this year with the brand new budget MacBook Neo and a faster MacBook Air M5, but now it’s time for its workhorse MacBook Pro to be upgraded with the fastest, most powerful M-series chips.

The latest MacBook Pro comes in two screen sizes and a large range of chip and configuration options. The 14in version starts with the M5 chip costing £1,699 (€1,899/$1,699/A$2,699) and then jumps to the more powerful M5 Pro from £2,199 (€2,499/$2,199/A$3,499) before climbing further for the 16in version or the top M5 Max chip. A pricey machine for professional workloads.

Chip upgrade brings pro-level power, long battery life and plenty of storage, but the Air now faces real competition

Apple’s latest MacBook Air is its most powerful yet, comes with double the starting storage and is better than ever for getting work done and as the benchmark for a consumer laptop. But this year the new lower-cost MacBook Neo has muddied the waters.

The M5 MacBook Air starts at £1,099 (€1,199/$1,099/A$1,799) for the 13in version, which is £100 or equivalent more than last year’s excellent M4 version, but comes with at least 512GB of storage. It sits above the £599 MacBook Neo and below the £1,699 M5 MacBook Pro, making the Air Apple’s mid-range machine.

Screen: 13.6in LCD (2560x1600; 224 ppi) True Tone

Processor: Apple M5 with eight or 10-core GPU

RAM: 16, 24 or 32GB

Storage: 512GB, 1, 2 or 4TB SSD

Operating system: macOS 26 Tahoe

Camera: 12MP centre stage

Connectivity: wifi 7, Bluetooth 6, 2x Thunderbolt/USB 4, headphones

Dimensions: 215 x 304.1 x 11.3mm

Weight: 1.23kg

Snappy performance, high-quality screen, best-in-class keyboard and trackpad show cheaper can still be great

Apple’s brand new entry-level laptop is powered by the chip from an iPhone and offers more than just the essential MacBook experience for a great price, putting the PC industry on notice.

The MacBook Neo is the first of its kind from Apple. A 13in laptop that runs on an A18 Pro chip and brings the starting price for a brand new MacBook down to £599 (€699/$599/A$899) – £500 or the equivalent less than the MacBook Air.

Robot vacuums that can climb stairs and device for BlackBerry lovers also on display at annual Las Vegas tech show

This year will be filled with robots that can fold your laundry, pick up objects and climb stairs, fridges that you can command to open by voice, laptops with screens that can follow you around the room on motorised hinges and the reimagining of the BlackBerry phone.

Those are the predictions from the annual CES tech show in Las Vegas that took place this week. The sprawling event aims to showcase cutting-edge technology developed by startups and big brands.