What if your cable could magnetically stick to itself, forming a neat coil that doesn’t get all floppy and tangled in your drawers and bags? What if they were good cables, too, capable of charging and syncing all the things over USB-C, Lightning, and more?

Well… you can now buy USB cables that do the first part! And they’re cool enough that I really wish cable manufacturers would figure the rest of that shit out.

For the past few weeks, I’ve been testing some seriously nifty USB cables that can actually do the magnetic coiling snake trick. Originally brought to the English-speaking world’s attention by a brand called SuperCalla, they’re now sold by a whole bunch of no-name brands at the likes of Amazon and Alibaba. And they are incredible fidget toys, just as SuperCalla’s Indiegogo campaign promised over two years ago:

As you can see in my photo below, they totally coil just like the GIF! They’re not exactly “self-winding” the way some sellers claim, but the six-foot ones are definitely easy to wrap.

Photo by Sean Hollister / The Verge

They work by stringing magnetic beads and silicone sleeves on a thin cable, like this:

Photo by Sean Hollister / The Verge

They can stick to themselves in other ways, too:

Photo by Sean Hollister / The Verge

And, of course, you can attach them to all sorts of other ferrous metal objects and pay out just as much cable as you need. I’ve got one of these cables hanging off my metal microphone stand right now, another dangling off the corner of my wall, and another that neatly travels down the edge of my keyboard while it charges my phone:

Photo by Sean Hollister / The Verge

Ready for the catch? I bought four different kinds of these cables, and they all suck big time (that’s a technical term) at data transfer, charging, or both.

This one, which also has its own built-in blue LED light and magnetic swappable tips for USB-C, micro-USB, and Lightning, won’t charge most of my USB-C gadgets at all, but I was able to sling some files from an external drive at lackluster USB 2.0 speeds and charge my iPhone over Lightning. It’s also got super weak coiling magnets and felt even cheaper than the rest.

This USB-C to USB-C one was pretty decent at charging, giving me 65W of USB-C PD power and had the best magnets of the bunch — but it wouldn’t connect to a Pixel 4A phone or my USB-C external drive at all. They just didn’t show up on my desktop!

This USB-A to USB-C cable was the worst of the lot. Just wiggling it would disconnect anything I had plugged in, and it topped out at 10W of charging — not the 15–18W I’d usually see with my Pixel.

Lastly, this USB-A to Lightning one seems to be a SuperCalla cable, showing up in an “Original SuperCalla” box, even though it’s sold by a brand named “Tech.” Slow charging, slow data, but at least it seems to stay reliably connected to my iPhone so far.

But those aren’t the only style of magnetic no-tangle cable I found. I also bought this neat accordion-style one, which is perhaps the best of the bunch: I got 15W charging, and it feels better built than the rest.

Photo by Sean Hollister / The Verge

But it’s less fun to play with, the magnets aren’t as strong, and it’s got a bit of an awkward shape when fully extended because the joints will always stick out. Plus, it tops out at USB 2.0 speeds of 480Mbps (or around 42MB/s in practice.) I couldn’t find a C-to-C or Lightning version.

I would absolutely pay good money for a solid, reliable six-foot USB-C to USB-C easy-coil cable with strong magnets, 100W USB-C PD charging, and at least 10Gbps of USB 3.x bandwidth.

Photo by Sean Hollister / The Verge

Or, if I’m really dreaming, how about 40Gbps for USB 4? Let’s go for broke and make the ultimate cable — give it a built-in power meter while you’re at it.

Right now, all I’ve found are these cheap-o, $10 novelty cables, and that’s a real shame. The magnet design deserves better, and so do we.

Last year, as Google and Samsung were upending the Android smartwatch space, Huawei also announced it was launching the Huawei Watch 3 on a new proprietary operating system called HarmonyOS 2. It then followed that up with the Huawei Watch GT 3. So it’s not a huge surprise that Huawei is back again with the Huawei Watch GT 3 Pro.

Last year’s Watch 3 was a good attempt and reminded me a lot of Samsung’s Tizen smartwatches. And while I haven’t had the GT 3 Pro for very long, what I’ve seen so far continues that overall vibe. The GT 3 Pro comes in two versions: a titanium model and an all-ceramic model. The former features a 46.6mm case with a 1.4-inch OLED display while the latter is smaller at 42.9mm with a 1.3-inch display. Both also feature sapphire glass, have IP68 water and dust resistance, and are swimproof up to 5ATM (164 feet). Battery life is estimated at up to 14 days for the titanium model and up to 7 days for the ceramic model.

Image: Huawei

Spec-wise, both watches also sport all the sensors you’d expect to see on a premium smartwatch. That includes an optical heart rate sensor, SpO2 sensors, an accelerometer, and a gyroscope. It also features a barometer, temperature sensor, and magnetometer. As far as new capabilities go, the watches have a new free-dive workout mode and built-in GPS. It also has EKG capability — though only in countries where Huawei’s received the appropriate clearance from regulators.

Huawei is in a weird spot when it comes to its consumer tech. Thanks to an executive order issued by former President Donald Trump in 2019, the company is banned from using US tech in its gadgets. That includes Android and Wear OS — hence, the proprietary OS. So, while I can test out the Watch GT 3 Pro, it’s not a smartwatch that I can actually buy in the US. (You can, however, if you’re living in Europe.)

Photo by Victoria Song / The Verge

It’s a shame since Huawei’s been in the wearables space for a long time and made some excellent smartwatches along the way. I’ve been playing around with the titanium version of the GT 3 Pro, and it’s a nice smartwatch. The display is vivid, apps load quickly in HarmonyOS 2, and, while the watch’s aesthetic isn’t my thing, it’ll appeal to folks who like a more masculine, traditional-looking watch. That said, I’d get an alternative strap for working out. Metal link straps don’t handle sweat well and tend to be looser, which isn’t great for heart rate accuracy. Also, the links are a pain to adjust, and it took me an absurdly long time to get the watch down to a size that fit my wrist.

But I can also tell it has some of the same issues as when I tested the Huawei Watch 3. Namely, I can see the bones of a good smartwatch, but, because of where I live, I can’t make use of its best features. For instance, I can’t use the voice assistant. That’s because HarmonyOS 2 doesn’t use Amazon Alexa, Google Assistant, or Siri. It uses a proprietary assistant called Celia that requires you to have a Huawei phone — which I also can’t buy. Likewise, I’m stuck with proprietary Huawei apps since there’s no real third-party app support, making this more of a fancy-pants fitness tracker than a true smartwatch. It sort of feels like an elevated Fitbit with a much more premium build quality and a snazzier OS to boot. Hell, I imagine if Fitbit did come out with something similar, it’d be popular.

Photo by Victoria Song / The Verge

However, a lot of this won’t matter once Fossil and other third-party watchmakers get on Google’s Wear OS 3. Like Samsung’s Tizen watches, Huawei’s wearables are locked into its own ecosystem. When Wear OS 3 becomes more widely available, other third-party watchmakers will get access to Google services and popular apps like Spotify. That’ll be great for Android users overall. But Huawei’s watches will still be best for people with Huawei phones.

In a nutshell, Huawei’s watches are stuck in limbo. I could see plenty of people digging the watch’s snappier performance, health tracking, and analog aesthetic — even if the third-party app ecosystem is nonexistent. But, at the same time, none of its watches are so revolutionary that it triggers wearable FOMO. At the end of the day, you’re not missing that much.

Lenovo has refreshed a number of models in its Slim line (known as Yoga Slim in some markets). A model I find interesting is the Slim 7i Carbon, one that Lenovo has subtitled “The Art of Mobility” in its press release.

If that name sounds familiar, it’s because this looks to be a similar package to the AMD-powered IdeaPad Slim 7 Carbon (or Yoga Slim 7 Carbon outside of North America), which made a splash upon its announcement last year as the lightest 14-inch laptop to feature an OLED screen. (It’s 2.37 pounds.) Not only did that panel have a 90Hz refresh rate but also it could reach 600 nits of brightness, which is exceptionally bright for a consumer laptop (and especially for an OLED — those tend to be on the dimmer side).

With the Intel-equipped Slim 7i Carbon, Intel is demonstrating a bit of a shift in priorities. The 600-nit OLED screen is gone. The 7i has a still fine but less unique 2560 x 1600 IPS panel that can reach 400 nits, per Lenovo. This device, instead, is all about its portability. The Slim 7 Carbon had a 14-inch screen and was 2.37 pounds; the 7i is a 13.3-incher and weighs just 2.13 pounds. That means it will likely be one of the lightest laptops you can buy this season.

I spent a bit of time with the device and was struck by how light it was. Lifting it really feels like lifting nothing — you could’ve fooled me into thinking I was holding a hollow chassis.

But the Slim is made of “aerospace-grade magnesium alloy reinforced with multi-layer carbon fiber” and didn’t feel flimsy as laptops of this size and weight sometimes do. While I didn’t want to try too hard to flex the chassis in Lenovo’s hands-on area, I wasn’t depressing the keyboard while I typed. I was also surprised by how nice the keys and touchpad felt when I tried them since the device is just over half an inch thick — both were roomy and comfortable to use. Those are hard to comment on without more extensive testing, but I didn’t see any red flags as I played around.

This new release is in tune with a trend we’ve been seeing in small consumer laptops across the board these past few years: thin is in. Last year’s ThinkPad X1 Nano, at 1.99 pounds, was the single lightest laptop Lenovo has ever released and one of the lightest 13-inchers of all time. This year’s ThinkPad Z-Series (an entirely new segment of the ThinkPad line that is supposed to be coming out soon) is also hyper-focused on the thin and light build and has compromised for that goal in areas where other ThinkPads generally don’t.

Elsewhere, the 7i Carbon comes in three color options: “moon white,” “cloud grey,” and “storm grey.” On the inside, the device includes Intel’s 12th Gen Core processors, including the Core i5-1240P and the Core i7-1260P. The latter was included in the Samsung Galaxy Book2 Pro 360 I just reviewed and demonstrated quite good performance and battery life. RAM can be configured up to 32GB with 1TB of storage.

I will also note that while the screen is not an OLED one, it did look quite good. I actually asked the Lenovo team if I was looking at a real screen or a picture when I first saw the device from afar because of how crisp it looked.

The Slim 7i Carbon will be available in June with a starting price of $1,299.

Other interesting releases from Lenovo today include the Yoga Slim 7i Pro X and Yoga Slim 7 Pro X. These devices are much heavier than the Carbon but still fairly portable at 3.5 pounds. And, more impressively, they can pack a discrete RTX 3050 GPU into that chassis. Such a combination isn’t unheard of in gaming laptops — models like Asus’ ROG Zephyrus G14 and Acer’s Predator Triton 300 SE have better GPUs and are not too much heavier — but it is a unique amount of power to see in a compact consumer-facing device.

I briefly played around with this as well, and I was surprised to hear how much it weighed since it felt pretty portable. As someone who carries their laptop around quite a bit, I’d rather have it in my backpack than a Triton. The rounded edges, in particular, give it a bit more of an office-y look and feel than some other GPU-equipped options you might find at this size.

If you do want an OLED screen, you may be more interested in the more expensive Slim 9i, which will include an OLED with either 2.8K or 4K resolution. This one appears to be more business-oriented, coming equipped with AI-powered security features that include “hardware-level encryption engineered to help protect the device from root and ransomware attacks.” (The AI can also automatically adjust fan speed and performance settings, though this sort of thing can sometimes be more annoying than helpful if it doesn’t adjust to your preferences.) The device’s sound is by Bowers & Wilkins, the same firm that tuned the exceptional audio on the consumer-facing Yoga 9i.

The Slim 9i will start at $1,799 while the Slim 7i Pro X and Slim 7 Pro X will start at $1,699 and $1,499, respectively. All three are expected in June.

Photography by Monica Chin / The Verge

I’m looking at a mountain range projected on a wooden table. The mountain range isn’t part of a flashy game or art project. I can’t reach out and touch it like a real object. Thanks to some still-in-progress software optimization, it glitches a little when I move. And I’ll never purchase the high-end augmented reality headset that’s creating the illusion — the Magic Leap 2, set for launch later this year. But the scene is remarkable for an important reason: I can actually see all of it at once.

Magic Leap was once known for its theatrics and huge promises, but the massively funded yet embattled startup has spent years trying to get back to Earth. It laid off a huge portion of its workforce and changed CEOs in 2020, scrapping its mass-market AR plans to focus on healthcare, manufacturing, and defense. The Magic Leap 2, formally announced in 2019, is supposed to cement its presence in those industries. In reality, the company’s future still seems uncertain. But based on a limited demo of a version with complete hardware and in-development software, it’s launching a genuinely improved second-generation device including a markedly better field of view — taking a step toward assuaging one of AR’s enduring pain points.

Like the 2018 Magic Leap 1, the Magic Leap 2 includes a pair of dark gray goggles wired to a puck-like computer that you can hang from a shoulder strap or clip on a belt. Those goggles refract light from small LCOS displays through multilayered lenses that project holographic images into your surroundings. But they’re doing it in a much trimmer package. The Magic Leap 2 weighs 248 grams to the original’s 316 grams, which was already svelte compared to the 566-gram Microsoft HoloLens 2. Between the weight reduction and an optional over-the-head strap, it fit me more easily and firmly than almost any other smart glasses I’ve tried — albeit for a roughly 30-minute demo, which is far from the full workday Magic Leap says it’s designed for.

You won’t find a dramatic design overhaul in the Magic Leap 2’s simple motion-control remote, but internally, the company has made a significant change. The Magic Leap 1 tracked its controllers’ movements with electromagnetic fields. But, citing problems using magnetic sensors around some industrial equipment, Magic Leap has switched to optical tracking that incorporates both headset-based sensors and cameras mounted in the actual controller. The remote isn’t built to give you full-fledged virtual hands the way many VR controllers do, and I didn’t get to try any complex object manipulation, but it certainly feels functional enough for simple point-and-click interfaces. (I checked out an extremely unofficial Magic Leap Beat Saber clone, but it’s hard to judge hardware performance from a rough prototype app.)

This is all potentially great for Magic Leap’s enterprise customers, around 35 of which are testing the Magic Leap 2 ahead of a release scheduled for the third quarter of 2022. But it doesn’t mitigate the device’s long-running tradeoffs. Offloading electronics to the puck makes the headset lighter and more comfortable than the self-contained HoloLens, for instance, but it means you’re walking around with a long wire attached to an odd-looking computer. While Magic Leap CEO Peggy Johnson says this hasn’t been a major issue for current customers, who use the device for things like training simulations and medical diagnoses, it indicates the limitations that high-end AR headsets still face.

In an evenly lit and monochromatic demo room, the Magic Leap 2’s holograms look great by current AR standards. (That means the images are still a bit transparent, but they’re crisp and vivid, and text is easy to read.) A new feature can also make them stand out against the real world by dimming parts of your vision to near-darkness — bright lights still poked through, but I had to strain to identify other objects while using it. And while I didn’t check out any sophisticated blends of real and virtual space, objects stayed pinned to one place in a way consumer headsets like the Nreal Light can’t manage. That makes sense, of course, given the Magic Leap 2’s far higher price point: it’s supposed to cost slightly more than the Magic Leap 1, which starts at $2,295.

On the flip side, both generations of Magic Leap headset — like some other AR devices — use dark lenses that consistently dim your vision and make you look like you’re wearing giant sunglasses indoors. This may not change any time soon, says CEO Peggy Johnson, although Magic Leap is experimenting with solutions. “That’s certainly a piece of feedback that we’ve heard about this — that you want to be able to see others’ eyes when they have it on,” she says. “There’s no doubt that over time that will come. I couldn’t really guess when that would be.”

Magic Leap no longer promises some secret sauce that’s supposed to make its headset completely different from the competition. As VR/AR expert Karl Guttag has noted, the Magic Leap 2 scraps a system meant to simulate multiple focal distances, one of its few really unique selling points. (Johnson says this was a worthwhile tradeoff to reduce the glasses’ size, although she doesn’t rule out the possibility of bringing it back.) But the headset seems to deliver its most exciting promised feature: a more natural-feeling field of view.

The Magic Leap 2’s specs have largely been revealed already, including its field of view, which offers 70 diagonal degrees compared to 50 degrees on its predecessor. That’s a fraction of humans’ natural field of vision, and it’s smaller than the VR headset standard of around 110 degrees. Even so, the Magic Leap 2’s field of view feels less immediately off than the first Magic Leap or the comparable HoloLens 2 — where holograms can get abruptly truncated with small head movements and leave the impression of looking through an invisible-framed window.

That window still exists on the Magic Leap 2. But it’s gotten a lot taller, making it less likely that a virtual object will exceed its size. Meanwhile, the headset’s goggle-like rims obscure some of your peripheral vision, creating the sense that there’s a physical object and not a digital limitation blocking your view.

Like practically every AR company, Magic Leap envisions making a pair of self-contained, normal-looking glasses for a mass market — Johnson even speculated about the possibility of AR contact lenses. But she downplays the possibility of releasing one any time soon. There’s also persistent speculation that Magic Leap’s long-term goal is getting acquired by another company. Addressing the possibility of an acquisition, Johnson says Magic Leap has been focusing solely on the launch of the Magic Leap 2. But “I do think a successful launch opens up all sorts of opportunities,” she says.

If Magic Leap isn’t acquired, it will have to build a sustainable business with its comparatively narrow slice of customers. Citing some optimistic projections about AR adoption, Johnson thinks it’s a viable short-term goal for Magic Leap — “I think there’s enough interest in all those three areas where any one of them could actually be a business in and of themselves,” she says. Beyond that, it’s taking a leap of faith.