Astrohaus has cornered a very specific niche. The Michigan-based startup builds hardware for writers looking to eliminate distractions. Its really tough finishing up that novel when Instagram exists, after all.While the company has made its name bucking most tech trends, however, its latest offering has found a bandwagon to jump onto. Announced at CES 2025, Wordrunner embraces the mechanical keyboard boom while staying true to Astrohaus mission statement of distraction free writing.The Freewrite Wordrunner is, in essence, a standard mechanical keyboard with a few writer-focused tricks up its sleeve. Specifically, the peripheral has a Wordometer (word count) and a sprint timer for writes.Image Credits:AstrohausThe idea is to bake productivity tools directly into the product itself. Astrohaus is essentially offering a way to bypass writing apps and focus on the writing itself.Writers use keyboards more than almost anyone else, yet theyve never had professional-grade tools built specifically for them, founder and CEO Adam Leeb says. While gamers have an entire industry creating specialized features for them, writers have been forced to rely on general-purpose keyboards and add-on software to track their work. Wordrunner transforms this relationship by making the keyboard itself an active participant in the writing process not just a passive input device, but a true writing companion. The keyboard is aluminum, with floating keys and a red control knob. The system is launching on Kickstarter in February, with a planned late-2025 shippingRelated

Last April, Elon Musk, the billionaire owner of X, teased a mysterious Unhinged Mode for Xs AI-powered chatbot, Grok. Nearly a year later, xAI, the Musk-owned company behind Grok, has updated an FAQ page on its website that sheds light on the new mode.Grok in Unhinged Mode will provide responses intended to be objectionable, inappropriate, and offensive, according to the FAQ page much like an amateur stand-up comic who is still learning the craft.The mode doesnt appear to be live yet. TechCrunch tried in vain to find it in the Grok web interface on X.Unhinged Mode may be Musks attempt to deliver on Groks original vision.When Musk announced Grok roughly two years ago, he pitched the chatbot as edgy, unfiltered, and anti-woke in general, willing to answer controversial questions other AI systems wont. He delivered on some of that promise. Told to be vulgar, for example, Grok will happily oblige, spewing profanities and colorful language you wouldnt hear fromChatGPT.But Grok as it exists todayhedgeson political subjects and wont cross certain boundaries. In fact, one study found that Grok leans to the political left on topics like transgender rights, diversity programs, and inequality.Musk has blamed the behavior on Groks training data public webpages and pledged to shift Grok closer to politically neutral.Unfortunately, the Internet (on which it is trained), is overrun with woke nonsense, he said in a post in December 2023. Grok will get better. This is just the beta.Musk and many of his allies, including President-elect Donald Trumps crypto and AI czar, David Sacks, have accused AI chatbots of censoring conservative viewpoints. Sacks has singled out OpenAIs ChatGPT in particular as programmed to be woke and untruthful about politically sensitive subjects.

Walk up to someone wearing a pair of Hallidays smart glasses, and you might not notice theyre looking at smartphone notifications, live language translations, or advice from an AI assistant.The only giveaway is the tiny green dot of light on their eyeball.Wearables startup Halliday launched a pair of smart glasses at CES 2025 that projects a 3.5-inch round display into your line of sight. The device creating the display is called the DigiWindow, and its a tiny round module smaller than your pinky nail that sits on the inside of the Hallidays frames just above your right eye.A close up of the DigiWindow.Image Credits:Sean O'KaneWhile most augmented reality glasses at least, the ones you see demoes of project text and images onto the lenses of your glasses, Hallidays approach is a little more direct. By pointing the DigiWindow straight at your eye, Halliday avoids the need for those pricey AR lenses, which makes these smart glasses less expensive than other AR prototypes,(but definitely not cheap) and also better looking. You can also use prescription lenses in these glasses without an issue.Halliday is planning to ship pairs of these glasses starting in March 2025. The full price is $489, but you can preorder a pair of Hallidays glasses this week for $369, as long as you pledge $9.90 to their Kickstarter on Wednesday. At the preorder price, Hallidays smart glasses are just a tad more expensive than a pair of Ray Ban Metas.Image Credits:Sean O'KaneI tried on a pair of Halliday smart glasses in a quiet corner of the Ceasers Palace Casino in Las Vegas, while the companys founder, Carter Hou, spoke to me in Chinese.As Hou spoke, English subtitles appeared over his right shoulder with only a second of delay. We went back and forth for a few minutes, him speaking in Chinese and me speaking in English, as the smart glasses facilitated our bilingual conversation.Hallidays glasses offer real-time language translation for 40 languages. Beyond that, the glasses will display phone notifications, a cheat sheet with notes (which could come in handy for a big meeting or interview or final exam ), and navigation directions. The glasses arms have speakers that can play music or read messages, but the display is the main selling point.The company also says theres a proactive AI assistant that can offer helpful information about conversations youre having in real time. However, Hou told me the AI feature was not ready for testing yet when I tried it out. Smart glasses are quickly becoming the buzziest form factor to use AI. You can certainly see how the DigiWindow would be a helpful display to access a text-based LLM, like ChatGPT or Gemini, throughout your day.The Digiwindow is on a slider that adjusts to your face.Image Credits:HallidayHalliday hasnt yet figured out how to position its DigiWindow, which has to sit perfectly above your eye in order to display properly. The module can slide back and forth a few centimeters and tilt up and down a few degrees. However, for my high nose bridge, I couldnt get the DigiWindow to fall perfectly in my line of sight, so I had to wear the glasses sitting about halfway down my nose.When I asked whether its safe to point Hallidays green lights in your eyes, Hou told me the glasses are perfectly safe, and my eyes did feel fine for the 10 minutes I was wearing the glasses. That said, Id understand if people felt a little uneasy about pointing lights in their eyes from such close range.The company also promotes a control ring that you can wear on your index finger. You slide your thumb up or down to navigate through different features of the glasses. I wasnt able to try that out.Hallidays smart glasses are slimmer and lighter than a pair of Ray Ban Metas, and they also dont have cameras on the front. The benefit here is that they look pretty good, not much different than normal glasses, sporting a classic design.Image Credits:HallidaySmart glasses with cameras can occasionally raise the eyebrows, with strangers wondering, Whos this creep recording me? However, to others (including this reporter), the cameras on smart glasses are a feature, not a bug, that let you take photos and videos without taking out your phone and ruining the moment.Hallidays smart glasses offers a compelling version of smart glasses with a display that you can preorder now, as opposed to prototypes from big tech companies with no commercial launch date in sight.Check out more CES 2025 coverage, including

Hey! First time participating in one of these challenges, I am pretty excited!I lived in Canada and we sometime have the chance to witness northern lights, I always been amazed by them. I want to make a spell out of those that goes something like that :-Character absorbs Strands of northern lights into an orb. I want them to be quite colorful and resembles what we could see with the naked eye in real life.-When the energy reaches its maximum potential, a fast and snappy energy discharge in form of solar flares gets released. Solar flare are gonna have the same color palette as the initials northern lights-Dissipation, everything cool down.I will try to keep it quite simple with the time that I have.

The winning proposal for Kingsbridge Armorys revitalization has been shared by New York City Mayor Eric Adams, Governor Kathy Hochul, and U.S. Representative Adriano Espaillat. The announcement comes after an RFP was shared for the armory in August 2023, as reported by AN. 8th Regiment Partners will lead the development team for Kingsbridge Armorys revitalization. FXCollaborative prepared project visuals for this phase and WXY led the community engagement process. The full plan is laid out in a document titled Together for Kingsbridge Vision Plan.Kingsbridge Armory, in the northwest Bronx, is the largest armory in the U.S. There are other former military bases just like it in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Park Slope, and Manhattan. The comprehensive plan for Kingsbridge Armorys future, El Centro Kingsbridge, is split into two phases.The Kingsbridge Armory is the largest armory in the United States. (Courtesy NYCEDC)Phase one of the master plan will set the groundwork for a new, vibrant mixed-use development comprised of an event venue space, and sports fields. The first part will also deliver more than 25,000 square feet of community space, an educational facility for workforce development, and more cultural and commercial space.Phase two will bring 450 units of permanently affordable rental housing adjacent to Kingsbridge Armory, city officials said. The collaborative effort to get to this point was shepherded by WXY. Together, WXY, NYCEDC, and elected officials led a lengthy community engagement process, drawing more than 950 survey responses, nine community board meetings, 16 small group discussions, and conversations with almost 75 stakeholders.Mayor Adams and Governor Hochul have pledged $200 million for Kingsbridge Armorys redevelopment. Local Bronx leaders have promised $14 million and a $1.05 million grant will come from HUD thanks to a procurement by Representative Adriano Espaillat.The environmental review process will begin this winter.The uniform land use review procedure (ULURP) should begin in mid-2025.

Six of the countrys most powerful landlords were named in a lawsuit brought forth by the U.S. Department of Justice. Blackstone, Cushman & Wakefield, Greystar, Camden, Pinnacle, Willow Bridge, and Cortland were all implicated. RealPage, a property management software company, was named in an adjacent antitrust lawsuit. These six landlords cumulatively control 1.3 million units in 43 states and Washington, D.C. They stand accused of participating in a scheme to set their rents using each others competitively sensitive information through common pricing algorithms, the Justice Department said. RealPage allegedly provided the anticompetitive pricing algorithms for the financial scandal.While Americans across the country struggled to afford housing, the landlords named in todays lawsuit shared sensitive information about rental prices and used algorithms to coordinate to keep the price of rent high, Doha Mekki of the U.S Department of Justices Antitrust Division said in a statement.Todays action against RealPage and six major landlords seeks to end their practice of putting profits over people and make housing more affordable for millions of people across the country, Mekki continued. The Justice Department claimed that the six landlords and RealPage coordinated through a variety of means. These means included directly communicating with each others senior managers about rents, occupancy, and other competitively sensitive topics.Blackstone, Cushman & Wakefield, and the other four landlords also allegedly conducted call arounds, where property managers shared competitively sensitive topics. The third charge is that RealPage hosted user groups where landlords discussed how to modify the softwares pricing methodology and strategies with focus groups.The fourth and last charge is that the six landlords shared information with competitors about parameters in RealPages software. So far, only Cortland has agreed to cooperate with the Justice Department and enter into a settlement.Cortland could be barred from using competitors competitively sensitive data to train or run any pricing model; using third-party software or algorithms to price apartments without the supervision of a court-appointed monitor; and soliciting, disclosing or using any competitively sensitive information with any other property manager as part of setting rental prices or generating rental pricing recommendations.Co-plaintiffs in the case are the Attorneys General of California, Colorado, Connecticut, Illinois, Massachusetts, Minnesota, North Carolina, Oregon, Tennessee and Washington.

In North London, a greenhouse has become a music venue for cacti. This is where the musicians sit and play for the plants, Elki Guillen explained. Sometimes we invite humans, but its mainly for the plants. Guillen is the guardian of the cactus house at Londons Wolves Lane Centre in Haringey, a community food growing center on a site home to a series of 1970s greenhouses that were once owned and run by the local council. Guillen found the nearly abandoned cactus house after borough authorities had seemingly forgotten about the whole facility, became the guardian of the cacti, and now uses the greenhouse to continue his research into the possibilities of cacti as a food source and building material. Today, the Wolves Lane Centre is a wild, fertile fantasy land where plants take center stage. The existing greenhouses have now taken on new community uses. Next to Guillens cactus house is a greenhouse used by Black Rootz, a Black-led growers collective that supplies fresh, locally sourced produce to customers and communities. And next door, three greenhouses grow produce for Ottolenghis Rovi restaurant in Mayfair. At the other end of the site is a wild and verdant palm house, complete with a koi pond and terrapin turtles.Internal walls are constructed from strocks, unfired earth blocks made from clay-rich earth and chopped straw. ( Henry Woide)Haringey Council leases the site to the Wolves Lane Consortium, which is made up of Organiclea, Crop Drop, and the Ubele Initiative. The group commissioned Material Cultures and Studio Gil to create a masterplan for the site to introduce three new buildings: a community hall designed by Studio Gil plus an office space and workshop with a cold store, both designed by Material Cultures. These buildings support the activities of the consortium and initiatives like Black Rootz while also embodying the grassroots approach of Ubele and Material Cultures.Local Materials, Deep WallsIn Material Culturess 2022 book, Material Reform, the practice, with co-author Amica Dall, describes how it centers the people from whom value is extracted as they supply their labour by digging, hauling, packing, processing and assembling. The authors make the case for a local architecture made with local materials, local methods, and local workers. The ideas in the book posed important questions two years ago, but they seemed far away from the current systems of construction in the U.K. that revolve around concrete, steel, and petrochemical industries. It takes time to convert ideas into practice, so now at Wolves Lane Centre these thoughts are realized in clay, straw, lime, timber, and chalk.Straw bales sit within a lightweight timber frame that rests on a regular fired brick plinth. ( Henry Woide)We think that these various different materials that you can gather up from the landscape around you are the future, Material Culturess Paloma Gormley told me while on site. The methods that Material Cultures have been refining are on show from the ground up. The trench foundations are filled with the crushed concrete slabs from the existing site. Foam glass insulationrecycled material often sourced from windscreen glasssits beneath a limecrete floor. Straw bales, taken from nearby fields, sit within a lightweight timber frame that rests on a regular fired brick plinth. On the exterior, wood wool insulation boards are fixed to the wall, which are then directly faced with a pigmented lime render and a hardy scratch coat finish. The internal faces of the straw bale walls are rendered with clay and straw from the site mixed with sand and chalk, a process that the local community was able to learn through workshops hosted by Ubele and Will Stanwix. Internal walls are constructed from strocks, unfired earth blocks made from clay-rich earth and chopped straw, developed by brickmaker H.G. Matthews. This super-material has the same loadbearing capacity as brick and is antimicrobial and hygroscopic, meaning it draws moisture out of the air. Unlike so many modern building products that off-gas noxious fumes, the blocks sequester VOCs like formaldehyde.An agricultural steel cladding tops the facade and ties it together with the nearby greenhouses. ( Henry Woide)The resulting material palette is literally sourced from the site. Above the windows and doors, an agricultural steel cladding tops the facade and ties it together with the nearby greenhouses. Plant-based methods of construction naturally involve much deeper wall and floor thicknesses than the carbon-heavy methods and oil-based insulations that we have become accustomed to, so the deep reveals of the windows at Wolves Lane Centre become wonderful spaces to inhabit. Window frames are justified either to the exterior or interior faces of the walls, which means the sills alternate offering seating either to inside or outside users. This arrangement brings the building to life. An Exhibition of Biodiverse DesignThat buildings should be living, breathing organisms that grow from the landscape, and become together with it, is a thread that runs through Material Culturess work. Seen together, it asks how we can find a form of construction that is biodiverse and regenerative.Before the industrialization of our woodlands, and before the enclosures of the common lands, woodlands were the sources of multiple materials, and they supported numerous livelihoods, Material Culturess Summer Islam said about Woodland Goods, the outfits recently opened exhibition at the V&A South Kensington. (It runs through October.) On display are the studios experiments with the overlooked resources that woodlands provide: natural glues from the lignin in bark; sheet materials from pine needles and bioresins; and regenerative cladding that harnesses the waterproof properties of bark that is often mulched, chipped or discarded.Woodland Goods displays the studios experiments with the overlooked resources that woodlands provide. (Rachael Milliner)Material Cultures took the familiar form of an Aalto plywood stool and replaced the top with pressed birch and sequoia, still rough and textured. Today these materials are flawed, they are hairy, and they are prone to sprouting shoots, Islam offered, but they also ask questions about how we cultivate and extract from our woodlands an increasingly scarce material world.Organic and GrowingMaterial Culturess practice is anchored in the landscape and the community that land can create. The studio is forging a post-carbon path in an industry that seems tightly locked into the use of steel, concrete, and petrochemicals. These materialsand their supply chains, distribution centers, and lobbyistshave over time become so closely linked to national and global economies that somehow taking what we have available locally and using our hands to fashion it into shelters has become prohibitively difficult and expensive. These norms come with regulatory concerns of building codes, local inspectors, lending banks, and insurance companies that further entrench the bias against low-carbon construction methods and make policy and industry change seem impossible. Material Cultures shows us that another way is possible.Material Cultures tweaked the familiar form of an Aalto plywood stool, using pressed birch and sequoia (Courtesy V&A)As an alternative, Wolves Lane Centre is organic and growing. Future phases of construction are planned, but the spaces themselves are still evolving. As Sarah Ebanja from Ubele says, Buildings are buildings, but actually they come to life with how people use it as their home.Ellen Peirson is a London-based writer, editor, and designer.

This modest, vernacular frame structure in West Cornwall, Connecticut, perhaps erected as early as 1800, has served a number of commercial purposes in its history, most significantly as a toll house. The structure was a toll booth for the two turnpikes which crossed near the site the Sharon-Goshen Turnpike, and the Warren Turnpike, which ran along the Housatonic River. Before the days of EZ-Pass and transponders, travellers would pay their tolls to a worker in this building. Eventually the street became free to use, and the building was acquired for commercial use. It now serves as a showroom for a local cabinetmaker, but retains the original charm and historic sign above the door. How charming is that?

Prakhar Khanna/ZDNETA lot of what's showcased at the Consumer Electronics Show doesn't make it to the market. Fortunately, some of the best smart glasses we saw at the show will, making the product category one of the most exciting ones going into the rest of 2025.Also: CES 2025: The 15 most impressive products so farOver the past week, ZDNET has been scouring the show floor to select the best of the best. The picks below aren't just limited to AR glasses that compete with the Apple Vision Pro and similarly-functioning VR headsets; they include Meta Ray-Ban competitors, tint-changing wearables, and more. Here are our best picks, listed in no particular order.1. Xreal One Pro Kerry Wan/ZDNETI flew into CES with my eyes set on smart glasses thatdidn'tsimply extend or mirror my phone screen. With such AR glasses, the field of view is often too narrow for the comfortable, laid-back experience that companies pitch them to be. That changed when I put on the Xreal One Pro, which leverages a proprietary spatial computing chip to deliver sharp imagery, 120Hz refresh rates, and a steady projection.Also:Xreal AR glasses just got a major computing upgrade that puts them at the top for meMy demo involved hooking up the glasses to a MacBook and browsing on an ultrawide screen that was anchored in mid-air. To my surprise, the floating windows stayed in place like how I remembered they did on more expensive headsets like the Quest 3 and Vision Pro. The Xreal One Pro won't hit the market until March, but I'm eager to see how they perform when they do. - Kerry Wan2. Inair Glasses Prakhar Khanna/ZDNETThese "AI Spatial Computer" glasses include a keyboard and a pod. All of this fits inside a case, so you can carry the whole system wherever you go. They offer a 134-inch expansive virtual screen, which can be used to trigger up to six windows. The Pod is their external battery source, which allows them to last up to four hours on a single charge. You can connect both the glasses and the charger to the Pod but it'll require a dongle since the device only sports one Type-C port.Also: The upcoming Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses may feature the display upgrade we've been hoping forThese Qualcomm-powered glasses are already available in China for around $650 for the Pod and glasses. The Touchboard (keyboard) is a new accessory that lays flat inside the case and has a gesture-supported touchpad. The glasses themselves are lightweight at 77 grams, and in the 10-minute demo, they felt comfortable and intuitive.- Prakhar Khanna3. Rokid AR Spatial Prakhar Khanna/ZDNETThe Rokid AR glasses aren't new but this was one of the most refined demos I've experienced at CES 2025. You can get up to a 300-inch Sony Micro OLED-powered screen that offers 600 nits brightness, up to a 120Hz refresh rate, and a 100,000:1 contrast ratio. You can use up to three screens on the virtual desktop.Also:The Even Realities G1 are unlike any other smart glasses you've seenThese are also the world's first smart AR glasses to feature intelligent myopia and pupillary adjustment, so you can enjoy the experience without your specs. I'd happily watch a movie on these glasses because of the 75-gram weight. They connect to an on-the-go hub with a proprietary operating system. These also support the iPhone's spatial media to view your spatial videos on the glasses. You can purchase them now for $648.- Prakhar Khanna4. Halliday AI smart glasses Jada Jones/ZDNETHalliday came out of nowhere and took CES 2025 by storm with a pair of AI-powered glasses that offer similar functionalities as the Meta Ray-Ban but in a lighter form factor. A lighter, more comfortable wearable is always a win for end users.Also: Halliday just unveiled the AI glasses that Meta, Google and Apple have been trying to buildThe Halliday glasses also have a unique on-screen display that projects textual information, such as translations, notifications, incoming messages, and more, as you interact with the on-device AI. It helps that the projection appears closer to the corner of your vision, therefore not obstructing your view if you're, say, conversing with someone.- Kerry Wan5. Sharge Loomos Prakhar Khanna/ZDNETWhile I love the Ray-Ban Meta style more, the Sharge Loomos AI glasses can shoot up to 4K photos and 1080p videos for up to five minutes. I couldn't see the video quality but the hardware felt nice, sturdy and lightweight at 49 grams. The company has also made a 6,500mAh shoulder power bank, in case you want to shoot more media after the 450mAh battery drains to zero while recording.Also: I tested Meta's transparent Ray-Ban smart glasses, and they're a near-perfect accessory for meThe Loomos support prescription lenses and magnetic shades as optional accessories, and the company says the speakers on Sharge Loomos are Hi-Fi compatible. The translucent arm design is attention-grabbing, and there's an LED indicator for privacy reasons. For durability, these are IP54 rater for dust and sweat resistance, and the price starts at $299. They're expected to be released early this year.When compared to the Ray-Ban Metas, the Loomos seem to be more techy than lifestyle. They're bolder, while the Meta glasses are more stylish. This design language also translates to the case of both devices, where the Meta Ray-Bans' case is leaner and more fashion-forward.- Prakhar Khanna6. Chamelo Aura Rx Kerry Wan/ZDNETThe Chamelo Aura Rx may be the most subtle and unintrusive smart glasses announced at CES. The big selling point of the Aura Rx is the instant electronic tint layer, which can alter between four colors or four tint levels. With a tap of a touch-capacitive button on the side frame, the lenses quickly swap for a seamless viewing experience. After all, nobody likes a pair of transition glasses that takes minutes to fully adapt to the environment, right?The "Rx" in the branding refers to the ability for users to register prescriptions with the glasses, and Chamelo says it'll support high-index lenses with prescriptions ranging from +/-100 to +/-600. This minimalistic focus on technological features makes the Aura Rx one of the most burdenless smart glasses we've seen at CES this year.- Kerry Wan7. Rokid Glasses Prakhar Khanna/ZDNETThe new launch from Rokid is unlike its previous AR glasses. While they're similar to the Even Realities G1, they also have a built-in 12MP camera for Ray-Ban-Meta-like footage. They weigh 49 grams and feel comfortable on the nose.Like the G1, the Rokid Glasses have a screen on both glasses but this display sits more front-and-center. The company says that it offers a better user experience but in my short demo, I found it interrupted the real world. When it's on, you'll only be able to focus on the screen and not what's in front of you. While on the G1, you can trigger the screen for a glance and even when it's toggled on, it's not the center of attention until needed.Also: These new smart glasses remind me of Meta Ray-Bans - but have a clever privacy featureThe Rokid Glasses allow texting, calling HUD-enabled real-time map navigation, and an AI assistant to help you stay organized. They also monitor your posture to remind you to maintain ergonomic alignment. I demoed the Live Translate feature and the experience was more natural and slightly quicker than the G1s. As for the case, it's prone to scratches and seemed less premium than the G1's case.- Prakhar KhannaCES 2025

ZDNET's key takeaways TCL's 98-inch Class S5 Series TV is one of the most accessibly-priced TVs of its size, and it's currently on sale for $1,500 off. Watching movies and TV shows on such a big display is as close to a theatre-like experience as one can get at home. With such a large TV, setting it up can be a struggle, especially if you don't have a big enough console or wall space more buying choices TCL makes some impressive TVs using advanced display technologies, specifications, and optimizations for the best picture quality possible. Yet sometimes, they put all that aside and say, "Hey, let's just make a really big TV for the sake of making a really big TV." And that's what this 98-inch set is all about.Also:CES 2025: The 8 most impressive products we've seen so farThis TV, a member of TCL's lower-end S5 series, is currently on sale for $1,200 off its normal price of $3,000. It currently sits at $1,800 on Best Buy. TCL was kind enough to let me know about this deal in an email a few weeks ago, and I was wildly intrigued, to say the least. "A 98-inch TV for less than $2,500?" I thought to myself. That seemed impossible.I've been living with the 98-inch TCL S5 Series, and here's how the experience has been. details View at Best Buy Setting up a 98-inch TVThe biggest challenge this TV poses is fitting it in your home. This thing is gigantic; it's 85.7 inches wide, 49.1 inches tall, and the feet are 68.5 inches apart. If you have a wall big enough to mount it on, then you're all set. But if you don't, you might be scrambling to find an entertainment center big enough to accommodate this behemoth. TCL's 98-inch S55 series TV next to my 65-inch LG TV. Yeah, this thing's a monster. Max Buondonno/ZDNETThe latter was me, by the way -- I was the one scrambling. My brothers helped me unbox the TV (which felt impossible since our drop ceilings stopped us from lifting the lid straight up in the air), and after we ripped through all the Styrofoam and plastic wrap, we needed to figure out a place to set it up in our relatively small living room.Also:TCL shocked CES 2025 by launching a great TV you can actually preorderMy first thought was to leave it on the ground, but who wants to look down to watch TV? Then we considered ditching our current entertainment center and moving our 65-inch LG TV somewhere else to caddy corner it (again, on the ground), but that meant we'd have to dismember our entire living room.So, we came up with a compromise: we set up two folding catering tables, pushed our couch and loveseat against the wall, and plopped the 98-inch mammoth right in front of our fireplace. Is it perfect? Not really, but it works for the sake of this review.The most immersive experience available (unless you find one bigger)None of us were quite prepared for just how big this TV is. Sure, I had a sense of how big it was before we plugged it in, but once that 98-inch screen lit up, we were all taken aback. Many people dream of having a movie theater in their home to enjoy their favorite cinema flicks and games, and buying a TV like TCL's 98S550G will get you as close to that reality as possible.Maybe it's because we're sitting so close to it, maybe it's the switch from watching on a 65-inch TV for so long, but whatever the reason, the feeling of immersion you get from watching this 98-inch TV never seems to fade away. Everything you tune into will feel more lifelike than you can imagine -- that goes for movies like "Oppenheimer" and "Spider-Man: No Way Home" to cable TV shows like "Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives".Also: Changing these 5 soundbar settings made my living room feel like a movie theaterMy only wish is that I had gotten to see this year's Super Bowl on it. That said, I can already tell this TV will be the perfect fit for anyone who uses multiview through NFL Sunday Ticket.I mean it when I say that your jaw can drop at any moment while watching this TV show. If you have a favorite movie or TV show, it simply makes it better since it's just so big. It's easy to see no matter where you are in the room, and it ensures there isn't a bad seat in the house.Ordinary specs, but solid picture quality nonetheless My 4K HDROppenheimerDVD looked amazing on this thing. Max Buondonno/ZDNETBeyond its magnificent 98-inch size, the rest of the 98S550G is pretty basic, at least when it comes to high-end TVs. It uses a QLED panel, which helps deliver brighter colors and better contrast. I can confidently say it's one of the best LED TVs I've ever seen. However, you won't get the same luxuries as something like an OLED or Mini LED TV with local dimming, richer contrast, and increased brightness. On the bright side, you won't get any light haloing around your content since it uses one huge backlight.The TV has a 4K resolution and supports refresh rates up to 120Hz, which is a nice touch for any gamers who want to enjoy silky-smooth gameplay on the panel. I will say, though, 4K on a 98-inch panel doesn't feel the same as it does on a 65-inch panel; pixel density isn't nearly as high since they're scattered across a much larger canvas, and if you get close to the TV, you can definitely see individual pixels. It's not an issue by any means, but I found it interesting nonetheless.Also: Gemini is taking over Google TV - but in ways you'll actually likeThe picture quality is decent overall. "Oppenheimer" looked great playing off the 4K HDR DVD I purchased, while 1080p upscaled cable shows weren't too shabby, either. You have plenty of options to control how everything looks in the settings menu, and once you set it up, I'd highly advise turning off motion smoothing. On a 98-inch television, the added frames do not do most content justice. Max Buondonno/ZDNETWith the 98-inch S5, TCL made sure to include a lot of specs and features customers might be interested in, including HDR Ultra (consisting of Dolby Vision IQ, Open HDR, HDR10, HDR10+, and HLG), a dedicated Game Accelerator 240 for 240 VRR support, Dolby Atmos, AirPlay, Chromecast, voice assistant integration, and even dual-band 802.11ac Wi-Fi. There are four HDMI ports to take advantage of, along with optical audio and Ethernet ports.Also: Gemini is taking over Google TV - but in ways you'll actually likeIts sound quality is also solid. At higher volumes, mids and highs can start to screech, but the built-in subwoofer helps anchor everything with a surprising amount of bass, which can be tuned in the settings if you want more or less boom during your movies. I'd still opt for a dedicated sound system if you want a true movie theater setup, but my family and I were happy with what the TV kicked out.ZDNET's buying adviceAt $1,799, it's hard to ignore TCL's 98-inch Class S5 Series TV for long. If you have a spot in your home where you can fit a TV of this size and magnitude -- and you don't mind dropping a cool $1,800 -- I can see this TV making a lot of sense for an immersive entertainment setup. Granted, you won't get the best picture quality out there, but it's important to remember that anything better than what TCL gives you will run you$5,000 to $10,000-- maybe more.In the end, I had a lot of fun reviewing this huge 98-inch TV, but I'm ready to send it back. For our home, it's a bit too intrusive and gets in the way more often than not. (Let's remember that it's blocking my entire fireplace.) But if you have the space for it, part of me wants to tell you to rush out and grab one while the deal's happening. I think you'll dig it, and your entire household will be addicted to looking at it. And at the end of the day, isn't that what we're all after when buying a new TV?How we test TVsWhile testing and researching the TV featured in this review, I and other ZDNET experts kept these criteria in mind:Price:Not all budgets are created equal. And if you're working with a limited budget, that shouldn't mean you have to settle for a sub-par TV. Each TV model we review has been chosen across a variety of price points to help accommodate different needs.Screen size:The most important factor to consider, after price, when shopping for a new TV is whether or not it will fit into your space. While this specific screen size is exceptional, the QN90D is available in a wide variety of smaller sizes to suit different rooms.Picture and audio quality:A new TV doesn't mean much, even if it costs an arm and a leg, if it doesn't provide a great picture and clear audio. Each TV on this list has been ensured to support various HDR codecs, including HDR10+ and Dolby Vision, as well as enhanced audio software like Dolby Atmos, Dolby Digital Plus, and object-tracking sound.For a more detailed look, check outour extensive TV testing methodology.This article was originally published on March 5, 2024, and was updated on January 8, 2025.Featured reviews