When launching its new appliance, Dyson compared the PencilWash to other wet-dry vacuums, saying that a major difference is the lack of a filter. Hypothetically easier to clean the appliance, Dyson claimed that omitting the filter was to reduce the likelihood of dirt and bacteria getting stuck.
At the bottom of the PencilWash is a microfibre roller that spins at 650RPM, capable of collecting dry and wet messes. As the wet-dry vacuum goes, it removes dirty water and continually supplies fresh water to the roller, so it doesn’t track muck throughout the house. This clean water comes from a built-in 300mL tank, while a separate 360mL tank contains the dirty water.
It’s possible to change the strength of the wet cleaning, too. Lighter spills only need a light amount of water, while the PencilWash also supports a heavier water flow for stickier floors. To help with cleaning, Dyson also sells a probiotic solution, a “non-toxic” formula that’s compatible with the brand’s range of wet-dry cleaners.
Dyson estimates the runtime of the PencilWash to reach up to 30 minutes, claiming it’s enough to clean about 110 square metres. On an empty battery, the appliance takes roughly 3.5 hours to fully charge.
Dyson’s new appliance is a more affordable and portable alternative to its existing wet-dry range. In 2023, the company debuted its first wet-dry vacuum in the form of the $1,549 V15s Detect Submarine.
Priced at $499 in Australia, the PencilWash launches on 5 March via appliance retailers and directly through Dyson.
Xbox quietly raised the price of its flagship handheld gaming PC by $200 in Australia, with the more expensive listing now live across retailers.
As spotted by Press Start Australia, the ROG Xbox Ally X now costs $1,799 via the Asus online store and JB Hi-Fi, up from its original $1,599 launch price. That works out to be around a 12.5 per cent increase from the price of Xbox and ROG’s portable hardware when it arrived in October last year. At the time of writing, the Australian Xbox website still listed the obsolete $1,599 price.
Xbox’s website still displayed the old pricing this morning. Screenshot: Chris Button.
So far, Japan is the other region affected by the Xbox Ally X’s price increase. In Japan, the high-end version of the device now costs ¥169,800, up from ¥139,800. Converted into Australian dollars, Japan’s increase is close to $275.
At this stage, the lower-spec ROG Xbox Ally still costs $999 in Australia. Aside from a different colour, the ROG Xbox Ally X uses the more powerful AMD Ryzen AI Z2 Extreme chipset and a higher 24GB RAM allocation that uses LPDDR5X memory. By comparison, the cheaper model has 16GB of LPDDR5 memory.
Why the ROG Xbox Ally X price increase?
Neither Xbox nor Asus have publicly explained the reasoning behind the price increase. However, given the current economic environment, including global memory shortages driven by demand for AI datacentres, price increases are on the agenda for many tech companies.
Another factor to consider is the ROG Xbox Ally X’s Australian launch price. In the US, the device launched at US$999, which was US$200 more expensive than the non-Xbox-branded ROG Ally X. Meanwhile, $1,599 in Australia was the same price as ROG’s older hardware, so the recent increase could be to catch up with the comparatively higher overseas pricing.
As I wrote in my review of the ROG Xbox Ally X, I enjoyed the device’s improved comfort and performance, but found the Windows 11 integration frustrating.
It’s subtle, but the newly announced Google Pixel 10a marks an iterative change over last year’s phone, while keeping the price below $1,000.
At $849 in Australia, Google’s new lower-cost phone retains the same price as last year’s Pixel 9a model. From there, the next step up is the Pixel 10, which starts at $1,349.
Compared to last year’s phone, the Google Pixel 10a takes the incremental upgrade approach. Like its predecessor, it opts for a smooth back, rather than the protruding mega camera arrays of most other phones.
Except this time, Google says the Pixel 10a is completely flat on the back; the rear cameras don’t stick out at all. Even without a case, the phone should sit flush on a surface without wobbling at the hint of any contact.
Image: Google.
Not much else has changed, though. On the inside, the Pixel 10a uses the same Tensor G4 chip and 8GB of RAM as the Pixel 9a. Similarly, the cameras retain the same 48MP main rear lens and 13MP ultra-wide lens as the 2025 phone.
One of the few main hardware changes comes from an 11 per cent brighter 6.3-inch screen, which is made from the tougher Corning Gorilla Glass 7i material. Plus, Google claims that the Pixel 10a’s battery charges faster than the 9a, reaching 50 per cent capacity in roughly 30 minutes when using a 45W charger.
Software is where Google hopes to make the biggest difference. When announcing the Pixel 10a, the company doubled down on its Gemini AI assistant and various AI-powered features. Some of Google’s AI tools have filtered down to the Pixel 10a, including the photography-assisting Camera Coach, which we tested on the Pixel 10 Pro last year.
Google Pixel 10a price and release date
Google confirmed that the Pixel 10a will launch on 5 March in Australia. Pre-orders are live now via major tech retailers and Google’s online store.
This year’s colours include Fog, Obsidian, Berry, and Lavender. Alongside the Pixel 10a announcement, Google also added Berry and Fog as additional Pixel Buds 2a colours.
Like all of Google’s recent phones, the Pixel 10a supports seven years of operating system and security updates, including future features added through Pixel Drops.
For those with friends and family who use iOS devices, the Pixel 10a can also share files via AirDrop. Google added the functionality late last year, bridging the gap between Android and iOS devices.
For a frighftul few moments, YouTube was partially down, with an outage impacting the major video platform’s home page. According to an official statement, an issue with the platform’s recommendation system was the cause.
During the outage, trying to load the YouTube home page on a desktop brought up a blank page. The sidebar menu appeared as normal, but the home feed, normally filled with algorithmically recommended videos, showed nothing.
YouTube videos accessed via the subscriber bar or search still worked, despite the home page issues. For example, searching for Bad Bunny’s Super Bowl halftime show brought up the video, which was then viewable in full.
Thanks for the report. We can confirm that we're aware of the issue & our team is currently working on a fix. We appreciate your patience while we get this sorted
“Thanks for the report,” the post said. “We can confirm that we’re aware of the issue & our team is currently working on a fix. We appreciate your patience while we get this sorted.”
YouTube being partially down also affected the mobile app. Like the desktop view, the home page showed either a blank screen or an error message. When trying to access the subscriptions tab, it took a couple of refreshes before it would display any content.
Screenshot: Chris Button.
It’s not currently clear what caused the issue. At the time of publication, YouTube’s home page started working again across both desktop and mobile.
“An issue with our recommendations system prevented videos from appearing across surfaces on YouTube (including the homepage, the YouTube app, YouTube Music and YouTube Kids). The homepage is back, but we’re still working on a full fix – more coming soon!”
So, while the home page is up and running again, it appears there are still some under-the-surface tweaks to be made.
All I want is a house and clothes that are always clean and tidy, food that is exactly what I want when I want it. However, I don’t actually want to clean, launder or cook, and I don’t have the money for a Downton Abbey-style household staff. Robot vacuum cleaners and mops are supposed to be part of the answer for this.
While I was generally pretty happy with the performance of the Dreame Aqua10 Ultra Track S, it’s not quite at the level where my mopping and vacuuming days are over.
The Dreame Aqua10 Ultra Track S is a sleek and premium-looking unit. It was easy to set up (though it took a little longer than I had anticipated), the app is intuitive, and the mapping process was quick and painless. It didn’t correctly identify any of my room types, but I appreciated that it tried its best.
Image: Alice Clarke.
Dreame Aqua10 Ultra Track S specifications and price
Robot Vacuum Dimensions
350 x 350 x 97.5mm (retracted LDS)
350 x 350 x 119mm (lifted LDS)
There’s a lot to love in those specs. For starters, that’s a decent battery capacity, and a good level of suction power, plus I’m impressed by Dreame’s confidence in having a three-year manufacturer’s warranty. That shows that the company has faith in the product.
What surprises me about these specs is the design of the stair-climbing feature. I haven’t seen many steps that are 4cm tall with a couple of centimetres before another 2cm rise. Maybe that’s popular in other countries? Because it just seems like a tripping hazard. Perhaps it’s for homes that have a little rise between the living room and the entrance way, followed almost immediately by a very thick rug?
But again, that sounds like a fun way to constantly trip over. It just seems oddly specific and extremely niche obstacle to design a feature around clearing. However, that 4.2cm clearance is going to be great for all those homes with very thick rugs, little rises between rooms, or just unusual layouts.
Regardless of how the device looks on paper, the most important thing is how it actually performs at home. On that front, I am somewhat less impressed.
Mopping
The jury is still out on whether track-style robot mops and roller-style robot mops are better.
For those who aren’t familiar, track-style mops look like a square version of the roller mop, and the roller mop — as seen in the Roborock Qrevo Curv 2 Flow — looks like the roller bar in any cordless vacuum cleaner.
Both sides have made good points. The only thing we can agree on is that the vibrating plates and spinning cloth mop feet are The Worst.
Personally, I think track-style mops have a lot of potential. This is because they can exert more downwards force, there’s more surface area to touch the floor, and they seem easier to scrape clean. However, after my experience with the Dreame Aqua10 Ultra Track S, I perhaps might have to rethink my stance.
It’s easy to access the Dreame’s clean and dirty water tanks in the docking station. Image: Alice Clarke.
I have a toddler, so my apartment constantly looks like it’s recently been robbed by people who also paused to have a food fight mid-ransacking. No matter how many times I mop my kitchen floor each week, it will still have little lumps of dried pasta sauce, broccoli and yogurt. I’ve set the Dreame Aqua10 Ultra Track S to clean most days, and while the apartment is noticeably less dusty, I still have to get out my wet-dry floor cleaner more often than I’d like to clean up after the robot finishes.
Navigation limitations
Part of the problem is the navigation. As part of my testing, I got the Dreame Aqua10 Ultra Track S to clean my kitchen three times in a row on the deep cleaning setting. While it was able to pick up some of the loose debris, the things on the floor that needed to be mopped came out of the experience unscathed, when the whole point of the exercise was for them to become very scathed.
Good edge cleaning is touted as a feature of premium robot vacuums. Image: Alice Clarke.
Part of the problem was that, for some baffling reason, the robot wouldn’t go up to the edges of the room. It is designed to be able to do great edge cleaning, and I watched the mop track come out of the body of the machine to get to the edges, but the wheels directed it to be at least a couple of centimetres away from the dishwasher and the cabinets every time, so the little brush would push the debris into the edges of the room, never to be sucked up, and easy spills were missed.
As you can see, the edges were largely ignored. Image: Alice Clarke.
While it was able to pick up wet yogurt reasonably well, with only some residue left behind, anything vaguely dried was left as is. Its pick-up power was weak.
After this $2,999 robot finished deep cleaning my kitchen for the third time, I got out my stick vacuum cleaner and steam mop and finished the job.
Vacuuming
Aside from the part where the Dreame Aqua10 Ultra Track S is bad at edge cleaning, I was really impressed by how much flour and oats the robot was able to pick up from carpets and tiles.
What impressed me more, though, and why I’m not completely writing off the Dreame Aqua10 Ultra Track S despite poor mopping performance, is how good it was at cleaning the foam play mat in my daughter’s room. This play mat is so tall that most robots just tremble in fright and go around it. The Dreame Aqua10 Ultra Track S used its ProLeap obstacle-clearing powers to climb up, get almost all the plaster dust that got in the foam after I put up her wind chimes, and then continued on with the job with no complaints.
Aside from edges, the Aqua10 vacuums floors well. Image: Alice Clarke.
I’m also impressed that I’ve barely ever had to rescue it from eating socks or cables. Not never, there’s been a couple of cases of it choking on a tiny sock, a Duplo cape and a charging cable. But most of the time it manages to avoid these objects, and for that I am grateful.
I do wish it were better at navigation, though. It’s gotten lost under the dining table a few times. Plus, there have been multiple occasions where it’s lowered its LDS navigation head to go under the sideboard and then gotten stuck because it can’t see a way out, despite being open on three sides. It doesn’t get stuck every time, and I haven’t found a pattern for why it gets stuck sometimes and not others.
Dock performance
When it comes to emptying, cleaning and other general dock things, I really love this dock. It’s all laid out in a way that makes sense, it looks sleek and attractive, and if it weren’t for all the problems, I would absolutely love it.
Sadly, the problem is gravity. Gravity is the enemy on two fronts here.
The first is the power cable. It seems to gradually wiggle its way out of the dock until the robot no longer charges consistently. I think because of the vibrations caused by the mop washing cycle? But I have had to push that plug in multiple times over the months I’ve been using it.
Image: Alice Clarke.
The second is that the robot sometimes doesn’t charge for no apparent reason, even when the power cable is plugged in. It parks itself back in the dock, recognises it’s there, and then doesn’t charge. It’s usually when the robot ends up at a very slight angle, or I think sometimes it slides back out of the dock just enough that it loses contact with the charging point.
This has meant that I’ve had to interact with the dock and think about how the robot charges more often than I have with almost any other robot I’ve tried in the last five years. It’s just annoying.
Who is the Dreame Aqua10 Ultra Track S for?
The Dreame Aqua10 Ultra Track S is a solid robot vacuum cleaner; it’s great at vacuuming, as long as you don’t need it to get into the corners of your home. Fantastic suction.
But, because of my annoyances with the dock and the lacklustre mop, I hesitate to recommend it to people who aren’t willing to be a bit more hands-on with their robot. It’s not a bad machine, I’m just not sure it’s a particularly good one for $3,000. If it were a cheaper robot, I would be more forgiving of its foibles.
But with the features on paper, and the recommended retail price being at the absolute top of the range, I would expect to have the best experience available, and this just doesn’t provide that.
Dreame Aqua10 Ultra Track S
The Dreame Aqua10 Ultra Track S is a solid robot vacuum cleaner. It’s great at vacuuming, as long as you don’t need it getting into the corners of your home, and you don’t particularly care about mopping.
Features
8
Value for money
5
Performance
6
Ease of use
8
Design
6
Positives
Good suction
Auto-empty station’s water tanks are easy to deal with
App is easy to use
Negatives
Isn’t good at mopping
Doesn’t get into corners and edges
Some niggling annoyances with the dock in terms of charging
As much as I like my Rode Wireless Go microphone, there’s a bit of friction involved when I want to use it with my phone. Now, I’ve got a pretty good incentive to upgrade, with the Gen 3 Rode Wireless Go now supporting direct Bluetooth connectivity with iPhones.
Via a firmware update, both the Gen 3 Go and the Wireless Pro models can now take advantage of Rode’s “Direct Connect” technology. First introduced with the petite Rode Wireless Micro range, Direct Connect enables Bluetooth connectivity between the transmitters and an iPhone when using the Rode Capture app.
So, instead of fumbling around for a USB-C cable or plugging in an additional dongle, the Gen 3 Wireless Go and Wireless Pro connect completely wirelessly. I’ve got the older Gen 2 model, so I just miss out on the added feature, but I’m confident it would make recording on the go a lot smoother.
It’s also encouraging to see Direct Connect come to Rode’s other wireless microphones. As nifty as the Micro is, it doesn’t have the internal storage or 32-bit float recording of the Wireless Go or Wireless Pro. 32-bit float recording, in particular, is a big one: it saves a backup audio file that can be a lifesaver if the original recording is lost or you get any distortion from peaking.
Which iPhones does Direct Connect work with?
According to Rode, as long as an iPhone runs iOS 14 or above, that’s enough to work with Direct Connect. However, the Rode Capture app listing mentions iOS 16 and the iPhone XS as the minimum requirements. With that in mind, any iPhone from the last few years will work with the newly enabled Bluetooth connectivity.
As for Android users, Rode says it’s “actively working on Android support for Rode Capture”. While the company didn’t commit to an exact timeline, it plans to bring Direct Connect to more devices in the future.
Rode adding Direct Connect via a firmware update also means there’s no need to buy additional equipment. That’s a refreshing change in the consumer tech industry, where every inch of value is squeezed out of customers.
Apple is expected to debut its new lower-priced MacBooks at a recently confirmed “special experience” in early March.
Various in-person events are being held across New York, London, and Shanghai on 4 March, US time, a departure from Apple’s traditional keynote approach. As previously reported by Bloomberg‘s Mark Gurman, Apple plans to launch a new range of cheaper MacBooks in March, which lines up with the event’s timing.
Gurman also noted that the colours included on Apple’s graphic for the event align with some of the speculated designs for the new MacBooks. Made from aluminium, the entry-level laptops are said to come in various bright colours, including yellow, green, and blue.
Previous reports suggested a sub-US$1,000 price for the MacBooks, but there’s no clarity beyond that at this stage. Overseas, the cheapest MacBook Air retails for US$999. Locally, the MacBook Air starts at $1,699. Based on Apple’s reported affordability approach, the new laptop will be cheap enough to differentiate itself from the Air.
Apple’s cost savings reportedly stem from cheaper internals. Instead of using its M-series system-on-a-chip found throughout recent Macs and iPads, the unannounced laptop will use an iPhone processor. It’s also expected to include a smaller sub-13-inch display, more compact than any other MacBook.
Cornering the student and lower-budget market could be Apple’s way of boosting its computer sales, which form a small part of its overall business. According to the company’s 2025 fiscal year report, Macs made up approximately eight per cent of its revenue, compared to 50 per cent from iPhones.
