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RGB is not integral to any gaming setup. Ever. Colourful disco lights won’t make you play better or be more comfortable while you (by you, I mean me) lock in for a long session of WoW.

So why exactly does the new ASUS ROG Courser gaming chair boast six areas of RGB lighting? Is it necessary? Absolutely not. But if we reduced every gaming chair down to the barest of essentials, we’d probably all be sitting in stark grey office chairs. The Courser is a gaming chair with unabashed flair. Sporting four lighting strips that extend down the sides of its backrest, with six colour modes glowing next to its all-black EPU leatherette finish.

The cutout area and rear-side ROG logo also light up, and at this point, you might be asking: if the lights aren't visible when you're using the chair, what's the benefit of having them? For those flashy design flourishes and a pretty reasonable set of conventional chair features, the ROG Courser will set you back $750 / £699. That’s definitely on the more premium end of the gaming chair pricing scale, so is the extra lighting really going to be worth it in a stacked market?

Design & Features

Well, for starters, the in-chair lights create an eye-catching look that’s ideal for streamers and content creators. The RGB looks super sleek contrasted against the dark chair. But for those who prefer to game in private, the Rainbow colour mode on the top level of brightness will add a gorgeous, subtle multicolour hue to your gaming room. This is a chair that will add heaps of atmosphere to your setup.

It includes eight different colour settings, five levels of brightness, and several lighting modes, including wave, static, breathing, and colour cycle. But alas, this isn’t Soft-Furnishings-Radar, and we are not just reviewing an ambient light fixture here.

So while the selling point of the ASUS ROG Courser is how it looks, its strongest quality is actually how it feels.

(Image credit: Future) While the Courser shares much of its overall shape with the brand’s Chariot models, its broader frame makes it noticeably wider. It has a roomy seat base of 55cm, offering plenty of space for a broad range of body types.

The EPU leatherette material is smooth and breathable, perfect for keeping cool during gaming sessions on hot, sticky summer nights. It’s also notable that you get 4D armrests on the ROG Courser, which is standard for a gaming chair of this price. There are separate buttons for elevation and the twist functions, then a pull clicker for distance out from the chair.

(Image credit: Future) These 4D armrests can now swivel the entire 360 degrees, too. All these comfort factors combine to form a chair so accommodating you’ll genuinely forget you’re sitting in it until it’s time to chill and kick back. This is when you will become highly aware that you are sitting in something pretty luxurious.

Assembly

Admittedly, I felt a mild wave of panic when the ASUS ROG Courser arrived on my doorstep. My previous gaming chair was constructed for me by an ex-boyfriend, and the thought of piecing together something so complex alone was daunting. I have lost patience and bawled tears of frustration over many IKEA flat-packed furniture items in the past - was my new gaming chair going to prove similarly difficult to build?

Not at all. The Courser was a breeze to assemble, even for a clumsy person with zero experience at putting a gaming chair together. All the parts slotted neatly into place, making the build experience feel simple and stress-free. It took 30 minutes for me to assemble the chair by myself, following the clear instructions card inside the box

Performance

I thought lower back ache was normal, all part of the fun of hunching in a shrimp shape over my PC while I devote another evening to Azeroth. Turns out: it’s not. I’ve been sitting in the ASUS ROG Courser for 4 weeks now, and my spine feels noticeably more limber.

The in-built lumbar support backrest appears to be the key factor here, with its fully adjustable system that can be tweaked according to depth and height - ensuring my posture stays good while I game. The Courser doesn’t have a lumbar pillow, but it doesn’t need one thanks to its dynamic lumbar support system that works very similarly to the Corsair TC500 Luxe and the Secretlab Titan Evo NanoGen .

(Image credit: Future) Unlike most gaming chairs, which shift your body slightly forward or slide you down the backrest when reclined, the Courser has a Dynamic Synchronised Recline System that keeps your posture more consistent with the backrest while reclining up to 155 degrees. This is something we’re seeing more often in the gaming chair market, especially with the LiberNovo Omni , but more recently with the Secretlab Atlas .

It’s a unique, thoughtful detail that makes finding a comfortable position as you lean back much easier, as you won’t need to make adjustments every time you recline. For PC gamers especially, this is a feature to look out for because when you’ve spent ages finding the exact right height and angle of your armrests to match up with the level of your desk so you can aim precisely with a mouse, the last thing you want to do is mess that up by reclining them out of position.

Should you buy the Asus ROG Courser?

(Image credit: Future) The RGB of the ROG Courser might be alluring to a lot of gamers looking for those perfect unicorn vomit vibes in their chill-out spaces, but the price tag of $750 / £699 could be equally off-putting. For context, Asus has charged similar amounts for its ROG Destrier Ergo chair line, so it’s no stranger to outlandish designs and high price tags. But for the same money, or less, you could get yourself a Secretlab Titan Evo (without RGB lighting) and a colorway that represents your favorite gaming franchise. For less money, you could get the still-expensive Razer Iskur V2 NewGen, which gets you a floating backrest, or you could get an AutoFull G7 with seemingly endless adjustable parts.

Compared to those options, Asus obviously offers RGB lighting which we don’t see elsewhere, but having sat in it for around a month, I think the lights are actually the least valuable thing here. The adjustable lumbar support, spacious seat and dynamic recline system make this chair a pleasure to sit in for hours.

If you’re looking for the best value gaming chair, there are great alternatives from Secretlab and Razer, but if you’re after a premium chair that doesn’t look like anything else on the market and backs up its flashy design with comfort, then the ASUS ROG Courser earns its place.

How I tested the Asus ROG Courser

I tested the ASUS ROG Courser for a month before this review was written. I assembled it myself in 40 minutes using the instructions card that came with the chair. It was very easy to build and to lift by myself. I sat in the chair for around 9 hours per day, either working from home or gaming.

For more on how we test gaming chairs , dive deeper into the GamesRadar+ hardware policy .

Looking for more gaming furniture? Check out the best console gaming chairs , the best gaming desks , and the best standing desk .

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Train up those Flying Types.

Pokémon Legends: Z-A 's Ranked Battle seasons have been a little repetitive for the past few months, but July's offering promises to mix things up a bit with a new ruleset built for Flying types.

Season 14 kicks off on 16th July at 7am BST / 2am ET / 11pm PT (15th) , and only Flying-type Pokémon are allowed to compete. Alongside the usual returning Mega Stone rewards for rising through the Ranked Battles, this season also includes a bunch of Pretty Feather rewards to really hammer home the flying theme.

Read the full article on nintendolife.com

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In London today there will be a memorial celebration for Tom Stoppard. When Tom passed away last November, he was acclaimed and eulogized brilliantly all over the world. To read some of those encomiums you can head here . But in honor of today’s celebration, I would like to offer a brief account of my experience with Tom.

I first met him at the International PEN Conference in Prague in 1994, the first PEN meeting in that city in more than 60 years during which the Czechs had suffered first under Nazi and then Soviet repression. Among those attending were Philip Roth, Arthur Miller and his wife Inge Morath, Rose Styron and many other writers and human rights activists who had supported the Czechs, and especially the Czech writers in their struggle against authoritarian regimes. It was an exhilarating few days opening with President Václav Havel (also a Grove author) welcoming his fellow writers for a conference on “Literature and Tolerance.”

A year earlier I had merged Atlantic Monthly Press with Grove Weidenfeld to create Grove Atlantic. Though Grove had published Tom from the beginning of his career, for some reason he had, in the years right before I took over, allowed his British publisher Faber and Faber to publish his new plays with their Faber North America imprint. Rose Styron introduced me to Tom and told him I was now the Publisher of Grove. I said to Tom I knew he was no longer publishing with us but that we had all of his earlier work in print and if he ever had questions or thoughts about the Grove editions he should please let me know. I also told him I was committed to keeping Grove Atlantic independent and that if he ever wanted to come back we would love to have him.

“I was so happy to look across the stage and see that you were getting my jokes.”

A couple of years later I heard from Tom’s agent that he would like to return to Grove. I received the manuscript of The Invention of Love. We published that wonderful play and all his work since. Tom’s return during those early years when I was working to re-establish Grove’s credibility and identity as a committed, independent literary house was hugely important to us.

Over the years I would see Tom in London or New York. I have worked with some accomplished writers in my 48 year career, but Tom was without a doubt the most dazzling, erudite and intellectually intimidating of them all. He was just totally cool. He was also so kind, so curious about what we were publishing and so supportive of our efforts to stay true to our mission and remain independent. One of the most memorable evenings was a snowy night at arts patron Drue Heinz’s beautiful Sutton Place house at a dinner arranged for Tom to meet Tom Wolfe. I reminded Tom of that night when he called to ask me if he thought we might be able to persuade Macmillan to allow Grove to buy the rights to the plays that had been published by Faber North America imprint which had been acquired by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. I suggested Tom write to Jonathan Galassi, who had been at the dinner, and ask him—which he did. I hoped that Jonathan, then head of FSG, and his boss John Sargent might respect the wishes of a writer to have all his work at one house. They did and we have been able to bring all the plays together at Grove.

So over the last two decades as we continued to publish Tom’s incredible new works from the amazing The Coast of Utopia to Rock and Roll and the late-career masterpiece Leopoldstadt our Deputy Publisher Peter Blackstock has worked with Tom to rationalize and update the text of all his plays and publish them in editions that he has signed off on so that we know that the works will endure in the versions that he approved.

And one final memory, in 2015 my good friend Sabrina Guinness who had married Tom the year before called to invite my wife Rachel Cobb and me to come to the opening of Tom’s new play The Hard Problem in Philadelphia. I asked if we could bring our nine-year-old son Allen. When the day came, we met Sabrina at a cozy Italian restaurant after the trip down from New York. Tom was still at the theater working with the cast on last minute adjustments, but he joined us a few minutes later. He proceeded to tell Allen what his play we were going to see was about, which is the question of how consciousness arises in the brain—the hard problem. Allen, who has always been intellectually curious, was fascinated.

When we took our seats in a theater with horseshoe-shaped seating, I looked over and saw that Tom and Sabrina were seated directly across from us. I was a bit nervous because it had been a long day for Allen, and I hoped he wouldn’t fall asleep during the play. On the contrary, he was fully engaged the entire time, laughing so loudly sometimes that I worried he was disturbing the people around us. Afterwards as we left Tom said, “Allen I was so happy to look across the stage and see that you were getting my jokes.”

So as we celebrate one of the most extraordinary, truly brilliant writers I have ever had the privilege of publishing, I can only say thank you Tom, for your friendship and your kindness to me and my family, for the incredible body of work you produced and gave to the world, and for your support of Grove Atlantic at a crucial time.

Photos by Rachel Cobb.

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The Xiaomi 18 Pro is leaked to feature a 2nm flagship SoC (likely the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 6 or Gen 6 Pro) and a massive ~7,000mAh battery with 100W wired charging, and wireless charging.

It could also pack in two 200MP cameras: an ultra-large primary sensor and a large-sensor telephoto macro. camera.

Due to an industry-wide RAM crisis, a noticeable price bump is expected, but these spec bumps could help lessen the sticker shock.

Qualcomm is expected to launch the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 6 series at its annual Snapdragon Summit event in Hawaii on September 24, 2026. With this new SoC series, we’re expecting a wave of new Android flagships to follow, and one of the first could be the Xiaomi 18 Pro . Early leaks suggest there’s a noticeable price bump on the horizon, and a new leak now gives us a better idea of what could be in store for all the extra money that users would pay for the Xiaomi 18 Pro.

Noted leaker Digital Chat Station has shared on Weibo specifications of what is expected to be the Xiaomi 18 Pro, or at least an engineering prototype of it. According to the leaker, the Xiaomi 18 Pro could come with a 2nm flagship SoC (likely referring to either the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 6 or 8 Elite Gen 6 Pro). It could feature an “ultra clear” small, flat display, a 200MP “ultra-large sensor” primary camera, and a 200MP large-sensor telephoto macro camera.

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The Automobili Mignatta Rina will soon get a sexy new Coupe version.

Power comes from a Ford-sourced 5.0-liter V8 paired to a manual.

Found in the cabin is forged carbon fiber, stainless steel, and aluminum.

Last year, small Italian outfit Automobili Mignatta arrived out of nowhere with its Rina Barchetta, an evocative carbon-fiber sports car packing American V8 power and a starting price of $290,000. The company has now confirmed the car will make its debut at this weekend’s Goodwood Festival of Speed , and it has revealed that a Coupe is on the way as well.

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Read: New Retro Barchetta Looks Like Italy But Roars Like Detroit

The Rina Barchetta bound for Goodwood has a gorgeous silver paint scheme with green undertones, and several forged carbon fiber parts. These include the headlight clusters, panels behind the front wheels and side skirts, paired with several forged carbon fiber parts throughout the car’s interior.

For example, the door panels are clad in the lightweight material, as are the rollover hoops, parts of the dashboard and the steering wheel. Contrasting with the carbon fiber are deep green and white leather pieces, including on the seats. Perhaps the highlight of Rina’s interior is the gated shifter and the exposed mechanism, made of a combination of solid stainless steel and composite materials.

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The premium materials don’t stop there, as Mignatta has crafted the speedometer bezel, center console, and climate control panel from billet-machined aluminum.

While the company is not yet ready to showcase the Rina Coupe to the world, it has previewed it through a series of sketches, which will also be displayed at Goodwood. For as nice as the Barchetta looks, we think the hardtop model is shaping up to be even more stunning, calling to mind 1960s Italian sports cars like the Ferrari 250 GTO. It rocks a flowing, double-bubble roof that complements the rest of the exterior design perfectly.

Both the Rina Barchetta and the upcoming Coupe will use a Ford-sourced 5.0-liter naturally-aspirated V8 that has been tweaked by Italtecnica Engineering, allowing it to deliver approximately 500 hp. This brutish engine is mated to a six-speed manual transmission and a limited-slip differential. As you’d expect, all of the power is routed through the rear wheels, which should make for an exciting drive.

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