Pokémon fans: Razer has finally listened and… it's here
Although I don't mean to wax poetic about stuff I have yet to try myself, be warned: I'm a huge fan, so I might let the excitement get the best of me at times. With that said, here's what you can now get your hands on (globally, for once).
Razer BlackWidow V4 X
I'll start by saying that I'm overly enthusiastic not just about Pokémon, but also about fun-looking peripherals. I currently own the Razer BlackWidow V3 in Quartz, which is a fancy way of saying 'pink,' and I recently bought the Razer Seiren V3 Mini in the same colorway. I'm a PC builder with 20 years of experience, but I'd be lying if I said that I didn't choose those two products chiefly for their looks. With that said, I'm also happy with their performance, so it's a win-win.
Recommended Videos
Much like the rest of the lineup, the Razer BlackWidow V4 X doesn't add anything in the way of features. If you already own the base model of this keyboard, you won't suddenly get anything better here. But who could resist that mix of Pikachu, Bulbasaur, Squirtle, and Charmander combined with some RGB lighting?
This is a mechanical keyboard equipped with green clicky switches, six dedicated macro keys, a roller button for volume, and the usual media keys. The bling action is per-key, so you can fine-tune it to your heart's content. For the pleasure of staring at Pokémon while you type, you'll have to pay $170; the regular model can now be picked up for $130.
Considering that I own an older version of the BlackWidow keyboard, I expect this one to be solid. I put my keyboards through the wringer a lot more than most users do, and this one's handling it like a total champ. Plus, I absolutely love how clicky it is.
Razer Cobra
I love the color theme of this Razer Cobra mouse. While all the gear is yellow and black, the emphasis on yellow here is pleasing to me. But, you know, it's like I said — I'm into fun-looking peripherals.
This mouse is pretty lightweight at 58g, although the 8,500 DPI sensitivity puts it well under some of the best gaming mice. As much as I love Pokémon, I'm not sure that I would buy this mouse — I'm too used to wireless now, and my Razer Naga V2 Pro serves me well. However, at $60, it's an alright midrange option. Mind you, the Pokémon tax adds an extra $25 here, as the base version is currently on sale for $35.
Razer Kraken V4 X
Razer has its fair share of unusual headsets — those kitty-cat ears come to mind — but none of them speak to me the way this one does.
This is a wired headset with a retractable cardioid microphone. It's also equipped with Razer's 40mm Triforce drivers, memory foam cushions, and Chroma RGB lighting. Razer priced this one at $100, and if not for it being wired, I'd be taking my chances and buying it for the Pokémon-themed headband alone.
Razer Gigantus V2
So, I may have just bought myself this mouse pad. I'm not at all ashamed. It's $30 at Amazon, and it's money I'm willing to spare for having even more Pokémon stuff on my desk.
Covered in the same collage of Kanto starters, this mouse pad is made out of thick rubber foam and covered in a micro-weave polyester surface. Razer promises to deliver 'pixel-precise accuracy' and responsiveness, but honestly, it could be made out of sandpaper and I'd probably still buy it. It's very easy to sell Pokémon merch to me.
This medium-sized mouse pad is far from the biggest that Razer has to offer, measuring at around 14.1 inches wide and 10.8 inches long. I would have liked to see a bigger version, but hopefully, if this lineup does well, Razer could still release one someday.
More to come?
Razer revealed a Gengar Pokemon themed headset…but it's only available in China pic.twitter.com/V67fx4yefv — Dexerto (@Dexerto) October 16, 2024
I've been eyeing Razer's various Pokémon-themed collabs with increasing jealousy over the years. Every single one of them was limited to Asia, including the Gengar headset you can take a peek at above. To say that I wanted to throw my money in Razer's general direction was an understatement, so it's good to see the company finally making that possible, with the range available in the United States, but also in Europe, Latin America, Australia, and New Zealand.
Better yet, there might be more Pokémon goodies still to come. Razer has teased that Gengar gear might also be on the way, responding to a few comments with a fitting emoji. If and when this is going to happen is a mystery, but I sure hope that it will.
If you already own any of these products, remember that they're all the same on the inside, so give these new versions a pass. However, if you're looking for an upgrade and you're into Pokémon, then you just might be as hyped as I am right now.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Digital Trends
13 minutes ago
- Digital Trends
Sony makes one of the best OLED TVs, this deal makes it $900 more affordable
Every day we find incredible TV deals, so there's never really a point in buying a TV at the regular price. That is, unless you want one of the best TVs all around, which have more of a reason to not go on sale frequently. They already get lots of attention and have the chops to justify high prices. However, from time to time we do find a great deal on one of our favored TVs. This time around we're see a $900 discount on the 65-inch Sony Bravia 8 OLED, one of our picks for the best OLED TVs. Getting the TV now, which you can do simply by tapping the button below, will only cost you $1,900 instead of the usual $2,800. Read on to learn why the TV is so great, as well as to see the special reason why it's included in our list of OLED TVs. Why you should buy the Sony Bravia 8 OLED The Sony Bravia 8 OLED is a brilliant TV for your living room or gathering area. It's a weird thing to say, but a lot of TVs have a sort of 'hermit' personality and are really best enjoyed with a small group in a dark room. Not the Sony Bravia 8 OLED, with its wide viewing angle and ability to stand up to ambient lighting. This is a TV to grab the crew around and watch some ball or have in your living room to give you some company while you watch the kids. It's a TV to enhance your life with, but it doesn't have to So, why did this TV make it on our OLED shortlist? It happens to be the best Sony OLED for the price. And, of course, by this we mean its standard price. The quality is simply there; it has rich colors and black levels that make things pop, whether you're in the living room or not. So, why not grab it while it is $900 cheaper and you can get it for $1,900 instead of the usual $2,800.
Entrepreneur
13 minutes ago
- Entrepreneur
4 Signs It's Time to Abandon Your Patent
How to make smart, strategic calls on when to abandon patents — and why doing so is essential to long-term innovation and budget health Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own. Patents are often filed early, before a startup knows what the market really wants. That's smart, but it comes with a challenge: Not every idea turns out to be worth protecting. Markets shift. Products pivot. And eventually, founders ask: Should we keep paying for this patent or cut our losses? It's a tough call. Abandoning a patent midway can feel like giving up. But continuing just because you've already spent money? That's the sunk cost trap, and it quietly drains your budget. Many startups keep prosecuting every idea, paying rejections, annuities and attorney fees. But a smart IP strategy means knowing what to keep and what to walk away from. Here's how to make that call strategically. Related: How to Identify the Patent-Worthy Innovations in Your Business Built-in checkpoints in patent lifecycle — use them Roughly, you can split a patent's entire lifecycle cost into three parts. The first third goes to drafting the application, another third is for arguing the patent through issuance, and the final third covers patent maintenance fees for the next 20+ years. In a way, these financial checkpoints are decision checkpoints, too. When drafting, consider whether the invention aligns with your core business or is just a side experiment that may never get to market. During prosecution, evaluate whether it's still worth the legal wrangling, as each round of argument is costly. And when renewal fees come due, ask if the patent still supports your product, blocks competitors or adds leverage against others in the market. Unfortunately, many startups treat these pivotal stages as administrative formalities. Instead of evaluating whether continued investment is justified at each stage, many companies default to pushing forward — whether by extending prosecution unnecessarily, filing continuations without a clear purpose, or simply paying maintenance fees — without assessing strategic alignment. That's how portfolios get bloated with low-impact patents. The only solution here is patent pruning: Abandon some patent filings at the right checkpoints. Related: Don't Let Patent Costs Crush Your Startup — Here's How to Protect Your IP Without Breaking the Bank What are the signs that it's time to abandon a patent? Every dollar spent defending or maintaining a weak patent is a dollar not spent protecting something truly valuable. Therefore, you must look for the signs at different checkpoints to spot a patent to discard. Here are some signs to look for: 1. No market validation A patent is only valuable if the protected product actually sells. If your invention fails to gain customer traction, the patent will be a failure. Experts emphasize focusing on "high-impact" problems with real demand. Without that market pull, even a granted patent is a dead weight. For example, Google Glass — once hyped as the future of AR eyewear — never found a viable consumer market. It was pulled from sale in 2015 (and again in 2023) due to poor adoption, illustrating how patents tied to unvalidated products offer no return. 2. Shifting industry direction Industries evolve, and a patent can lose value if the tech horizon moves on. In practice, companies are advised to ask whether their invention still aligns with "the target industry and market." If adjacent innovations eclipse your solution (for example, cloud services replacing old networking hardware), the patent's relevance vanishes. In that scenario, it makes little sense to keep paying maintenance fees. Better to refocus on protections for innovations that fit the new direction of your field. 3. Prior art kills the novelty Sometimes, what initially feels like a breakthrough ends up being something others have already attempted or fully disclosed. If prior art eclipses your claims, the chances of securing meaningful protection drop significantly. At that point, even if you receive a patent, it may be so narrow that it offers little real-world value. Continuing to prosecute a case like this can quickly become a drain on time and legal budget. 4. Weak business use case Every patent in your portfolio should earn its keep through business impact or the potential to do so on your current roadmap. If it's not protecting a revenue-generating product, blocking a competitor or supporting licensing efforts, its value is questionable. Startups often hang on to patents without a clear path to monetization or strategic use. But unless a patent strengthens your market position or serves a legal or commercial purpose, it's just another expense on the books. To actively prune your patent portfolio, just looking for signs isn't enough. As the portfolio grows, you need a deliberate, repeatable process for patent abandonment assessment. Build a patent pruning system: Health checks and ranking framework An effective patent pruning system should take two things into consideration: 1) lifecycle stage and 2) multiple perspectives. For the first one, you want to start by ranking each patent across key lifecycle stages: At the idea stage : Is this innovation aligned with your product roadmap or market differentiation? Post-filing : Has the landscape shifted? Is the application still strategically relevant? Pre-renewal: Is the granted patent still supporting revenue, blocking competitors or enhancing leverage? The higher a patent scores at a certain stage, the more you want to invest in it. Please note that not only your legal counsel team but also others, such as product, technology, marketing and finance, must contribute to this ranking system, as pruning cannot be undone. The goal is to ensure that patents are evaluated through a business lens, not just a legal one. Consider using patent management tools that provide full portfolio visibility and enable seamless collaboration as part of your patent pruning process. Related: 4 Surprising Patent Myths That Could Cost You Big — What You Need to Know Now Pruning a patent portfolio isn't just about saving money; it's about fueling what's next with the reclaimed budget. In 2020, IBM stepped back from chasing patent volume. "We're no longer pursuing patent leadership," they said. "We're being more selective." The result? Fewer filings, stronger focus and more investment in high-growth areas like AI and quantum computing. That's the lesson: Pruning isn't cutting back. It's reallocating toward where your business is growing. Because IP should follow your future, not fund your past.
Android Authority
43 minutes ago
- Android Authority
Samsung killed its classic DeX mode in One UI 8, but there's a good reason
Mishaal Rahman / Android Authority TL;DR Samsung killed its 'classic' DeX in One UI 8, replacing it with a new version built on top of Google's native Desktop Mode in Android. This move aligns DeX with Google's broader effort to improve Android's desktop capabilities, which should benefit DeX in the long run. However, the new DeX is currently a downgrade for users, as it lacks many quality-of-life features that were present in the classic version. Samsung DeX is one of the best features of One UI, letting you transform your powerful Galaxy phone or tablet into a portable PC. You simply hook up your Galaxy device to an external display, fire up DeX mode, and connect some accessories, and you have a full desktop experience. DeX has evolved over the years, but the latest One UI 8 release brings its most significant changes yet. Samsung has killed off the 'classic' DeX experience, replacing it with a new version that's arguably a downgrade for now. However, this change is poised to pay off handsomely in the future. Here's why. Samsung introduced DeX with the Galaxy S8 series in 2017, over two years before Google added even a rudimentary desktop mode to Android. Because Android natively lacked much of the functionality DeX required, Samsung had to make significant under-the-hood changes to the operating system. For example, Samsung modified core Android components to add its own desktop windowing system, a dedicated desktop launcher, and an improved connected display experience. This required a massive effort that didn't stop at the initial launch, as Samsung had to carry these custom changes forward through multiple Android releases. Samsung is in the business of selling Android phones and Windows PCs (…and a ton of other things), though, so they have little incentive to invest heavily into transforming Android into a full-fledged desktop OS. As a result, DeX has long been just 'good enough' for casual users wanting to watch media or do light work on the go, but it has never been robust enough to fully replace a traditional PC for professionals. Google, however, is a different story. The company has spent years trying to break into the PC market with ChromeOS, which has seen major success in the education sector. But developing two operating systems simultaneously is inefficient, so Google is pooling its resources to merge the two platforms. This effort involves bringing many Chrome OS features to Android, such as a desktop version of Chrome with extension support, a Linux environment, and more. As part of these efforts, Google is finally adding proper desktop windowing and a new connected display experience to Android. The Android 16 release introduces a Desktop Mode with many DeX-like features, such as a taskbar at the bottom and support for freeform app windows. This new mode is, in fact, built on the very foundation of Samsung DeX. Google and Samsung collaborated to improve desktop windowing on Android, culminating in the new experience we see today. With Google now developing a native desktop mode for Android, there's no longer a need for Samsung to maintain its own heavily modified version of DeX. Doing so would be counterproductive, requiring Samsung to constantly adapt its code to Google's changes and risk breaking compatibility with apps built for large screens. While phone makers often stick with their own software features even after Google introduces a stock equivalent, this situation is different. Desktop Mode is poised to become a core part of Google's future Android strategy, making its adoption essential. Samsung actually began this migration in One UI 6.0 with its 'new' DeX mode for tablets. While the company still offered its 'classic' DeX as an option then, it has removed it in One UI 8 to focus on building features on top of Google's native Desktop Mode. This change is ultimately a good thing, as it means Samsung DeX will inherit the new features and improvements Google introduces in the coming years. However, the initial transition might annoy some users. The current version of DeX in One UI 8 lacks many of the small quality-of-life features that Samsung added to its classic mode over the years. With help from Reddit user FragmentedChicken, we compiled the following list of differences between Samsung's 'classic' DeX and the new DeX in One UI 8: The toggle to Auto start when HDMI is connected has been removed from DeX settings. However, this has been effectively replaced by the Extended option under Settings > Connected devices > Samsung DeX > Connected display, as by default, DeX will now start when the phone's screen is extended to an external display. Samsung DeX settings in One UI 8 Connected display settings in One UI 8 The settings for Taskbar , Keyboard , Set default audio input , and App icon badges have been removed. Taskbar: Can no longer toggle auto hide taskbar, toggle the navigation buttons, toggle the finder (search button), toggle the keyboard language, toggle the keyboard (either on screen or on phone), toggle the volume, or toggle the screenshot button. Keyboard: Can't set the on screen keyboard location either on the connected display or the phone by default, can't toggle showing the on screen keyboard when a physical keyboard is being used. Set default audio input: This setting made sounds play through the connected TV or monitor when Samsung DeX started. App icon badges: Changed how notifications were shown on app icons, either as a small number or a dot. , , , and have been removed. Classic Samsung DeX settings in One UI 7 App icon badge settings under classic DeX in One UI 7 Taskbar settings for classic DeX in One UI 7 Keyboard settings for classic DeX in One UI 7 The Flow pointer to phone screen page has been removed. This setting let you choose if you wanted to enable mouse continuity between the phone and external display. It has functionally been replaced by the Android 16 display topology feature that allows you to rearrange where your phone and external display are located in virtual space. However, mouse continuity is enabled by default now and cannot be disabled. page has been removed. This setting let you choose if you wanted to enable mouse continuity between the phone and external display. It has functionally been replaced by the Android 16 display topology feature that allows you to rearrange where your phone and external display are located in virtual space. However, mouse continuity is enabled by default now and cannot be disabled. Lock DeX and exit DeX buttons were removed from the app drawer: The lock DeX button locked DeX, requiring you to enter your phone's screen lock or biometrics. The Exit DeX button allowed you to quit DeX. and buttons were removed from the app drawer: The lock DeX button locked DeX, requiring you to enter your phone's screen lock or biometrics. The Exit DeX button allowed you to quit DeX. The Pin app button has been removed from apps' header bars. This button allowed you to pin an app to keep it on top of other apps you open. Flow pointer to phone screen settings for classic DeX in One UI 8 Lock DeX and exit DeX buttons for classic DeX in One UI 7 Pin button in app header for classic DeX in One UI 7 MultiStar removed the ' I❤️Samsung DeX ' menu. The 'High resolutions for external display' option is still there in the main MultiStar menu, but the 'run many apps at same time' which allowed you to run more than 5 apps at a time, auto open last app which allowed you to reopen the last app you had open, and set taskbar and header bar display time option which allows you to change the delay for showing the header bar have been removed. ' menu. The 'High resolutions for external display' option is still there in the main MultiStar menu, but the 'run many apps at same time' which allowed you to run more than 5 apps at a time, auto open last app which allowed you to reopen the last app you had open, and set taskbar and header bar display time option which allows you to change the delay for showing the header bar have been removed. Miscellaneous behavior changes You can't snap windows to the top anymore, but you can still double click app headers to maximize them. You can't right click the taskbar to access taskbar settings You can't right click the desktop to change how apps are sorted, clean up the desktop, or access screen zoom settings Finally, the app header bar and taskbar remain on screen even if you're trying to watch a video in full screen. Watching a full screen video in classic DeX on One UI 7 Watching a full screen video in the new DeX in One UI 8 As far as we can tell, the only proprietary DeX components that remain are its touchpad, wallpaper settings, S Pen integration, and wireless display connectivity. Fortunately, the new version of DeX retains most of the basic functionality of the classic experience, so most people should be satisfied with it. Samsung DeX home screen in One UI 8 New header bar dropdown options in One UI 8 DeX Redesigned app drawer in One UI 8's DeX Redesigned notifications tray in One UI 8's DeX Redesigned Quick Settings tray in One UI 8's DeX Redesigned recents menu in One UI 8's DeX While Samsung might add some classic features back in future updates, there's no guarantee. One thing is certain, however: Samsung won't be returning to its old DeX implementation. However, assuming Google commits to its desktop Android plans, the future for the new version of DeX looks bright. Got a tip? Talk to us! Email our staff at Email our staff at news@ . You can stay anonymous or get credit for the info, it's your choice.
