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Site123 website builder review

TechRadar Reviews - Fri, 09/05/2025 - 10:04

Site123 ranks on our list of the best free website builders and for good reason. The platform is as easy as - well, 123 - making it ideal for those that want to get online quickly such as small businesses or affiliate marketers that want to start driving traffic right away.

However, those looking for more advanced tools may find the platform a little limiting. In this review, we get hands on with Site123, helping you gather all the insight and information you need to decide whether it is the best website builder for you.

As you start exploring, you’re asked to define the main function of your site… (Image credit: Site123)

Click on the service’s welcome page’s ‘Start here’ to grab yourself 250MB of storage, 250MB of bandwidth a month and your first design decision: what type of website do you want to create? You have to choose from one of sixteen options, from Business, to Online Store, Blog, Music, and Creativity, amongst others.

Many options are available to customise the various sections (Image credit: Site123)Interface

Once your site is created, you’ll be graced with a large preview of the template Site123 has designed for you. As you’d expect, it’s fully customisable, and you can even delete those pages and start afresh.

Click on some placeholder text to change it. The selection box has a couple of white squares which are used to resize your text, Some basic formatting tools appear above, while more detailed options are presented to the left of the screen. You could for instance select to animate your selection, browse through a list of various styles, or choose from one of hundreds of available fonts.

That part is easy. Others can be frustrating. Click on the ‘gear’ icon for instance. This reveals the various Background Settings of your selected page. You’ll be graced with 25 tiny preview thumbnails of the same image altered in some minor way. It’s impossible to see clearly what each of them offers, and it’s really best to click on them in turn, to see what they look like as they’re implemented in the main preview section of the interface.

Add as many pages as you like.... (Image credit: Site123)Building pages

Expanding your site is a simple matter of clicking on the Pages menu and choosing to add additional ones. You’ll find a long list of categories, with various templates within each. These include Music, Testimonials, Articles, Events and Blog. Click on the style you’re interested in, and it’ll be automatically added at the bottom of your site.

One thing to bear in mind though: pages aren’t technically pages; they’re more like sections, each added under the other. This means your site is actually one giant scrolling page, and the more sections you add to it, the longer it becomes.

You’re also not limited to a single type of the above pages: you could have multiple blogs, galleries and e-commerce pages within the same website should you so choose. As long as you give them different names, it won’t get too confusing in the navigation menu.

And reorder them with ease (Image credit: Site123)

That menu, locked at the top of the page, just takes you straight to these various sections, but you can also scroll up or down to get to where you want to go. Reordering sections is a simple matter of dragging their handle from the sidebar and repositioning them elsewhere.

However the more you populate your site, the more confusing it can get, especially as you add more posts to your blogs or additional photos in your galleries. Although the customisation invites complexity and numerous sections, we wouldn’t recommend you go too crazy, and limit your design to just a handful of them.

Site123 features

Looking at the blog options, the design will feel familiar to anyone who’s used a word processor. Click on the blog section’s ‘Edit’ button to see all posts already created. You’ll see that a few are already there - examples to show you how the blog looks like and works. Click on them to edit them, or just get rid and start anew. You can add images and videos, include tags and a featured image. It’s all pretty easy and straightforward, enabling you to get started in no time at all.

The ecommerce features are easy to use, customize and make your own (Image credit: Site123)

What stands out the most about Site123 is its ecommerce abilities. While there’s plenty of web builders out there with the ability to create your own store (like Jimdo, Fasthosts, and SimpleSite), not many web hosts have ecommerce options that are so flexible and easy to customise.

You can add new items, create new categories, highlight the fact some products are new or for sale, etc. The free version of the service only allows your customers to pay by bank transfer, cash on delivery, check, money order, in person, or by phone. The more vital features for an online business, like PayPal, AmazonPay, or Stripe, amongst others, can only be accessed if you upgrade to the ‘Premium’ plan.

Site 123 gives you a free ‘temporary subdomain’ to publish your site to, but it’s as far from memorable as you can get - just a series of random letter and numbers, followed by ‘.site123.me'. If you want a more catchy URL, or if you already have one and would like to link your site to it, you have to pay for the privilege.

Plans and pricingSite123 pricing and plans

Plan

Price

Free

$0/month

Premium

$12.80/month

Site123 has two main web hosting plans on their website. They also offer a 14 day money-back guarantee, so you can easily test Site123 to see if it’s right for you. Here’s a quick overview of both of them:

As its name implies, ’Free' comes with no charge. This option grants you 250MB of storage, 250MB of bandwidth, and one subdomain. Best if all, there’s no credit card required to sign up for it. This plan works best for those just starting on their online journey.

‘Premium’ is $12.80 per month. It includes your own domain name (for the first year), 10GB of storage space, 5GB of bandwidth, grants you more advanced ecommerce capabilities, and removes ‘Site123’ branding. This plan is great for small business, entrepreneurs, and freelancers who want more storage space and enjoy having their own domain.

Site123 review: Final verdict

Overall, Site123 is easy to use. Although somewhat limited, your customisation options are clear and easy to implement. The main preview of your website as you create it and experiment works great, but the layout options don’t favour a complex site with too many sections. If your needs are simple, and want something that looks good with little effort, Site123 is worth checking out.

Categories: Reviews

The Iniu P50-E1 power bank has earned pride of place in my everyday carry – here's why I love this speedy portable charger

TechRadar Reviews - Thu, 09/04/2025 - 23:45

Iniu P50-E1 power bank review

I rely on a power bank daily, and while there are plenty of compact models available, very few can keep up with the high-speed charging modern phones and portable gaming devices demand.

And that’s where the Iniu P50-E1 comes in. At 83 x 52 x 26mm (3.27 × 2.05 × 1.02 in), it’s very compact, and the 160-gram (0.353 lb) weight won't bog you down. It has a 10,000mAh capacity (36Wh) – enough for one or two phone charges (depending on the phone), or it can give a 50Wh Steam Deck an extra 55% or so charge.

This shows the size of the Iniu P50-E1 compared to the Pixel 10 Pro XL (Image credit: Future / Lindsay Handmer)

The P50 stands out from other compact power banks thanks to the 45W output that supports PPS (Programmable Power Supply, the standard used by many phones for rapid charging) from 5V to 11V and up to 4.8A. It’s aimed at those who want super-fast phone charging, and it can hit the speedy 45W charge rates that models like the Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra support. It can also quick-charge handheld gaming machines, though not at the full 65W some can handle.

That said, because the P50 has a maximum output of 15V, some devices that need higher voltages won’t charge at full speed. For example, the P50 only reaches around 27W on the Pixel 10 Pro XL, versus the possible 39W on a charger that supports higher PPS voltages.

But perhaps most importantly, does the P50 actually do what it says on the box? Many power banks make bold claims, but in real-world testing they don't live up to the hype. I do comprehensive testing to verify charge voltages, confirm protocol support and log capacity tests.

For high-speed phone charging, the P50 outputs 32Wh of the 36Wh available. This means 13.5% is lost during conversion, which is a better-than-average result. I will note, however, that while it will happily run full pelt for more than enough time to max out a phone's charge rate, on a laptop, it slows from 45W down to 30W after 10 minutes to help avoid overheating the power bank. Charging at the max output until empty gives 29Wh, which is also a better-than-average result.

A close comparison is the excellent 10,000mAh 4Smarts power bank. The latter measures 77 x 56 x 26 mm (3.03 × 2.20 × 1.02 in), weighs 200g (0.441 lb), and also has a 45W output. It produces 27Wh at max wattage and 30Wh at 20W – not quite as good as the P50. Compared to the Iniu, the 4Smarts also gets warmer under load, lacks a USB-A port, and ultimately costs more, making the P50 a clear winner on value and features.

The Iniu P50-E1 has dual USB-C input / outputs, plus a handy USB-A port (Image credit: Future / Lindsay Handmer)

The P50 comes with a short cable integrated into a lanyard. It’s actually quite a neat solution – robust yet easy to remove. I spent considerable time swirling the P50 by the lanyard on a finger, and it didn't go flying off, so I rate it as fidget-worthy.

The unit also has a basic digital capacity display, which is fairly accurate and makes it easy to see how much power remains at a glance. It also has a little lightning bolt to show when the power bank is fast charging. You don’t get any other indicators, though, like charge current or power.

The soft-touch plastic feels nice in the hand, but it is easy to scratch – especially the glossy section over the screen. In comparison, I have an Iniu B6 that has been rattling around in my bag for over 2 years now that uses the same construction. It has plenty of little marks, but it’s only cosmetic and the construction is very strong. So I am confident the P50 will also hold up long term.

Overall, the Iniu P50-E1 is a very compact, lightweight power bank that offers very fast phone charging and can top up many laptops in a pinch.

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The P50 can charge 3 devices at once, but not as fast as if only charging one. (Image credit: Future / Lindsay Handmer)Image 2 of 5

The power bank has a handy display that shows the remaining capacity. (Image credit: Future / Lindsay Handmer)Image 3 of 5

While not super thin, the P50 is very easily slipped into a pocket. (Image credit: Future / Lindsay Handmer)Image 4 of 5

The Iniu P50-E1 includes a short USB-C cable that works as a carry lanyard. (Image credit: Future / Lindsay Handmer)Image 5 of 5

The USB-C cable has a plastic clip that holds it securely in plus, yet is easy to release. (Image credit: Future / Lindsay Handmer)Iniu P50-E1: Price & specs

You can buy the P50 directly from Iniu, Amazon, or various other marketplaces like eBay, though it isn't typically found in brick-and-mortar stores.

List price is $32.99 / £32.99 / AU$56.46, but it's often sold at much less during sale events, so it's well worth waiting for a discount if you don't need it right away.

The power bank has a class-leading 3-year warranty, giving extra peace of mind if you do happen to run into an issue.

Spec

Value

Price

$32.99 / £32.99 / AU$56.46

Capacity

10,000mAh / 36Wh / 3.6V

Single Port Output

45W

Number of Ports

USB-C

2x in/out

USB-A

Dimensions

83 x 52 x 26mm (3.27 × 2.05 × 1.02 in)

Weight (measured)

160g (0.353 lb)

Phone Charges

1 to 2 times

Iniu P50-E1: Test results

The P50-E1 gives excellent results for such a compact power bank. Iniu has matched the cells well to the output and used an efficient voltage converter, so overall the power bank gives above-average results.

Test

Usable Capacity

Efficiency

Score

45W phone charging

32.1 Wh

89.2%

4 / 5

45W sustained

28.9 Wh

80.3%

3.5 / 5

20W

32.5 Wh

90.3%

4.5 / 5

10W

33.9 Wh

94.2%

4.5 / 5

Laptop charging

31.3 Wh

86.9%

4 / 5

One thing to note: if you are using multiple ports at once, they are limited to a max of 7.5W each and 15W total. This means if you want to quickly top up a device, make sure it’s the only one plugged into the P50.

The included short USB-C lanyard cable is e-marked for 5A (USB 2.0 data speeds) so it can happily handle the P50-E1’s full 45W output. Keep in mind that if using another cable, make sure it is 5A-rated, as a typical 3A cable won’t always allow you to unlock the P50’s full potential.

When pushed hard with a sustained maximum output until empty (when charging a laptop), the P50 reached a warm but not problematic 45°C (113°F), while phone charging only saw it reach 33°C (91°F).

My advice: feel free to charge your phone with the P50 tucked in a bag, but give it some open air when charging a laptop to help with heat.

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The Iniu P50-E1 outputs typical charge voltages but is limited to 15V (Image credit: Future / Lindsay Handmer)Image 2 of 3

The Iniu P50-E1 supports PD3.0 spec charging at up to 45W. (Image credit: Future / Lindsay Handmer)Image 3 of 3

The included Iniu P50-E1 lanyard cable has an eMarker so supports up to 20V 5A. (Image credit: Future / Lindsay Handmer)

Rated Output Capacity

6200mAh / 5V / 31.5Wh

PPS support

5V - 11V 4.8A

Included cable

IN1 (USB-C)

5V⎓3A; 9V⎓2.22A; 12V⎓1.67A

IN2 (USB-C)

5V⎓3A; 9V⎓2.22A; 12V⎓1.67A

OUT1 (USB-C)

5V⎓3A; 9V⎓3A; 12V⎓3A; 15V⎓3A

OUT2 (USB-C)

5V⎓3A; 9V⎓3A; 12V⎓3A; 15V⎓3A

OUT3 (USB-A)

5V⎓3A; 9V⎓2A; 12V⎓1.5A

Should I buy the Iniu P50-E1?Buy it if…

You need fast phone charging
The 45W output on the P50 is ideal for quick top-ups.

You want a very compact power bank
The Iniu P50 has one of the best capacity-to-weight ratios going.

Don't buy it if…

Your phone or laptop requires 20V charging
The P50 caps out at 15V, which isn’t enough to get full fast charging on some phones or laptops.

You need to fully charge a laptop
The 36Wh capacity here is not enough to do more than partially top up a laptop.

Also consider

The Iniu P50 is a great fast-charging 10,000 mAh (36Wh) power bank, but below are a few other options if you are looking for something different. For even more recommendations, check out our guide to the best power banks. Or, if you are planning a holiday soon, get a full rundown on the airline rules when traveling with power banks.

Iniu B6 power bank
Need something a little cheaper? With 20W fast-charge capability and a 10,000mAh (37Wh) capacity, the Iniu B6 is the perfect low-cost power bank to slip into your bag when on the go.

Read our full Iniu B6 power bank review

ZMI No.20
This power bank uses premium components, has a large 25,000mAh (90Wh) capacity and is able to fast-charge anything from a phone to a laptop at up to 100W.

Read our full ZMI No.20 review

What's your favorite power bank for everyday carry? Or is there a specific model you think I should test?

Let me know in the comments below.

How I test power banks

I get hands-on with every power bank I test and conduct extensive evaluations in both lab and real-world scenarios. Using tools like the ChargerLab POWER-Z KM003C, I measure charge voltage, check protocol support, and log capacity tests.

Each power bank is also tested with everyday devices, including phones, tablets, and laptops, and is connected to a programmable load tester for multiple charge cycles. I carry a selection daily in both pockets and bags to assess their durability and ability to withstand everyday use.

All measurements and weights are personally verified, ensuring accuracy beyond the manufacturer’s listings. It’s worth noting that many power bank reviews don’t do this sort of testing, so they should be taken with a grain of salt.

Want to know more? Read about how we test.

Categories: Reviews

I spent time with the Samsung Galaxy S25 FE and it absolutely crushes the iPhone 16e in every way that matters

TechRadar Reviews - Thu, 09/04/2025 - 15:40

Samsung Galaxy S25 FE hands-on: Price and availability

(Image credit: Philip Berne / Future)

To understand the Samsung Galaxy S25 FE, you need to know two things. First, it’s a phone for Samsung fans, even if Samsung no longer says FE stands for Fan Edition. Second, it costs only $50 / £50 (AU $TBD) more than the Apple iPhone 16e, but it gives you so much more that it might be a much better value. There are still questions to be answered (Exynos, really?), but the Galaxy S25 FE makes a lot of sense.

I spent an afternoon with the Samsung Galaxy S25 FE – and the new Galaxy Tab S11 Ultra and Tab S11 tablets – and got a feel for what Samsung is cooking with this new bargain model. Actually, it’s only a bargain if you were wishing for a Galaxy S25. It still costs $649 / £649 (Australia price TBD), and Samsung also sells less expensive Galaxy A-series models like the Galaxy A56.

Samsung Galaxy S25 FE hands-on: Galaxy S features

(Image credit: Philip Berne / Future)

Why pine over a Galaxy S25 when the Galaxy A56 is within reach? First of all, the Galaxy S phones have more advanced software. They will usually get OneUI and Android updates first, and they pack more features, especially Samsung DeX, one of my favorite tricks that Samsung phones can pull.

Enter the Galaxy S25 FE! Like the Galaxy S25, it runs the latest software, and it will even be the debut device for Samsung’s new OneUI 8 version of Android 16. If you’re a Samsung fan, you can check out the latest interface design first on the S25 FE.

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(Image credit: Philip Berne / Future)Image 2 of 5

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(Image credit: Philip Berne / Future)Image 5 of 5

(Image credit: Philip Berne / Future)

Like the Galaxy S24 FE, the S25 FE can also run DeX. That means you can connect the phone to a USB-C hub with a monitor, keyboard and mouse attached and it will turn into a sort of desktop environment, with multiple windows and a real taskbar like you’d expect from a Google Chromebook.

Of course, I didn’t have a monitor and keyboard on hand during my time with the new phones; I mostly got to check out the latest OneUI 8 and the overall design. The Galaxy S25 FE is really more like a Galaxy S25 Plus. The screen is the same size, and this year so is the battery within: a 4,900 mAh cell that should provide excellent longevity. I’ll know more once I’ve reviewed the phone and Future Labs has tested it.

Samsung Galaxy S25 FE hands-on: Design

(Image credit: Philip Berne / Future)

The Galaxy S25 FE and S25 Plus aren’t exactly the same. The FE is slightly chunkier in every direction, but not so much bigger that it’s cumbersome. It’s only a tenth of a millimeter thicker, according to Samsung. My calipers aren’t so precise.

The colors are… boring. Very, very boring. There is blue, black, blue, and white. Seriously, there are two blue colors: Icyblue and Navy blue. I remember when the FE phones used to be more colorful, but this year’s Galaxy Z Fold 7 FE is glossy black and white, and the flat S25 FE only adds dark and light shades of blue. Sigh.

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(Image credit: Philip Berne / Future)

The Galaxy S25 FE is a nice step down for folks who want to save money on a real Galaxy S device, and it’s also an incredible competitor stacked up against Apple’s latest bargain model, the iPhone 16e. If the iPhone 16e seemed a bit dowdy before, the Galaxy S25 FE puts to rest any question that the iPhone isn’t a serious device.

For just a bit more money, the Galaxy S25 FE gives you a much bigger display – 6.7-inches versus 6.1-inches. The Galaxy display has a higher peak brightness, and it can refresh up to 120Hz. Of course, there’s also a much larger battery inside.

Samsung Galaxy S25 FE hands-on: Cameras and specs

(Image credit: Philip Berne / Future)

The Galaxy S25 FE gives you three cameras instead of the questionable single-camera setup on the iPhone 16e, and that includes a real telephoto zoom lens with 3X optical zoom. More importantly, the main 50MP camera uses a sensor that is much larger than the paltry sensor on the iPhone 16e’s 48MP camera.

The Galaxy S25 FE charges as fast as the Galaxy S25 Plus – up to 45W wired if you have the right charger. That’s much faster than the iPhone 16e. Usually, an iPhone has an advantage with magnetic wireless charging, but Apple oddly omitted the magnets from the bargain iPhone, so it doesn’t have the MagSafe leg up on Android phones.

The biggest letdown on the Galaxy S25 FE is the processor. It uses a Samsung Exynos 2400 chipset, which isn’t even the latest Exynos processor. I asked Samsung reps why it doesn’t use the Exynos 2500, but they didn’t have a substantive answer.

There’s a big difference between the Exynos 2400 in the Galaxy S25 FE and the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite for Galaxy chipset in the Galaxy S25. Even the newer Exynos 2500 doesn’t come close to measuring up. The Snapdragon 8 Elite is more than 50% faster than the Exynos 2400, based on single core test results in Future Labs benchmark testing.

Samsung Galaxy S25 FE: The Exynos question

(Image credit: Philip Berne / Future)

In battery testing, a phone like the Galaxy S25 Edge with the Snapdragon inside lasted much longer than a phone like the Galaxy Z Flip 7 with an Exynos 2500 inside, even though the S25 Edge has a smaller battery.

The difference between the Apple A18 chipset in the iPhone 16e and the Exynos 2400 in the Galaxy S25 FE is even more stark. In our benchmark tests, the iPhone completely blows away the Exynos in every test – including single- and multi-core processing, graphics, and real-world tasks.

Does that mean the iPhone 16e will be better for gaming and other processor-intensive tasks than the Galaxy S25 FE? Maybe, but I’ll need to spend more time with the phone to compare it against the iPhone’s performance head-to-head. I’m sure Samsung’s phone will be able to run the latest games, but I may need to dial down graphics settings to achieve the highest frame rate and take advantage of the 120Hz display.

I’ll know more soon once I’ve had more time with this phone, but it still feels like Samsung is making the Galaxy S25 FE for its biggest fans. The phone gets the latest OneUI interface and all of Samsung’s best software features. It has a big display and more cameras than the competition. It’s even more colorful – though that’s not a big win when the competition is literally black and white.

(Image credit: Philip Berne / Future)You might also like...

Categories: Reviews

I tested the Rove R2-4K Dual Pro Dash Cam bundle, and it's great value if you need two in-car cameras

TechRadar Reviews - Thu, 09/04/2025 - 05:44

Rove R2-4K Dual Pro dash cam: two-minute review

Dash cams are becoming increasingly advanced, but their core job is still to capture video. The Rove R2-4K Dual Pro Dash Cam will certainly do that, and is supposedly the company’s most advanced dual-camera model to date, although the conventional design doesn’t suggest that at all – it looks like a no-frills dash cam bundle.

The package consists of a front-facing 4K camera, supplemented by a rear-facing 2K camera. These boast Sony Starvis 2 IMX678 and IMX675 sensors respectively, both of which are common among many of the best dash cams you can buy.

Rove sells the Rove R2-4K Dual Pro Dash Cam in a bundle that comes complete with a 128GB Rove Pro microSD card, and a CPL filter for improving the video quality further.

It’s presented in a box that, like other Rove models, has some of the busiest artwork you’ll ever see on a product. There is much to flag, however, with a bumper crop of features and functions that make the Rove R2-4K Dual Pro Dash Cam appealing for anyone who prefers a model with a more conventional suction-fit design.

While the looks are pretty conventional, inside the camera has lots of decent tech that makes it a solid windshield-mounted workhorse. There’s built-in GPS for recording vital data such as speed, time and date stamps, 5GHz and 2.4GHz Wi-Fi for quick and easy transfer of files up to 30Mbps on the former setting, plus a supercapacitor power supply that offers more efficient operation.

The bundle also features everything you'd expect from a premium dash cam, with 150-degree and 140-degree field-of-view lenses, loop recording, high dynamic range capability, Sony’s Starvis 2 Night Vision, motion detection, and 24-hour parking surveillance. The latter does require an additional hardwire kit to work, however.

Along with features including voice commands, and easy compatibility with both iPhone and Android handsets via the Rove app, you also get free over-the-air updates on tap that should keep the dash cams up to date for a good while. It’s worth noting, especially considering that this model shoots 4K, which produces larger files, that the download speed is Rove’s fastest – 30Mbps is a definite improvement compared to the Dual non-Pro model that offers 20Mbps, although I’ve tried the Rove R3, and found it to offer similar transfer rates to this model.

On top of the solid specification, the other main area of appeal is this dash cam's ease of installation. The front camera comes with a suction-mount bracket, which means it can be easily attached to a windshield and detached whenever needed. The rear-facing camera is a more permanent fixture, with a self-adhesive pad fixing it to the rear window.

(Image credit: Future)

Another bonus is just how quickly the Rove R2-4K Dual Pro can be configured, with USB-C cabling connecting the two units together. Both cameras can be run off a standard in-vehicle 12V power source, or be hard-wired as mentioned above.

Inside the box you'll find everything needed to get up and running, save for the optional hardwire kit. The package includes the two cameras, a long USB-C power cable, 128GB microSD card, CPL filter, windshield suction mount, 3M sticky mounting pads, lens cleaning cloth and an assortment of cables and clips, along with a trim tool for fixing everything firmly into place.

Rove R2-4K Dual Pro dash cam: price and availability

The Rove R2-4K Dual Pro Dash Cam is available now from the Rove website priced at $349.99 (about £260) for a bundle that includes a microSD card and CPL filter. This is a lot more than the $199.99 (approx £150) non-Pro Dual model that's available via the Rove website, or from Amazon.

It is also, in essence, very similar to the previously released Rove R2-4K Dash Cam without the rear-facing camera unit. That model is still available from the Rove website for $159.99 (about £120) and comes with the same set of features, less the 2K rear unit, which is pretty good value if you only need a single-camera option.

Rove R2-4K Dual Pro dash cam: specsRove R2-4K Dual Pro dash cam specs

Video

Front 4K 3840 x 2160p 30fps; Rear 2K 2560 x 1440p 30fps

Field of view (FOV)

Front 150 degrees / Rear 140 degrees

Storage

MicroSD up to 1TB, Cloud

GPS

Yes

Parking mode

Yes, with constant power cable, not included

App support

Rove app

Dimensions

1.65 x 3.66 x 2.52 inches / 4.91 x 9.29 x 6.4cm

Weight

5.8oz / 164g

Battery

Yes

Rove R2-4K Dual Pro dash cam: Design

The Rove R2-4K Dual Pro Dash Cam isn’t any different to countless other rival models, with a conventional design that offers little in the way of surprises. It’s therefore a good option for anyone wanting to move up from a model with a lowlier specification. The front-facing camera unit is boxy but compact, with dimensions of 1.65 x 3.66 x 2.52 inches / 4.91 x 9.29 x 6.4cm with a weight of 5.8oz / 164 grams and a protruding lens that points towards the windshield. Around at the back, there’s an integral 3-inch IPS colour screen with a row of control buttons underneath. The design is simplistic, but it works to good effect.

(Image credit: Future)

One of the biggest benefits for me is the design of the mount for the Rove R2-4K Dual Pro. Granted, it all looks a little bit clunky due to the extra angled brackets, but the suction cup is a real boon. There’s a circular screw on the back of this that let me stick it to my windshield and remove it just as easily, which I think is super convenient. I frequently move cameras from car to car, and, in this respect, a suction cup mount is the way to go. The rear camera is neat too, with a self-adhesive sticky pad that fixes it to the glass. Meanwhile, the lens can be moved in situ, so it’ll suit a rear screen with any kind of angle.

(Image credit: Future)Rove R2-4K Dual Pro dash cam: Performance

The Rove R2-4K Dual Pro cameras offer fairly standard views of the road ahead and behind, with 150-degree field of view from the front and 140-degree field of view from the rear camera. These work using a standard loop recording process, via H.265 and H.264 video codec, storing video files to the removable microSD card or to any cloud storage setup if preferred using the Wi-Fi connectivity and Rove’s supporting app. I was more than happy with the setup and installation procedure, with the standard formatting of the included 128GB microSD card needed prior to use.

(Image credit: Future)

Everything about this bundle is straightforward and that included the installation thanks to the suction cup mount for the front camera. The rear camera required a little more fiddling about, mainly to get the wiring to the front camera tidied away. Once in situ though, the pair performed admirably. I always appreciate a rear screen a dash cam, especially for getting an idea of the view from the lens. The buttons along the bottom were also handy for tweaks and fine-tuning. However, the Rove app that I’ve used before really does offer increased ease of use.

(Image credit: Future)

Up front, the 4K 2160p video is crisp and clear, helped by a 6-layer optical lens, the Sony Starvis 2 chip and 8-megapixel CMOS sensor. The 2K 1440p recording delivered from the 6-layer lens, Sony chip and 5-megapixel CMOS sensor is obviously lesser quality, but it delivers perfectly serviceable footage. Audio levels are good too, offering some context to any incident if it’s ever needed.

Naturally, this model generates larger amounts of content due to the 4K specification, which is where the faster data transfer rate proved really handy. I thought the way the app managed control of files when I wanted to keep anything was as easy as any rival setup I’ve tried. Overall, Rove has everything sorted with this model, though many of its lesser products deliver much the same for a bit less cash.

Should you buy the Rove R2-4K Dual Pro dash cam?

(Image credit: Future)Buy it if...

You need high quality video
This Rove model offers 4K footage from the front and 2K from the rear, which does add value.

A rear screen is preferred
While this model is best managed using the Rove app, it benefits from control buttons and a screen at the rear.

You need all those dash cam trimmings
The Rove R2-4K Dual Pro packs a lot of features, including all-important parking monitoring albeit via a hardwire kit.

Don't buy it if...

You’re only after basic functionality
Rove has lots of other models that do much the same job, so this is a premium price to pay for twin cameras.

You’re after a permanent mount camera
A big plus of the Rove R2-4K Dual Pro is its suction-cup fitment but choose a self-adhesive pad mount if more permanent fixture is preferred.

Large files are too much faff
The 4K functionality delivers bigger files, but if you’re after minimal file management then choose a lower specification rival.

How I tested the Rove R2-4K Dual Pro Dash Cam

I installed the dash cam into a test car for an initial period of two weeks
I used it for a wide variety of journeys during the day and at night
I connected it to my phone and downloaded recordings for comparison

Rove sent me the Rove R2-4K Dual Pro bundle box, which contained the twin cameras, plus it had the benefit of an included 128GB microSD card and CPL filter. They also supplied the optional hardwire kit.

The twin cameras were installed in a test vehicle that I was road testing at the time, which allowed me to try out all the features and functions. This didn’t include the hardwiring option, however, as the car had to be handed back.

Fitment required that all the supplied cables had to be plumbed in around the car, being pushed back behind trim panels where needed using the supplied plastic tool. This allowed me to check that everything would reach, especially where power to the rear camera was concerned.

First reviewed August 2025

Categories: Reviews

Suri 2.0 Sustainable Sonic Toothbrush review: Upgraded to clean your teeth – and the planet – even better

TechRadar Reviews - Wed, 09/03/2025 - 18:00

Suri 2.0 Sustainable Sonic Toothbrush: One minute review

The Suri 2.0 Sustainable Sonic Toothbrush continues the environmentally-friendly mission of its predecessor, while upgrading everything that could help offer a better brushing experience. The end result is an upgraded model worthy of inclusion in our list of the best electric toothbrusheswith its balance of performance, portability and sustainability.

Suri's mission statement is all about creating a toothbrush that lasts, stopping landfills piling up with disposable plastic brushes. As such, it uses recycled materials in construction, the heads are plant-based and can be recycled – for free by Suri in some countries – and it's made to last.

The sonic brush has a redesigned and strong motor that offers a powerful-yet-gentle 33,000 movements per minute sonic vibration. The pressure sensor detects a user is brushing too hard and lowers the force of the pressure and vibrates subtly so you know to ease off, keeping your gums and teeth safe while also gently training you to brush better.

The case has had a battery added to it, which can charge the brush and also power the UV cleaning light that kills 99.99% of bacteria within one minute. It's a superb feature that helps it compete even against the tech-crammed top-tier toothbrushes like the Oral-B iO Series 10 and the Philips Sonicare DiamondClean 9000.

Once again, this comes with the sticky-backed magnet that lets you mount your brush neatly anywhere in your bathroom.

Suri 2.0 Sustainable Sonic Toothbrush review: Price and availability

(Image credit: Future)

Priced at $135 in the US
£105 in the UK
Australia price yet to be announced

The Suri 2.0 Sustainable Sonic Toothbrush has a launch price in the UK of £105. That puts it only a bit higher than its predecessor which was £95 with the full kit.

The US price at launch is $135. Considering the original model was $116 at launch, with the UV case, this price isn't a big jump up and represents a great value for money amount.

The Australian pricing, at time of publishing, has yet to be announced, but we estimate it'll be around AU$200 based on the prices above.

The company says the brush is made to be easily repaired, so you shouldn't need another for a very long time. Plus, if you do change up, Suri will recycle it all for free.

The heads are sustainable but are still going to wear down, so you'll need to factor in replacement costs. A pack of three new heads will cost you $18.45 / £14.40 / AU$28. That includes fast and free shipping as part of the charge.

Value score: 4.5 / 5

(Image credit: Future)Suri 2.0 Sustainable Sonic Toothbrush review: Specifications

Component

Value

Battery life

40+ days

Sonic vibrations

33,000 per minute

Charging stand

USB

Timer

Yes, two minute with 30-second haptics

Noise

50 dB

Charge time

4 hours

Suri 2.0 Sustainable Sonic Toothbrush review: Design

(Image credit: Future)

Upgraded motor
Aluminium body
Plant-based heads

The design of the Suri 2.0 closely adheres to the sustainable ethos of the company, with plant-based heads, a build comprised of recycled materials and a seeming focus on minimal environmental impact in both short and long term.

You still have that slim aluminium build that feels both comfortable and premium, with durability to last long-term. The base is flat allowing it to stand easily, and offers wireless charging either with the included mount charger, or via the case.

The sticky-backed magnetic mount charger allows the brush to 'float' wherever you choose to stick it, whether that's neatly next to your bathroom mirror or inside a drawer. Short of going on the ceiling, there are very few limitations here. I didn't try it on the ceiling, but the mount was so strong I dare say that would probably work too.

The brush uses brush heads made from cornstarch and castor oil instead of synthetic plastic. These are shaped into a wave-shaped bristle pattern to take care of interdental cleaning, and you also get a return envelope so you can send them back, free of charge in some countries, for recycling.

The new case is a great evolution as it still features a UV-C light to clean the head, but now also packs in a battery so charging can be done anywhere – more on that below.

Design score: 5 / 5

Suri 2.0 Sustainable Sonic Toothbrush review: Features

(Image credit: Future)

40-day battery
Case based charging
UV-C cleaning light

I would describe the 2.0 as a frontrunner when it comes to battery life, even when compared to its more expensive competition. This fast charges in hours and then keeps going for well over a month, in my experience. The company says it's good for 40 days, but I found that my review unit could exceed this, even when brushing twice daily.

The charging case works with a UV light to clean the brush head, tackling 99.99% of harmful bacteria in a single minute. This is a reassuring feature, especially when travelling. On other brushes a quick rinse under the tap is all I could hope for, whereas with the included UV cleaner, I know my brush head is truly clean and safe.

(Image credit: Future)

The case now charges your brush, which was a much-requested feature on the last model that required you to plug the charger in. The charger case offers a good two months of use between charges, even with the UV light being used.

The brush head has a wave design for the best possible cleaning, while the back of the head has a rubberized pattern used for the now-standard tongue cleaning with just the right amount of abrasion.

There are still only two brush modes: Clean or Polish. While that is minimal, it offers strong or sensitive which (in my opinion) is enough. You have a standard two-minute timer with 30-second interval alerts via a gentle haptic vibration, all helping get the ideal clean to achieve a plaque-free finish.

Features score: 4.5 / 5

Suri 2.0 Sustainable Sonic Toothbrush review: Performance

(Image credit: Future)

33,000 sonic vibrations per minute
Superb long battery life
Simple but effective cleaning

When I saw the motor on this was upgraded, I was surprised it still offers the same 33,000 sonic vibrations of the original model. I assumed a better motor meant 'faster'. Yet when I used it, I immediately felt the difference from the original Suri; it felt more deliberate in its delivery of that power, while remaining as sensitive and gentle as the experience I had with the first brush. This is likely thanks to the new pressure sensor that during testing, meant a deeper cleaning experience I couldn't get from the first Suri.

It stays quieter than the first brush at just 50dB compared to 54dB. The case is USB-C friendly so you'll likely be able to use your phone charger during traveling, making this brush very travel-friendly.

Then there's that UV cleaning light, operated via a single button press. In reality you can't see any difference so there is an element of trust in the process. The 2.0 also comes with a cover for the brush heads, which is ideal if you're traveling with a spare. You can also long press the main button to activate a lock or travel mode, so it won't start vibrating in your bag and causing trouble with security.

Suri includes the recycling packaging to send heads back to the company easily. This makes it a more realistic process for most people, as does designing the brush to be easily repaired. This is potentially the last brush you'll ever need to buy, especially as its repairable.

Performance score: 4.5/5

Suri 2.0 Sustainable Sonic Toothbrush: Scorecard

(Image credit: Future)

I tested Insightly CRM and it’s one of the easiest I’ve ever used

TechRadar Reviews - Wed, 09/03/2025 - 09:05

Insightly is a cloud-based Customer Relationship Management (CRM) platform that helps businesses manage contacts, sales pipelines, and projects. Founded in 2009, it is well established as one of the best CRM platforms and serves over 1.5 million users in more than 25,000 organizations worldwide. Insightly targets small to mid-sized businesses and emphasizes affordability.

During my review, I found that Insightly provides a strong set of features, including lead and pipeline management, project tracking, and workflow automation. It aims to give a unified view for handling customer interactions, enhancing team collaboration in sales and marketing.

What distinguishes Insightly is its focus on usability. The company asserts that its interface is easy for beginners while still offering essential features for growing businesses. In this review, I will assess how well Insightly fulfills its promises and analyze its strengths and weaknesses as a CRM.

Insightly CRM core capabilities

Insightly's dashboard is super easy to navigate (Image credit: Insightly)

Insightly enables users to create comprehensive contact records, featuring custom fields, tags, and connections between contacts and organizations. Importing existing contacts and organizing them into categories was straightforward.

The platform includes a flexible pipeline system that can be tailored to various sales processes. I set up multiple pipelines for different products or services, each with unique stages. The drag-and-drop feature for moving opportunities between stages offered an intuitive visual representation of deal progress.

Real-time visibility into the sales pipeline allowed me to quickly evaluate the health of my sales funnel. I could filter and sort opportunities by criteria like value, probability, or expected close date. Insightly also provides pre-built reports and the option to create custom ones. The dashboard was particularly beneficial, enabling me to visualize key metrics at a glance.

The mobile app, compatible with iOS and Android, grants access to most core features. During CRM testing, I updated contact details, managed tasks, and captured business cards using my smartphone. However, some advanced features were missing, which might restrict field users who depend on mobile access, such as sales reps who spend a lot of time on the road - something that's more and more common with the rise of hybrid work.

In addition to its CRM capabilities, Insightly serves as a project management tool. This allows for a smooth transition from opportunity to project after a deal closes. The platform offers plugins for popular email clients like Gmail and Outlook, enabling users to sync emails and calendar events. Insightly’s workflow tools automate repetitive tasks, send notifications, and update records based on set triggers. Although creating complex workflows required initial effort, they significantly enhanced efficiency once in place.

Nonetheless, Insightly’s social media integration features need enhancement. While it provides basic social profile linking, it lacks advanced social listening and engagement tools found in some other CRMs. Additionally, the useful workflow automation is only included in higher-priced plans. Although there is a built-in dialer and call routing for phone-based sales teams, these features are only available as paid add-ons.

How easy is Insightly CRM to use?

Insightly has carefully considered how best to present essential sales data to its users (Image credit: Insightly)

Insightly is a standout in the CRM world for its user-friendly design. As soon as I logged in, the clean interface made me feel at ease. The customizable dashboard lets me arrange widgets and data visualizations to prioritize the most important information for my workflow.

Navigating modules is simple thanks to a clear menu structure that helps me quickly locate what I need. The consistent layout across sections lessened the learning curve as I explored features beyond the main dashboard. I especially valued the quick access to recent items and favorites, which made my daily tasks much smoother.

Beyond the customizable dashboard, creating custom fields, pipelines, and workflows is quick and easy. This level of flexibility means Insightly can evolve with my business, which is vital for long-term use.

The onboarding process is well-organized, featuring guided tours and tooltips that introduce key features while I explore the platform. Insightly also has a thorough knowledge base, video tutorials, and webinars covering everything from basic functions to advanced features. I found these resources to be informative, straightforward, and easy to navigate.

Within a few hours, I felt at ease managing contacts, tracking opportunities, and generating basic reports. More complex tasks, like setting up automated workflows or customizing advanced reports, took longer to learn but were still manageable without extensive training.

But while it is generally user-friendly, some users may find certain advanced features less intuitive. For instance, the relationship mapping feature, although powerful, required some trial and error. Setting up complex automation rules also needed a closer look at the documentation. Nonetheless, my overall experience regarding ease of use remained positive.

Insightly CRM integrations

Insightly makes it simple to connect your CRM with all the other business tools you use (Image credit: Insightly)

Insightly features the AppConnect hub for third-party integrations, providing numerous pre-built connectors for popular business tools. Users can link Insightly with finance, ERP, marketing, HR, and other vital applications. Setting up integrations with Slack, Google Apps, and Microsoft Outlook was straightforward.

The platform offers plugins for both Gmail and Outlook, enabling direct syncing of emails and calendar events with the CRM. It also works with sales and marketing automation tools like MailChimp, Gong, Drift, and ZoomInfo. For ecommerce, connections are available with Shopify, Magento, and WooCommerce. These integrations use an intuitive no-code platform, allowing easy setup of custom workflows without technical expertise.

For businesses needing complex integrations, Insightly offers access to its REST API. This open API supports custom integrations with nearly any system, providing flexibility for unique workflows or proprietary software. Advanced use cases become possible, such as connecting Power BI to Insightly via the API for detailed analyses and visualizations of CRM data.

Larger organizations benefit from Insightly's integration with single sign-on (SSO) tools like the identity management solutions OneLogin, AuthO, and Okta Identity Management. This feature enhances security, data protection, and identity management while linking to preferred third-party applications, boosting productivity. This advantage is not fully utilized by many other CRMs.

One area for improvement is social media integration. While the platform allows basic social profile linking, it lacks advanced social listening and engagement features found in some competing CRMs. However, Insightly can connect with an iPaaS vendor like Zapier for more advanced social media integrations.

How good is Insightly's customer support?

When it comes to customer support, Insightly offers a mix of self-service resources and direct assistance channels. But during my evaluation, I found lots of room for improvement in the support system, especially when it comes to the live communication options available to entry-level users. Issues like long wait times, insufficient product knowledge, and inactive community forums further accentuate this problem.

In the absence of 24/7 live support, Insightly’s primary customer service channel is by email. However, its response times can vary, which makes it unreliable during a busy workday. Thankfully, phone support is available between 9 AM - 4 PM PT on weekdays for regular users. On the other hand, the self-service knowledge base covers a wide range of topics, from basic setup instructions to more advanced features and troubleshooting guides. I found the articles to be clear and easy to follow, often accompanied by screenshots or video tutorials.

For users willing to pay extra for premium live support, Insightly offers the Guided Onboarding Program and the Premier Support and Success Plan. While the former costs $1,500 one-time, the latter is priced upwards of $3,000/year. User testimonials reveal the quality of support received to be quite good, but it’s unfortunate to have to pay thousands of additional dollars each year for some features that competitors are offering free of cost, such as integration and developer support.

Insightly CRM pricing and plans

Plan

Plus

Professional

Enterprise

Price

$29/user/month

$49/user/month

$99/user/month

Best for

Small businesses needing basic CRM functionality

Growing companies requiring automation and advanced permissions

Large organizations needing unlimited storage and customization

Features

Custom email templates; Lead management; Basic reporting

Workflow automation; Role-based permissions; Lead assignment rules

Unlimited records; Unlimited storage; Custom objects

Limitations

Limited automation capabilities and storage

Some advanced features only available at higher tiers

Higher cost may be prohibitive for smaller businesses

Insightly CRM's pricing is clear and structured, accommodating different business sizes and requirements. Currently, there are three main pricing tiers: Plus, Professional, and Enterprise, all billed monthly per user. The platform also used to offer one of the best free CRM plans, but this is no longer available.

The Plus plan costs $29 per user per month when billed annually. This plan is suitable for small teams or new businesses using CRM. It includes essential features like lead and pipeline management, custom email templates, and basic reporting. However, it lacks advanced features like workflow automation and lead assignment rules.

The Professional plan costs $49 per user per month, offering more advanced features. This tier includes workflow automation, lead assignment rules, and configurable dashboards. For businesses with complex sales processes or those looking to grow, this plan balances features and cost well.

The Enterprise plan at $99 per user per month when billed annually is Insightly's most comprehensive choice. It offers advanced features like advanced permissions, custom objects, and API access. While it may be too much for smaller organizations, it provides the scalability and customization that larger enterprises or rapidly growing businesses may require.

Insightly offers a 14-day free trial for all plans but does not provide a money-back guarantee. For users needing more than a CRM, Insightly All-in-One combines CRM, Marketing, Service, and AppConnect, with a 30% discount compared to separate purchases. Although I did not find specific discount codes, choosing annual billing results in a slight discount compared to monthly billing.

Insightly CRM FAQWould Insightly CRM be better for a small business or a larger one?

Insightly is generally best suited for small to mid-sized businesses. While it offers robust features, some users have reported that it may be less ideal for large enterprises with very complex workflows or a need for deep customization.

For instance, larger enterprises often make use of a massive volume of data, and Insightly's plans have specific limits on records, storage, and API calls. While the Enterprise plan offers a higher capacity, it may still not be sufficient for companies with hundreds of thousands or even millions of records. These limitations can hinder growth and require significant data management.

Does Insightly CRM have a mobile app?

Well aware of the hybrid work trend, Insightly does have a mobile app for both iOS and Android. This allows users to access and manage their CRM data on the go. However, some users note that the app may not have offline access.

What are Insightly's security credentials like?

Insightly is SOC 2 Type II certified and offers security features such as data encryption, single sign-on (SSO), two-factor authentication, and role-based permissions. It is also GDPR-compliant.

What is the onboarding like for Insightly CRM?

Insightly offers a structured and comprehensive onboarding process designed to help new users and teams get up and running quickly. The approach is a mix of self-service resources and paid, hands-on guidance, catering to different needs and budgets.

For new users who prefer to learn at their own pace, Insightly provides a wealth of self-service resources. This is typically the first point of contact after signing up for a trial or a new account. Alternatively, businesses that require a more personalized and hands-on approach can opt for Insightly's "Guided Onboarding Plan" in exchange for a one-time fee. This is a collaborative process where you work directly with an Insightly specialist.

Insightly CRM review: Summary

From my experience with Insightly, it is a reliable choice for small to medium-sized businesses looking for a user-friendly and feature-rich CRM. The platform offers strong core capabilities, with a quick interface that creates a seamless experience.

Insightly's easy-to-use interface and customization options enhance its attractiveness, making it suitable for both beginners and experienced users. While customer support is adequate, there is room for improvement, especially in response times. Additionally, the lack of advanced social media integrations without using Make or Zapier is a notable drawback.

Overall, Insightly is a capable CRM dedicated to providing a good user experience. It may not match enterprise-level solutions like HubSpot CRM or Salesforce, but it certainly earns a spot as one of the best small business CRM platforms on the market.

Categories: Reviews

Everybody's Golf Hot Shots is one of the series' better entries, even if its characters are a tad annoying

TechRadar Reviews - Wed, 09/03/2025 - 09:00

Everybody's Golf Hot Shots is the latest entry in the beloved casual sports franchise. Developer Hyde (Digimon Survive) is taking over from stalwart Clap Hanz here, but it nonetheless retains the series' captivating charm.

Review information

Platform reviewed: PS5
Available on: PS5, Nintendo Switch, PC
Release date: September 5, 2025

If you've felt let down by the recent run of Mario Golf entries and aren't keen on more sim-like titles such as PGA Tour 2K25, then Everybody's Golf Hot Shots occupies a satisfying middle ground. It's a more fulfilling and content-rich outing than, say, Mario Golf: Super Rush, but also has plenty of shotcraft depth. Wrapped in a pleasingly colorful art style, it's almost a best of both worlds situation.

Right out of the box, Everybody's Golf Hot Shots packs tens - if not hundreds - of hours of content. There's a boatload of characters to unlock, courses to play on, and a variety of balls, clubs, costumes, and caddies to gradually add to your roster. Throw in some party-esque modes like Wacky Golf, and you have a game that's suitable for both solo and social play. And yes, both offline and online multiplayer are supported here.

That's not to say there aren't a few bogeys to contend with, however, particularly when it comes to progression. There are around 30 characters to play as in Hot Shots, with just two playable at the start. You'll have to unlock the rest, and while that's no bad thing in isolation, you'll also need to level up each character individually to gain access to their skills, costumes, and ancillary items. When you're only getting one or two levels per 9 or 18-hole run, you'll realize that progression feels like it's stuck in the rough.

Characters, despite having plenty of charming and high-quality animations associated with them, can also be very annoying. Voice lines are at a premium here, so you'll be hearing the same four to five quips on every single hole. At least you can turn voices off in the options menu.

Tee time

(Image credit: Bandai Namco)

There are two big single-player modes in Everybody's Golf Hot Shots. Challenge Mode is broken down into ascending ranks, with each offering 9-18 hole events under a variety of conditions. These can include differing times of day and specific rule sets.

These special rules can be quite fun, and range from casual-friendly modifiers like 'tornado' cups, which magnetize the ball towards it, to rather devilish ones like increasing stroke penalties for hitting hazards like the rough or bunkers. But my favorite has to be the 'impossible pin' rule, which ups the challenge by placing the pin in deliberately awkward spots on the green.

Completing these events increases your rank gauge, and when it's full, you can progress to the next tier and face off against an unlockable golfer.

Challenge Mode should be your first port of call, as it will aid in unlocking scenarios for the other main single-player mode: World Tour. This is a more story-focused mode, presenting simple cutscenes and challenges for the game's cast of golfers. This is also where you'll be able to unlock them as permanent additions to the roster - and thankfully, you typically only have to clear a golfer's first challenge to get them.

You've also got traditional and highly customizable match and stroke play modes, where you get full freedom in choosing course, time of day, weather conditions, and those aforementioned special rules. Then, there's solo play if you just fancy practicing your drive alone.

Wacky Golf is another great, party-centric addition that throws traditional golf rules out of the window. During Wacky Golf, you'll witness things like clubs swapping between opponents, randomized rule sets, and full-on explosives that'll send your ball unpredictably flying. It's great fun, and a suitably Mario Party-esque take on the standard golf formula.

Call me Albert Ross

(Image credit: Bandai Namco)

Of course, heaps of content would mean nothing if the act of golfing wasn't fun to engage with. And thankfully, Everybody's Golf Hot Shots offers some of the series' most satisfying play. The three-button-press system returns here, and is very casual-friendly. Simply hit the button once to begin charging shot power, again to lock that power in, and then one more time to hit the ball.

Best bit

(Image credit: Bandai Namco)

Everybody's Golf Hot Shots really nails the feeling of a perfect drive. Animation and sound design come together to create the perfect feedback here, meaning your best shots always feel incredibly satisfying. The same goes for chip-ins and hole-in-ones, which the game celebrates appropriately with awesome replays.

There are nuances within, though. You'll need to time the hit carefully in order to ensure the ball doesn't veer off course in the air. On top of that, you'll have wind to contend with, and you can add top, back, and side spin to further influence the ball's travel and carry. The ball's lie (or how sloped the surface it's resting on is) will also impact its trajectory, so accounting for this is crucial, especially on the trickier courses.

Putting can also be tricky, albeit in a satisfyingly challenging way. You do get some friendly assistance here via a grid on the green that highlights whether your shot will be uphill, downhill, or flat, as well as if it'll veer off to the left or right. Once again, accounting for this can be all the difference between birdie, par, or the dreaded bogey.

You will find that most of the game's initial characters feel quite weak in terms of their drive distance and stats like impact and spin effectiveness. This is by design, and you may even struggle to get birdies on a par 4 hole. But in theory, I like the style of progression here. These 'weaker' characters are a bit easier to handle, more predictable, thus allowing the player to get a better grasp on golfing as a whole.

You can also permanently improve a golfer's stats by purchasing food items from the main menu's shop. Food, as well as club and ball selection, will influence your stats and means that you can eventually make a beast out of your favorite golfer and caddy pairing.

Stuck in the sand

(Image credit: Bandai Namco)

I say 'in theory' earlier in regards to progression because while I like the general structure, improving any given character's capabilities is a frustratingly glacial process. Characters and caddies will have their loyalty levels improve as you complete courses and challenges with them. However, you'll mostly be getting just one or two levels at a time. And with full courses taking anywhere from 15-30 minutes to complete, the pace of improvement slows to a crawl.

It sucks because said progression is the most efficient way of unlocking new items in the shop, including costumes, clubs, balls, perk-like stickers for your caddy, and so on. You'll need to be in it for the long haul and have some patience with Everybody's Golf Hot Shots, then. Thankfully, the core game always feels excellent to play, but it's an experience best played in short bursts, in my experience.

Although the experience is somewhat tarnished by grating voice lines, and game performance isn't always up to par. For example, hitting a perfect shot can awkwardly freeze the game for a moment before connecting with the ball. Furthermore, the frame rate can dip to as low as 30fps while you watch the ball travel to its destination.

These small blemishes aside, as well as a rather big bugbear in the slow progression, Everybody's Golf Hot Shots is an easy game to love. While the usual series developer isn't behind this one, Hyde seems to fully understand its loveable fundamentals and has created a fulfilling and long-lasting golfing experience, so long as you're the patient type.

Should you play Everybody's Golf Hot Shots?Play it if...

You want the best casual golf game in years
Handily putting Mario Golf in its place and giving sim-heavy titles something to think about, Everybody's Golf Hot Shots marries a charming visual style with in-depth golfing gameplay.

You want a metric ton of content
There are plenty of courses, characters, costumes, and more to unlock in Everybody's Golf Hot Shots. It's a game that could potentially last you years if you're after an all-in-one golf game.

Don't buy it if...

You prefer much faster progression
If you can't get used to the slow rate at which you unlock things in Hot Shots, then this may be one to miss. Especially as you'll spend your first 10-20 hours with incredibly basic characters and gear.

Accessibility

Everybody's Golf Hot Shots is light in the accessibility department, but there are some handy options to make note of. The 'gimme putt' setting will automatically putt the ball past bogey if it's close enough to the hole. Plus, there are various styles of shot gauge if you're having trouble with the default three-point button system.

How I reviewed Everybody's Golf Hot Shots

I played Everybody's Golf Hot Shots for 12 hours for this review. I played on PlayStation 5, primarily using the DualSense Wireless Controller. During play, I mainly tackled Challenge Mode and World Tour to rank up and unlock various things such as characters, courses, and costumes.

I also spent some time in standard stroke and match play, as well as Wacky Golf, to get a general feel of all modes and the game's performance across its many courses.

First reviewed August 2025

Categories: Reviews

I time-travelled to save the world in Cronos: The New Dawn and it felt like going back two decades to play Dead Space again

TechRadar Reviews - Wed, 09/03/2025 - 09:00

A few hours into Cronos: The New Dawn, I saw it. A corpse slumped against the wall, a message scrawled in blood above him: “Don’t let them merge”. If it wasn’t already clear that the latest survival horror game from Bloober Team was drawing from some of the genre's greats, that warning, a nod to “cut off their limbs” seen in equally foreboding lines of jagged crimson in Dead Space, hammered the point home as subtly as a boot stomp to the skull.

Review info

Platform reviewed: PS5
Available on: PS5, Xbox Series X, Xbox Series S, PC, Nintendo Switch 2, Mac
Release date: September 5, 2025

A feeling of déjà vu was a running theme in my time playing through Cronos. Here’s the main character, gun hoisted high in Leon S. Kennedy’s iconic pose from Resident Evil 4. Here are my limited crafting resources straight out of The Last of Us, ones I must choose to make either ammo or health items. Here are my gravity boots, pinched from Isaac Clarke’s locker on the USG Ishimura.

It’s perfectly fine to be influenced by other works, especially when they are as iconic and genre-defining as the ones I’ve listed above. But when it just feels like you’re retreading the same path with less confidence and not bringing enough new ideas, what’s really the point of it all?

Following in their footsteps

(Image credit: Bloober Team)

Now, that opening may read like I came away massively disappointed by Cronos: The New Dawn. In some aspects, I certainly did. It is painfully derivative in many areas, to the point where it made me question if anything has changed in sci-fi survival horror games in the last 20 years.

But, unsurprisingly, given its influences, it’s also a game that plays well. Combat is tense, shooting is solid, resource management is challenging, exploration is unsettling, and the environments drip with atmosphere. And there are kernels of ideas that, if only they were more fully realised or executed better, could have elevated the game beyond a decent – if standard – survival horror.

Let’s start with the premise: you play as the Traveler, an undefined being encased in a cross between a spacesuit and a diving suit. The game starts as you're activated by a mysterious organisation known as The Collective and told to travel through time to extract important survivors after an apocalyptic infection dubbed the ‘Change’ turns most people on Earth into grotesque and amalgamated monstrosities.

The nexus point of the disaster is Poland in the 1980s, which at least makes for a unique setting that’s far from the spaceships and abandoned mining planets we usually find ourselves stomping around. There’s an inventiveness to the world design, too, which not only sees the infestation overrun dilapidated buildings, roads, and subways with a gloopy and pulsating biomass, but also fractures entire structures to create floating, twisted, and mind-bending new forms.

Add to that violent sandstorms and heavy snowfall, and safe to say, it’s not a pleasant stroll. I had to seriously pluck up some courage to carefully inch forward in many locations, especially towards the latter half of the game, when everything is so consumed by the effects of the infection and dotted with poisonous pustules that you feel suffocated by it – even if this trap is overplayed a dozen too many times.

Skin-crawling

(Image credit: Bloober Team)

Visually, it is disgusting (in all the right ways), but huge credit has to go to the audio. It masterfully ramps up that oppressive and stomach-churning atmosphere with all sorts of sloshing and wheezing and bubbling that gives a terrifying sense of life to the coagulated mass that surrounds you. One of the best gaming headsets is recommended.

If Cronos was all just trudging through fleshy corridors, then Bloober Team would have smashed it. Unfortunately, other parts of the game don’t excel in the same way and are merely fine or disappointing in comparison.

Combat is one. The gimmick here is that dead enemies remain on the ground and can be assimilated by other creatures to become larger and stronger foes – hence the bloody message of “don’t let them merge”. Fortunately, you come equipped with a torch. Nope, it’s not a bright light, but a burst of flames that can incinerate corpses and stop this merging from taking place.

Best bit

(Image credit: Future)

Cronos: The New Dawn finds its identity more as the game progresses and the section in the Unity Hospital is when the game hits its stride. It’s one of the scariest and creepiest places to explore, as you descend further into the bowels of the building, where the infection has taken even greater hold and you uncover some horrifying secrets about the impact of the Change.

That leads to the main flow of combat. Take down targets with your weapons, then prevent any survivors from merging by setting the bodies ablaze. It’s a setup that can create some tense encounters – ones where you’re busy dealing with one target, only to hear the awful sounds of two bodies smushing together in the distance (shoutout to the audio design again), and knowing there’ll be an even greater threat if you don’t introduce them to the cleansing flames immediately.

The problem is that I could count on one hand the number of times I felt seriously threatened by the risk of enemies merging. Too many encounters had too few enemies, were in too small spaces, or were littered with too many (respawning) explosive barrels, that I could comfortably handle the situation. It was only towards the end of the game when I felt overwhelmed in some encounters, needing to more strategically pick my targets, hurriedly craft ammo on the fly, and regularly reposition to burn dead enemies so they couldn’t merge.

Burn, baby, burn

(Image credit: Bloober Team)

It isn’t a disaster, just a shame that Cronos doesn’t really make the most of its main idea. Instead, the overwhelming feeling I had was that I was just playing Dead Space again, swapping between the limited ammo in my pistol, shotgun, and rifle to blast away everything. Outside of rare encounters, the mechanics of merging and burning feel like massively underused and unimpactful parts of the game.

It’s a common feeling. Take your main objective of ‘rescuing’ the specific survivors. I use quotation marks there because the actual process of saving them is kept ominously vague, and is instead best described as extracting and absorbing their soul to gain the knowledge needed to save humanity.

It’s here when I thought Cronos might step up from its clear inspirations with some fresh ideas. Not only is there a morbid mirroring at play (wait, are we the baddies?), but those other lives bouncing around inside your head lead to all sorts of different visions and hallucinations, depending on the characters you choose to save.

In its cleverest moments, who’s knocking about in your noggin can influence the environment or completely change how you perceive things in the world to create some genuinely spooky moments. Once again, though, outside of less than a handful of instances, this idea isn’t explored any further when it’s rife for some really interesting, exciting, and unique possibilities.

It frustrates and disappoints me more than anything. I really want to be clear that Cronos: The New Dawn isn’t a bad game: it plays fine, looks good enough, and runs well. Although I’d stick to performance mode on consoles if you can to get a smooth 60fps, as the quality mode feels far too jittery.

I just can’t help but feel that with the way it relies so heavily on what worked in classic survival horror games from yesteryear, I may have travelled back two decades myself to play it.

Should I play Cronos: The New Dawn?

(Image credit: Bloober Team)Play it if…

You’re looking for your next survival horror fix
Survival horror fans who are craving a new game will find enough to enjoy here, even if it’s mostly just playing the hits.

You want a different setting and an intriguing story
Signalis this ain’t, but the setting, story, and commentary in Cronos does tickle the brain in new ways, even if some aspects are too enigmatic

Don’t play it if…

You want an action game
This isn’t the bombastic and set-piece rollercoaster of a modern Resident Evil. Cronos is tense, slow, full of dread, and light on ammunition.

You have any aversion to body horror
Cronos relies heavily on body horror for its story, enemy design, and environments, so if you find this overly unsettling, then it’s best to avoid.

Accessibility

Cronos offers a range of standard accessibility options, including three color blind modes for green, red, and blue color blindness, as well as the option to add clear interaction indicators and subtitles in multiple languages that can be fully customised in terms of size and color.

The game has one Normal difficulty setting, with a Hard mode unlocked after you finish the game once. To customise the difficulty, though, you can adjust settings to get a more generous aim assist and alter whether you hold or tap for quick time events.

A center dot can be added to help alleviate motion sickness, while the game also provides options to reduce or turn off camera shake and sway.

How I reviewed Cronos: The New Dawn

I played Cronos: The New Dawn for around 16 hours on a PlayStation 5 Pro on a Samsung S90C OLED TV using a DualSense Wireless Controller. I mainly played in Performance mode, but I also tried Quality mode for a brief time and found the graphical improvements minimal compared to the benefits of a smoother frame rate.

I swapped between playing audio through a Samsung HW-Q930C soundbar and a SteelSeries Arctic Nova 7, and I definitely suggest headphones for the best experience.

I completed the main game and spent a lot of time exploring the environment to uncover as much of the story and as many hidden extras as I could find.

Categories: Reviews

Apptivo CRM review 2025

TechRadar Reviews - Wed, 09/03/2025 - 08:54

Apptivo CRM is a cloud-based customer relationship management platform that aims to provide an all-in-one solution for managing sales, marketing, and customer service.

With a suite of over 65 integrated apps, Apptivo is one of the best CRM platforms on the market and offers a high degree of customization, allowing businesses to tailor the software to their specific needs. It also features very competitive pricing compared to other major CRM providers, with plans starting at just $15/user/month - making it a great CRM for small businesses and startups.

In this in-depth Apptivo review, I'll take a closer look at the platform's features, ease of use, customer support, and overall value to help you determine if it's the right CRM solution for your business. Let's dive in and see how Apptivo stacks up.

Apptivo core capabilities

(Image credit: Apptivo)

Just like any CRM, Apptivo provides contact and account management tools that allow me to store and organize all my customer data in one centralized location. During my first few minutes with the platform, I found it easy to import my existing contacts via CSV file.

Once contacts are in the system, Apptivo makes it simple to track all interactions and communication history. You can log emails, calls, meetings, and notes for each contact. I like how Apptivo pulls in email conversations automatically when synced with Gmail or Outlook, saving the manual work of logging those touchpoints.

I can also automate lead assignment based on predefined rules, ensuring my sales reps are always working the most promising opportunities. The software offers lead scoring, which helps me prioritize leads based on their likelihood to convert.

A visual sales pipeline provides a clear overview of all my deals, allowing me to quickly identify any bottlenecks or at-risk opportunities. I can drag-and-drop opportunities through each stage. Deal values and probability are clearly displayed. I can also create customized sales stages that align with my unique sales process. Apptivo's forecasting tools use predictive analytics to provide accurate revenue projections, giving me valuable insights to guide my decision-making.

For analytics, Apptivo comes with a wide range of pre-built reports covering sales, marketing, and customer service metrics. I can also easily create custom reports and dashboards to track the KPIs that matter most to my business. For example, I can filter data, change chart types, add custom fields, and save custom views. The ability to schedule reports and have them automatically delivered to my inbox is a nice time-saver.

Beyond the core CRM capabilities, Apptivo offers a suite of integrated business apps that cover everything from project management to billing and invoicing. While I primarily use the CRM features, it's great to know I can easily expand my usage as my business needs evolve. In terms of third-party integrations, Apptivo's app marketplace also offers a variety of third-party integrations to further extend the platform's functionality.

Unlike competitors with limited on-the-go capabilities, Apptivo offers mobile apps for iOS and Android that provide full access to the CRM's features. Whether heading into a client meeting or dabbling in a bit of hybrid work, I always have the most up-to-date customer information at my fingertips. Plus, the mobile app's user interface is intuitive and easy to navigate.

While Apptivo checks the boxes for core CRM functionality, the depth of features in certain areas leaves something to be desired compared to more mature CRM systems such as Salesforce and Hubspot. For example, Apptivo lacks some of the advanced lead scoring and routing options found in enterprise platforms like Salesforce. Additionally, while the reporting and analytics are solid overall, some of the pre-built reports lack flexibility and the custom report builder has a bit of a learning curve. Apptivo also currently does not offer a sales assistant in the form of an AI tool or forecasting, like some of the leading CRM players.

How easy is Apptivo to use?

(Image credit: Apptivo)

Apptivo features a clean and clear — if slightly dated — user interface. It starts you off on your agenda page, which functions similarly to a calendar view of your upcoming tasks and appointments. I like how you can quickly switch between different views to filter for just upcoming or overdue tasks. The left sidebar contains several useful project management links for tasks, emails, notes, follow-ups, and more.

The top navigation menu is where Apptivo organizes the various apps you have installed, grouped by functions like CRM, marketing, financials, etc. It’s highly customizable and modular, but it does mean the top menu can get crowded if you activate a lot of apps.

Diving into the core CRM features, I found adding new records like contacts, accounts and opportunities to be straightforward. The data entry forms are clean and support custom fields. However, this is where the dated nature of the interface starts to show itself. For example, the save button is at the top of the record, requiring lots of scrolling on longer forms.

Apptivo's interface is very customizable, which is a double-edged sword when it comes to ease of use. On one hand, you can tailor the account to your preferences, like reordering the top nav apps, adjusting page layouts, and creating custom fields and views. On the flip side, the initial setup and customization process has a bit of a learning curve. You'll likely need to invest some time upfront to optimize your account.

Luckily, Apptivo provides a variety of onboarding and training resources. There's a comprehensive knowledge base with articles and videos covering the main features. But for a guided walkthrough, Apptivo offers paid training packages and professional services to help with implementation, data migration, and one-on-one training. These services typically cost extra, but can be helpful for those struggling with the interface.

Despite its datedness, Apptivo’s web-based CRM is usually quite responsive, even when dealing with a large database. When tested, the interface scored an impressive 91/100 for desktop speed on Google PageSpeed Insights. The mobile apps for iOS and Android are also well-designed and offer access to most key CRM functions on the go.

Despite a few shortcomings, I've found Apptivo to be a user-friendly CRM overall, especially considering its extensive feature set and customization options. The modular app structure and customizable interface do require an initial time investment to set up and learn. But once configured to your liking, Apptivo is intuitive to navigate and the core CRM features are straightforward to use.

Apptivo integrations

Out of the box, Apptivo provides integrations with a limited number of popular business apps and services. The most notable of these are the Google Workspace and Microsoft 365 integrations, which allow for the smooth syncing of contacts, calendar events, and emails. Apptivo also offers pre-built integrations with a few other business tools like Quickbooks for accounting, Mailchimp for email marketing, and RingCentral for phone systems.

For situations where a pre-built integration isn't available, Apptivo provides an open API that allows for custom integrations with other software. The API documentation is comprehensive and the platform supports industry-standard REST and SOAP protocols. However, building custom integrations does require significant technical expertise, so most businesses will likely need to engage a developer for help.

Compared to some other CRM platforms like Salesforce or HubSpot, Apptivo has a much more limited selection of third-party app integrations available. While the core bases are covered, businesses that rely heavily on niche software may find they need to build custom integrations more often with Apptivo.

I was also a bit disappointed to discover that Apptivo does not yet offer a direct data sync with any major social media platforms. The ability to automatically pull in lead and customer interactions from social channels can be very valuable for sales and service teams. While you can manually import social data or build a custom integration, a pre-built option would be a welcome addition.

That said, for the integrations it does offer, I've found the data syncing to be generally reliable and performant. When configured properly, data flows seamlessly between systems without any noticeable lag or errors. Apptivo also provides detailed logs that allow you to monitor the status of integrations and troubleshoot any issues that arise.

Unlike most other CRMs, however, you can also set up automated workflows that span multiple apps. For example, you can configure a workflow that automatically creates a task in Apptivo when a lead fills out a form on your website, then sends a personalized email follow-up via Mailchimp, and finally alerts the assigned sales rep in Slack. These cross-app workflows can significantly boost productivity and ensure no leads slip through the cracks.

For most small to midsize companies, Apptivo's integration capabilities should be more than sufficient to streamline data flow and processes across their key software tools. However, enterprise customers with strong data centralization needs may want to look elsewhere.

How good is Apptivo's customer support?

(Image credit: Apptivo)

Apptivo provides multiple channels for customer support, including live chat, email, and phone. The live chat is available 24/7 for all paid plans, which is a huge plus for businesses operating across different time zones or outside of regular business hours. For more complex issues or detailed inquiries, Apptivo offers email support. User reviews from around the internet mention fast response times, friendly support agents, and quick resolutions.

Apptivo also offers an extensive self-service knowledge base called "Apptivo Answers" that includes detailed user guides, video tutorials, and FAQs covering all aspects of the platform. I've found this resource to be well-organized and easy to search, with most of the usual questions answered without contacting support. The articles are clear and include helpful screenshots and step-by-step instructions.

For users who prefer a more hands-on approach, Apptivo provides live webinars you can attend on a regular basis. These cover topics ranging from getting started with Apptivo to advanced features and best practices in the CRM. If you’d prefer one-on-one training, Apptivo offers 60-minute paid sessions starting at $125 USD covering different modules and use cases. You can also enlist company professionals to migrate your existing data or implement the entire system for you for an additional fee.

While Apptivo doesn't publicly disclose its average resolution times or customer satisfaction scores, the overwhelmingly positive reviews and ratings from users speak to the effectiveness of its support. On customer review sites like Capterra and G2, many users praise Apptivo's customer service as one of its strongest assets, frequently citing the responsiveness, expertise, and friendliness of the support team.

Apptivo pricing and plans

(Image credit: Apptivo)

Plan

Lite

Premium

Ultimate

Enterprise

Price

$15/user/month

$25/user/month

$40/user/month

Custom pricing

Best for

Small sales teams managing deals and quotes

Fast-growing teams needing an all-in-one CRM

Large teams requiring automation and integrations

Enterprise organizations with complex integration needs

Features

18 apps; 100 custom fields per app; 24/7 support

46 apps; 250 custom fields per app; 3rd party integrations

57 apps; 350 custom fields per app; Advanced automation

65 apps; 500 custom fields per app; Dedicated account manager

Limitations

Lacks some advanced features and integrations.

Higher price than Lite plan but fewer features than Ultimate.

Significantly more expensive than lower tier plans.

Requires custom price quote and implementation.

Apptivo offers four pricing tiers — Lite, Premium, Ultimate, and Enterprise — which allows businesses to choose a plan that aligns with their specific needs and budget. Apptivo does offer a free starter plan, but it's important to note that this plan is very limited in terms of features and functionality. It's really more of an extended trial than a viable long-term solution for most businesses. That said, Apptivo's 30-day free trial for paid plans is on par with the industry standard, with ample time to test the system before committing.

As for the paid plans, the Lite plan starts at just $15 per user per month when billed annually, making it one of the most cost-effective options on the market for a fully functional CRM. Even at the Lite tier, Apptivo includes essential CRM capabilities like contact management, opportunity tracking, and customizable dashboards. As you move up to the higher-priced plans, you gain access to more advanced features and a greater number of integrated apps.

For businesses that need more advanced features, Apptivo's Premium plan at $25 per user per month (billed annually) offers a significant step up in functionality. This tier includes additional apps for project management, invoicing, and email marketing, as well as more advanced customization options and integrations. This is followed by the Unlimited plan at $40 per user per month, which also includes relationship management and inventory tracking. But in my opinion, the Premium plan provides the best balance of features and value for most small to medium-sized businesses using Apptivo.

Compared to other popular CRM platforms, Apptivo's pricing is highly competitive. For example, Salesforce's Sales Cloud starts at $25 per user per month for the Essentials plan but includes fewer features than Apptivo's Premium tier at the same price point. Similarly, Zoho CRM's Standard plan is priced at $20 per user per month, while Apptivo offers more advanced features for just $5 more.

I also appreciate that Apptivo doesn't lock you into a long-term contract, unlike some enterprise-grade CRMs. All plans are available on a month-to-month basis, giving you the flexibility to adjust as your business needs change. But opting for annual billing does provide a significant discount of 20% compared to the monthly rates.

Still, I think Apptivo could improve its pricing by offering more bundled discounts or add-on packages. While the pricing for individual plans is competitive, there are fewer options for bundling multiple apps or features compared to some other CRM providers. However, it does offer custom enterprise pricing for larger organizations with more complex needs.

Apptivo CRM FAQWhat are Apptivo CRM's core features?

Apptivo is a cloud-based business management platform that offers a suite of over 65 integrated apps. As such it offers a wide range of features - both in the core platform and through these integrations.

The core features include tools for managing contacts, leads, and sales pipelines. It also offers features like email marketing, customer segmentation, lead scoring, and automated lead assignment.

Does Apptivo CRM have a mobile app?

Yes, Apptivo is accessible through all mobile phones, including dedicated apps for iOS and Android.

Aide from the costs, what are the differences between Apptivo's plans?

Apptivo's different pricing tiers vary significantly in terms of the number of available apps, custom fields, workflows, and storage space. Higher-tier plans also offer advanced features like email sequencing, notification builders, and custom applications. Annual billing offers a discount compared to monthly payments.

How do I integrate Apptivo with other tools?

Apptivo offers integrations with a number of third-party business tools like Google Workspace, Microsoft 365, Dropbox, PayPal, and Slack. It also provides an open API for building custom integrations, which may require technical expertise

How secure is the data stored in Apptivo?

Apptivo employs several layers of security to protect user data, including 256-bit encrypted SSL connections for data transfer and encryption of sensitive information stored in the database.

Apptivo review: Final verdict

Apptivo delivers a robust set of core CRM features, including contact management, lead tracking, opportunity management, and sales forecasting. While some advanced features may be lacking compared to enterprise CRMs, Apptivo covers all the essentials for small to midsize businesses.

24/7 live chat, responsive email support, extensive knowledge base, and regular training webinars ensure that users can get help whenever they need it. The support team is knowledgeable, friendly, and consistently goes above and beyond to resolve issues and answer questions. While there are some areas for improvement, such as expanding the third-party app marketplace and simplifying the setup process for non-technical users, Apptivo's overall impression is a promising one.

For small to midsize businesses seeking an affordable, customizable, and user-friendly CRM with excellent support, Apptivo is a strong choice.

Categories: Reviews

Less Annoying CRM review 2025

TechRadar Reviews - Wed, 09/03/2025 - 08:46

Less Annoying CRM is a straightforward platform designed with simplicity in mind, making it one of the best CRM platforms for small businesses and solo entrepreneurs. It was founded in 2009 by two brothers, who focused on making it as easy to use as possible - or in other words ‘less annoying’ than other platforms on the market.

The platform keeps things simple with a single-tier pricing plan: $15 per user, per month. You get all the features, no surprises or extras to buy. You'll find essentials like contact management, task tracking, and sales pipeline visualization — just the basics without overloading you.

It's not the most advanced CRM out there, but a user-friendly interface and great customer support make up for it. The company clearly prioritizes small businesses, from its product design to its business practices, making it a great fit for those seeking a hassle-free CRM.

Less Annoying CRM: Core capabilities

Less Annoying CRM provides a straightforward approach to customer relationship management, emphasizing essential features without adding unnecessary complexity. The contact management interface is user-friendly, making it easy to add custom fields to meet specific business needs.

The platform integrates leads within its pipeline management feature, helping users track them from initial contact to final sale, offering a visual representation of the sales process. During my testing, I found the pipeline view clear and easy to understand. However, the customization options for the pipeline are limited compared to more advanced CRM solutions, which may be a drawback for businesses with complex sales processes. If advanced features are what you need, I recommend checking out our Salesforce CRM review for a complete CRM platform, or our HubSpot CRM review for a free option.

Less Annoying CRM also includes basic sales forecasting and reporting tools. Users can create simple reports on pipeline status and sales performance, but it lacks the advanced analytics and predictive features present in some enterprise CRMs. For small businesses and solopreneurs, this level of reporting might suffice, but those needing deeper data analysis may find it lacking.

Less Annoying CRM's cloud-based platform is accessible from any device with internet access, removing the need for separate mobile apps. I found the mobile interface responsive and easy to navigate, allowing quick updates and access to customer information while on the go. However, there are no downloadable apps for iOS or Android.

I liked how Less Annoying CRM handles task management and calendar integration. It sends daily email digests with upcoming tasks and events, but syncing with Google Calendar and Microsoft Outlook turns the CRM into a central hub for managing customer interactions and personal schedules.

Email integration is another core capability that Less Annoying CRM manages well. Users can BCC a unique email address to automatically log correspondence with contacts in the CRM. This simplifies keeping communication records current without needing manual data entry after each interaction.

While it covers the basics of contact management, lead tracking, and simple reporting, Less Annoying CRM lacks some advanced features of larger CRM systems. For example, it does not have built-in marketing automation tools or extensive third-party integrations.

The platform balances flexibility and simplicity in customization. Users can add custom fields and adjust pipelines to some degree, but the options are not as extensive as those of more complex systems. This level of customization is likely adequate for many small businesses, but those with specific or evolving needs might feel restricted.

For security-conscious users, Less Annoying CRM offers 256-bit encryption following industry best practices. While this provides a solid data protection foundation, businesses in regulated industries should further evaluate whether these security measures meet their compliance requirements.

How easy it Less Annoying CRM to use?

Less Annoying CRM lives up to its name with a user interface focused on simplicity and easy navigation, making a one of the best CRM for small businesses. Upon logging in, I noticed the clean design that presents key information without overwhelming users. The main dashboard gives a quick view of upcoming tasks, recent activities, and pipeline status, allowing easy access to essential data without sifting through multiple menus.

The interface has a logical layout, with clearly labeled tabs for contacts, calendar, tasks, and settings. During my testing, I found most features within a few clicks, showcasing the thoughtful design. The muted yet professional color scheme creates a distraction-free environment for users to concentrate on their work.

Less Annoying CRM 's web-based platform adapts well to different screen sizes and devices, allowing users to access data from desktops, laptops, tablets, or smartphones. However, I noticed that advanced accessibility features like screen reader optimization or high-contrast modes are not present, suggesting room for improvement.

Customization options in Less Annoying CRM balance flexibility with simplicity. Users can add custom fields to contacts and companies for tailored data collection. Creating custom pipelines is also straightforward, easier than in some complex CRM systems. While this level of customization suits many small businesses, those needing specialized workflows might find options somewhat limited.

Onboarding resources are a strong point for Less Annoying CRM. The platform offers a comprehensive help center with detailed articles and video tutorials on various system aspects. These resources are well-organized and easy to follow. The company provides free phone and email support to all users, including trial users, which is helpful for small businesses without dedicated tech support.

An intuitive design and focused features contribute to a fast learning process. In fact, I was able to navigate core functions of the CRM comfortably within a couple of hours. For most small business users, I estimate full proficiency can be achieved within a few days to a week of regular use, depending on specific needs.

But while the simplicity of Less Annoying CRM is a strength for many, some users may see it as a limitation. Those used to more feature-rich CRM systems might find the streamlined interface lacking advanced functionalities. However, this simplicity is intentional and aligns with the platform’s goal of providing an easy-to-use solution for small businesses.

Less Annoying CRM integrations

Less Annoying CRM offers a small number of integrations, however through Zapier you can unlock many more. (Image credit: Less Annoying CRM )

Less Annoying CRM provides a limited selection of integrations to meet essential business needs, falling short of larger CRM platforms. It offers a few pre-built integrations focusing on key functionalities like email syncing, calendar management, and data import/export. But my evaluation showed that these native integrations cover basic requirements for most SMBs.

But, Less Annoying CRM's integration with Zapier significantly enhances possibilities, allowing users to link it with thousands of other applications. I found creating Zaps to be easy, enabling automated workflows with tools I frequently use.

For advanced users and developers, Less Annoying CRM offers an API for custom integration and data synchronization with third-party applications. API documentation is thorough and well-structured, providing detailed explanations and examples for different endpoints. I appreciated the inclusion of OAuth 2.0 support, which improves security for API integrations.

In terms of reliability and performance, Less Annoying CRM shows a commitment to high data management standards. During my testing, I found data synchronization to be consistent and timely, with no noticeable delays or discrepancies. The company also utilizes "Uptime Robot" to monitor their site and quickly resolve downtime issues.

Less Annoying CRM’s integration options are adequate for many small businesses, but those seeking a broader range of pre-built connectors might find the selection limited. Ironically, the focus may lead some users to rely more on Zapier or custom API integrations to connect with their complete suite of business tools, increasing complexity.

While the help center provides basic information, I also found myself wanting more detailed guides and best practices for setting up and maintaining connections with other software. Some additional information could be particularly useful for users new to integrating various business applications.

Less Annoying CRM AI functionality

Unsurprisingly for a platform that values simplicity, Less Annoying CRM does not have native, built-in AI capabilities. Its core philosophy is to provide a simple, straightforward, and affordable CRM solution without the complex features found in enterprise-level software. This focus on simplicity means it deliberately omits advanced functionalities like AI-powered lead scoring, sales forecasting, or contact enrichment.

Even so, Less Annoying CRM can't completely avoid AI tidal wave. It can be integrated with third-party AI services and automation platforms to add some of these functionalities. The primary way to achieve this is by using platforms like Zapier.

How good is Less Annoying CRM customer support?

Less Annoying CRM is known for its strong customer support. The company provides two main support channels: email and phone, available from 9 am to 4:30 pm US Central Time, Monday to Friday. While this schedule may not suit all time zones or after-hours needs, it covers standard business hours for many small business clients.

I personally found email support to be prompt and helpful. Phone support offers immediate help for urgent matters. However, Less Annoying CRM currently does not provide live chat support, which could be a drawback for those who prefer instant messaging for quick questions.

Self-service resources include a help center, which is thorough and well-organized, with numerous articles and guides on various platform features. During my search, I found the search function effective, quickly guiding me to information. There are also video tutorials, which are especially beneficial for visual learners or those who like step-by-step instructions.

I liked that customer support is entirely free, even for trial users. Less Annoying CRM's commitment to accessible assistance aligns well with the company's goal of being user-friendly. It's a refreshing change in an industry where premium support usually incurs extra costs.

While it does not publicly share specific response and resolution times, user testimonials suggest that email responses are generally quick, often within a few hours. Resolution times may vary based on issue complexity, but the support team appears focused on providing timely solutions.

A key limitation is that customer support is currently available only in English during CST working hours. This could be a significant issue for users from different locations and cultures. As the company grows, addressing this gap would be a big help when expanding to international markets.

Less Annoying CRM plans and pricing

Less Annoying CRM offers one price, making a picking a plan incredibly simple. (Image credit: Less Annoying CRM )

Plan

All inclusive

Price

$15/user/month

Best for

Small businesses and solopreneurs seeking a simple and affordable CRM solution

Key features

Unlimited contacts and companies; Custom fields and pipelines; Integrated calendar and tasks

Limitations

Limited to 10 users; larger teams need to contact for enterprise pricing.

Less Annoying CRM FAQHow much does Less Annoying CRM cost and is there a free trial?

Staying true to its name, the pricing of this CRM is straightforward and "less annoying." Eschewing the complexity of the pricing plans offered by other CRMs, here there is a flat rate of $15 per user per month, with no additional fees, tiers, or contracts. There is also a 30-day free trial with full access to all features. You don't need to provide payment information until the trial is over.

What are its core features of Less Annoying CRM?

Less Annoying CRM provides many of the essential CRM functionalities small businesses require. For instance, the platform comes with contact and company management so users can store and organize all their contact information, notes, files, and interactions in one place. It's also possible to create and manage customized workflows to track leads, sales processes, and projects.

It also becomes easier to manage communications. Users can schedule and track events and tasks, with the ability to share calendars with their team. Email logging is also straightforward, with individuals able to automatically log emails from their connected email accounts, such as Gmail or Outlook, to their contact records.

Does Less Annoying CRM have a mobile app

No, Less Annoying CRM does not have a native mobile app - which is a little disappointing. Many of the other CRM platforms we've reviewed do have one. However, the web application is designed to be mobile-friendly and can be accessed from any device with a web browser.

What features would many users complain are missing?

While it excels at simplicity, Less Annoying CRM is not a full-featured enterprise solution. As such, it may not be suitable for larger companies that require advanced functionalities, such as complex sales analytics or forecasting, extensive workflow automations, or role-based permissions beyond basic levels. It's a balance between simplicity and complexity. Less Annoying leans heavily towards the former, which will be fine for some businesses but insufficient for others.

Less Annoying CRM: Verdict

Less Annoying CRM truly lives up to its name by providing a simple and user-friendly solution designed for small businesses. I found its simplicity to be its strongest asset, offering essential features without the complications of larger systems.

The platform features an easy-to-navigate interface, clear pricing, and responsive customer support, making it appealing for businesses wanting a straightforward approach to customer relationship management. While it may not include some advanced functions typical of enterprise CRMs, Less Annoying CRM delivers core features in an easy-to-understand way.

I think Less Annoying CRM is ideal for small businesses, startups, and individual entrepreneurs who value ease of use and cost over extensive customization and detailed analytics. Its clear approach to contact management, pipeline tracking, and task organization allows users to quickly adopt a CRM system without a difficult learning curve or hefty financial commitment.

Categories: Reviews

The Hohem iSteady V3 Ultra is the best small smartphone stabilizer for subject tracking I've ever tested

TechRadar Reviews - Wed, 09/03/2025 - 08:00

Hohem iSteady V3 Ultra: two-minute review

Hohem’s new smartphone stabilizer, the iSteady V3 Ultra, is the latest in the manufacturer’s long-running range of mobile gimbals. Like most products of this type, clamping your phone onto the arm will keep its movements smooth and level while you’re filming content – but here, the main selling point is the built-in AI-assisted tracking functionality.

The iSteady V3 Ultra comes with a tracking module that, through the use of a built-in 2MP camera, is able to keep the attached phone constantly pointing at a tracked subject, no matter how much they move. The V3 Ultra’s handle has 360 degrees of motion so, when set up on its built-in mini tripod, it can track a moving subject even if they circle right around it multiple times. And, unlike some of the other tracking modules, this one is able to follow not only human faces and bodies, but other objects too.

I should also note that all of the above applies not only when capturing content using Hohem’s own camera app, but also first-party and third-party camera apps like Zoom, TikTok, and Instagram. And, because the tracking module can be pointed forwards or backwards, it’ll work with both the main rear camera(s) and front-facing camera of any smartphone.

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(Image credit: Future | Sam Kieldsen)

While testing the iSteady V3 Ultra, I found this tracking to be the clear standout feature. It’s accurate and reliable, and surprisingly adaptable too.

I was able to use the gimbal’s joystick to manually adjust my position in the frame, and the module would continue tracking me while keeping me in the new position rather than just in the dead center of the frame, which is brilliant for those times you want to use the rule of thirds and keep yourself off-center.

I should point out that you can also track using software, via the Hohem Joy app – but it will keep subjects centered at all times. I much preferred the versatility and adaptability of the module-based tracking. And as a nice bonus feature, the AI tracker module doubles as a fill light with a choice of cool, warm, and neutral tones, plus fully adjustable brightness.

There’s a lot to like about this stabilizer besides its tracking capabilities, too. The compact, folding design of the device isn’t anything I haven’t seen before on competitors or Hohem’s own range, but it’s easy to unfold and set up. The built-in mini tripod, which consists of three metal rods that are pulled out of the handle, is sturdy, and a standard tripod thread mount on the base means you can attach the entire thing to an even sturdier full-size tripod or similar should you wish.

An extension rod, concealed in the handle, provides up to about 20cm of extra reach on the gimbal arm. It’s useful if you want to fit more in the frame while using the iSteady V3 Ultra handheld.

I’m also a big fan of the removable remote control module, which comes with a 1.22-inch touchscreen. I first encountered one of these on the Hohem iSteady M7, a larger and pricier smartphone stabilizer, and was pleased to see the concept transferred down the range to a more portable and affordable model.

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The controller has a wireless range of up to 10m / 33ft, and its joystick, button, and touchscreen let you adjust the gimbal arm angle, change settings, and stop/start recording from a distance. The screen also provides a live view from the AI tracker module’s camera, so you can set tracking subjects remotely too.

In my time with the Hohem iSteady V3 Ultra, I’ve only encountered one major issue: sound from the gimbal’s motor gets picked up by my iPhone 13’s mic. This results in a quiet, but noticeable, background noise in all the videos I’ve recorded using the built-in mic; when I recorded using the DJI Mic 3 instead, the noise wasn’t audible.

It’s an irritating issue, but it’s not exclusive to this model. I went back and re-tested the Hohem iSteady M7 and Insta360 Flow Pro 2 with the same phone, and found the noise got picked up on these gimbals too. Still, if you’re going to rely on your smartphone’s built-in mic to record videos while using the iSteady V3 Ultra, do be aware that you’ll likely hear this sound in the background. I’ve included a short video clip below so that you can hear it for yourself.

While it’s really the only major problem I have with the iSteady V3 Ultra, it’s a fairly notable one. If you’re using an external microphone for vlogging, it’s not going to be an issue for you; if you’re relying solely on your phone’s mic, you may want to look elsewhere.

The only other potential flaw with the V3 Ultra is that it uses a standard grip on the arm rather than a quick-release magnetic grip of the type seen on the recent DJI and Insta360 smartphone gimbals. This is more of a preference thing, however – some may prefer having the grip built into the gimbal arm, as it reduces the number of components required.

All in all, I’m generally impressed with the Hohem iSteady V3 Ultra. Its standout tracking skills and remote control make it the best small stabilizer around at the moment – although I expect the likes of DJI and Insta360 to offer strong competition in the near future.

Hohem iSteady V3: price and availability

Priced from $169 / £169
Black and white color finishes available
Available to order now

The iSteady V3 Ultra has an MSRP of $169 / £169 / AU$299 and is available to order now at Amazon or the Hohem online store. I’m also told by Hohem’s PR representative that it will be sold at Best Buy from September 14, 2025. An Australian launch will follow – expect an update to this review once it's confirmed.

Given the gimbal's specs and features, that feels like a competitive price to me. In comparison, the Insta360 Flow 2 Pro currently retails for $159.99 / £144.99 / AU$199.99, and the DJI Osmo Mobile 7P is $149 / £135 / AU$219, so you’ll pay a slight premium for the iSteady V3 Ultra, but in my opinion, its tracking capabilities and remote control module make it worth the extra outlay.

Hohem iSteady V3 Ultra: specs

Dimensions:

98 x 44 x 160.5mm (folded)

Weight:

428g / 15.1oz

Compatible phone weight:

Up to 400g / 14.1oz

Compatible phone thickness:

Up to 12.5mm

Compatible phone width:

58 to 98mm

Connectivity:

Bluetooth, USB-C

Battery life:

4 hours (with AI tracking and fill light) / 9 hours (balanced and stationary)

Should I buy the Hohem iSteady V3 Ultra?

(Image credit: Future | Sam Kieldsen)Buy it if...

You want the best small stabilizer for tracking
Not only does the AI module offer the best tracking we've seen on a compact gimbal, it lets you track more than just people and pets.

You like to shoot from a distance
The tracking talent, combined with the remote control unit, makes this a great gimbal for remote shooting. It's basically a camera operator that fits in your pocket.

Don't buy it if...

You’re on a tight budget
The V3 Ultra is a little pricier than its DJI and Insta360 flagship rivals, and a lot pricier than entry-level alternatives.

You don't want to use an external mic
If you don't want unwanted gimbal motor noise in your videos, you'll need some kind of external microphone.

Hohem iSteady V3 Ultra review: Also consider

Insta360 Flow 2 Pro
The Flow 2 Pro’s big party trick is native support for subject tracking in hundreds of third-party iPhone camera apps, plus an included LED fill light. With no tracking module, Android users are left out in the cold, however, and trackable subjects are limited to people and pets. The iSteady V3 Ultra is a little more advanced in this regard.

Read our in-depth Insta360 Flow 2 Pro review

DJI Osmo Pocket 3
The Osmo Pocket 3 is a self-contained camera rather than a smartphone gimbal, but offers much of the same functionality – superbly stabilized 4K capture and subject tracking – in a much more compact and easier to deploy package. You’ll pay a little more for it, but it’s a great all-in-one alternative for vlogging.

Read our in-depth DJI Osmo Pocket 3 review

How I tested the Hohem iSteady V3 Ultra

One week of use
Tested with an iPhone 13
Used for B-roll and vlogs

I used the Hohem iSteady V3 Ultra for around a week in total, testing it out both handheld and set up on its built-in mini tripod. It was used with my Apple iPhone 13's front-facing and rear cameras, both indoors and outdoors, and I recorded video using a range of apps (the iPhone camera, Hohem Joy, Instagram) and both the iPhone's own microphone and a DJI Mic 3.

First reviewed September 2025

Categories: Reviews

Keap review 2025

TechRadar Reviews - Wed, 09/03/2025 - 07:18

Keap, formerly known as Infusionsoft, positions itself amongst the best CRM platforms on the market. The platform offers sales enablement and marketing automation for small businesses. With a focus on simplifying the growth process, Keap aims to provide entrepreneurs with the tools they need to capture more leads, manage customer relationships, automate follow-ups, and get paid faster.

What sets Keap apart is its commitment to combining essential business functions into one user-friendly interface. From contact management and appointment scheduling to email marketing campaigns and invoicing, Keap strives to eliminate the need for multiple software solutions by offering a comprehensive suite of features tailored to the needs of small business owners.

In this in-depth review, I'll dive into the core features, ease of use, pricing, and overall effectiveness of Keap CRM. By the end, you'll have a clear understanding of whether it’s the right fit for your small business needs.

Keap core capabilities

(Image credit: Keap)

Keap offers everything you’d expect from one of the best small business CRM platforms. It allows users to easily store, organize, and manage customer information in a centralized database. I was impressed by the level of detail that can be captured for each contact, including personal details, communication history, and purchase records.

For managing your contacts, Keap provides tools to efficiently track and nurture leads throughout the sales process. I particularly appreciated the ability to assign lead scores based on predefined criteria, helping sales teams prioritize their efforts on the most promising prospects. Keap's visual sales pipeline management feature offers a clear overview of the sales funnel, allowing users to drag and drop deals between stages and monitor progress towards closing.

The software provides insights into expected revenue based on the current pipeline and historical data. I found the forecasting reports to be intuitive and customizable, enabling sales managers to make data-driven decisions and adjust strategies as needed. The ability to set quotas and track individual and team performance adds an extra layer of accountability and motivation.

Keap's reporting capabilities enable businesses to gain valuable insights into their customer base and make informed decisions to drive growth. I was able to generate detailed reports on various metrics, such as lead conversion rates, sales performance, and customer engagement. The software's dashboard provides a real-time overview of key performance indicators, allowing users to quickly identify trends and take action.

For sales reps in the field, Keap offers a user-friendly and feature-rich mobile app for iOS and Android. It allows sales reps to access customer information, update deals, and log activities on the go. The ability to work offline and sync data when a connection is available ensures that no important information is lost, even in areas with limited connectivity.

Something that really sets Keap apart, however, is its focus on automation. The software offers a wide range of automation features that streamline repetitive tasks and improve efficiency. From lead nurturing campaigns to follow-up reminders and task assignments, Keap's automation capabilities help businesses save time and ensure consistent communication with customers. I was impressed by the ease with which I could set up complex automation sequences using the drag-and-drop workflow builder.

Overall, Keap CRM delivers on all the core capabilities needed to effectively manage customer relationships, drive sales, and make data-driven decisions. Plus, its built-in automation capabilities add an extra layer of productivity enhancement for sales reps, allowing them to focus on the tasks that matter.

How easy is Keap CRM to use?

(Image credit: Keap)

Keap maintains a strong focus on usability. Logging into the platform for the first time, I was impressed by the uncluttered layout that allows users to quickly navigate through the various features and tools. I also liked the customizable dashboard, which enables users to personalize their workspace according to their specific needs and preferences.

Onboarding with Keap is a breeze when compared to other CRMs. Each plan includes a dedicated customer success manager who guides new users through the setup process, ensuring that the platform is tailored to their unique business requirements. Additionally, Keap offers a wealth of training resources, including onboarding checklists, video tutorials, webinars, and personalized advice from expert coaches.

Adding even more to its user-friendliness, Keap's drag-and-drop automation builder allows users to create both simple and advanced workflows without requiring any coding knowledge. The availability of customizable templates further simplifies the process of setting up automated lead nurturing campaigns, follow-up sequences, and sales processes.

Speaking about the core CRM, the platform automatically captures and organizes customer interactions, allowing users to access a comprehensive view of each contact's history with just a few clicks. The ability to segment contacts based on various criteria and trigger automated actions for specific groups streamlines communication efforts and ensures that the right messages reach the right audience at the optimal time.

While a custom API with REST hooks is available for developers with advanced knowledge, the pre-built integrations are robust enough to suit most small businesses without custom development. Keap's integration with popular third-party applications, such as Google Workspace, Microsoft 365, Zoom, and Mailchimp, is seamless and requires no coding experience.

Based on my experience, the average time for new users to become proficient with this platform should be relatively short, thanks to the platform's intuitive design and extensive support resources. The combination of a user-friendly interface, customization options, comprehensive onboarding, and accessible automation tools makes this a great option for smaller teams that lack in-house technical expertise.

Keap CRM integrations

Keap focuses on providing a curated selection of integrations that complement its core functionalities and cater to the needs of small businesses. While it does not offer the same number of integrations as Salesforce or HubSpot, the ones that it does offer should fit the requirements of most small businesses.

For example, by connecting Keap with Gmail, Outlook, and social media channels, businesses can automate marketing campaigns and track effectiveness directly within the CRM. Keap also integrates with a variety of other essential business tools, such as Leadpages for landing page creation, Jotform for custom lead capture forms, and BigCommerce for ecommerce functionality.

Keap also integrates with the no-code automation platform Zapier, which allows you to build your own automations with thousands of other third-party applications without any coding requirements. Through Zapier, Keap users can create custom integrations with Slack, Trello, Mailchimp, and more.

While its selection of pre-built integrations may not be as extensive as some other CRMs, Keap’s custom API is open and well-documented, allowing for custom integrations to be developed when needed. Keap also provides documentation and resources to assist users in setting up connected apps, including custom ones built using the API. Dedicated customer success managers are available to offer guidance and support throughout the integration process, ensuring a smooth experience for all customers.

How good is Keap's customer support?

(Image credit: Keap)

Keap offers a decent range of support options, including human agents and self-service resources. Users can reach out to the support team via phone, live chat, and email, depending on their preference and the urgency of their issue. However, your experience with the support agents might vary depending on the channel you choose to contact them.

U.S.-based phone support is available on weekdays from 6 am to 7 pm PST, with local support also offered for subscribers in the UK and Australia. The inclusion of a dedicated success manager with all plans is a notable advantage. Phone support is generally quite good, with reduced wait times, helpful agents, and quick resolutions.

However, Keap offers a 24/7 chat support option that’s arguably the preferred option for users across different time zones. Yet, chat support can be wildly inconsistent when it comes to quality. Wait times can sometimes be up to 30 minutes, while the agents there seem to have very little knowledge of the product.

Keap does provide a range of self-help resources, including a knowledge base, how-to videos, and a community forum where users can seek advice from peers. These resources offer guidance on various topics, such as automating text messages and connecting the CRM with WordPress. But while they are helpful, they may not always suffice for complex account-specific issues.

Customer reviews on third-party sites like Trustpilot paint a worrisome picture of Keap's customer support. Many users report difficulties canceling their accounts, unresponsive support teams, and billing issues that required escalation to legal action. These experiences, while not necessarily representative of the majority, raise serious red flags.

On a more positive note, Keap's onboarding process and Expert Coaching service aim to set users up for success from the start. The one-on-one support, training webinars, and customized sales and marketing plans help businesses optimize their use of the CRM. However, the $499 one-time fee for this service may be a barrier for most SMBs.

Keap CRM pricing and plans

During my review of Keap CRM, I found the pricing model to be unique compared to other CRM platforms. Instead of feature-based plans, Keap's pricing is scalable based on the number of contacts, with plans starting at $249 per month for up to 1,500 contacts. Prices can add up quickly as you gain customers, especially if you’re a consumer-facing business. Moreover, adding more user seats to your Keap plan costs you a flat rate of $32 per month, regardless of the plan.

When comparing Keap's pricing to other CRM platforms, it's evident that Keap is on the higher end of the spectrum compared to players like Salesforce, HubSpot, or Zoho CRM. However, the fact that it includes features like marketing automation and invoice management does make it more bearable.

There are a number of implementation packages starting from $1500 one-time. It's also worth noting that Keap does not offer a free plan, unlike competitors like HubSpot and Zoho CRM. However, the CRM does come with a 14-day free trial, allowing potential users to explore the platform's capabilities before committing to a paid plan. While a longer trial period would be nice, two weeks is still sufficient to gain a solid understanding of the features and user experience.

Keap CRM Comparison Table

Starting Monthly Price (Billed Annually)

Key Features

Keap Pro

Starts at $249/month for 1,500 contacts and 2 users

All core CRM, sales & marketing automation, email marketing, payments, invoicing, appointments, sales pipeline, and a dedicated business phone line.

Keap Max

Starts at $289/month for 2,500 contacts and 3 users

Includes all Keap Pro features, plus advanced reporting and lead scoring.

Keap Max Classic

Custom pricing

Includes all Keap Max features, plus advanced customization options like custom user roles, affiliate management, and a shopping cart.

Export to Sheets

Keap CRM FAQWho is the primary audience for Keap?

Keap is an all-in-one CRM and marketing automation platform. It's primarily designed for small businesses and entrepreneurs (often with 1-15 employees and revenues over $100K) who need to automate their sales and marketing processes to save time and grow their business.

What is the difference between Keap Pro and Keap Max?

Keap Pro is the more basic plan, offering core CRM, sales, and marketing automation features. Expect things like contact management, sales and marketing automation, invoicing, payment management, and appointment scheduling that syncs with your calendar. Keap Max includes everything in Pro, plus more advanced tools like lead scoring and e-commerce capabilities.

What kind of automations can I create with Keap

You can automate a wide range of tasks, including sending follow-up emails, assigning leads to a sales rep, sending appointment reminders, and managing referral programs. The platform's drag-and-drop builder makes it easy to create these "when-then" workflows.

Is Keap easy to learn how to use?

In fact, many users note that Keap has a steep learning curve due to its robust features. Complexity comes with price - often a financial one; sometimes in terms of ease of use. However, the platform offers extensive onboarding resources, including a dedicated success manager, video tutorials, and webinars to help new users get started.

Keap CRM review: Final verdict

Keap is a solid choice for small businesses seeking an all-in-one CRM, with the added advantage of marketing automation and financial management features. Its core capabilities, such as contact management, lead nurturing, and sales pipeline visualization — are well-designed to the needs of most small businesses.

However, the inconsistent customer support experience is a notable drawback, potentially impacting user satisfaction and efficiency. The pricing structure is yet another deterrent, especially when you factor in the additional costs for initial onboarding and more seats.

On the whole, Keap offers valuable features and automation capabilities that can significantly benefit small businesses, but there's still room for improvement. Go for this platform if you need features beyond what a typical CRM offers at a low cost, but not if customer management is your only requirement.

Categories: Reviews

The reMarkable Paper Pro Move is the rare gadget that gives me exactly what I wished for, nothing more and nothing less

TechRadar Reviews - Wed, 09/03/2025 - 07:00

reMarkable Paper Pro Move: Two-minute review

The reMarkable Paper Pro Move embodies everything I want in a writing tablet. The size is perfect. The features are focused. The writing experience is divine. This is the tablet I’ve been hoping somebody would create, and it’s both surprising and not surprising that reMarkable has created it.

It's surprising because reMarkable doesn’t make many products. Its first mainstream (read: not a Kickstarter) tablet was the reMarkable 2, which launched in 2020, and the colorful follow-up, the reMarkable Paper Pro, arrived only last year. For reMarkable to launch another tablet so soon after its last one is uncharacteristic, and the Paper Pro Move must have been in the works since before the Paper Pro was announced.

I spent a few weeks using the reMarkable Paper Pro Move, and it mostly replaced the reMarkable Paper Pro that I use daily. The Paper Pro Move is much easier to carry – it even fits in the pockets of some of my pants. It’s taller than a Moleskine notebook, but also more narrow across and thinner front to back. I kept the Paper Pro Move enclosed in a Folio, and it was the perfect size and weight.

Having a reMarkable tablet that's pocket-sized is a dream come true, because it means I can truly take my writing tablet everywhere. The Paper Pro and the Paper 2 tablets are too large to carry to the grocery store, for instance, or keep on a nightstand if you want an uncluttered look.

Journaling is easy enough with the bigger reMarkable tablets, but if you want to keep a food journal during the day, or track your workout progress at the gym, a smaller tablet like the Paper Pro Move is ideal.

(Image credit: Philip Berne / Future)

The Paper Pro Move came with me everywhere, and I used it to do everything I do with my Paper Pro tablet, and so much more. Like most reMarkable owners, there are one or two other things I wish it could also do, but I love the simplicity the Paper Pro Move offers.

It’s unsurprising that the Paper Pro Move is such a fantastic experience, because the Paper Pro was nearly perfect. It delivered on reMarkable’s singular focus – a distraction-free sheet of digital paper that will help you gather your ideas and access them from nearly anywhere. No more and no less than that lofty ambition… now in color.

If you’re looking for an electronic reader like a Kindle, look elsewhere. If you want to run your favorite apps, or chat with an AI, or browse the web… this is the wrong tablet. The reMarkable Paper Pro Move is focused, refined, and it doesn’t do much, by design.

At least, if you’re new to reMarkable, it won’t appear to do much, but fans of previous reMarkable Paper tablets will find the most advanced reMarkable yet in the Paper Pro Move.

What doesn’t it do? There's no clock, for instance. You won’t be hassled by the time. There are no alerts or notifications. It won’t ever buzz or vibrate for your attention. It also won’t serve you ads in any way, or spam you with messages you don’t care about.

A reMarkable Paper Pro Move in front of a reMarkable Paper Pro (Image credit: Philip Berne / Future)

What can it do that's new to reMarkable? There are features coming to all reMarkable tablets, leading with the Paper Pro Move. Now reMarkable tablets will convert your text to type, and finally the search feature will look through the handwriting in your documents, not just typed text and the tags that you append.

Both of those features are powered by machine learning – aka AI – but you don’t have to care about AI on the reMarkable Paper Pro Move. It won’t offer to draw doodles for you with AI, and it won’t prompt you with insipid AI journal queries.

Nope, the reMarkable Paper Pro Move experience is restrained, and though most reMarkable fans have one or two features they wish were included (I’d kind of like to read my books on the tablet), reMarkable software remains distraction-free by design, and slow to evolve.

I hope it stays that way, because the reMarkable Paper Pro Move does just enough to be the perfect writing tablet. If you want more, keep looking. If you need less, the Paper Pro Move gets less just right.

reMarkable Paper Pro Move review: price and availability

(Image credit: Philip Berne / Future)

Very expensive – this is a luxury device, not a bargain
The required subscription stings a bit at this price range

The reMarkable Paper Pro Move is an expensive writing tablet, there's no doubt, and it justifies the price by giving you less, not more. It’s much less expensive than the reMarkable Paper Pro, which has a display that's more than twice as large, and even more expensive than the reMarkable 2 monochrome writing tablet. Color is pricey, apparently.

The Paper Pro Move costs $449 / £399 for the bundle with a Marker and $499 / £439 for a bundle with a Marker Plus, which adds an eraser function to the opposing end (pricing for Australia is TBC). Is $50 / £40 worth having a dedicated eraser? If you’re asking that question, you’re considering the wrong tablet. This is a luxury device, not a practical tool.

It’s hard to measure the reMarkable Paper Pro Move against the competition, as there isn’t any real competitor at this size. The Amazon Kindle Scribe is the closest competitor on features, but the Kindle Scribe is a big and chunky (albeit gorgeous in green) reading tablet, and its price is very close to the Move at $399.99 / £379.99 / AU$649.

(Image credit: Philip Berne / Future)

You can find smaller ereader tablets with a pen from Boox, like the Boox Go Color 7 Gen II that we recently reviewed. That tablet costs $299.99 / AU$439 (about £245), which might seem like a bargain compared to the Paper Pro Move, but read our review first – it’s not exactly our favorite writing tablet.

The Paper Pro Move launches with new folio options, and reMarkable supplied me with a leather folio and a recycled cloth folio. Surprisingly, I may prefer the cloth; it’s a fantastic color with a unique design that's very appealing. There’s a discount on folio accessories at launch, but no cheap bundle with a folio.

The larger reMarkable tablets have a type folio keyboard option, but reMarkable has skipped this accessory for the Paper Pro Move, at least for now. I think it would be cool to see a mini keyboard for this tablet, but reMarkable had nothing to show me.

reMarkable Paper Pro Move pricing

reMarkable Paper Pro Move

reMarkable Paper Pro

reMarkable 2

With Marker

$449 / £399 / AU$TBC

$629 / £559 / AU$929

$399 / £389 / AU$669

With Marker Plus

$499 / £439 / AU$TBC

$679 / £599 / AU$999

$449 / £429 / AU$749

reMarkable Connect

$2.99 / £2.99 / AU $4.99 /month

Value score: 4/5

reMarkable Paper Pro Move review: specs

(Image credit: Philip Berne / Future)

The reMarkable Paper Pro Move uses a dual-core processor that runs at a higher clock rate than the quad-core processor in the larger Paper Pro. You can see the difference when you use the two tablets side by side, as I discuss in the Performance section below.

The Paper Pro Move isn’t as thin as other reMarkable tablets. The reMarkable 2 is still one of the thinnest tablets you can buy overall at 4.7mm, while the Paper Pro is a svelte 5.1mm. The Paper Pro Move is 6.5mm, which is just a bit thicker than an iPad mini (6.3mm), and thinner than an iPhone 16 (7.8mm).

The Paper Pro Move also weighs much less than an iPad mini, at 235 grams versus the iPad’s 293 grams. More importantly, it weighs less than a standard Moleskine notebook.

reMarkable Paper Pro Move specs

Starting price

$449 / £399

Operating System (as tested)

reMarkable OS - Linux-based

Chipset

1.7GHz dual-core Cortex A55 chipset

Memory

2GB LPDDR4 RAM

Storage

64GB

Display

7.3-inch Canvas Color, based on E Ink Gallery 3

Weight

235g

Battery

2,334mAh

Supported File Formats

PDF, ePUB

Supported Cloud Services

Google Drive; Microsoft OneDrive; Dropbox; Slack

reMarkable Paper Pro Move review: display

(Image credit: Philip Berne / Future)

Great for writing with a unique feel
Caveats apply – this is not a bright, illuminated screen

The color E Ink display on the Paper Pro Move is probably not what you’re expecting, and while it’s a fantastic display for a writing tablet, you should be prepared before you buy one.

E Ink technology does not use light to create an image, it uses tiny particles that float closer or farther from the surface – including transparent color bits and reflective white particles. Because the particles actually move, E Ink displays react slower than a normal display – by a lot! You can see the ink move, and if you draw in color, you’ll see the display shift a few times as it forms the final image.

Some folks find this distracting – I think it looks cool. I love E Ink technology; it reminds me of steampunk and alternate future concepts that don’t rely on bright, irritating LCD and OLED panels. It’s not for everybody, though.

The reMarkable Paper Pro is admittedly dark to read. The panel is not a perfect white when it's blank; it looks more like light-grey newspaper. There are lights on the Paper Pro Move – just like on the Paper Pro – but they're not bright enough to even light the screen adequately at night. You’ll need extra light if you want to write in the dark (and you can’t use the Paper Pro Move as a flashlight to get to the bathroom – I tried).

(Image credit: Philip Berne / Future)

If you're expecting an iPad or even an e-paper display like the TCL NXTPaper, this will be a disappointment. If you're looking for a screen that looks – and more importantly feels like real paper, this is the tablet for you.

Writing on the reMarkable tablet feels exactly like writing with a pen on paper. I feel like I'm using my favorite Pilot Precise roller ball pens on a thick Moleskine notebook. When the results appear, looking remarkably like ink on paper and not bright lights on a display, the effect seems magical.

I'm astonished that reMarkable continues to refine its writing experience with each new device. While reMarkable tablets become even more pleasing and paper-like, the competition… doesn't exist? It doesn't even seem like any other tablet maker cares about the feel of writing and making its tablets feel like pen and ink on the page. So reMarkable is only improving to impress itself and its return customers.

Display score: 4 / 5

reMarkable Paper Pro Move review: Design

(Image credit: Philip Berne / Future)

Tall and thin like a great reporter's notebook
Pocketable, even inside a folio case

The reMarkable Paper Pro Move is a thin and very lightweight writing tablet that feels incredibly solid for its subtle heft. I had no trouble holding the tablet in the palm of my left hand and writing comfortably across the whole page with my right. Then I just tucked the tablet into the back pocket of my jeans.

I've always wanted a writing tablet like this. The Kindle Paperwhite might be a good candidate for a pen some day, but it's wider than the reMarkable Paper Pro Move, and just a bit harder to stuff in a pocket, especially with a nice cover.

The Paper Pro Move fit easily in my larger pockets, even with the leather or recycled cloth cover attached. I kept a cover on my device because it's looks great and keeps the pen in place, not because I was worried about durability. The Paper Pro Move feels very sturdy, even though it sadly lacks the IP water and dust protection you'll find on a smartphone or a fancy Samsung Android tablet.

Image 1 of 3

Compared to a standard Moleskine notebook (Image credit: Philip Berne / Future)Image 2 of 3

Compared to a standard Moleskine notebook (Image credit: Philip Berne / Future)Image 3 of 3

Compared to a standard Moleskine notebook (Image credit: Philip Berne / Future)

There's only one button on the Paper Pro Move – the power button – because the tablet doesn't have speakers. It doesn't make any noise, so there's no need for volume rockers. There's a USB-C port for charging on the bottom.

The pen attaches magnetically, and I need a case to feel secure with this arrangement or else I'm sure to lose my pen. The pen is proprietary technology, like the Paper Pro tablet, and not common EMR technology, like the reMarkable 2 tablet and the Samsung S Pen, so it's expensive to replace.

Design score: 5/5

reMarkable Paper Pro Move review: Software

(Image credit: Philip Berne / Future)

There's more things it can't do than things it can – by design
New AI features are disappointing, but could be improved easily

The easiest way to think about the reMarkable Paper Pro Move is as digital paper, and little more. You can create notebooks, then save them in folders. You can also insert tags throughout notebooks to make them easier to search.

What reMarkable does best, besides the luxurious hardware and writing experience, is the background templates it offers for your writing. The selection is enormous, better than you'll find on the Amazon Kindle Scribe or other writing tablets. That selection is growing fast, too – but there's a catch.

Sadly, reMarkable has become friendly with two of the evil villains of the digital world: subscriptions and AI. These are bugbears for the Move tablet.

Some of the best features on the reMarkable Paper Pro Move require a monthly subscription. It isn't much money – $2.99 / £2.99 / AU$4.99 per month – and it adds good value if you use the new templates reMarkable offers only to subscribers, called Methods. But it stings that this ultra-simple tablet needs a subscription plan at all.

Other new features will use AI machine-learning tools, but these don't run on the Paper Pro Move. If you want to convert your handwriting to typed text, that happens in the cloud.

The handwriting recognition results ranged from useless to dangerously hilarious. When I wrote a checklist of items and asked the tablet to convert my writing, I got a paragraph of items, not a list.

(Image credit: Philip Berne / Future)

The reMarkable AI doesn't format text neatly. In fact, instead of converting my writing on the page where I wrote it, the tablet would create a new page with my converted text. I suppose reMarkable expects me to cut and paste those results into the right spot. No thanks; I'll stick to writing.

The actual results were bad, too. My handwriting can be terrible, but I've been a teacher and I know students can read my scratch off a blackboard, so it's not a terminal case.

The remarkable Paper Pro Move got many words wrong, and in one case it got R-rated. Instead of a “Vertical kitty” toy from my list, it typed “vertical titty.”

Ummm, what the what!?! You can't say that, reMarkable tablet! You can't make a mistake that offers one of the seven words you can't say on television! Even on a simple writing tablet like this, AI proves once again that it can be horrible and useless.

(Image credit: Philip Berne / Future)

Since this happens in the cloud, I'm hopeful that reMarkable can just hook up with a better service. Handwriting recognition is a useful tool for a writing tablet, and it drives better features like searching through handwritten text.

I've seen much better AI-based handwriting recognition on the Kindle Scribe, so if your main goal is converting your scribbles into type, that's the tablet to choose.

Software score: 3/5

reMarkable Paper Pro Move review: Performance

(Image credit: Philip Berne / Future)

Best performance of any reMarkable tablet so far
It doesn't do much, so there isn't much to worry about

The reMarkable Paper Pro Move is not an Android tablet running apps. Still, it has a unique interface, and the display technology from E Ink is very complicated and requires some formidable hardware development. I’m happy to say the Paper Pro Move is the most responsive and fastest reMarkable tablet I’ve used, for whatever that’s worth on a writing tablet.

That means the tablet opened faster from sleep, and it was more responsive to typing from the moment I tapped out my passkey. Menus respond faster to touch, and I can pan and zoom on documents faster on the Paper Pro Move than on the Paper Pro tablet. The difference is noticeable.

If you're just writing with the tablet the response feels instantaneous – there's no perceivable delay between touching the Market Plus to the screen and the E Ink appearing. If you write calligraphy or draw with the paint brush tools, you'll appreciate the responsiveness.

Of course, adding color adds a delay, but this happens after you lift the pen. Some folks have told me they find this too distracting, as there's a slight flash of color once or twice as the different layers activate. I actually find the effect kind of cool-looking, but your mileage may vary.

Performance score: 5 / 5

reMarkable Paper Pro Move review: Battery

(Image credit: Philip Berne / Future)

Doesn't last as long as the big reMarkable tablets
Still lasts for days and days, not just hours

I'm not disappointed with the battery life I got from the reMarkable Paper Pro Move, but it didn't blow me away like the Paper Pro. I've had the tablet for more than two weeks and I've charged it twice, including the initial charge time. That's pretty great for modern electronics.

Of course, the reMarkable Paper Pro lasted through my entire review period without needing a recharge, but that tablet is more than twice the size – and weight – of the Paper Pro Move. I think the trade-off is fair. I still get more than a week of battery life, and I can stuff this tablet in my back pocket.

It's possible the Paper Pro Move died faster because I used it more. Since it's so portable, it was easier to use in more places, like I said. If I used it as sparingly as I used my Paper Pro, it may have lasted another few days.

The reMarkable Marker has a battery inside, which makes it different than the Marker on the reMarkable Paper 2 tablet or styluses for other tablets like Samsung’s Galaxy Tab S11 devices. I would rather not have another battery to charge, but the Paper Pro Move juices up the pen when you attach it magnetically to the side. It charges very quickly, too, in case you let the pen battery drop to zero.

Battery score: 5 / 5

Should I buy the reMarkable Paper Pro Move?reMarkable Paper Pro Move scoreboard

Attribute

Notes

Score

Value

It’s expensive, but not shockingly so. Still, it’s price is more for the luxury than for a wealth of features on offer.

3/5

Dsplay

A display that makes writing feel like pen on paper. The unusual refresh may be offputting to some, but I found it charming. It’s not bright enough for nighttime writing.

5/5

Design

Thin and light enough to keep in the back pocket of my 501 jeans, but big enough to be useful for journaling and all sorts of writing tasks.

5/5

Software

Simple and elegant at best, with tons of template options and perfect writing tools. At worst, you’re paying subscription fees and relying on AI for handwriting recognition – yuck.

3/5

Performance

Perfectly responsive writing, and now the interface responds faster to touch than any previous reMarkable tablet could. It keeps things simple and that pays off in performance.

5/5

Battery

Amazing battery life means you can forget to charge it for days, it lasts at least a week after tons of writing. Too bad you have to charge the pen, but at least it charges very quickly.

5/5

Buy it if...

You want a digital notepad to effectively, simply organize your thoughts
That’s the promise of reMarkable – it’s a simple pad for gathering your thoughts and storing them digitally, locally and in the cloud.

You love the feel of writing, but you've left paper behind
A reMarkable tablet doesn’t feel like dragging plastic over glass; it feels like writing with a real pen on thick paper: tactile and wonderful.

You’ve been eyeing writing tablets but they’re all too big
My dream tablet is an elegant writing tablet I can take anywhere with ease. That makes the reMarkable Paper Pro Move the tablet of my dreams.

Don't buy it if...

You want to read books, browse the web, yada yada yada
This tablet is only for writing. You can’t even make shapes easily, you can only write with the pen. Want more? Look elsewhere.

You like to write but want to convert your writing to type
The Paper Pro Move can convert handwriting to text, but the results aren’t reliable and the layout is ruined. The Kindle Scribe does this better.

You want a bright, shiny display that's colorful and bright and shiny
The Paper Pro Move looks more like newsprint on greyish paper than the glossy magazine you’d expect from an iPad. It’s not for reading, it’s for writing.

Also consider

Amazon Kindle Scribe
The Kindle Scribe doesn’t have as many writing tools or templates, but it does a better job of handwriting recognition, and you can read your books on it.

Read our in-depth Amazon Kindle Scribe review

reMarkable Paper Pro
The bigger Paper Pro gives you more battery time, more screen size, and even more writing and drawing tools. You can even buy a keyboard folio for it.

Read our in-depth reMarkable Paper Pro review

reMarkable Paper Pro Move

Amazon Kindle Scribe (2024)

reMarkable Paper Pro

Price

$449 / £399

$399.99 / £379.99 / AU$649

$629 / £559 / AU$929

Price for premium edition

$499 / £439 / AU$TBC (Marker Plus)

$449.99 / $429.99 / AU$729 (64GB, Premium Pen)

$449 / £429 / AU$749 (Marker Plus)

Display

7.3-inch Canvas Color, based on E Ink Gallery 3

10.2-inch E Ink Carta 1200

11.8-inch Canvas Color, based on E Ink Gallery 3

Supported files

PDF, ePub

PDF, unprotected MOBI, PRC natively; PDF, DOCX, DOC, HTML, EPUB, TXT, RTF, AAX (Audible audio format)

PDF, ePub

Storage

64GB

16GB

64GB

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How I tested the reMarkable Paper Pro Move

I've had the reMarkable Paper Pro Move for almost three weeks of testing, during which time I used it as my primary writing tablet for note taking, making lists, and journaling. I use a writing tablet daily, multiple times a day, even when I am not reviewing a new tablet, so you can trust I have experience with these devices.

I used the reMarkable Paper Pro Move to write notes for work that I would then send to my Google Drive, my work phone and tablet, and my laptop web browser. I sent web pages and documents to the reMarkable Paper Pro Move from my web browser and from the app. I shared doodles and notes on Slack using the new Slack integration.

I paid for a reMarkable Connect subscription to test reMarkable’s new Methods templates, as well as the advanced sharing features it offers. I also tested handwriting recognition by connecting the reMarkable to my home Wi-Fi.

For battery testing, I charged the reMarkable Paper Pro Move completely on the morning after I first received it, then measured the days until it ran out of battery. In 20 days of testing the tablet, I charged it twice.

I used the reMarkable Paper Pro Move in a leather folio and cloth folio provided by reMarkable. To keep the tablet secret and because I liked the feel, I kept the tablet in the folio for the entire review period.

I reviewed Zendesk's Sell CRM and its robust mobile app makes it an excellent choice for mobile sales teams

TechRadar Reviews - Wed, 09/03/2025 - 06:54

Zendesk, known primarily for its customer support software, has been expanding its offerings to cover more aspects of customer engagement. Zendesk Sell is one of the best CRM platforms on the market and aims to provide sales teams with a streamlined tool for managing leads, deals, and customer interactions.

It promises to boost productivity, improve pipeline visibility, and ultimately drive revenue growth. The CRM integrates closely with Zendesk's support tools, potentially offering a more cohesive customer experience across sales and service departments.

I'll dive deep into Zendesk Sell's features, usability, pricing, and overall performance to provide an unbiased analysis of how well it stacks up against other CRM competitors for sales teams. Read on for the full Zendesk Sell review.

Zendesk Sell core capabilities

(Image credit: Zendesk)

Zendesk Sell provides a centralized database for storing and accessing customer information, including contact details, interaction history, and account-specific notes. I began by importing and organizing my test contact list. I appreciated that the system supported both CSV and Excel file imports. It's helpful how the system tracks leads from initial contact to conversion.

The platform offers customizable sales pipelines, allowing me to adjust the stages to fit my sales process. I noticed the intuitive interface for moving deals through stages, making it easy to visualize progress and spot potential bottlenecks. However, some advanced lead management features, such as task automation and lead scoring, are limited to higher-tier plans.

Zendesk includes forecasting tools that enable sales managers to estimate deal volume and revenue growth. During my evaluation, I generated accurate forecasts using sample historical data and current pipeline status. While these features work well, I’ve seen more advanced predictive analytics in other CRMs.

The platform provides 20 pre-built charts, reports, and dashboards for insights into key sales metrics. It also allows the creation of custom reports using a drag-and-drop interface. Analyzing trends by region or team and predicting revenue growth adds value for sales managers. However, some users noted that competitors offer more detailed reporting options.

I liked how the CRM integrates with preferred communication tools. Zendesk works smoothly with popular email clients like Gmail and Outlook, automatically logging email communications. This integration saves time and ensures all customer interactions are captured within the CRM, offering a complete view of customer relationships. It also provides various automation tools, including task assignments, email follow-ups, and lead nurturing workflows.

In addition to email, Zendesk has a marketplace with many pre-built integrations and developer-friendly APIs. You can select from thousands of pre-built connectors to popular apps like Asana, Dialpad, SurveyMonkey, and Ada. Zendesk also provides API Reference Docs to help developers create custom integrations, offering all necessary tools and step-by-step instructions.

Zendesk’s mobile app, available for iPhone, iPad, and Android, offers full functionality, including geolocation features. You can create and manage tickets, view reports, and receive real-time alerts about customer requests. This allows sales reps to manage customer interactions on the go and enables sales managers to track their progress from the office.

However, while Zendesk Sell covers essential CRM capabilities, some features are restricted to higher-tier plans. Advanced permissions and roles, which are important for larger sales teams, are only available in the Professional Plan. Some users reported slow load times and occasional bugs, especially after adding third-party integrations.

How easy is Zendesk Sell CRM to use?

I found Zendesk Sell to be user-friendly, though it has some learning curves. Upon logging in, I saw a clean, modern interface that was easy to navigate. The customizable dashboard lets users prioritize important information for their roles.

I also appreciated Zendesk’s logical organization of information. Contacts, deals, and tasks are accessible from the main menu. I could switch between different views quickly as I changed my focus. The option to customize these views was helpful, allowing me to concentrate on the most relevant details for my workflow.

Zendesk’s CRM interface is very visual. Its smart lists help segment contacts and leads based on various criteria. The drag-and-drop feature for moving deals through the pipeline made it even more user-friendly. Together, these elements simplify the sales process.

Onboarding is straightforward. As an admin user, I could set up the system and invite team members easily. The guided setup process helps new users learn to create contacts, deals, and tasks. This support is useful for those new to CRM systems.

Zendesk Sell excels in integrating with other Zendesk products, especially the customer support platform. For businesses already using Zendesk for service, the smooth connection between sales and support data enhances usability and data consistency.

In terms of customization, Zendesk Sell strikes a balance between flexibility and simplicity. I tailored the system to my needs without feeling overwhelmed. Creating custom fields, deal stages, and pipelines allowed me to adjust the CRM to my specific sales process.

However, I noticed that some advanced features in higher-tier plans required more exploration to understand fully. For instance, setting up custom fields and creating advanced reports took time to master. I also found limitations in customization in lower-tier plans. Advanced automation features and custom dashboards are available only in higher-priced plans.

Zendesk offers mobile apps for both iOS and Android. I found them well-designed and responsive, providing most desktop functionality. This is beneficial for sales teams needing to access and update information while on the go.

Zendesk Sell CRM integrations

(Image credit: Zendesk)

Zendesk’s integrations are among its best features. Its close connection with Zendesk’s customer support platform ensures smooth data flow between sales and support teams, offering a unified view of customer interactions. Additionally, Zendesk Sell provides native integrations with major productivity suites such as Google Workspace and Microsoft 365.

For businesses using other popular SaaS applications, Zendesk Sell integrates with tools like Mailchimp for email marketing, QuickBooks for accounting, and Zapier for connecting to many other apps. The setup process for these integrations is easy, typically needing just a few clicks to authorize and configure.

You can find all these integrations at Zendesk Marketplace, which serves as a center for discovering and installing both native and third-party apps and plugins. Although Zendesk offers over 1,500 integrations, some competitors provide even more out-of-the-box connectors for popular applications.

For custom integration development, Zendesk Sell features a powerful API that enables developers to create specific connections with other systems. It includes both REST APIs for basic CRUD operations and advanced APIs like the Sync API for real-time data synchronization. The API documentation is thorough and well-organized, including step-by-step instructions for developers. I appreciate how Zendesk allows you to submit your custom integrations as paid apps to the Zendesk Marketplace, enabling you to earn from your work.

While examining the integration capabilities, I also noticed a few limitations. Some advanced integration features are available only in higher-tier plans, which may affect smaller businesses or those with budget limitations. There’s also a premium API for creating advanced custom apps that’s accessible only from the Growth plan onward.

How good is Zendesk Sell CRM customer support?

(Image credit: Zendesk)

When assessing Zendesk Sell's customer support, I found a well-rounded system built on Zendesk's customer service expertise. The platform offers various ways for users to get help, including live support and self-service options.

Zendesk Sell provides support via email and live chat for all pricing tiers. However, phone support is limited to higher-tier plans, which might pose challenges for smaller businesses. Chat support is quick, with agents usually available during business hours.

Email support is accessible 24/7, benefiting businesses across different time zones. Users receive replies within a few hours, even during off-peak times. The quality of email responses is generally high, offering detailed answers and step-by-step instructions when necessary.

Zendesk Sell's self-service features are strong, showcasing the company's expertise in knowledge management. The extensive knowledge base covers many topics, from basic setup to advanced features. I found the articles clear, concise, and frequently updated to reflect recent platform changes. Helpful screenshots and video tutorials enhance understanding, particularly for visual learners.

Zendesk's community forum is another useful self-service resource, active and well-moderated, with contributions from both company staff and experienced users. Peer support can be especially valuable for addressing unique or complex issues not detailed in standard documentation.

In terms of response and resolution times, Zendesk Sell generally performs well. Its service level agreements state that the company aims for a first response time of under 8 hours for standard inquiries and under 1 hour for urgent issues on higher-tier plans. Resolution times depend on the issue's complexity, but straightforward problems usually receive solutions in the first interaction.

Zendesk Sell CRM pricing and plans

Plan

Team

Growth

Professional

Enterprise

Price

$19/user/month

$55/user/month

$115/user/month

$169/user/month+

Best For

Small teams needing basic CRM functionality

Growing businesses requiring more advanced tools

Larger teams needing customization and automation

Enterprise-level organizations with complex needs

Features

Customizable sales pipeline; Email integration; Basic reporting

Advanced sales reports; Sales forecasting; Prospecting tools

Lead and deal scoring; Task automation; Advanced permissions

Unlimited pipelines; Custom APIs; Premium support

Limitations

Limited to 2 sales pipelines

Lacks advanced automation features

May be costly for smaller teams

Pricing may be prohibitive for some businesses

Zendesk Sell employs a tiered pricing model with four plans tailored for various business sizes and needs. The pricing is clear, calculated per user, per month. While Zendesk Sell's pricing is competitive in the CRM market, it may not be the most cost-effective choice, this means Zendesk typically isn’t the best CRM for start ups on a shoestring budget.

The entry-level Team plan costs $19 per user each month with annual billing. It offers essential CRM features like contact and deal management, email integration, and basic reporting. While this plan makes Zendesk a contender as one of the best CRM for small business, it lacks some common features in other platforms' entry-level plans, such as web-to-lead forms and advanced analytics.

The mid-tier Growth plan is priced at $55 per user per month when billed annually. It introduces advanced features like sales forecasting, bulk email templates, and product catalogs. This plan strikes a better balance of features and cost, making it suitable for growing businesses.

The Professional plan at $115 per user per month provides more advanced tools, including lead and deal scoring, task automation, and advanced permissions. These features can greatly enhance sales processes, but the significant price increase from the Growth plan may cause hesitation for some businesses.

At the highest level, the Enterprise plan begins at $169 per user per month with annual billing. This plan encompasses all features from the lower tiers, along with advanced customization options, dedicated account management, and premium support. While thorough, this pricing positions Zendesk Sell among the higher-priced enterprise-level CRM solutions.

Certain advanced features, like the power dialer or extra storage, incur additional costs. Zendesk offers a bundle called the Zendesk Suite, which combines Zendesk Sell with other products like Support and Chat, potentially offering significant savings for businesses using multiple products.

Additionally, Zendesk Sell provides a 15% discount for annual billing compared to monthly billing, which can lead to substantial savings for larger teams. A 14-day free trial is available for all plans, allowing potential customers to explore the platform before committing. However, Zendesk misses out on being one of the best free CRM platforms with no free tier, which may be a drawback for very small businesses or individuals seeking a no-cost CRM solution.

Zendesk Sell CRM FAQWhat are Zendesk Sell's core features?

Zendesk Sell offers a centralized database for customer information, customizable sales pipelines, and tools for sales forecasting and reporting. It also integrates with email and offers various automation tools, meaning it has most of the core capabilities that users expect from a CRM.

How does Zendesk Sell handle customer data?

Zendesk Sell provides a centralized database for storing and accessing contact details, interaction history, and notes. It also supports importing data from CSV and Excel files. As such, it provides a variety of ways for users to input and store customer data.

How does Zendesk Sell support the sales process and its aftermath?

Zendesk Sell gives users a customizable sales pipelines with an intuitive drag-and-drop interface for moving deals between stages. This helps sales teams visualize progress and identify bottlenecks.

Once the sales process has concluded - either successfully or not - Zendesk Sell also boasts reporting and analytics functionality. The platform includes 20 pre-built charts and dashboards and allows for the creation of custom reports using a drag-and-drop interface. This helps sales managers analyze trends and predict revenue growth.

Is Zendesk Sell a good choice for small businesses?

That all depends. Certainly, the entry-level "Team" plan is geared towards small teams and offers essential CRM functionality. However, the pricing may not be the most cost-effective for startups on a tight budget, as there is no free tier.

Does Zendesk Sell have a mobile app?

Yes, Zendesk Sell has a well-designed and responsive mobile app for both iOS and Android, offering most desktop functionality for sales reps on the go. This is especially important now that hybrid work has become commonplace, with many sales and marketing professionals working remotely at least some of the time.

How does the platform integrate with Zendesk's other products?

Zendesk Sell integrates seamlessly with Zendesk's customer support platform, ensuring a unified view of customer interactions for both sales and service teams. If businesses already use some of the other tools within the Zendesk suite, the appeal of Zendesk Sell is sure to increase.

What are some of the limitations of Zendesk Sell?

Perhaps the biggest limitation - although, certainly not one that is unique to Zendesk Sell - is that some advanced features, such as task automation, lead scoring, and advanced permissions, are restricted to higher-tier plans. Some users have also reported slow load times and occasional bugs after adding third-party integrations.

Zendesk Sell CRM: Summary

After analyzing Zendesk Sell, I find it a strong and user-friendly option that balances essential features with ease of use. Its strengths include an intuitive interface, solid integration with customer support tools, and regular updates that keep the platform competitive.

Zendesk Sell suits small to medium-sized businesses seeking a unified approach to sales and customer support. Its seamless integration with other Zendesk products makes it a great choice for companies using or considering their support platform.

However, larger enterprises or those needing specialized CRM features may find Zendesk Sell somewhat limited compared to established enterprise solutions. Also, while the pricing structure is competitive, it might be high for very small businesses or startups.

Categories: Reviews

I tested Pipedrive's CRM and I can't believe how easy it is to navigate

TechRadar Reviews - Wed, 09/03/2025 - 06:35

Founded in 2010, Pipedrive has grown to serve over 100,000 companies across more than 175 countries. It’s designed to help sales teams manage leads, track deals, and streamline sales processes.

At its heart, Pipedrive CRM offers a visual sales pipeline that lets users easily move deals through different stages by dragging and dropping them. Its intuitive interface is supported by features such as contact management, email integration, reporting tools, and workflow automation. Ultimately, it aims to simplify sales management by providing insights that help teams close more deals, making it one of the best CRM platforms out there.

In this review, I'll take a close look at Pipedrive's key features, usability, pricing, and overall performance to see if it lives up to its reputation as a user-friendly and effective CRM solution. I'll share my hands-on experience with the software and compare it to other CRM solutions in the market to see how it stacks up.

Pipedrive's core capabilities

(Image credit: Pipedrive)

At the heart of Pipedrive’s system is the contact and lead management feature. I liked how easy it was to import and organize contacts, with the ability to add custom fields to capture specific information relevant to my sales process. The system allows for a comprehensive view of each contact, including communication history, associated deals, and activities.

Pipedrive’s visual pipeline interface is one of its standout features, allowing me to track and move deals through various stages with a simple drag-and-drop action. I found it very easy to maintain a clear overview of my sales pipeline and quickly identify which opportunities needed attention.

There’s a paid LeadBooster add-on that enhances Pipedrive’s lead management capabilities even further. It includes web forms, live chat, and a prospecting tool that can help generate and qualify leads automatically. While these are powerful and well-designed, it's worth noting that they come at an additional cost on top of your base plan.

Pipedrive also offers advanced forecasting capabilities — the platform creates customizable sales forecasts based on the deals in your pipeline, allowing for accurate revenue predictions. I found the ability to create multiple pipelines particularly useful, as it allowed me to customize the sales process for different products or customer segments separately.

While it offers a range of pre-built reports based on various KPIs, Pipedrive’s custom reports are where it really shines. It offers a range of options to measure team efficiency, software effectiveness, and sales performance from a bevy of different angles. The reports themselves are incredibly visual, making it easy to understand the different charts, graphs, and numbers.

You can automate your sales workflows easily with Pipedrive. I found the process of setting up these automations to be straightforward, with a visual builder that made it easy to create complex workflows without needing any coding knowledge. However, there isn’t any support for marketing automation, which can put off some teams.

How easy it Pipedrive CRM to use?

Pipedrive’s minimalist design eliminates clutter, allowing users to focus on what matters most — managing their sales pipeline and customer relationships. The visual pipeline view is particularly user-friendly, offering a drag-and-drop interface that makes it easy to move deals through various stages.

Something that really impressed me was the smart contact data feature. With a single click, the system can search the internet for information about a prospect and populate records automatically. It saves a lot of time on data entry and research, allowing reps to focus more on actual selling activities.

Customization options on this platform are robust yet straightforward to implement. Pipedrive allows users to tailor fields, pipelines, and workflows to match their specific sales processes. During my testing, I was able to easily add custom fields to capture industry-specific information and create multiple pipelines for different product lines.

Pipedrive offers a variety of learning materials, including video tutorials, webinars, and a knowledge base. Its in-app guidance is particularly noteworthy, providing contextual tips and explanations as users navigate through different features.

Automation features in Pipedrive further enhance its usability. The platform offers a range of pre-built workflow automations that can be easily customized to fit specific needs. They help streamline repetitive tasks, such as follow-up emails or activity creation, allowing sales reps to focus more on building relationships and closing deals.

Pipedrive offers a mobile app for both iOS and Android. It provides a seamless experience, allowing users to update deals, access contact information, and log activities on the go. I found the mobile interface to be just as intuitive as the desktop version, ensuring that sales teams can stay productive even when out of the office. This is an especially helpful feature for businesses with mobile sales teams.

However, I did find that setting up some of the more advanced features, like email sequences and certain automations, required a bit more time and effort to master. Still, Pipedrive offers ample documentation and training resources to get through the initial stages after implementation.

Pipedrive CRM integrations

(Image credit: Pipedrive)

Pipedrive CRM offers a powerful ecosystem that allows users to connect the CRM with a wide array of third-party applications. Pipedrive's Marketplace hosts over 400 out-of-the-box integrations, covering essential business tools across categories like email marketing, document management, project management, analytics, live chat, and accounting.

Connecting Pipedrive with popular tools like Slack, Zoom, and Microsoft Teams was a seamless process, allowing for real-time notifications and improved collaboration. The integration with email platforms like Gmail and Outlook was particularly useful, enabling me to manage emails and CRM data from a single interface. One integration that stood out was the Leadfeeder connection, which automatically transfers website lead data into Pipedrive.

There’s also an open API, which provides developers with the flexibility to create custom integrations when needed. It uses a JSON format for output and supports CORS requests, which adds to its versatility. I was impressed by the comprehensive documentation and developer resources available for API users, making it relatively straightforward for technical teams to extend functionality through custom integrations.

For users who aren't developers, Pipedrive offers integration with Zapier, a popular automation tool that can connect Pipedrive to thousands of other applications without requiring coding skills. This greatly expands the potential for creating automated workflows across different platforms, even if they don't have a direct integration with Pipedrive.

For a smooth flow of information, the platform uses database replicas that sync in real-time, ensuring data continuity and minimizing the risk of data loss. However, for those concerned about data backup, Pipedrive also conducts nightly backups of all database machines and creates encrypted off-site backups of customer databases.

For businesses looking to create more complex integrations or automate specific workflows, Pipedrive's Developer Platform offers additional tools. This includes webhooks, API endpoints, and SDKs, allowing for deeper customization of the CRM experience.

How good is Pipedrive CRM customer support?

(Image credit: Pipedrive)

For all users, regardless of plan, Pipedrive provides 24/7 email and chatbot support. While the latter is a great option for basic queries requiring quick resolution, the former is meant for more complex issues that aren’t so time-sensitive.

Users on the Advanced, Professional, Power, or Enterprise plans have access to human agents during live chat. Response times are quick, usually within a few minutes. Support agents are knowledgeable, and able to address most of my basic queries efficiently. However, for more complex issues, I noticed that the initial response often involved directing me to relevant knowledge base articles rather than providing immediate solutions.

The availability of live chat support depends on your subscription tier. Advanced plan users can access live chat during business hours (9:00 am to 5:00 pm in the user's timezone), while Professional plan subscribers enjoy 24/5 support. Power and Enterprise users benefit from round-the-clock support, seven days a week.

For users on the Power or Enterprise plans, Pipedrive also offers phone support. However, it's worth noting that this service is only available during limited hours - from 7:00 am to 11:00 pm (CET/CEST) for English speakers, and from 10:00 am to 11:00 pm (CET/CEST) for Portuguese speakers.

For self-help purposes, Pipedrive’s knowledge base is extensive and well-organized, covering a wide range of topics from basic setup to advanced features. I found the articles to be clear, concise, and often accompanied by helpful screenshots or video tutorials.

Pipedrive also offers an online learning platform called Pipedrive Academy. This resource provides a series of video courses and tutorials designed to help users master various aspects of the CRM. I found these courses to be well-structured and particularly useful for new users or those looking to expand their knowledge of specific features.

Pipedrive CRM pricing and plans

Plan

Essential

Advanced

Professional

Power

Enterprise

Price

$12/user/month

$24/user/month

$49/user/month

$59/user/month

$79/user/month

Best For

Small teams starting with CRM

Teams scaling sales processes

Larger teams optimizing performance

Big teams with complex needs

Large organizations requiring robust management

Features

Visual sales pipeline; Basic lead management; Simple reporting

Email sync and tracking; Customizable automations; Sales prospecting tools

AI sales assistant; Contract management; Revenue forecasting

Project management; Expanded permissions; 24/7 phone support

Unlimited custom fields; Enhanced security; Advanced customization

Limitations

Limited open deals and custom fields

Restricted automation capabilities

No project management features

Fewer customization options

Minimum 10 users required

Pipedrive’s pricing is competitive and flexible, offering a range of options to suit different business needs and sizes. As of my review, Pipedrive offers five main pricing tiers: Essential, Advanced, Professional, Power, and Enterprise.

The Essential plan starts at $12/user/month, billed yearly. It offers basic CRM features: contact and deal management, customizable pipelines, and simple reporting. This option makes Pipedrive one of the best small business CRM platforms out there. Higher plans add more advanced features.

I found the Advanced plan, at $24/user/month, to be particularly great value. It includes email templates, tracking, and customizable automations, boosting sales team productivity. The Professional plan, priced at $49/user/month adds AI features, revenue forecasting, and e-signatures. It’s perfect for growing businesses.

For larger companies or those needing more complex solutions, the Power and Enterprise plans are available at $59 and $79 per user per month, respectively. These plans include project management, better security, and unlimited custom fields. They also offer incrementally higher limits on deals, reports, and automation workflows.

Across all plans, opting for annual billing instead of monthly can save you up to 17%. Pipedrive also offers a 14-day free trial for all its plans, which is less than some competitors but still reasonable. While the base plans offer comprehensive features, Pipedrive provides several add-ons that can enhance functionality. These include LeadBooster for lead generation (starting at $32.50 per company monthly), Web Visitors Tracking ($41 per company monthly), and Campaigns for email marketing ($13.33 per company monthly).

A potential drawback I noticed is that Pipedrive doesn't offer a free plan beyond the trial period. For very small businesses or solopreneurs looking for a free CRM solution, this could be a limitation. This means Pipedrive isn't necessarily one of the best CRM for start ups on a shoe string budget, although start ups with a small budget could benefit from the affordable Essential plan.

It's also worth mentioning that Pipedrive's pricing can vary depending on your location and the currency you're billed in. I found that prices are often kept at the same numerical value across different currencies (e.g., $99 USD, €99 EUR, £99 GBP), which can result in higher costs for users outside the US.

Pipedrive CRM FAQWhat is Pipedrive's core feature?

At its heart, Pipedrive is built around the visual sales pipeline. This standout feature allows users to easily track and manage deals through different stages with a simple drag-and-drop interface. This makes it incredibly easy to maintain a clear overview of your sales process and quickly identify which opportunities need attention.

Of course, there's much more to Pipedrive too, including lead management and workflow automation features. The latter, for example, centers around a visual builder, which makes it straightforward to set up automations for repetitive tasks, such as sending follow-up emails or creating activities. However, it is worth noting that it does not natively support marketing automation, which may be a consideration for some teams.

Can I create my own sales reports with Pipedrive?

Although Pipedrive offers a range of pre-built reports, its custom reporting is where it truly shines. You can create highly visual reports to measure team efficiency, software effectiveness, and sales performance from a variety of angles, making it simple to understand the numbers behind your team's success.

Does Pipedrive have a mobile app?

Yes, Pipedrive offers a mobile app for both iOS and Android. The app provides a seamless experience, allowing sales teams to update deals, access contact information, and log activities on the go, making it an especially helpful feature for businesses with mobile sales teams.

How easy is Pipedrive to use?

Pipedrive's ease of use is one of the platform's core strengths. The CRM is known for its user-friendly interface and minimalist design, which helps users focus on their sales activities without unnecessary clutter. Its visual pipeline and drag-and-drop functionality are particularly intuitive. The platform also includes a smart contact data feature that automatically populates records with information from the internet, saving reps a lot of time on data entry.

Pipedrive CRM review: Summary

After thoroughly evaluating Pipedrive across multiple key areas, I believe this is a top-tier CRM platform with its visual pipeline interface and intuitive deal management tools standing out as significant strengths.

With its user-friendly interface and straightforward customization options, companies should have no trouble ensuring a healthy level of adoption even through the early stages of implementation. But while Pipedrive offers a solid range of integrations and a well-documented API, there's room for improvement in terms of advanced marketing automation capabilities. The customer support, though generally responsive and helpful, could benefit from more consistent quality and faster response times for email inquiries.

Overall, Pipedrive CRM is a strong choice for small and midsize businesses looking for an accessible yet feature-rich sales management platform. While there are areas for improvement, it delivers more than its share of value for the price point.

Categories: Reviews

Bluehost Web Hosting review

TechRadar Reviews - Tue, 09/02/2025 - 15:50

Bluehost, one of the world's largest and best web hosting providers, has almost two decades of experience in helping users build and host quality WordPress websites.

Bluehost is owned by Newfold Digital the company behind other major hosting names like HostGator, Network Solutions, and SEO tool Yoast too.

Bluehost has a real depth of knowledge in WordPress which goes way beyond most competitors. It has developers working on the platform full-time, and has been directly recommended by WordPress.org since 2005.

For a quick run through what Bluehost is like to use check out my One Hour With Bluehost article.

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What types of hosting does Bluehost offer?

Bluehost provides some of the best WordPress hosting in the shape of shared, VPS hosting, cloud, and dedicated hosting plans. These plans are good for everything from blogs to ecommerce sites of all sizes.

The shared plans come in four flavours: Starter, Business, eCommerce Essentials, and eCommerce Essentials Premium. You'll find yourself directed to these plans if you click through from WordPress Hosting, WooCommerce, and Web Hosting. The only difference is that if you click through from WooCommerce you'll only be offered eCommerce Essentials, and eCommerce Essentials Premium.

The shared plans are ideal for up to 400K visits but those figures are based on the average site and don't specify a performance level for the sites. You should consider the number an estimate and safety net. If your site gets a lot of visitors, you'll likely need to use one of the VPS, cloud, or dedicated plans.

The VPS plans come in three flavours: Standard NVMe 4, Enhanced NVMe 8, and Ultimate NVMe 16. Plus, a bonus custom flavour. The number in the name corresponds to the amount of RAM you get with each plan. You get a 1:2 ratio of CPU cores to gigabytes of RAM. As for site visits, you're on your own here when it comes to estimated levels but support will help you make the choice on which one is best for you.

The cloud plans also come in three flavours: Cloud 10, Cloud 25, and Cloud 50. Plus, the additional custom plan. The number in this name corresponds to how many sites each plan supports. The cloud plans are ideal for 300K - 23 million site visits a month.

It's the same pattern with dedicated hosting plans: Standard NVMe 32, Enhanced NVMe 64, and Premium NVMe 128...and the custom plan. These plans have a CPU core to RAM ratio of 1:4.

Bluehost offers quality WordPress plans with some powerful extras (Image credit: Future)Bluehost shared & WordPress hosting

Bluehost's WordPress and shared hosting plans are the same. Opt for one of these plans and your website is stored on a server which also hosts many other accounts. This type of hosting saves money, because the cost of the server is shared between many users. But it runs the risk of unstable performance, because the server's resources - the processor, the RAM, the network connection - are also shared by all the accounts.

The cheapest plan starts at $3.95/mo for 36 months and then renews at $9.99. It supports 10 websites and up to 40K visits a month. It provides 10 GB NVMe storage, a CDN, managed WordPress updates, SSL, and some security features. Email and back ups are only free for one year.

Spending more on the next plan will set you back $6.45/mo for 36 months and then $14.99/mo after. The only difference is that the plan supports more visitors (200K) but also malware removal and free domain privacy for one year.

Step up again and you'll be paying 6.99/mo for more resources and more security, development tools, and ecommerce tools. This plan renews at $17.99/mo.

These are capable products, easy to manage, faster than most (more on that later) and powerful enough to handle many personal and small business sites.

(Image credit: Future)Bluehost VPS hosting

VPS (Virtual Private Server) hosting is where a physical server is divided up into individual server environments. There are far fewer accounts on a server than you'll see with shared hosting, and your VPS doesn't have to share its resources with other sites. That's a real performance plus, and while some shared hosting plans might struggle with large amounts of visitors, a good VPS can usually handle hundreds of thousands.

Bluehost has three VPS plans. The simplest gives you 2 CPU cores, 4 GB DDR5 RAM, 100 GB NVMe storage, unmetered bandwidth and a cPanel/WHM license for $46.99/ month over three years, $65.99 on renewal. At the top of the range, an 8 core, 16 GB DDR5 RAM, 450 GB NVMe storage and unmetered bandwidth setup is priced at $94.99 a month over three years, $140.99 on renewal.

A full-featured cPanel setup is stuffed with web management features (Image credit: Future)Bluehost dedicated hosting

Selecting a dedicated hosting package gets you the maximum resources and control: an entire web server, for your use only.

The server users the latest hardware including AMD EYPC processers. Speedy NVMe storage which is becoming the new standard SSD. You also get unlimited bandwidth, Cloudflare Enterprise CDN, and a 99.9% SLA.

The servers are fully managed and come with white-glove onboarding.

Bluehost website builder dashboard (Image credit: Future)Does Bluehost have a page builder?

Bluehost offers a WordPress page builder. It's based on WordPress and has some of the same pain points of the WordPress built-in block editor but has some handy tools to make it easier. You can use this for all types of sites from blogs to eCommerce stores.

First of all, you get a helping hand if you're stating out with your first WordPress site in the form of an AI built website. There are also suggestions and tutorials to help you make it better. There is also the WordPress Academy to help you better understand WordPress.

Then, there is the WonderBlocks tool that has loads of templates for all sorts of things you want to add to your site. You can read more about the experience of building your first site with Bluehost in my one hour with Bluehost review and the full Bluehost website builder review.

Bluehost's uptime (Image credit: Future)How fast is Bluehost?

Performance matters in web hosting, even for the cheapest of plans. A slow site, regularly down, could be worse than having no website at all.

To test Bluehost we migrated a WordPress site to the most basic plans and then ran some WordPress benchmark tests to see how well the server performed in general. After that we did some gentle stress testing to see how well the site coped with some traffic.

WordPress benchmark testing

CPU & Memory

Operations with large text data

8.8

Random binary data operations

5.14

Recursive mathematical calculations

6.13

Iterative mathematical calculations

7.2

Filesystem

Filesystem write ability

8.82

Local file copy and access speed

9.36

Small file IO test

Database

Importing large amount of data to database

8.68

Simple queries on single table

Complex database queries on multiple tables

7.7

Object Cache

Persistent object cache enabled

Network

Network download speed test

Overall

Your server score

7.9

Siege test

Concurrent users

Transactions

1086

2110

1473

availability

95.6

96.7

95.71

elapsed time

299.22

299.87

299.11

Data transactions

13.96

25.95

19.45

response time

0.41

1.17

2.61

Transaction rate

3.36

7.04

4.92

throughput

0.05

0.09

0.07

concurrency

1.49

8.22

12.87

sucesful transactions

1086

2110

1473

failed transactions

longest transaction

19.77

19.93

20.21

shortest transaction

0.11

0.1

For benchmarking, the WordPress Benchmark plugin measures CPU and memory use, object cache, filesystem access, and network speed. It then provides a final benchmark score. Meanwhile, the command line tool Siege can simulate multiple concurrent visits, providing us with an idea of the server’s reliability when demand is high.

Our modest WordPress-based WooCommerce store, with around 20 items and a welcoming landing page scored 7.9 in WordPress Benchmark. This was a particularly good set of scores across the board, only let down by the “Persistent object cache enabled” benchmark unable to measure a score.

Meanwhile, the Siege testing found the hosting able to handle 9 and 15 concurrent visitors comfortably, responding well and with over 95% availability. Considered together, these test results offer some confidence that even with Bluehost’s most affordable hosting plans, you can expect reliable performance.

Note that these tests determine performance on a shared hosting plan. As such, they don’t offer any insights into speeds on dedicated hosting, cloud hosting, or VPS hosting plans.

What is Bluehost's support like?

There is only chat support for the most basic shared hosting plans. All other plans come with chat and phone support. There is also only a local US or international number for phone support and all support is in the English language. This might not be an issue if you're in North America but it could be costly and less than ideal compared with having support in your local language.

To be fair, this shouldn't be a big cross in the cons column because most hosting companies don't offer phone support at all - let alone in multiple languages. Still, only offering English support across all support is going to be a dealbreaker for some and other hosts do offer multi-lingual support, such as Hostinger.

Final verdict

The company’s tiny and not-very-configurable VPS and Dedicated plans mean Bluehost is less likely to work for the most demanding business users, but overall, Bluehost remains a quality provider who delivers faster, more reliable and better quality hosting than most of the competition.

Bluehost’s underpowered VPS and dedicated hosting plans mean it may not work for the largest and most demanding business-critical sites, but it excels everywhere else, with all the feature-packed shared, WordPress, website-building and ecommerce plans you need to build fast and reliable personal and small to medium business sites.

Bluehost FAQsWhat payment types does Bluehost support?

Bluehost accepts payment via card only.

Does Bluehost offer refunds?

Buy a Bluehost hosting plan, or some add-on products and you're protected by a 30-day money-back guarantee. That's typical for the hosting world, although a few providers offer more: InMotion Hosting gives you 90 days, HostGator 45 days.

We noticed one or two minor issues. Bluehost doesn't offer refunds on SSL certificates, for instance; Hostinger does. But generally, this is a straightforward, catch-free guarantee which gives you exactly the protection you'd expect.

Does Bluehost have an uptime guarantee?

Bluehost doesn't quote any target uptime figure, or have any formal method of compensating you if your server is down for a lengthy period.

That's a little disappointing. Most providers quote uptime figures of at least 99.9%, some 99.99%, and say they'll give you credits if the service doesn't hit the mark.

These 'guarantees' don't always mean very much, though. The small print might say downtime doesn't count if it's due to 'unforeseeable circumstances', for instance, something which could be used to rule out almost anything.

Overall, we'd prefer a host to have an uptime guarantee, but if this doesn't happen, it's not a disaster. We'll look at our own and other measurements of uptime, instead, and in our experience Bluehost scores very well.

Where are Bluehost's data centers?

Bluehost has local data centers for its various regions - USA, India, China - but your site is automatically assigned to the nearest location when you sign up. Buy at bluehost.com and your website is hosted in Bluehost's USA data center, for instance; use bluehost.in and it's hosted in India.

For comparison, GoDaddy has data centers in North America, India, Singapore and Europe, and you're able to choose which data center to use for each hosting plan. That can be an advantage, as it gives you a better chance of hosting your website close to its main audience, improving download speeds.

What is my Bluehost IP address?

Finding your website server's IP address can be handy, especially if you need to point a domain hosted elsewhere to your website.

There's no single way to manage this on Bluehost - it depends on your product and control panel - but if your plan has access to cPanel, it only takes a moment.

Log into your Bluehost account dashboard (my.bluehost.com).

Click Advanced in the left-hand sidebar.

Browse the General Information box on the right. The server IP address is displayed as 'Shared IP address.' (If you don't see a General Information box, look for and click a Server Information link).

What are Bluehost's nameservers?

Bluehost's nameservers are:

ns1.bluehost.com 162.88.60.37
ns2.bluehost.com 162.88.61.37

If you need more help, the support site has several useful articles on nameservers and DNS

How do I cancel a Bluehost product?

Log into your Bluehost control panel (my.bluehost.com).

Click the account icon top right (it'll have your initials in a circle) and select My Products.

Find the plan you'd like to cancel, click the More icon to its right (three dots in a vertical line) and select Renewal Options.

Choose Manual Renew and you won't be charged again. Your subscription will expire at the end of its term.

If you think there's a chance you might want to cancel a plan, make the decision as early as you can. Bluehost's auto-renewal scheme takes your money 15 days before the plan expires, so if you leave this to the last minute, there's a good chance you'll be too late.

Check out the latest Bluehost promo codes.

Categories: Reviews

Live Proxies Review

TechRadar Reviews - Tue, 09/02/2025 - 11:57

Established in 2020 to meet the growing need for proxy servers and IP addresses, Live Proxies has been successful in its mission. This means that its servers have allowed individuals and businesses everywhere to bypass geo-restrictions and scrape data from websites for half a decade already.

In late 2022, it expanded its service to provide - among other things - Live Servers, meeting the market demand for secure and reliable virtual machines. In 2023, the platform added static residential and rotating mobile IPs to its existing offerings of rotating residential proxies.

Today, this proxy provider proudly offers access to a pool of more than 10 million IPs spanning 55 locations. Users can take their pick among rotating residential, static residential, and rotating mobile IP addresses to enjoy unrestricted access to the internet.

Live Proxies: Plans and Pricing

(Image credit: Live Proxies)

As mentioned above, there are three types of proxies you’ll get with Live Proxies - rotating residential, static residential, and rotating mobile. Each category has its custom pricing, and there’s also a separate B2B option for businesses.

Customers can choose plans based on location, bandwidth, and number of IPs included. For instance, for 200 rotating residential IPs with a 4 GB bandwidth allocation for the duration of 30 days, you’d have to set aside $70, regardless of the selected country. At the same time, selecting the US as the target location allows you to specify the particular state where you want your IPs to be located. Extending this plan to 60 days brings the price to $85, whereas doubling the bandwidth to 8 GB (during 30 days) costs $100.

With a similar pricing structure, static residential IPs are charged $65 for 50 IPs with a 4 GB allocation for 30 days. Upping this to 8 GB for 45 days costs $110. Rotating mobile proxies are also priced depending on bandwidth and subscription length. Long story short - the higher the bandwidth and subscription length, the more you pay in total (but less per IP).

That said, static residential proxy locations are only available in the US, rotating mobile IPs in the US, Canada, and the United Kingdom, whereas other locations support only rotating residential proxy plans.

Of course, unmetered options are pricier than the metered ones and don’t include rotating mobile IPs. So, the rotating residential plan of 25 IPs for 30 days is charged $130. The same option for static residential proxies costs $150.

As for the B2B plan, its pricing structure is simple - businesses pay a minimum $5,000 monthly to access the entire 10 million+ IP addresses. This is different from residential and mobile plans, which are limited to the specific proxy location.

This pricing plan organization is relatively easy to understand. All you need to know is where you want your IPs to be, how many proxy addresses you require, and how much traffic you need them for. However, the plans might be a tad costly compared to the competition.

Live Proxies: Features

(Image credit: Live Proxies)

Live Proxies not only offers a solid network of more than 10 million IP addresses and three main types of proxies - rotating residential, static residential, and rotating mobile - but also use cases across multiple categories, including web scraping, ad verification, unrestricted eCommerce, social media performance, gaming, brand protection, SEO, travel data aggregation, access to limited-edition sneakers, and much more.

Rotating residential IPs

In line with their name, rotating IPs “rotate” according to specific schedules. This means you’ll be switched to a proxy IP at a set time, like every hour or each time you start a new browsing session.

Live Proxies offers rotating residential IPs in multiple regions - US, Canada, UK, Mexico, Austria, Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Switzerland, Germany, Spain, France, Ireland, Israel, India, Italy, Japan, Mexico, the Netherlands, Portugal, Sweden, and Turkey.

Rotating proxies offer better anonymity, as the frequent change makes it difficult for websites to track your online behavior. Suppose you want to scrape data from a real estate listing site with anti-scraping features. Rotating proxies makes it challenging for the website’s admins to track your usage pattern and detect the proxy. They’ll likely assume the rotating proxies come from different individuals visiting their website.

Better off, Live Proxies offers residential IP addresses from legitimate sources. Device owners around the globe agree to add their IP addresses to Live Proxies’ pool in exchange for benefits. Then, you can use these IP addresses to bypass website restrictions and scrape data.

The drawback is that rotating proxies are slower than static proxies. Frequent rotation increases the likelihood of encountering slow connections, and rotating IPs are more expensive than static IPs.

(Image credit: Live Proxies)Static residential IPs

Static proxy IPs can be used for as long as your subscription lasts, and Live Proxies offers plans for durations of 30, 45, and 60 days. You can select a domestic static IP to bypass geo-restrictions or, say, scrape data from a US-centric real-estate listing website.

At the moment, Live Proxies’ static IPs are only available for the US. We tested these and noted excellent speed and performance.

Rotating mobile IPs

Mobile proxies are IPs sourced from mobile devices, such as smartphones and tablets, for various use cases. For example, you can use Live Proxies’ reliable rotating mobile IPs to juggle multiple social media accounts without risking restrictions or having to check whether ads are displayed correctly to mobile users.

B2B

Live Proxies offers a simplified proxy IP plan for businesses. Companies can access the entire pool of 10 million+ proxy IPs across 55 countries for a monthly fee. This plan best suits companies with large proxy needs, such as a price comparison website scraping data from numerous sources.

Live Proxies: Ease of Use

We didn’t observe any hiccups when testing Live Proxies. Its interface is easy to understand, with features neatly arranged on the left side and the main dashboard on the right. The dashboard sports a white background plus a few shades of blue to highlight features. Everything is set up in a way that a layperson can quickly grasp.

(Image credit: Live Proxies)Customer Support

Live Proxies has a decent help area on its website that includes a detailed knowledge base with answers to common issues. If you require further assistance, you can submit a ticket or reach out through the platform’s Discord channel. There’s no direct live chat on the site, nor is there any telephone support.

(Image credit: Live Proxies)Live Proxies: The Competition

Live Proxies performed on par with most rival proxy tools we’ve tested. Its proxy IPs provide excellent speed and performance. The drawback is its limited pool of 10 million IPs across 55 countries, compared to rivals like Oxylabs, which has 102 million IPs across 195 countries and Bright Data, which has 72 million IPs across 195 countries.

Live Proxies: Final Verdict

Live Proxies remains one of the best proxy providers in the industry, where speed and performance are concerned. For instance, thanks to these capabilities, it reliably supports large-scale data scraping, SEO boosting, and ad verification in which speed is of the essence, especially useful to businesses. At the same time, it works great for individual use cases dependent on performance, like downloading files, gaming, unrestricted shopping, and social media navigation.

Take a look at our guide to the best proxy services

Categories: Reviews

Decodo (formerly Smartproxy) proxy service review

TechRadar Reviews - Tue, 09/02/2025 - 11:47

Formerly known as Smartproxy, Decodo is a proxy service scoring highly on our radar, thanks to its established reputation in the industry, where it has existed since 2018. It currently offers more than 125 million IPs across 195 locations with reliable uptime and speed.

With Decodo, users gain access to residential (dynamic and static), data center, and mobile proxies to level up their browsing security. There’s also a handy Site Unblocker feature that facilitates bypassing CAPTCHA and IP bans, and enables entry to restricted sites.

Aside from ethically-sourced proxy addresses, Decodo offers APIs for scraping, providing users with a wide array of options to automate the extraction of publicly available information from websites. These include several types of APIs for different levels of expertise and various objectives.

Plans and pricing

Decodo doesn’t have a subscription pricing model like many other proxy providers. Instead, its pricing is based on how many IPs you require, the type of IPs, and the volume of traffic you require. The pricing structure is complex, but let’s break it down below.

Decodo promotes its Residential IPs starting from $1.5 monthly per GB under enterprise pricing (excludes individuals and small businesses), but you need to take the 1000 GB plan, which means you’ll be charged $1,500 per month. Meanwhile, the pay-as-you-go option, available to regular users, starts at $3.5 per GB.

The more gigabytes you consume, the lower the unit price per GB. For instance, $245 per month would get you 50 GB ($4.90 per GB) of traffic for residential IPs, $450 monthly equals 100 GB ($4.50 per GB), while you’d need to set aside $3,000 each month if you want 1,000 GB ($3 per GB) of traffic through residential IPs.

Static residential proxies, priced by the number of IPs, monthly traffic, or the number of dedicated IPs required, start from $0.27 monthly per IP (that’s if you require 8,000 IPs and 50 GB of traffic). Furthermore, 500 IPs cost $165 monthly ($0.33 per IP), but 10 IPs cost $5.17 (that’s $0.47 monthly). In other words, the greater the number of IPs, the lower the unit cost of each IP.

The pricing for mobile proxies begins at $4.50 per IP with the 500 GB plan, and the price goes up per IP with the lower traffic requirement. Similar to static proxies, datacenter plans are also offered on the GB, IP, and dedicated IP basis. They start at $3,800 for the 10,000 GB plan, or $0.026 per IP if you go with the 4,000 IP and 300 GB option.

If you decide to go with the pay-as-you-go option for residential proxies, it’s priced by 1 GB, each costing $3.50. For mobile proxies, the price is $8 per 1 GB, while the static dedicated ISP and datacenter proxies don’t have the pay-as-you-go option available.

There’s a 14-day money-back guarantee if you’re not entirely satisfied with the service, although it’s not offered for every pricing plan. That said, you can first take it out for a spin during the rather short three-day free trial with 100MB of traffic before making a final decision.

All things considered, Decodo runs a pricing model that favors bulk users over individual and small business users. So, if you run a large organization that needs many IPs and gigabytes, you’ll find Decodo cost-effective due to the significant discounts. Still, Decodo might be expensive for small users.

Features

A Decodo user's journey begins with registration—you can sign up with an email address or link a Google account. Your account dashboard conveniently has all features located on the left, which you can easily sift through. Whether you need residential proxies, ISP proxies, or scraping, you can choose it on the left menu.

Smartproxy's dashboard (Image credit: Decodo )

After choosing and paying for a plan, you can conveniently add users via your dashboard. As the administrator, Decodo gives complete control over the IP resources you’ll allocate to each sub-user. For example, you can give a user 1 GB of data and another 10 GB. Each user from your organization has unique credentials to access Decodo.

You can create and customize proxy connections from your dashboard. First, you'll choose a sticky or rotating proxy. Sticky proxies change at set intervals (up to 24 hours) while rotating proxies change with every connection request. Then, you can choose an IP from a specific country/city or a random one as your proxy. With these options set, you can start utilizing Decodo’s online protection.

Let’s dive deeper into the features of this app:

Residential proxies

Residential proxies are real IPs from residential devices across the globe. Decodo promotes its service as “ethically sourced” proxies, which is crucial because some proxy services use IP addresses acquired without the owners' knowledge. Instead, Decodo gives access to residential IPs acquired with consent. You can choose from over 195 locations, with the United States, Germany, the UK, India, and Canada having the highest number of available proxies.

Residential proxies enable you to bypass geo-restrictions, e.g., changing your location to watch a sports match on a streaming site. During our test, we found Decodo's residential IPs to have excellent uptime and speed.

Static residential (ISP) proxies

Decodo now also offers static (fixed) residential proxies for as long as you need, which is great for long sessions, automation, and managing multiple accounts. Premium ASNs give you the best quality IPs from AT&T, Verizon, Orange, and others, to gain entry to the toughest of targets.

This option provides static IPs with ISP origin, combining datacenter speed and stability with residential legitimacy. It delivers 99.99% uptime and below 0.2-second response time, accompanied by HTTP(S) and SOCKS5 support, live usage statistics, and 100% dedicated IPs.

Mobile proxies

Decodo gives you access to mobile IP addresses around the globe. Its 10 million+ IP pool covers 160+ locations, and you can choose from 700+ mobile carriers. The largest pool of Smartpoxy's mobile IPs is available in the United States (3.9 million), Germany (1.2 million), the UK (940,000), and India (720,000).

Proxy mobile IPs help you bypass content geo-restrictions. They're also helpful for app testing, wherein developers test their apps across different devices, operating systems, and locations to ensure optimal user experience. Likewise, mobile IPs are useful for website scraping.

Datacenter proxies

You have access to residential and mobile IPs. But how about renting an entire proxy server for your online activities? Decodo offers this service, which helps bypass hard geo-restrictions and web scraping obstacles. You can choose a shared or dedicated proxy server; the latter costs more.

Decodo offers shared servers across many locations, but dedicated proxy servers are available only in the US. You can connect to the proxy servers via the HTTP(S) or SOCKS5 protocol.

Site Unblocker

Site Unblocker is a proxy-like solution that Decodo provides. It allows you to bypass IP and geographical restrictions and extract data from websites with robust CAPTCHAs and anti-bot measures.

Decodo's Site Unblocker differentiates itself from typical proxies with unique abilities like browser fingerprinting, which creates a different browser fingerprint for each proxy to bypass anti-bot measures; and JavaScript rendering, letting you execute website JavaScript codes without a headless browser. Of course, there’s automatic proxy rotation to prevent websites from identifying and blocking your IP address.

Scraping

Decodo goes beyond merely enabling you to scrape public websites. It actually provides APIs that let you automate website scraping instead of doing it manually by yourself for every single site. There are two primary approaches to this: Core and Advanced.

The former offers essential web scraping that handles proxies, browsers, and anti-bot measures. The latter is fully customizable, with premium proxies, advanced geo-targeting, target templates, JavaScript rendering, unlimited requests per second, and more.

With Decodo’s platform, you get APIs to scrape the web in general or specific templates, including search engine results pages (SERPs) like Google (with or without AI Overview, eCommerce websites, and social media. Now you can also scrape AI tools, as well as YouTube transcripts and metadata.

The web scraping API facilitates the retrieval of large amounts of data, presenting the results in an HTML or table format, and even including the option to schedule scrapes. Considering that many websites are strict about visiting IP addresses and use CAPTCHA to discourage scraping, Decodo’s full-stack solution helps bypass these obstacles.

Smartproxy's dashboard (Image credit: Decodo )

Those requiring social media scraping will benefit from structured data gathering at scale, with results presented in HTML or JSON format. For instance, you’ll be able to track the engagement rates of influencers working with your brand, monitor your competitors’ follower numbers, or discover trending content in real time or at a specific time. The recently introduced YouTube scraping lets you extract transcripts, metadata, and videos.

As for eCommerce scraping, you get structured marketing and pricing data from online stores, in HTML, JSON, or table format. This is helpful for businesses that run price comparison sites, enabling real-time pricing data scrapes to assist people in finding the best deals. Scraping tasks can be scheduled in advance, and you’ll receive an email notification once they’re done.

Smartproxy's dashboard (Image credit: Decodo )

Finally, Decodo’s SERP scraping API lets you access structured data from search engine pages and see the results in HTML, JSON, or table format. This way, you can research the competition’s search rankings, URLS, and meta descriptions directly from queries in Google or Bing.

Your scraping charges depend on the number of requests made, so you can expect to pay between $0.8 and $1.25 per 1,000 API requests.

X Browser

Decodo takes anti-detection one step further by offering an entire private browser. The X Browser focuses on privacy, allowing users to manage multiple browser profiles, each with a unique fingerprint. This means that websites can’t link these profiles to others on your device and discover your identity.

In other words, the X Browser lets you juggle multiple accounts on a single website and gather location-specific insights anonymously without facing cross-contamination risks, bans, and geographical or other kinds of restrictions.

Smartproxy's dashboard (Image credit: Decodo )Ease of Use

Decodo’s user interface is easy to navigate. On the desktop, all features are arranged on the left side, and you can easily access your desired feature with a single click. With a white background, black text, and colorful buttons, the whole setup is pleasing to the eye.

Along with the website interface, Decodo offers a Proxy Checker that lets you test up to 10,000 proxies after uploading them with one click.

There are also browser extensions for Google Chrome and Firefox, which give you access to features like one-click IP rotation, customizable session length, and seamless switching between proxies. Additionally, they include WebRTC Leak Prevent to stop WebRTC from bypassing your proxy, masking both your real IP address and location.

Like the main Decodo interface, the extensions are easy to navigate.

Smartproxy's dashboard (Image credit: Decodo )

Decodo makes it easy to integrate its proxies with various third-party tools, such as eCommerce purchase bots, scraping software, SEO tools, and external proxy managers like MuLogin and AdsPower. The backend is all covered, so you just need to carry out a few steps to kickstart the integration from the intuitive dashboard.

Customer Support

Excellent customer support is one of Decodo’s strengths. This support begins with extensive technical documentation for its features. You can find tutorials and user guides concerning all features, with detailed screenshots illustrating the instructions. You can learn everything about the app in the Help Center, from a basic introduction until you reach more complex aspects.

Decodo has a YouTube channel with video tutorials about its features. This channel allows users to learn about the platform more interactively and has dozens of illustrative and engaging videos.

Smartproxy's dashboard (Image credit: Decodo )

Of course, customer support can’t be left to the customer alone. If you need help, Smarproxy's support team is available via live chat. You can contact the support team 24/7 and get speedy answers, although the response time varies depending on your time zone. You can also reach Decodo’s support team via email (for non-urgent inquiries) and expect a response within 24 to 48 hours.

Other complementary support resources include Decodo’s GitHub repository with code samples and a Discord channel where you can connect with other users and share solutions to common issues. Decodo also holds frequent webinars to help users learn the ins and outs of this platform and general trends in the proxy software market.

The Competition

There’s no shortage of competition in the proxy software sector. Decodo has robust competitors like IPRoyal, OxyLabs, and WebShare. It outshines many competitors by providing a broader range of global IP addresses and complementary features like the X Browser and scraping APIs. However, our main issue is with Decodo’s pricing– it’s significantly more expensive than many rivals, especially for low-volume users.

If you’re a bulk user needing hundreds of proxy IPs, Decodo is an ideal tool. However, it’s too costly for individuals or small enterprises needing a few dozen IPs at most.

Final verdict

Decodo is one of the best proxy tools in the business, and for many good reasons, the most significant being its unmatched speed, uptime, and reliability. Aside from those, Decodo’s products are easy to use and provide access to a wide range of IPs. They also include complementary features to help you scrape various kinds of websites and platforms and counter anti-bot measures.

However, its tools are primarily intended for large businesses and enterprises with a large number of users. Small enterprises and individuals, on the other hand, might find it overly pricey.

We've also highlighted the best proxy and best VPN

Categories: Reviews

Shopify review 2025

TechRadar Reviews - Tue, 09/02/2025 - 11:19

In our Shopify review, we found it to be one of the most complete ecommerce platforms in 2025. It offers an impressive set of tools for businesses of all sizes.

Wix is at the top of our list for the best website builders in 2025. However, Shopify stands out as the leading specialized solution for online stores. This earns it a top spot in our best ecommerce platform list.

Shopify impressed us with its easy drag-and-drop store builder. You don’t need any coding skills, which makes it great for beginners. It also has advanced features for experienced merchants. The platform includes built-in payment processing, a large App Store with over 13,000 integrations, and smooth point-of-sale options for businesses selling online and in physical stores.

On the downside, we noticed that costs can add up quickly. Monthly subscription fees start at $29 after a trial period. There are also transaction fees if you don’t use Shopify Payments. Plus, some paid apps provide extra functionality that other competitors include for free.

Shopify: 2-minute review

With over 4.6 million websites using Shopify, it has secured 29% of the market share in the U.S. What impressed us most was how Shopify balances ease of use with powerful selling features. It’s great for beginners but offers enough advanced tools for experienced merchants.

Shopify's strength is its all-in-one ecommerce approach. The platform shines with its easy store builder, secure payment processing, and a vast app marketplace featuring over 8,000 integrations. It also supports seamless multichannel selling. We valued its scalability; whether you're starting out or running a multi-million dollar business, Shopify fits your needs. Even very large stores with over 2 million products can operate smoothly on the platform.

When we compared Shopify to competitors like WooCommerce, BigCommerce, and Magento, Shopify often led for businesses focused on ease and features. Among high-traffic sites, Shopify holds a 28.8% market share among the top 1 million websites, while WooCommerce has 18.2%. Major brands like Tesla, Gymshark, and Kylie Cosmetics use Shopify, proving it can handle enterprise-level operations.

However, Shopify has some drawbacks. It follows a subscription model starting at $29/month after the trial. Additional costs can add up from transaction fees (if not using Shopify Payments), paid apps, and premium themes. Despite these expenses, we think Shopify offers great value for serious online sellers, earning a score of 4.5 out of 5 in our review.

What is Shopify?

Shopify is an all-in-one ecommerce platform. It helps you create and run an online store without technical skills. Think of it as your digital storefront to display products, accept payments, and manage your business in one place. Whether you sell handmade crafts, digital downloads, or branded merchandise, Shopify provides the tools you need to start.

Shopify offers a user-friendly dashboard for managing your online business. You can easily add products, customize your store’s look, process orders, and track inventory. This means no need to juggle multiple software programs. The platform handles web hosting and security, keeping your store up and running 24/7 without server worries.

What makes Shopify beginner-friendly is its drag-and-drop store builder and pre-made templates. Choose a design you like, customize it with your brand colors and logo, add products, and you’re ready to sell. Shopify also handles secure checkout, allowing various payment methods like credit cards, PayPal, and Shop Pay, their fast checkout option.

Beyond selling online, Shopify lets you expand across multiple channels. You can connect your store to social media like Instagram and Facebook. Sell in person with Shopify's point-of-sale system and manage shipping with discounted rates. As your business grows, Shopify grows with you, offering advanced features and tools to support your needs.

Ecommerce features

Being able to pick from a host of payment providers makes it easy for your customers to buy from you. (Image credit: Shopify)

You’ve decided to take the plunge into the world of ecommerce and you're considering Shopify as your platform of choice, right? Let’s go through the process of creating your online store and explore the suite of ecommerce features that Shopify has to offer.

Right from the start, we’ve appreciated how Shopify simplifies the process of setting up an online store. With its intuitive interface and beginner-friendly website design tools, getting started is a breeze. Once you’ve selected one of over 160 professional-looking themes, you can easily customize your site to your liking with Shopify's drag-and-drop editor.

Next, it's time to add your products or services. Shopify makes this process super simple, allowing you to upload product images, set prices, and write compelling descriptions with ease. We found Shopify Magic particularly helpful here as this AI tool generates product descriptions for you, saving you time and energy.

As keeping track of inventory becomes crucial, Shopify offers robust inventory management tools to help you stay organized. We like the ability to assign inventory to multiple locations, including retail stores and warehouses, and track inventory levels for product variants.

Arranging shipping for your products is made simple with Shopify's shipping solutions. It’s easy to set up shipping options, whether you're offering flat-rate, free, or calculated shipping. Plus, Shopify integrates seamlessly with popular shipping apps and carriers, ensuring competitive shipping rates.

Another essential for converting visitors into customers is a seamless checkout experience and Shopify delivers with its customizable checkout process. You can personalize the checkout cart with your brand colors and fonts, creating a more consistent shopping experience for your customers.

Thinking about embracing a point-of-sale (POS) system? Shopify's POS app can turn any mobile device into a sales tool, allowing us to accept payments, issue refunds, and manage inventory on the go. Whether at a pop-up event or a retail store, Shopify POS keeps the sales and inventory synced across all channels.

To simplify the online payment process you can utilize Shopify Payments, Shopify's own payment service. Plus, by using Shopify Payments, you can avoid transaction fees and support 130+ currencies, providing a hassle-free checkout experience for your customers. You can even use multiple currencies/markets with one storefront, making selling internationally both easy and tailored to your audience.

By partnering with Coinbase and Stripe, Shopify now allows users to accept stablecoin, opening new potential revenue streams.

All in all, Shopify equips online sellers with everything they need to succeed in the competitive ecommerce landscape. Now, let’s take a look at other important Shopify features and tools.

Themes

Shopify has a large range of stunning templates, but only a handful are free to use. (Image credit: Shopify)

Shopify offers a rich collection of themes tailored to enhance your brand's identity and engage your audience. Whether you choose one of the 12 free themes or invest in one of over 160 premium options, which range in price from $140 to $400 each, you're bound to find one that aligns with your vision. What's more, if you don't find exactly what you're looking for, each Shopify theme is customizable, allowing you to tweak everything from colors and fonts to layout and buttons.

Furthermore, Shopify themes aren't just visually appealing - they're also highly functional. Each theme is designed to be mobile-responsive, ensuring that your store looks and performs flawlessly on any device, whether it's a smartphone, tablet, or desktop.

However, it's important to note that while Shopify offers a wide variety of themes, the selection tends to favor premium options. While there are free themes available that can certainly kickstart your ecommerce journey, the choices are somewhat limited compared to the paid options.

Website editor

Although your website will be structured around a template, Shopify's website editor makes it easy to customize it, making it your own. (Image credit: Shopify)

Crafting your store's design is simplified with Shopify's intuitive drag-and-drop website editor. Whether you're adjusting images, editing text, or featuring your logo, the editing interface provides the flexibility and control you need to create a captivating storefront. The drag-and-drop functionality makes it easy to rearrange elements on your site, allowing for swift and seamless customization. You can also do AI image editing on the fly in admin and via the mobile app.

In terms of ease of use, Shopify website builder is generally straightforward and accessible to users of all experience levels. The drag-and-drop interface eliminates the need for coding or technical know-how, making it easy for beginners to build professional-looking websites.

However, some users may find navigating through the separate dashboard for managing product listings and other backend tasks slightly awkward, specifically when transitioning between different aspects of store management.

Despite any minor awkwardness, the Shopify website editor offers a range of helpful and useful features to enhance your online store.

Domains

Upgrading to a dedicated domain will help build trust amongst your visitors. (Image credit: Shopify)

When you start your Shopify store, you automatically get a Shopify-branded domain like “yourstorename.myshopify.com”. It's functional, but if you want to step up your game and look like a pro, you'll probably want a custom domain. Also, Shopify charges $15 per year for the domain, which is pretty pocket-friendly. Likewise, domains with extensions like “.store” or “.shop” are also affordable compared to competitors.

Getting a custom domain for Shopify stores is straightforward. You can purchase one straight from the Shopify platform by going to your dashboard, navigating to settings, selecting domains, and choosing to buy a new domain. Once you've got your domain, you'll just need to connect it to your Shopify store.

With a custom domain, you'll boost your brand more easily and build trust with your customers.

AI tools

AI tools are a great way to automate repetitive tasks such as creating descriptions. (Image credit: Shopify)

Expanding on Shopify's latest AI innovations, let's dive into the world of Shopify Magic and Sidekick. These AI-powered tools are designed to revolutionize the way you manage your store and engage with your customers.

First up, Shopify Magic. This AI-powered tool takes the headache out of crafting compelling product descriptions. By simply inputting a few product details, Shopify Magic works its magic to generate captivating descriptions, saving you time and effort in content creation.

Now, you can think of Sidekick as your AI assistant, ready to support you with a wide range of tasks, helping you streamline your business operations. From setting up discounts and promotions to creating insightful reports, Sidekick is there to lend a helping hand. Want to analyze sales data to identify trends and opportunities? Sidekick has you covered. You can interact with Sidekick using voice and chat communication, meaning you can interact with it using natural language.

Sidekick recieved a major update in 2025, taking it from a helpful additional tool to a fully intergrated platform that can execute tasks based on your requests. It can also now act as an AI-powered business consultant, able to analyze your store data and provide helpful recommendations.

Shopify's AI block generator is another helpful tool for store owners. Simply describe what you want like "Black Friday deal banner" and watch it happen before your eyes.

All of Shopify's AI tools are designed to streamline tasks, potentially saving you precious time while helping you make smart decisions to fuel business growth. However, it's worth noting that, like any technology, these tools may not be perfect right off the bat and will need some tweaking along the way.

App store

Shopify's app store makes it easy to extend the functionality of your online store. (Image credit: Shopify)

The Shopify App Store provides a vast collection of apps and third-party extensions to enhance your store's capabilities. With over 8,000 apps available, you'll surely find solutions for every aspect of your ecommerce business, from marketing and promotion to inventory management and customer support.

The strength of the Shopify App Store lies in its diversity. Whether you're looking to streamline your checkout process, implement loyalty programs, or integrate with popular marketing platforms, there's an app to fit your needs.

Exploring the app store, we found a treasure trove of checkout apps, each offering unique ways to elevate your store's checkout experience. With almost 30 options available, we were thrilled to discover features such as upsell and cross-sell suggestions, age verification tools, and post-purchase surveys.

We were also impressed by Shopify's seamless integration with popular marketing apps like Mailchimp and Klaviyo, offering a robust set of tools to boost your marketing efforts. From crafting compelling email campaigns to running targeted social media ads and analyzing customer insights, these apps can aid in engaging with your audience effectively.

However, while many apps in the Shopify App Store come with no upfront costs, as we delved deeper into the ecosystem, we found that the cumulative costs of paid features can accumulate swiftly.

Ease of use

Getting started on Shopify is a simple process. (Image credit: Shopify)

When we tested Shopify, we were impressed by its user-friendly interface and easy setup. Creating an account is simple; you just need an email address to start. There's no credit card needed for the initial trial. The onboarding process guides you through some basic questions about your business and what you plan to sell. This helps tailor the dashboard to your needs.

Shopify's dashboard is designed intuitively. It has a clean, modern look that keeps everything you need close at hand. The main navigation menu on the left side gives quick access to key areas of your store, like products, orders, customers, and analytics. Even team members with limited tech skills found it easy to navigate and perform tasks like adding products, customizing themes, and processing orders.

A standout feature of Shopify is its AI tools that cut down the time needed to set up and manage your store. Shopify Magic, its built-in AI assistant, can generate product descriptions using keywords you provide. It can also create marketing content and design custom themes based on prompts, like "homemade knitwear for kids." This technology makes the platform accessible for beginners who may struggle with writing or design.

The theme customization experience balances simplicity and flexibility. Shopify uses a section-based editor, which some may find limiting compared to free-form design tools. However, it helps maintain a professional look while allowing for personalization. The platform offers industry-specific themes with dynamic scrolling and hover effects that are mobile-responsive from the start. Your store will look great on all devices with no extra work.

For those who want more customization, Shopify gives access to HTML/CSS and its Liquid templating language. These advanced options are completely optional. We appreciate that Shopify offers a gentle learning curve but still allows tech-savvy users to create highly customized experiences as they grow comfortable with the platform.

Pricing

Shopify offers several packages to pick from, which is right for you will depend on the size of your store. (Image credit: Shopify)

Basic

Shopify

Advanced

/mo (paid annually)

$29

$79

$229

/mo (paid monthly)

$39

$105

$399

Transaction fees (online payments)

2.9% + $0.30

2.7% + $0.30

2.5% + $0.30

When it comes to Shopify pricing, you might be wondering if there's a free option or at least a trial period to test things out. Well, while Shopify doesn't offer a forever-free plan, they do give you a 3-day free trial to get a feel for the platform before committing.

As for Shopify plans, there are three main ones: “Basic”, “Shopify”, and “Advanced”, where each plan has its own set of features and price points, catering to different needs and budgets.

Starting with the “Basic” plan at $29 per month (billed yearly), it's great for those just setting up their first online store. Despite the name, it gives you everything you need to get up and running smoothly, like unlimited products and basic reporting.

If you're ready to take things up a notch, the “Shopify” plan at $79 per month (billed yearly) might be more your speed. It offers lower transaction fees, better reporting tools, and more staff accounts, making it one of the best small business website builder plans and great for international sellers looking to spring up.

Now, if you're running a bigger operation with an established customer base, the “Advanced” plan at $299 (billed yearly) per month could be the way to go. It comes with all the features of the Shopify plan, plus some extras like custom reporting and more staff accounts.

Moreover, Shopify offers four additional specialized plans tailored to suit specific types of businesses:

The "Starter" plan at just $5 per month (billed yearly) is perfect for sellers who have already established their audience on social media platforms or messaging apps. With this plan, you can instantly start selling through these channels or set up a small online store hassle-free.

Next up, we have the "Retail" plan priced at $89 per month (billed yearly), specially crafted for businesses focusing on in-person selling. This plan comes packed with advanced staff, inventory, and loyalty features, making it the go-to choice for businesses with physical storefronts.

Looking for exceptional value and growth opportunities? "Shopify Plus" starts at $2300 per month (billed yearly) and is tailored for high-growth businesses. Offering advanced features and personalized support, Shopify Plus is your key to efficiently scaling your business to new heights.

Lastly, "Enterprise commerce" offers custom pricing plans designed to meet the unique needs of large-scale operations. With a focus on agility, deployment speed, and performance, this plan ensures seamless support for your enterprise-level business.

Sure, Shopify's pricing might seem a bit steep compared to some other options out there, but when you consider all the features and support you're getting, it's worth it. Plus, they offer additional add-ons for in-person sales and high-volume stores with specialized needs. And if you want more detailed info on Shopify's pricing and plans, you can check out their pricing page.

Security

Shopify is Level 1 PCI DDS compliant and offers free SSL certificates for new users. (Image credit: Shopify)

When it comes to keeping your online store safe and secure, Shopify has you covered. All Shopify plans come with SSL security, which encrypts data passing between your customer and your website. This is crucial for protecting sensitive information, such as payment details, from hackers.

Another important aspect of security is PCI compliance, and Shopify is Level 1 PCI DDS compliant. This might sound like a mouthful of legal jargon, but it essentially means that your store meets the necessary security standards for processing credit and debit card details.

One of the advantages of using a hosted solution like Shopify is that keeping your site secure is largely Shopify's responsibility, not yours. Unlike self-hosted platforms where you have to manage core software and plugin updates yourself, Shopify takes care of these updates in the background. This means you can be at ease knowing that your site is always up-to-date with the latest security patches.

What's more, Shopify has a strong fraud detection system in place to prevent card testing and account takeover fraud. They also use an alert system to notify customers and account managers of potential security threats, allowing you to take prompt action to secure your accounts.

Customer support

24/7 support is helpful for online stores that sell 24/7. (Image credit: Shopify)

With Shopify, you'll find a solid range of support options. Whether you're a beginner or an experienced ecommerce entrepreneur, Shopify offers comprehensive support channels to ensure you have the help you need when you need it.

One of the main selling points of Shopify's support system is its round-the-clock availability. Regardless of the time zone you're in, you can access support 24/7 through various channels, including phone support, live chat, social media, and email. This means you'll get much-needed assistance promptly, even during weekends or late at night when you're burning the midnight oil to work on your store.

At the Shopify Help Center, you'll find an abundance of information from step-by-step guides to troubleshooting articles - a wide range of topics to address common questions and concerns. However, some users may find the step-by-step instructions a bit confusing, especially when directed to the app store without further guidance.

For those seeking more personalized assistance, Shopify offers advanced specialist support, particularly beneficial for “Shopify Plus” users. With this level of support, you'll have your own dedicated support agent who will help you address any specific needs and challenges.

It's worth noting that Shopify's customer support extends across multiple languages, ensuring accessibility for users worldwide, although the availability of support in other languages may vary depending on your location.

Shopify's support services are pretty good, but it can sometimes be a bit of a hassle to get in touch with their support team. You often have to search through their help pages to find a solution to your problem before you can even access their contact details. While this approach is common, it can be a bit annoying for those who need help right away.

Alternatives

Shopify leads the market as the go-to ecommerce solution for businesses of all sizes. It holds a 26% global market share, making it the most popular choice available. Shopify is ideal for small to medium-sized businesses that want to grow their brand without worrying about technical details. Larger enterprises can also benefit from Shopify Plus, which scales effectively.

But for some, it doesn't tick all the boxes. Below we list some great Shopify alternatives to consider.

Shopify faces competition from WooCommerce, BigCommerce, Wix, and Magento (Adobe Commerce). WooCommerce, a WordPress plugin, offers flexibility and lower costs but needs more technical know-how to set up and maintain. Our analysis shows that Shopify is easier for beginners compared to WooCommerce, though WordPress users may prefer WooCommerce for its better integration with their sites.

BigCommerce is Shopify's closest competitor. It offers similar features with a focus on scalability and no transaction fees. Our comparison found little difference between the two platforms for large businesses, especially when considering Shopify Plus. For smaller businesses, Wix offers a more affordable entry point with solid ecommerce features, but we found Shopify stores to be more stable and optimized for ecommerce than Wix.

Generally we found that Wix is better for websites with an ecommerce element, whereas Shopify was better for dedicated online stores. You can see exactly how the two stack up in our Wix vs Shopify comparison.

For enterprise-level businesses earning over $5 million monthly, Magento (Adobe Commerce) provides unmatched customization and flexibility. However, it comes with a steeper learning curve and higher costs. In contrast, Shopify Plus offers an accessible enterprise solution that balances power with ease of use.

For most online sellers seeking user-friendliness, scalability, and features, Shopify is the top choice in 2025. However, businesses with specific technical needs or budget limits may find better options elsewhere.

Shopify review: Summary

As we wrap up our Shopify review, this all-in-one solution emerges as one of the best website builders for agencies and entrepreneurs venturing into the ecommerce realm. Throughout our journey, we've come to appreciate Shopify's dedication to customer support, ensuring that a helping hand is always just a click away. We've also found the platform's commitment to website security reassuring, with features like SSL encryption and PCI compliance providing peace of mind for both businesses and their customers.

However, we must mention a few areas where Shopify could improve. While it offers a wealth of features, we found that relying on third-party apps for certain functionalities can lead to higher costs. Additionally, transaction fees may eat into your profits, especially if you opt for non-Shopify payment gateways. Despite these drawbacks, we believe that Shopify's benefits far outweigh its limitations.

To recap, our experience with Shopify has been overpoweringly positive. We were impressed by its user-friendly interface, extensive theme collection, and the wide array of apps available to boost store functionality. If you're considering Shopify for your ecommerce venture, we encourage you to take advantage of the free trial to explore its features firsthand. Once you've had a chance to delve deeper into Shopify's offerings, you can choose the plan that best suits your business needs and budget.

Shopify review: FAQsAre there any hidden costs to using Shopify?

There are several additional costs and fees that you may encounter when using Shopify. For example, some apps can cost around $10 to $100 a month on top of your subscription. Premium themes can also cost extra, often costing between $140 and $400.

If you don’t use Shopify Payments, you may also be charged additional transaction fees on each sale you make.

Additional staff accounts can also set you back, as well as potential chargeback fees that can cost $15 to $25 per dispute.

Is Shopify good for agencies?

Yes, Shopify is one of the best website builders for agencies. Its robust ecommerce platform offers a wide range of features and customization options, making it suitable for building and managing online stores for clients. Additionally, Shopify's partner program provides agencies with resources and tools to streamline client management and boost their businesses.

Is Shopify best for building online stores?

We've found Shopify to be one of the top choices for creating online stores.

It's easy-to-navigate interface, wide selection of apps, and robust ecommerce capabilities make it a go-to platform for anyone looking to start or grow their online business. Whether you're just kicking off your small business, pushing forward as an entrepreneur, or running a large enterprise, Shopify delivers the kind of scalability and flexibility you’ll want to thrive online.

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Categories: Reviews

Metal Eden is a lightning fast sci-fi shooter, but its awful dialogue made me wish I could play it on mute

TechRadar Reviews - Tue, 09/02/2025 - 10:00

Metal Eden is Doom meets Ghostrunner with a little bit of Metroid thrown in. It’s a fast-paced sci-fi shooter all about clearing dense combat arenas, wall-running and jumping through parkour challenges, and occasionally turning into a large metal ball and rolling around.

Review information

Platform reviewed: PS5
Available on: PC, PS5, Xbox Series X and Series S
Release date: September 2, 2025

It’s easy to see the inspiration behind each of its constituent elements, but that doesn’t mean that the resulting formula isn't a lot of fun. It's elevated by a strong art direction, some surprisingly slick shooting that wouldn't feel out of place in some of the best FPS games, and a couple of unique mechanics that help the game form an identity of its own.

Still, there is room for improvement, namely in the narrative department. The dialogue feels strangely written and occasionally hard to follow, almost like it's been poorly translated. It's unfortunate and undermines an enjoyable experience that I would otherwise wholeheartedly recommend.

Back to the future

(Image credit: Deep Silver)

Hailing from the developers of the criminally underrated twin-stick shooter Ruiner, Metal Eden takes us to another far-flung future where things have gone seriously wrong. Humanity has developed Cores, little robotic disks that store an uploaded consciousness and can be slotted into artificial bodies, and the technology paved the way for space travel.

You play as Aska, a high-tech android warrior with a special regenerating core that effectively allows her to be repeatedly reprinted after death. Stranded on an abandoned lunar city, it’s your job to mow down legions of rogue security robots on a mission to rescue millions of colonists trapped as cores in storage.

The narrative focus on Aska’s regeneration seems like it would lend itself naturally to a roguelike format, but Metal Eden is actually a wholly linear experience with eight total levels that vary between about twenty to forty minutes in length. I love shorter games, but this brevity was a little disappointing.

I hit the credits in a single sitting and, while there is scope for some repeat playthroughs to chase high scores and find the small number of hidden resources scattered around each map, I don’t think it’s unreasonable to expect more given the $39.99 / £32.99 asking price.

That brief length does at least lead to a campaign that’s very tightly paced and engaging. The bulk of each mission is a combination of shooting and parkour, both of which are well-implemented.

The shooting is tight with high-quality animations and meaty sound effects across an impressively varied arsenal. This includes a range of projectile weapons such as your basic machine pistol, a shotgun, and an SMG, plus some more futuristic energy launchers.

Getting to the core of it

(Image credit: Deep Silver)

Stronger enemies are equipped with powerful armor that absorbs the bulk of projectile damage, forcing you to switch to an energy weapon to break through it, which lends encounters an enjoyable sense of rhythm. Combat arenas are compact, with walls that you can leap off and sometimes vertical layers to keep things interesting, and staying perpetually on the move is essential for survival.

With a foe’s armor out of the way, you can rip out its Core and consume it for a quick health top-up and to charge a powerful armor-destroying punch or throw it to trigger an explosion. You’re soon equipped with a jet-pack and elemental grenades, too, and quickly chaining all of your moves together to survive wave after wave of adversaries is a source of constant satisfaction.

(Image credit: Deep Silver)

It’s all so good that I really wish there was some kind of separate survival mode that challenges you to last as long as possible available after the credits roll. Fingers crossed, we’ll see something like that added in a future update.

Combat success is rewarded with vials of Dust, a currency used to upgrade your gear. Each weapon has two distinct upgrade paths that dramatically alter its abilities.

Your SMG, for example, can be outfitted with a powerful grenade launcher for taking out groups or a set of iron sights that enable a long-range semi-automatic sniper mode. These upgrades can dramatically affect the appearance of each weapon, too, so every choice feels satisfyingly substantial.

Aska has a robust skill tree, too, with plenty of impactful options that do everything from automatically reloading your last weapon when it’s not in use to causing you to regenerate armor on top of health with every core consumed.

Absolutely balling

(Image credit: Deep Silver)

New enemies and environmental hazards are introduced at a steady pace, forcing you to frequently tweak your strategies to maintain an advantage. The larger levels also unlock the imaginatively named Ball Mode, which, as the name would suggest, lets you transform into a fast-moving metal orb whenever you wish.

Rolling into enemies at high speed deals huge amounts of damage, and if that wasn’t enough, you’re armed with an electric blast and homing missiles too. It’s a tad overpowered, but it provides a refreshing break from the more intense encounters of other areas.

Best bit

(Image credit: Deep Silver)

Multiple levels feature rail riding mechanics. Whizzing down neon blue ziplines is a blast, especially when you add obstacles that you need to dodge and shooting flying enemies into the mix.

Unfortunately, every mission is filled with jarring, awkward dialogue that lets the overall package down. In early segments, Aska frequently chats with Nexus, an almost comically edgy companion that spouts melodramatic, cringeworthy cliches. His constant wittering is like nails on a chalkboard, and I almost cheered when he was replaced by a substantially less annoying figure later on.

The voice acting is serviceable on the whole, but line deliveries have very strange intonation that I found distracting at times. Conversations are also written in a manner that feels inescapably off. They’re sometimes hard to follow and have this stilted quality to them that’s reminiscent of dodgy machine translation. I can’t quite decide whether this is an intentional stylistic choice; most of the characters are robots after all, but it's disappointing nevertheless.

It's especially noticeable in the cutscenes, which are otherwise extremely high quality and absolutely gorgeous to look at. On that note, the whole game is visually impressive with a minimalist, industrial look, though there are occasional stutters even in console performance mode.

All of this would be a lot easier to forgive at a lower price point, but as it stands, it stops me from making a more wholehearted recommendation.

Should you play Metal Eden?Play it if…

You want fast-paced shooting
The shooting action in Metal Eden is superb. There’s loads of depth thanks to the large variety of weapons and a substantial upgrade system, and learning how to best use all your abilities is a blast.

You loved Ghostrunner
The parkour is also a highlight. If you enjoyed the likes of Ghostrunner, then you’re going to feel right at home here.

Don’t play it if…

You’re interested in the story
The world of Metal Eden certainly looks the part, but it’s undermined by awkward, cringeworthy dialogue.

You crave something more long lasting
There’s no getting around the fact that this is a particularly short game. If you’re after an experience that will last more than a few hours, you’ll need to look elsewhere.

Accessibility features

There are a few accessibility options in Metal Eden. This includes a few color blindness filters, the ability to enable subtitles, and adjust their size and background color. The game also features four difficulty levels to choose from.

How I reviewed Metal Eden

I played Metal Eden for more than four hours on PlayStation 5 using the DualSense Wireless Controller and a pair of Final VR500 gaming earbuds.

In that time I reached the end credits on the standard difficulty and experienced the vast majority of what the game has to offer. I fully upgraded each of the weapons in my arsenal and unlocked the bulk of Aska’s upgrade tree, too.

First reviewed August 2025

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Metal Eden is a lightning fast sci-fi shooter, but its awful dialogue made me wish I could play it on mute

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