From Pause Point to Googlebooks, here's the breakdown — this week's CTR. ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏
CTR.
Consumer Tech Report
Issue 012 · Weekly Edition
July 4th, 2026
Happy Saturday , Hope You Made It To The Weekend In One Piece?
Some News this week
WhatsApp is finally bringing usernames, and you can now go ahead and reserve yours. As always, they are late to the party, but better late than never. Sony is under a lot of heat right now over their controversial plans to stop producing physical copies of games starting 2028. The backlash has been significant, and it is worth keeping an eye on how they respond to it. Netflix wants different profiles on the same account to use different email addresses, which is either a useful organisation feature or another step toward making account sharing even harder, depending on how you look at it. And Samsung is less than a month away from unveiling new foldables. They are currently teasing a new wider but shorter form factor, similar to what we have already seen from the Google Pixel Fold and OnePlus Open. It is shaping up to be an interesting announcement.
In This Issue
Featured
How AI Is Making Gadgets More Expensive And What It Means For Your Upgrade Plans
Reads
Sony to end physical PlayStation game disc production in 2028 & more
Poll
What would you like me to cover in my review of the Oraimo Otag?
Featured
How AI Is Making Gadgets More Expensive And What It Means For Your Upgrade Plans
This week's article feels like a natural follow-up to last week's newsletter. The memory shortage is hitting the entire consumer electronics industry, and smartphone manufacturers, PC makers, and gaming hardware companies are all dealing with the same rising component costs. There are now estimates that the smartphone market will see its biggest annual decline ever this year, with similar predictions for PCs too, and AI is at the centre of it all. Let us talk about why this is happening and what it means if you are planning to buy any gadgets this year.