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Sony is ceding control of its Bravia TV brand to China's TCL as part of a new "strategic partnership," the companies announced in a joint press release. The Japanese electronics giant plans to sell a majority 51 percent stake in its home entertainment arm to TCL, while retaining a 49 percent share. The joint venture is set to start operations in April 2027, pending regulatory and other approvals.
The new combined business will sell TVs carrying Sony and Bravia branding while using TCL's display technology. The partnership will also leverage Sony's picture and audio expertise, supply chain management and other areas of expertise. For its part, TCL will contribute its vertical supply chain strength, global market presence and end-to-end cost efficiency.
"By combining both companies' expertise, we aim to create new customer value in the home entertainment field," Sony CEO Kimio Maki said in a statement. "We expect to elevate our brand value, achieve greater scale and optimize the supply chain in order to deliver superior products and services to our customers," added TCL Electronics chairperson DU Juan.
The news will come as a shock to some, particularly in Japan, as Sony has been strongly associated with high-quality TVs since the Trinitron days. However, it's currently fighting in a low-margin TV business full of formidable competitors including Samsung, LG, Hisense and TCL. The company has already sold off or closed other electronics operations, including PCs and tablets, and is barely hanging in with its smartphone business.
Sony effectively stopped making its own LCD and OLED panels some time ago, while TCL has increased its own production — having recently
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If you're looking to up your privacy game on the internet in the new year, you can do so for a little less than usual thanks to ExpressVPN's latest deal. Its two-year plans are up to 78 percent off right now: the Advanced tier is on sale for $101 for two years, plus four additional free months. That works out to $3.59 per month during the promotional period.
We've consistently liked ExpressVPN because it's fast, easy to use and widely available across a large global server network. In fact, it's our current pick for best premium VPN. One of the biggest drawbacks has always been its high cost, and this deal temporarily solves that issue.
In our review we were able to get fast download and upload speeds, losing only 7 percent in the former and 2 percent in the latter worldwide. We found that it could unblock Netflix anywhere, and its mobile and desktop apps were simple to operate. We gave ExpressVPN an overall score of 85 out of 100.
The virtual private network service now has three tiers. Basic is cheaper with fewer features, while Pro costs more and adds extra perks like support for 14 simultaneous devices and a password manager. Advanced sits in the middle and includes the password manager but only supports 12 devices.
The Basic plan is $78 right now for 28 months, down from $363, and the Pro plan is $168, down from $560. That's 78 percent and 70 percent off, respectively. All plans carry a 30-day mo
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Microsoft's first cloud-based game streaming service could be its first crack at ads in Game Pass.
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The peak time for deals on streaming services — the holiday shopping season — has come and gone, but Disney is back with a fresh offer for the new year. New and eligible returning subscribers can get one month of the ad-supported Disney Hulu bundle for just $10. That's $3 off the usual monthly rate for the bundle, and more than 58 percent off if you consider the prices for each service individually (Disney at $12 per month and, separately, Hulu also at $12 per month).
We'd be remiss if we didn't mention that this isn't quite as good as the Black Friday deal we saw last year, which offered the same bundle for $5 per month for one year. However, if you missed that offer or just want to try out Disney and Hulu for a brief period of time, this is a good way to do so.
Disney and Hulu make one of the most balanced streaming pairs available, blending family-friendly favorites with
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A new year is the perfect time to get your spending in order, and if you're not trying to build your own spreadsheet, budgeting apps are one of the best ways to do it. To save yourself some money in the process, you can pick up a year-long subscription to Monarch Money, one of Engadget's favorite budgeting apps, for just $50 if you use code NEWYEAR2026 at checkout and you're a new subscriber. That's a 50 percent discount on the service's normal $100 price.
Monarch Money makes for a capable and detailed budgeting companion. You can use the service via apps for iOS, Android, iPadOS or the web, and Monarch also offers a Chrome extension that can sync your Amazon and Target transactions and automatically categorize them. Like other budgeting apps, Monarch Money lets you connect multiple financial accounts and track your money based on where you spend it over time. Monarch offers two different approaches to tracking budgeting (flexible and category budgeting) depending on what fits your life best, and the ability to add a budget widget on your phone so you can know how you're tracking that month.
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 During CES 2026, Samsung unveiled plenty of new TVs, monitors and other hardware. However, the company is also looking to expand further into video games and has announced a significant refresh to its Gaming Hub on smartphones.
Engadget spoke with Samsung's Jong Woo, VP of Game Services, who explained that the update will offer more personalized, faster ways to play and place greater emphasis on up-and-coming titles. Now available on Galaxy devices, with further updates planned, the new hub wants to be a more active space for the latest mobile games.
"We believe that gamers want to find new content that is personalized to them," said the VP of Samsung Games Services. He continued: "We want to bring content to users and make it immediately available for them to play. We have instant plays where, through our cloud streaming technology, we can take Android-native games and put them in the cloud, so that when users want to try them, they don't have to go through the friction of downloading them first."
According to Samsung, the mobile Gaming Hub attracts over 160 million users across smartphones and other devices. However, the VP of Game Services at Samsung believes that, despite the vast library of games across many genres available to mobile users, "mobile game discovery is broken."
Samsung
Initially, the mobile Gaming Hub was a supplemental app for all purchase
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