Yesterday afternoon, I asked our self-styled King of Phones Ben Johnston to sum up Google's attitude to its flagship Pixel handsets. As it turns out, he has quite strong opinions on the topic and sent me a series of increasingly scathing takes, most of which are too hot to share here (one particularly spicy sentence ended "squarely up their own a***s").

The gist, however, is simple: Pixel phones are characterised by excellent hardware let down by sub-par processors. The gulf has only widened as Google has further traded performance and battery life for AI capabilities - a transaction that Ben thinks very few of us actually want to make.

This rant was provoked by Ben's review of the Pixel 11 Pro XL, which perfectly demonstrates the issue at hand - a nearly excellent smartphone let down by a lacklustre chipset (and a price hike to boot).

Fortunately, our remaining reviews are far less provocative, unless you take issue with the concept of mixed-reality goggles: Samsung's new Galaxy XR headset passed through our labs this week, impressing our Head of Reviews Jonathan Bray in almost every respect.

Rounding out the week is a top-notch electric BBQ from Dimplex, and a Cuisinart air fryer sporting the absolute latest in kitchen appliance innovation: a window 😮

There's a lot to like about the Pixel 11 Pro XL - its OLED display is bright and sharp and its cameras are as impressive as ever. But with a price hike pushing the Pro XL into unaffordable territory and performance still trailing behind its rivals, our Phones Editor Ben Johnston was left feeling underwhelmed.

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"I’ve been completely blown away by the power, performance and design of the Dimplex Crossray eXtreme Infrared BBQ. While I wish it came with a couple more extras as standard for the price (the rotisserie is fantastic), I can’t really fault it elsewhere." — our resident BBQ expert Danielle Amato

Cuisinart's new ClearView 9-in-1 air fryer lets you watch your food cook in glorious 280 degrees, sparing you from impatiently opening the drawer every five minutes and interrupting the cooking process. It's big and bulky, says kitchen expert Rachel Ogden, but otherwise well worth your time.

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