This Week in Tech: iPhone Duo, Gears of War: E-Day, AI Price Wars and More (Oct 5–10)
The week's biggest stories in phones, games and AI — in one quick read. Plus what's coming next week.
Busy week? Here's everything important that happened in games, phones and AI — in about three minutes. Click any story for the full details.
📰
This week in one line: Apple's first foldable is days from pre-orders, Gears of War: E-Day is out to strong reviews, and AI companies are cutting prices and releasing giant new models.
📱 Phones
- iPhone Duo pre-orders are next. Apple's first foldable — 7.6-inch inside, 5.4-inch outside, from $1,999 — opens for pre-orders on October 16 and goes on sale October 23. Full guide →
- OnePlus 16 launches Sunday in China with the 2nm Snapdragon 8 Elite Extreme Gen 6 and a reported 200MP camera. What we know →
- Battery sizes keep growing. vivo's new S2 FE has a 10,000mAh battery, and the X Fold6 packs the equivalent of 6,900mAh into a foldable. Every October launch →
🎮 Games
- Gears of War: E-Day is here — and critics like it, with a Metacritic score around 87–88. Praise for the combat, mixed feelings on the story. Review roundup →
- Battlefield 6 joins Game Pass on October 13, the same week Season 5 takes the fighting to Las Vegas. What you get →
- Modern Warfare 4 is two weeks away. It launches October 23, with campaign early access from October 16 and a rebuilt DMZ mode. Everything we know →
🤖 AI
- Anthropic cuts prices with Claude Haiku 5.5 — up to 90% cheaper than the previous version for most prompts. Read more →
- Mistral Large 4 arrives in preview. Europe's roughly 1-trillion-parameter model promises open weights by the end of October. Read more →
- The Pentagon says it has stopped using Anthropic's AI, the BBC reports — though sources say Claude was still in use until recently. Read more →
- DeepSeek nears a ~$12 billion funding round backed by Tencent and CATL, ahead of a planned 2027 listing. Read more →
📅 Coming next week
| Date | What's happening |
|---|---|
| Sun, Oct 12 | OnePlus 16 launch event (China) |
| Mon, Oct 13 | Battlefield 6 and Valor Mortis join Game Pass |
| Wed, Oct 15 | RedMagic 12 Pro+ expected in China (reported) |
| Fri, Oct 16 | iPhone Duo pre-orders open · Modern Warfare 4 campaign early access |
Worth reading this week
- The best Xbox Game Pass games to play right now
- How to choose a budget phone in 2026
- The best free AI tools in 2026
What was the biggest tech story of the week for you?
Sources are listed in each linked article. Images: Apple, Xbox, Electronic Arts, Mistral AI.