Europe has an electric bike problem. Direct-to-consumer e-bikes from inexpensive Chinese brands like Engwe and countless others can be easily purchased online despite openly flouting EU restrictions. They feature throttles and powerful motors that can be easily unlocked to far exceed the 25km/h (16mph) legal speed limit — no pedaling required.
Technology
Engwe Mapfour N1 Pro e-bike review: the new ‘premium’
Here in Amsterdam, cheap Super73-knockoffs ridden at almost twice the legal speed have made the city’s renowned bicycle lanes increasingly chaotic and dangerous. Across the Netherlands, over 10,000 of these electric “fat bikes” were seized in 2024.
Engwe’s new Mapfour lineup is the company’s attempt at going legit by expanding from souped-up electric fat bikes and foldables into “premium commuter” e-bikes. And because they’re the first e-bikes that Engwe has designed exclusively for European roads, the company swears they can’t be unlocked for more speed.
I’ve been riding the new Mapfour N1 Pro model for the last few weeks. It lists for €1,899 (almost $2,000), or €1,799 during the initial launch — a price that brings heightened expectations.
The N1 Pro is slathered in premium capabilities like GPS/GSM tracking for which some bike makers charge subscriptions. The monocoque frame and fork are made from carbon fiber supplied by Toray — “the same high-quality carbon fiber as Trek and Specialized,” claims Engwe. There’s even turn-by-turn navigation built into the full-featured app, a large colorful display integrated into the handlebars, and a built-in mechanical lock in the rear wheel hub that automatically engages when the bike is turned off and stationary.
My review bike was missing a fender bolt, occasionally flashed a strange error code, and the solar-powered rear light won’t turn on. Still, it’s likely the highest quality electric bike Engwe has ever made.
$1714
The Good
- Looks and rides sporty
- Long list of features for price
- Removable battery
- Can’t be speed hacked
The Bad
- Strange error messages
- Servicing parts likely an issue
- Doesn’t support height range claimed
- Can’t be speed hacked
I have lots of experience with assembling direct-to-consumer e-bikes and the N1 Pro was ready to ride in about an hour, which is typical. Even with a carbon-fiber frame it weighs 20.1kg (44lbs) fully assembled according to my scale, which is heavy for an e-bike — just not Veloretti-heavy.
In the box you’ll find a basic toolset that includes everything needed for assembly and instructions written in stellar English unlike some previous Engwe tutorials I’ve read. I had to assemble the pedals, front wheel, kickstand, handlebar, and fenders, and fish out a replacement fender bolt from some spare bicycle parts I had lying around. I then went to adjust the saddle to my height only to discover that I was too tall for the N1 Pro.
The saddle stem has a marked safety line that stops well before the height needed for my 6 foot (183cm) frame, despite being sold in the Netherlands where I’m considered a short king. Nevertheless, exceeding the line by about 2.5cm (one inch) hasn’t made the saddle feel insecure, even when riding over rough cobblestones. Engwe claims the N1 Pro supports riders from 165–190cm, and is considering offering the option for a longer saddle stem at checkout based upon my feedback.
The N1 Pro’s geometry puts the rider into what’s essentially a mountain bike stance: a moderate forward lean with hands spread wide out in front of the body. That wrist and body angle combined with a rather stiff saddle are not ideal for riding long distances, especially in combination with a backpack that’ll put even more weight on the hands and derrière. I do like that fun, sporty posture over short distances, but if you’re looking for a more relaxed ride then Engwe has the upright €1,399 MapFour N1 Air available in both step-over and step-through frames.
The 250W mid-drive Ananda motor on the N1 Pro is nearly silent under the din of road noise, and the integrated torque sensor provides an intuitive pedal-assist at all speeds. It produces up to 80Nm of torque that lets me easily start from a dead stop in fourth gear (of seven) on flat roads, but testing on a hill with a gradient of about 15 percent required a start from first gear. Typically, I only needed to shift to a high gear when I wanted to use my leg power to propel the bike at speeds above the 25km/h motor cutoff.
Despite claiming a range of up to 100km from its modest 360Wh battery, my first test performed over a few weeks yielded just 23km off a full charge in near-freezing conditions. I usually rode in power setting three of five on mostly flat roads. The second test performed on a single warmer day improved the range to 27km with 28 percent charge remaining — or an estimated 36km if I had time to run the battery dry for a below average 10Wh consumed per kilometer travelled. The bike battery seems to suffer from idle battery drain of about 1-2 percent per day when parked inside my house.
Worrisome for a “premium” e-bike: on two occasions I saw an “09” error message flash on the display which Engwe is still diagnosing. Once, while starting the bike after it had been sitting outside in the rain for a few hours. Another time after riding home on a rain-soaked street while switching between the N1 Pro’s regular and high-beam lights. In the first case, a simple reboot cleared it and I was able to ride away fine, but the other time required riding home under my own power before it inexplicably cleared the next morning.
- The bike’s integrated display is readable in all lighting, and shows the remaining battery level, speed, power level, and even distance and direction of next turn if using the navigation built into the useful but overwrought Engwe app.
- I didn’t find Engwe’s turn-by-turn navigation very useful as the guidance presented on the display wasn’t informative or urgent enough for me to make confident decisions when traversing the dense network of crossroads in Amsterdam.
- It has a very loud alarm that can ward off thieves and help locate the e-bike in large parking garages.
- The daytime running lights are fun and help with visibility, but also dorky if you choose the animated options.
- The solar-powered rear light never worked on my review unit.
- Engwe provides a chain guard on shipping units.
- The hydraulic disc brakes from an unspecified vendor provide good controlled stops.
- Includes a 1-year warranty on electrical components, chassis, and battery.
1/19
There was a time when premium e-bikes had list prices around €2,000 / $2,000. Those days are as gone as the free venture capital propping up e-bike startups, pushing premium prices up to a starting price closer to €3,000 / $3,000. The Engwe N1 Pro is therefore priced about right. It’s not a bad e-bike, but it’s also not great despite checking off lots of features on a marketing sheet.
Just remember, servicing a direct-to-consumer e-bike can be a problem as it requires the ready availability of spare parts and the knowledge to replace them. As with any electric bike exposed to the elements and regular road use, the N1 Pro’s motor and any proprietary electronics like the controller, display, battery, lights, buttons, and integrated lock will eventually need servicing. So you’d better be on very good terms with your local bike shop or be handy with a wrench and oscilloscope to prevent your mail-order e-bike from quickly turning into e-waste.
Photography by Thomas Ricker / The Verge
Rumor has it, Apple is working on a low-cost MacBook. And not “low-cost for a Mac,” but a proper cheap laptop, possibly as low as $599. For a company that traditionally targets the more premium end of the market, this would be something of an about-face.
Of course, Apple takes great pride in its design and aesthetics. So the company isn’t going to simply take the innards of a MacBook Air, slap them in a cheap plastic case, and call it a day. Instead, Apple is supposedly building a smaller laptop, with a lower-resolution screen and an “entirely new design” around an iPhone processor.
That chip could be some version of the A19 found in the current iPhone lineup, but analyst Ming-Chi Kuo claimed earlier this year that the company was working on a laptop powered by last year’s A18.
If the idea of a small, low-cost laptop running on an ultralow-power chip feels familiar, well, it should — we used to call them netbooks. Netbooks erupted on the scene at a weird time in the late aughts, when we were transitioning to a web-first computing world.
What set netbooks apart from other laptops was their pursuit of portability, battery life, and rock-bottom prices at almost any cost. The original netbook, the ASUS Eee PC, came in two sizes (7-inch or 10-inch) and ran on Intel’s budget Celeron M processor. But even that slow, low-powered CPU was too demanding for the tiny Eee PC, and so ASUS underclocked it to just 630 MHz. (Yes, back in the halcyon days of 2007, we measured CPU speed in MHz, not GHz.)
Intel saw this emerging trend and built CPUs just for the netbooks called Atom. In many ways, Atom chips were Intel’s answer to the growing might of ARM, and even formed the basis for its tablet and smartphone efforts. It’s essentially the reverse of what Apple did, which took its mobile A-series processor and turned it into a powerful laptop chip. (And, now back again, it seems.)
As we all know now, netbooks were not long for this world. A number of things helped spell their demise. For one, most of them were just never particularly good. And the ones that weren’t awful tended to be a bit pricer. Sure, you could get a 7-inch Eee PC for around $200. But something more capable, like an HP Mini 210 HD, could set you back about $385 in 2010, depending on the configuration. When adjusted for inflation, that’s a hair over $577. As the prices of regular laptops came down, this didn’t seem like a particularly good deal anymore.
But two of the biggest culprits are undoubtedly the emergence of the Chromebook and the iPad. (We’ll save the discussion of the Chromebook for another day.) The iPad was introduced in 2010, and it immediately started eating into the netbook’s market share. By 2012, tablets had overtaken netbooks, and by 2013, netbooks were effectively dead. Sure, some still lingered around, and you had a spiritual successor in the Chromebook, but the iPad helped kill off the netbook in swift and spectacular fashion.
Many of the things that one might have used a netbook for — browsing the web, checking email, shouting into the void of what was then called Twitter — were now being handled better by the iPad. And, when paired with a Bluetooth keyboard, the iPad was actually a decent productivity machine, so long as your expectations were low.
And so, the netbook vanished.
But this new, cheaper MacBook, at least on paper, sounds like it might be borrowing a bit from the netbook blueprint. Some people will just never be able to adjust to the workflow of a tablet and keyboard combo. So Apple might be giving them a proper laptop form factor.
While we don’t know what the screen size will be, we do know it will be smaller than the current 13.6-inch MacBook Air. That could mean 13.3 inches, but perhaps Apple will bring back the 12-inch format or even revisit the 11-inch realm of its smallest Air model. That’s inching into netbook territory.
Pair all that with a mobile-first SoC that will handle everyday tasks and browsing with aplomb, but certainly won’t cut it for heavier tasks like video editing or gaming, and you have something that sounds like the original pitch for a netbook if you ask me. Apple will obviously never call its new affordable MacBook a netbook, but maybe by avoiding the name, it can make them cool again.
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When Joe A. from Shelton, Conn., received a text about a crypto investment opportunity, he thought it was his chance to rebuild after a divorce. Instead, he lost every dollar he had. Joe’s story is a heartbreaking reminder of how easy it is to fall for an online investment scam that promises quick success and easy money.
Joe has allowed Cyberguy to tell his powerful story so that others can learn from his experience and protect themselves from similar scams. Here is how it all went down and how you can protect yourself from falling into the same trap.
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HOW TO STOP IMPOSTOR BANK SCAMS BEFORE THEY DRAIN YOUR WALLET
After his account access vanished, scammers allegedly demanded more cash to “reactivate” it. By then, Joe’s retirement savings were wiped out. (Gabby Jones/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
How the online investment scam began
In August, Joe got a message from a company calling itself “ZAP Solutions.” They promised that if he invested $30,000, he’d soon have $368,000 in returns. It sounded like a smart move. Like many victims, Joe believed the pitch because it seemed professional and legitimate.
But soon, he was led deeper into a trap. Each “short-term investment” required another wire transfer. Before he knew it, Joe had sent every penny, his 401K, IRA, and other investments.
When the investment scam fell apart
The moment Joe was locked out of his account, panic set in. The scammers demanded more money to “reactivate” it. By the end, Joe had lost $228,000.
His mother, Carol, was devastated when she found out.
“I was shocked,” she said. “He showed us the screenshots, the messages, he emptied everything.”
Joe and his family filed a police report with local authorities and contacted the FBI. But according to officers, recovery is unlikely.
“They told us there’s no way to get it back,” Carol said. “These cyber stalkers move the money too fast.”
The bigger picture: Online investment scams are rising
Joe’s story isn’t unique. The FBI reports that cyber criminals have stolen more than $50 billion from Americans in just five years. Scammers prey on emotion, targeting people who are hopeful, lonely, or in transition.
“If it seems too good to be true, it probably is,” Joe said, stating a phrase we all should remember.
How to protect yourself from online investment scams
Staying safe starts with awareness and consistent action. Cybercriminals are getting more creative, so protecting your finances means staying alert every step of the way. Follow these proven steps to safeguard your accounts and identity.
1) Research before you invest
Always verify any investment opportunity before sending money. Look up the company through official government or financial websites, such as the SEC’s Investment Adviser Public Disclosure database or FINRA’s BrokerCheck. Read reviews, confirm licenses and search for scam alerts online.
2) Be suspicious of unsolicited messages and use strong antivirus software
If a text, email or social media message promises high returns, stop and think. Legitimate firms never cold-contact people about investment offers. Delete suspicious messages immediately and never click on links from unknown sources. Install and regularly update strong antivirus software on all your devices. This can block phishing attempts, malicious downloads, and fake investment platforms designed to steal your data.
The best way to safeguard yourself from malicious links that install malware, potentially accessing your private information, is to have strong antivirus software installed on all your devices. This protection can also alert you to phishing emails and ransomware scams, keeping your personal information and digital assets safe.
SCAMMERS NOW IMPERSONATE COWORKERS, STEAL EMAIL THREADS IN CONVINCING PHISHING ATTACKS
Joe’s mother says the family filed police and FBI reports, but recovery is unlikely as criminals move money fast across borders and accounts. (Photo by Silas Stein/picture alliance via Getty Images)
Get my picks for the best 2025 antivirus protection winners for your Windows, Mac, Android & iOS devices at Cyberguy.com.
3) Check email addresses and website domains
Scammers often use domains that look almost identical to real ones. Double-check for misspellings, extra letters or unusual web extensions like “.co” or “.biz.” If you’re unsure, search for the official company site separately in your browser.
4) Never wire money to strangers
Once you wire money to a scammer, recovery is nearly impossible. Never send money to someone you’ve only met online, even if they claim to represent a reputable company. Always confirm payment details through verified sources.
5) Talk to a trusted financial advisor
Before you invest large sums, get a second opinion from a licensed financial advisor. A professional can spot red flags and unrealistic promises that you might overlook.
6) Use a data removal service
Protect your personal information by using a data removal or privacy service that scrubs your phone number, address and other details from people-search sites. This reduces the chance of scammers finding and targeting you.
While no service can guarantee the complete removal of your data from the Internet, a data removal service is really a smart choice. They aren’t cheap, and neither is your privacy. These services do all the work for you by actively monitoring and systematically erasing your personal information from hundreds of websites. It’s what gives me peace of mind and has proven to be the most effective way to erase your personal data from the internet. By limiting the information available, you reduce the risk of scammers cross-referencing data from breaches with information they might find on the dark web, making it harder for them to target you.
Check out my top picks for data removal services and get a free scan to find out if your personal information is already out on the web by visiting Cyberguy.com.
Get a free scan to find out if your personal information is already out on the web: Cyberguy.com.
7) Enroll in an identity theft protection service
If scammers have your personal details, they could try to open credit cards or loans in your name. Enrolling in a reputable identity theft protection service adds another layer of security by monitoring your credit and alerting you to suspicious activity.
Identity theft companies can monitor personal information like your Social Security Number (SSN), phone number and email address, and alert you if it is being sold on the dark web or being used to open an account. They can also assist you in freezing your bank and credit card accounts to prevent further unauthorized use by criminals.
FBI WARNS SENIORS ABOUT BILLION-DOLLAR SCAM DRAINING RETIREMENT FUNDS, EXPERT SAYS AI DRIVING IT
From antivirus and data-removal services to identity-theft monitoring, CyberGuy shares concrete steps to block phishing, verify firms and protect your money. (Gabby Jones/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
See my tips and best picks on how to protect yourself from identity theft at Cyberguy.com.
8) Report suspicious activity immediately
If you believe you’ve been targeted or scammed, act fast. Contact your local police department, your bank and file a report with the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3). Quick action can sometimes limit further loss or help investigators trace the fraud.
Kurt’s key takeaways
Joe’s story is painful, but it’s also powerful. His honesty may stop someone else from losing everything. Online scams thrive when people stay silent, but sharing stories like Joe’s helps others stay alert. So before you trust anyone promising quick profits online, take a pause, verify everything and remember Joe’s story because one moment of caution could save you from a lifetime of regret.
Have you ever received an investment offer that seemed too good to be true? Let us know by writing to us at Cyberguy.com.
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On November 18th, Operation: Infinite will be released for Halo Infinite players with a battle pass and lots of new customizations, but according to the team, that’s it for this game’s content updates:
With multiple Halo titles in development, we’ll need our whole team’s combined focus to deliver new experiences with the same passion and care that our community has given us. While we remain committed to supporting Halo Infinite on the road ahead, Operation: Infinite is the last major content update currently planned.
Now, the team writes, “we’ve been floored by the response” to Campaign Evolved, which will be released on both PS5 and Xbox next year.
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