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Today’s Connections: Sports Edition pays homage to the Winter Olympics. The purple category is tough, as always — and today it expects you to hunt out hidden words inside longer words. If you’re struggling with today’s puzzle but still want to solve it, read on for hints and the answers.

Connections: Sports Edition is published by The Athletic, the subscription-based sports journalism site owned by The Times. It doesn’t appear in the NYT Games app, but it does in The Athletic’s own app. Or you can play it free online.

Read more: NYT Connections: Sports Edition Puzzle Comes Out of Beta

Hints for today’s Connections: Sports Edition groups

Here are four hints for the groupings in today’s Connections: Sports Edition puzzle, ranked from the easiest yellow group to the tough (and sometimes bizarre) purple group.

Yellow group hint: Lillehammer is another one.

Green group hint: Great White North.

Blue group hint: Think Chloe Kim.

Purple group hint: Look for a hidden word.

Answers for today’s Connections: Sports Edition groups

Yellow group: Previous Winter Olympic hosts.

Green group: Canada men’s hockey players.

Blue group: Snowboarding terms.

Purple group: Ends in a piece of winter sports equipment.

Read more: Wordle Cheat Sheet: Here Are the Most Popular Letters Used in English Words

What are today’s Connections: Sports Edition answers?

The yellow words in today’s Connections

The theme is previous Winter Olympic hosts. The four answers are Albertville, Chamonix, Oslo and St. Moritz.

The green words in today’s Connections

The theme is Canada men’s hockey players. The four answers are Celebrini, Crosby, Marner and McDavid.

The blue words in today’s Connections

The theme is snowboarding terms. The four answers are cork, frontside, goofy and McTwist.

The purple words in today’s Connections

The theme is ends in a piece of winter sports equipment. The four answers are cheapskate, chopstick, Lipinski and milestone.

Google launched its latest Pixel 10 series, including the standard model and the more powerful Pixel 10 Pro, back in September, offering iterative hardware upgrades and new AI features. But for those of us who love to burn through our battery life playing games on premium phones, there’s another concern: How is gaming on the Pixel 10 Pro?

As a flagship phone with the most powerful specs Google has ever put into a (nonfolding) phone, the Pixel 10 Pro exceeds the baseline expectations for a $999 phone. (As I write this, you can buy a Pixel 10 Pro for $799 — $200 off.) It has a sharp OLED display and high-performance specs, so it has little trouble playing the latest games. 

But some of Google’s hardware choices make the Pixel 10 Pro limited in ways that the OnePlus 15 and iPhone 17 Pro are not — namely, in storage and charging. Google’s phone also has a lot to live up to with its gaming capabilities, as previous Pixel phones haven’t been known for their processing power and graphics rendering, regularly scoring lower on performance benchmarks than Apple’s and OnePlus’ flagship phones, which pack some of the most powerful processors available today. Ultimately, the Pixel 10 Pro isn’t quite the absolute best pick for gaming among the best phones you can buy today. 

Yet there are a few ways the phone shines as bright as — if not literally brighter — than the best Android phones and iPhones. Its gaming aptitude adds value to an already powerful phone with standout photo and AI capabilities.

How it feels to play games on the Pixel 10 Pro

On a basic level, the Pixel 10 Pro is great for firing up games and playing to your heart’s content. Its design is easy to hold, with flat metallic sides and curved corners that fit my fingers nicely when I rotate the phone horizontally to play most games. When I want more analog control with buttons and triggers, the handset slides in securely to my Backbone One external controller. 

Games on the Pixel 10 Pro are a sight to behold. Its 6.3-inch OLED display shows sharp details with its 2,856×1,280-pixel resolution, and colors are vivid with its HDR10 Plus support. Action is smooth with the screen’s 120Hz refresh rate, whether in slower platformers or fast-moving first-person shooters like Call of Duty: Mobile. 

Best of all, its 3,300-nit maximum brightness makes the screen easily seen in full daylight and nearly lights up a room in full darkness. This makes hues really pop in vibrant games like Dead Cells — it’s a true leg up over other smartphones with screens that don’t get as bright. The latest premium phones have gotten similarly bright (the iPhone 17 Pro Max tops out at 3,000 nits), but even phones a year or two older are substantially dimmer, with my personal iPhone 15 Pro Max reaching up to 2,000 nits brightness. 

The Pixel 10 Pro’s Tensor G5 chip may not have topped our charts in benchmark tests, falling more in line with performance from 2024’s flagships, but it’s plenty powerful enough to run the games I tested on it. The phone’s 16GB of RAM contributes to that smoothness: I cranked Genshin Impact up to its maximum graphics settings, and despite a warning that my phone might overheat (I didn’t notice it get that much warmer), it handled 60 frames per second gameplay just fine. 

The phone’s other capabilities were fine for gaming, including serviceable speakers and a respectable battery life. The latter surprised me, as older Pixel phones seemed less efficient and drained faster than competing premium handsets — and indeed, the Pixel 10 Pro ranks below the top 10 phones with the best battery life released last year, according to our lengthy battery tests of 2025 phones. While playing games, the battery didn’t drain particularly quickly, losing around 2% for each 4-5 minute match in Call of Duty: Mobile.

The Pixel 10 Pro’s gaming challenges, and where it sits for us

The Pixel 10 Pro’s biggest gaming flaw is its storage. It’s pretty shocking to see it start at $1,000 yet only pack 128GB, while most other premium phones have bumped their starting storage up to 256GB for the exact same starting price. 

When some mobile games can be 50GB or more, this is a paltry amount, which shrinks quickly for people who take a lot of photos and videos at high resolutions. As I was loading up games on my Pixel 10 Pro, I was shocked that I had run out of space to download graphical extras in Call of Duty: Mobile and had to go delete some videos I’d taken.

A lesser issue lies in keeping the phone charged up. The Pixel 10 Pro’s battery gets decent but not spectacular life, with a 4,870-mAh capacity that’s surpassed by many of its premium rivals, especially the 7,300-mAh OnePlus 15. 

But topping off Google’s flagship phone takes time, as it has a maximum 30-watt wired charging speed or 15-watt wireless charging. That likely means it’ll take over an hour to get it back to full from 0%, which takes a lot longer than some of the faster-charging phones out there, like the OnePlus 15, which went from 1% to 73% in half an hour thanks to its 80-watt wired charge rate. Compare that to the Pixel 10 Pro, which added 44% in the same amount of time.

Read more: The OnePlus 15 Is One of the Best Mainstream Phones for Gamers

Unlike some other premium phones, the Pixel 10 Pro does have its own MagSafe-like magnets aligned in a circle on its rear cover, called Pixelsnap, which is convenient for wireless charging, even if it’s slow. Google phone fans can get faster charging with the Pixel 10 Pro XL, which supports 45-watt wired and 25-watt wireless charging, though they’ll have to pay more for the bigger phone. 

Neither of these issues are huge setbacks that impede the Pixel 10 Pro’s gaming capability — there’s just nothing in its features that make it stand out above other premium phones, aside from its bright and vivid display. That’s not surprising, as Google’s phone excels in nongaming aspects, including AI photo features like Auto Best Take and Camera Coach. 

If you’re a Pixel fan who also plays games, you’ll enjoy firing them up on the Pixel 10 Pro, which is a good all-around device. For those who want a phone with features that are specifically better for gaming, there are other handsets that’ll satisfy, like the OnePlus 15. 

The year has barely begun, and there are already plenty of rumors about the next crop of iPhones. From a possible folding model to a brand-new iPhone 18 lineup, 2026 (and beyond) looks to be very interesting for the tech giant’s mobile division. 

The iPhone 18 is rumored to have several changes from its predecessor, including variable-aperture cameras, an under-display front-facing camera for Face ID, a smaller Dynamic Island, an updated A20 chip, and new, interesting colors, including a «coffee» brown. The latest rumors suggest that the front-facing camera will be relocated to the top left corner of the screen, and the Camera Control button will be simplified to a pressure-sensing function. The Dynamic Island could also be shrunken in favor of a hole-punch cutout. 

But if you’re trying to decide whether to buy an iPhone 17 now or get the iPhone 18, there is one biggest consideration: The iPhone 18 doesn’t exist. Apple hasn’t officially announced it. And rumors say the iPhone 18 won’t come out in September 2026 (to make room for the rumored iPhone Fold) and might be released in early 2027 instead.

Personally, I don’t think you should wait over a year for a new phone, especially if you’re considering an upgrade from an iPhone 14 or earlier model. Here are a few reasons why.

The iPhone 17 is great (and so is the 17 Pro)

If you’re looking to upgrade your phone, there’s a shiny new iPhone available in stores right now, and it’s a pretty good one. The iPhone 17 is a fantastic handset for iPhone devotees, especially for a base model.

Not only does the iPhone 17 offer a slightly larger 6.3-inch display (compared to the iPhone 16’s 6.1-inch screen), but it also features a variable refresh rate of 1 to 120Hz, a first among non-Pro iPhones. This lets you enable an always-on display so you can glance at the time or current sports scores without waking your phone. And, of course, the 120Hz ProMotion display also means increased smoothness and responsiveness overall, whether scrolling through social feeds or playing video games.

Sure, the iPhone 18 might get improved cameras, but the ones on the iPhone 17 aren’t too shabby. It has two 48-megapixel cameras on the back (a wide-angle and an ultrawide), with the ultrawide being a massive upgrade over the one on the iPhone 16 that only had a 12-megapixel sensor. The 18-megapixel selfie camera (which is on the rest of the iPhone 17 line and the Air) is also a great upgrade, especially with its Center Stage feature that zooms out when more people enter the frame or switches from portrait to landscape without you rotating the phone. 

On top of that, the iPhone 17 has a sturdy aluminum frame, comes in an array of lovely colors (lavender is my favorite) and has an impressive battery life. In my experience, it lasts more than a day with moderate use, and this seems to align with CNET’s Abrar Al-Heeti’s experience as well. 

If you want to further bridge the gap between this year’s iPhone and next year’s model, you could, of course, spend more on the iPhone 17 Pro. It has a beefier A19 Pro chip, a much better battery life (17 Pro Max) compared to the iPhone 17 and has that third camera on the back with a telephoto lens, which makes it a lot more versatile by offering a 4x magnification for zooming into distant subjects. I should note that battery life on the iPhone 17 and the regular iPhone 17 Pro are nearly identical.

The iPhone 18’s potential release date

Another significant reason not to wait to upgrade to the iPhone 18 is that it may not even be released next year. Waiting nine months until next fall is bad enough if you have an ailing phone, but there are currently rumors that Apple could be switching up its iPhone release strategy.

Bloomberg has reported that the company plans to unveil the iPhone 18 Pro, the iPhone 18 Pro Max, and a new foldable in the fall of 2026. However, the iPhone 18, iPhone 18E and a potential Air 2 are set to debut closer to March 2027. That’s over a year away! You could certainly upgrade to one of the 2026 models, but chances are they won’t be as affordable as the spring 2027 releases. 

The older your phone, the more reason not to wait

If you have the iPhone 15 or newer, you could get by waiting for another year for the iPhone 18. But if your phone is much older than that and you would like a new iPhone, I see no reason to wait. This is especially the case if you’re experiencing performance and battery issues.

We usually recommend upgrading if your existing model is two generations old, especially if your phone starts having issues with your day-to-day tasks. One general consensus is that if your battery’s maximum capacity has dropped below 80%, and you don’t want to replace the battery, it’s probably wise to upgrade. You can check this by going to your phone’s Settings, selecting Battery and then Battery Health.

You can certainly keep your phone for longer, and Apple often provides software and security support for the iPhone for well over five years. However, you’ll also want to keep an eye out in case there are newer features that don’t work on your device, or if a newer iPhone’s camera hardware would provide enough of an upgrade to be a noticeable improvement.

But if you are thinking that you’d like to get a new base-level iPhone anytime in the next 12 months, there’s little reason to stick it out for the iPhone 18 when the iPhone 17 offers so many features.