You can watch this article as a video on The Privacy Lab's YouTube channel.

In October 2020, Google launched a virtual private network. Of course, this seemed out of character – one of the most data-hungry companies in the world whipping up a product to help people protect that exact commodity. But, on paper, Google VPN looked pretty good. It had a huge server network and because it came bundled with premium Google Drive plans, for many it was effectively "free." There were murmurings that it could even dethrone the big names that populate our guide to the best VPNs overall.

However, in April 2024, it was announced that the VPN was destined for the Google graveyard. By June, it was dead and buried.

As ZDNet reported, Google stated: "We're refocusing our efforts to support more in-demand features with Google One. To keep our subscription service fresh, we're discontinuing the VPN feature." In short, Google's reasoning was that people simply weren't using it.

But that was just a cover story.

A clash of philosophies

To understand Google VPN's issues, you have to look at the business model first. Effectively, Google is a data and advertising company. It makes money by tracking your searches, mapping your locations, and ultimately building a very specific profile around you to sell targeted ads.

However, VPNs are designed to stop exactly that. By encrypting your data, VPNs allow you to hide what you're doing from your internet provider, government, and any hackers on dodgy networks. By changing your IP address, they make it harder to build a profile from your activity. Naturally, people were skeptical of Google developing such a product.

To build trust, Google published white papers, open-sourced the apps, and even commissioned independent audits. For example, in its official technical white paper, Google laid out how hard it worked to protect your data, writing:

"By employing a cryptographic blind signing step between user authentication and connecting to the VPN, we give users a stronger guarantee that their network activity can't be tied back to their identity."

Cybersecurity firm NCC Group agreed, writing in its public report that it found the system to have "a robust implementation and a strong technical security posture."

The truth is that Google's VPN was very secure. But even with these stamps of approval, most of us struggled to look past the irony of asking an advertising giant to secure your web traffic. The audience looking for privacy didn't trust Google, and the audience that trusted Google didn't care about privacy.

A VPN limited by design

Perhaps more people trusted Google than I'm giving them credit for. But those that did use Google VPN found it was no match for established names like NordVPN, Proton VPN, or Mullvad. It couldn't compete because it only did half the job.

Most people want their VPN to change their virtual location. That might be to access regional sites like BBC iPlayer and watch more shows on Netflix, or maybe to avoid content restrictions in countries like Russia and China. Either way, it's a core feature of any good VPN.

However, even on its paid plan, Google VPN did not let you choose a country to connect to. Instead, when it was first launched, it only allocated you an IP address in your "broad" location. In reality, that often meant connecting to a server several states away. This ended up messing with things like weather reports and proved very annoying – especially for people who didn't really understand how VPNs work.

In 2023, Google addressed this by allowing you to use a "local" IP address nearer your real location, but there was still no true location choice. This decision was an absolute dealbreaker for millions of potential customers.

What's more, the app was seriously underpowered. It lacked things like protocol switching, dedicated IPs, port forwarding, obfuscation, or split tunneling. Plus, if you didn't have a Pixel phone, Google VPN didn’t even have a kill switch to block internet traffic if it crashed.

In short, it was half-baked. Anyone actively looking to buy a VPN realised pretty quickly that there were so many better options out there.

The fragmented ecosystem

You might have noticed that there are more than a few similarities between Google's VPN and another well-known privacy tool from a Big Tech company: Apple Private Relay. Really, they are – or were – exactly the same thing: a limited VPN bundled with cloud storage.

But there are a few key reasons why Google VPN failed spectacularly, and why Private Relay is still going strong. Buckle up – Google made all of this quite confusing.

There were in fact three different versions of Google VPN: Google One VPN (RIP), Google Fi Wireless VPN, and VPN by Google. The latter two still exist, both now called VPN by Google, but in reality they're two different bits of software. Notably, though, the now-dead Google One VPN was the only one available for anyone to buy. The others require Google hardware to use them.

Coverage at the time shows the disconnect. Initially, Google stated that it was shuttering the VPN because "people weren't using it." However, it was also announced that the VPN would live on in the form of the Pixel VPN. And that's not to mention Google Fi.

Confusing, right? Well, it doesn't stop there. If we consider each product separately, they all appear to have different purposes and different goals – and none seem properly integrated. Let's quickly have a look at these:

• Google One VPN: This is the one that died, the one I covered the most here at Tom's Guide, and probably the most-used version at the time. It was used as an incentive to convince users to buy more cloud storage, and the only version available without the purchase of a Google hardware product.
• Google Fi Wireless VPN: This VPN's purpose was to convince customers to switch their phone lines over to Google's cellular network, and was available with a Google Fi subscription.
• Pixel VPN: The Pixel VPN's goal was to increase physical phone sales. Essentially, Google wanted to offer perks to compete with the iPhone. This version was only available with the purchase of a Pixel 7 or newer phone.

Although there's no definitive proof, it appears that each team responsible for these three products was totally separate from the other. The three VPNs may even have run on completely different infrastructures.

Here's a clue that points that way: Google claims it shut down Google One VPN due to low usage – but this was arguably the most-used version of the three. If all three VPNs shared the same servers, why kill the most popular one for being underused, while Fi and Pixel carried on unaffected? It suggests, at the very least, that Google One VPN was built and run with little coordination with Google's other VPN ventures.

Even if we avoid conjecture entirely, the fact remains that in early 2024 you could own a Pixel phone, run it on Google Fi, and pay for a Google One cloud storage – meaning you'd have three different Google-branded VPNs competing for control over the exact same traffic.

Suffice to say, it seems Google wasn't quite as organised as you might expect one of the richest companies in the world to be.

The pivot to AI

Running a VPN is expensive. Thousands of servers in dozens of countries, tip-top security, and routing huge amounts of data takes a lot of cash.

For a company like NordVPN or ExpressVPN, these costs are justified because it's their entire business. For Google, it was a expense that wasn’t generating any revenue. No one was subscribing to Google One just for the VPN – it was just a "perk" that came with their cloud storage, which they probably didn't use.

Then, in early 2024, Google changed tack. AI was here. Google's CEO, Sundar Pichai, celebrated a massive milestone on X, but his words betrayed the future of Google:

The writing was on the wall. The future of Google's subscription business didn't include tools like a VPN. It was going to be driven by artificial intelligence – and there was no reason to maintain an unpopular product that didn't line the coffers.

Bottom line

Ultimately, the collapse of Google VPN proves that privacy can't be treated as an afterthought. A successful VPN needs more than solid engineering – it demands an overall philosophy that isn’t compromised by a business model based around advertising and data collection. Google didn't fail because it lacked the technology. It failed because it lacked the trust.

Then, when the AI boom hit, the VPN was first on the chopping block. Google could no longer justify maintaining an expensive and underused infrastructure that actively protected your data – the commodity most valued by the tech giant. By killing the VPN, it cleared the path for Gemini and showed us exactly where Big Tech’s priorities lie.

But, for us, this was a win. Consumers sent a message that they refused to compromise on trust just for the convenience of a cheap bundle. You voted with your wallets, and Google had to listen.

We have contacted Google for comment. We await their reply.

We test and review VPN services in the context of legal recreational uses. For example:1. Accessing a service from another country (subject to the terms and conditions of that service).2. Protecting your online security and strengthening your online privacy when abroad.We do not support or condone the illegal or malicious use of VPN services. Consuming pirated content that is paid-for is neither endorsed nor approved by Future Publishing.

At a glance

• The Crisis: A late-night, long-distance phone call with my wife almost ended in disaster — until my Even Realities G2 smart glasses fed me a live summary of her argument like a teleprompter.
• The Friction: Outsourcing our active listening to an AI raises massive ethical red flags about cognitive atrophy. Are we losing our ability to pay attention to the people we love?
• The Defense: Even Realities CEO Will Wang argues that "ambient computing" is actually the cure for our digital distraction, forcing us to keep our heads up and stay present in the physical world.

It was 1AM, and I was staring down the barrel of every married man’s worst nightmare.

My wife lives in New York and I’m in the U.K., which means our daily catch-ups cross a brutal multi-time-zone divide. Late one night, as my brain-fogged exhaustion finally peaked, my focus slipped for just a few seconds. Then came the dreaded, fatal question:

“What was the last thing I said?”

Normally, failing this question means a one-way ticket to guilt trips and emotional exile. But as I’ve written about before, my Even Realities G2 came to my rescue with the Conversate feature passively transcribing the call and summarizing key points into its HUD overlay.

Now, as you may remember, when this happened a deeply uncomfortable thought washed over me: when relying on smart glasses, who’s actually in a relationship with my wife? Me, or my smart glasses? That’s a question I put directly to Even Realities Founder & CEO, Will Wang.

The cognitive hangover

It’s one of those big questions that makes so many of us skeptical of the AI hardware boom. We’re being asked to strap always-on micro-computers to our faces to make life completely frictionless. But what happens when that friction is the thing that makes us human?

This isn’t just some philosophical late-night hangover; it’s a genuine scientific concern. Recent studies coming out of places like Harvard have warned that an over-reliance on AI tools can lead to brain fry — actively diminishing our critical thinking, memory retention and ability to focus.

If we outsource our active listening to an LLM, we are essentially training our brains that it is OK to zone out. We are turning human connection into a highly optimized, automated task.

In my conversation with Will Wang, I asked him this question point blank, and he didn’t flinch.

“This question arises at every major technological turning point because it challenges the status quo and changes how we interact,” Wang told me. “Before smartphones, we had the exact same concern: while phones empowered us, they drew our attention to digital information and made us feel less connected to families.”

Fair point, but I feel this misses out on a crucial detail — the phone is pocketable, whereas the glasses are permanently worn. One is inherently more invasive than the other.

The "undisturbed connection"

Wang’s argument is that the cognitive damage has already been done by the smartphone. We are already ignoring our spouses to stare at glowing rectangles in our hands. The smart glasses, he argues, are actually the cure.

“First of all, as a company, we must build our products with a core philosophy of helping people build human connection,” Wang explained. “A display in your field of vision can be highly disruptive, but if designed with the right ethos, it can actually be the only way to show information while keeping you focused on the physical world. Otherwise you would look down at a phone screen.”

This is the central thesis behind Even Realities glasses. There are no cameras, and no obtrusive apps demanding your attention. It’s a design language the team calls “ambient computing” or “undisturbed connection.”

“When you align with this ethos, it completely changes your UI/US and product design decisions,” Wang noted. “An internal term we use frequently is ‘undisturbed connection’ — keeping you connected with digital services while remaining undisturbed.”

It’s Wang’s mission to make “design choices” that “always put the user in the driver’s seat,” like picking and choosing when you need AI cues like you see in Conversate. A very far cry from what you see other glasses doing.

The verdict: a digital crutch, or a cure?

Wang is right about one thing: when a new technology is introduced, we tend to get overly excited (or overly terrified) before we figure out how to coexist with it in harmony.

Did my smart glasses enable my bad behavior by letting me zone out during a conversation with my wife? Yes, absolutely. But they also kept my marriage in one piece, keeping me verbally present rather than going vague in my non-listening state..

We are potentially entering an era where AI is going to mediate almost every aspect of our digital lives. We are going to have to rely on digital crutches to manage the overwhelming flood of information. But if I have to choose a crutch, I’d rather have one that occasionally feeds me the right words to say to my wife, rather than one that distracts me from her entirely.

Let me know what you think in the comments below, I'd love to hear your thoughts.

More from Tom's Guide

• Exclusive: Even Realities CEO slams Meta Ray-Bans — we 'don’t thrive on selling data’
• 'It’s going to be that shift from phones to glasses': Snap Specs chief on design, target audience and that $2,200 price tag
• I praised Meta’s smart glasses privacy update yesterday — today, its ‘super sensing’ glasses proved me completely wrong

It's quite important to keep your phone in a protective case. I recently found this out the hard way after letting my iPhone 17 Pro Max fall onto the asphalt and pick up some chips and dents it really didn't need. Buying phone cases is a rather tedious experience, though, and the sheer scale of the phone accessories market means there are countless options at a variety of different price points. Which one do you choose?

This got me wondering whether you actually needed to make a choice at all. I actually purchased a 3D printer at the start of the year, and immediately started looking for ways to justify that purchase to my wife. I've had limited success so far, mostly making plastic trinkets that break far too easily, but what if I used it to print my own cases from scratch?

That way I could get myself a new phone case in a single afternoon, without having to spend money or wait for it to be delivered. Not to mention the fact that if I can do this regularly, I may end up slightly reducing the environmental impact of getting future cases sent out to me.

Getting the right materials

I'm still fairly new to 3D printing, so everything I've done has involved me learning as I go, making many, many mistakes in the process. Thankfully one of those mistakes was not just 3D printing a case without thinking, using the basic PLA (polylactic acid) filament I purchased with my printer. While useful for a lot of things, this is rigid and fairly brittle plastic.

Not only would this offer very poor shock protection, the lack of flexibility means you're not actually going to be able to get your phone into the case itself. You would have to utilize an elaborate multi-part design that locks together around your phone.

And don't even think about printing a case around your phone. The material coming out of the nozzle is molten plastic, and PLA is heated to over 300 degrees Fahrenheit during the printing process. That's definitely not something you want near your pricey smartphone.

Much of the consensus online was that TPU (Thermoplastic Polyurethane) was the best option for home case printing. TPU is flexible thanks to some rubber-like qualities, and that means the final print is not locked into a rigid position like PLA.

That means it has better resistance to impact, tearing, and other damage your phone might suffer throughout its life. Plus it's a relatively cheap filament, and you can stretch it around your device without suffering any ill effects.

There are downsides to TPU, though, like the fact the material has a habit of absorbing moisture from the air. Too much moisture affects the quality of the filament, and while fixable it's not ideal for anyone that lives in a humid area like I do. I should also note that TPU is not suitable for all case designs, since they need some rigidity to function properly.

There are other issues to be aware of, but I'll get to those later, since I experienced them first hand.

Which cases do I print?

Unless you're a dab hand with CAD software, or have access to a 3D scanner, you're going to have to source the printing files from one of the many 3D printing repositories on the net. That's certainly the easiest option for the 3D printing noobs like myself, and depending on where you look you should be able to find something suitable for your phone.

I went to Thingiverse and picked out cases for the iPhone 17 Pro Max (by Moridith) and Galaxy Z Fold 7 (by rstarin) — both of which are available under a Creative Commons license.

Both of these cases are very different, and the creators have advice on what kind of filament you should use. Moridith's iPhone case recommends using TPU, while rstarin notes that the Z Fold 7's half-case was designed with PLA in mind.

While I did listen to this advice, I ended up printing both cases in TPU and PLA. That way I could see for myself just how different the two materials are, and why it's important to make sure you have the right filament.

PLA's hardness can be a blessing and a curse

The first print was making the iPhone 17 Pro Max case out of PLA, just to see how it would fare if I did try to put an iPhone 17 Pro Max into it. The print itself came out rather well, which is a little annoying considering this case was never intended to be used.

There are some printing errors in various places, including the base of the sides and some unwanted stringing around the top lip. In hindsight I should have added some supports to the design before attempting to print — but considering this was intended as an experiment that would have just wasted extra filament.

Needless to say the iPhone 17 Pro Max does not fit into this case. There isn't even a way to force it in, because the hard plastic lip is in the way. If that wasn't bad enough, the buttons are rock solid, and totally unusable. Even if you could squeeze the 17 Pro Max into here, those buttons would need to be cut out first.

The case was stronger than I anticipated, though. I'd printed it with a gyroid infill, which is known for its relative strength, and decided I'd see how easy it was to break the PLA case. It ended up being harder than I thought, on account of the case's thickness, and while I was able to break it with my bare hands it took a fair bit of repeated effort to do so.

The Z Fold 7 case, on the other hand, is an open design that's designed to clip into the back of the phone — rather than wrap around it. You see a lot of foldable cases like this, since the dual-sided design doesn't really fit well with a lot of other more protective case designs.

Snap on it did, and while the design only covers half of the phone it shows that you can still print out your own hard plastic cases and make full use of them. I will caveat by saying that attempting to take it off was tricky, and I ended up snapping the thinner material around the mic hole.

The minimal thickness of the design and rigidity of the plastic suggests to me that this design will not offer much meaningful drop protection. But that's also true of any thin phone case, regardless of how it came into this world.

TPU was a better all-rounder — with some drawbacks

Printing a Z Fold 7 case made out of the flexible TPU turned out to be a total waste of time. The design is too thin and the flexibility means it just flops around like a fish out of water. That lack of sturdiness and friction also means that this case is not going to stay attached to your phone for very long.

That said, for a more encompassing case, TPU proved to be a better option for the iPhone 17 Pro Max. I will admit that I did make a bunch of rookie mistakes in the process of printing my first one, though.

The most obvious mistake I made is that I totally forgot to change the filament type in my 3D printer's companion software. This meant that my printer thought it was working with PLA instead of TPU. The consequence of this was that the printer was working much faster than it should have, and left countless web-like strings of filament all over the case.

I also forgot to add support to the print, which means that various attributes like buttons and the lip around the edge of the case's front didn't come out as neatly as they could have done. Thankfully, all of these issues were cosmetic, and didn't actually detract from the functionality of the case itself.

Cosmetic is putting it lightly though, and my initial description of this case was "ugly as sin." Thankfully, this doesn't change the fact the flexible material allows the case to wrap around my iPhone 17 Pro Max. It feels soft and cushioned compared to PLA, and is capable of returning to its original form after being squashed and twisted around in my hands.

But herein lies the problem of printing with TPU: printing it properly is an exceedingly slow process. To put it into perspective, the PLA version of the iPhone case was finished in under two and a half hours. In the same amount of time, printing the final version of the TPU was just past the halfway point.

Overall, the TPU print took 4 hours 37 minutes, and was so long that the timelapse footage I shot was nearly 10 minutes in length.

Slow printing is an issue for two reasons. The first is that you have to physically wait longer, which is no good if you're an impatient type. Likewise the longer a print takes, the more opportunity there is for something to go catastrophically wrong. It can and does happen, and nothing is worse than getting close to the end of a multi-hour print and finding yourself having to repeat the whole thing.

Thankfully, printing out slowly seems to have (mostly) fixed the webbing issue. There are still some stray strands of filament that need cutting, but the majority of them are totally gone. Likewise, the case itself does look a lot better thanks to the slow printing keeping the look a lot neater.

It wasn't error free, especially where the support connects to the case, but for the most part it looks like a very good (albeit bulky) phone case. That may not be to everyone's tastes, but I personally couldn't care less — especially given the size of the 17 Pro Max.

Just be aware that you need some good pliers to rip out all the internal supports. it's fiddly, and you'll end up with little strands of used filament all over the place if you're not careful.

How much did it cost me to print both cases?

Ignoring the fact that I had to pay for the 3D printer in the first place, just how much did I end up paying for these cases? Both rolls of filament were 1 kilogram (2.2 pounds) each, with PLA costing me £18/$24 and the TPU costing £12/$16.

This means the actual cost of PLA was £0.18 per 100g of filament or £0.0018 per gram. Meanwhile TPU cost £0.12 per 100g, or £0.0012 per gram.

The Galaxy Z Fold 7 case wasn't very large, and used up roughly 13.75 of filament. The iPhone 17 Pro Max case was obviously a lot larger, and used 54.35 grams of filament. With this information I can calculate that the two cases used up a respective £0.025 and £0.065 worth of their respective filament.

I printed off multiple versions of these cases, each with slight variations in the amount of filament they used. But even if you add them all together, the total cost of the filament pales in comparison to the cost of buying a case. Especially if you're looking at ultra premium options, like Apple's $59 TechWoven case for iPhone 17 Pro Max.

Obviously, it's a little more complicated than just the raw material costs. I needed to pay for electricity to power the 3D printer, as well as the 3D printer itself. I should mention that the model I have, the Creality Ender 3 V3 SE, is a pretty cheap option, and is currently on sale for $186 at Amazon — or $197 with four rolls of PLA filament.

Final thoughts: The problem with 3D printing phone cases

If you have a lot of phones lying around and need a way to protect them all quickly and cheaply, then 3D printing isn't such a bad option — so long as you have a printer handy. But that isn't the case for most of the people reading this, since you will only have one phone.

Unless you have a super-old or super obscure phone, you're spoiled for choice when it comes to picking a case. If you're looking for practicality, fashionable designs, or the absolute bare minimum of protection to keep your phone safe from stray falls, there is something out there for you. Odds are it isn't going to cost you much money either.

Unless you are a skilled and experienced 3D printer, then making your own cases at home comes with some obvious pitfalls. The main one being that 3D printed cases look like they've been 3D printed, and stylishness is not going to be high on your list of priorities. You also need to find the right type of case files for your phone, and the equipment needed to produce it.

The more experienced 3D printers among you will likely be able to make a bunch of elaborate and fanciful designs. Using multiple colors, adding magnets, tweaking the design so you can't see the print lines as easily and things of that nature. But those people are certainly in the minority, and presumably have been in the 3D-printed case game for a long time.

This process works for me and the many phones I have to utilize as part of my job as a Phones Editor. But I'm not saying you should go out and buy a 3D printer just so you can save money on making your own phone cases. That said, if you have a 3D printer or were already interested in picking one up soon, then you might as well give this a go.

Who knows, you might even prefer things this way.

More from Tom's Guide

• I tried using the Galaxy Z Fold 8’s MyFanCam on my dogs, but I hit a major wall
• I just realized the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 8 Ultra fixes the worst thing about fingerprint scanners
• New iPhone 20 video reveals the 8 biggest upgrades to expect from the 20th anniversary iPhone

A core reason you’d want one of the best gaming laptops is to play your favorite PC games on the go. However, your experience with AAA games won’t be great on battery power. Not only will you generally get less than two hours of gameplay, but you'll suffer severe drops in frames per second (FPS). This is why most users keep their gaming laptops plugged in during use.

But what if you’re itching to play a game and there’s no wall outlet in sight? Are you stuck playing for just a couple of hours at 30 frames per second or lower? Not necessarily, so long as you make various adjustments to the laptop and game. Though the results won't always match what you'd get when plugged in, you’ll have a smoother gaming experience.

If you want to squeeze as much performance as possible from a gaming laptop running on battery, I’ll show you how!

On battery vs plugged in

Generally, a battery provides around 40 to 90 watts of power, whereas a wall charger can provide 100 to 200+ watts. That extra power allows laptop components like the GPU and CPU to run more efficiently, delivering smoother gaming performance. However, on battery power, operating systems automatically switch to low-power or balanced profiles, which lowers frame rates and screen refresh rates.

There are also safety reasons. Drawing too much power too quickly from a battery can generate excessive heat and damage the cells. Laptops also slow the CPU and GPU on battery power to prevent overheating. When you connect a laptop to a wall outlet, your computer knows it has an endless energy supply and removes all the speed caps.

I ran Cyberpunk 2077 on the Alienware 16 (2026) on both battery power and while plugged in to show you the difference. At default graphical settings and native 2560x1600 resolution, the game ran at around 110-120 fps while I was on foot and around 90-100 fps when I drove through the city center. Unplugged, Cyberpunk 2077’s frame rate dropped to the 70s on foot and to around 55 on the highway.

To be clear, the Alienware 16 is an extremely powerful gaming laptop, which accounts for its high fps even when unplugged. Still, a 30 frames-per-second drop isn’t small and illustrates the difference between playing plugged in and unplugged.

How to get better performance on battery

I’ll now detail how to get battery gaming laptop performance while on battery. Keep in mind that the battery can’t output enough wattage for full gaming speeds, so performance will always be limited compared to when you’re plugged in. With that out of the way, let’s get into it.

On your laptop, click the battery icon on the taskbar and set the power mode to Best Performance. If your laptop has an Nvidia RTX GPU, you can disable BatteryBoost or raise the frame rate cap in the GeForce Experience app (or the Nvidia app).

Similarly, open your laptop manufacturer’s custom app (such as Asus Armoury Crate, Razer Synapse, or Lenovo Vantage) and switch the operating mode from Eco/Silent to a manual or performance profile. You can also set a custom frame limiter in the Nvidia Control Panel to limit CPU and GPU usage as needed.

To improve battery life, you can lower the refresh rate from a high rate like 144Hz to 60Hz. You can also reduce the display’s brightness to around 50% or lower and turn off RGB lighting if your laptop uses it. Unplugging unnecessary peripherals also helps improve battery life. And of course, shut down any apps you’re not currently using.

On the game side, you can do things like lower the game’s resolution, shadow quality, and graphical settings to reduce the workload on your laptop. Similarly, you can cap your maximum FPS in the game settings to keep stable performance.

Bottom line

I will always advise folks to keep their gaming laptops plugged in while playing for the best possible performance. However, if there’s nowhere to connect, the tips above should help you get better performance on battery life. It’s not as optimal as when you’re plugged in, but you’ll have a smoother overall experience.

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• I just tested the new Dell XPS 13 — here’s why it’s the best budget Windows laptop right now
• While PC gamers fight for 16GB of VRAM, AMD just unveiled a rack with 31,000 Gigabytes

Today Apple announced its new leasing program, Apple Upgrade which is undergirded by Klarna for iPhone, Apple Watch, Mac and iPad.

The program lets customers sign up for a plan, similar to how you would lease a car, for fixed 12-, 24- and 36-month terms depending on the device. There are options to upgrade to a new device early or return it at the end of the lease.

Apple called the new plan a "more flexible way to pay for products."

It's possible this does offer some flexibility from paying an upfront lump sum or tying yourself to an onerous contract via a network carrier like Verizon or T-Mobile.

However, experts I spoke with think the Upgrade plan is meant to cover rising component costs.

"By shifting the focus to lower monthly payments, it helps mask the effect of rising hardware costs and makes premium devices feel more affordable and attainable for a broader range of consumers," Jitesh Ubrani, a director at IDC, said.

They added that it could entice people who don't want to pay the higher upfront costs, as even Apple has hiked prices recently. It also gives Apple a "steady stream of trade-ins" that the company can resell to expand its customer base.

"Many people are effectively leasing their phones already through carrier plans; leasing a watch or a Mac -- when you know that these are also devices that have upgrade cycles -- can make sense," Techsponential's Avi Greengart told Tom's Guide. "it's still a lease, so you won't be able to use it until it dies unless you buy out the lease, and it may not be the absolute most economical approach."

Beyond upfront prices, is Apple Upgrade better for you? Let's take a look at how the program works.

How Apple Upgrade works

Apple Upgrade offers 12- or 24-month lease terms for eligible iPhones and Apple Watches. For those seeking a Mac or iPad, there are 24- or 36-month options.

Prices start as low as $11.99 per month for the Apple Watch and iPad, depending on size and storage capacity. iPhones start at $17.99, while Macs can be leased starting at $24.99 a month.

You can sign up online or at an Apple Store, where you will be approved by Klarna, which does require a soft credit check that should not impact your credit score.

At the end of the lease term, you can return the device or upgrade to a newer generation or purchase it with a one-time payment.

Compared to the outgoing iPhone Upgrade program, the Apple Upgrade Program does not include AppleCare, which is a separate subscription price and varies in price depending on your device.

Per MacRumors, if you miss a payment, it will be rolled into the next month's payment with no late fees. However, if you miss three consecutive payments, the lease will end, and you will have to pay the full outstanding balance, minus the value of the device when returned. If Klarna can't collect, a debt collection agency will be sent your information.

Apple Upgrade prices

Apple is offering the entire iPhone 17 lineup, plus the iPhone Air, both the Apple Watch Series 11 and Apple Watch Ultra 3 and three iPad options, including the iPad Air, iPad Pro and iPad mini.

For Macs, you can lease the MacBook Air, MacBook Pro, iMac and Mac Studio.

Apple defaults to the 24-month leasing option, so we'll share that. The other options can lower or raise your price. Additionally, higher storage capacity or chip versions will also increase the monthly price.

Finally, the price does not include taxes and fees.

Here's how much the base model of each device will cost you.

We've separated the iPads and Macs out because these devices can have the longer 36-month term. Again, the prices below are for the base model of each device and the 24-month term.

No leasing entry-level devices

You may have noticed several Apple devices aren't eligible for the upgrade program. It includes the vanilla iPhone 16 and iPhone 16 Plus, as well as the entry-level models of almost every device category.

Here's the full list of Apple products you can't lease:

• iPhone 16
• iPhone 16 Plus
• Apple Watch SE
• MacBook Neo
• Mac mini
• iPad (A16)
• Studio Display

Availability

Apple Upgrade is available now for all of the listed devices. Apple says that a security deposit is not required and that a trade-in device could reduce monthly payments.

I will note that if you end a lease early, you could see termination fees. Also, if you don't do anything at the end of the lease, you'll be charged the purchase fee.

Lastly, hidden in the fine print, upgrading a device could increase your monthly payments, which is true for both higher-capacity versions of devices and more expensive models when new generations launch in the coming years.

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As a computing writer for Tom’s Guide, part of my job is helping readers save money on PCs and components. That has become much harder thanks to RAMageddon, which has driven up the cost of memory and, by extension, most electronics. PC gaming has been hit especially hard. It was already a relatively expensive hobby, and price increases have made the barrier to entry even higher.

That doesn’t mean it’s impossible to get into PC gaming in 2026. You’ll almost certainly pay more for machines and components than you would have a year ago. But if you know what to look for (and what to avoid), you can still find a capable setup that fits your needs and lasts for years.

In this guide, I’ll walk through the three main ways people start PC gaming right now: a gaming handheld, a pre-built desktop, and building your own PC. I’ll break down the pros and cons of each, then explain which path makes the most sense depending on your budget, space, and priorities.

Gaming handhelds

The price of the best handheld gaming consoles has climbed sharply this year. Where the Steam Deck OLED once topped out at $649, the 512GB model now starts at $789. Other notable handhelds have seen similar increases, though entry-level options like the Asus ROG Xbox Ally (around $600) remain relatively more accessible than the higher-end Legion Go 2.

Even with the higher prices, gaming handhelds are still one of the strongest low-friction ways to start PC gaming right now — especially while discrete GPUs, RAM, and other components stay expensive. These self-contained systems run the best PC games from Steam (and other libraries), either on SteamOS or Windows.

The advantages are clear. Portability means you can play almost anywhere. Setup is relatively simple, particularly on SteamOS devices, where you can get into games with less tinkering than a full Windows 11 machine. Most models also support docking to a TV or monitor, which often improves performance once the handheld is powered and no longer thermally limited. While they’re no longer the bargains they once were, several capable options still sit under $1,000.

They do come with real trade-offs, though. The biggest is the performance ceiling: most current AAA titles run at 720p–1080p on low-to-medium settings, typically in the 30–60 fps range. Battery life often drops to one or two hours during demanding games (longer on lighter titles), and Windows handhelds can introduce additional UI friction and software overhead. Storage also fills up quickly on 512GB models.

Despite those compromises, the combination of portability, access to a PC library, and a relatively contained total cost still makes handhelds a solid option for many newcomers—especially anyone who wants to start playing without committing to a full desktop setup.

Pre-built gaming PCs

If you’d rather own one of the best gaming PCs but don’t want to build one from scratch, a pre-built PC is your best bet. Some gamers still look down on them, but after reviewing dozens of these machines, I can tell you this route is often a smart choice right now. Because manufacturers buy components in bulk, pre-builts can match or even beat the cost of a comparable DIY build in the current market.

The advantages are straightforward. There’s virtually no assembly required, and you only have to deal with one company if something goes wrong. You also get professional cable management and properly seated components out of the box. Thanks to that bulk purchasing power, solid 1080p systems with an RTX 5060-class GPU and 32GB of RAM currently sit in the $1,000–$1,200 range and often deliver stronger immediate value than piecing the same parts together yourself.

As Techsponential’s Avi Greengart told me via email, in this environment “buying pre-built is usually less expensive than building your own.” Looking for systems with last-generation CPUs that were priced before the worst of RAMageddon can stretch the budget even further.

There are real trade-offs, though. You won’t always get to choose every part, which can leave you with a louder cooler or a lower-tier power supply. Some cases use proprietary front panels, offer limited GPU clearance, or have tight PSU spacing that restricts future upgrades. And even when the overall price is competitive, you’re still paying something for the convenience.

If you go this route, prioritize GPU performance and RAM capacity (32GB is pretty valuable right now) over chasing a particular CPU brand. Read recent reviews of the specific model you’re considering (including ours!) to get a real sense of thermals, noise, and build quality. Stick with more established names such as Lenovo, iBuyPower, ABS, or CyberPower when possible. Factor in the full cost of a monitor, keyboard, and mouse if you don’t already own them, and move quickly when you find a good configuration — popular models can sell out fast.

Pre-builts shine when you value convenience, want a working system quickly, or feel intimidated by the current component market. They’re a legitimate entry point into PC gaming during RAMageddon, even if they offer less long-term flexibility and control than building your own system.

Custom-built PCs

Even with elevated component prices, building your own PC remains the strongest long-term option for many people getting into PC gaming. The current memory shortage has made it less of an automatic money-saver than it was a couple of years ago, but the advantages in quality, knowledge, and future flexibility still hold for those willing to put in the work.

The biggest advantage is full control over every part. You choose the exact GPU, cooler, power supply, and case you want. And when the time comes to upgrade, you can swap individual components instead of replacing the whole system. Building also teaches you how everything fits together, which makes future upgrades and troubleshooting much easier. You can optimize the machine for your specific needs — whether that’s a quiet system, maximum airflow, or a particular mix of CPU, GPU, and RAM suited to the games you actually play.

Securing solid last-generation components (especially AM4 and DDR4) or taking advantage of motherboard/CPU/memory bundles from places like Micro Center can still deliver meaningful savings, particularly on RAM.

Of course, the DIY route requires more research, compatibility checks, assembly, and initial troubleshooting. Pricing remains a hurdle. A decent 32GB DDR5 kit can cost $350–$470, and GPUs and SSDs are similarly priced. You’ll also face multiple individual warranties instead of a single system-wide warranty, plus the small but real risk of assembly mistakes or dead-on-arrival parts. And unless you already own them, you’ll still need to buy a monitor, keyboard, mouse, and other peripherals.

Building your own PC is still the path that delivers the most ownership, flexibility, and long-term satisfaction. It demands more effort and research than a pre-built or handheld, especially with today’s component pricing. However, the reward is a system that better matches what you actually want and can grow with you for years.

Bottom line

So which of these three paths is the best way to get into PC gaming in 2026? It depends on your needs.

If you just want to start playing games with as little hassle as possible, a solid pre-built is a smart move. If space is tight or you’re not yet sure how deep you want to go into PC gaming, a handheld is a strong starting point. And if you care about control, upgradeability, or simply enjoying the process of putting a machine together, building your own PC is still a fantastic option.

You’re almost certainly going to spend more than you would have a year ago. But with a clearer sense of the trade-offs, you can make a smarter choice and still get into PC gaming without overspending or ending up with a setup that doesn’t fit your lifestyle.

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At a glance

• The Conflict: Even Realities CEO Will Wang is calling out Meta and Google for forcing cameras onto smart glasses just to collect training data for future AI models.
• The Counter-Strategy: Even Realities' G1 and G2 smart glasses intentionally omit cameras and speakers, focusing instead on a text-based ambient HUD that prioritizes privacy, weight, and battery life.
• The Escalation: Even Realities has scaled its engineering team from 20 to nearly 400 people, gearing up to challenge Big Tech’s wearable AI dominance directly with its upcoming G3 hardware.

While Silicon Valley races to strap cameras, speakers and multimodal surveillance tools onto our faces, one smart glasses maker is picking a fight direct with Big Tech’s entire playbook.

Meta, Google and Snap want you to believe that a front-facing camera is essential for the future of AI wearables. Apple’s even rumored to be jumping in on this too. But according to Will Wang, Founder and CEO of Even Realities, their camera obsession isn’t about giving you a better device today — it’s about harvesting your personal life to train their future AI models.

Following a major $1 billion valuation round, I sat down with Wang to talk about the design choices behind the Even Realities G2 smart glasses. His message to the tech giants was loud, clear and strikingly defiant.

Editor's note: This interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.

The ‘endgame’ trap

If you ask Meta why the Ray-Ban Meta glasses feature an ultra-wide camera, they will point to visual AI — the ability for your glasses to see what you see and help in real-time.

Wang sees this differently. In his view, companies like Meta and Google are letting their long-term corporate ambitions spoil their current hardware.

"When you look at the strategies of Snap, Google, or Meta, their long-term vision often overly influences their current generation of products," Wang explained. "For Google and Meta, they include a camera because they believe visual data will be crucial for AI in the future, and to reach that endgame, they need to enable visual capabilities and start gathering data now."

The result? Heavy, power-hungry devices designed for future data gathering rather than present-day wearability.

"I feel these larger companies let their endgame thinking dictate their current products instead of focusing on making the perfect product for the present moment," Wang noted. "For a hardware company, it is crucial that each generation does not sell a dream or an expectation, but sells the product as it is."

‘We thrive on making good products, not selling data’

Even Realities took the opposite path with its glasses — completely stripping away cameras and speakers, and opting for a discreet heads-up display that delivers notifications, teleprompting, navigation and live conversation summaries in your field of view.

When I asked Wang if a camera prototype was ever on the table during internal testing, he shut the idea down immediately.

"From day one, even with the first-generation G1, we never had a camera," Wang said. "We feel that, at the current moment with the capability of AI, adding a camera onto a pair of glasses definitely introduces many more downsides than upsides."

Beyond the obvious hardware penalties (added weight, larger size and worse battery life), Wang pointed directly to the ethical and regulatory landmines that Big Tech seems content to ignore.

"The guardrails and regulations around how to properly use visual data with smart glasses have not been established," Wang pointed out. "So, we feel it's too early, too risky, and has too little upside for a company like ours that does not thrive on selling data. We thrive on making good products and making a profit from those products, so a camera was never in the discussion."

Instead of overpromising an invasive sci-fi feature set, Even Realities focused on what actually works today: crisp, text-based ambient computing that keeps you present in the real world without creeping out the people around you.

David vs. Goliath: the battle for G3

It’s easy to dismiss a startup taking anti-camera ideological stances against multi-trillion-dollar titans. But Even Realities is no longer just a niche player catering to early adopters.

While the original G1 was built by a scrappy skeleton crew, the company’s massive recent funding round has allowed them to quietly build a massive engineering war machine to prepare for their next generation of hardware: the Even Realities G3.

"To give you some context, when we built G1, our team was only 20 to 30 people," Wang revealed. "For G2, we had about 70 to 80 people... Now, for G3, we have 300 to 400 people globally working laser-focused on this single product line."

That headcount puts Even Realities on a similar dedicated engineering scale to the smart glasses divisions that Apple, Meta or Google have — but with one massive structural advantage. While Big Tech giants split their resources across dozens of spatial computing projects, AR headsets and ad platforms, Wang’s team is focused solely on perfecting one lightweight, ambient device.

"We are on the radar of a lot of these bigger players; they are already buying our products and trying to analyze our roadmap," Wang said with a smile. "We really need to accelerate faster than before, and this round of fundraising actually gives us that. We are very confident."

The war is on

The smart glasses war is dividing into two distinct camps. On one side, Meta and Google want to turn your face into a sensor array to fuel their AI algorithms. On the other, Even Realities wants to give you a clean, distraction-free HUD that respects your privacy and actually looks like a normal pair of glasses.

If Will Wang has his way with the upcoming G3, the winner of the smart glasses revolution won’t be the company that records the most video of your daily life — it will be the one that lets you look the world in the eye without a camera watching back.

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• 'It’s going to be that shift from phones to glasses': Snap Specs chief on design, target audience and that $2,200 price tag
• I praised Meta’s smart glasses privacy update yesterday — today, its ‘super sensing’ glasses proved me completely wrong

When packing for a trip — or even worse, a family trip — there are quite a few things you need to remember to bring, especially if you’re going somewhere more remote. Fortunately for the rest of my family, I always remember to bring a charger — several, in fact.

From towels to pool noodles and everything in between, our car was absolutely packed when we finally pulled out of my driveway. While everyone else made sure to have their beach gear and plenty of extra clothes, I was in charge of electronics per usual.

Now, we don’t let our four-year-old use a tablet at home, but with a six-hour drive ahead of us, I had no problem making an exception to that rule. So I charged and loaded the TCL NXTPAPER 14 with all of his favorite movies. Even though I consider it one of the best tablets, it doesn’t have a headphone jack, which meant this would be his first time using Bluetooth headphones instead of wired ones.

With my son squared away, it was time to pack my own tech bag. After packing my Nintendo Switch 2 and a pair of the best smart glasses so I could get the big-screen experience on the go, charging was next. While I always bring a plug-in GaN charger to quickly top off all my devices, this time around, I decided to do things a bit differently.

You see, as I had Satechi’s new ChargeView 140W Desktop Charger waiting on my desk, I threw it in my bag at the last minute — and I’m glad I did. While it’s designed for your desk, it ended up being the perfect charger for our trip. Here’s why.

From the wall to your desk

At 3 x 3 x 1.5 inches, Satechi’s new ChargeView Desktop Charger is quite compact. Still, it packs a punch with a total power output of 140W. In the box, you get the charger itself, a power cord, and a stand. Even though it’s meant to be stationary, it’s small enough that you can easily slip it — along with the power cable and stand — into your bag.

One of my favorite things about this particular charger is that it uses a standard, figure-8-style power cord. This means it’s easy to replace, and I guarantee you have more than a few of these lying around your house. In fact, the PS5, Xbox Series X, and even the Mac mini M4 all use this same cord.

In addition to giving the charger plenty of room to breathe, the included stand has a neat trick up its sleeve. While you can use it with the charger lying flat on its side like I did, you can also set it up vertically. So whether you have horizontal or vertical space to spare on your desk, you’ll be able to find a place for the Satechi ChargeView. Likewise, you won’t struggle to plug it in, since it uses a standard wall plug as opposed to a bulky power adapter that takes up multiple outlets.

Now back to our family trip, where it proved to be as useful for me as it was for everyone else at our rental property.

Enough watts for the whole family

Now, this wasn’t my first time staying at this particular Airbnb, as we had actually stayed in the upstairs unit last year. As such, I knew the layout like the back of my hand before we even set off. The living room is right next to the front door as you walk in, and I remembered there were two fairly large end tables on either side of the couch. I figured this would be the perfect place to set up the Satechi ChargeView, since I knew we’d be running back and forth from the beach pretty frequently.

I plugged the Satechi ChargeView in behind the couch and set it up horizontally toward the back of the end table. Then I grabbed a handful of USB-C to USB-C cables of varying lengths and plugged those in, too. Although I like to plug in my phone and wait until it’s fully charged before picking it up again, I know my wife’s cousin is the type to use his while it’s charging. He is a Zoomer, after all. This is why I plugged a longer cable into the port closest to the couch.

On the front of the device, there’s a bright display that gives you plenty of charging info at a glance. On the main screen, you can see the total output power and which ports are currently in use. However, pressing the button on top of the Satechi ChargeView lets you drill down for more details. You can see how many watts each connected device is currently pulling and whether the charger is running cool or if its active cooling is currently engaged.

Now, I’m sure the Satechi ChargeView will be even more useful at my desk back home, but with four people charging everything from phones to tablets to AirPods, it was interesting to see which devices had fast charging and which ones topped off at a trickle. The stand and overall design worked great here, too, since I never had to worry about it coming unplugged. At the same time, this is a charger nobody can borrow and forget to put back — which I know happens quite often on big trips with a lot of people.

Your charger, their outlet

Now don’t get me wrong, I absolutely adore my plug-in GaN chargers, and even with the Satechi ChargeView set up in the living room on our trip, I still had one tucked away in my bag. The problem with these types of chargers isn’t the devices themselves. Instead, it’s where you plug them in, since no two power outlets are the same.

For instance, the Ugreen Nexode 65W on the right in the photo above has a retractable plug. This is great as it makes the whole device more compact, but I’ve definitely been in situations where I just couldn’t get it to stay put in an outlet. Alternatively, the Ugreen Uno 100W on the left is a beefier plug-in GaN charger with more wattage and ports. As such, it’s on the heftier side, which has led to a similar situation where I just couldn’t keep it securely plugged into older outlets that have loosened over time.

Now with the Satechi ChargeView on my recent family trip, I didn’t have to worry about this kind of thing at all. Its long power cord made reaching the nearest outlet a breeze, and its desktop-style design meant I didn’t need to bring extra-long charging cables with me. The display on the front made the whole charging experience a bit more fun, too, since we could all see how fast our devices actually charged.

After a successful family trip, I’m now tempted to bring the Satechi ChargeView on my next work trip, too — and for good reason. I can unplug it from my desk and grab a spare power cord to quickly throw it in my suitcase. Then once I’ve checked into my hotel, I won’t have to worry about where the outlets are or whether or not they’ll be a good fit for my plug-in GaN chargers. I never meant to bring this desktop-style charger with me, but now that I have, it just might be my new go-to travel charger.

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My obsession with Apple started in high school when my mom bought me a Performa 637 CD. It was my first personal computer and I was immediately hooked on the icon-driven System 7, which was the name Apple used before making the switch to Mac OS.

Sure, there were more powerful PCs at the time — and most of my friends were using Windows — but my Mac never crashed and it was powerful enough to run my favorite first-person shooter: the Apple exclusive Bungie Marathon (1994). So I took pride in being part of the Apple minority.

Fast forward to 2026 and I'm still a loyal Mac user primarily working on an M4 Pro-based Mac mini. Throughout the years I've also owned iPhones, iPads, Apple Watches, and iMacs. Yes, I've dabbled with Windows machines and Android smartphones, but there's something about Apple's closed ecosystem that just makes my life easier and well worth the price of admission.

My wallet, however, may disagree. Apple devices are renown for being pricier than their Windows and Android based counterparts. Fortunately, there are many ways to save on Apple gear. In fact, I always make it a point to avoid paying full price for my Apple kit and below I'm sharing my favorite tips and tricks.

Trade-in that old Mac

Trading in old devices is hands-down my favorite way to save on new Apple purchases. Whether it's an old iPhone or a gently-used MacBook, if you're willing to part with it —the Apple Store will give you an instant store credit for your device. You can trade-in iPhones, Apple Watches, iPads, Macs, and even Android smartphones. You can trade-in your device in person at your local Apple Store or online.

Just head over to the Apple Trade-In website to start the process. I also recommend the Best Buy Trade-In program, which is pretty straightforward and provides quotes on the spot. My only advice is that you shop around for the best offer. For example, sometimes you might get a juicier offer from an Authorized Apple reseller than the Apple Store.

Don't buy current-gen

I get it. Nothing beats owning a flagship device. The speedier performance, the thinner design, the brighter display — it's enough to make you want to upgrade each time. However, these days you don't need to. My four-year old Apple Watch 8 still runs like new and if my iMac 5K supported the latest macOS updates, I'd still be using it.

One of the easiest ways to save on Mac purchases is by opting for a previous-generation device. It can easily save you $100 if not more. It's worth noting that the Apple Store doesn't always carry previous-gen tech, so when shopping for older generations I tend to rely on retailers like Amazon and Best Buy. They won't always have stock, but with a little digging around you'll be able to find a cheaper version of Apple's current flagship.

Go big on your purchase

Apple devices are renown for lasting a long time. (I tend to get at least 5 years from mine). So when it comes time to purchasing a new device, I always recommended spending a little more for the upgraded model. This is more important that ever because today's Macs are no longer user upgradeable.

So if you want to squeeze the most life out of your device, I recommend buying big. For example, when I purchased my Mac mini, I splurged on the M4 Pro CPU and upgraded both my RAM and SSD. My iMac 5K lasted me nearly a decade before I upgraded, so I'm hoping to get the same or similar lifespan from my current machine.

Take advantage of student discounts

Apple's Education Store discount is available year-round. Depending on what you're buying, you can save as much as $100 if you can verify your student status. In the past, I've actually recommended people avoid it because you can usually find better dollar-off discounts at authorized retailers like Amazon or Best Buy. However, since Apple's summer price hike, Apple deals have been a little harder to come by.

Additionally, the Apple Back to School Sale is underway through August 27, so in addition to that student discount you'll also get from a $100 to $150 Apple gift card on select purchases. That sweetens the deal even more. For example, the Apple Education Store has the MacBook Air M5 on sale for $1,199. That's $100 off and you also get a free $100 Apple gift card. Sure, Amazon offers the same price, but there's no freebie gift card. Likewise, the Apple Education Store has the MacBook Neo on sale for $599, which is $100 off. There's no gift card included with this offer, but I can guarantee you that no retailer is taking $100 off the MacBook Neo anytime soon.

Don't be afraid of refurbished

As a germophobe, I used to cringe at the idea of buying used tech. However, buying refurbished Apple gear is a great way to help your bank account and the planet. Apple restores and/or replaces everything during the refurbishing process, so my unfounded fear of getting a device with a random hair or grease stain on it is baseless.

In fact, the Apple Store is known for the excellent condition of its refurbished products and everything is backed by a 1-year Apple warranty. (That's the same warranty you'd get if you were to purchase a new Apple device). At the time of this writing, you can find MacBook Airs from $1,019 and MacBook Neos from $599.

Best Apple Deals Now

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Which $699 laptop should you buy: the new Dell XPS 13 (2026) or the MacBook Neo? That’s the big question right now, as Dell’s affordable XPS is a true rival to Apple’s popular laptop. This might have been an easier choice before Apple’s price hikes pushed the Neo’s price up by $100, but now you really have to weigh your options more carefully.

These notebooks are designed for budget-conscious folks who need a reliable machine for everyday work. Their ultraportable designs are also ideal for anyone who works on the go. Additionally, they have better displays and sturdier builds than most laptops in this price range.

While you won’t go wrong with either the Dell XPS 13 or MacBook Neo, one could be better for you than the other. Below, I’ll detail everything you need to know about these laptops to help you decide which is worth your money.

Dell XPS 13 vs. MacBook Neo: Specs

Dell XPS 13 vs. MacBook Neo: Design

One of the standout features of these laptops is their respective designs. Instead of being bulky and plasticky like typical budget laptops, the XPS 13 and MacBook Neo are thin and light machines with sturdy aluminum casings. They might be affordable, but they definitely look as elegant as their more premium counterparts.

The XPS 13 is the lighter of the two, weighing 2.2 pounds compared to the MacBook Neo’s 2.7 pounds. Neither laptop will be a burden to travel with, but the XPS 13 is easier to take on the road or around your home. Both are also easy to open with one hand, thanks to the lips on their respective lids.

One design area where the Neo wins is with its wider choice of colors. While the XPS 13 comes in Sky and Storm colors, the Neo comes in more vibrant hues: Silver, Indigo, Blush, and Citrus. Dell’s notebook is all business, while Apple’s Neo knows how to have some fun.

Both laptops have sturdy and roomy keyboard decks, with satisfying spacing between the keys for a comfortable typing experience. The MacBook Neo has slightly larger and thicker keycaps than the XPS 13, and they’re color-coded to the laptop. Their respective touchpads are roughly the same size, and each is very smooth and responsive. The main difference here is that the XPS 13 has a backlit keyboard, whereas the Neo doesn’t.

The laptops each have a pair of USB-C ports, but while both of the XPS 13’s ports are USB 3.2 Gen 2, the Neo has only one such port — with the other being a slower USB 2 port. So when it comes to faster charging and data speeds, the XPS 13 has the edge. But unlike Dell’s notebook, the Neo has a 3.5mm jack.

Dell XPS 13 vs. MacBook Neo: Display

The XPS 13 and MacBook Neo each have excellent displays for this price point, since budget laptops usually have dim, dull panels. You won’t have a bad viewing experience with either, but each has its strengths and weaknesses.

For starters, the MacBook Neo has a 13-inch 2408 x 1506 Liquid Retina display, while the XPS 13 has a 13.4-inch 2560 x 1600 InfinityEdge touch screen. The panel on Dell’s laptop is larger, with a higher resolution and touch screen support. The XPS 13 has some strengths here, but as we’ll see next, the Neo has its own advantages.

As you can see from our lab tests, the XPS 13 has good color representation (sRGB and DCI-P3) and color accuracy (Delta-E). The MacBook Neo delivers slightly oversaturated hues compared to the XPS 13, and its display can get much brighter with both SDR and HDR content.

Overall, the MacBook Neo delivers a more vibrant image compared to the XPS 13, despite the latter having a larger display and higher resolution. Unless you’re a fan of touchscreens, the MacBook Neo’s display takes the lead here, though the XPS 13 isn’t far behind.

Dell XPS 13 vs. MacBook Neo: Performance

Given their $699 asking price, neither the XPS 13 nor MacBook Neo is designed to be a powerful workstation. Instead, they’re built for everyday work, web browsing, and video streaming. That said, one offers stronger overall performance than the other.

On the Geekbench 6 CPU benchmark, the MacBook Neo scored higher in both the single- and multi-core testing. This is impressive considering how the MacBook Neo’s A18 Pro processor was originally an iPhone chip, whereas the Intel Wildcat Lake processor is made for laptops, albeit budget machines.

Moving over to the Handbrake test, which involves transcoding a 4K video to 1080p, the XPS 13 took almost ten minutes to complete the task, which is 40 seconds faster than the MacBook Neo. However, on the Blackmagic SSD test, the Neo completely outperformed the XPS 13 with faster write/read speeds.

In the 3DMark Wildlife test, which measures a machine’s graphical performance, the XPS 13 scored 2455 and averaged 14 frames per second. The MacBook Neo did better, with a 3661 score and 21 fps.

Using its built-in benchmark tool, Borderlands 3 ran at an unplayable 8.7 fps at 1080p, just one frame lower than the MacBook Neo’s 9.6 fps. In short, neither is suited for high-end gaming.

The XPS 13 handles the basics without a problem, but if you need more performance, the MacBook Neo is the clear winner.

Dell XPS 13 vs. MacBook Neo: Battery life

The XPS 13 and MacBook Neo both have stellar, more-than-all-day battery life. While you won’t have to worry too much about either dying on you at an inopportune time, one will last longer than the other.

In our battery life test, which involves continuous Wi-Fi web surfing with the display set to 150 nits, the Dell XPS 13 lasted 14 hours and 29 minutes.

Conversely, the MacBook Neo lasted for 13 hours and 26 minutes on the same test. That’s still great, but the XPS 13 can last for an hour longer.

Dell XPS 13 vs. MacBook Neo: Webcam

Lastly, let’s discuss the webcam quality of these laptops. Here, we’re comparing the MacBook Neo’s 1080p FaceTime HD camera to the Dell XPS 13’s 1080p webcam.

The photo above is from the XPS 13’s camera. Although my background and I are clearly visible, the image is somewhat blurry despite the relatively good lighting.

This next photo is from the MacBook Neo. Here, the image has a more natural color tone and is decidedly sharper.

Though you won’t look horrible in video calls with either webcam, the MacBook Neo does a better job of capturing images.

Dell XPS 13 vs. MacBook Neo: Bottom line

If you’re already married to macOS or Windows 11, then choose the laptop for that ecosystem. However, if you’re platform-agnostic, one laptop might be better for you than the other.

The Dell XPS 13 is perfect for anyone who wants an extremely lightweight laptop with touchscreen support and faster USB-C ports. It also has stellar battery life. Conversely, the MacBook Neo has more fun color options, stronger performance, a more vivid display, and a sharper webcam.

Personal preferences aside, the Dell XPS 13 and MacBook Neo are easily the best $699 laptops you can buy right now, so don’t hesitate to buy either, as it will be money well spent if you’re on a budget and in need of an upgrade.

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The MSI Pro Max 271UPXW12G is a 4K QD-OLED monitor designed with creative professionals in mind — specifically those who prefer Mac over Windows. Despite its Mac-centric design, it manages to pack in many of MSI’s best gaming features to make it an ideal display for both work and play.

I remember when I first saw the MSI Pro Max 271UPXW12G back at CES, as it left an immediate impression on me. Unlike the Studio Display or Studio Display XDR, you won’t find any of Apple’s usual limitations here. Instead, this is a full-featured QD-OLED monitor with all the ports you could ever need — and then some.

After using the Pro Max 271UPXW12G as my daily driver for the past month across both macOS and Windows, I’m just as impressed as I was when I first laid eyes on it. From its sleek, minimalist design to its packed array of ports and, of course, its 4th-Gen QD-OLED panel, this display has served me well both on and off the clock. Still, while I appreciate that it has built-in speakers, they do leave a bit to be desired.

My MSI Pro Max 271UPXW12G review will help you decide if this is the best monitor for your Mac (and even your gaming PC or PS5) — or if it’s worth paying the Apple Tax for a Studio Display instead.

MSI Pro Max 271UPXW12G: Cheat Sheet

• What is it? A 27-inch 4K QD-OLED monitor designed for Mac that you can also game on.
• Who is it for? Creative professionals who need full color accuracy on Mac or Windows and don’t want to deal with the limitations and higher price of Apple’s Studio Display.
• What does it cost? The MSI Pro Max 271UPXW12G costs $999, but now you can find this monitor for $710 in white or $650 in black and often for even less when it’s on sale.
• What do we like? Its sleek design, the vibrancy and detail of its 4th-Gen QD-OLED panel, the integrated Mac controls, its 120 Hz refresh rate, the full-featured ports and its built-in KVM switch.
• What don’t we like? That the monitor auto-mounts a drive on both Mac and Windows and that the built-in speakers leave something to be desired.

MSI MSI Pro Max 271UPXW12G: Specs

MSI Pro Max 271UPXW12G: The Ups

The MSI Pro Max 271UPXW12G is an incredibly capable professional monitor in a sleek and stylish package. You’d be hard-pressed to find a similar port array on even more expensive displays — and beyond creative work, it manages to hold its own against top-tier gaming monitors even if that isn’t its primary focus.

As clean as can be

Just like with MSI’s MPG 321URXW gaming monitor I reviewed last year, the Pro Max 271UPXW12G is incredibly thin thanks to its QD-OLED panel. On the top and sides, the display is razor-thin at four to five millimeters (0.16 to 0.2 inches) — with its internal components and built-in power supply housed in the center.

Underneath the Pro Max 271UPXW12G’s display, you’ll find an AI Care Sensor that houses a CMOS camera/sensor and an NPU used for features like presence detection and adaptive brightness. This monitor also comes with MSI’s OLED Care 3.0 tech to protect its panel from burn-in.

Around back, there’s a joystick and two buttons for navigating the monitor’s OSD menu to adjust its settings. While the Pro Max 271UPXW12G has a circular cutout for the included monitor stand, MSI includes a standard 100 x 100 VESA mount adapter if you want to use this display with one of the best monitor arms. There’s also a square plate in the box in case you want to mount a mini PC like the MSI Cubi NUC AI+ 2MG or the updated 3MG behind your monitor.

Speaking of the monitor stand, it’s made entirely from metal — and to date, it’s one of the highest-quality included stands I’ve seen yet. I typically use a monitor arm, but with the Pro Max 271UPXW12G, I didn’t even consider it.

I also really appreciated that MSI includes every cable you need right in the box — from DisplayPort to USB-C. The ones that came with my review unit were color-matched to the white version of the Pro Max 271UPXW12G I tested, blending in seamlessly with the rest of my setup too.

A multi-workstation hub

Although MSI designed the Pro Max 271UPXW12G with Apple’s Macs in mind, you wouldn’t want to limit yourself to one operating system (or device) with this monitor. While other displays have built-in KVM (keyboard, video, mouse) switches to let you use the same peripherals seamlessly across two computers, this one actually supports three.

As such, the Pro Max 271UPXW12G is outfitted with an impressive selection of ports. For video, you get dual HDMI 2.1 connections, DisplayPort 1.4a, and two USB-C inputs with power delivery. While one is limited to 15W, the other delivers 98W of power so you can use and charge one of the best laptops simultaneously. For the KVM switch, there’s a USB-B port alongside four USB-A ports.

Since I switch between computers quite often while reviewing the best mini PCs, I like to use my mouse and keyboard’s 2.4 GHz USB dongles instead of Bluetooth. Even with a webcam connected too, I still had one free USB port — which was really impressive.

Another detail I really like about the Pro Max 271UPXW12G is its internal power supply instead of a bulky power brick. This made cable management under my desk a lot easier — and if you ever need to replace this monitor’s power cable, it uses the same standard one as a desktop PC.

Sure, you could plug in one of the best MacBooks or even a Mac mini M4 into the Pro Max 271UPXW12G and call it a day. However, by doing so, you’d be wasting one of its best features: the built-in KVM switch. With a Mac on one side of my desk and a PC on the other, switching between the two and using the same keyboard and mouse was almost instant. Likewise, it worked like a charm over both USB-C and with the included USB-B cable.

Crisp, colorful and Mac-friendly

In the past, it was often difficult using a third-party monitor with a Mac due to how macOS handles pixel density. This causes text fringing, where the words on your screen look fuzzy or blurry. Fortunately, MSI considered this when developing the Pro Max 271UPXW12G and gave it a higher pixel density of 166 PPI.

One of the best things about the Studio Display and the Studio Display XDR I reviewed is being able to use your keyboard to adjust things like brightness and volume — which you can’t do on a lot of third-party displays. To address this, MSI created a dedicated Mac app called M-Mate. After installing it from the App Store, not only can you control this monitor using the keys on your MacBook, but you can also match the Pro Max 271UPXW12G’s color profile with your Apple laptop or even your iPad.

If Apple’s color profile isn’t the one you use for photo or video editing, no worries — this monitor comes with a ton of other popular ones too. With a few clicks on the joystick around back, you can switch between sRGB, Adobe RGB, DCI-P3, and several other color spaces depending on the task at hand. Though not for everyone, creative professionals will really appreciate this feature.

During my time testing out the Pro Max 271UPXW12G, I started with my Mac mini M4 on one side and the Khadas Mind 2S mini PC — equipped with Khadas’ Mind Graphics 2 eGPU — on the other. From there, I swapped out the Mac mini for a 16-inch MacBook Pro M5 Pro, which let me take full advantage of that USB-C port with 98W of power delivery. Everything worked and looked great on MSI’s Studio Display alternative, but I wasn’t done there….

Made for more than work

Having used both the Studio Display and Studio Display XDR, I’m still a bit baffled by how both monitors only come equipped with Thunderbolt ports. I’d love to hook up a gaming PC or a console to one of Apple’s monitors alongside a Mac, but unfortunately, I don’t know if that will ever be possible.

Fortunately, with the Pro Max 271UPXW12G, you can actually do this — and at higher frame rates too, since its QD-OLED panel has a refresh rate of 120Hz. Now, I know that isn’t as high as what you’ll find on dedicated gaming displays, but this is a monitor designed around productivity after all.

To put the Pro Max 271UPXW12G’s gaming capabilities — and aesthetics — to the test, I hooked it up to the Minisforum G1 Pro mini PC, which features a desktop-grade Nvidia RTX 5060 GPU. In addition to finishing Death Stranding 2 on PC this way, I also played through a bit of Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart. Both games looked incredible on the Pro Max 271UPXW12G, with a bit of help from Nvidia’s DLSS tech. However, I wasn’t done there.

As I simultaneously reviewed the Pro Max 271UPXW12G alongside Splatoon Raiders, I hooked up my Nintendo Switch 2 to MSI’s monitor as well. The colorful hues from the game’s ink-filled battles looked amazing on the panel, and just like with Death Stranding 2, I actually ended up beating the game while using MSI’s display.

There are definitely higher-refresh options out there if you're looking for one of the best gaming monitors. However, this is the only productivity-focused monitor for creatives I know of that lets you jump straight into gaming without severe limitations.

MSI Pro Max 271UPXW12G: The Downs

The MSI Pro Max 271UPXW12G sets itself apart as a third-party Mac monitor with some solid gaming chops to boot. However, it’s not without a few slight downsides — one of which I’m still thoroughly confused by.

An auto-mounting annoyance

Following the recent controversy with LG’s monitors auto-installing software, imagine my surprise when I saw an auto-mounted drive from MSI on both my Mac and PC after connecting the Pro Max 271UPXW12G. Fortunately, we’re dealing with a different beast entirely here.

You see, instead of auto-installing software, the monitor’s onboard microcontroller automatically mounts the contents of a tiny flash storage chip whenever a device is connected via USB-C or through the USB-B cable for its KVM switch.

This drive doesn’t force-install anything, but it does give you a direct download link for MSI Productivity Intelligence on Mac or MSI Gaming OSD on Windows.

The software itself lets you adjust settings like brightness and contrast with your mouse and keyboard so you don’t have to reach for the physical joystick around back. In theory, this is meant to be a convenient shortcut for end users so they don’t have to hunt down extra software on MSI’s support page. In practice, however, I found it fairly annoying — especially on Mac.

Due to how macOS operates, any connected volume automatically mounts directly onto your desktop. While you can turn this off by going to Finder > Settings > General and unchecking External disks under “Show these items on the desktop”, this is still a minor nuisance. Alternatively, you could skip connecting your computer via USB-C or avoid using the included USB-B cable for the KVM switch altogether, but that defeats the entire point of buying a feature-packed, productivity-focused monitor like the Pro Max 271UPXW12G.

Good but not great built-in speakers

Unlike with MSI’s gaming monitors, its business and productivity-focused ones often come with built-in speakers. This is a feature that’s always nice to have in a pinch since you can test your audio easily, and if they’re good enough, you don’t have to bother cluttering up your desk with extra hardware.

The Pro Max 271UPXW12G has dual 2.5W speakers, and for attending meetings or other less demanding tasks, I found they worked well enough. Since their wattage is on the lower side, they do sound a bit tinny, though.

I relied on the Pro Max 271UPXW12G’s built-in speakers for the most part during my testing. However, when it was time to put its gaming capabilities to the test, I opted for a pair of Kanto Ora 4 bookshelf speakers, which made a massive difference.

Now, if you’re the type who wears headphones while working or gaming, this won’t be a problem. The built-in speakers are good enough, but if you want more volume or bass, I’d recommend going a similar route with a pair of the best computer speakers.

MSI Pro Max 271UPXW12G: Verdict

The MSI Pro Max 271UPXW12G is a breath of fresh air when it comes to Mac-focused monitors. Not only can you control its brightness and audio with your MacBook’s keyboard, but you can also match the display’s color profile directly with your Apple laptop. All of those full-featured ports and the built-in KVM switch also make the Pro Max 271UPXW12G a productivity powerhouse for anyone who relies on multiple operating systems and devices for work.

The 4th-Gen QD-OLED panel is another major highlight thanks to its vibrant colors, deep contrast, and anti-glare, low-reflection finish. Similarly, MSI deserves credit for including every cable you could ever need alongside plenty of extra accessories right in the box.

Still, I do wish you could permanently disable the auto-mounting drive on the monitor itself, and the built-in speakers leave some room for improvement. Overall though, if you want a more affordable Studio Display alternative that doubles as a high-performance gaming monitor, the MSI Pro Max 271UPXW12G is an excellent choice — especially given its more competitive pricing post-launch.

The new Dell XPS 13 ($699) is the best budget Windows laptop right now and a true competitor to the equally priced MacBook Neo. Unlike other laptops in this price range, Dell’s laptop doesn’t skimp on features you’d only see on higher-end machines—proving you don’t have to sacrifice quality for an affordable notebook.

Instead of cheap plastic, the XPS 13 has a sturdy CNC aluminum chassis that both looks and feels high-grade. It’s also the thinnest XPS laptop ever, and even slimmer and lighter than the MacBook Neo and MacBook Air M5. This is one of the best laptops for people who are always on the go, as you’ll barely feel it in your backpack.

The 13.4-inch display is also extremely impressive for a $699 laptop, thanks to its sharp 2.5K resolution and vivid image quality. This is certainly a departure from the dull, dim panels found on most budget laptops. The fact that it’s also a touchscreen adds even more value and functionality.

Inside, the XPS 13 features the new Intel “Wildcat Lake” CPU. Though a lower-end chip compared with other Intel Core Series 3 chips, it has more than enough power to handle everyday workloads. You also get exceptional battery life, lasting 14 and a half hours in our testing.

Though its webcam isn’t the best, there’s not much to dislike about the new Dell XPS 13. If I were looking to buy a new productivity laptop, I’d certainly consider buying it. Find out why the XPS 13 is one of the best Windows laptops in my full review!

Dell XPS 13 (2026) review: Cheat sheet

• What is it? The Dell XPS 13 (2026) is a budget laptop packing premium-grade features like an aluminum chassis, bright touchscreen display, and an ultraportable design.
• Who is it for? For budget-conscious folks who still want a quality laptop for everyday work.
• What does it cost? The new Dell XPS 13 starts at $699 for a model with 8GB of RAM and 512GB of storage. It can be configured with up to 32GB of RAM and 1TB of storage, though that will raise the price. You can buy it now from Dell.
• What do we like? We like the premium, thin and light design, vivid display, fast performance, and long battery life.
• What don’t we like? We don’t like the poor webcam quality.

Dell XPS 13 (2026) review: Specs

Dell XPS 13 (2026) review: The ups

The new Dell XPS 13 impresses thanks to its elegant build, fast performance, vivid touchscreen display, and epic battery life.

Thin and light design

Dell didn’t skimp on the XPS 13’s design. Yes, it’s a budget laptop, but it doesn’t look or feel like one, thanks to its CNC aluminum chassis and sleek overall design. Though it's the company’s thinnest XPS laptop and lighter and slimmer than the MacBook Neo and MacBook Air, its sturdy frame doesn’t flex easily.

Measuring 11.69 x 7.90 x 0.50 inches and weighing just 2.2 pounds, it’s the perfect travel laptop. If you’re carrying many things in your backpack, the XPS 13 won’t add much burden. Taking it around your office or home is also easy.

Speaking of size, the keyboard deck gives you just enough space to type comfortably. One interesting thing is that, unlike the current XPS laptops, this 13-inch model swaps the lattice-less keyboard for a more traditional keyboard deck. I don’t mind typing on the Dell XPS 14 and Dell XPS 16’s keyboards, but I must admit that the XPS 13’s key spacing and key caps feel more natural to type on.

Opening the laptop is seamless thanks to the handy lip on the lid. I've often complained about the lack of this design element in other XPS laptops, so it's great to see a lip on the budget model. Thank you, Dell!

Connectivity-wise, the XPS 13 has only two USB-C ports. While that’s a bummer, they’re both USB 3.2 Gen 2 compared to the Neo’s single USB 3.2 Gen 2 and older USB 2.0. There isn’t a 3.5mm headphone jack either, which is disappointing.

Regarding audio, the quad-speaker audio setup with 8W total peak output is generally good, especially for podcast-type content. However, the middling bass isn’t ideal for music. Still, for a laptop at this price, you get surprisingly decent sound.

Vivid display

On its own, the XPS 13’s display is fairly standard. However, compared to similarly priced budget laptops, the panel here is very impressive.

Static images, videos, text, and everything else look sharp on the 13.4-inch screen thanks to the 2.5K resolution. Both SDR and HDR content appear bright and colorful, as I experienced firsthand while watching a video featuring colorful animals and scenery. And thanks to the 30-120Hz variable refresh rate, everything moves smoothly.

Our lab tests align with my experience. The XPS 13 delivers good color representation (sRGB and DCI-P3) and color accuracy (Delta-E). The MacBook Neo delivers slightly oversaturated hues compared to the XPS 13, and its display can get much brighter with both SDR and HDR content.

Again, I want to stress how impressive it is to see these values on budget machines, as you’d usually get duller displays at this price point.

Lastly, there’s the XPS 13’s touchscreen. Touch support on laptops is a feature I don’t often use but always appreciate if it’s there. This is also a big feature that the MacBook Neo lacks. I find touch controls as responsive as the touchpad’s, with the screen never failing to register my gestures. If you’d prefer using touch controls with certain apps, you have that option here.

Strong performance

All configurations of the XPS 13 include the new Intel Core 5 320 “Wildcat Lake” CPU, which is the company’s lower-end processor for budget laptops. You can configure the XPS 13 with up to 32GB of RAM and 1TB of storage. We reviewed the $699 entry-level model with 8GB of RAM and 512GB of storage.

The XPS 13 handled my average workflow without issue, which usually includes up to 15 open Chrome tabs and the occasional YouTube video running in the background. It also didn’t get too hot under that workload. While tasks like video editing or gaming are too demanding for this laptop, it’s more than capable for everyday work and video streaming.

Dell’s laptop performed well in our lab tests. On Geekbench 6, which measures overall CPU performance, the XPS 13 scored 2684 in single-core and 7952 in multi-core. Those aren’t mind-blowing numbers, but given this laptop’s specs and price, they’re solid. However, the MacBook Neo has better overall CPU performance.

On the Handbrake test, the XPS 13 took almost ten minutes to transcode a 4K video to 1080p. It performed this task about 40 seconds faster than the MacBook Neo. But on the Blackmagic SSD test, Apple’s laptop completely outperformed the XPS 13.

The Dell XPS 13 isn’t designed for high-end gaming. In the 3DMark Wildlife Extreme test, which measures a machine’s graphical performance, the XPS 13 scored 2455, averaging 14 frames per second. The MacBook Neo did better, with a 3661 score and 21 fps. Using its built-in benchmark tool, Borderlands 3 ran at an unplayable 8.7 fps at 1080p, just one frame lower than the MacBook Neo’s 9.6 frames per second.

Long-lasting battery life

In our battery life test, which involves continuous Wi-Fi web surfing with the display set to 150 nits, the Dell XPS 13 lasted an impressive 14 hours and 29 minutes. While that’s short of the advertised 17 hours, 14 and a half hours of endurance from a Windows laptop is still no joke.

In comparison, the MacBook Neo lasted for 13 hours and 26 minutes on the same test. That’s also impressive, but it’s still an hour shorter. Thanks to its endurance, you won’t have to worry if you accidentally leave the XPS 13’s 65W charger at home.

Dell XPS 13 (2026) review: The downs

While the XPS 13 has a lot going for it, it falls short in one main area.

So-so webcam

The good news is that the XPS 13 doesn’t have a cheap 720p webcam that budget laptops have been known for. However, while its 1080p webcam isn’t the worst, don’t expect it to make you look your best during video calls.

As you can see above, the image quality is generally blurry and a little washed out. I'm pale, but I have some color on my skin! You can always connect one of the best webcams for better results, but out of the box, you’ll get so-so quality at best.

Dell XPS 13 (2026) review: Verdict

If I haven't already made it clear, I'll say it again: The Dell XPS 13 (2026) is the best budget Windows laptop right now. I know someone will eventually come to challenge the MacBook Neo, but I didn't expect it to happen this fast or this well.

By bringing the finest aspects of the XPS laptop line to an affordable laptop, Dell has delivered a winner. For $699, this is a laptop that's hard to deny.

The new Asus Zenbook Duo has a lot going for it. The Duo sports a dramatic redesign that can enclose the keyboard inside the two displays for extra portability, a strong sturdy hinge to support the dual OLED panels, the powerful Intel X9 chipset with best-in-class Arc B390 integrated graphics, and fantastic ergonomics.

But it is pricey. While anyone can pick up the Zenbook Duo, the laptop is intended for creators and editors who need the extra screen-space of a dual-panel setup. Which begs the question: are two panels really better than one?

To see if a dual screen laptop is really that much better than a standard clamshell laptop, I replaced my Apple MacBook Pro M1 Pro for a week with the Zenbook Duo (2026).

The OLED difference

While my MacBook Pro was cutting edge when I bought it, the M1 Pro is now five years old, compared to the Zenbook Duo’s brand new Intel processor.

However, I don’t often need to edit enough video to really stress out the M1 Pro even after five years of daily usage. So while the Zenbook Duo is perhaps a bit faster than my MacBook, it’s a pretty close comparison in terms of general multitasking performance.

Instead, the Zenbook’s major upgrade over my Mac is its dual OLED touch displays. For all of Apple’s claims, the Liquid Retina display on my MacBook Pro just doesn’t have the same vibrancy and near-infinite contrast as an OLED display.

Both laptops have displays that look fantastic for streaming purposes, complete with HDR capabilities. So you can finally figure out what happened during the Battle of Winterfell in Game of Thrones’ final season a decade later.

But the real difference between the OLED and Liquid Retina displays is most essential when doing photo and video color grading. The color accuracy and high contrast of the Zenbook Duo’s OLED panels makes it a better choice for subtle color tweaks compared to my aging MacBook Pro.

Dual panel editing is unbeatable

For years I’ve used a split-screen setup on my desktop’s 27-inch monitor, or rocked a dual monitor/dual device setup for work purposes. Because having extra screen space is never a bad thing.

But that always leaves me with the struggle of frantically switching tabs or relying on tiny multi-window setups on my laptops when travelling or commuting. It’s workable but it’s not ideal.

Enter the Zenbook Duo. While setting up with my two screens, detached keyboard, and stylus at the local coffee shop is a little aggressive for a quick cafe work session, the Duo’s redesign really makes it much easier to take a dual-screen laptop on the go and get all the functionality you need.

And having the second display makes writing, editing, email and calendar management a treat. But the real benefit is when I broke out some video editing I’d been putting off doing on my MacBook.

Not only did the Zenbook Duo have no issue splicing together two massive files in CapCut, running some color correction, adding some on-screen text, being able to reference my script notes while doing the edit pass provided an almost desktop-like experience. Despite being on a laptop in a cafe.

It was exactly the kind of experience upgrade that makes doing highly complicated tasks on a laptop feel so much easier. Add in the touchscreen controls for extra-fine tuning in photo and video editing, and the Zenbook Duo is a nearly unmatched creator laptop.

Traditional single screen laptops just can’t compare

For most users, a dual screen laptop is just bragging rights. It's cool to have but not the most essential item. So paying $2,099 (or $2,299 for our review spec), is a bit of a hard sell when a single-screen clamshell laptop is more than sufficient for their day to day uses.

But for content creators in need of a new laptop, the Zenbook Duo is almost essential. It’s easily portable, has two beautiful OLED displays, and despite lacking a discrete GPU, the Zenbook Duo is a graphics powerhouse on gaming, photo, and video editing tasks.

The only downfall of the Zenbook Duo is its high price-tag, but considering all the utility and performance you get with the Duo, the price isn’t as bad as it could be.

And for creators looking at high-end Macs or windows laptops with discrete GPUs, $2,299 isn’t out of the question. While a MacBook Pro M5 Max or content creator laptop with an Nvidia GPU may have a bit more raw horsepower to work with, the Zenbook Duo isn’t far behind in performance.

Of course, if you’re in need of some extra graphics power, the ROG Zephyrus Duo may be the better option. But unless you’re doing a lot of 3D design, the Zenbook Duo is powerful enough, and far more affordable. But any single-screen laptop just can’t compare when it comes to ease of editing on a dual-screen device like the Duo.

More from Tom's Guide

• These are the 7 best student computers we tested to find the ultimate PCs for school
• The best laptops for engineering students in 2026: Built for CAD and 3D modeling
• I can't believe an RTX 5080 gaming laptop just lasted 14 hours on the battery: My full Asus ROG Zephyrus G16 review

Choosing a college is stressful, so picking a laptop that will last the next four years and beyond with you shouldn’t be. Every back-to-school season, I hear people making the same sizing mistake. They opt for a tiny 13-inch ultraportable to avoid weighing down their bag, only to endlessly squint at PDFs and scroll, or they opt for a 16-inch desktop replacement that will end up compressing their spine hauling it around campus.

The extremes are a trap. The Goldilocks principle applies to finding the right size for your school laptop, and 14 inches is that “just right” sweet spot. This is the only form factor that makes sense for the vast majority of students. Here’s why a 14-inch laptop is the clear choice for students and how recent hardware shifts have helped cement this reality.

The golden ratio

I used a 15-inch laptop in college, and trying to fit that behemoth on the often microscopic fold-out desks in a crowded lecture hall was a study in futility.

While modern classrooms have largely solved this problem, that large laptop is still a menace to take in and out of your bag repeatedly during the day, and it just weighs you down unnecessarily.

This just isn’t necessary anymore. The Asus Zenbook S14 is the perfect poster child for the ascendancy of the 14-inch laptop for students. You have all of the benefits of those larger laptops thanks to its 3K OLED panel and its 16:10 aspect ratio, while it weighs only 2.6 pounds and measures less than half an inch thick.

By shifting to a taller 16:10 layout, you gain crucial vertical real estate on your screen. It’s the difference between reading a syllabus or viewing an entire spreadsheet and having to scroll constantly.

It also enables proper multitasking by giving you the room to snap your browser to one side and a doc to the other so you can research or watch a lecture and write without everything turning into unreadable mush. Trying that same workflow on a 13-inch laptop could be endlessly frustrating.

Battery life 101

Another reason to avoid a smaller laptop in the past was that you would be left hunting for a wall outlet in a crowded library or an ancient lecture hall. Your diminutive laptop with a power-hungry x86 chip wasn’t going to make it more than a few hours before it would call it quits for the day.

That compromise is also dead. And while ARM-based chips have dominated much of the battery life discussion in the past few years, Intel’s newest Panther Lake architecture has clawed its way back into the conversation with outstanding efficiency.

Even the more powerful options like the Intel Core Ultra 9 386H inside the Asus Zenbook S14 show better battery life than power-sipping chips from previous generations.

Intel’s tile-based design, which includes dedicated “Low Power Island” efficiency cores, ensures that when you are doing simple tasks — juggling Chrome tabs, streaming Spotify, or typing a paper — you stay on those low-power cores. This goes hand-in-hand with the benefits of the NPU, which handles local AI tasks without touching the CPU or GPU.

The result is a 14-inch laptop that can deliver all-day battery life for typical student needs, so you can leave your charger at home. You also get to skip the worries about emulation that come from ARM-based laptops, which can be a headache with some older, niche academic software.

Built for campus life

Large laptops can also counterintuitively be less durable, as a thicker metal slab is more likely to dent or scratch if dropped or just accidentally bumped against a hard library table.

The Asus Zenbook S14 enjoys a unique advantage here as it is made from Asus’ proprietary “Ceraluminum” finish, which is a mix of ceramic and aluminum.

This gives it the sturdy toughness of an aluminum frame, but superior scratch resistance from the ceramic. So your laptop won’t look like it’s already had to survive four years of college after the first semester.

Unless you specifically need a massive laptop for video editing or running demanding games in your downtime, there is no reason to carry the extra bulk.

On the flip side, you simply aren’t saving that much weight, and you are giving up valuable screen real estate and keyboard comfort by opting for a 13-inch or smaller laptop. The 14-inch laptop isn’t a compromise between large and small; it’s leveraging today's technology to enjoy the benefits of both without sacrificing anything.

More from Tom's Guide

• These are the 7 best student computers we tested to find the ultimate PCs for school
• The best laptops for engineering students in 2026: Built for CAD and 3D modeling
• I can't believe an RTX 5080 gaming laptop just lasted 14 hours on the battery: My full Asus ROG Zephyrus G16 review

It’s getting harder to ignore the widening silicon inequality gap in the tech world right now thanks to RAMageddon. On one side, you have consumer PC gamers dealing with overpriced PC components, wondering if a standard 8-core CPU and 16GB of VRAM is enough to handle modern AAA games. On the other side, you have enterprise AI machines operating in a whole other universe of compute.

During its Advancing AI 2026 event, AMD announced an enormous 256-core CPU alongside the AMD Helios Rackscale solution — a single server cabinet packing a staggering 31 terabytes of high-bandwidth VRAM. No, these numbers are not typos!

Naturally, you can’t walk into your local Micro Center and buy one of these. Don’t get me wrong, the numbers are cool, but in a time where I might have to donate a kidney to afford a decent amount of RAM, it leaves a bad taste to see 31,000 gigabytes of it being (potentially) used to generate low-quality AI videos.

Here's what you need to know about AMD's enterprise CPU and server rack, along with how they stack up against a popular consumer GPU.

The 256-Core CPU

To put things into perspective, let’s consider the best gaming PCs. A high-end gaming CPU like the Ryzen 9 9950X tops out at 16 cores, which is plenty for running Cyberpunk 2077 or editing 4K videos.

Conversely, AMD’s new 6th Gen EPYC 9006 Series (SP7) server processor packs up to 256 cores and 512 threads onto a single chip, with high-frequency variants like the EPYC 9006X pushing boost speeds up to 5.15GHz. That’s 16 times the core count of a flagship desktop processor. EPYC would be an entire LAN party on one chip.

So, what’s the need to have 256 cores on a single die? AMD built these chips specifically to handle the massive overhead of agentic AI. Modern AI agents have to run code in isolated sandboxes, manage huge system memory states, and coordinate heavy feeds. This all takes a massive amount of computing power and is a far cry from our gaming PCs having to render ray-traced shadows.

Helios Rackscale

If you thought the CPU numbers sound wild, the RAM numbers are even more mind-blowing. The centerpiece of AMD’s announcement is the Helios Rackscale solution, which is an open-architecture AI system.

Inside a single server rack sit 18 compute trays holding a total of 72 AMD Instinct MI455X GPUs. Combined, this single cabinet delivers 31 terabytes (31,000 GB) of HBM4 VRAM with a whopping 1.7 petabytes per second of memory bandwidth.

For context, 31TB of VRAM is equivalent to roughly 1,937 Nvidia RTX 5070 Ti graphics cards chained together!

These are insane numbers when compared to what a typical gaming GPU is packing. It’s definitely impressive, but at the same time, that’s offset by the knowledge that a good chunk of the world’s RAM is going to server racks like this.

Helios Rack vs. RTX 5070 Ti

To give you an understanding of how monstrous a single Helios rack is, let’s compare its raw specs against one of the most popular upper-midrange consumer GPUs out now: The Nvidia RTX 5070 Ti (16GB GDDR7).

Looking at it through this lens, a single server rack packs the raw memory bandwidth of nearly 1,900 desktop PCs working in unison! This is a whole other level of computing, my friends.

Bottom line

AMD is certainly flexing its tech muscles with this announcement. However, there’s a sobering reality behind these staggering numbers. Seeing a single server rack hog 31 terabytes of high-bandwidth memory shows exactly where the global supply chain is funneling its resources. Namely, it’s all being swallowed by the AI boom (or bubble — however you see it). As a lifelong gamer, it hurts being pushed to the side.

Even if it stings, we can’t fault AMD for choosing to invest in more lucrative enterprise projects like this rather than in the average consumer. So, the next time you find yourself debating whether to pay a premium for a 16GB graphics card over an 8GB model, or wondering why PC component prices keep climbing, you now have a better idea of why.

More from Tom's Guide

• SK Hynix warns 2027 will be 'worst year' for RAM prices — right as a damning report reveals something that will add fuel to the price-fixing lawsuit
• OpenAI just made its biggest move against Nvidia — and it could make ChatGPT cheaper to run
• Apple seeks RAM from blacklisted Chinese company as memory shortage impacts everything — but it may not be enough

With back to school season underway, there are plenty of affordable mesh routers you can buy. However, when it comes to value — we're big fans of the Amazon eero 6+.

For a limited time, you can get the Amazon eero6+ Three-Pack for just $194 at Best Buy. That's the cheapest it's ever been and one of my favorite Best Buy Black Friday in July sales this week.

This Wi-Fi 6-powered mesh system can cover up to 4,500 square feet and supports 75+ connected devices. We like that the eero 6+ units are compact and easy to hide around your home. They're also a breeze to set up thanks to the easy-to-use eero app. Since eero is owned by Amazon, this mesh kit works great with your Alexa devices and you can even use an Echo Dot as a mesh extender if you need extra coverage for your home network.

It's not uncommon to find this 3-pack on sale, but right now it's selling at full retail price at Amazon, which makes Best Buy's deal that much better. This is also the cheapest it's ever been, so you know you're getting a solid bargain.

Priced at $629, the Kindle Scribe Colorsoft is one of the best e-readers you can buy. We called it the "Cadillac of Kindles" because it has a crisp 11-inch screen that's capable of displaying your books in black and white or color and includes a stylus with a built-in eraser tool.

For a limited time, Best Buy has the Kindle Scribe Colorsoft on sale for $479. It's one of my favorite Best Buy Black Friday in July sales this week and an excellent way to get Amazon's premium Kindle for less.

In our Kindle Scribe Colorsoft review, we said Amazon's premium tablet is well-suited for anyone who expects to read and write a lot and likes to do so in color. We were hesitant about its high price, but now that it's on sale it's a great Kindle we recommend for just about anything.

We love the large e-paper display that makes reading documents and comic books easier than on any other Kindle. It also gives you enough room to work on documents while opening the expandable margin to take notes. There's also an included stylus (Kindle Premium Pen) that comes with the Colorsoft, which magnetically attaches to the side of the device. It has a screen-sensitive rear end you can use to "erase" what you've written, as well as a shortcut button on the side you can customize to your liking.

Even on sale, the Kindle Scribe Colorsoft is still an expensive purchase. However, if you're a Kindle fan who's already used to working within Amazon's ecosystem and want the added option to write, doodle, and read in color — Kindle Scribe Colorsoft is for you.

Apple’s Mac lineup will get a major overhaul starting later this year. That’s according to Bloomberg reporter and Apple tipster Mark Gurman, whose sources gave him a rundown of the upcoming Macs.

Things will kick off with a refreshed entry-level 14-inch MacBook Pro featuring the new M6 chip, along with a new iMac that will also sport the yet-to-be-announced processor. Development of these Macs is reportedly complete, but they aren’t likely to ship until the fall.

The next biggest release should be higher-end 14-inch and 16-inch MacBooks with OLED panels and a new design. These brand-new editions to the MacBook line will have M5 Pro and M5 Max chips. Apple will reportedly release these MacBooks in late 2026 or early 2027.

New MacBook Air models are expected early in 2027. These 13- and 15-inch laptops will apparently resemble the current models, though Apple is reportedly developing an OLED model for 2028. There will be another MacBook Pro with a new design and packing an M7 chip sometime in 2027.

Additionally, Apple is working on a refreshed MacBook Neo. This model reportedly runs on the updated A19 Pro chip and more RAM. The report doesn’t say anything about pricing or when this laptop will launch.

Gurman’s report also says that a new iMac with an OLED screen is in the works, but won’t be released until later. Apple is also planning new Mac mini and Mac Studio models with refreshed chips. This includes the M5 Pro and M6 for the Mac mini, and the M5 Max and M5 Ultra for the Mac Studio.

Outlook

As always, take this report with a grain of salt, as Apple hasn’t made any official announcements about these Mac models. There’s certainly a lot to look forward to if all of this is accurate, though with the ongoing RAM crisis, it’s anyone’s guess when these computers will actually release and how much they’ll cost. As always, stay tuned for more as we hear further reports.

More from Tom's Guide

• What you need to know about the rumored 'Apple Upgrade' program
• Apple finally threw Android users a bone with this new iOS 27 photo feature
• The 4 biggest allegations in Apple's lawsuit against OpenAI

To say that people weren’t impressed when Nvidia DLSS 5 was announced would be an understatement. Gamers and critics alike expressed concerns over heavy-handed “beauty filters” smoothing out character faces and AI overwriting developer art direction. The initial requirement of a second GPU for rendering also didn’t go over well.

At SIGGRAPH, Nvidia held a follow-up keynote that was practically built to address the concerns folks have with DLSS 5. Instead of focusing on how photo-realistic DLSS 5 could make graphics appear, the keynote centered around the amount of control artists will have over the technology.

Here’s a breakdown of what Nvidia discussed at SIGGRAPH and how DLSS 5 might not be as bad as we feared.

Granular control

As you might recall, the biggest complaint with DLSS 5 is how the graphics appeared to have an Instagram/TikTok filter slapped over them. A less charitable description would be an “AI slop” filter. Nvidia addressed this concern directly, saying that game artists would have full control over a game’s graphics.

Developers won’t be forced into all-or-nothing with AI. They’ll be able to mask out individual characters, faces, props, or background elements so DLSS 5 either ignores them or processes them with tailored settings. Structural and Tone Intensity sliders will give devs fine control over how things appear. There will also be three distinct AI models for developers to assign.

No AI overwrites

Another concern is that the AI would hallucinate on low-poly geometry or rewrite hand-crafted visuals. DLSS 5 isn’t generating a game scene from scratch but relies strictly on internal game engine buffers to preserve the artist’s original intent.

Nvidia emphasized that traditional rasterization and ray tracing still build the entire frame first, defining geometry, lighting anchors, motion vectors, and surface normals. Nvidia framed DLSS 5 as a third category of AI rendering alongside upscaling reconstruction and frame generation. The engine creates the world while the model enriches complex lighting elements.

Latency

Generative video models usually process frames in batches, which can introduce input lag. That’s obviously a non-starter for fast-paced games like CSGO 2.

Nvidia says that DLSS 5 processes the current frame using the game’s engine’s native motion vectors without looking ahead to future frames. By avoiding multi-frame batch processing, Nvidia’s goal is to eliminate both generative latency and temporal shimmering artifacts.

One GPU needed, not two

When Nvidia first demoed DLSS 5, the computational overhead was so heavy that it reportedly required dual high-end GPUs just to run smoothly. Naturally, this isn’t feasible for most players, but Nvidia says you’ll be able to run DLSS 5 on a single GPU.

To that end, Nvidia revealed that they have distilled the massive generative model into a much smaller, single-step diffusion model. The updated implementation has been engineered to run on a single RTX GPU with efficient VRAM allocation instead of requiring multi-GPU rigs that only hardcore users own.

Outlook

I’ve championed Nvidia DLSS for years, but I was one of the folks who wasn’t enamored with that initial DLSS 5 reveal. Now, after SIGGRAPH, I'm less worried about this fall's upcoming update.

We’ll have to wait to see how the final version functions, but I’m glad that Nvidia has addressed all the major concerns. If we can get richer game graphics without the infamous AI look, then we’ll all be winners.

More from Tom's Guide

• What is Nvidia DLSS? Explaining the AI tech transforming PC gaming — and why it’s getting controversial
• Nvidia's 'GPT moment' for graphics rejected by gamers; CEO Jensen Huang rushes to defend DLSS 5
• DLSS 4.5 is now live — I tested Nvidia’s upscaler to see which model you should actually use

GIGABYTE had some serious firepower to show off at Computex 2026. Itʼs offering a range of monitors, laptops, and external GPU enclosures to upgrade your setup for work and play alike. GIGABYTE went beyond just the hardware, though, including additional AI smarts to level up the experience on its devices. Hereʼs a closer look at the stunning new hardware and how the AI integration only raises the bar.

A new generation of gaming monitors

The new lineup of AORUS ELITE monitors has truly stunning specifications. From 1,500-nit brightness levels and 4K inky OLED black levels on the AORUS ELITE FO32U24GP to QHD 540Hz speeds on the FO27Q54G, these monitors are designed to dazzle. With qualities like that, it's no wonder they all include HDMI eARC, since you might be tempted to use them in place of TVs and pair them with a hi-fi audio system.

All that is just the raw hardware, though. GIGABYTE further integrates AI to step up its capabilities as well. The monitors can automatically optimize the display settings on SDR content with AI Picture Mode, so you donʼt have to manually switch between SDR and HDR modes all the time. Meanwhile, the AORUS ELITE series can deliver brighter visuals by applying HyperNits Mode for HDR and high-APL scenes. Combined with GIGABYTE’s intuitive Tactical features, the displays also automatically change the color of the crosshair to offer red or green contrast for games, and the new Tactical HUD lets you mirror key on-screen elements like the mini map to your preferred position and adjust transparency as needed. Monitors with dual-resolution modes like the FO32U24GP and FO27Q54G get a Tactical Switch to make jumping to a lower resolution and higher refresh rate as simple as pressing a button.

The AI integration also improves the devices' quality of life. Smart OLED Protection can refresh the pixels intelligently without disruptions, helping the panel age more slowly. The monitors also have sensors that can adjust brightness based on ambient lighting and automatically turn off the screen when you step away to conserve power and panel longevity.

Laptops with an AI-optimized agent

GIGABYTEʼs new laptop lineup is stacked. The AORUS MASTER 16 GEN 2 pairs a high-wattage AMD Ryzen 9 9955HX3D CPU with a up to 175W TGP for extreme performance in an ultra-slim 19mm chassis. It even provides an HDR 1,000-nit, 240Hz OLED display and the new RGB music mode that enables lighting to react in real time with gameplay or cinematic content. The GIGABYTE AERO X16; Copilot+ PC offers a lightweight, high-performance solution for gaming and content creation, with up to an AMD Ryzen AI 9 400 Series processor and RTX 5070 with 12GB VRAM that deliver plenty of performance for work and play, as well as on-device large language model use. Meanwhile, the GIGABYTE GAMINGA16, A16 Pro, A18 and A18 Pro offer golden curve keyboard design, 180-degree hinge and performance profiles for all sorts of user needs.

Beyond their powerful hardware, all these laptops come with GIGABYTE’s AI agent, GiMATE, which is at the heart of its laptops' capabilities. GiMATE is designed to help with everything from tuning performance — tweaking the display for optimal visuals and adjusting settings for longer battery life — to managing generative AI tasks like image creation and coding. Through the “press and speak” functionality, controlling GiMATE is as simple as asking it to do something and letting it take action on your behalf. GIGABYTE also applied AI visual technology to selected models with OLED displays, offering cinema, e-paper, racing, and FPS modes for an optimal visual experience across different scenarios.

AI BOX turning ultrabooks into AI powerhouses

Ultrabooks are excellent for their portability, and even the slimmest models can bring serious CPU performance. But there are some tasks and activities where a discrete, desktop GPU is simply required. GIGABYTE has the answer with its AORUS GeForce RTX 5090 and RTX 5060 Ti AI BOX. These units pack desktop graphics into enclosures that conveniently pair with ultrabooks using Thunderbolt 5, sending 80Gbps of bi-directional bandwidth and 100W power delivery directly to the laptop.

The AORUS GeForce RTX 5090 AI BOX brings a desktop RTX 5090 in all its glory with 32GB of VRAM and over 3,000 AI TOPS of performance and pairs it with an icy cool AORUS WATERFORCE 240mm liquid cooling loop for silent operation. The AORUS GeForce RTX 5060Ti AI BOX offers a portable solution for professionals and gamers on the move, packing a desktop RTX 5060 Ti 16GB and WINDFORCE cooling system with patented Hawk Fans and server-grade conductive thermal gel into an enclosure that can slip into a backpack.

With an AORUS AI BOX, you can use your ultrabook as a workstation or a gaming desktop. While some hybrid setups that include an internal and an external GPU can struggle to properly assign workloads to the ideal GPU, leaving one GPU idle while overloading another, GIGABYTE's proprietary GPU Selector is an intelligent graphics management tool designed to unleash the full power of multi-GPU systems—such as laptops paired with an AI BOX. By effectively distributing heavy workloads like gaming, AI computing, and content creation across multiple GPUs, it eliminates performance bottlenecks. The Smart Assign Mode dynamically optimizes resource allocation on the fly for a seamless, automatic experience, while the intuitive drag-and-drop interface allows you to instantly assign apps to designated GPUs without complex setups.

Between GIGABYTEʼs monitors, laptops, and AI BOXes, it offers a host of ways for you to put AI to work for you. Whether you need enhanced visuals, easy operation, or a massive AI performance upgrade, GIGABYTE has a little something for you in the latest launches.

Thousands of users flocked to Downdetector today, reporting problems with the popular social media platform Instagram. When the outage first started, we saw a massive spike in reports, with more than 2,000, which is significant so early in the downtime.

Reports reached a high of around 4,000 today. As far as we can tell, Meta never acknowledged the outage on its status page. Though it appears that the issue with Instagram mostly extended to DMs, which weren't going through.

The outage lasted around 2 hours starting at 6:30 am specific.

The reports are rolling in

We're seeing a massive spike in Instagram reports on Downdetector, with more than 2,500 people jumping to the outage-reporting website to say something is wrong with the beloved social network.

We're also seeing smaller spikes to other Meta-owned social networks, with Messenger sitting at around 500 reports and Facebook at 300.

Meta across the board

It's all Meta at the top of Downdetector, but it's a bit deceiving, as Instagram is the only one with more than 1,000 reports. The other Meta services are worth monitoring, but they're lower.

DMs appear the be the problem

Based on the comments section on Downdetector, it seems that Instagram DMs are the main issue, which could explain why we're also seeing a spike in reports to Messenger. If you're struggling to send Direct Messages on Instagram, know you're not alone, as it seems to be a fairly widespread issue.

More than 3,000 reports

Instagram has gone past 3,000 reports for the first time since the outage began. Clearly, more users are logging in to find that they can't send direct messages, leaving them disappointed and forced to jump on Downdetector to tell the world.

Hopefully, this is just a quick outage that Meta resolves ASAP, but we'll keep you posted as it develops.

Messenger still climbing

While the predominant user reports seem to be about Instagram direct messages, we're also seeing Meta's main Messenger app spike, surpassing 1,000 reports.

'No Known Issues'

Over on Meta's status page, everything is still showing as "No Known Issues." While it's clear that something is wrong based on the raw number of reports, for whatever reason, Meta isn't publicly saying anything.

We've reached out to the social network and will update if we hear back.

Leveling off

For the first time, Downdetector reports on Instagram have updated without a sizable increase. Instead, it went up by less than 100, creating the first leveling of we've seen since the outage started.

My experience

I've been playing with Instagram DMs on and off between posts, and it seems to still be having problems. When I send a message, it doesn't seem to actually get delivered to the recipient; instead, it sits in the thread unsent. Additionally, when I scroll up in a thread, I'm seeing an unable to load older messages error.

While some people are saying it's working again, I'm definitely not among those folks, as I'm still having problems. Clearly, Instagram isn't fully operational yet.

Finally, a big drop

For the first time since the outage began, we're finally seeing a big drop in reports, with Instagram falling to 2,600. This is more than 1,000 reports below the peak, which is a good sign that things are coming back to normal.

For what it's worth, I was able to send a direct message and receive a response on Instagram, so the trouble seems to be resolved for me.

Reports are in a steady decline

Since I last looked at Down Detector, reports have steadily declined dropping from around 3200 to now just under 400.

We're probably in the clear as the issues resolve but I'll keep an eye on things just a bit longer in case it flares up again.

Calling it

With reports well under 250, we're calling this outage. It doesn't appear that things will flare up again.

Can Samsung make smart glasses you’ll actually want to wear? I just got my first up-close look at the designs coming this fall in collaboration with Google, Warby Parker and Gentle Monster.

These glasses are shockingly light given all the tech stuffed inside, and Samsung promises longer battery life than the Meta Ray-Ban glasses and instant access to Google’s robust app ecosystem. Plus, Samsung seems to be taking user privacy seriously.

Light enough for ‘all-day’ wear

The first thing I noticed about this Intelligent Eyewear is how light they are. Yes, the Warby Parker model looks bulkier than my everyday reading glasses from the same brand, but I was surprised how easy they were to pick up.

The right side houses a button for firing up Gemini and capturing content, and there’s a power switch on the inside of the left arm. There’s a camera on the right, LED sensor on the left and dual stereo speakers on the arms.

The Gentle Monster glasses come in a couple of different styles, including fashionable oval specs and more traditional-looking frames that offer clear or tinted lenses.

There appears to be a touchpad on the left and right arms for controlling volume, but Samsung was not able to confirm this detail.

Durability: Dropped, stretched and sunscreened

According to James Choi, who heads Samsung's XR R&D, the company subjected these glasses to drop tests, water tests, high temperatures and sweat. In fact, the company invented 20 different tests to evaluate the durability of its glasses.

This includes using robots to force the arms outward to see how long they last under stress. Samsung even devised a sunscreen test, injecting it near the speakers. So these specs should be able to stand up to the wear and tear of your daily schedule.

Gemini AI on your face

These AI glasses are all about having Gemini always available, letting you check notifications, get answers to your questions, directions and more on the go. For Samsung, it’s not about replacing your phone, but using it less.

With Gemini Live on board, you can leverage the cameras, microphones and open ear stereo speakers to have conversations on the fly with the AI assistant. You can get real-time guidance on everything from cooking to putting together an outfit or assembling furniture.

And because the glasses instantly understand the world from your perspective, the eyewear can be more contextual and there’s much less you need to explain.

And, unlike Meta, you’ll have access to a bevy of popular Google apps from day one, including Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Maps, as well as Samsung apps like Notes and Interpreter.

Very good (promised) battery life

Samsung promises nine hours of battery life on a charge with mixed usage. This includes Gemini Live conversations, voice calls, notifications and more.

I got to handle the charging case for the Gentle Monster glasses, and it was quite light as well. It promises several charges on the go.

What about privacy?

We don’t know the specs of the camera yet for the Samsung glasses, but you'll be able to capture photos and videos, as well as let Gemini see what you see for Gemini Live interactions.

But how will Samsung protect privacy and prevent a horde of creeps from surveilling everyone around them? Samsung told us that they’re building AI glasses you can trust.

For starters, any blocking of the LED on the glasses also blocks recording. But Samsung knows that certain individuals will resort to trying to hack the glasses or — as in the case of Meta — perhaps seek black market options for tampering with their device.

“At Samsung, privacy is not an afterthought,” Samsung’s Choi said. “For this category to be more widely adopted, we understand that the user and the people around them need to trust both the technology and its privacy protection."

Choi told us that simple destruction of the LED can be detected but Samsung also has engineers who are focused on further protections and reverse engineering what bad actors might accomplish on the black market.

Outlook

There’s still a fair amount we don’t know about the Samsung AI glasses year, like the weight, specs and especially price. But it’s clear that Samsung is focusing on everyday wearability and durability for these first-generation glasses.

Assuming the prices are affordable enough, I’d say Samsung and its partners have some key advantages over Meta, including high-profile partnerships with Warby Parker and Gentle Monster, longer battery life, a better ecosystem of apps and a smarter AI assistant in Gemini.

Display glasses will come later. Samsung is actively developing this category but is also in no rush to launch. The company doesn’t want to make any major sacrifices to wearability.

“We want better quality than what’s in the market,” Choi said. We want to make it natural with the display. We’re working on it.”

But tell me what you think. Are you leaning towards Samsung or Meta, waiting for Apple to join the smart glasses race, or are you just fully anti AI-camera glasses no matter who makes them? Sound off in the comments.

If you’re looking for a laptop for school, you need something reliable that’ll get you through classes without needing to ask your professor where the closest outlet is. You need a laptop that is both sturdy and light, so you don’t feel like you’re lugging around a bag of bricks. Some of these textbooks are heavy enough as it is.

As long as you know what you’re looking for, you can suss out the perfect laptop out of a crowd. Don’t worry, I’m going to help guide you along through the key features you need to keep an eye out for when shopping just before the semester starts.

A great example is the Asus Vivobook 16. It encompasses all of the qualities that you want out of a school laptop.

Here’s what you should be looking for.

Portability

You’re going to be zipping around from class to class, so you want a laptop that is light to carry and won’t shatter to pieces if you drop it.

Larger laptops are more likely to be heavy, so usually I’d recommend something around or under 4 pounds. The Vivobook 16 does ride that line, at 4.14 pounds, but it is a 16-inch laptop, so you’re getting a lot of real estate in exchange. And it still manages to stay relatively thin, at 0.78 inches. Any laptops within this range should be able to slip into your pack with ease, and hopefully you remember it’s there before you toss your bag to the floor when you get home.

However, if you do hurl your bag across the room, a proper school laptop will be fine. With regard to durability, the key feature you’ll want to look for on any laptop is that US MIL-STD 810H badge. It’s proof that the laptop underwent 12 military-grade tests, which include pitting the laptop against drops, vibrations, extreme temperatures, sand and dust, humidity, and more. The Asus Vivobook 16 underwent these tests, and you can see them in greater detail here.

With the external portability aspects covered, the next thing you should worry about is battery life. Being able to carry a laptop anywhere with ease is great and all, but if it dies before your first class ends, then what’s the point? I recommend looking for laptops with at least over 10 hours of battery life. That should be enough to get you through a school day.

Comfortability

If I’m interacting with a laptop for a full day between classes and homework, it sure better be comfortable. But what does comfort for a laptop entail? Well, it comes down to the keyboard, touchpad, and even the display. Your key points of interaction with a laptop will define your entire experience with it.

With a keyboard, you want something that’s well-spaced, distinguishably-shaped, and offers decently high key-travel. It’s tough to get an idea of these features from afar when shopping online. However, manufacturers will list things like key travel. For example, the Asus Vivobook 16 offers 1.4mm of key travel, which is enough depth that it should provide some solid feedback. I do recommend hitting up your local laptop seller and testing out a few keyboards.

I could say the same about touchpads. It comes down to the experience, but you can get an idea of what a touchpad might feel like depending on the materials listed on a product’s website. If you find something with a glass touchpad, you’re in for a silky smooth surface. Plastic can be hit or miss, and Mylar is generally smooth but not as much as glass.

Then there’s the display, which you’re going to be staring at all day long. It’s ideal if you can find a gorgeous OLED display to watch all your favorite shows after class. However, eye-strain is real, so I would look into finding a laptop, like the Vivobook 16, with a TÜV Rheinland-certified display. These screens are tested to ensure there are low blue-light emissions and that they’re flicker-free. Both of which can reduce eye-strain and the potential headaches that come with staring at a screen for an ungodly amount of time.

Value

The last thing you need is to spend thousands of dollars on a laptop that offers more power than you can possibly need. What you do need is a laptop with an excellent price-to-performance ratio. In other words, we’re looking for good value. But what constitutes a good value? This is where we get a little crunchy and look at specs.

For example, the Vivobook 16 is currently on sale for $549 and is outfitted with an Intel Core i7-13620H processor, 16GB of RAM, and 512GB of SSD storage. Most budget laptops around this price would’ve already taken you down to 8GB of RAM and a Core i5 CPU. The storage is just about right, but there are cheap laptops that do drop down to 256GB.

Want to make sure you’ll survive school with no performance hiccups? Look for an Intel Core i7, an AMD Ryzen 7, or a Snapdragon X2 CPU with 16GB of RAM. Storage is up in the air unless you think you’re going to be hoarding gigabytes worth of essays, so use your own judgement. As far as the overall price goes, keep it under $800. There are plenty of great laptops out there that’ll manage school work just fine under that price. You can go even lower if you think you’ll be carrying a light load.

Overall, the Asus Vivobook 16 is a great example of a school laptop and should be worth considering if you’re looking for a solid performer in a portable package with a large screen and high-travel keyboard.

From ultra-portable laptops and beefy gaming PCs to the essential accessories that make your daily setup faster and easier, we’re spoiled for choice when it comes to computing today.

That’s why Tom’s Guide is officially opening nominations for our Computing & Gaming Awards 2026. This year, we're putting the spotlight on the most innovative devices and technologies on the market — from premium flagships to unmatched value picks. If you think your product has what it takes to outshine the competition, now is the time to submit it to our team for consideration.

We’ll be crowning winners across nine distinct categories, ranging from everyday laptops and gaming rigs to mice, displays and peripherals. Winners will be selected based on our extensive testing and hands-on experience. Plus, with multiple award opportunities within each category, there’s more than one chance to win.

Read on for a breakdown of each category to learn what our editors are looking for and to find out how to submit your entry.

Award categories

We’re currently seeking entries across nine major categories including laptops, gaming laptops, gaming PCs, mini PCs, monitors, keyboard, mice, webcams and value picks. We reserve the right to modify these categories based on the submissions — especially if we see a number of similar entries in one category or not enough in another.

Laptops

From ultra-portable Copilot+ PCs and sleek 2-in-1s to high-refresh gaming rigs packed with heavy-duty GPUs, today's notebooks are pushing boundaries on every front. Whether designed for all-day battery life, sleek portability or high-frame-rate gaming on the go, this category honors the laptops that get the balance right without compromise.

Gaming PCs

From high-end prebuilt rigs to smartly designed desktop systems, this category is for PCs that deliver the speed, graphics and uncompromised performance gamers expect. Whether pushing 4K frame rates or handling heavy live streaming, these are the desktops that set the standard for power.

Monitors

Whether built for high-refresh competitive gaming, ultra-color-accurate creative work or massive multitasking across an ultrawide canvas, we're looking for screens that make everything look and feel better. This category highlights the displays setting new benchmarks in panel tech, ergonomics and visual clarity.

Peripherals

From mechanical favorites and ergonomic mice to high-def webcams, this category celebrates the gear that makes typing, gaming, navigating and video calling feel smoother, sharper and more precise. We want to highlight the everyday desk heroes, comfort-first devices and streaming cameras people don't want to replace.

Value picks

Great tech doesn't always need a flagship price tag. This category is dedicated to the budget-friendly standout products that manage to deliver premium features, reliable performance and exceptional quality without breaking the bank.

How to enter

Brands can submit products via our online entry form by selecting the appropriate category and following the “Enter Now” buttons on the awards site.

Entry fee: $250 per product, per category

No limit on submissions and products can be entered into multiple categories (additional $250 per category).

Deadline: July 29, 2026

Category winners will be announced in late August.

Are smart glasses too ... smart? Rather than creating a jack-of-all trades pair of specs, the new Halliday G2 smart glasses are aimed at one thing: Making your meetings more focused and productive.

To that end, these glasses don't have a camera, but instead a set of mics and an AI that can act as your assistant to look up data, create action items, and help keep people accountable.

I went hands-on with the Halliday G2 a few weeks back and here's everything they can do, as well as my initial impressions on how they compare to the best smart glasses.

Price and availability

The Halliday G2 will cost $599 (the same price as the Even Realities G2, but $200 less than the Meta Ray-Ban Display), and is expected to ship in September. Preorders begin today (July 21) at www.hallidayglobal.com; those who secure a preorder with a $10 deposit will get $100 off the regular price of the glasses.

The G2s will be available with prescription lenses.

Design and display

While the Halliday G2 has a display, it feels a lot more stripped-down than the Meta Ray-Ban Displays or the Snap Specs, but that's by design.

For one thing, there's no camera. In addition to making the glasses simpler, it was also done to put others at ease, company reps told me. (They can record audio, but still.)

While the G2 has a built-in display, it's much more basic than what you'll find on the Meta Displays, and more like that on the Even Realities G2 or Rokid Glasses: a green, monochrome readout.

Unlike the first-gen Halliday, the G2's display is brighter and clearer, and appears virtually in front of both your eyes, rather than on just the right side. The image appears to hover a few feet in front of you, which made it much more natural to look at when holding a conversation with others.

The G2's feature dual micro-LED projectors with a resolution of 600 x 300 in each eye, and a peak brightness of 1,600 nits.

I wore the G2's for a few minutes during a hands-on session, and found them to be as comfortable as the Ray-Ban Metas, as well as my regular non-smart glasses. The G2's weigh under 50 grams, which put them in the same tier as the Ray-Ban Meta (51 grams), the Rokid Glasses (48 grams), but heavier than the Even Realities G2, which weigh just 35 grams.

A touchpad on the right temple lets you navigate the G2's interface with swipes and taps; it'll take some practice to get the hang of things.

Similar to most smart glasses, the Halliday G2s can also deliver notifications, phone calls, play music, and let you use the Halliday AI Assistant.

Made for meetings

The biggest differentiator between the Halliday G2 and other smart glasses is its focus on making meetings more productive. To that end, its biggest feature is called Meeting Flow, which has several facets:

• Understanding the conversation (literally): The glasses support real-time translation in over 45 languages, and can pick up voices using its 4-mic array, which work in up to a 2-meter radius.
• Quick Summary: If you lose focus or get distracted, the glasses can catch you up on what was just said.
• Quick Research: If you need to look up a fact or information, Meeting Flow can dig up relevant information based on the conversation taking place at the time of your query.
• Thread Tracker: Often, conversations can drift off on tangents; this feature tracks how things evolved, so you can get back to the original subject.
• Decision Confirmation: This helps make sure that if something was decided, it gets remembered, and also prompts the G2 wearer if something was left open-ended.
• Commitment Check: If someone in the meeting says they're going to do something, this feature will prompt the wearer to not only confirm that, but also give the person the information they need to complete the task.
• Open-item tracker: If things are left unresolved, this feature will make note of them, and put them in a checklist.
• Summary and transcript: Like all other AI assistants, Meeting Flow will create a summary and transcript of the meeting.

Outlook

At a time when there's a lot of concern around privacy and smart glasses — just look at the issues around Meta's smart glasses — the idea of having a camera-free set of specs will no doubt be appealing to many.

The idea of having a set of smart glasses hyper-focused around a particular activity could appeal to those who spend a lot of time in meetings, and need a smart way to not only make them more productive, both during and after the fact.

However, I have no doubt that many will look to the broader appeal of the upcoming Samsung smart glasses (and other Android XR devices), which could cost around the same, but offer more functionality.

We'll reserve our final judgment until September, when the Halliday G2 glasses — and Meeting Flow — rolls out.

• I've reviewed all of Meta's smart glasses, and this is the pair I'd actually buy
• Exclusive: Inside Google’s plan to win over your face with AI glasses — and avoid Meta's privacy missteps
• I’ve traveled over 50,000 miles testing smart glasses in 2026 — here are my 3 favorites that have launched this year so far

The new school year will be here before you know it. Although laptop prices have risen due to the ongoing RAM crisis, back to school sales are underway to help soften the blow on your wallet.

One of the manufacturers leading the charge is Lenovo. Sure, Lenovo has made it clear that higher laptop prices are the "new normal," but as part of its current sale Lenovo has laptops on sale from $349. It's one of the biggest sales I've seen all year from Lenovo with discounts on Chromebooks, IdeaPads, ThinkBooks and more.

Below I've gathered 9 of the best Lenovo deals you can get right now. For more deals and expert recommendations, check out our back to school guide and Tom's Guide Savings Squad hub.

Quick Links

• shop all Lenovo laptop deals
• Tab One: was $179 now $99
• Tab Plus Gen 2: was $399 now $349
• IdeaPad Slim 3i Chromebook: was $549 now $499
• IdeaPad Slim 3x: was $1,199 now $699
• IdeaPad Slim 5i: was $1,099 now $749
• ThinkPad E16 Gen 3: was $1,014 now $963
• ThinkBook 14 Gen 9: was $1,314 now $1,019
• Yoga Slim 7x: was $1,449 now $1,377
• Yoga 7i 2-in-1: was $1,889 now $1,511

Best Lenovo Deals

Shop more laptop deals

Watch out, MacBook Neo! The new Dell XPS 13 is here, and it could arguably be the best budget laptop available. With a starting price of $699, it packs many of the features you’d find in higher-end XPS laptops. Given the ongoing RAM crisis, this notebook is seriously worth considering for what it offers.

Unlike most budget Windows laptops, the XPS 13 has a CNC aluminum chassis built to the same standards as its more expensive XPS counterparts. Not only does it look great, but it’s also the thinnest XPS laptop ever. Toss in other features, such as a vivid 2.5K touch display, a backlit keyboard, and fast performance, and you have a winner.

I’ve spent 48 hours with the Dell XPS 13 and find that it lives up to the hype. To be clear, I tested the model with 16GB of RAM, which retails for $899. I’ll review the model with 8GB of RAM soon, but for now, here’s what I think of the new Dell XPS 13.

Dell XPS 13 (2026): Specs

Dell XPS 13 (2026): Design

“Wow, that’s light,” was the first thing I said when I picked up the XPS 13. And that wasn’t just my brain playing tricks on me. At 2.2 pounds, this laptop is lighter than the 2.7-pound 13-inch MacBook Air and MacBook Neo. This is exactly the kind of laptop I want to travel with since it’s so light — a fact that was very clear when I barely felt it in my backpack when I brought the XPS 13 from the office to my apartment.

The smooth aluminum chassis also ensures that the XPS 13 is plenty sturdy, as it doesn’t easily bend or flex. This is a far cry from the plastic laptops I’m used to in this price range. I’m glad that Dell didn’t sacrifice build quality to drop the price, as the aluminum casing is an important selling point here.

Another big selling point for anyone deciding between the XPS 13 and the MacBook Neo is the former’s backlit keyboard. This is something some folks don’t think about, since many laptops have backlit keyboards, but if you work at night or just need help seeing the keys, it’s a crucial feature.

Dell XPS 13 (2026): Display

The Dell XPS 13 has a 13.4-inch 2.5K-resolution touchscreen display. Though it’s not an OLED panel, everything looks bright and colorful to me. When running a video featuring colorful animals, I was impressed by the color representation and accuracy. Naturally, text-heavy websites are very clear.

As you can see from our display benchmarks, the XPS 13 delivers solid color representation (sRGB and DCI-P3) and color accuracy (Delta-E). While Dell’s notebook has higher resolution and touch support, the MacBook Neo matches the XPS 13 in color representation and accuracy. However, the Neo's display is overall brighter, especially with SDR content.

While the 13-inch MacBook Air has a slightly taller display at 13.6 inches, everything is still clear on the XPS 13’s display. This is a big win, especially since laptops in this price range tend to have duller displays.

Dell XPS 13 (2026): Performance

The XPS 13 features the new Wildcat Lake CPU and gives me my first chance to test a laptop with Intel’s lower-end Series 3 processor. Our review unit also has 16GB of RAM and a 512GB SSD. While these specs aren’t mind-blowing, they get the job done.

Even with 15 Microsoft Edge tabs open and a YouTube video running in the background, the XPS 13 didn’t noticeably slow down. My experience aligns with our CPU benchmarks, which show solid single- and multi-core scores.

Even with its 8GB of RAM, the MacBook Neo has a slight edge in CPU performance, underscoring the incredible efficiency of Apple’s affordable laptop. As for the Handbrake video transcoding test, the MacBook Neo performed the task about 10 seconds faster.

We haven't run our battery life test yet, but Dell claims up to 17 hours of streaming battery life for the XPS 13. We’ll see if the XPS 13 can match the Neo’s 13.5-hour endurance in our lab tests. If Dell can match or exceed that, it would be another big reason to buy.

Dell XPS 13 (2026): Outlook

For what it offers, the Dell XPS 13 is an excellent budget Windows laptop. It’s extremely rare to find such a solid notebook at this price point. I’ll have a full review for you soon, but based on my experience so far, I’m very impressed with what Dell has delivered.

As for the MacBook Neo comparisons, they’re even more relevant now, given Apple’s price hikes, which have put the Neo at the same starting price as the XPS 13. If you’re married to a specific platform (macOS or Windows 11), the decision should be easy. However, if you just want the best value, you now have two strong options.

Stay tuned for my full XPS 13 review, along with a deeper face-off between Dell’s laptop and the MacBook Neo to help you decide which one is best for your needs.

More from Tom's Guide

• I ditched the MacBook Air for a MacBook Neo for 48 hours — and I'm shocked
• We benchmarked the MacBook Neo vs budget Windows laptops
• How to maximize your MacBook Neo for peak performance

If you've ever looked at Google Maps while you're driving and thought to yourself, "why can't this app track my speed too?" then you're in luck. It seems Google is now starting to roll out live speedometer support to Google Maps for Android Auto, and I have to admit that it's about time too.

Part of me is surprised that it's taken Google Maps so long to implement this feature on Android Auto. After all, the app is constantly following your vehicle for its navigation, and I can't imagine being able to monitor and display a rough speed estimate would be too much extra work.

What's even weirder is that Google Maps added a speedometer on its CarPlay app back in 2024, and it's been available on Waze for as long as I can remember. You'd have thought Google would prioritize its own primary platform, right? But that clearly wasn't the case.

I distinctly remember this feature was widely available on a multitude of pre-smartphone GPS units, and it was always interesting to see how much of a difference there was. The GPS typically had my speed a few miles per hour slower than the car itself, though in the interest of not being bombarded with enough tickets to lose my license I generally stuck with what the car had to say.

Then again, you need to remember that Google Maps took years to roll out support for speed limits and speed camera alerts — which happened back in 2019. So it's no surprise that some of these smaller features, like a GPS speedometer, haven't been top of the list of priorities.

Still reports suggest that it is rolling out, even if it hasn't reached my devices in the UK— which are running beta versions of Google Maps and Android Auto. Users on Reddit have reported seeing the speedometer in their vehicles, with screenshots from Canada and India.

The Canadian user is specifically running version 26.29.02.946673643 of the Google Maps beta. That's the same version as me, though I am sadly missing this particular feature.

Do you see the speedometer in Android Auto yet? Let us know in the comments.

More from Tom's Guide

• Massive Samsung leak reveals official Galaxy Z Fold 8, Fold 8 Ultra, and Flip 8 images ahead of Unpacked
• I tried Google Maps hidden time machine feature — here's how to do it yourself
• I tested Google's new Gemini update for Android Auto and it finally fixes everything that made the old Google Assistant so frustrating to use while driving

“It’s been a while since I properly sat down and read a book.” A sentence I said, and probably many of you have uttered in the age of short-form content. With the $419 Boox Go 10.3 Gen II and 25,000 miles worth of flights in two weeks, I’ve got the chance to lose myself in many good reads.

Did this e-reader hold up to the Kindle Scribe? Kind of — it depends on what your priorities are. If it’s a high-quality reading experience, Boox is the way to go.

The screen has fantastic sharpness and contrast that makes the text pop off the screen; the soft, evenly spread backlighting makes it easier on the eyes for late-night reading.

But more than that, this tablet runs Android 15, which, beyond the Play Store’s selection of reading apps, makes it far more open to different eBook file formats. Way more open than you’d find on any Kindle! Throw in stellar battery life, and you’re onto a winner.

However, if you really want to take advantage of all that note-taking capability, that’s where the Kindle wins out. Not to say the Boox doesn’t allow you to doodle — there’s a stylus and a touchscreen, after all. But the supplied pen tip feels a little awkward to drag across the screen, and the slight latency, paired with ghosting when taking notes, can create a disconnect between your hand and the paper that your brain takes a beat to process.

So it very much depends on what your goals are with an e-reader like this. For me, someone who leans more toward reading with a casual side order of jotting things down, the Boox is more than enough and a global daily driver I was happy to have in my daily carry.

Boox Go 10.3 Gen II: Cheat sheet

• What is it? This is an e-reader/notetaking tablet hybrid.
• Who is it for? This one's for the bookworms and daily jotters/doodlers.
• What does it cost? The standard model without a backlight costs $419, and you'll pay an extra $30 for the Lumi model with illuminated screen.
• What do we like? This is a featherweight, premium-feeling ereader in the hand with a great battery life, super sharp display with even backlighting, and Android 15 gives you a far more open experience than you'd find on a Kindle.
• What don't we like? The writing experience isn't quite as good as you'd find on the Scribe, and that internal power can be a little slow to open apps and books.

Boox Go 10.3 Gen II: Specs

Boox Go 10.3 Gen II: The ups

The first leg was a big one — Heathrow to Taipei. Keeping yourself entertained with a short attention span is tricky, but popping open a good book on the Boox seemed to be the key to watching the hours fly by.

A good-looking read

Let’s start with the hardware, which feels great in the hand thanks to its metallic construction and that nicely textured fabric case. At around 360g and 4.6mm thin, it’s a featherweight with evenly distributed weight across its body. And yet, it still feels durable enough to be stashed in an airplane seatback pocket or chucked into your backpack.

Throw in the longevity of that 3,700 mAh cell giving me a full week of use easily, and it’s a worry-free device from most angles.

Display looks like a page of a book

Now for the display. That 10.3-inch monochrome panel sports 300 pixels-per-inch, which really brings out the crispness of text in whatever you’re reading. Throw in a decently deep contrast ratio, too, and that brings real definition to each character on that page or image in a web article.

And when the refresh rate needs to be upped for things like web browsing or drawing, it does so at a respectable rate. It may not be LCD or OLED levels of fluid, but it's fluid enough for the essentials.

Quality-wise, this is up there with what the Kindle Scribe can provide — especially when you loop in that nice even Lumi backlighting. It sucks that you’ve got to pay an additional $50 for this feature, but for those bookworm night owls or those on long-haul flights, that glow is just right.

Android 15 opens the door

Let’s be real — books aren’t the only thing you want to read on an e-reader. There are also textbooks, short stories, PDFs, web articles, and more. On top of that, all of these different types of reading can come in all sorts of file formats.

On a Kindle, you can absolutely find backdoors to force files onto it, but in general, you’re locked down to Kindle books for reading and a few very specific avenues. However, the Boox is running Android 15 in all its glory.

That means the Play Store for different reading/content consumption apps. But most importantly, that means compatibility with pretty much every file format for text and image. The Boox software is a cinch to use, so you can easily upload a file to your reader via a desktop browser.

It was a dream scenario to upload all of my press releases ahead of Computex 2026 and circle the key points with my pencil — all on the same device I could tuck into Lord of the Rings or read the latest longform reporting or biographies too.

Boox Go 10.3 Gen II: The downs

Juicing it back up to full, it was time for my next two big flights — one over the Pacific to LAX, and a final hop back to London. Reflecting on my time doodling notes, reading away and browsing Android on this slate, I did remind myself of a couple of key frustrations.

A bit sluggish

Inside, you’ve got an octa-core CPU running at 2.4GHz with 4GB of RAM and 64GB of storage, which is just enough to avoid too many problems.

However, it can be slow on startup, and if you try to stretch it to app downloads (thanks to Android 15), you may run into some issues and slowdowns. Especially on startup, rendering the book or opening anything takes a short while, and it seems to chug into gear.

Once it's all warmed up, responsiveness does come back, but in the clutch moments where you’re trying to get something up fast, it can get frustrating.

Penmanship is lacking

Then let’s turn our attention to the note-taking experience, which I’d consider just about fine for my uses. If you’re just a casual jotter, what I’m about to talk about won’t be a massive issue. But if you want to use this more than casually, you’ll feel the pain points here.

The surface of the screen causes friction with this wider pen tip that, at best, can feel like you’re dragging the pen more than writing with it, and at worst, the sound is mildly like nails on a chalkboard.

And there’s a small bit of latency. Not game-breaking in and of itself, but paired with some ghosting of the lines you lay down, it can create a disconnect between your brain and the page, making writing things down a start-and-stop experience.

Boox Go 10.3 Gen II: Bottom line

And as I finally touched down at London Heathrow, I felt more enlightened after my time with the Boox Go 10.3 Gen II. I could’ve gone down a content wormhole that would’ve strained my attention span, or I could’ve read a book. Ultimately, I made a good decision for my mind with a damn good device.

Obviously, there are considerations based on how you will use this. If you want a better balance between a reader and a note-taking workhorse, the Kindle Scribe is definitely better on the notation side, with more responsive performance.

However, if you only need to jot things down casually and want a better, more open reading experience for uploading all your content, this is a well-built, long-lasting way to go.

The World Cup final. One match, one night, and then a four-year wait until the next one. Whatever can go wrong with your stream, tonight is not the night for it.

The threats are real and they're varied. If you're watching from abroad, geo-restrictions could lock you out of the coverage you'd get at home. If you're on public Wi-Fi – at a bar, a hotel, a fan zone – your connection is shared, unsecured, and unpredictable. And if you're at home on your own broadband, your ISP can see exactly what you're doing – and has every incentive to throttle a 4K stream on one of the busiest nights of the streaming year.

Using one of the best VPNs solves all three at once, routing your traffic through an encrypted tunnel that sidesteps geo-blocks, secures public connections, and hides your activity from your ISP.

Norton VPN currently tops our best streaming VPN rankings, and with a deal running right now that brings it to $3.33 per month, there's no better time to get it sorted before kickoff.

How does Norton VPN compare to other top VPNs?

Surfshark is our pick for the best cheap VPN, and at $2.49 per month it's a very affordable option – with the added bonus of unlimited device connections that Norton doesn't offer. The gap is streaming consistency. Norton has been the more reliable performer across every major platform in our testing, and for a final that comes around once every four years, that's the gap that matters.

NordVPN is our top-ranked VPN overall, and earns it – 9,000+ servers across 148 countries, speeds of over 1,000 Mbps, and a near-flawless unblocking record. At $3.49 per month it costs more than Norton's current deal, though, and its 30-day guarantee is half the safety net Norton gives you for a night this important.

It's also worth remembering that the World Cup final isn't a game you can quietly catch up on tomorrow. The result will be everywhere before you've even found a replay link – on your phone, in your group chats, across every headline. Whatever VPN you go with tonight, just make sure it's one you've actually tested before kickoff.

For a night with no replay, no second viewing, and a four-year wait for the next one, Norton makes the strongest case.

We test and review VPN services in the context of legal recreational uses. For example:1. Accessing a service from another country (subject to the terms and conditions of that service).2. Protecting your online security and strengthening your online privacy when abroad.We do not support or condone the illegal or malicious use of VPN services. Consuming pirated content that is paid-for is neither endorsed nor approved by Future Publishing.

I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but MacBook deals absolutely suck right now. Whereas a month ago you could easily buy the 13-inch MacBook Air M5 for $899 to $949, today's MacBook deals are hovering in the $1,149 range.

Back in June, Apple announced it was raising prices as a result of the ongoing RAM crisis and within days MacBook deals started drying up. Traditionally, back to school season is filled with excellent Mac sales, but so far this month I've yet to see an entry-level MacBook Air for less than $1,149. In fact, it wasn't until this morning (June 20) that prices dipped from $1,243 to $1,149.

As a deals editor and Mac user, I've been tracking MacBook deals since the launch of the Core 2 Duo-based MacBook Air. I will continue using Macs, but I'll never pay full price. Whether you're shopping for the best MacBooks for college or looking to replace your home machine, below are my top tips for scoring the best deals — even when it feels impossible to find any.

Quick Links

• shop all MacBooks from $689 @ Amazon
• 13" MacBook Air M5: was $1,299 now $1,149 @ Amazon
• 13" MacBook Air M5 (24GB/1TB): was $1,799 now $1,649 @ Amazon
• 14" MacBook Pro M5: was $1,999 now $1,849 @ Amazon
• 14" MacBook Pro M5 Pro: was $2,499 now $2,349 @ Amazon
• Trade-In Program: get instant quotes @ Apple
• Trade-In Program: get instant quotes @ Best Buy
• refurb MacBook Neo w/ Touch ID: was $799 now $679 @ Apple
• refurb 13" MacBook Air M5: was $1,299 now $1,099 @ Apple

Future-proof your MacBook

MacBooks are renown for lasting a long time (I get at least 5 years from mine), but when it comes to buying a new MacBook, I've always recommended spending a little more for the upgraded model. This ensures you'll be able to squeeze even more life out of your Mac. Now there's another reason to buy the upgraded model: It's sporting a bigger discount. For the past few days the base 13-inch MacBook Air M5 has been selling for $1,243 (was $1,299), whereas the upgraded model with 24GB of RAM and 1TB SSD has been selling for $1,649 (was $1,799). Yes, that's a big jump from the base model, but the upgraded model is $150 off instead of just $56 off. If you were already questioning the base model's 512GB SSD, this discount on the 1TB model should help you decide. Note: The base 13-inch MacBook Air is now selling for $1,149 ($150 off).

Use that student discount

I've traditionally refrained from recommending the Apple Back to School Sale. It's predictable and usually eclipsed by bigger dollar-off discounts at authorized Apple resellers like Amazon and Best Buy. This year, things are different. MacBook deals are hard to come by and almost no retailer is offering big discounts on the base MacBook Air. If you're looking to buy the base model and you have a student ID, the 2026 Apple Back to School Sale is worth your consideration. You'll get a $150 Apple gift card with your MacBook Pro purchase or a $100 Apple gift card with your MacBook Air purchase. Additionally, you'll get student pricing on said laptops. After student discount, the 13-inch MacBook Air M5 costs $1,199 ($100 off), whereas the MacBook Neo costs $599 ($100 off). I don't foresee any retailer slashing $100 off the MacBook Neo anytime soon, so this may be as good as it gets.

Trade-in that old Mac

Apple devices tend to have great resale value. If you have an older Apple device you're willing to part with, the Apple Store offers a trade-in credit you can put toward the purchase of a new Mac. You can trade-in iPhones, Apple Watches, iPads, Macs, and even Android smartphones. You can choose to trade-in your device in person at your local Apple Store or online. Just mouse over to the Apple Trade-In website to start the process. I've used it in the past and the process is seamless. I'm also a fan of the Best Buy Trade-In program, so my advice is to get quotes from both and opt for the program that offers the larger credit or biggest convenience.

Don't be afraid of refurbished

Buying a refurbished Mac is an easy way to save a few bucks. While the germophobe inside you may cringe at the thought, a lot of times the outer shells, batteries, and even keyboards are replaced in the refurbishing process. The Apple Store is especially known for the excellent condition of its refurbished products and they're all backed by a 1-year Apple warranty. (That's the same warranty you'd get if you were to purchase a new Apple device). I've also had positive experiences buying a refurbished iMac from Best Buy. At the time of this writing, you can get the base refurb 13-inch MacBook Air M5 for $1,099, which is $200 off and the cheapest price I've seen since the increases. Likewise, you can get the upgraded refurb MacBook Neo w/ Touch ID for $679, which is $120 off.

Best MacBook deals

Shop more deals

There comes a time when doing things easier and faster becomes your sole motivation and the driving force behind learning new things on your computer.

Whether that’s doing complex Photoshop edits in fewer clicks or mastering even the most obscure keyboard shortcuts, once you fall down that rabbit hole, it seems like you’ll never reach the bottom.

Like with most people, this started small for me. A keyboard shortcut here and a keyboard shortcut there, until I was outright remapping them to buttons on my mouse. Then I took things a step further and did so with a tiny controller from 8BitDo and even a foot pedal connected to my PC. However, there was an easier way: macropads.

Designed to work alongside your keyboard and mouse, macropads are fully customizable accessories where you can map whatever you want to each key. From simple things like copy and paste to full-on commands, the possibilities are truly endless. However, what if you only had a single, comically large key to work with?

Well, that’s exactly the position I found myself in when I decided to add Keychron’s Q0 Mini 8K Action Key to my desk setup. While a traditional macropad certainly would have been more useful, reaching over to slam this one down throughout my workday has been a whole lot more fun.

Not your typical Keychron keyboard

From a super budget-friendly wired board to a split ergonomic one, I’ve tried out a lot of Keychron’s keyboards over the past few years. In fact, I’d go so far as to say that the company makes some of the best mechanical keyboards you can get today without breaking the bank. Keychron’s Q0 Mini 8K Action Key may only have a single key switch, but unboxing it still gave me the familiar experience I’ve come to expect from the brand.

In the box, you get the Q0 Mini 8K Action Key itself along with a braided USB-C cable, and just in case you don’t have any free USB-C ports, you also get a USB-A adapter. For a device that could have easily been an April Fools' joke, everything feels a whole lot more premium than it has any right to be.

The first thing that stuck out to me about the Q0 — besides the fact that it’s massive at 3.65 x 3.25 x 3.25 inches — is its heft. This thing isn’t going anywhere on your desk thanks to its machined aluminum base. Even with its oversized keycap, the Q0 weighs nearly a pound on its own.

On the backside, there’s a single, recessed USB-C port and that’s all you get. While I would have loved for it to have Bluetooth or wireless 2.4 GHz connectivity, Keychron went overboard with its wired connection. A single key like this doesn’t need to be that fast, but the company went ahead and gave it a polling rate of 8,000 Hz anyway, which I consider overkill in the best possible way.

I have to admit, I didn’t read the instructions as I was just too excited to try out this single-key macropad for giants. But before I took it over to my desk and plugged it in, there was one more thing I wanted to try, and boy am I glad I did.

One key to rule them all

Unlike those cheap membrane keyboards you find in offices or libraries, one of my favorite things about mechanical keyboards is that they’re just as easy to clean as they are to customize. And that all comes down to the fact that with a bit of back and forth, their keycaps pop right off.

Now if the Q0’s keycap had been permanently attached to the switch underneath it, I wouldn’t have knocked Keychron for it in the slightest. Much to my surprise though, when I gave its double-shot PBT keycap — with a rocket ship emblazoned on top — a bit of a wiggle, it popped right off. Oh, and if you don’t like rockets, Keychron has the switch and keycap spec drawing on its site so you can make your own with one of the best 3D printers.

Not only did this let me see the inner workings of this extra-large 3 x 2.5-inch keycap, but I also got a closer look at the mechanical key switch underneath it. By working closely with Outemu, Keychron created a scaled-up version of a traditional key switch that’s actually 64 times larger. It has your standard MX-style cross stem and a south-facing LED for the RGB goodness often associated with mechanical keyboards.

I’ve been using a mechanical keyboard for over a decade now, but I wish there was something like this when I first got into the hobby. It’s one thing to see a diagram of how all the various types of mechanical key switches work and it’s another thing to hold an oversized one in your hands.

With my curiosity piqued, it was time to plug the Q0 in and see if a massive macropad was as fun to use as it was to hold in my hands. Spoiler alert: it definitely is.

Bottoming out never felt this good

Next to the mechanical keyboard on my desk, the Q0 looks almost absurd. It’s about the size of a coaster, and unlike the rest of the peripherals in my current desk setup, it’s the only wired one.

Still, being able to reach over and slam it down to pull off pretty much anything I can think of is absolutely worth it. And for the keen-eyed among you, yes, the keyboard I’m currently using — the Keychron Q11 Ultra — already has five programmable macro keys.

With the Q0 plugged into the Geekom A9 Max mini PC under my monitor, I pressed it and ... nothing happened. Yeah, I was a little surprised at first, too. I figured the Q0’s massive key would be mapped to Esc or Enter out of the box, but that wasn’t the case. This is a device for tinkerers and mechanical keyboard enthusiasts after all, which is why Keychron likely decided to ship it unmapped.

Just like with the rest of Keychron’s more recent keyboards and mice, complete customization is just a browser tab away. So I loaded up the Keychron Launcher in Chrome and the Q0 was instantly recognized. Normally in this browser-based launcher, you’re treated to a whole keyboard’s worth of keys you can tweak and customize to your liking. Here though, as you’d expect, there’s only one key to work with.

Sure, you could program it to Esc, Enter, or even the Windows key, but where’s the fun in that? Likewise, since it’s compatible with Mac (and Linux), you could have it work as a giant Command key too. However, I immediately went to the Special Keys option in the Keychron Launcher and saw what was available for each platform.

If I wanted to lose my work every time my 4-year-old came to my desk, I could have easily programmed the Q0 to shut down my computer, but I’m not a glutton for punishment. Alternatively, it would also work quite well as a massive mute/unmute button for video calls.

Remember what I said before about fewer clicks? Well, opening File Explorer on Windows is something I do quite often, and who wants to mouse down to their taskbar or open the Start Menu? After trying out a few different customizations with the Q0, I settled on having it open a new File Explorer window.

At the same time, you can take things even further by recording your own macros — think complex multi-key commands — and programming them to the Q0. I wanted to keep things simple though, so I’ve mainly stuck to File Explorer for now. Still, it’s great knowing that when I do think of a unique new use case or come up with a clever macro, reprogramming the Q0 is dead simple.

Besides remapping the Q0’s single key, you can also customize its RGB lighting in the Keychron Launcher. There are several colors and lighting effects to pick from, but I ended up going with something as close to turquoise as I could find to match my keyboard’s Esc and Enter accent keys.

During the time I’ve had the Q0 on my desk, slamming down its extra-large key has helped break up the monotonous parts of my day.

For instance, when I’m moving photos off my camera and need an extra File Explorer window to drag the keepers to, I just press it down and one appears instantly. Likewise, if one of my coworkers needs a file like a deal badge or even a Photoshop template I previously downloaded, the Q0 has made quickly pulling those up a lot more fun.

From micro to a macro macropad

Even though I had known about macropads for years, I actually built my first one. You see, back then, I had a lot more time on my hands and had previously built my own custom mechanical keyboard. This was back before hot-swappable switches were a thing, so I had to solder each switch individually. While that took a bit of work, I learned a lot going through the process.

When I saw a two-key macropad kit with a hot-swappable PCB pop up online, I figured it was worth trying out, even if I didn’t have a dedicated use case for it in mind at the time.

At first, I thought about taking the easy way out and mapping one key to copy and the other to paste. However, since I work with large blocks of text while writing and editing every day, I already had Ctrl + C and Ctrl + V mapped to my trusty trackball mouse. There was one thing my PC — or should I say my monitor’s built-in speakers — didn’t have at the time: a volume knob. So that’s what I used my tiny, two-key macropad for.

Besides their excellent build quality and value, one of my favorite things about Keychron’s keyboards is that many come with a built-in volume knob as standard. I’ve been using a keyboard with one such knob for the past few years, so my old macropad has gone to the box of decommissioned gadgets in my closet.

Going from two keys to one might seem like a downgrade at first. However, thanks to Keychron’s excellent launcher and everything I’ve learned in the years since, it’s been surprisingly useful having it on my desk.

Is it unnecessary though? Sure, but that defeats the purpose. A fun little — or should I say big — gadget like the Q0 was just what my desk setup was missing. Instead of being utilitarian like the rest of my accessories, it adds a touch of personal flair, while slamming it down brings a bit of fun my workspace was sorely lacking.

Now, I don’t know yet if the Q0 will remain a permanent fixture on my desk, but for now, I’ll gladly slam it down every time I’m looking for a local file.

More from Tom’s Guide

• I tested the Keychron Q1 Ultra 8K and this full-metal body mechanical keyboard is a game changer for my workflow
• I finally tried a vertical mouse and it was the ergonomic upgrade my desk setup was missing
• I tried this mechanical keyboard with a built-in pointing stick and it almost convinced me to ditch my mouse

The best Kindles have been my primary way to read books for the better part of a decade. Thanks to Amazon’s e-reader, I’ve read more books in the past seven years than in the nearly four decades prior. Not only is the device easy to hold and read on, but its integration with the Kindle app and store gives me more books than I could read in a single lifetime.

Though I adore my Kindles, I don’t read comic books on them. Even after the introduction of the Kindle Colorsoft, which finally let me read comics in color, I still can’t bring myself to read comics full-time on Amazon's hardware. Why? Because, as a lifelong comic book fan, I get a much better experience on the best iPads. Here’s why.

Display size

Digital comic apps like Marvel Unlimited and DC Universe Infinite offer a guided view mode that zooms in on individual panels and text. This can be immersive, especially for those new to the medium. While guided mode works as advertised, I prefer seeing an entire comic page rather than breaking it up piece by piece.

On the base Kindle and Kindle Paperwhite, you almost have to use guided mode because of their small screens. For comics, I prefer reading on the iPad Pro. The 13-inch model’s screen is slightly larger than a physical comic book page. Not only do single pages look fantastic, but double-page spreads look incredible when you rotate the tablet to landscape orientation.

Another problem with using guided view or pinch-to-zoom on Kindles is the device’s low refresh rate. This causes the e-reader to lag and flash to clear previous image artifacts (ghosting). While this has improved with the latest Kindle models, the refresh rate is still sluggish compared to iPads, which handle panning and zooming instantly and smoothly.

Returning to screen size, the Kindle Scribe features a roomier 10.2-inch display. While that’s still smaller than the 11-inch iPad Pro and iPad Air models, it’s a good size for reading full comic book pages. There’s a specific reason I don’t use the Scribe for traditional color comics (which I’ll cover next), but for black-and-white manga, it’s legitimately great. However, since I don’t read much manga, that point is mostly moot for me.

When it comes to reading single pages and double-page spreads of a traditional American comic book, the iPad is simply the way to go.

Colorsoft is still too muted

The Kindle Colorsoft and Kindle Scribe Colorsoft are arguably the best color e-readers out there right now. If you mainly read traditional novels, having full-color book covers, maps, and other design elements is a nice perk. Naturally, comics are in color on these devices, but there is one major drawback—the hues are decidedly muted.

In fairness, muted colors can sometimes be preferable. For instance, if you’re reading older comics printed before the late ‘90s, the e-reader screen delivers an experience closer to reading them on original newsprint, which is much duller than the glossy paper used today. If you’re a comic purist who doesn’t like how vibrant classic comics look on modern paper or on an iPad, you might actually prefer the Colorsoft's presentation.

With all that said, I want my comics, classic and modern, to look as bright and bold as possible, which is why I prefer the iPad's display. Again, the color Kindles do a decent job, but the presentation is far too washed out for my tastes.

Ecosystems and storage

iPads give you access to excellent dedicated comic reader apps like Panels and Chunky, along with major subscription platforms like Marvel Unlimited, DC Universe Infinite, and Shonen Jump. Conversely, Kindles mostly confine you to Amazon’s storefront, Comixology, and Kindle Unlimited. Sideloading your own files can also be a chore.

On that note, if you have a large library of digital comic files (.CBR, .CBZ, and high-res PDFs), you’re going to hit a storage cap much faster on a Kindle than on an iPad. Apple’s tablets offer storage tiers up to 1TB and can easily connect to cloud storage like Google Drive or iCloud to offload your libraries. Kindles top out at 64GB of storage on the Scribe and don’t natively support common comic book formats without converting the files first.

Bottom line

Don't get me wrong — Kindles still hold the crown for battery life and portability. Throwing a lightweight Paperwhite into a bag for a week-long trip without needing to pack a charger is fantastic, and it remains my go-to choice for novels.

But while Kindles are perfectly serviceable for most everyday reading, I get a much richer experience reading comics on the iPad. With a larger display for viewing full layouts, bolder colors, and seamless performance, I'll choose Apple's tablet for my graphic novels every single time.

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• We've tested the best tablets for entertainment and productivity, and these are the 8 I recommend right now
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Over a decade ago, when we first made the transition to USB-C, cable manufacturers promised things would be different. Sure, we no longer had to worry about which side of our cables we plugged in, but now we’re facing a completely different problem: there’s no easy way to know how fast (and capable) our cables really are.

At least with USB-A to USB-C cables, the larger end often gives us some insights. For instance, USB 2.0 cables are black, USB 3.0 ones are blue, and the less aptly named USB 3.2 Gen 2x2 ones are red. With USB-C to USB-C cables, though, it’s a different story entirely.

While some manufacturers label the ends of their cables with their respective specs, this isn’t always the case. And depending on where you buy your cables, those labels might not even be accurate. For this reason, some people end up buying dedicated cable testers to see whether that high-speed USB-C cable is actually as fast as it claims to be.

Just when I was considering buying one of these devices to test my own cables, I stumbled upon an open-source Mac app that can do the exact same thing for free. Here’s what I learned after testing 10 of my own USB-C to USB-C cables, and why I ended up paying the full $13 for the pro version of the WhatCable app.

Branded, but untested

Although I’ll occasionally order several cables at a time online, for the most part, I’ve amassed a huge collection just by keeping the ones that come with the various devices I review. I have a few generic, rubber ones I use in more complex desk setups — mainly behind monitors and tucked under my desk — but over the years, I’ve really come to appreciate braided cables a whole lot more.

Braided cables not only look better, but they also feel more premium. They’re easier to manage too, since they tend to hold their shape when laid flat across a desk. However, they do have one major downside: a total lack of information.

With rubber cables, manufacturers will often print their specs directly on the cord itself, where there is more room for text. You see this a lot with HDMI 2.1 cables, which are frequently labeled “Ultra High Speed” to signify they can handle the high bandwidth needed for VRR and 4K/120Hz gaming. Some companies even go the extra mile and include extra details on these labels, like whether or not the cable supports Ethernet, or even the brand name.

When it comes to braided cables, though, you’re lucky to get a brand name stamped on either connector end. Even if they do list specs, it’s usually just a brief note like “5A” for 5 amps or “10 Gbps” for 10 gigabits per second. Then again, this kind of labeling is few and far between; only my cables from Fasgear actually have it.

So what’s a tech nerd to do? Well, test them, of course. Dedicated USB cable testers can be found for under $10 if you don’t mind a bare PCB, but they can easily run over $100 for premium models with a proper case and a built-in display.

I was honestly considering picking one up until I saw a few news stories about WhatCable. Given that it's open-source and completely free to use, I decided to test it out for myself before investing in yet another gadget for my home office.

After downloading and installing the app on my MacBook, I grabbed a few of my favorite braided USB-C to USB-C cables — some labeled and some completely blank — and decided to see what they were actually capable of.

Plug it in, plug it in

When I first booted up WhatCable, I was greeted with four sections in the app which correlate with the three Thunderbolt 5 ports and the MagSafe charging port on the MacBook Pro 16-inch M5 Pro I’m currently using.

Of course, depending on which of the best MacBooks you have, the sections that show up will vary. I haven’t installed WhatCable on my Mac mini M4 yet, but I’m curious to know whether or not the extra USB-C and USB-A ports on the Ugreen Mac Mini M4 Dock & Stand I’m currently using will show up in the app. If you’re as curious as I am about this, let me know in the comments below.

It’s worth noting that even with cables plugged into your Mac, those sections will be blank until you plug in another device on the other end. Since I’m in the process of testing out the TCL NXTPAPER 70 Pro smartphone, I decided to plug that in first and see what WhatCable had to say about the cable connecting the two.

Before the app can give you all the details on the cable you’re currently using, you will have to “Allow” the accessory in question — in this case the smartphone — to connect first.

With that taken care of, I learned that the retractable, 100W Ugreen USB-C to USB-C cable I had connected is only rated at USB 2.0. It can carry 100W of power just like the circular case the cable retracts into says on the side though.

From the get-go with WhatCable, I was very impressed by all the details the app managed to glean from this cable and how it explained them to me. For instance, this USB 2.0 only cable has a max data transfer rate of 480 Mbps and isn’t capable of “high-speed data” transfer.

Since the NXTPAPER 70 Pro is a budget phone after all, for my next test, I decided to bump up the capabilities of the device on the other end. For this, I plugged in my Lenovo Legion Tab 3 which I know features USB 3.2 as well as DisplayPort Alt Mode over USB-C since I was able to use it seamlessly with a pair of the best smart glasses from Xreal. The untested variable here was one of Apple’s own white braided USB-C to USB-C cables that I can’t remember which device it came with.

With the two connected, WhatCable correctly identified the cable as a USB 2.0 one and it even identified my tablet by its model name, the Legion Tab Y700. One term I hadn’t heard before trying out this app, despite being about as immersed in tech as you can be, is E-marker.

Apparently, this is a tiny, 1mm² microchip that’s embedded directly into the plastic or metal housing of a USB-C connector. Like a digital passport, these E-marker chips allow the USB-C Power Delivery controllers inside the ports of your laptop and other devices to know exactly what a particular cable is capable of. That way, they send the correct amount of power or data and don’t overload the device on the other end.

Even with the free version of WhatCable, you can actually drill down further into each section to learn more about the cable you’re testing. By clicking “Show technical details” you can see all of the supported protocols and standards the current connection can handle.

For instance here, while the cable itself is bottlenecked at USB 2.0 speeds, the underlying port architecture supports USB2, USB3, power delivery, and video out over DisplayPort. So not only can you use this app to test your cables, but you can also get a clear picture of exactly what your Mac's ports are capable of at the same time.

Cables may be faster than they appear

For my next round of cable testing, I decided to completely switch up devices. I started with a 1TB M.2 drive I’m using inside this SSD enclosure from Ugreen. Given its rated for speeds up to 10 Gbps, I figured it would be an ideal companion for cable testing and it absolutely was.

In the WhatCable app, that Fasgear cable — remember the one with 5A, 10Gbps written on the connector? — actually turned out to be as fast as the company claimed. Surprisingly though, according to the app, the E-marker inside it didn’t have a vendor ID, though apparently this is common with genuine cables. Or maybe Fasgear was too humble to take credit for it, I guess we'll never know.

Next up, I decided to test a cable that wasn’t labeled, but I did know its full capabilities based on the description on the box. Alongside its Vagabond mobile game controller, Elo recently sent over all of the accessories to go with it, including the company’s Link Thunderbolt 4 cable which can deliver up to 240W of power and 40 Gbps of data.

I’ve tried it out with other devices and it definitely works as advertised. However, when I used it to connect a Nintendo Switch 2 Pro Controller to my MacBook, it only reached USB 2.0 speeds in WhatCable.

You see, in this case, it was the controller and not the cable that was the bottleneck. While the console hardware itself handles modern high-speed connections, the Switch 2 Pro Controller internally relies on basic USB 2.0 protocols to process your inputs. Since game controllers prioritize low latency over raw bandwidth, the hardware only needs a tiny data pipe to pass along button presses to your console.

If you decide to download WhatCable and run into a similar situation where you know you have a high-speed cable but you’re seeing slower speeds while testing, I’d recommend connecting a different device. After I swapped out that controller for my Legion tablet, the app instantly registered the Elo Link cable as a high-speed one.

I learned so much testing the power delivery and data transfer speeds of those 10 cables that I decided to spend the $13 on the pro version of WhatCable and I’m glad I did.

Not only do you get additional insights like live power monitoring but you can also add the various cables you test to the app and give them names. This way, you get a timeline of when that cable was last used, what it was connected to and whether or not you ran into any issues while using it.

No more second guessing

Over the years, I’ve accumulated a massive collection of cables. From USB-A to USB-C, HDMI to DisplayPort and even some less common ones like USB Type-B and Micro-USB B, I have a lot of cables — and while I try to get rid of the slower and less full-featured ones when I can, I still have too many.

A few years ago, I decided to repurpose a hanging, over-the-door shoe rack to house them all and before I started adding Thunderbolt ones and longer, braided DisplayPort cables to the mix, it worked quite well. Now though, I’m due for a cable audit.

While I plan on coming up with a solution that’s a bit more elegant than hanging them in various compartments over the back of my closet door, I also want to separate the wheat from the chaff and only keep the best of the best cables. To do that, I need to test them all.

Although I’ll probably end up buying a standalone tester for some of those more obscure cables and the video ones, WhatCable has done a lot of the groundwork for me. At the same time, it’s made me realize that testing cables isn’t nearly as difficult or time consuming as I thought it would be back when I first looked into getting a dedicated cable tester.

If you’ve ever plugged in your smartphone, tablet or laptop and seen less than ideal charging or data transfer speeds and you have a Mac, you owe it to yourself to give this open-source app a try. I’m glad I did because when it comes to USB-C to USB-C cables, I’ll never have to doubt their capabilities again.

More from Tom's Guide

• I finally found the secret to perfectly straight braided cables and it doesn't cost a thing
• I used this classic IKEA cart to build a rollable workstation for my laptop and it lets me work comfortably from anywhere
• I spent a week with dual Apple Studio Displays and realized I’ve been lying to myself about glossy screens for years

The Corsair Sabre V2 Pro is one of the best gaming mice you can buy. Lightweight yet sturdy, the Sabre V2 Pro is built well and is comfortable for long gaming sessions. It’s biggest selling point is its 8,000Hz polling rate over wired and wireless connections, and 33,000 DPI — more than plenty to give you a competitive advantage.

Alongside all this, you also get web-based companion software that makes customization a walk in the park. The best part is that the Sabre V2 Pro does all this without breaking the bank, making it a great alternative to expensive flagships from the likes of Razer. But the mouse isn’t perfect, as battery life isn’t the strongest, and there’s no dedicated DPI button.

For the complete breakdown, read my full Corsair Sabre V2 Pro review.

Corsair Sabre V2 Pro review: Specs

Corsair Sabre V2 Pro review: Cheat sheet

• What is it? An ultralight gaming mouse with 33,000 DPI and 8,000Hz polling
• Who is it for? Competitive gamers and FPS players
• How much does it cost? The Corsair Sabre V2 Pro is available for $99 / £89
• What do we like? The ultralight yet sturdy design, excellent gaming performance, web-based software, and competitive price
• What don’t we like? The poor battery life and absence of a dedicated DPI switch

Corsair Sabre V2 Pro review: The ups

The Corsair Sabre V2 Pro is ultralight and comfortable, and it boasts powerful gaming performance across a range of genres.

Ultralight yet sturdy

Ultralight mice are all the rage today. They require less physical force to move and stop, which increases agility and results in faster cursor speeds, and even proves less fatiguing during long gaming sessions. As a competitive gaming mouse, the Corsair Sabre V2 Pro is extremely light — one of the lightest mice I’ve tested, in fact. It weighs just 1.26oz, so it’s lighter than the Keychron M3 Mini V2 8K ($69, 1.94oz), the Keychron M3 Mini 4K Metal ($99, 2.25oz) and the phenomenal Razer Viper V4 Pro ($159, 1.72oz).

What I love about the Sabre V2 Pro is that even though it’s as light as a feather, it’s still extremely sturdy, and it feels substantial under my palm. It’s made of high-quality plastic that looks and feels premium, and its skates effortlessly glide across most surfaces. Corsair happily includes spare skates in the box just in case the originals wear down. Also included in the box are pieces of anti-slip grip tape, which can be stuck to the mouse for additional grip.

Speaking of, the Sabre V2 Pro on its own feels very grippy. I didn’t feel like my fingers were slipping at any point during testing. The mouse measures 4.69 x 2.46 x 1.5 inches and I found it suitable for my medium-sized hands — although if you’ve got big hands, you may find the mouse a tad small (unless you’re a claw gripper). A chunkier mouse like the Fnatic x Lamzu Maya X 8K ($119) or the Keychron M6 8K ($69) may be more suitable, if that’s the case.

Excellent gaming performance

The Corsair Sabre V2 Pro is a gaming mouse, and a good one at that. Packing a maximum of 33,000 DPI and 8,000Hz polling over wired and 2.4GHz wireless connections, the Sabre V2 Pro is an excellent choice for esports and FPS gamers. The polling rate can be dropped down to 1,000Hz using the mouse’s companion software (more on that shortly) if battery life is a concern (more on that later, too).

As I always do when testing gaming mice, I played a variety of games including Counter-Strike 2 and Cyberpunk 2077 on our testing lab’s gaming rig — and on the MSI Crosshair 16 HX E14W laptop too, which I was testing alongside the mouse. I kicked things off with Counter-Strike 2. Thanks to 8,000Hz polling, I didn’t notice any latency issues or input lag, and all my actions were instantaneously registered.

The 33,000 DPI is the real star here. Being able to swap between a low DPI of around 400 when aiming my sniper rifle at a target in the distance, and a high DPI of 8,000 or more when engaging in close-quarters combat gave me a competitive advantage. With the DPI set to 400, I was able to slow down my movements which helped me accurately aim at my target and execute headshots, especially when stealthily infiltrating enemy camps in Cyberpunk 2077.

Alongside rapid polling and DPI, you also get angle snapping which can be enabled via Corsair Web Hub. In a nutshell, angle snapping smooths out mouse movements to ensure a straight line, thereby eliminating any jitters caused by hand shake. This helps you keep your cursor at head-level at all times which is useful in competitive games like Counter-Strike 2. I managed to take out a row of players as my cursor movements were stabilized and my crosshairs moved in a straighter line than they would if I didn’t have angle snapping toggled.

Web-based companion software

I love it when gadgets are accompanied by web-based software for customization as it negates the need for downloading proprietary apps or bloatware. The Corsair Sabre V2 Pro is compatible with Corsair Web Hub which enables you to remap buttons, assign different DPI values to the five stages, adjust polling rate and lift height, and enable angle snapping.

Corsair Web Hub sports a clean interface and user-friendly design, with no unnecessary or intrusive ads or pop-ups. All you need to do is plug in your mouse using the included USB-C cable and launch Corsair Web Hub in Google Chrome, Edge, or other browser, and you’re good to go.

Competitively priced

You don’t need to spend hundreds on a competent, competitive mouse, and the Corsair Sabre V2 Pro proves it. The mouse has a retail price of $99 / £89 at Amazon, and I’ve seen it drop to $62 / £59 in the past, so it’s worth keeping an eye out during sales events. Even at its retail price, the Sabre V2 Pro is cheaper than other esports mice, like the Razer Viper V4 Pro ($159) and the Logitech G Pro X2 Superstrike ($179).

If you think the Sabre V2 Pro is out of your budget, both the Keychron M3 Mini V2 8K and the Keychron M6 8K cost $69 each. But Corsair’s offering is worth the extra spend if you want 33,000 DPI packed into an ultralight body.

Corsair Sabre V2 Pro review: The downs

There isn’t a lot wrong with the Corsair Sabre V2 Pro but it’s worth noting that when polling at 8,000Hz, battery life doesn’t last as long, and there’s no dedicated DPI button.

Short battery life

The Corsair Sabre V2 Pro isn’t winning any awards when it comes to battery life, which can best be described as mediocre. Over 1,000Hz polling, you can get up to 70 hours between charges, which doesn’t sound too bad. But switch to 8,000Hz polling, and battery life drops to a measly 16 hours. After eight or so hours of playing, the battery had dropped to 45%, on course to die after the stated time.

This isn’t unexpected as 8KHz polling is a drain on both your system and the device, and you’ll find this with the best gaming keyboards, too. If you want longer runtime, I’d recommend the Keychron M6 8K (35 hours) or the Keychron M3 Mini V2 8K (40 hours). The Razer Viper V4 Pro can also last up to 40 hours between charges but of course, it costs a lot more.

No onboard DPI switch

My biggest gripe with the Corsair Sabre V2 Pro is its lack of an onboard DPI switch. I’ve tested my fair share of mice — I always appreciate having a button on the mouse itself to quickly swap between different DPI values as in-game situations change. Unfortunately, doing so on the fly on the Sabre V2 Pro isn’t possible. To change the DPI, you’ll need to either launch the web-based companion software every time, or long-press the right-click and back button (located on the mouse’s left edge) for three seconds.

While the latter is simple enough to do, it’s time consuming and unnecessary, in my opinion, and it could have been made easier by simply pressing a dedicated DPI button. If you’re competing in an esports tournament, or playing competitively otherwise, you wouldn’t want to lose precious seconds, would you? This, on its own, stops me from outright recommending the Sabre V2 Pro.

If you want a gaming mouse that makes it easier to swap between DPI stages, I’d recommend the Keychron M6 8K, the Keychron M3 Mini V2 8K or the Fnatic x Lamzu Maya X 8K. The Razer Viper V4 Pro would be my personal top choice, but it costs nearly $60 more than the Sabre V2 Pro.

Corsair Sabre V2 Pro review: Verdict

If you’ve got a budget of $100 and want a powerful mouse, the Corsair Sabre V2 Pro is the answer. The mouse is ridiculously light and comfortable, and it glides effortlessly across surfaces. It’s built very well, and it’s accompanied by user-friendly web-based companion software. With 33,000 DPI and 8,000Hz polling at your disposal, the Sabre V2 Pro gives you a competitive edge in FPS and esports.

Few things in life are perfect, though, and the Sabre V2 Pro isn’t one of them. Its battery life isn’t the strongest, lasting just 16 hours when polling at 8,000Hz, and there’s no dedicated DPI button, so you have to fiddle with click combinations to change it on the fly.

If neither of those feel like dealbreakers, then the Sabre V2 Pro could be perfect for you. It’s sleek, comfortable and powerful, and it makes even the worst Counter-Strike 2 player (like myself) look half competent.

To be considered one of the best gaming laptops, a PC must do a few things: pack a high refresh rate for smooth gameplay; make colors look vibrant; and it shouldn’t overheat. The MSI Crosshair 16 HX E14W does all that and more. Boasting excellent color coverage and accuracy, as well as a 240Hz refresh rate, the Crosshair 16 HX packs performance in spades.

The Crosshair 16 HX also features an effective, albeit extremely loud, cooling system that ensures the laptop doesn’t get too hot during intensive games. All of these goodies are packed into a lovely, premium and practical design — but it also houses the laptop’s mediocre battery life, which puts a damper on things.

For the complete breakdown, read my full MSI Crosshair 16 HX E14W review.

MSI Crosshair 16 HX E14W review: Specs

MSI Crosshair 16 HX E14W review: Cheat sheet

• What is it? A 16-inch gaming laptop boasting excellent performance across the board
• Who is it for? Gamers looking for a high-performing Windows laptop
• How much does it cost? At the time of writing, pricing hasn’t been confirmed
• What do we like? The great design, outstanding performance, 240Hz refresh rate for gaming, effective cooling system, and great color coverage and accuracy
• What don’t we like? The loud fans and mediocre battery life

MSI Crosshair 16 HX E14W review: The ups

From its premium design and excellent color coverage to its superb gaming performance and effective cooling system, the MSI Crosshair 16 HX E14W is a formidable laptop.

Gorgeous design with plenty of ports

If you took one look at the MSI Crosshair 16 HX E14W, you’d instantly know it’s a gaming laptop, through and through. MSI’s dragon shield emblem in teal with a subtle reflective finish graces the laptop’s matte lid, adding a pop of color to the black notebook. I love the aluminum chassis too, which feels and looks premium.

The Crosshair 16 HX E14W is fitted with a 16-inch (2560 x 1600) non-touch screen and the laptop itself measures 14.29 x 10.62 x 1.01 inches — ever-so slightly bigger than the Dell Alienware 16X Aurora ($2,499) and the Dell XPS 16 ($1,749). It fits easily into most regular-sized laptop backpacks, and I’ve had no issues carrying it to and from work. It weighs 5.07 pounds, so while it isn’t as light as the MacBook Pro M5 (3.4 pounds, $1,599), it isn’t as bulky as the 5.66lbs Alienware 16X Aurora.

I’ve tested many MSI monitors and I’ve come to expect great build quality from the Taiwanese company — this applies to the Crosshair 16 HX too, from the overall construction to its keyboard and trackpad. The low-profile keyboard is a sheer delight to type on, with each key’s total travel distance of 1.7mm making typing fatigue-free. It also features four-zone RGB which can be customized via pre-installed software — and it further reaffirms that this is a Gaming laptop, with a capital G. I found the trackpad responsive and comfortable in my testing too.

The Crosshair 16 HX doesn’t give you much to complain about in the I/O and ports department, either. The laptop’s left edge sports the power and two USB-C 3.2 Gen 2 (DisplayPort and 100W Power Delivery), while the right edge houses the 3.5mm audio jack as well as two USB-A 3.2 Gen 1 ports. The RJ45 Ethernet, HDMI 2.1 (8K at 60Hz or 4K at 120Hz) and another USB-A 3.2 Gen 2 port are located on the rear. That should be plenty for connecting keyboards, mice, monitors and headsets.

Stunning, bright display

The MSI Crosshair 16 HX E14W packs a beautiful QHD+ panel that’s truly a sight to behold. Having used the laptop for gaming, productivity, and even testing monitors, I can confidently say its screen won’t give you much to complain about. The 2.5K panel packs plenty of resolution to make games feel immersive, and it’s enough for enjoying movies and YouTube videos, too.

Speaking of gaming, the Crosshair 16 HX has a refresh rate of 240Hz — same as the Dell Alienware 16X Aurora — and this ensures silky smooth performance in a range of games, including but not limited to Forza Horizon 5 and Counter-Strike 2. I’ll discuss gaming performance in detail shortly, but let’s talk about colors and brightness first.

I’ve been extremely impressed with the Crosshair 16 HX’s bright and vivid display. The World Wildlife 4K YouTube video, which I always watch when testing laptops, looked nothing short of stunning. Vivid colors, rich blues and greens, inky blacks, and controlled highlights all contributed to a thoroughly enjoyable viewing experience.

I put the Crosshair 16 HX through its paces in my lab testing, and the results confirmed what I saw on screen. The laptop covers 157.5% of the sRGB color space and 111.6% of the wider DCI P3 gamut. 100% is the most accurate while anything above that has more saturation, and the Crosshair 16 HX goes above and beyond, delivering the entire color spectrum for your eyes to feast on. It blows its competitors out of the water, as you can see in the table above.

Alongside color coverage, the Crosshair 16 HX’s color accuracy is phenomenal, too. In my lab testing, it achieved a Delta-E score of 0.2, besting the Dell Alienware 16X Aurora and the Razer Blade 16 ($2,999), and being on level playing field with the MacBook Pro M5. The closer the Delta-E score to zero, the better, so 0.2 is great and what we usually see when testing the best laptops.

In terms of brightness, the Crosshair 16 HX achieved 447 nits in my testing, and it’s beaten by a hair's breadth only by the MacBook Pro M5. Other Windows laptops in the same price range or just over fail to upstage it, as you can see above. In real-world usage, I had no issues seeing the Crosshair 16 HX’s screen, regardless of the lighting conditions.

Great performance across the board

Regardless of the task I did, the MSI Crosshair 16 HX E14W performed formidably, and I was impressed with its performance across the board. You can get the laptop in a few configurations (full details here), and my review unit, also the top-line configuration, came fitted with the Intel Core i7 14650HX chip, 16GB of RAM, a 1TB SSD, and an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070 graphics card.

I conducted my benchmark tests, as I do with every other laptop I test, and I was satisfied with the results. On Geekbench 6, which tests and measures overall CPU performance, the 16X Aurora pulled in a solid multi-core score of 15,982, outclassing the Alienware x16 R2 ($2,099). The MacBook Pro M5, the Dell Alienware 16X Aurora and the Razer Blade 16 perform better than the Crosshair 16 HX E14W, but not by much.

What impressed me most, though, was how the Crosshair 16 HX outperformed the MacBook Pro M5 and nearly every other laptop in our HandBrake video editing test (transcoding a 4K video to 1080p). The Crosshair 16 HX is outdone by the Razer Blade 16 but only by a narrow margin.

Last but not least, I measured the Crosshair 16 HX’s read and write speeds using the BlackMagic Disk Speed test, and the laptop performed well. As you can see from the table above, the Crosshair 16 HX achieved 4,575 write and 5,055 read speeds, trumping the Dell Alienware 16X Aurora.

Having used both the Crosshair 16 HX and Alienware 16X Aurora extensively for productivity-oriented tasks, like working in Google Docs, browsing the web, and even editing photos, I can confirm that both laptops perform well. The MacBook Pro M5 does better, though, but for everyday use, the Crosshair 16 HX is more than enough.

Excellent gaming performance

As I’ve said a few times now, the MSI Crosshair 16 HX E14W is first and foremost a gaming laptop — and a great one at that. My review unit came packed with an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070 graphics card, and the entry-level configuration features a 5060 card. At its native resolution of 2560 x 1600 and refresh rate of 240Hz, the Crosshair 16 HX performs formidably, running even intensive Steam games without breaking a sweat.

I ran in-game benchmark tests, and you can see the results in the table above. With Extreme graphics enabled, Forza Horizon 5 achieved an average frame rate of 102fps, which is excellent for a system-hungry game. With features like Ray-Traced Lighting set to Ultra in Cyberpunk 2077, the laptop achieved an average FPS of 55fps — about 8fps less than the Dell Alienware 16X Aurora. F1 25 was the standout, as even with graphics set to Ultra High, the game ran at a silky smooth 143fps. In Counter-Strike 2, a game not as intensive as the others, the maximum FPS achieved was a whopping 228.

So, the benchmark results are great, and the laptop sounds fantastic on paper, and the best part is, it’s even better in real-world use. The visuals are nothing short of sublime. The screen delivers rich, punchy colors without looking overly saturated, which I especially enjoyed when roaming the neon-laden streets of Cyberpunk 2077. For an IPS panel, the contrast is good too, though naturally, blacks don’t appear as deep as on an OLED display.

In Forza Horizon 5 and F1 25, I appreciated the smooth motion and how well the games ran, as I didn’t experience any ghosting or lag. The 240Hz panel shone in Counter-Strike 2. Tracking targets felt effortless as they remained clear throughout, and rapidly flicking between enemies felt controlled rather than blurry. Overall, the Crosshair 16 HX delivers a thoroughly enjoyable and immersive gaming experience. You shouldn’t have any qualms with its performance.

Powerful cooling system

Unlike the Dell Alienware 16X Aurora, which can get very hot, the MSI Crosshair 16 HX E14W remained cool throughout my testing. Whether I was playing games or had 40 tabs open at once, the laptop didn’t get too hot, and that’s thanks to its excellent cooling system. It utilizes MSI’s Cooler Boost technology, which optimizes airflow and heat transfer, and packs large cooling fans as well as four exhaust vents to quickly push heat out of the chassis.

MSI says that this generation features 51.1% more airflow compared to the previous, and its cooling system enables up to 17.6% higher performance “while maintaining the same noise level.” I’ll talk more about the noise in the following section, but for the time being, I can confirm that the Crosshair 16 HX stays as cool as a cucumber.

MSI Crosshair 16 HX E14W review: The downs

There isn’t much wrong with the MSI Crosshair 16 HX E14W, but its fans get really loud, and battery life is nothing to write home about.

Fans get very loud

One of the first things I noticed after powering on the MSI Crosshair 16 HX was just how ridiculously loud its fans were. As soon as I booted up Steam, it sounded like the laptop was about to take off. As I mentioned earlier, the Crosshair 16 HX’s cooling fans and system are extremely effective, but it’s still jarring just how loud the fans are. My colleague had a very concerned look on his face when he heard jet engine noises coming from my desk.

This isn’t a dealbreaker but just something to keep in mind. I’d recommend using one of the best gaming headsets — preferably one with active noise cancelation — to ensure the fans’ loudness doesn’t break your immersion.

Poor battery life

Unfortunately, the MSI Crosshair 16 HX E14W’s battery life seriously lets it down, and I wouldn’t recommend using the laptop for intensive gaming if you aren’t close to a plug socket.

I used UL Procyon’s battery benchmark test and calibrated the Crosshair 16 HX’s brightness to 150 nits, then turned off the keyboard’s RGB lighting. I then let it play videos on loop until it ran out of charge. It took two hours and 44 minutes for the Crosshair 16 HX to shut down… and that’s terrible.

When I benchmarked the Dell Alienware 16X Aurora, I thought three hours and one minute was awful, but this is even worse. And while the Razer Blade 16 and the Alienware x16 R2 also have poor battery lives, they aren’t this bad. The MacBook Pro M5, on the other hand, is a titan when it comes to battery life, and the others simply don’t compare. That comparison, however, is a little unfair as MacBooks are built for efficiency, whereas gaming laptops generally don’t prioritize battery life.

MSI Crosshair 16 HX E14W review: Verdict

If you want a gaming laptop that doesn’t skimp on performance, the MSI Crosshair 16 HX E14W is one of the best you can buy today. Covering more than 100% of both the sRGB and DCI P3 gamuts and boasting incredible color accuracy, it’s a fantastic choice for both gaming and work. Its 240Hz refresh rate and vivid display don’t give you much to complain about, and its cooling system is highly effective.

But the Crosshair 16 HX isn’t perfect. I love that, in my testing, I didn’t experience any overheating, but I hate how loud and jarring its fans are. They’re immersion-breaking, really. The laptop’s battery life of just under three hours isn’t great either, so it isn’t the best choice for gaming or working on the go.

As long as you don’t mind those compromises, I can’t think of any other reasons to not recommend the Crosshair 16 HX. It’s premium-looking. It’s powerful. Its screen is a joy to look at. While the fan noise may turn heads, everything else deserves your attention.

If you work at a computer all day long then you'll know just how much strain can be put on your wrists.

One good way to beat that is by using an ergonomic keyboard. These are designed to align with your body to reduce the risk of RSI and muscle strain.

One of the brands leading the way in keyboard design right now is ProtoArc, which has built a strong reputation by designing keyboards, mice, and other peripherals focused on both ergonomics and portability.

The six keyboards we've picked out here combine functionality with great design and good value. They're also all on sale at Amazon right now, so you can make some great savings.

I haven’t used a Razer gaming keyboard for a while, so testing the new Razer Huntsman V3 TKL 8KHz feels like reuniting with an old friend. Since the company uses proprietary switches, its keyboards feel different from competitors that use third-party parts. This remains true for the Huntsman V3.

This more affordable variant of last year’s Huntsman V3 Pro TKL 8KHz packs several competitive gaming-focused features, such as super-fast 8KHz polling and adjustable actuation points. While the keyboard is relatively thin, its aluminum build makes it sturdy and safe to travel with. And while it’s a gaming keyboard at its core, it’s also great for typing.

If you’re a competitive gamer who needs a keyboard that can keep up with you and won’t break the bank, the Razer Huntsman V3 Tenkeyless 8KHz is one of the best gaming keyboards that's worth checking out. Here’s why.

What's this Razer Huntsman V3 all about?

The Razer Huntsman V3 TKL 8KHz is a competitive gaming keyboard built for fast-paced first-person shooters and other genres that demand quick reflexes. It utilizes the company’s proprietary analog optical switches, 8K “HyperPolling,” adjustable actuation, and a slew of RGB customization options.

Magnetic switches have been all the rage in recent years, but Razer has remained true to its optical switches. Both switch types provide faster response times than traditional mechanical switches, which is why competitive gamers tend to gravitate toward them. I won’t debate whether optical or magnetic switches are better for gaming, but I will say Razer’s optical switches are insanely responsive.

Like with magnetic switches, you can set multiple actuation points on a single key—two actuation points in this case. For example, you can have an actuation point of 2.0 mm on the W key to walk and 4.0 to run. Here, you can set actuation points between 0.1 mm and 4.0, which is standard for both magnetic and optical keyboards.

Then there’s the 8K polling (the speed at which the keyboard sends signals to your computer), which Razer says is faster than other keyboards claiming such a high polling rate. According to the company, most keyboards with 8K polling have a 1.6ms response time, but the Huntsman V3 has a faster 0.48ms response time.

So, how does all of that translate to real-world use? Though I’m nowhere near a competitive gamer, even I could feel the overall smoothness and fast response when playing a first-person shooter like Doom: The Dark Ages. I especially like setting a faster actuation point for shooting since I could lightly brush the key instead of pressing it down all the way. And in case you’re wondering, you can set the actuation points right on the keyboard, though I still preferred doing so via the Razer Synapse app on PC.

The experience

While I’m not the target customer for a competitive gaming keyboard, I enjoy using them because of their fast response time and smooth keystrokes—which the Razer Huntsman V3 has in spades. While the blazing performance and high customization are fantastic, there’s more to this keyboard than those selling points.

The elevated keys, with their PBT-coated keycaps, are a joy to type on. One thing I especially appreciate as someone with a heavy touch is how the keys have more resistance the further you press them. The tenkeyless layout is also ideal for me since I don’t need a numberpad, making the board unnecessarily larger.

The thocky sound the keys produce also makes using the keyboard more enjoyable. Sure, the sound isn’t as deep as you’d find on mechanical keyboards, but it’s still good. While not a clicky board, it’s definitely noisy, so you might not want to use it in an office or anywhere that could annoy others (though I used it in the office anyway!).

The aluminum frame not only helps give the keyboard a richer sound, but also makes it sturdy and durable. That’s important if you need to travel with the Huntsman V3. The brushed aluminum is a nice touch that gives the keyboard a more premium look without being overbearing. And while this is a gaming keyboard, it doesn’t look like one thanks to its overall subdued design.

Of course, if you want more of a gamer aesthetic, there is no shortage of RGB options to toy around with. I’m somewhat neutral on RGB lighting, but I like that folks can customize the lighting to their exact preference. This is Razer, so the company isn’t skimping on that front.

Lastly, this isn't a wireless keyboard, so you'll need to use a USB-A port on your PC. That said, the braided cable is detachable, which is good if you need to take the keyboard on the road.

Outlook

The Razer Huntsman V3 Tenkeyless 8K is an excellent gaming keyboard thanks to its robust, competitive gamer-focused features. Outside of gaming, it also delivers a nice typing experience thanks to its durable build and responsive keys. It’s a bit pricey at $169, but for what it offers, you’re definitely getting your money’s worth.

Again, I'm a fan of Razer keyboards, and this one has everything I've come to expect from the company's peripherals. While the Pro versions of this keyboard might have more features, I like the simplicity of this board, as it still delivers excellent performance. At $169, it's worth considering.

More from Tom's Guide

• I became a keyboard tinkerer with the Logitech G G512 X
• I just got my first gaming keyboard — I’ll never use a regular board again
• Buying a gaming keyboard? Rapid Trigger and Snap Tap explained

Apple will reportedly launch the first OLED iPad mini. That’s according to Bloomberg reporter and Apple tipster Mark Gurman, whose sources claim this updated iPad mini could arrive as early as this October. If true, this would be the biggest upgrade for the company’s smallest tablet. This has me both excited and worried.

The iPad mini was last updated in October 2024 with the iPad mini 7. Besides the A17 Pro chip, it retained the same design introduced in 2021.

This reported 8th-generation iPad mini model, currently code-named J510, would presumably have a faster chip along with the OLED panel. The report doesn’t specify if the tablet will receive other design upgrades, like thinner bezels.

Gurman’s report also discusses other upcoming iPad models. This includes an updated entry-level iPad, code-named J581, reportedly set for release early next year, according to Gurman’s sources. New iPad Air models, in both 11- and 13-inch variants, code-named J807 and J837, are allegedly dropping in Spring of 2027, along with new iPad Pro models around the same time.

Regarding the other iPads, Gurman doesn’t say whether or not the iPad Air line will get the same OLED upgrade as the iPad mini 8. If the iPad Air keeps the same Liquid Retina display, it would be the only iPad model without an OLED panel.

The iPad mini 7 currently starts at $599, which is $100 more than its original cost, thanks to Apple price hikes. Given the volatility of prices thanks to the ongoing RAM crisis, it’s difficult to say how much the iPad mini 8 could cost. However, the introduction of an OLED panel would naturally make this tablet more expensive.

Outlook

Though Mark Gurman has a stellar track record for Apple scoops, it’s best to take this report with a grain of salt, as Apple has yet to officially announce the new iPad mini or new iPads in general. We’ll keep our ears to the ground on this one, so stay tuned for more as we hear it.

More from Tom's Guide

• The 4 biggest allegations in Apple's lawsuit against OpenAI
• Apple Watch Ultra 4 — these are the upgrades it needs
• 7 hidden iOS 27 features Apple didn't tell you about

This is very much not Google Glass 2.0. Google is entering the AI smartglasses arena this fall to go up against Meta (and whatever Apple is cooking), and it’s partnering with Samsung, Warby Parker and Gentle Monster to make “Intelligent Eyewear” powered by Android XR.

As you might expect, Gemini is the headline feature. Having a smart assistant as your literal eyes has the potential to help you get a lot done on the go without having to constantly whip out your phone. But Juston Payne, who leads the product management team for XR at Google, also knows that the smart glasses category is fraught with controversy, especially over how to handle recording in public and user privacy.

“If people don't feel comfortable wearing these glasses, and privacy is part of this, they just won't wear the glasses. It’s as simple as that,” Payne said.

I had a chance to sit down with Payne to discuss these issues and a lot more ahead of the Intelligent Eyewear launch, including how to design for the masses, the roadmap to built-in displays and the totally separate Android XR spatial computing glasses coming from Xreal this year.

The lessons of Google Glass

Anyone old enough to remember the original Google Glass from 2012 probably remembers them for embarrassing reasons.

For me, my mind instantly goes to that infamous photo of Robert Scoble in the shower, which became a symbol for the device’s voyeuristic dangers. And then there’s that SNL Weekend Update bit, during which Fred Armisen lampooned how difficult the interface was to use.

I asked Payne directly about the lessons of Google Glass, and he admits that they were ahead of their time.

“The trouble was that the vision was good, but the reality was that the tech just wasn't quite there yet,” Payne said.

He cites three reasons for the Google Glasses flop that Intelligent Eyewear hopes to get right. First was the nerdy form factor. They didn’t really look like regular glasses. There was also a lack of content, which you now get with Android XR. And the third thing is versatility, which AI brings to the table.

“So there were these huge building blocks missing,” Payne said, “Hardware, platform, AI.”

And that brings us to the present…

What does Intelligent Eyewear do?

For the first round of Intelligent Eyewear, the glasses will be audio-only. Glasses with single and dual displays will be coming later, though Google will start offering a trusted tester program sometime this year.

In the meantime, the glasses coming this year from Samsung, Gentle Monster and Warby Parker will leverage Android XR to (hopefully) make your day easier by having Gemini always at the ready.

“Gemini can take your personal context — we call it personal intelligence — and then it can start feeding that into your experience,” Payne said. “These glasses are designed to give you ambient assistance throughout the day while keeping you connected to your digital world and the real world.”

For example, because Gemini has personal intelligence built in, it knows you, and you can ask about what’s on your calendar, the score of a sports game or a random fact.

“Just having a real-time conversational interface all day long is incredibly valuable for a lot of people,” Payne continued. For example, when Payne is driving with Intelligent Eyewear on he can ask about other podcasts Gemini might recommend based on the one he’s currently listening to and do it on the fly.

Payne cited a couple other major use cases for Intelligent Eyewear. The first is navigation, such as looking up a local restaurant that might be good around you.

“The audio experience for that is fantastic,” Payne said. “It uses the camera to localize you, so it knows that you're pointing in the right direction. It can give you contextual navigation to help you get to where you're going without being vague, you know, like ‘turn right there.’”

Translation is another potential killer app for Intelligent Eyewear, promising a quick “UN translator experience.” And when you’re cooking you can get step-by-step instructions even without a display.

But Payne argues that display glasses are nice to have as opposed to a must-have, such as seeing that your upcoming turn is 300 feet away.

“We think of the display more as almost an augmentation to the audio experience rather than something that is a hard dependency in many cases,” Payne said.

Design first, features second

Anyone who has been paying attention to the smart glasses market knows that there’s a sliding scale of geekiness. The Ray-Ban Meta glasses and Meta Glasses look very much like regular sunglasses or glasses. But the Meta Ray-Ban Display glasses are bulkier, and the even more ambitious Snap Specs look pretty geeky with their extra-wide frames.

For Google, the approach is pretty simple: they have to be great glasses first.

“We lead with design and then we ask the question ‘what can you make within the constraints of a great design?’” Payne said. “Can we make a product that is genuinely valuable for people so that if they walk out of their house and they forgot them, they'll actually go back and get them?”

The early design from Gentle Monster has chic oval-shaped lenses that wouldn’t look out of place on a runway, while the Warby Parker design is a bit chunkier and more retro. They both feature dual cameras, but they look a bit more discreet on the Gentle Monster specs.

Google doesn’t seem willing to push the limits and risk the sort of backlash the Snap Specs have been getting for their overtly techy look.

“If you make a product that provides really novel new experiences, people might be willing to tolerate a design that has some larger compromises. I think it's great that people are out there testing that theory. It's just not the approach that Google's taking. We're really leading with design,” Payne said.

Major privacy landmines — and what Google is doing about it

By now you’ve probably heard some of the horror stories coming out of the Meta glasses camp around privacy concerns, including a woman who discovered her esthetician was wearing Meta’s Ray-Ban glasses at a European Wax Center in Manhattan. And 404 Media reported on how men were wearing the glasses to covertly film massage parlor workers.

Then there’s the black market that sprung up around disabling the LEDs on Meta glasses so that others don’t know that you’re recording. Meta recently attempted to close this loophole with a software update that automatically disables the cameras if the LED has been tampered with or destroyed.

It’s safe to say that Google is walking into a minefield of privacy concerns, but the company has a plan to address them.

“If people don't feel comfortable wearing these glasses, and privacy is part of this, they just won't wear the glasses. It’s as simple as that,” Payne said.

To help combat some of the concerns people have about these issues, Google is starting by making sure that Intelligent Eyewear users are signaling to the people around them when they are recording and that the LED is accurate.

Payne told us that Google will share more details later this year around how they ensure this accuracy, but the bottom line is that the light should be on if whatever you’re recording or shooting can be reviewed later.

Google will also be employing Android permission frameworks to help protect users, as well as other security and privacy techniques already on your phone.

Lastly, Google is “investing to make it so that the hardware itself holds up,” Payne said. “So if people try to mess around with it somehow, we have ways of detecting that.”

Google vs. Meta vs. Apple

Launching in 2023 and with over 9 million units sold already, it’s fair to say that Meta has had a pretty big head start with its Ray-Ban glasses and other eyewear, but Google is pretty confident that it can make a splash in what is still a pretty nascent market.

I asked Juston directly about his largest competitor and he told me that “Meta’s doing a great job” with “very nice glasses.” But while the Meta glasses are good for things like photos, videos, calls and music, Google is taking a different approach with Gemini front and center.

“We think a lot about moments throughout the day. And these moments throughout the day are really the things that are driving our approach to the platform. ‘How does Gemini show up in glasses? What kinds of hooks are we making from Gemini into apps? How are apps making themselves available to Gemini? So so much of our thinking is about versatility.”

That thinking includes making things super easy for developers to get their apps running in Android XR, while Meta’s app ecosystem is still fairly skimpy.

“The platform will know if their app, which is running on the phone, is talking to audio glasses or glasses with a display, and it'll tailor that app experience for it,” Payne said. “So that means that developers really only build once. They just build an Android app, and then we take care of the rest.”

Payne also is acutely aware of the fact that Apple is working on its own Apple Glasses, which will likely debut in 2027. And it will be taking the same vertically oriented approach it has with all of its other products: Apple’s own design. Apple’s software. Apple’s ecosystem.

“Apple has a very strong track record,” Payne said, “and I think that one thing that Apple has always done well is that they play to their strengths. I would expect that they'll keep doing that. And I'm sure that they'll provide very real competition for everybody else playing in the space.”

The difference between what Google is doing with Android XR and Intelligent Eyewear and what Apple is doing is that Google is building a multi-partner platform, while Apple is focusing on making a product.

“So each time that these categories come along, Google makes a platform and there's a lot of value. Google's a partnership company. And as you look through when we've done best, it's when we partner.”

At the same time Payne shared that Google has a lot of “skin in the game” with its first-party apps, including Gemini, Google Maps and Google Translate.

Despite being a fierce Apple competitor, Google is working hard to make sure that Intelligent Eyewear devices work well with the iPhone, though there will be some platform-level restrictions the company may not be able to work around.

Aura farming

Google’s partnerships extend to companies like Xreal, an early pioneer in the smart glasses space, and they are collaborating on spatial computing glasses that attempt to squish pretty much all the functionality of the Samsung Galaxy XR headset into a pair of fairly sleek specs.

However, while Intelligent Eyewear works with your Android phone or iPhone, the Xreal Aura are wired glasses that connect to a computing puck. Coming this fall, the glasses promise an immersive see-through display and AI assistance from Gemini.

You can work across multiple virtual monitors, experience over 100 apps made for XR, enjoy a private cinema anywhere for watching 3D movies and more. Think Apple Vision Pro but in a design you might actually want to wear. But there’s some trade-offs versus headsets, like a narrower field of view.

For example, the Xreal Aura has a 70° Diagonal FOV, compared to 109° horizontal and 100° vertical for the Galaxy XR.

“Some people would say, ‘hey, I'm okay actually giving up some of that,’” Payne told me. “I need to keep the core value, but I'm okay with giving up some of that so that I can take it with me more easily.”

Will smart glasses replace phones?

If smart glasses like Google’s Intelligent Eyewear are designed to help you use your phone less often, will there be a tipping point where the vast majority of people leave their phone behind?

For Payne, that’s not happening anytime soon.

“The phone is here to stay,” Payne said. “Phones are incredibly powerful. They have a user interface to them that is well adopted and highly robust. I'm not so sure that there's even a great reason to get rid of the phone, even if you could.”

The true benefit of smart glasses — at least for now — is that they allow you to be less distracted. How many times have you opened your phone to respond to a notification only to find yourself knee deep in some other app?

“Glasses can fit into your experience throughout the day by adding a lot of value on top. It'll shift some of the minutes that you’re spending on the phone to the glasses, which have all these nice benefits because you can then stay more present with what you're doing.”

We’ll be keeping a close eye on Intelligent Eyewear and will bring you our full reviews once we have a chance to test out Google’s Android XR platform — and its partner’s designs.

The Motorola MotoPad (2026) is a light, thin, and affordable tablet with powerful audio, a vibrant display, and all-day battery life. While its MediaTek Dimensity 6300 CPU isn’t winning any benchmarking awards, it is powerful enough to handle light research, web browsing and email management.

Unfortunately, Motorola also positioned the MotoPad as capable of casual gaming. Which only highlights its dismal graphics performance, as the Arm Mali G-57 integrated GPU struggles with any game more demanding than Candy Crush.

Despite the MotoPad’s grim graphics performance, it's a great tablet to use as a work or school sidecar in addition to a traditional laptop, and it’s fantastic as a streaming device for your next movie night. But is that enough to make it onto our best tablets list? Let’s take a closer look.

Motorola MotoPad: Cheat sheet

• What is it?: The Motorola MotoPad is an affordable tablet for every-day use.
• Who is it for?: Students and professionals who need a lightweight, portable tablet for work, class, or relaxation.
• What does it cost?: The Motorola MotoPad (2026) comes in one $249 configuration.
• What do we like?: The MotoPad has a lightweight, easily portable build, and sports a unique bronze green color aluminum chassis. It’s got powerful audio, all-day battery life, and it's affordable.
• What don’t we like?: The MotoPad is advertised as capable of casual gaming, but its graphics are underpowered for anything beyond puzzle games.

Motorola MotoPad: Specs

Motorola MotoPad: The ups

The MotoPad has plenty going for it, from its lightweight, stylish design to its robust audio system and crisp display, to its all-day battery life. Combined with its affordable price, the MotoPad is a fantastic bargain.

Lightweight, stylish design

The Motorola MotoPad (2026) comes in a striking Pantone Bronze Green aluminum chassis with modern detailing and a glass camera hub on the back panel that makes it feel like a more premium tablet.

The MotoPad is also incredibly lightweight at just 1.06 pounds with a thickness of 0.28 inches, making it a lightweight fashion statement that’s easy to slot into a bag or backpack to take to work or school, or even to fit into your carry-on for inflight entertainment on your next vacation.

The only real drawback in the MotoPad’s design is its lack of ports, as it features just one USB-C port and one 3.5mm Audio Jack. So you’ll need to use bluetooth accessories if you plan to charge the MotoPad while also connecting a keyboard or mouse to it. Then again, most people tend to use bluetooth accessories these days, so that’s not as much of a drawback as it would have been a few years ago.

The MotoPad also comes with a MicroSD card reader, so you can expand your device storage up to 2TB from the 128GB base storage option. Which is a nice addition for a budget tablet. But the real star of the MotoPad’s design is that unique Pantone Bronze Green colorway, which gives the MotoPad a sense of identity that most budget tablets lack.

Affordable pricing

The MotoPad has only one configuration, boasting a MediaTek Dimensity 6300 CPU with integrated Arm Mali G-57 graphics card, 8GB of RAM, a 128GB SSD, and an 11-inch, 90Hz, 2,560 x 1,600, LCD display. That configuration costs just $249, making it one of the more affordable Android tablets on the market.

It’s a whole $100 cheaper than our best budget tablet pick, the Apple iPad 11, and it's less than half the price of our favorite Android tablet, the OnePlus Pad 3. Of course, the MotoPad takes a significant performance hit over the OnePlus Pad, but the price differential is nothing to scoff at. In fact, only our favorite budget Android tablet, the Amazon Fire HD 10 (2023) is cheaper at $139. And the Fire HD 10 has some serious drawbacks like middling performance and Amazon’s poor app selection holding it back.

Like most tablets, the MotoPad’s $249 price tag doesn’t include a case or the Moto Pen Ultra ($99). So if you want to protect your tablet and get the most use out of its touchscreen display, you’ll need to invest at least another $100. But even then, you’re still saving compared to the iPad 11 and OnePlus Pad 3.

Ideal audio and display for a video binge

While the MotoPad does have a 3.5mm audio jack, if you’re just relaxing at home you likely don’t want to use headphones or earbuds. And that’s where the robust quad-speaker system comes in.

The MotoPad has speakers on both the top and bottom sides of the tablet which gives you great sound balance when held in landscape mode, however the speakers are powerful enough you can use the tablet as a set of portable speakers in either orientation. In fact, I found the most comfortable listening range was at about 20-30 percent rather than the tablet’s full volume.

That powerful audio combined with the MotoPad’s crisp LCD display, make it an ideal streaming companion for a movie night or Netflix binge session.

While not the most impressive display we’ve ever tested, the MotoPad’s LCD display does cover 112% of the sRGB color space, which is more than enough vibrancy for most content. And at 430-nits of average brightness, the MotoPad can cut through most indoor glare. Unfortunately, the MotoPad isn’t equipped with HDR, so it’s not the best option to binge the Battle of Winterfell during the final season of Game of Thrones, but most other shows and movies will play just fine on the MotoPad.

All-day battery life

Battery life is as key for a tablet as it is for a laptop, though most tablets haven’t come close to the 24-hour battery life mark the way some recent laptops have. However, you still want at least 8 hours of web surfing battery life on a tablet if you plan to use it for school or for work. And the MotoPad exceeds that threshold handily.

On our web surfing battery test, the MotoPad (2026) lasted a solid 10 hours and 31 minutes on Wi-Fi, while its battery life dropped down to 10 hours and 1 minute while using LTE data. The Apple iPad 11 lasted 11 hours and 25 minutes on WiFi, and the OnePlus Pad 3 lasted 16 hours and 21 minutes using its adaptive refresh rate setting. The Amazon Fire HD 10 (2023) lasted 12 hours and 39 minutes. While this does put the MotoPad at the bottom of the pack, it's still more than enough battery to last for an 8-hour work day or a full day of classes.

Motorola MotoPad: The downs

While the MotoPad’s general performance is nothing to write home about, the tablet’s graphics performance is the real let-down.

Middling performance

The MotoPad is on the below-average side of things in terms of performance. The MediaTek Dimensity 6300 is an 8-core, 6nm CPU so it’s not going to be as powerful as the iPad 11’s A16 processor or the OnePlus Pad 3’s Snapdragon 8 Elite. The iPad 11 gets nearly 3x the multicore performance of the MotoPad, while the OnePlus Pad 3 hits nearly 4x the performance on benchmarks like Geekbench 6 or Adobe Premiere Rush.

But the MotoPad does have enough computing power to handle web browsing, light research tasks, email management, and casual puzzle games. Which does make it a bit more powerful than the Amazon Fire HD 10, which can slow down when running more intensive tasks.

The MotoPad is just fine for your average day-to-day computing tasks, but it’s nothing special. And it’s not going to drastically speed up your work or school life.

Dismal graphics performance

Unfortunately for Motorola, gaming was part of the MotoPad’s marketing. The MotoPad’s integrated Arm Mali G-57 MC2 graphics card is great for puzzle games like Candy Crush or Block Blast which come pre-installed.Unfortunately, running any game more graphically intense than a puzzle game results in slowdowns, graphics stuttering, and unplayable frame-rates. This is particularly true with action titles like Genshin Impact or Fortnite. If I wasn’t intimately familiar with the controls of both games, I wouldn’t even be able to navigate the menus well enough to do any kind of combat, and even that was a struggle at under 30fps on the lowest possible graphics and resolution presets.

Granted, I wasn’t expecting much considering the MotoPad barely scraped past 7fps on the 3DMark Wild Life benchmark and was a 2fps slideshow on Wild Life Extreme. So if you want to do any kind of real gaming on the MotoPad, I would highly recommend downloading a game streaming app like Nvidia GeForce Now, because it’s the only way you’ll get decent performance.

Considering Motorola advertised the MotoPad for “casual gaming,” the grim graphics performance is more of a detriment than if gaming never even made it into the MotoPad’s marketing. While you could argue that Genshin and Fortnite are too intensive on mobile to be considered casual games, they are two of the most popular mobile titles on the market and are considered casual games by the gaming industry. Thus, calling the MotoPad’s casual performance abysmal feels earned.

Motorola MotoPad review: Verdict

The Motorola MotoPad (2026) is an ideal work or school companion, and it makes for a fantastic streaming experience thanks to its colorful display and powerful audio system. Its lightweight, bronze green chassis makes it easy to fit into a backpack or bag alongside your work or school laptop, but it also works as a standalone Android device if you just want to watch a few movies and maybe read a book while on vacation. That experience alone is worth praise, but at just $249, it’s an incredible bargain.

The only pitfall with the MotoPad is its underpowered GPU, but there are ways around that. Game streaming services like Nvidia GeForce Now are available on the Play Store, which will get you a much smoother gaming experience than the native GPU performance. Plus, tablets aren’t exactly a high-performance gaming device anyway.

If you thought Apple raising prices on Macs and iPads would be the end of it, you were sorely mistaken. The company has now raised AppleCare+ prices for various Macs and iPads, with prices rising by $0.50 cents a month, or $5 for those people on annual plans.

However, there is a caveat to this change. For starters, this will only affect new purchases, so those of you who are already paying for AppleCare+ won't suddenly be asked to pay more money. AppleCare One, which offers care for up to three devices, is similarly unaffected.

Bloomberg notes that the cost of covering a 13-inch MacBook Air has risen from $7.49 a month to $7.99 a month, while an annual plan is now $80 a year instead of the $75 you'd have paid last week. The price hikes are affecting all Mac, MacBook and iPad devices the same, but so far, all other Apple products seem to have escaped this particular form of inflation.

I wouldn't expect that to last long, though. As the cost of components goes up, so too will the cost of repairs. While there is no confirmation that AppleCare+ prices will go up for the likes of the iPhone or Apple Watch, odds are that it will happen in the near future. Especially if the iPhone 18 Pro prices increase this year, as they are widely expected to do.

In other words, if you have been putting off signing up for AppleCare+ and want to make sure your Apple devices are protected against damage, you might want to sign up as soon as possible. Although the damage is already done for Macs and iPads, so you folks have all the time in the world to mull over that decision.

Spreading out your iPad payments

AppleCare+ price hikes aren't the only financial changes happening at the App Store, either. Apple has just launched new 36-month carrier financing for cellular-capable iPads, which joins the existing 12-month interest-free financing option.

Like the 12-month finance option, this new 3-year payment plan is interest-free. However, it's provided by the carrier rather than Apple itself. However, you will need to sign up for a data plan, and so far, Apple is only offering this particular payment plan if you're connecting to AT&T or Verizon.

The carrier financing option is also available to existing customers "when connecting to a new line of service." You'll be taken through that process of setting up a new line before you check out, and obviously, this means you will be on the hook for monthly data payments. Though it doesn't make sense to buy a cellular iPad if you're not planning on getting a data plan too.

Considering how much the cost of some iPads has risen due to recent Apple price hikes, it makes sense for a longer interest-free payment plan to be available. For example, an 11-inch iPad Pro with cellular is now $1,399, which is $289 more than the original $1,110 price tag. It's a lot of money to spend on a tablet, but if you split the cost over three years, you end up paying just shy of $39 a month.

Of course, this means you are on the hook for paying that every single month for three years — regardless of how your life and circumstances might change. So there's a trade-off to those low monthly payments. But if you want an iPad Pro and plan on keeping it for the long term, it is a good way to avoid dropping several hundred dollars in one go.

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You already know about Microsoft’s desperate ploys to get you to use Edge on Windows 11 — chances are you’re one of the folks who have gone through the test of patience to install Firefox or Google Chrome.

Well, new research by Mozilla reveals that the Redmond crew are not only still up to their old tricks, but getting worse. All kinds of “harmful design” shenanigans are at play here, in order to “not allow people to download and install an alternative browser, to set it as their default, or to continue using it as their default, without harmful interference.”

If only we could only get the same treatment as Windows users get in the EU...

Staying desperate

So what did the research find? Well, Mozilla discovered that a lot of the shady tricks Microsoft was called out for in the past are still happening:

• Visual interference: Searching for different browsers to download in Edge still brings up the “All you need is right here” banner, as well as a banner promoting the browser when you go to Chrome’s download page.
• Default browser selection trickery: There is a button at the top of the default apps screen to change to a different browser, but not every file type is switched over.
• Trick wording: Things like “Use Microsoft’s recommended browser settings,” “You’re almost done setting up your PC” and more still persist.
• Dark patterns: In the setup screens you normally see a few days later, Edge-preferential options are shown as big blue buttons, whereas keeping the same settings is usually smaller, greyed-out text.

And that’s just a few of the many different harmful patterns Mozilla found — including Copilot opening links in Edge instead of your default browser, pre-selecting checkboxes to sync data to Edge, and resetting it as the default browser when you migrate from Windows 10 to 11.

Just make a better browser

It screams “inferiority complex” if I’m being real, which is a shame because Edge is indeed a good browser. It runs on the same Chromium engine as Chrome (to support all the same extensions), but also has some efficiencies built into it to not drain the battery as badly.

But this aggressive lock-in, some high RAM resource usage in the background and the clutter of Copilot and MSN news does make it falter. It’s not like Microsoft doesn't have a history of doing this — they were taken to court over an antitrust lawsuit in 1998 for bundling Internet Explorer with Windows and making it difficult to install a competing browser.

The only difference now is that users are committed enough to jump through those hoops to get to their favorite browsers. I mean “Google Chrome” is one of the most searched terms on Bing after all!

If you want to compete, build something better. Don’t go about it this way.

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• Dangerous new CrashStealer Mac impersonates Apple's own tools — and bypasses Gatekeeper — to steal your passwords and more

Look, we all enjoy falling down a YouTube rabbit hole or catching up on our favorite creators. What I hate is the feeling that the app is actively trying to hijack my brain while I do it.

I miss the old YouTube: the fun, slightly chaotic playground where you discovered genuinely cool stuff instead of being force-fed algorithmic slop. Today, the default experience has become an exhausting gauntlet of noisy thumbnail previews, addictive Shorts, and frictionless autoplay timers.

Google might want you passive and scrolling forever, but a quick two-minute interface tune-up is all it takes to strip away the traps, silence the chaos, and put you back in charge.

1. Stop the mindless Shorts scroll

The Shorts shelf is a relentless pipeline designed to catch you off guard, pulling you into an addictive, endless stream of short-form videos when you only meant to watch a single clip.

Because YouTube deliberately blocks you from deleting the Shorts tab entirely, you have to use the app's internal boundaries to break the loop. Setting your daily viewing limit to absolute zero creates a hard digital speed bump that snaps you out of a mindless scroll the second you slip up.

To build this circuit breaker, open the YouTube mobile app, tap your profile icon, hit the settings cog, and select the time management menu. From there, tap on the option for shorts feed limit and dial it down to zero minutes.

To clean up the rest of your homepage, navigate back to your main feed, scroll down to the shorts shelf, tap the three-dot menu in the upper corner of that section, and select the option to show fewer shorts.

2. Freeze the noisy feed previews

Few things are more irritating than trying to read a video title while the video itself silently starts playing, flashing captions and demanding your attention before you've even chosen to click.

Google calls this "playback in feeds," but in reality, it's just a data-hogging gimmick designed to trick your brain into constant stimulation. Turning it off immediately stops the ambient chaos and stops YouTube from secretly burning through your mobile data on videos you never asked to watch.

To kill it, tap your Profile icon, open the Settings menu, scroll down to Playback and tap it. Then look for Playback in feeds and switch it entirely to Off.

If you still want a slight compromise when you're at home, you can select Wi-Fi only, but turning it off completely is the only way to make your homepage truly static again.

3. Kill the automatic play loop

Autoplay is designed to take advantage of the fact that it is always easier to do nothing. Before you can even process the video you just finished, a countdown timer appears and shoves you straight into a loosely related clip you never asked for.

Forcing a hard stop at the end of a video breaks this endless chain, giving you a second to breathe and actually decide how you want to spend your time.

Fixing this is incredibly simple. Tap your Profile icon, open the Settings menu, Playback, then toggle off Autoplay next video.

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It is absolutely scorching outside, the AC is struggling, and all you want to do after a long day is zone out with a movie or play some games. Instead, you're staring at a spinning loading wheel.

Before you lose your temper, yell at your internet provider, or contemplate spending cash you don't have on a brand-new mesh system, take a close look at your router. With temperatures soaring, intense heat is putting massive pressure on our home hardware.

To find out how to keep our connections alive, I spoke to Max Beckett, a resident broadband comparison expert at Uswitch. Here are the simple mistakes you might be making with your router right now, and how to fix them for free.

Still crawling? It might be time to call your provider

If you've tried all of these free fixes and your connection is still dropping constantly, the heatwave might have simply exposed the fact that your hardware is ancient and needs replacing.

If your signal regularly drops, Beckett recommends running "a broadband speed test to check your performance. Older routers may struggle to keep up with modern household demands, so it’s worth checking with your provider whether you’re eligible for an upgrade."

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Even with one of the best MacBooks, you can never be too careful when downloading new apps. Case in point: a new malicious Mac app is posing as a legitimate Apple tool to steal passwords, keychain data and more from vulnerable systems.

As reported by BleepingComputer, the app in question serves as a means to infect vulnerable Apple computers with a new Mac info-stealer. While security researchers at Jamf first observed it back in May when it was still in development, this malware is now being actively used by cybercriminals in their attacks.

Dubbed CrashStealer, what makes this Mac malware strain so dangerous is the way in which it perfectly mimics Apple’s own macOS crash reports. Although something might seem off to more discerning users, others could easily fall for this attack given how much care and attention has gone into impersonating this legitimate tool.

Here’s everything you need to know about this new Mac malware and how you can keep your own MacBook and all the sensitive data it contains safe from hackers.

Impersonating a legitimate Apple utility

In their report, Jamf’s security researchers explain how the malware hides in plain sight by posing as a meeting platform called Werkbit. While they don’t go into details about the malware’s initial distribution method, a malicious app like this could be distributed via fake ads or on a developer-focused site like GitHub.

After downloading the app, it’s mounted on your desktop just like with any new software you download for your Mac. Surprisingly, though, the hackers behind this campaign are using a signed and Apple-notarized installer to distribute their fake app. Not only does this add a sense of legitimacy to the app but it also allows it to bypass Apple’s built-in Gatekeeper security feature without any warnings whatsoever.

When launched for the first time, the app displays a fake macOS password prompt that looks strikingly similar to what you’d see when downloading new software manually as opposed to through the Mac App Store. Once a victim puts in the password for their Mac, the hackers then have everything they need to unlock their Apple Keychain which acts as macOS’ encrypted password vault and contains all sorts of sensitive info like saved credentials in Safari, app passwords, Wi-Fi passwords and more.

The CrashStealer malware isn’t just limited to stealing from your Keychain though. It can also steal browser credentials and cookies from Chrome and other Chromium-based browsers as well as Firefox. Likewise, it can steal data from 80 different crypto wallet extensions and 14 of the best password managers including 1Password, LastPass, Dashlane and more.

To get all of this stolen data off your Mac, the malware encrypts it before packaging it into hidden ZIP archives and uploading it to a hacker-controlled C&C server.

By using a signed and notarized dropper and a re-signed payload, CrashStealer is a sophisticated Mac malware that’s especially good at avoiding detection.

How to stay safe from Mac malware

If you’re worried about CrashStealer and other Mac malware, the first thing you should do is to avoid sideloading apps, or in this case, installing new apps from anywhere besides the Mac App Store.

Just like on one of the best Android smartphones, when you download new apps from websites instead of an official app store, you’re putting your devices and the data they contain at risk. Apps submitted to the Mac App Store go through rigorous security checks while those you download from a random website don’t.

Normally when you download an unverified app from the web, macOS’s built-in Gatekeeper security feature will block it or warn you before you install it. In this case, though, that doesn’t happen since the installer used in this campaign is signed and appears to be legitimate. Well, at least in Gatekeeper’s eyes.

While Gatekeeper can keep you safe from most threats, there are ones like this that manage to bypass its defenses. For this reason, you might want to consider using one of the best Mac antivirus software solutions alongside Apple’s built-in ones. That way, if something slips past Apple, your third-party antivirus software will be able to stop the threat before it can do serious damage.

Since CrashStealer is still a relatively new Mac malware, this likely won’t be the last time we see it. This is why you always need to be extra careful when downloading and installing new software onto your Apple computer.

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The big three memory makers told us RAMpocalypse was the unavoidable side effect of the AI revolution. But with one massive report from the Bank of America, that main alibi may have just gone up in flames.

So context, the AI Tax on tech has been insane recently with prices going up by an astronomical 700%, and the big three memory makers (Samsung, SK Hynix and Micron) have made serious cash off as the oligopoly that controls around 90% of the global DRAM market.

They claim that the reason prices are skyrocketing is because the demand for high-bandwidth memory (HBM) for AI data centers is so massive, that consumer RAM supplies are naturally drying up. In response, a massive class-action lawsuit in California is calling their bluff and accusing them of price fixing.

For these memory makers, the defense should be a simple one: “we aren’t fixing prices, and we’re building new fabs as fast as we can!” You’ve heard a lot of this over the past few months about plans to open new plants to make more memory. BUT, a bombshell new report has potentially demolished that defense.

How this alibi collapses

According to a South Korean news outlet, a Bank of America report just dismantled the promises of doubled memory production capacity by 2030 — with SK Hynix only likely to bring about one-sixth of its planned new memory capacity online by 2028. Here’s why:

• Timeline: Setting up the advanced infrastructure needed for these plants is going to take upwards of a decade.
• Process upgrades: At the same time as it's building new plants, the manufacturing technology needs to be updated in older ones, which impacts output.

In late June, South Korean President Lee Jae-myung made the claim that production capacity will be doubled by 2030, which sounds great on paper. However, Bank of America's estimates claim this figure misses out the closure of older plants, and that doubling claim is way too optimistic.

For the plaintiffs in the lawsuit, this is going to be a juicy piece of circumstantial evidence. If it can be proven that SK Hynix is moving in slow-motion and severely under-delivering on its capacity promises, that narrative of “doing everything they can” to meet consumer demand is dismantled.

Instead, it strongly supports the core allegation: they’re happy to keep supply choked and prices inflated permanently.

They’re not reading the room

Adding insult to injury, the CEO of SK Hynix recently warned that 2027 will be the "worst year" for the memory shortage, and predicted the crunch will last until 2030. But if one thing is clear, consumers are not buying this spin anymore. “That CEO was probably struggling so hard not to look too happy as he gave this “grim outlook”,” one user posted on the PC Master Race Subreddit.

Across Reddit, the reaction has shifted from passive frustration to absolute cynicism, with calls to “prosecute the memory cartel again” ringing out across r/technology. The overarching sentiment? I knew we weren’t crazy.

The playbook is painfully familiar. Samsung and SK Hynix previously pleaded guilty to a massive DRAM price-fixing operation in 2005. Now, facing a historic lawsuit over the exact same behavior, it feels like they’re trying to hide behind the AI boom.

But with this latest report saying their shiny new fabs won’t save us anytime soon, the curtain has been pulled back. The AI memory shortage isn’t a tragic tech accident; it’s looking more and more like a highly profitable, coordinated choice. And we are all footing the bill.

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Apple is expected to launch iPadOS 27 this Fall, but you can try the upcoming operating system right now via the public beta. While the OS is still a work in progress, it has most of the essential new features coming to the best iPads.

Like iOS 27 and macOS 27, iPadOS 27 is focused on overall system refinements and deeper AI integration. That last bit is especially noteworthy, as there is now a dedicated Siri AI app that functions like a standard chatbot. Beyond answering questions, Siri AI can also take actions on your behalf since it’s integrated into the operating system and works with Apple’s applications.

Though iPadOS 27 isn’t a monumental update, features like the overhauled Siri AI, the Liquid Glass slider, and other quality-of-life improvements make it worthwhile. Here are my impressions of the upcoming iPad operating system and its new features.

iPadOS 27 hands-on preview: Compatible iPads

Here are all the iPads that support iPadOS 27.

• iPad Pro (M4 and later)
• iPad Pro 12.9‑inch (4th generation and later)
• iPad Pro 11‑inch (2nd generation and later)
• iPad Air 13-inch (M2 and later)
• iPad Air 11-inch (M2, M3, and M4)
• iPad Air 11-inch (4th generation and later)
• iPad (A16)
• iPad (9th generation and later)
• iPad mini (A17 Pro)
• iPad mini (6th generation)

iPadOS 27 hands-on preview: New features

Siri AI

Apple Intelligence is finally ready for prime time on the company’s devices. Thanks to the new Siri AI app, you can now interact with Apple’s virtual assistant the same way you would with a chatbot like ChatGPT or Google Gemini. Apple Intelligence runs on both servers and your device to offer better image understanding and more.

There is now a dedicated Siri AI app, which looks and functions like a regular chatbot app. In this window, you can ask Siri questions or have it perform tasks for you. For example, I used Siri to send a message to one of my iMessage group chats, and it did so after my approval. Sure, I could have just done this directly in the group chat, but it’s a good demonstration of what the new Siri can do.

Siri AI also understands what it sees on your screen. When I had the Tom’s Guide homepage open on Google Chrome, it correctly detailed what was on the screen, including all the articles. It couldn’t open the articles or read them out loud (despite saying it could), but given that I’m testing a beta version, I’ll give it an A for effort, even if it failed to complete the task.

Siri is most useful when you’re using Apple’s own apps and programs. It can create events on your calendar, set reminders, play music, and more. For example, when you’re looking at a schedule, you’ll see an “add to calendar” button pop up. When you right-click certain folders, files, or apps, you’ll see an “Ask Siri” option at the bottom. Selecting this will open a window where you can start texting or talking with Siri.

Though Siri can’t yet interact with most third-party applications (such as those from Google), it’s a huge improvement over the old Siri.

Liquid Glass improvements

Liquid Glass hasn’t gone anywhere, as Apple is leaning more into the UI with its latest operating system updates. However, Apple is now giving you greater control over how it looks thanks to a new slider that adjusts the opacity. You can’t eliminate the Liquid Glass look, but you can severely minimize it.

There are other improvements, such as how complex background visuals now appear more diffuse so that text stands out more. You’ll also notice that the edges of icons are more pronounced to help further separate them from the background. The uniform corner radius of all app windows also helps them stand out more.

Even if Liquid Glass hasn’t gone anywhere, even detractors should find the updates tolerable since they do greatly improve overall readability and visibility. The Liquid Glass slider is a nice touch.

I've never had a problem with Liquid Glass because I think it’s an interesting visual effect. That said, I’m glad that folks can now fine-tune it to their liking. The slider is especially neat because it’s easy to use and makes it clear how much of a difference there is when you go from one extreme to the other.

Child safety features

If you’re a parent, you’ll be happy to know that Apple is expanding its parental control features with iPadOS 27. This way, you can let the kiddo use Apple’s tablet without worrying too much about the kind of content they’re watching and for how long they’re using the slate.

Some of these updates include a redesigned and more intuitive Screen Time Dashboard that offers one-tap controls and expanded safeguards. There is also Time Allowances for app categories, Ask to Browsw website approval, Communication Safety that blurs gore or violence, and one-tap access management. You can tailor these features to suit your child.

I don’t have kids but I did find the child safety features simple enough to use and customize. Given how much kids love iPads, it’s smart for Apple to continue making adjustments to these safety features.

iPadOS 27 hands-on preview: Other features

Spatial Reframing: As the name suggests, you can now reframe a photo after it’s been taken thanks to this feature. You can also expand your shots with the Extend Tool and remove objects with the Clean Up tool.

Upgraded Image Playground: Image Playground can now generate higher quality images than before. You can also modify and transform existing images by describing what you want.

Siri in Notes: Siri AI can assist with your handwritten or typed notes in the Notes app by (for example) organizing bullet points into a formatted agenda or turning handwritten lectures into a detailed study guide.

Safari updates: In Safari, tabs can now be automatically grouped by topic to make related pages easier to find. With Safari Notify Me, you can receive an alert if there’s a price change or a restock for an item you’ve been eyeing.

Describe Shortcuts: Instead of manually building complex workflows, you can now describe what you need, and Shortcuts connects actions across multiple apps to make it happen. This is useful if you want to set specific routines, such as launching a specific app when you connect a peripheral.

iPadOS 27 hands-on preview: Outlook

iPadOS 27 won’t set the world on fire with revolutionary new features, but the upgraded Siri AI and deeper Apple Intelligence integrations help make iPads that support the update more useful. This is especially true if you frequently use Apple’s own apps.

Keeping in mind that iPadOS 27 is still a work in progress, I think it’s a smart update that finally sees Apple’s AI ambitions bear fruit. Things could change between now and when the expected Fall launch, but right now, Apple has delivered on its promises for a more helpful and intuitive iPad experience.

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You don’t have to wait to try iPadOS 27, as you can try it out now via the public beta. Even if this version of the operating system isn’t groundbreaking, its emphasis on AI should make for a more personal and customized experience.

As with iOS 27 and macOS Golden Gate, the main attraction is the reinvented Siri, which finally lives up to its potential. Siri AI, as it’s now called, is context-aware and understands what’s on your screen. Because it’s built into the OS, it can directly control and manage apps. There are also new child safety features, improved readability for Liquid Glass, new photo-editing tools, and more.

While public betas are generally safer than developer betas, it’s best to proceed with caution, as there may be bugs that could harm your iPad. If you’re not bothered by that (I’ve never had issues in all my years of running these Apple betas), then here’s how to download the iPadOS 27 public beta.

How to download the iPadOS 27 public beta

Before you install the beta, make sure to back up your iPad, just in case anything goes wrong and you need to return to iPadOS 26.

You’ll then need to enroll in the Apple Beta Software Program. You may already be enrolled from prior years, but if not, visit the sign-up page to get the ball rolling. You’ll need to log in with your name and address, then set your entity type as an individual. When the payment screen appears, back out, and you’ll be on the free developer tier.

Here is the full list of iPads that are compatible with iPadOS 27:

• iPad Pro (M4 and later)
• iPad Pro 12.9‑inch (4th generation and later)
• iPad Pro 11‑inch (2nd generation and later)
• iPad Air 13-inch (M2 and later)
• iPad Air 11-inch (M2, M3, and M4)
• iPad Air 11-inch (4th generation and later)
• iPad (A16)
• iPad (9th generation and later)
• iPad mini (A17 Pro)
• iPad mini (6th generation)

And that's how you download the iPadOS 27 public beta! You should be safe using the beta, but if you don’t want to risk it, you can always wait for the full release this Fall.

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The macOS Golden Gate public beta is now live, giving you a chance to check out all the new features coming to the best MacBooks.

Expected to launch this Fall, macOS Golden Gate primarily focuses on updating Apple Intelligence and Siri, with the latter now officially called Siri AI. You don’t get many new features, but improvements to Liquid Glass’s readability, easier customization, and smoother performance make for an overall better experience.

While Apple’s public betas are generally more stable than the developer builds, it might still be buggy and could cause issues for your Mac. I’ve never experienced serious issues using any of these betas over the years, but it’s worth being cautious. With that said, here’s how to download the macOS Golden Gate public beta.

How to download the macOS Golden Gate developer beta

Downloading the macOS Golden Gate public beta is pretty simple. First, enroll your Apple ID in Apple's Beta Program and make sure your Mac is compatible. Here's the full list of Macs that can install and run macOS Golden Gate:

• MacBook Neo (2026)
• MacBook Air with Apple silicon (2020 and later)
• MacBook Pro with Apple silicon (2020 and later)
• iMac with Apple silicon (2021 and later)
• Mac mini with Apple silicon (2020 and later)
• Mac Studio with Apple silicon (2022 and later)
• Mac Pro with Apple silicon (2023 and later)

That’s all that’s required to download the macOS Golden Gate public beta. Your Mac will restart once the download finishes. After that, you can start trying out all the new features. Depending on your connection speed, the download might take a few minutes, so be patient.

More from Tom's Guide

• I just downloaded macOS 27 public beta — skip Siri AI and try these 5 hidden features instead
• Haptic vs. Mechanical trackpads: I put them both through a gauntlet, and one almost made me throw my laptop into the sun
• Exclusive: I asked Lenovo’s GM to predict the future of monitors, and it's the end of our chaotic, cable-cluttered desks and monitors that fry your retinas