#battery-life

#battery-life

I consume a firehose of online content every day as part of my job. At some point in the last week, through a post, comment, or video I can no longer remember, I became aware of a shortcut for tinkering with the brightness on my Switch 2. Turns out this existed on the original Switch as well. All you have to do his hold down the home button to instantly bring up the slider. Eureka!

Look, I love my iPhone 16 Pro Max as much as anyone else. It's top of its class. But that doesn't mean there aren't other great options out there, especially if you're looking for something, well, different. Like, say, a bendable masterpiece that transforms you into a productivity powerhouse. Yes, I'm talking about a foldable phone. Specifically, I'm talking about Samsung's Galaxy Z Fold 7 that I'm tempted to make my main phone.

You could certainly peruse our list of the best travel mugs, which is packed with fancy double-walled, vacuum-insulated options, but if you constantly have icy hands, you might consider scooping up the Ember Travel Mug 2+, which has an actual heater inside. It's currently marked down by $40 at Best Buy, bringing the price down to just $160. While I did spot the reduced price at Amazon as well, at publication time the shipping date was a range of November 9-30.

The Aura Ink uses a 13.3-inch E Ink Spectra 6 panel and is designed to live on your wall for months at a time before it needs a recharge. I've been testing one for the past week on my own wall, where it has mostly displayed family photos that were otherwise relegated to Google Photos albums, and that has been genuinely delightful.

Maybe I'm just too much of an audio snob to fully enjoy a portability-focused speaker, but sometimes bigger is better in the audio space, and with speakers, that's partly just a matter of physics. Bigger speakers move more air, which in turn equates to more bass, higher volume, and often, less distortion. Nevertheless, you're not going to catch me walking around with a car-sized boombox any time soon, which means some level of compromise in the audio department is always inevitable.

Fit: If you're going to be wearing these for anywhere from 30 minutes to four hours, you are going to want them to be comfortable. If you take them out and your ears are sore or itchy, that's not going to fun. They can't be sliding out of your ears, either. You also have to take into account what style you preferif you like ear hooks or a headband for the extra stability.

Since the brand calls these "true wireless noise canceling earbuds," the ANC mode is the main selling point, and it does a great job at blocking all external noise to give you an immersive listening experience. This mode is great for when you want to disconnect from the world for a while and dive deep into whatever is playing. It could be your favorite song or a Lo-Fi playlist to help you study while tuning everything else out.

Apple just unveiled the first glimpses of its new 14-inch MacBook Pro with the , promising 3.5 times more AI performance, 24 hours of battery life, and faster, overall storage: up to 4TB. AI is at the forefront of the M5 MacBook Pro's feature set, with the latest-gen GPU bringing an enhanced neural engine and higher memory bandwidth to the table, translating to overall better performance running on-device LLMs. To compare, Apple says the M5's 10-core GPU delivers six times faster AI performance than the M1.

It features a 10-core CPU with 4x performance units and 6x efficiency units, alongside an all-new 10-core GPU that includes a Neural Accelerator in each core. Apple claims 3.5x faster performance for AI workflows, compared to the M4 model and a 6x jump from the M1 generation. The M5 gets a 16-core Neural Engine and a 20% jump in multithreaded performance. The new chip also features a 30% jump in memory bandwidth, which now comes in at 153GB/s.

Once you've set the equalizer, they start to really shine, with a bigger, more boomy sound that I haven't found on similarly-priced headset. There's an available richness that's really impressive, and you can hear it when you flick the EQ on and off in the app. With the preset profiles applied, games really come to life, with the right pings and pops of action games cutting through, and music in cinematic games swelling dramatically. There are EQ profiles for most games;

Most premium headphones feature gyroscopes or motion detection systems that enable their wear detection capabilities. Wear detection pauses audio content when the headphones detect that you've removed them from your head, and resumes content when you put them back on. Apple's AirPods Max and Bose's QC Ultra 2 perform this feature best by pausing content when you remove the headphones and disconnecting them from your phone's Bluetooth.

That's why I was excited to review the Lenovo Yoga Pro 9i 16, one of the few Windows laptops out there that at least attempts to rival the 16-inch MacBook Pro. With a powerful CPU and discrete RTX 5050 (or up to an RTX 5060), the Yoga Pro 9i 16 has the specs to compete as one of the best laptops, even if the lackluster battery life ultimately holds it back.

Kyle Kucharski/ZDNET Editor's Note: If you don't see the discounted price, make sure you're logged into Amazon and manually click the "Snapdragon X Elite" icon and 16GB configuration. When I reviewed Microsoft's Surface Laptop with the Snapdragon X Elite chip last summer, I was impressed with its snappy performance, fantastic battery life, and overall positive user experience, while noting that it was on the pricey side.

I found myself downloading more e-books from my public library and reading a wider variety of novels because of how easy it was to rent them through Libby and read them while I sat on the subway or passed the time in the waiting room of doctor's appointments. The Kindle actually fits in my coat pocket, which is nearly miraculous for a woman given how small women's pockets are.

I put it best in my review: The Google Pixel 9a skips the flashy features, but nails the essentials -- a reliable formula for lasting appeal. If you're on the market for a new phone, especially one that's somehow both affordable and will likely hold up well over the coming years, I'd put the Pixel 9a above competing models from Samsung, OnePlus, and Motorola.

If you know someone who always has the perfect playlist queued up, the Ultimate Ears Wonderboom 4 makes for a solid gift. It's easy to bring to the beach or take with you on a short weekend jaunt, and it produces surprisingly robust sound despite its pint-sized stature. Thankfully, it's also once again on sale at Amazon and Best Buy for $66.49 (about $32 off) as part of Prime Big Deal Days, dropping it to its second-best price of the year.

Android users: rejoice. If you've been keeping an eye out for Oura Ring deals but have found yourself unlucky and discount-less, I've got a great alternative wrapped around my finger. might not have as many bells and whistles as the Oura Ring, but it's still one of the most competitive smart rings you can buy. The best part? There's no subscription attached to this ring -- unlike Oura, who paywalls your data behind a $70 annual membership.

If you're in the market for a cheap Android device, it currently doesn't get any better than the Pixel 9A. The budget-friendly handset offers a 6.3-inch OLED screen that's noticeably brighter than its predecessor, making it easier to see in direct sunlight. It also now carries a robust IP68 rating, so you don't have to panic over dropping it in water or dirt. And while its wireless charging isn't the fastest at up to 7.5W, it's a feature you don't always see at this price point.

Portable Bluetooth speakers solve a simple problem: you want decent sound without lugging around something heavy or worrying about where you'll use it. The J BL Go 3 nails this balance by packing legitimate audio quality into a speaker that fits in your hand. At its regular $39 price, it's already reasonable. But right now, Amazon's Prime Big Deal Day flash sale has dropped it to $24 for the first day only, and the deal expires tonight.

When Apple's M4 processor came to the MacBook Pro laptop line, we noted how it improved upon the already powerful M3 Pro and M3 Max with smooth performance, a more efficient battery, and a new Thunderbolt 5 port for blazing-fast data transfer speeds. One of the best things about the new M4 MacBook Pro is that it starts at the same price as last year's M3, making it that much easier to consider.

As someone who's barely 5 feet tall with relatively small hands, if I felt this much discomfort, I can't imagine what someone bigger than me might experience. Unsurprisingly, my partner could barely get his index and middle fingers in the sleeves. We tried stretching the silicone, but that didn't help our cause. Frankly, it'd be more comfortable to tie the vibrators to my fingers than try to deal with the sleeves again.

CMF, the budget-focused sub-brand that Nothing plans to spin off into a standalone subsidiary, has launched its first pair of over-ear wireless headphones. The CMF Headphone Pro borrows features like a multi-function roller control from Nothing's Headphone 1 that debuted in July, but while Nothing's over-ears feature a polarizing boxy design, CMF's go hard on the soft curves with round earcups, cushions, and a well-padded headband.

Previously known as HP's 600 series, the EliteBook 6 G1 lineup is available in multiple RAM and memory configurations, a lightweight form factor, and either an AMD, Intel, or Qualcomm processor; a highly customizable laptop for a wide range of users. Also: I tested HP's first-gen EliteBook X, and it's a powerhouse at the office (and $500 off) I went hands-on with the EliteBook G1q (q for Qualcomm), which has the Snapdragon X Plus chip, 32GB of RAM, and a 512GB PCIe NVMe SSD.

Microsoft is perhaps best known for its Surface Pro tablets which compete directly with the iPad Pro but its Surface laptop line has been the best way to experience Windows at its finest. If what you need is a thin, light notebook with full Windows 11, current AI-capable Copilot capabilities and good performance, this is an extremely tempting option. The most affordable model with Qualcomm's Snapdragon X Plus processor and 256GB storage has now hit an all-time low cost on Amazon: