With your Fitbit purchased and charged up, you can simply place it by your phone, then open the Fitbit app for Android or iOS, and you should see a prompt to connect the device—provided Bluetooth is enabled on your phone. All of your physical activities will then start to be logged and synced automatically to the app.
Track Your Sleep
You don’t need to press a button or turn on a toggle switch for your Fitbit device to start logging your sleep; it does so automatically once it recognizes your body is going into sleep mode. It’ll record naps of an hour or longer, too. In a sense, all you have to do to track your sleep with a Fitbit is to wear it.
There’s a little bit more to know about it. Your Fitbit will be smart enough to detect restless sleep through the way your body’s moving, and if your wearable has a heart rate monitor built in, it knows what to look for to tell the difference between light, deep, and REM sleep. (There’s more on this on Google’s website.) When your Fitbit feels you moving in ways that wouldn’t be possible if you were asleep, the sleep logging is stopped.
Your sleep stats appear on the Today tab, and you can edit settings.
Photograph: David Nield
Open up the Today tab in the Fitbit app to see the sleep you logged last night, in hours and minutes. If you tap on the sleep card, you can see your stats going back over time, for several months or even a year. You’re able to toggle between Hours slept and Sleep schedule using the buttons under the charts.
If your device has a heart rate monitor, which all but the oldest Fitbits do, you get a sleep score as well: This weighs several factors, like the amount of moving you did during the night and the amount of deep sleep you got, to give you a number up to 100. The higher this is, the better you’re doing in terms of sleep.
Keep tapping through on the stats to see more details—which times of night you were in deep or light sleep, for example. If you’re a Fitbit Premium subscriber, you get a Sleep Profile reading too: This uses various sleep metrics to tell you about trends in your sleep patterns, and how they compare to other people of your age and gender.
Notes are nested inside custom category tabs; think color-coded tags in a three-ring binder. You can attach specific notes to meetings via Outlook and prioritize them using urgency tags of various levels. If you’re looking for a “professional” notes app, OneNote is a great option.
Plus, if you have a subscription to Microsoft 365 on the desktop, you can then take advantage of Microsoft’s Copilot AI integration in OneNote. The AI helper can create summaries and to-do lists, collate information from various sources, or just rewrite your notes to make them more clear and coherent.
Apple Notes
Photograph: Apple
If you use an iPhone, then Apple Notes is an obvious choice. It comes installed on your phone, and, like Google Keep, it excels in its simplicity. While there are more advanced features, like the ability to add attachments and to clip text and images from the web, they don’t clutter things up.
Organization is also superb if you take the time to set up category folders and nest subfolders inside them. If you’ve already gotten used to Apple Notes, there’s nothing wrong with sticking with it. Oh yes, and if you’re feeling adventurous, you can dictate notes to Siri—it’s not as knowledgeable as the other AI-powered assistants out there, but it transcribes speech pretty well.
Bear
Photograph: Bear
Meet Apple Notes’ more refined cousin. Bear notes offer a bevy of styling options that allow you to change themes, adjust formatting, and play with the typography of your notes. (It is available on iPhones, iPads, and Mac computers only.) Functionally, Bear works the same as any of the other apps on this list, albeit with a lot more flair. It packages all its features in a warm, cozy style that won Apple’s design award in 2017.
One of Bear’s most helpful features is the ability to link notes together via tags. Just tag your thoughts with the appropriate category (work, wedding, books to read) as you jot them down, and Bear will sort them into their proper folders. If it feels like your thoughts come from all over the place, or if you’re bad at keeping things organized in folders, this can be a great way to keep your digital life in order.
Bear got a big version 2 update last year, which was a labor of love that gave it a bunch of new features. The updated app is better at organizing tables, has the ability to add footnotes, and offers better in-note search. It’s all wrapped in a more pleasant design too.
Bear is a free app, but a Pro version costs $30 per year and offers additional features like custom themes, the ability to sync with iCloud, and the option to export notes in more formats like PDF and HTML.
Evernote
Sorry to say, but we can’t recommend Evernote anymore. Once the most innovative of the cloud-based notes apps, Evernote has since evolved into a sad shadow of itself. The app now is a cluttered mess that has jammed together just about every feature imaginable: group chat, photo transcription, web clipping, and integration with other online services. As a result, it’s much more cumbersome to use than the others on this list when you just want to jot down a simple idea. We were also turned off by the sheer volume of pop-up ads that appear over and over to prompt you to subscribe to Evernote’s $130 per year premium tier. (Evernote’s current new parent company, Bending Spoons, laid off its entire US workforce last year.)
Unfortunately, lots of people still use Evernote, and probably feel locked into its now-degraded ecosystem. It may be hard to make that switch to a new app, but if you’d like to, it’s possible to remove your notes from Evernote. Sadly, exporting your stuff off the app has become almost as cumbersome as using the app itself. Still, if you plan to make the switch, here’s how to do it:
Bass is foundational. A dedicated speaker capable of reproducing convincing bass and sub-bass not only makes music and films feel more authentic, but can even improve the detail and dynamics of the higher registers by freeing up sonic space below. So attempting to jam a real subwoofer into a handheld speaker is by no means a crazy idea—it’s just crazy difficult.
That’s what makes the Brane X so impressive. Over the years, I’ve heard lofty claims about low-extension “woofers” in virtually every kind of compact speaker, but the Brane X is the first to hit all the notes literally. It does so with a specialized RAD (Repel Attract Driver) that seems to perform physics-defying magic from within the speaker’s stout frame. That’s matched by multiple high-frequency drivers above for clear and surprisingly expansive performance across registers.
To land this kind of breakthrough bass in a package you can take virtually anywhere, Brane charges a fee that will make most casual buyers spit up their beverages. But if your budget is negotiable, the Brane X is a fabulous wireless speaker that comes as close as I’ve heard to putting a full home audio system in a pint-sized box.
Surreal Sound
Do you listen to music with percussion or drums? Bass guitar, synth, or strings? If so, you’ll benefit from what the Brane X can do. What’s most notable about the speaker’s potent punch isn’t how much bass it pumps out, but the kind and quality. This is pure, full, and unadulterated low-frequency performance from the source.
Photograph: Ryan Waniata
As you might guess, the Brane X is most viscerally impressive when hammering hip hop and electronic grooves, where the kick hits with clean authority well below 50 Hz, without overpowering the other instruments. Yet, listening through my catalog, it became increasingly clear that the RAD subwoofer’s pointed touch is just as impressive when more subtly deployed.
The haunting vocal and guitar intro in Springsteen’s “The Ghost of Tom Joad” sounds clear and airy, as you’d expect from a quality portable. Then the bass guitar kicks in, and everything is elevated. The rich natural tone the Brane X reproduces adds depth and gravity to the song, bringing its full emotional poignancy to life.
I didn’t have a suitable portable that could stand up to the Brane X, so I called in some of my favorite homebound Wi-Fi speakers, including the Sonos Era 100 (9/10, WIRED Recommends) and Era 300 (9/10, WIRED Recommends). Even the thrilling 300, which serves up impressive bass in its own right, couldn’t match the Brane in the heaviest tracks, sketching out more of an impression of the lowest tones than the full monty.
Brane says its Repel Attract Driver can deliver this kind of authenticity by using a special magnet and spring system to cancel the “internal air pressure forces” that hinder other speakers. This results in a claimed “tenfold increase in sub-bass sound and a hundredfold increase in sub-bass efficiency.” It sounds like so much techno mumbo jumbo out there, but with the Brane X, you can actually hear it working, and not just from the performance. Tapping the power key evokes little whirring sounds, apparently adjusting its complex internal mechanism ahead of playback.
Fujifilm’s New Instax Mini 99 is an Instax camera for those who love manual controls and creative effects. It’s not the sharpest Instax I’ve tested—that remains the Mini Evo—but it might be the most analog and the most capable.
The $200 price tag is well above the entry-level point-and-shoot Instax cameras, but here you get exposure and shutter control, a swatch of color effects, and even the ability to simulate light leaks, like the ones you get with those thrift store cameras collecting dust on your shelf.
Manual Power
Except for the colorful and bubbly entry-level cameras, Fujifilm’s Instax design usually tends toward a retro-camera vibe, which holds true for the Mini 99. The 99 is all-black instead of the silver and black found in the Mini 90, but otherwise bears more than a passing resemblance to the older model. Fujifilm hasn’t officially said the 99 replaces the 90, but they feel close enough to each other that I’d be surprised if the Mini 90 continues for long.
Photograph: Scott Gilbertson
The lens of the Mini 99 is the same as the Mini 90. It’s a 60-mm lens made of plastic. It works out to roughly the same field of view as a 35-mm lens in 35-mm format (or if you prefer, somewhere between 1x and 2x on your iPhone). The shutter is fixed at f/12.7, which means you’ll be relying on the flash in all but bright, sunny, outdoor shots. That said, unlike quite a few other Instax models, with the Mini 99 you can turn off the flash for those well-lit shots.
Perhaps the most interesting part of the Mini 99, and something new for the Instax line, are the manual focus options. The Mini 99 does not have true manual focus where you turn a dial on the lens to get precise focus. Instead there are three zones of focus: close up (0.3 to 0.6 meters), midrange (0.6 to 3 meters), and infinity (3 meters to infinity). For those not metric-savvy, that works out to 1 to 2 feet, 2 to 10 feet, and 10 feet to infinity. While that’s not as precise as a true manual focus camera, it’s more control than you typically get with Instax.
I find the manual focus to be a little inconsistent—or rather, the results were less dramatic than I expected. Keep in mind that the aperture is f/12.7, which means the plane of focus will be pretty wide, even with the focus zone controls. The Mini 99 is capable of bokeh (the name for out-of-focus regions in a photo), but only in very specific situations like a portrait, and even then you have to use the closest focus, which means your subject’s face will mostly fill the frame anyway. That said, being able to play with focus at all is a step up from most Instax cameras, where focus is fixed, and the 1-foot close focus distance of the Mini 99 is nice for macro-style shots. Unlike some Instax cameras, there is parallax correction in the viewfinder so that what you see in the frame is very close to what you get.
The webcams with the XPS 14 and 16 are surprisingly good, better than most other built-in web cams I’ve tested this year.
Photograph: Scott Gilbertson
Pretty Pricey
Dell is selling a number of configurations between these two sizes, but I absolutely do not recommend the base model. The problem with the base model is the screen, which is a 1920 x 1200 screen. At 14 inches, that works out to a pixels per inch (PPI) of 154. While I have not used this model, I have spent plenty of time testing similar specced screens, and you should never pay 1,700 for a laptop with 154 PPI screen (for comparison, a 14-inch Macbook Pro has a PPI of 254). Worse, the 16-inch base model also ships with a 1920 x 1200 screen, which is a PPI so low that frankly it should only be in cheap laptops under $500.
Just don’t buy the base model, mmmkay?
The models I tested both had the gorgeous 3200 x 2000 OLED screens, which are things of beauty, but do bring the base price of both models up by $300. That puts the price of the minimum config I would recommend at $2,000 for the XPS 14, and $2,200 for the XPS 16. Keep in mind that that price only gets you 16 gigabytes of RAM, no dedicated graphics, and a 512 GB SSD. While you can always add your own SSD, the RAM is not upgradable.
Adding the Nvidia GeForce RTX 4050 bumps the price of the 14-inch model to $2,400. This is the config I tested, and frankly performance was wanting in demanding tasks.
Performance Problems
I was surprised by the benchmarks I got from the XPS 14 with the RTX 4050, but not in a good way. My results were notably lower than other laptops using the same chip, particularly in Geekbench, which measures graphics performance. After looking up some specs and puzzling through the test results, I’ve come to the conclusion that Dell is underpowering the RTX 4050 graphics. The XPS 14 only gives the RTX 4050 40 watts, which is just above the bare minimum of 30 watts that Nvidia recommends. On one hand that keeps down heat, which means the fans spin up less and the battery lasts longer. Indeed, the fans on the XPS 14 and 16 ran less than other laptops I’ve been testing, at least until I started doing more demanding things like editing video.
The cost of that efficacy, though, is performance. The XPS 14 performed roughly on par with similarly specced Windows laptops we’ve tested this spring, and is very snappy for average tasks like browsing the web or editing documents, neither of which ever caused the fans to spin or the laptops to get warm. The bad news is that if you want a video editing workstation, the XPS 14 is not the answer.
It’s hard not to smile while unboxing Crave’s latest semi-incognito sex toy, the Tease Ring. The small, textured black box bears the company’s name on the lid in silver gilt letters like a formal invitation to a ball. Inside, the ring rests on a soft pillow of felt-textured foam, and against the black background, the Tease’s gold chrome finish glints and glimmers in the light, promising a luxurious, top-shelf experience.
This is from the same company that makes the Vesper, a stylish vibrator that doubles as a bold necklace. That’s why I was excited to try this new sex toy, which goes on your finger, but unfortunately, as I learned during testing, the Tease Ring can’t live up to its promise of luxury.
A Poor Tease
The Tease invites you to imagine, selling you on its vibe as much as its vibrations. It conjures up images of flirtatious strangers in neon-soaked nightclubs, leaning in close to be heard over the thumping bass. The night is full of endless possibilities and carefree, reckless joy. No matter where the night takes you, you’ll have your Tease Ring on your finger, an intimate secret you wear openly—and maybe share.
Photograph: Crave
It’s a lovely fantasy. In reality, the silicone ring popped off my finger almost as soon as I put it on, rolling away to parts unknown. Fulfilling my destiny as an audacious sexual libertine would have to wait; I was too busy reaching into the dusty underplaces of my apartment. Eventually, with the help of a broom, I managed to fish the Tease out from under my bed. It was an inauspicious start, but I was hopeful. (There are three sizes to choose from, each encompassing a few ring sizes. Small, for example, works for anyone with a ring size between 3 and 6.)
Those hopes were dashed once I started testing the Tease. It’s a product that’s constantly in conflict with itself. In its pursuit to be a piece of jewelry and a vibrator, it fails to be either. The vibrator is too small and weak to use, and the ring has all the charm of one of those Livestrong bracelets from the early 2000s.
It’s a shame because Crave’s flagship, the Vesper, succeeds in both of these roles; it’s a good vibrator and a nice necklace. I’ve even seen it out in the wild, worn as an audacious statement piece, a knowing wink between queer people in sapphic spaces.
The Worst of Both Worlds
The Tease Ring is just plain awkward to use. If you leave it sitting on top of your knuckles in use, it feels like you’re fist-bumping your partner’s genitals. Flip it around so the ring is still on your finger but the vibrator is on the palm side of your hand, and it’s a little better. But because of the vibrator’s length, you cannot move whichever finger it’s on because it acts like a finger brace and keeps the knuckles on that finger from flexing. When you’re wearing it like this, it’s hard to use on yourself because it severely limits your manual dexterity, and it’s hard to use on a partner for the same reasons.
It’s also hard to feel sexy when you’re using this toy. When I had it on the palm side of my hand, I couldn’t stop thinking about those hand buzzer things from Saturday morning cartoons. The kind a birthday clown would secretly wear and ask everyone to shake his hand only to surprise them with an unpleasant jolt. Too bad I didn’t have the top hat or the water-squirting boutonniere to complete the look.
Most of us have hundreds, if not thousands, of photos just sitting on our phones and computers that we rarely get to revisit in a polished way. I make photo albums, but some deserve to be more on display, and there are just too many to frame. That’s why I love digital photo frames.
If you’re thinking of the tacky, pixelated digital frames of the early aughts, you’re in for a nice surprise. They’ve come a long way. They’re nice to have around the house, and they also make great gifts. You can set them up for others and push your latest vacation photos straight to them, so your parents or grandparents can always stay up-to-date. Most require a Wi-Fi connection, but we have a pick that doesn’t. These are the best digital picture frames (and the worst).
Updated May 2024: We’ve added the Wi-Fi-free Familink Frame and Vieunite’s Textura Digital Canvas as a pick for art pieces. We’ve also updated the competition section.
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Before You Buy
Photograph: Aura Frames
You might not think that photos count as sensitive information, compared to a bank account statement or your Social Security number. But it can be devastating to find photos of loved ones used for nefarious or unsavory purposes.
This is why we prefer frames from reputable companies like Aura and Nixplay over cheaper ones with less clearly defined privacy and security practices. Nixplay offers reasonable security measures, like encrypting your photos during transmission, and Aura offers the option to delete metadata, like the location where a photo was captured. However, both say they may disclose personal information if court-ordered or subpoenaed, and neither provides safety guarantees against hacking.
If you’re concerned about security, you can avoid connecting to third-party services, but your most secure option is to just download several photos on a tablet and disable all internet connectivity.
Here at WIRED, we like Sonos speakers. We really do. Throughout the past decade, we’ve reviewed all of the company’s wirelessly connectable speakers, from its small shelf speakers to its TV soundbars, and we’ve recommended every one of them. But turning your home into a Sonos-powered shrine to sound isn’t cheap. Like Apple products, Sonos speakers sell at a premium, starting at $120 for a basic model. But which ones should you buy? Read on for our favorites, from tiny Bluetooth speakers to full home theaters.
Updated May 2024: We’ve added the Victrola Stream Carbon as another great Sonos turntable option, and we’ve updated links and prices.
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Best Overall Sonos Speaker
The Sonos Era 100 (9/10, WIRED Recommends) is our favorite Sonos speaker, for its perfect blend of sound and features. It’s the same shape and size as the Sonos One that came before, which means it easily blends into most spaces. The speaker comes equipped with a volume slider and a play-pause button so you don’t have to take your phone out whenever you want to control it. It has a USB-C input as well, along with a switch on the back of the speaker to manually disable the built-in microphone for privacy.
The Era 100 has large woofers and angled tweeters that create real stereo sound, along with a fast processor that allows the speaker to receive software updates for longer. WIRED senior editor Parker Hall says the speaker sounds noticeably better than the two generations of Sonos One speaker that came before it. It packs a punchier, more defined bass, crisp definition, and room-filling sound. There’s also a room-tuning feature that adjusts the audio based on where you put it (but this works better on iOS devices). We’re also happy to see the addition of Bluetooth pairing, in addition to Wi-Fi, so you can stream audio without a Sonos account and also pair it with a phone easily.
Sonos One SL
Photograph: Sonos
If you’re looking for a less expensive speaker that’s also free of microphones, the Sonos One SL is a solid alternative. You can only control it from your phone or the touch buttons on it (and you don’t have to worry about someone listening in to your home). The SL is also a good way to add more satellite speakers to your home.
Best Speakers to Fill Out a Room
In 2022, Sonos reunited with Ikea to release a second-generation version of its bookshelf speaker. At $130, it’s a bit pricier than its $99 predecessor, but it does come with a few upgrades, including an increase in memory and a faster processor. We still have yet to test the second-gen model, but we did like the first-generation version.
You can mount it right to your wall or stand it upright on a bookshelf or table. And if you want to network a few speakers together for a larger room, or connected rooms, this is the cheapest way to do it. It doesn’t directly take audio commands, because it has no mic, so you’ll need a Sonos One, Sonos Era 100, Google speaker, or Alexa speaker that you can yell at if you want to control it with your voice. Other than that, it does everything you’d want a Sonos to do.
Photograph: IKEA
As with the first model, the second-generation Symfonisk Speaker Lamp has great sound, and it makes for a nice addition to any room. I keep it on the media console in my apartment. The lamp gets bright enough to light the living room, and I love using the speaker to listen to podcasts every morning. It also has a more modern and elevated look compared to its predecessor—with glass shades that come in both black and white. But it’s a fingerprint magnet. I’d recommend the textile shade ($240) if that’ll bother you. My only gripe is that it lacks a microphone, so you can’t control it using voice commands. You can, however, connect it to an Amazon or Nest smart speaker to take advantage of the smart assistant support. If wall art is more your style, Ikea offers the Symfonisk Picture Frame with a built-in Sonos Wi-Fi Speaker for $260.
Best Large Speaker
The Sonos Era 300 (9/10, WIRED Recommends) has a rather awkward and startling appearance (we think it looks like a robot’s butt), but the sound quality makes up for it. Under the hood are six speaker drivers, four tweeters, and a couple of mid/bass drivers—all of which deliver detailed, big, and confident sound. The standout feature, however, is spatial audio. With sound that spreads in all directions and for a substantial distance without lacking definition, we think the Era 300 surpasses the Apple HomePod by a wide margin when filling rooms. It’s worth noting that it supports Amazon and Apple’s spatial audio catalog, but not Tidal’s library of Dolby Atmos content.
As with the Era 100, the Era 300 has physical controls including a volume slider, play/pause, skip forward/backward, and voice-assistant interaction (with a choice between Amazon Alexa and Sonos Voice Control). In the back, you’ll find a socket for power, a switch to mute the mics, a USB-C auxiliary input, and a button for Bluetooth pairing (which means you don’t have to use the Sonos app to control it). If you opt for the Sonos companion app, you can adjust EQ, tune the speakers to your environment via the TruePlay feature, and pair other Sonos speakers together.
Best Portable Speaker With Bluetooth
The Sonos Roam (9/10, WIRED Recommends) is the company’s smallest and most portable speaker. With built-in Bluetooth connectivity (it’s one of our favorite Bluetooth speakers), you can easily throw it into a tote bag and play music on the go. Using the Sonos app, available for Android and iPhone, you also have the ability to stream from major services like Spotify, Apple Music (with support for AirPlay 2), Tidal, and more. And you can control the speaker via voice commands using Amazon Alexa or Google Assistant.
It may not offer audiophile-approved sound for its stature, but it’s still fairly impressive. The dual-driver system, subwoofer, and tweeter work in tandem to provide a bold bass and clear highs—with zero distortion when the volume is cranked up. And with up to 10 hours of listening, it’ll last you a full beach day—and then some.
Photograph: Sonos
The Sonos Move 2 (8/10, WIRED Reviews) isn’t as portable as the Roam—it weighs in at 6.1 pounds while the Roam is 0.95 pounds—but the second-generation version comes with a fair share of upgrades (which explains the higher price). It packs 24 hours of battery life (a major increase from 11 hours on its predecessor), a touch interface for media controls (instead of physical buttons), and the option to connect via Bluetooth 5.0 and Wi-Fi (the original Move was strictly Bluetooth or Wi-Fi when in use). It also comes equipped with a second tweeter (both of which fire on both the left and right above the mid/bass driver) and a third digital amplifier—delivering punchy, detailed sound. It’s worth noting that, unlike the first Move, the latest version doesn’t have support for Google Assistant. You’ll have the choice between Amazon Alexa or Sonos Voice Control. It’s a solid speaker for those who are already part of the Sonos ecosystem and are looking for a speaker they won’t take beyond their living room or backyard.
Best Sonos Soundbar (for Most)
As with the original Beam (8/10, WIRED Recommends), the second-generation Beam delivers impressive sound and has a sleek design. In terms of upgrades, it has a faster processor, support for Dolby Atmos (with compatible TVs and streaming apps) for enhanced sound, and an HDMI eARC port for higher-definition audio. You’ll also get hands-free Alexa and Google Assistant, and it works with Airplay 2. You can pair it with a Sonos Sub (an expensive subwoofer) and two other Sonos speakers for surround.
Sonos tweaked the design too, adding a polycarbonate grille to the front instead of a fabric cover as seen on the Gen 1 model. That’s supposed to make it easier to blend in with your interior decor. It’s $50 more than the previous model, which isn’t that much more expensive than the already expensive soundbar. For non-Sonos alternatives, read our Best Soundbars guide.
Sonos sub speaker gen 3Photograph: Sonos
The standard Sonos Sub will cost you $799 at Sonos. It’s superb but expensive. If you’re working with a smaller space, the less costly Sonos Sub Mini is $430 at Best Buy. Don’t bother buying surround speakers until you own a Sub, though. It will make a profound difference.
Best Small Soundbar
If you have an apartment or a smaller room, or are just getting started in the soundbar department, the Sonos Ray (9/10, WIRED Recommends) is a solid option for you. The Ray comes in a compact frame, but don’t let that fool you. The soundbar produces clear, crisp sound that easily fills your space with zooms and booms, quiet conversations, and any other moments you wouldn’t want to miss in your favorite movies and shows. Plus, with adjustable settings in the Sonos app, you can configure your ideal listening experience for every song on your favorite album.
This small soundbar easily fits on entertainment centers and dressers, or you can mount it on your wall to free up as much precious space as possible.
Wanna take it to the next level? You can pair the Ray with the aforementioned Sonos Sub Mini to round out the sound in your room. The Sub Mini is wireless (aside from a power cord), so it connects seamlessly to your current system through the Sonos app.
Best for Big Home Theaters
A soundbar can make all the difference in a home theater, and they cost a lot less than a full surround-sound setup. And if you’re looking for one that’s really powerful, the Sonos Arc (9/10, WIRED Recommends) is the way to go. It has full Dolby Atmos support, and in many rooms, it can bounce sound off your walls and ceiling well enough that it sounds like you have a surround setup.
With three tweeters and eight mid-woofers, it delivers deep bass and has more balance and depth than the Beam. It’s also a lot longer, stretching 45 inches, or about the width of a 55-inch TV. Its design is elegant and understated in the usual Sonos way—you won’t always notice the bar, but when you do, it’s not an eyesore at all.
Wand vibrators are a sex toy staple, a classic addition to anyone’s bedside table. They have a storied history, and since the original Hitachi Magic Wand hit store shelves in 1968, the design hasn’t changed much. Look in the wand category of any sex shop (or even Amazon), and you’ll see how similar they all look.
Before I even unboxed this Le Wand, it was already making its first impression. The box was surprisingly heavy. I wondered if maybe there were some accessories inside or maybe multiple toys, but nope. It’s just the die-cast metal Le Wand, and it’s just that heavy. At roughly 1.15 pounds, it’s just slightly lighter than a full-size Maglite flashlight (with batteries). This is probably the heftiest sex toy I’ve ever encountered, let alone tested.
There is something satisfying about the weight, though. A product’s weight often influences how we perceive its quality, importance, or durability, and that’s definitely at work here. Even when I was testing other products, I found myself favoring the Le Wand over other similar models because it felt so good in my hand. The aluminum exterior is pleasantly cold to the touch, a nice contrast against the softer silicone on the head.
Photograph: Le Wand
The Le Wand is a full-size wand, so it’s also one of the biggest wands I’ve tested at 11.42 inches long. The size can make it awkward to use solo, depending on where you’re trying to reach with it, and the weight can make for some tired wrists. Most of the time, though, the added length is an asset, and the weight keeps the wand from vibrating your hands too much. Sometimes unibody wands and sex toys can feel like they’re vibrating your hands more than they’re vibrating anything else, but that’s not the case here. You can feel the vibrations in your hands, but it’s minimal—a good trait for anyone with carpal tunnel.
It should be no surprise that the Le Wand is not a toy that concerns itself with discretion or subtlety. As soon as you turn it on, the wand practically roars, its engine leaping to life so hard it practically bucks against your grip. Even on the lowest of its 10 vibration settings, it’s strong enough to provide a surprising degree of stimulation through clothes.
Like the original Magic Wand, this is a toy that’s best enjoyed through indirect stimulation, which makes its vibration intensity a welcome quality. Using it around erogenous zones like the clitoris, you can feel the vibrations penetrating deep below your skin to all those internal nerves and erogenous structures.
Short on Battery
The vibration patterns are another area where the Le Wand distinguishes itself. There are 20 in total, and they’re all relatively distinct from one another. The only downside to having so many is having to cycle through all of them to find your favorites—and you’ll definitely have more than one. The patterns are laid out visually in the Le Wand’s manual to give you an idea of what sensations you can expect.
The button layout is familiar—the standard choices you get on most wand vibrators, which is a good thing. There are buttons to increase and decrease vibration intensity, and one button in the middle to cycle through the vibration patterns. You turn it on by holding the increase-intensity button for a couple of seconds, and turn it off by pressing the decrease-intensity button for a few seconds. No deviations from the norm here, which means there won’t be any confusion when you’re trying to feel for the buttons in the dark.
The march of lower-cost laptops that offer some measure of artificial intelligence-focused tuning continues with the Asus Zenbook 14 OLED, the latest in a line of affordable, no-nonsense, ultralight laptops that has been kicking around for more than a decade. Like the Acer Swift Go 14, the Asus Zenbook 14 (model UM3406HA) hits the market at a price that’s comfortably less than $1,000. But unlike the Swift Go, the Zenbook is built around AMD’s latest Ryzen CPU. Among other questions, I was curious to see how the two directly compared.
The Acer and Asus laptops have more than a little in common. Both feature 14-inch touchscreens at 1,920 x 1,200-pixel resolution, 16 GB of RAM, and integrated graphics. The Zenbook has a more basic 512-GB solid-state drive compared to the 1-terabyte model on the Acer, but the biggest difference is the CPU, an AMD Ryzen 7 8840HS on the Asus instead of Acer’s Intel Core Ultra 7.
Photograph: Asus
Walk around the laptop and you’ll see a considerably less well equipped port lineup too. Two USB-C ports (one USB 4, one USB 3.2; one is used for charging), a single USB-A port, and a full-size HDMI output are your connectivity options, altogether a clear step down from what Acer has on offer. Again, all ports are side-mounted here, as the design of the screen causes the rear edge of the LCD to cover up the backside of the chassis when the screen is opened.
The aluminum frame feels much sturdier than you typically find in this price bracket, but I wasn’t in love with the overall design. It’s entirely black with a lid that’s etched with seemingly random lines, creating a haphazard geometric pattern that feels more and more like it was drawn from the ’80s the more you stare at it.
I like the keyboard, which is compact but thoughtfully laid out and offers acceptable key travel, including a Copilot key and functional, half-height arrow keys. The keyboard backlighting is understated. The touchpad is large but just shy of being too big; my palms tended to brush against the corners when typing, but this fortunately didn’t adversely impact the user experience. The Harman Kardon speakers are loud and offer plenty of range for any entertainment needs.
Photograph: Asus
The big question surrounds performance, and I’m happy to report that compared to the Acer Swift Go, the two laptops turned in similar results. On a few tests, the Zenbook would score moderately higher, on others, the crown would go to Acer. Quite a few benchmarks saw results that were functionally identical, including big ones like PCMark 10, which measures mainstream application performance.
