The built-in USB-cable can charge the power bank or other devices. Plus you get a USB-C port for charging gadgets. Photo: Anker
Accessories powerhouse Anker released a new hybrid power bank and wall charger this week that covers a lot of gadget-charging needs. The 30-watt device is called Anker 3-in-1 Power Bank Fusion.
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Anker 3-in-1 Power Bank Fusion
Anker makes a lot of chargers and power banks. Now it adds a new hybrid to the lineup. The new Anker 3-in-1 Power Bank Fusion powers gadgets like iPhone on the go, or uses a built-in USB-C cable and a USB-C port to power devices when plugged in.
The device packs a 5000mAh battery with 22.5W output as a power bank. And when you plug it in with its folding prongs, it outputs 30W to attached devices even as it recharges its own battery.
On the device you’ll find the built-in USB-C cable plus a USB-C port on top. So that’s a 2-in-1 design for juicing up two devices at once. And it’s a 3-in-1 when you plug it in to charge the device itself while you charge other gadgets.
And Anker 3-in-1 Power Bank Fusion lets you know how it’s battery is doing. An LED display states the current battery capacity as a percentage of full.
Fusion features:
3-in-1 charging lets you transition between devices (includes USB-C port, an integrated USB-C cable and a foldable AC plug).
Built-in USB-C cable
Two-way fast charging: Plug in for a 30W charge to power your devices quickly, or switch to battery mode for a consistent 22.5W charge.
Power bank recharging options: an AC plug or the built-in USB-C cable
Here’s what comes in the box: the power bank/wall charger (30W, built-in USB-C cable), welcome guide and an 18-month warranty.
Power Bank Fusion comes with a launch discount. That’s not unusual for Anker. So you can buy the $40 for $33.99 while the discount lasts. And that’s in effect at Anker as well as Amazon.
This 3-in-1 power bank and wall charger includes a 5,000mAh battery, a built-in USB-C cable and a foldable AC Plug. When plugged in, it delivers 30 watts to iPhone 15 and other devices.
Galaxy AI’s webpage summarization and translation functionality is collectively called Browsing Assist, and in this article, we dive into how you can get started with and use Browsing Assist. You can also learn about the feature in the video below.
Browsing Assist: You need the Samsung Internet browser
If you thought you could use Galaxy AI to summarize and translate webpages in any browser, you would be disappointed. Browsing Assist is only available in Samsung Internet, the company’s in-house browser app.
If you’re not already using Samsung Internet or have it installed, you need to fix that before moving forward. Samsung Internet can be downloaded from both the Play Store or the Galaxy Store on any Samsung smartphone or tablet.
You will find two Samsung Internet apps on the app stores: one is the standard app and the other is a beta version that Samsung uses as a testbed for new features. You can download either version, as Galaxy AI works the same way on both.
Summarize webpages
Summarize, as the name suggests, is the feature that generates summaries of webpages using artificial intelligence, or advanced intelligence as Samsung likes to call it. The concept is simple: if you don’t wish to read through an article or piece of text on a webpage, you can get a summary of it to quickly learn what the article or text is about.
Like note summaries, Galaxy AI gives you the option of standard and detailed webpages summaries. Detailed summaries often offer you more useful info without being much longer than standard summaries.
For example, if you summarize our Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra review, which has 5000+ words, the standard summary will give you five bullet points talking about what makes the phone good. The detailed summary, on the other hand, adds two more bullet points and uses them to tell you about some of the not-so-good aspects.
In the screenshot below, you can see the difference between the standard (left) and detailed summaries (right).
Once these summaries are created, you can copy them right away, or you can translate them and then copy the translated text. In case you’re wondering, creating summaries requires an internet connection as the text is processed by Samsung’s servers, though the text is never stored on those servers.
Here’s how to create summaries of webpages using Samsung Internet and Galaxy AI:
Step 1: Open the webpage you wish to summarize in Samsung Internet.
Step 2: Tap the Galaxy AI icon in the browser’s bottom toolbar (if the toolbar isn’t visible, swipe down on the screen). It’s the icon with the four stars, highlighted in the screenshot below.
Step 3: Select Summarize from the pop-up menu.
Step 4: The AI will take a few seconds to process the page and then present you with a standard summary.
Step 5: If you want a detailed summary, tap the settings icon (highlighted in the screenshot below), select Detailed, and press Done.
Step 6: Once you decide which summary you wish to use, hit the Copy button at the bottom of the screen so you can copy that summary to other apps.
Translate summaries
You can also translate the standard or detailed summary before copying it. To do so, follow the steps above to get the standard or detailed summary, then hit the Translate button.
The source language will be auto detected, so just select the target language and you will get the translation instantly, which you can copy using the Copy button.
The first time you use the translate feature, you will need to download the language pack for the target language. These language packs can be 500-600MB large, so make sure you have enough mobile data bandwidth if you don’t have a Wi-Fi connection.
If you wish to translate an entire webpage without creating a summary first, Galaxy AI lets you do that as well. Follow the steps below to translate a webpage in Samsung Internet.
Step 1: Open the webpage you wish to translate in Samsung Internet.
Step 2: Tap the Galaxy AI icon in the browser’s bottom toolbar (if the toolbar isn’t visible, swipe down on the screen). It’s the icon with the four stars, highlighted in the screenshot below.
Step 3: Select Translate from the pop-up menu.
Step 4: Then, at the top of the browser, choose the language you wish to translate the webpage to using the drop down box. (If you are using this feature for the first time, you may have to first download the relevant language pack by using the Add languages option in the drop down box.)
Once you select the target language, the browser will take a few seconds and then present you with the translated webpage.
The original language of the webpage is automatically detected, but if not, tap the three-dot button and hit the Change source languageoption to change the original language.
If you’re looking for a massive display on a budget, you aren’t going to get much better than today’s deal on the TCL S4 Series TV. Best Buy just launched a 3-day sale that’s dropped this 85-inch model to a stunning price of just $799.99 (was $899.99). That’s the lowest price we’ve seen for the TCL 4K smart TV and an incredible deal for a display of this size.
While the TCL S4 Series TV isn’t the best TV in the world, it’s still packed with premium features at an extremely affordable price. These include a stunning display thanks to the 4K HDR coupled with HDR Pro, which delivers crisp images with bright, brilliant colors. You’re also getting Dolby Atmos and DTS Virtual: X for premium sound, three HDMI inputs, and smart capabilities with the Google Assistant and Chromecast built-in.
Keep in mind that Best Buy’s 3-day sale ends on Sunday at Midnight, and this might be the best price you’ll find for a feature-packed 85-inch 4K TV. I’ve listed more of today’s best TV deals from Best Buy below if you’re looking to shop for more budget displays.
Massive TV deal at Best Buy
More of today’s best TV deals at Best Buy
Shop more TV offers with our list of the best TV deals, and if you’re looking for a more premium display, see the best OLED TV deals.
This week’s best deals can all be found on Amazon, which is hosting steep discounts on the AirPods Pro 2, Apple Watch Series 9, and the M3 iMac.
Note: MacRumors is an affiliate partner with some of these vendors. When you click a link and make a purchase, we may receive a small payment, which helps us keep the site running.
AirPods Pro 2
What’s the deal? Get $60 off AirPods Pro 2 with USB-C
Moving on to the Apple Watch, Amazon introduced a new all-time low price on the 41mm GPS Series 9 model this week. You can get the (PRODUCT)RED model for $295.20 in the M/L Sport Band size.
Note: You won’t see the deal price until checkout.
Capping off the week, Amazon introduced new record low prices across the M3 iMac lineup, providing $149 off nearly every model. You’ll need to clip an on-page coupon in order to see all of these deals at the checkout screen.
Be sure to visit our full Deals Roundup to shop for even more Apple-related products and accessories.
It has been nearly a year and a half since the current Apple TV was released, so the device is becoming due for a hardware upgrade. Below, we recap rumors about the next Apple TV, including potential features and launch timing. The current model is the third-generation Apple TV 4K, announced in October 2022. Key new features compared to the previous model from 2021 include a faster A15…
Apple’s iPhone 16 Plus may come in seven colors that either build upon the existing five colors in the standard iPhone 15 lineup or recast them in a new finish, based on a new rumor out of China. According to the Weibo-based leaker Fixed focus digital, Apple’s upcoming larger 6.7-inch iPhone 16 Plus model will come in the following colors, compared to the colors currently available for the…
Apple’s upcoming iPhone 16 lineup will feature bigger battery capacities compared to previous-generation models with the exception of the iPhone 16 Plus, which will have a smaller battery than its predecessor. That’s according to the Chinese Weibo-based leaker OvO Baby Sauce OvO, a relatively new source of supply chain leaks with an as-yet unproven track record for accuracy. The iPhone 16 …
Apple will begin updating its Mac lineup with M4 chips in late 2024, according to Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman. The M4 chip will be focused on improving performance for artificial intelligence capabilities. Last year, Apple introduced the M3, M3 Pro, and M3 Max chips all at once in October, so it’s possible we could see the M4 lineup come during the same time frame. Gurman says that the entire…
Apple is “unlikely” to hold an event to announce new iPad Pro and iPad Air models, according to sources cited by Taiwanese supply chain publication DigiTimes. Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman already said Apple was not planning to hold an event for the new iPads, but he made this claim back in early March, before it was reported that the devices were postponed due to manufacturing delays. With the…
iOS 18 will apparently feature a new Safari browsing assistant, according to backend code on Apple’s servers discovered by Nicolás Álvarez. MacRumors contributor Aaron Perris confirmed that the code exists, but not many details are known at this time. Álvarez said it seems like the browsing assistant will use iCloud Private Relay’s infrastructure to send relevant data to Apple in a…
Another week is coming to a close, which means it’s time for another roundup of good discounts on good tech. This week’s highlights include the return of the best price we’ve seen for Apple’s M2 MacBook Air, which is down to $849. No, this isn’t the latest and greatest MacBook, and yes, a Bloomberg report this week said that Apple may debut a new M4 chip later in 2024. If you need a new laptop right now, though, the M2 model gets you most of the way to the newer M3 version for a good bit less cash. Beyond that, we’ve also found all-time lows for the 10th-gen iPad, Amazon Fire TV Stick 4K and a Nintendo Switch Lite bundle, among others. Here are the best tech deals from this week that you can still buy today.
Photo by Devindra Hardawar / Engadget
The 13-inch version of Apple’s MacBook Air with an M2 chip is back down to $849 at Amazon, Best Buy and B&H. That matches the lowest price we’ve tracked for the entry-level configuration, which includes 8GB of RAM and a 256GB SSD. Apple normally sells this model for $999. Just note that Amazon’s listing includes a shipping delay as of this writing.
The M2 Air is a generation old, but it remains a good value when it’s discounted to this extent. The performance gap between the M2 and the M3 chip found in the newest Air isn’t huge, and the design of the two laptops is largely the same, so you still get a great screen, comfortable keyboard and thin aluminum chassis. You do lose the ability to use two external monitors, and the M3 Air technically has faster storage, though the latter shouldn’t be a major issue unless you often deal with large files. In general, the limited memory and storage in this config means it’s not a great fit for media editing and more involved work. But if you only need a notebook for the essentials and really want to save a couple hundred bucks, this is a nice price. We gave the M2 Air a score of 96 back in 2022.
The 10th-gen Apple iPad is on sale for $349 at Amazon and Best Buy, which matches the lowest price we’ve seen from major retailers. Apple sells the 10.9-inch tablet for $449, though we often see it drop between $350 and $429 on Amazon. This deal is for the base model with 64GB of storage; if you need more space, the 256GB model is also $100 off its MSRP at $499.
Before you pull the trigger, note that Apple reportedly plans to release new iPad Airs and iPad Pros in early May. If you don’t need a new tablet right this second, it’s probably best to wait a few weeks. However, a refresh to the base iPad isn’t expected until later in 2024, so this should remain a decent deal if you must buy a slate today and want to stay under $400.
We gave the 10th-gen iPad a review score of 85 in late 2022. Its aluminum design feels premium, it gets a solid 10+ hours of battery life and its A14 Bionic chip is still plenty fast for media consumption. Because its webcam is located on its landscape edge, it’s also a bit more convenient for video calls than other iPads. That said, it doesn’t support the highest-end Apple Pencil or Magic Keyboard, and its lack of an M-series chip means it can’t work with some high-endgames. Its display isn’t laminated, either, so there’s a small but noticeable air gap between the display and cover glass. Still, it’s an iPad, and it’s a noticeable upgrade over the cheaper 9th-gen model if you just want a nice tablet for reading and streaming.
Walmart is selling a bundle that pairs an Animal Crossing-themed Nintendo Switch Lite with a digital copy of Animal Crossing: New Horizons for $179. That’s $20 below the bundle’s usual price and an all-time low.
It’s a tricky time to buy a Switch: The console is seven years old now, and murmurs of a next-gen follow-up have circulated for months, with the most recent reports suggesting that it’ll arrive early next year. If you’ve waited this long to pick one up, it’s probably worth holding out a little longer. But if you want to start catching up today, or if you just want something appropriate for a kid, the Lite is the smallest and most affordable route into Nintendo’s excellent library. As a reminder, this is the only Switch that can’t hook up to a TV, but it can run all the same games with no performance drop-off. New Horizons, meanwhile, remains one of the device’s most relaxing games, a cozy sim about developing your own personal island. It normally costs around $50 on its own.
The JLab Go Air Pop is a good buy for those who just want dirt-cheap wireless earphones that aren’t horrible. Right now the pair is on sale for $15 at Amazon and Best Buy, which isn’t quite an all-time low but still takes roughly $5 off the set’s usual street price. As we note in our budget earbuds buying guide, the Go Air Pop feels light in the ear, lasts a solid eight to nine hours per charge and has touch controls that actually work (which is far from a given in this price range). It’s also water-resistant with an IPX4 rating, so it can survive light workouts. Its bass-heavy sound isn’t exactly balanced, and it does lack any sort of app support. But again, we’re talking about $15 earbuds. As a cheap backup pair, the Go Air Pop is a great value.
Best Buy has the Lenovo IdeaPad Flex 5i Chromebook Plus on sale for $389, which is $110 off Lenovo’s list price and only $10 more than the all-time low we saw around Black Friday. This is the top pick in our Chromebook buying guide. It’s fast enough for everyday emailing and web browsing, its 14-inch touchscreen is solid for the money and it has a better keyboard and trackpad than most cheap laptops we’ve tested. The IPS display has a tall 16:10 aspect ratio, so it’s well-suited for reading and writing. There are still trade-offs: The webcam isn’t great, battery life is mediocre, and the plastic design is a bit hefty at 3.6 pounds. But for a sub-$500 laptop, it gets more right than wrong. This configuration includes an Intel Core i3-1315U processor, 8GB of RAM, 128GB of eMMC storage, two USB-C ports, one USB-A port and a microSD slot.
The black version of 8BitDo’s Ultimate Bluetooth Controller has dropped to $59.49 for Amazon Prime members. Though we’ve seen the device go for less in the past, steeper discounts aren’t super common, and this deal still takes about $10 off 8BitDo’s usual selling price.
This is a wireless gamepad for Switch and PC whose praises I’ve sung in the past. The main advantage it has over standard controllers is its Hall effect joysticks, which use magnets to read inputs instead of contact-based potentiometers. In plain English, this means the sticks should be much less susceptible to annoying “drift” over time. The rest of the design feels sturdy, too, with responsive buttons and an accurate d-pad. It may be a smidge too small for those with especially large hands, but its Xbox-style design should feel natural for everyone else. It’s also fairly customizable, with a set of programmable back buttons and a clean app that lets you assign macros and remap inputs as you see fit, plus it comes with a dedicated charging dock.
The top pick in our guide to the best Bluetooth trackers, the Chipolo One, is down to $20 at Amazon via Chipolo direct. That’s $5 off the device’s usual street price and an all-time low. The deal is technically available at Best Buy, too, though it doesn’t include free shipping there. The One doesn’t have the giant crowd-finding network or Apple-friendly features of an AirTag, so it won’t be as helpful for finding an item you’ve misplaced very far away. But for simply making sure you don’t forget your keys or wallet when leaving a house or restaurant, it’s great. It rings loud, and it’s consistently quick to alert you when you’ve left a tagged item behind. It also has a built-in keyring hole, unlike AirTags, and it plays nicely with both iOS and Android. If you need multiple trackers, a four-pack is on sale for $60, though that deal has been live for almost all of the past month.
The 55-inch Hisense U6K TV is down to an all-time low of $350 at Walmart and Best Buy, while the 65-inch version is down to a low of $500. Each deal is roughly $50 below the average street price we’ve seen over the last few months. The U6K is a budget-level TV from 2023 that’s received almostuniversallyhighmarks from reviewers we trust. It’s one of the only TVs in its price range with quantum-dot color, a mini-LED backlight and full-array local dimming, so it should provide better contrast and color volume than most cheap sets. It’s still not ideal for gaming, as it lacks HDMI 2.1 features and is limited to a 60Hz refresh rate. Its brightness levels won’t blow anyone away, either. But at this price, it looks to be a great value.
It’s worth noting that this TV’s successor, the U6N, recently went on sale and promises even better brightness and contrast. However, that one currently costs $600 for a 55-inch set. For now, the older model should remain the better value for most people.
The USB-C AirPods Pro are back down to $189, which is $10 more than the all-time low we saw last month but $10 less than their usual street price on Amazon and $60 less than buying from Apple direct. Best Buy has the pair for a dollar more. The AirPods Pro continue to offer a host of conveniences for iPhone users, from faster pairing and integrated controls to hands-free Siri and Find My device tracking. Their active noise cancellation isn’t quite best-in-class, but it’s still above-average, and their warm sound profile plays well across musical genres. Call quality and battery life are just OK, though. We gave the second-gen AirPods Pro a score of 88 back in 2022. It’s worth noting that Apple is expected to launch new noise-canceling AirPods later this year, according to Bloomberg reporter Mark Gurman, but new AirPods Pro reportedly aren’t on tap until 2025.
The newest Amazon Fire TV Stick 4K Max is once again on sale for $40, tying the lowest price we’ve tracked. We’ve seen this deal pop up a number of times over the last three months, but it’s still about $10 below the streamer’s average street price over that period. The 4K Max is Amazon’s fastest and most featured streaming stick, with support for all the major apps and HDR formats, Dolby Atmos audio and WiFi 6E (with a compatible router). Its software isn’t as pleasant to use as rival devices from Roku and Google, however — voice search is fast, but there are prominent ads on the home screen, and Amazon likes to promote its own Prime Video app across the UI. Still, those other sticks aren’t on sale as of this writing, so this is a decent deal if you just want a fast way to put apps on a TV.
The standard Fire TV Stick 4K is also back on sale for $30. That’s not an all-time low, but the only time it’s been cheaper was during Black Friday. This model has a slightly slower chipset than the Max and lacks that device’s Ambient Experience mode, which displays artwork and other info when your TV is idle. It also stops at WiFi 6 instead of 6E. But it isn’t that far off the Max if you really want to save another $10.
The GoPro Hero 12 Black is on sale for $350 at Amazon, Best Buy and GoPro.com. While this isn’t the first time we’ve seen this $50 discount, it still ties the lowest price we’ve seen. The Hero 12 Black is GoPro’s latest flagship action camera. You can read our review from last September for a fuller breakdown, but in short, it continues to offer excellent image quality, top-notch video stabilization, a rugged design, a variety of shooting modes and a robust ecosystem of accessories. It makes it easy to shoot vertical videos for platforms like TikTok or Instagram, and now its battery life is a bit better than its predecessor. This model lacks GPS functionality, and all action cameras can have issues in very dark settings, but this is a good bet whether you’re new to action cams or looking to upgrade from a years-old model. A Creator Edition bundle that includes a battery grip, video light and Media Mod frame is also on sale for $499, another all-time low.
The Eufy RoboVac 11S Max is the most affordable robot vacuum we recommend in our budget robovac buying guide, and it’s now down to $140 at Amazon and Newegg via Eufy direct. This is another deal we’ve seen a few times in recent months: It’s not quite an all-time low, but the device usually goes for $250 otherwise. The 11S Max is an older and largely basic model with no Wi-Fi, but it’s slim, durable and relatively quiet, and it cleans well enough across surfaces. Eufy says its battery can last up to 100 minutes on hard floors, and the fact that it lacks Wi-Fi might actually be a plus to those conscious of their privacy. You can still do better, but this is a solid deal if you just want a decent robovac on a tight budget.
There’s no better all-in-one desktop PC than Apple’s M3 iMac. And if you have been holding out on buying one, Amazon has a deal you should not miss.
The fantastic deal drops the entry-level 24-inch M3 iMac to $1,149, making it $149 cheaper than its MSRP.
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Apple refreshed the 24-inch iMac with its latest M3 chip in October 2023. This was the first update to the machine since its transition to Apple silicon with the M1 SoC in April 2021.
The new chip brings a significant performance bump, with Apple claiming a 30% speed boost in Safari and Microsoft Excel. In Photoshop and Final Cut Pro, you will see a claimed “up to 2x faster” performance. And in games, thanks to the new GPU that supports hardware-accelerated ray tracing, Apple claims “up to 50% faster frame rates.”
Compared to the M1 iMac, the M3 iMac supports the faster and newer Wi-Fi 6E and Bluetooth 5.3 standards. Go through our M1 vs. M3 iMac comparison to learn about all the changes.
Save $149 on the M3 iMac
Despite shipping with a faster M3 chip, the 24-inch iMac starts at the same $1,299 as its predecessor. This model features an 8-core CPU, 8-core, 256GB storage, and 8GB system memory.
Amazon’s deal makes the machine more affordable by slashing $149 off its price. The listing page only shows a $100 discount, with an additional $49 available through a coupon.
You can get the 256GB configuration with a more powerful 10-core GPU with a similar $149 discount. This drops its price from $1,499 to $1,349. The 512GB configuration of the machine is also available for $149 off, albeit in limited color options.
This is an all-time low price for the M3 iMac. So, if you have been holding off on buying one, this is the deal that you should jump on.
Apple’s all-in-one PC packs a 24-inch display in a sleek design. The powerful M3 chip enables the machine to run all your favorite apps and games with ease.
Just because you see something done in a movie, that doesn’t mean you should try it yourself. Take, for example, a human running on top of a moving train. For starters, you can’t be sure it’s real. In early Westerns, they used moving backdrops to make fake trains look like they were in motion. Now there’s CGI. Or they might speed the film up to make a real train look faster than it really is.
So here’s a question for you: Is it possible to run on a train roof and leap from one car to the next? Or will the train zoom ahead of you while you’re in the air, so that you land behind where you took off? Or worse, would you end up falling between the cars because the gap is moving forward, lengthening the distance you have to traverse? This, my friend, is why stunt actors study physics.
Framing the Action
What is physics anyway? Basically it’s a set of models of the real world, which we can use to calculate forces and predict how the position and velocity of things will change. However, we can’t find the position or velocity of anything without a reference frame.
Suppose I’m standing in a room, holding a ball, and I want to describe its location. I can use Cartesian coordinates for a 3D space to give the ball an (x, y, z) value. But these numbers depend on the origin and orientation of my axes. It seems natural to use a corner of the room as the origin, with x and y axes running along the base of two adjacent walls and the z axis running vertically upward. Using this system (with units in meters), I find that the ball is at the point (1, 1, 1).
What if my pal Bob is there, and he measures the ball’s location in a different way? Maybe he puts the origin where the ball starts, in my hand, giving it an initial position of (0, 0, 0). That seems logical too. We could argue about who’s right, but that would be silly. We just have different frames of reference, and they’re both arbitrary. (Don’t worry, we’ll get back to trains.)
Now I toss that ball straight up in the air. After a short time interval of 0.1 second, my coordinate system has the ball at the location (1, 1, 2), meaning it’s 1 meter higher. Bob also has a new location, (0, 0, 1). But notice that in both systems, the ball rose by 1 meter in the z direction. So we would agree that the ball has an upward velocity of 10 meters per second.
A Moving Reference Frame
Now suppose I take that ball on a train traveling at 10 meters per second (22.4 miles per hour). I again toss the ball straight up—what will happen? I’m inside the railcar, so I use a coordinate system that moves along with the train. In this moving reference frame, I am stationary. Bob is standing on the side of the tracks (he can see the ball through the windows), so he uses a stationary coordinate system, in which I am moving.
There’s perhaps no better cheap gaming PC deal right now to kick-start your 1080p setup on a budget than this RTX 4060-equipped Cooler Master HAF Pro for $845 at Amazon.
The combination of an upfront discount and handy coupon code at checkout makes this machine easily one of the cheapest we’ve seen to feature an RTX 4060 graphics card. Usually, machines carrying this mid-range GPU run around the $1,000 mark so this HAF Pro is a bargain for those on a budget.
A few other selling points include the combination of a 1TB SSD and 16GB RAM, plus a decent case and power supply that should set you up for easy upgrades down the line. Straight out of the box, you get great performance out of this HAF Pro if your target is playing games smoothly at 1080p resolution.
You do, however, get a 12th gen Intel Core i5 chipset in this machine, which is a little older now. It’s a decent pairing with the RTX 4060 (the graphics card does most of the heavy lifting), but it’s coming up to two generations old now so it’s definitely a candidate for an upgrade. Thankfully, the low asking price of this deal at Amazon means you should have plenty of cash left in the bank for the next upgrade.
Playdate came out two years ago, and it’s still miniscule and yellow with a black-and-white screen and a delightful crank on its side. Today, the device has a built-in library of more than 100 titles, none of which are Call of Duty, Dark Souls, The Last of Us or any other big-budget, mainstream game — and this is precisely what makes it so damn charming. The community that’s sprung up around this palmheld is lively and creative, and scrolling through the Playdate tags on itch.io or github feels like hanging out in a friendly underground clubhouse populated by crank-obsessed video game freaks.
It’s less disturbing than it sounds, I promise.
For real though, Playdate has only gotten cuter and more relevant with age. Firewatch publisher Panic and hardware studio Teenage Engineering unveiled the device in February 2019, pitching it as a sub-$200 handheld with a monochromatic screen, a crank and seasonal drops of free games. Pre-orders for Playdate opened in July 2021 and the plan was for shipments to start by the end of that year. However, in November, Panic discovered in its production line and the company was forced to swap suppliers and delay the release. Playdate officially landed in players’ hands in April 2022, and overall, reviewers found that it was .
Panic
Playdate shipped with 4GB of flash storage and 24 free games, including Crankin’s Time Travel Adventure from Keita Takahashi’s studio uvula and Zipper by Bennett Foddy. Playdate has always supported sideloading, too, meaning it’s easy to get titles from and other distribution sites on the device. In March 2023, Playdate’s Catalog went live, offering a curated selection of 16 games for purchase. Panic also upped the price of Playdate from $179 to $199 at this time, citing rising manufacturing costs.
Today, Panic has sold roughly 70,000 Playdates and its Catalog features over 100 games, with more added regularly. Panic held a software showcase in February and the headliner was , a Playdate-exclusive project from Papers, Please and Return of the Obra Dinn creator Lucas Pope. Mars After Midnight came out on March 12, and Playdate had a that week, just like a grown-up storefront would.
Two years post-launch, it’s clear that there’s no single formula for a Playdate game. , for instance, turns the Playdate on its side and uses the crank as a helicopter-style rotor, spinning the propeller cap on a demon trapped in a gothic tower. Cranking controls this horned dude as he slices through flying enemies, leaving bits of meat and bone to fall out of the narrow frame. And then there are titles like , a simple yet addictive letter-shifting game that I would recommend to all Wordle fans. Playdate supports first-person shooters, detective mysteries, bullet hells, shoot-em-ups, puzzle games, RPGs, pocket pets, rhythm situations, action-adventures, racing sims and all manner of subgenres, including some that have been invented just for the platform.
Root Bear by TEAM ROOT
Across Playdate’s UI and games, the crank transforms into hundreds of different tools. There are the standard iterations like crank to scroll and crank to buy, but there’s also crank to pour a drink, crank to fly, crank to fish, crank to spin a record, crank to build a city, crank to control time, crank to crank, crank to survive. Literally every game on Playdate reveals a new use case for the crank or helps demonstrate the absurd level of detail possible on a 400 x 240 1-bit display. Many games do both of these things — and Mars After Midnight is one of them.
As the creature in charge of a community room on a Martian colony, Mars After Midnight players crank open an observation window and identify the correct aliens for each session, while also providing snacks, cleaning up with two long tentacles and planning future support groups. Players use the crank to slam the room’s peephole open and shut, but the game also fully incorporates Playdate’s A and B buttons, D-pad and speaker, rolling out fresh mechanics at a steady pace. The game is populated by adorable, bumbling aliens and cartoonishly cute set pieces, and it even introduces an entire language.
Like the vast majority of Playdate games, Mars After Midnight doesn’t feel like a pared-down version of a bigger idea; it was simply meant to be a colorless, crank-powered experience.
Mars After Midnight by Lucas Pope
I’ve encountered one consistent issue with Playdate, and it’s something that I didn’t think would be a huge problem when I first reviewed it in 2022. The lack of backlight in its display is noticeable and occasionally annoying, particularly in low-light spaces. I often find myself tilting the screen toward a nearby window or lamp, and the device is pretty much unplayable on a dark plane or bus, or without a light source after sunset. If you remember trying to play an original Game Boy at night in the backseat of your parents’ car, waiting for the street lights to flicker past the window at regular intervals, it’s a lot like that. There’s a tinge of nostalgia here, but it’s mostly just kinda frustrating.
Playdate’s biggest issue, however, might be the Stereo Dock. Panic unveiled the Stereo Dock in mid-2021 — it’s a truly adorable charging stand, Bluetooth speaker and pen holder that matches Playdate’s pleasant yellow hue. I’ve wanted to plop one on my desk since it was announced, but the Stereo Dock has been “coming soon” for two years now.
It really is still coming, Playdate Project Lead Greg Maletic told Engadget.
“We apologize to everyone with a Playdate who has been waiting patiently for the Stereo Dock; it’s been a trickier project than we anticipated and we had a few false starts,” Maletic said. “We thought we’d save some time on that project by having our factory do the software for the Stereo Dock, but we’ve learned that you don’t always necessarily want that in some cases. The Stereo Dock is very much alive, we have the physical prototypes to prove it! We expect to have a formal update on when you can buy one later this year.”
Panic
If the worst thing about Playdate is the fact that people can’t get enough of it, then it sounds like things are going well. The device hasn’t faced any widespread recalls or hardware issues, its storefront is growing, its development pipeline is , and people are still interested in buying it (and the Stereo Dock, one day).
With Playdate, Panic has created a new pocket of curious game enthusiasts, and it’s provided a platform for innovation that will ripple across all sectors of development. Playdate is a simple, small gaming machine with a single twist — a crank — and in its first two years on the market, it’s unearthed wells of creativity in the indie scene. By paring down the graphics and adding a new input method, Playdate changes the way we think about how games are played and made. As many of the industry’s most influential studios are trapped in a cycle of mass layoffs and regularly scheduled crunch, it’s a fantastic time to rethink what we’re all actually doing here. Playdate makes this process natural, accessible and entertaining.
Panic
A device like Playdate doesn’t just happen. I wouldn’t be worried about revisiting this thing two years post-launch if it were too underpowered, overcomplicated or unserious, but this isn’t a funny gimmick from a company on a press tour. The sense of elegance, care and proper prioritization built into Playdate is what makes it a blank canvas for so many different styles of game development. Playdate is a little yellow inspiration machine; it’s a physical reset button for the entire industry. Actually, I guess it’s a reset crank.
How much is great sound worth to you? Sennheiser’s top wireless earbuds ask that question in more ways than one. The previous version, the True Wireless 3, was praised by reviewers, but some users raised issues like battery drain and connection glitches. The Momentum True Wireless 4 set out to address these complaints with an all-new battery system among “over a dozen major upgrades,” according to Sennheiser.
Within this context, the two earbud dropouts I experienced in my first few days of testing the MTW4 stood out more than the usual new bud jitters. Especially since the latest pair sports the exact same exterior design as the MTW3, which is, in 2024, looking downright chunky compared to the competition. Size aside, a firmware update seems to have fixed those connection woes, and I’ve experienced no other dropouts over multiple days of testing.
One thing that’s never been in question with Sennheiser is sound quality. Even given their superb sonic pedigree, the Momentum 4 caught me off guard with their clarity, their sensitivity, and the sheer sweetness and delicacy with which they render every tone. They pair that with competitive noise canceling and a solid app. The result is a package that’s worthy of a little faith—especially for those who put great sound first.
Not-So-Spyware
If you’re at all familiar with Sennheiser’s long-running Momentum line, you’ll be feeling déjà vu with the fourth-gen version. The buds arrive nestled in what looks like the same boxy case from the original 2019 Momentum. It feels downright massive when compared to cases from Apple, Sony, and others. Still, you have to admire Sennheiser’s style, cloaking it with sleek fabric straight out of the James Bond Corduroy Collection.
The buds have morphed over time, but Sennheiser made no exterior changes from 2022’s MTW3 to maintain their “timeless aesthetic.” They certainly look premium with their angled, smoked-chrome housings but, timeless or not, I would have appreciated some ergonomic updates.
The buds barely wedge into my medium-size ears with the default band that flexes around the main housing, but swapping it for the smaller of two spares made them stable and relatively comfy for a few hours at a clip. They still feel bulgy and somewhat invasive, and at 6 grams per side, they don’t quite pull the disappearing trick of Apple’s AirPods Pro (9/10, WIRED Recommends) or other favorites. Four ear tip sizes let you further customize the fit, but those with smaller ears may want to try before you buy.
Plenty of Goodies
Photograph: Ryan Waniata
Beneath their enameled shells, the MTW4 have undergone a relatively thorough makeover, from their new battery system (and firmware to optimize it) to support for the latest Bluetooth 5.4 protocol and a new low-latency mode for gaming. They’ve also now got dust protection, with an IP54 rating.
The battery is arguably the most important upgrade, which includes a new provider to ensure improved reliability. Playback is rated at a respectable 7.5 hours per charge, and 30 hours total with the charging case. This matched my testing, with the buds keeping pace at around seven to eight hours per charge with noise canceling on.
Call quality has been upgraded, with AI optimization designed to offer advanced clarity via the buds’ new Qualcomm Snapdragon chip. I didn’t notice anything special on my end, but I also never received major complaints from others, even while talking outdoors.
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