Here are the best AirPods deals you can get right now

Apple’s first-gen AirPods Pro are one of our go-to picks and are often on sale. | Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge

If you know where to look, there are often some great discounts available on Apple’s popular — yet oftentimes expensive — AirPods. Since Apple launched the third-gen AirPods last year, we’ve seen the starting price of the second-gen, entry-level model drop from $159 to $129. And now that you can buy the second-gen AirPods Pro and Black Friday season is here, we’re seeing even better discounts on the last-gen Pro and other models.

Below, we’ve curated the best deals currently available on each model, including the entry-level AirPods, the AirPods Pro, the third-gen AirPods, and the AirPods Max. And to save even more on other products, including Apple devices, be sure to check out our guide to the best Apple deals this Black Friday and our...

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Gatorade Smart Gx review: hydration isn’t rocket science

There’s some merit to the idea behind this smart bottle and sweat patch combo, but the execution is sorely lacking.

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The Verge’s 2022 holiday gift guide for travelers

Photography by Joel Goldberg for The Verge

Taking a trip can prove challenging, even without a pandemic. Thankfully, we’ve found some great gifts to make jet-setting a little more enjoyable.

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A very smart Vergecast Thanksgiving

Illustration: The Verge

Twice a week, The Verge publishes The Vergecast, our flagship podcast about technology and emotions. On Wednesdays, editor-at-large David Pierce leads a selection of The Verge’s expert staffers in an exploration of how gadgets and software affect our lives — and which ones you should bring into your home.

It’s Thanksgiving week. So on today’s show, we cover the gadgets involved in your Thanksgiving dinner. The kitchen may be the room in your home with the most technology, and the gadgets we use there are getting smarter — with Wi-Fi connections, touchscreens, and voice assistants. _S_mart home reviewer and reporter Jennifer Pattison Tuohy joins the show to demo making a Thanksgiving meal with her kitchen gadgets and chats with David about...

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Netflix is hiring for a ‘brand-new AAA PC game’

Illustration by Nick Barclay / The Verge

Netflix wants to make more than just mobile games. The company recently put up job listings for a game director, art director, and technical director at its newly announced Los Angeles games studio, alongside roles like producer and engineer, for a project described as “a brand-new AAA PC game.” Since it’s an unannounced project, there aren’t many details beyond that. But in the listing for game director, Netflix says that it’s looking for a “creative leader of one of Netflix’s first generation of internally developed original games.”

Netflix’s desire to expand into games isn’t new, but the company’s efforts have thus far been largely focused on the mobile space. Games were added to the Netflix mobile app last November, and since then,...

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Mercedes locks faster acceleration behind a $1,200 annual paywall

Mercedes-EQ EQE and EQ EQS models are eligible for an Acceleration Increase add-on, which boosts performance for a $1,200 yearly subscription. | Image: Mercedes

Mercedes is the latest manufacturer to lock auto features behind a subscription fee, with an upcoming “Acceleration Increase” add-on that lets drivers pay to access motor performance their vehicle is already capable of.

The $1,200 yearly subscription improves performance by boosting output from the motors by 20–24 percent, increasing torque, and shaving around 0.8 to 0.9 seconds off 0–60 mph acceleration when in Dynamic drive mode (via The Drive). The subscription doesn’t come with any physical hardware upgrades — instead, it simply unlocks the full capabilities of the vehicle, indicating that Mercedes intentionally limited performance to later sell as an optional extra. Acceleration Increase is only available for the Mercedes-EQ EQE and...

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This credit card-sized Continuity Camera mount is clever and affordable

The Elephant Card supports your iPhone for use as a full-featured Mac webcam. It costs less than $10 and folds up flat to easily fit into a pocket or wallet.

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Everybody promised to disrupt the smartphone — and the smartphone outlasted them all

The latest iPhones may not blow minds, but they’re still taking down all comers. | Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge

Everywhere you turned over the last few years, someone was promising The Next Big Thing After Smartphones. Yes, they’d say, the iPhone is the most ubiquitous product in the history of consumer electronics and the smartphone reprogrammed the world in utterly unparalleled ways. But have you seen this voice assistant that makes Morgan Freeman give you driving directions, or these humongous goggles that let you play ping-pong with someone across the globe? This is the future.

We’re in a moment of retrenchment in the tech industry, as companies of all types grapple with a tough economy and the fact that the pandemic wasn’t so much an accelerant of future trends as it was, well, a global pandemic that forced everyone to change their lives...

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The best video doorbell camera to buy right now

Illustration by Kristen Radtke / The Verge, Shutterstock

We pick the best brainy buzzers

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This cube can control your smart home

Aqara Cube T1 Pro | Image: Aqara

The smart home still needs buttons. Or — in the case of the new $22.99 Aqara Cube T1 Pro — gestures. Voice control and sensors, while useful, aren’t always the best way to turn the lights on, open the shades, or kick off routines or scenes. Sometimes you just want a tactile remote control to do the job for you. The Cube T1 Pro is an updated version of Aqara’s wireless Cube controller that fills this niche with a host of new gestures for controlling smart home devices, while adding support for Apple Home and Amazon Alexa.

The Cube T1 Pro lets you push, flip, twist, shake, or tap the cube to activate your gadget or scenes. It shows up as six wireless buttons in HomeKit and six motion sensors in Alexa. From here, you can tie each side to a...

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Nest Wifi Pro review: better, faster, shinier

A big upgrade over its predecessors, Google’s Nest Wifi Pro adds Wi-Fi 6 and 6E, bringing faster speeds, and improved reliability. It’s not a ‘Pro’ router — for top throughput, look elsewhere — but it packs a lot into an affordable package.

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Violent protests break out at Foxconn’s ‘iPhone city’

Videos shared on social media appear to show workers being kicked by hazmat-suited officials during Foxconn protests in Zhengzhou, central China. | Image: @StephenMcDonell

Protests have broken out at Foxconn’s vast iPhone factory in Zhengzhou, central China, as footage circulating on social media shows workers clashing with baton-wielding riot police and hazmat-suited officials. The protests started after workers, who have been under strict covid lockdown for weeks, learned bonus payments would be delayed, reports The Wall Street Journal.

Apple announced earlier this month that it expected lower shipments of premium iPhone 14 models due to disruptions created by the covid lockdowns at the same Foxconn facility. Zhengzhou, known locally as “iPhone city,” is home to an estimated 200,000 workers who are responsible for the vast majority of all iPhone production.

WARNING: Graphic Content. Hundreds of workers...

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Wednesday’s top tech news: Hurray for foldable competition

The newly announced Honor Magic VS. | Image: Honor

Honor’s second foldable will eventually release outside of China, and people are getting confused about a new car logo.

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Honor’s new Magic VS foldable will be released outside China

The Honor Magic VS in black, orange, white, and blue. | Image: Honor

The Honor Magic VS is a new foldable smartphone from the former Huawei subbrand that’s actually planned for release outside China. It uses a similar design to Samsung’s Galaxy Z Fold devices, pairing a large 7.9-inch internal folding display with a smaller 6.45-inch cover display for use while the device is folded.

“The Honor Magic VS will be our very first foldable flagship to debut in overseas markets and we are confident that it will deliver huge advancements, transforming how people all around the world use their smartphones,” said Honor CEO George Zhao. International pricing and detailed release information is yet to be announced, but in China the device will start at ¥7,499 (around $1,048) for the lowest specced model with 8GB of...

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Elon Musk tries to blame ‘activists’ for his Twitter moderation council lie

Kristen Radtke / The Verge; Getty IMages

Elon Musk is trying to explain why he let Donald Trump and others back onto Twitter, even after he promised that decision would be left up to a content moderation council made up of people with “widely diverse viewpoints.” And wow, his explanation sure is something; in a tweet on Tuesday night, he claimed the council was part of a deal he made with an unnamed “large coalition of political/social activist groups,” implying it was their fault.

Musk claims he made a deal to keep those groups from trying to destroy Twitter’s ad revenue, and that those groups “broke the deal,” and so he no longer has to uphold all that stuff about the council.

This conversation happened after Musk said that there was “not one permanent ban...

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Embracer is ripping a beloved mobile game away from people who paid for it

Did you ever buy Deus Ex Go, the excellent mobile puzzler from Square Enix Montreal that still ranks among the top 150 puzzle games on the App Store despite charging actual money to download? Then you’ll probably be frustrated to hear: Embracer Group, the massive conglomerate that’s gobbling up rights to franchises like Deus Ex and Tomb Raider and The Lord of the Rings and more, has decided you can’t play it anymore.

Three weeks after shutting down the studio that produced it (which had incidentally just finished going through an expensive rebrand), Embracer has decided not only to remove their games from mobile app stores, it’s apparently taking the extra step of making them inaccessible even if you’ve already downloaded them — or in...

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The best Black Friday Google deals you can get

The Pixel 7 (left) and Pixel 7 Pro (right) are some of the many big Google deals going on. | Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge

It’s a good time to be in the market for some new Google hardware. Google recently kicked off its Black Friday sales promotions on its store, and that set off a chain reaction of the same or better deals being offered all over. While some products on sale are mainstays that see frequent discounts (like the Nest Mini smart speaker for $19.99), there are also excellent deals on the latest flagship phones and accessories. For example, the Pixel 7 Pro is on sale for $749, and the new Pixel Watch is $50 off.

This may just be the tip of the iceberg of this season’s Black Friday sales, as there are all kinds of other early deals worth your attention. So we’ll forgive you if you need a moment to digest it all, but the good thing about these...

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The best Black Friday deals on gaming laptops

The Asus ROG Zephyrus G14. | Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge

You’re not just looking for a workhorse. You want a laptop that’s got game. Maybe that means frame rates, maybe even a high-refresh-rate screen for enhanced responsiveness in less demanding games. But above all, you want bang for the buck. That’s why you’re buying right now, during Black Friday week, when some of the best deals (and a bunch of predatory fake ones) show up.

These are the deals that caught my eye — the ones I might consider myself or recommend to a friend, depending on their needs and budget. Let’s start with the least expensive and go from there!

The best Black Friday gaming laptop deals

• The Gigabyte A5 K1 is $729 at Newegg ($470 off) or $749 at Best Buy, a killer deal for midrange specs — an RTX 3060 (130W) and Ryzen...

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The best Black Friday deals on Apple devices

The Apple Watch Series 8 is $50 off in time for Black Friday. | Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge

Plenty of tech is on sale for Black Friday and Cyber Monday including Apple products. Below, we’ve compiled the best Black Friday deals on Apple devices that we could find, including laptops, iPads, Apple Watches, AirPods, and more. We’ll be keeping an eye out for iPhone deals as well, though we’ll likely see carrier discounts on Black Friday and not actual price cuts on hardware.

The best Black Friday iPad deals

It’s a great time to buy an iPad. The base iPad from 2021 with a Lightning connector is a good value for $269.99. The $100 discount that brings the 2021 iPad Mini with a USB-C connector down to $399.99 is good, too, even though that deal isn’t new. If you’re looking for a high-end option, the 2021 12.9-inch iPad Pro with the M1...

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The best Black Friday deals on Amazon devices

Amazon’s Echo Show 15 is $169.99 at various retailers, which is an $80 discount. | Photo by Jennifer Pattison Tuohy / The Verge

Don’t worry if you missed out on the steep Amazon device discounts we saw during July’s Amazon Prime Day and October’s Prime Early Access Sale: Black Friday is here, and the deals, in some cases, are even better. With the holiday season just around the corner, the timing’s perfect, too, as even popular presents like the Kindle Paperwhite are on sale at new all-time low prices. Even better, we’re seeing some of the first significant discounts on Amazon’s recently launched tech, like the fifth-gen Echo Dot, which just came out last month and is already half off.

For your convenience, we’ve curated all the best deals you can currently get on Amazon devices in this post. If you want to save even more, though, be sure to check out our other...

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Vivo’s X90 Pro Plus is the first phone with a Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 chipset

The X stands for extreme, indeed. | Image: Vivo

Vivo announced a trio of new flagship phones today, and sitting at the top is the X90 Pro Plus, complete with the brand-new Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 chipset announced just last week. The 8 Gen 2 is expected to appear in plenty of Android flagships over the next year, including Samsung’s S23 series, but the X90 Pro Plus has the honor of being the very first to market. It also includes some serious camera hardware, putting it up there with the most ambitious smartphone cameras to date. Unfortunately for us, it’s only launching in the Chinese market for now.

Vivo doesn’t outright name the X90 Pro Plus’ chipset as the 8 Gen 2, likely because of its partnership with MediaTek, but looking at the specs, you can connect the dots. The other two models...

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The best Black Friday deals you can already get at Walmart

Walmart is selling the first-gen AirPods Pro for just $159, which is a $90 discount. | Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge

Just like Best Buy and Target, Walmart has already dropped many of its Black Friday deals ahead of the main event. The retailer began rolling out discounts online as part of its Deals for Days event earlier this month, and has continued adding to the pile on a weekly basis.

Although it’s possible we’ll see prices drop even further when Black Friday officially lands later this week, we’re already seeing some steep discounts on a range of popular products, including the first-gen AirPods Pro. For your convenience, we’ve curated some of the best tech deals at Walmart for you to check out here. If you’re looking for even more deals, be sure to check out our roundup of the best early Black Friday deals available at all retailers. We’ve also...

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Kia’s rebrand has left many people wondering who ‘KN’ is

What do you see when you look at this logo? | Photo by Roberto Baldwin for The Verge

When I see the relatively new Kia logo, which is just the brand’s name but in an extremely angular, scrunched-up font with a seemingly connected “I” and middle line-less “A,” the first thing that comes to mind is “wow, that makes sense on a state-of-the-art EV but feels laughably out-of-place on this minivan.” But apparently, there are many, many people whose reaction is more along the lines of “wait... what does that say?”

Each month, there are around 30,000 web searches for “KN car,” according to data posted by ad agency owner Ashwinn Krishnaswamy on Twitter. The spike in searches — which seems to come from people trying to figure out if they’d missed the launch of an entirely new car company — started early last year, right around the...

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Marvel Snap introduces new cards and a way to get the cards you want

Image: Second Dinner

The developers behind Marvel Snap keep giving the people what they want. In a blog post, the developers announced that in the next patch, they’re adding a slew of new cards and a way for players to get the cards they’ve been pining for.

Right now, the way you earn cards in Marvel Snap is by making your way up the collection rank ladder. Every so often, you’ll be rewarded with a new card from a specific pool at random. Random is all fun and good as it forces players to get creative in how they construct their decks so everyone isn’t running the same high-powered cards. But it still kinda sucks when you could craft the perfect deck to drive your enemies from you wailing and screaming if only you had that one card. (Wong, I need Wong!)

C...

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The best deals on MacBooks right now

The 2020 MacBook Air, one of the best laptops you can get, is frequently on sale. | Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge

With multiple configurations and various models to choose from, finding a deal on an M1-equipped MacBook or Mac Mini is not all that difficult. It’s sometimes a slightly different story for the MacBook Pros with the beefier M1 Pro and M1 Max CPUs, but any savings you can get on those Pro models is sure to be worthwhile. As for the newer 13-inch MacBook Pro and MacBook Air with M2 processors, it may take time to see truly sizable savings.

Here, we’ll run through the discounts that are currently available for the current MacBooks, as well as any deals to be had on the Mac Mini. Of course, you may still find older Intel-based configurations lying around, with some heavy closeout sales. While those are compatible with the recently launched m...

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California’s last operating nuclear plant just got a $1.1 billion lifeline

Aerial view of the Diablo Canyon, the only operational nuclear plant left in California. | Photo by George Rose / Getty Images

The Department of Energy extended a $1.1 billion lifeline to California’s embattled Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant. Diablo Canyon has become a major flashpoint over what kinds of energy are considered “clean” and what risks policymakers are willing to take to reach their climate goals.

The $1.1 billion in funding, announced yesterday, comes from a $6 billion Civil Nuclear Credit program made possible by the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law Congress passed last year. Diablo Canyon is the first power plant to be awarded credits from the program, which aims to extend the lives of reactors in danger of closing down.

Diablo Canyon is the first power plant to be awarded

The two nuclear reactors at Diablo Canyon were slated to be decommissioned...

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NASA’s Orion spacecraft makes close flyby of the Moon and heads on to orbit

NASA’s Orion capsule snaps a selfie, with the far side of the Moon in the background. | Image: NASA

NASA’s Orion spacecraft has made it past the Moon as part of the uncrewed Artemis I mission, firing its engines to pass within 81 miles of the lunar surface, and is operating with high accuracy.

The spacecraft performed an outbound powered flyby burn yesterday, Monday, November 21st, completing its closest flyby. The engines “all worked perfectly,” said Judd Frieling, a flight director at NASA’s Johnson Space Center, in a press conference. With three trajectory correction burns performed, the spacecraft has now fired all three of its thruster types: its large orbital maneuvering system engine, small reaction control system thrusters, and medium-sized auxiliary engines.

Now Orion is traveling onward to its next target, a distant...

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The best Black Friday deals you can already get at Best Buy

LG

This is it, Black Friday week. We’re just days away from the start of the biggest shopping holiday of 2022, but in a way, it already started at Best Buy. It came out swinging in early October with several good deals. It’ll add more price cuts once actual Black Friday comes around on the day after Thanksgiving in the US. Barring some items selling out, many of the deals you’ll find below should last through Black Friday.

A few important things to note from Best Buy’s frequently asked questions page: it isn’t offering rain checks on Black Friday deals that sell out, though its great price-matching policy won’t be in effect from now through Cyber Monday, which is November 28th. For items purchased between now and the end of the year, you...

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The best Xbox controller to buy right now

Photo Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Basic, premium, affordable, and customizable — lots to pick from

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Last.fm turns 20 and now has a following on Discord

This is Hot Pod, The Verge’s newsletter about podcasting and the audio industry. Sign up here for more.

Thanksgiving is almost here, and I’ve already eaten half a bag of King’s Hawaiian rolls. I’m looking forward to signing off, seeing family, and eating a lot more bread later this week. But for now: podcasts. Or music, actually — most of this week’s news is about streaming music and what we listen to. And mostly, this week’s newsletter is about a service I have very fond memories of, even if I haven’t used it in many, many years.

Today, we’ve got a check-in on Last.fm and its burgeoning presence on Discord, an update on Neil Young on Spotify, a new audio editing tool from Anchor, and an expansion of Spotify’s audiobook efforts.

A quick...

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