They don't cope well in certain situations and the'transparent' mode lets in unwanted noise

Amazon's eReaders are best-in-class, and offer a legitimate opportunity for distraction-free reading. We may earn revenue from the products available on this page and participate in affiliate programs. The right Kindle will reignite your love of reading. Using a Kindle may seem unnecessary in a world where reading books, articles, and any other text on a phone or tablet is easy. Carrying around a dedicated mono-tasking device will add weight to your load, and it's another gadget to keep track of and charge. Yet Kindles remain popular because they only have one job and do it very well: let you carry and consume the stories that captivate you. A Kindle's e-ink screen won't reflect the sun when reading outdoors, unlike the reflective LCD displays used on phones and tablets.

Massage guns used to be simple percussive devices. Now, they use vibrations, hot and cold therapy, and even LED light to ease post-workout pain and promote muscle recovery. Massage guns relieve muscle tension and increase blood flow for faster recovery . In her words, "As we exercise, we cause breakdown within the muscle fibers, which in turn stimulates muscle growth and regrowth, hypertrophy, and strength." After consulting the experts and testing them on myself pre-and post-workout, I've rounded up a lineup of the best massage guns, like our top pick, the Hyperice Hypervolt 2 ($229) .

When you purchase through links in our articles, we may earn a small commission. The Acer Swift 16 AI delivers incredible performance and even manages to provide a decent gaming experience thanks to Intel's Panther Lake hardware. But, while the display is beautiful, it's also prone to reflections. The Acer Swift 16 AI is a 16-inch laptop with Intel's Panther Lake hardware . Thanks to Panther Lake, this machine is incredible, with high CPU performance, enough GPU performance for PC gaming, and long battery life. Performance is solid even when running on battery power, too -- even gaming performance is decent on battery! At a premium $1,899 price point, some of this laptop's components are incredible: The OLED display is absolutely beautiful and the huge haptic trackpad feels amazing.

These second-generation smart glasses give you superpowers--if the software behaves. Optional R1 smart ring makes control simpler. Software stability remains an issue. Smart ring is an extra $249. Navigation needs a little finessing.

When you purchase through links in our articles, we may earn a small commission. Nothing flashy, but it gets the basics right. The Acer TravelMate X4 14 AI is a competent business notebook with good battery life, but it doesn't offer much to get excited about. If you're looking for a portable business laptop you're likely to turn first to something like a Lenovo ThinkPad, HP EliteBook, or Dell Pro but the price could well scare you off, as business laptops tend to carry a substantial price premium. The Acer TravelMate X4 14 AI is also expensive on paper, but competitive retail pricing makes it more alluring.

A growing collection of pocket-sized gadgets lets you record your meetings and extract value from them. Whether sitting in class, a meeting, or an interview, I've never been fond of taking notes, and I'm far from alone. Not only does the process of scribbling something down cause me to miss what was said immediately after, but I also suffer from awful handwriting, meaning that I can rarely read the notes anyway. Recording interviews has long been a solution, but transcribing interviews is another step (with extra cost) that can leave you with thousands of words of material to sift through, much of it irrelevant. AI notetakers--massively popular at CES 2026 --have emerged to offer a new way of making IRL notetaking easier and faster, putting the power of AI into (or at least adjacent to) a portable device that evokes the microcassette recorder of yesteryear.

Apple could unveil Gemini-powered Siri in Feb. These open-fit earbuds actually make a difference with background noise. Rarely does a set of open-fit earbuds actually impress me. I tend to find them underwhelming because overall sound quality is subpar compared to the more "traditional" in-ear models. The first time I used the Shokz OpenFit Pro ($249.95)

PCWorld tested Intel's new Panther Lake Core Ultra X9 388H processor, which delivers gaming laptop performance through integrated graphics comparable to Nvidia GeForce 4050 chips. The chip achieves impressive battery life up to 27 hours while maintaining strong performance, with AI frame generation boosting gaming from 52 to 92 fps in titles like Cyberpunk. Panther Lake faces competition from AMD's Ryzen AI Max and Qualcomm's Snapdragon X2, but Intel's early 2025 release provides significant market advantage.

A cordless, portable blender was barely possible a few years ago. But two cordless blenders are ahead of the pack. But battery tech keeps getting better. This means the best portable blender I've tested, the Ninja Blast Max ($100), is now fully able to make a six-pack of crushed-ice margaritas at your next picnic or blend up a berry-filled protein shake at the gym without breaking much of a sweat. Meanwhile, the ingeniously designed Nutribullet Flip ($115) offers more torque than previous-generation blenders, plus enough insulation to keep ice frozen until it's time for lunch (or even dinner).