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HBO Max is now officially Max, the revamped streaming service that merges HBO Max and Discovery Plus’ libraries. Today, new movies and shows premiere on the service, including a SmartLess docuseries and a family-friendly Gremlins cartoon. (Shazam! Fury of the Gods isn’t totally new, but it’s included in the list below, too.)

Here’s more about what just hit Max on launch day and what’s coming in the future. If you stick with the service long enough, you’ll eventually catch a new Harry Potter series and Game of Thrones spin-off. Max streams Warner Bros., HBO, Max Originals, DC, HGTV, Food Network, Adult Swim, Cartoon Network, Discovery Channel, TLC, ID and more.

What hit Max on May 23

• SmartLess: On the Road: Docuseries that follows actors and friends Will Arnett, Jason Bateman and Sean Hayes during the North American tour of their popular podcast.

• Bama Rush: Documentary about sorority recruitment at the University of Alabama.
• Shazam! Fury of the Gods: Sequel to Shazam!, continuing the story of Billy Batson, a teen with an adult superhero alter ego.

• Gremlins: Secrets of the Mogwai: An animated family series set before the live-action films.
• Clone High: Reboot of the 2002 animated series Clone High.
• How to Create a Sex Scandal: A docuseries that tells of how “brainwashing, manipulation and disturbing acts caused a small local community in Mineola, Texas, to unravel.”
• What Am I Eating? With Zooey Deschanel: An unscripted series in which Deschanel debunks myths about food.

Also coming to Max relatively close to launch are Magnolia Network series Silos Baking Competition (May 28), ID docuseries The Curious Case of Natalia Grace (May 29), Sarah Silverman‘s comedy special (May 27), HBO documentary Being Mary Tyler Moore (May 26) and Reality, an HBO film starring Sydney Sweeney (May 29).

More coming to Max in the future

Everything we learned when Warner Bros. Discovery unveiled Max in April

Max is the streaming home of HBO, so it isn’t leaving Game of Thrones behind. WBD revealed that HBO has ordered a new Game of Thrones prequel series, A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms: The Hedge Knight. The series will be set 100 years before the events of Game of Thrones, when “two unlikely heroes wandered Westeros … a young, naive but courageous knight, Ser Duncan the Tall, and his diminutive squire, Egg,” according to its description.

“Set in an age when the Targaryen line still holds the Iron Throne and the memory of the last dragon has not yet passed from living memory, great destinies, powerful foes, and dangerous exploits all await these improbable and incomparable friends,” the log line says.

Harry Potter fans will be able to get invested in a new show on Max. Casey Bloys, chairman and CEO of HBO and HBO Max content, said, “Over the course of the next decade … we will once again enter the wondrous world of Harry Potter as a multi-season live action series for the first time.” The Max original series will adapt the first seven Harry Potter books and star new actors.

A first look at The Penguin and more:

• WBD shared a first look trailer for previously announced series The Penguin, starring Colin Farrell in his role from Matt Reeves’ film The Batman. The spin-off will consist of eight episodes and premiere in 2024.

• A drama series set In The Conjuring universe is in development.
• A comedy series derived from The Big Bang Theory is in development.
• Previously announced comedy series How to Be a Bookie is coming to Max. It’ll reportedly reunite Charlie Sheen and Chuck Lorre.
• More things already on our radar: DC shows Creature Commandos, Waller, Booster Gold, Lanterns and Paradise Lost. Drama series Welcome to Derry, a prequel to 2017’s It and 2019’s It Chapter Two, debuts in 2024.
• Several projects that were initially developed for Discovery Plus will now be Max originals, according to Bloys. They include Shaun White: The Last Run and Downey’s Dream Cars, featuring Robert Downey Jr.
• Fixer Upper: The Hotel, a new installment in the Fixer Upper franchise, will hit Max in November. Watch a new trailer with Chip and Joanna Gaines.

• The Flash hits theaters in June and Max in the fall.

• Love and Translation, a fresh dating series from the producers of 90 Day Fiance, hits Max in winter 2023.

• Food competition series Ciao House, which premiered on Food Network, will be on Max.
• Survive the Raft, a reality show from Discovery Channel, hits Max in July.

• Lost Women of Highway 20 will hit Max in 2023. The true crime series features Octavia Spencer.
• Rick and Morty: The Anime will debut on Max along with Adult Swim in 2023.

• Barbie Dreamhouse Challenge, a doll-themed home renovation competition series, hits Max this summer.

• Tiny Toons Looniversity, a reboot of Tiny Toon Adventures, is coming to Max this fall.
• A Peter and the Wolf animated short film, featuring artwork based on original illustrations by Bono, is coming to Max in 2023.
• HBO series True Detective: Night Country released a new trailer. It’s coming in 2023 and stars Jodie Foster.

• A trailer for HBO limited series The Regime dropped. The show debuts in 2024 and features Kate Winslet.
• HBO limited series The Sympathizer also got a new trailer. It’s coming in 2024 and is based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel of the same name.

The price of your Paramount Plus subscription may rise in June, once the streaming platform integrates with Showtime.

Starting June 27, a Paramount Plus with Showtime subscription will cost $12 a month, a $2 increase over the current Paramount Plus premium plan. The company will also raise the price of its ad-supported essential plan, which doesn’t include Showtime, from $5 to $6 per month.

The new price for a premium Paramount Plus subscription is on par with the current cost of a Paramount Plus and Showtime bundle, at $12 a month. The price hikes will go into effect for both new and existing subscribers in the US.

Score 1 Month of Paramount Plus for Free With This Code See at Cnet

“By integrating the Showtime premium and critically acclaimed portfolio with the service’s already broad and popular slate, all at a competitive price, we will solidify Paramount Plus as a cornerstone in streaming,” Tom Ryan, president of Paramount Streaming, said in a statement.

In January, Paramount announced the integration with Showtime and a month later announced price increases were impending. On Monday, Paramount also said it will nix its Showtime app.

CNET’s review of Paramount Plus found “familiar, binge-worthy series and reality shows,” alongside a live TV component. It also pointed out the platform’s reliance on nostalgia-rich TV, like old Nickelodeon shows, Comedy Central standup performances and popular oldies like Frasier or Spongebob Squarepants. There’s plenty of shows for kids as well as major movie releases that arrive on the platform shortly after their theatrical release.

More details on Paramount Plus with Showtime pricing were released a day before Warner Bros. Discovery on Tuesday integrated HBO Max with Discovery Plus, rebranding the streamer to Max. The services are among several streaming platforms competing for customers, with the best choice for you likely coming down to a mix of budget and shows and movies you like best. To help you decide, see CNET’s breakdown of the best streaming services of 2023.

Each new generation of Google’s Pixel A-series phones comes with fewer compromises than the last. That’s truer than ever with the Pixel 7A, which costs $499 and bears striking similarity to the $599 Pixel 7. After reviewing both phones, I’m convinced the Pixel 7A is the best value for most people.

Both phones run on Google’s Tensor G2 processor, meaning you’ll get essentially the same performance and very similar photography and language translation features on both devices.

The biggest area in which they differ on paper comes down to their cameras and their size, although in practice I could barely tell the difference between photos taken on both devices.

The only major reason to choose the Pixel 7 over the 7A is if you prefer having a slightly larger screen and can find it at a discount that brings it closer to the 7A in price. Here’s a closer look at how the two phones compare after testing them both.

Pixel 7 vs. Pixel 7A: Cameras

Looking at the camera specifications, you may think the Pixel 7A has the superior setup. It has a 64-megapixel main camera, while the Pixel 7’s primary shooter has a 50-megapixel sensor. The 7A also has a 13-megapixel ultrawide compared to the Pixel 7, which has a 12-megapixel one.

But resolution isn’t everything when it comes to taking a great photo. Google says the Pixel 7’s camera sensor is larger and more light sensitive, which should result in better overall image quality. When comparing the two, I couldn’t really tell the difference. Both phones take excellent photos with vibrant color and crisp details. If you’re a casual photographer and just want a reliable camera for taking great photos of friends, family, vacations and pets, the Pixel 7A is more than enough.

Take a look at some photo samples below.

Since both phones have the same processor, they also share many of the same photo-editing and shooting features. That includes night mode, portrait mode, Face Unblur, Photo Unblur, Magic Eraser and Real Tone, Google’s tech for rendering skin tones more accurately. They can also both zoom digitally up to 8x.

The cheaper Pixel 7A lacks Action Pan, which is present on the Pixel 7 and captures a moving subject sharply while blurring the background. Both phones have Long Exposure mode, though, which does the opposite by applying an action blur effect to a moving subject.

The Pixel 7 and 7A also take relatively bright photos in dim environments, too, as shown below. However, on one occasion, the Pixel 7 was able to focus more sharply on the subject when taking photos in low light.

Even though the Pixel 7A technically has a higher resolution front camera, I thought selfies from both devices generally looked equally good.

The bottom line: The Pixel 7A and Pixel 7 both have very similar cameras. The Pixel 7A doesn’t have Google’s Action Pan feature, but you’re not missing much else.

Pixel 7 vs. Pixel 7A: Size and design

The Pixel 7A inherits the Pixel 7’s design language, from its metallic camera bar to its matte edges. The main differences between the two devices come down to size and color options. The Pixel 7A has a 6.1-inch screen, which might be preferable if you like smaller devices. The Pixel 7 has a 6.3-inch screen, providing a bit more space for those who like to read and watch videos on their phones.

Both devices can increase their screen’s refresh rate up to 90Hz when needed to make animations and scrolling look smoother, and they both have the same resolution at 1,080×2,400 pixels.

However, both screens look dim in bright sunlight; I had to boost the brightness to the max when outdoors.

In terms of color choices, the Pixel 7A is available in coral (orange), sea (light blue), charcoal (grayish) and snow (white). The Pixel 7, on the other hand, comes in lemongrass (light yellow), snow (white) and obsidian (black).

There’s also a slight difference between the two phones when it comes to durability. The Pixel 7A is rated for IP67 dust and water resistance, while the Pixel 7 has an IP86 rating. While both phones are dust-tight, the Pixel 7A is only rated to withstand the effects of temporary immersion in water, while the Pixel 7 can endure continuous immersion in water.

Pixel 7 vs. Pixel 7A: Battery life and performance

Since they run on the same Tensor G2 processor and have the same amount of memory, performance is similar between the two. Launching apps, scrolling around the operating system and switching between apps and playing games felt smooth on both devices. They also scored similarly on benchmarks meant to test general performance and graphics, as shown below. (Note: Geekbench 6, the performance test, evaluates the performance of a processor’s single core in addition to how multiple cores perform together, as shown in the table).

I generally got around a day of battery life out of both, although for you it may vary depending on your phone’s settings and which apps you’re using. In addition to using the devices as my personal phone when I reviewed them, I ran two battery tests: a 45-minute endurance test to see how much battery life is drained after tasks like making a video call, playing games and streaming video, and a three-hour test that involves streaming a YouTube video and measuring the battery percentage at each hour mark.

The Pixel 7 won the 45-minute endurance test since it had 94% of its battery remaining versus the Pixel 7A’s 92%. But the Pixel 7A outperformed the Pixel 7 on the three-hour drain test, although the two were close. All told, battery life is similar between the two devices.

Still, the Pixel 7 does charge slightly faster than the Pixel 7A, given that the former supports 18W charging while the latter supports 20W. In practice, the Pixel 7 went from 20% to 64% after 30 minutes of charging, while the Pixel 7A went from 20% to 58%. (Note: for this test, I used a non-Google 45-watt power adapter and the USB-C cable that came with each phone). Both phones also support wireless charging, which is notable considering the Pixel 6A lacked this functionality.

Pixel 7 vs. Pixel 7A: Software and support

Google provides a very similar software experience for the Pixel 7 and Pixel 7A. Both devices run Android 13 and will likely be among the first to be upgraded to Android 14 since they’re Pixel devices.

You also get Google’s Pixel-specific features like the Recorder app, its suite of phone call tools that let Google wait on hold for you and transcribe automated menus and Google’s free VPN. Google also regularly releases minor software updates for Pixel phones called “feature drops” that introduce new additions throughout the year. Both devices offer the same biometric authentication options for unlocking your phone: face unlock and fingerprint scanning.

But of the two phones, only the Pixel 7 supports spatial audio, which essentially creates the effect of surround sound in your headphones. When testing this feature while watching Stranger Things, I noticed the sounds of cars zooming by or insects chirping had a bit more movement and depth on the Pixel 7 compared to the Pixel 7A.

The Pixel 7 and 7A will each get at least three years of Android version updates and five years of security updates. That means you can expect the Pixel 7 to get Android version updates up to October 2025, while the Pixel 7A will likely receive Android OS upgrades until May 2026.

Pixel 7 vs. Pixel 7A: Which should you buy?

The Pixel 7A is the best overall choice for most people because it provides a very similar experience as the Pixel 7 for $100 less. You’ll get a few extras with the Pixel 7, but none that feel like deal-breakers.

These include a slightly larger screen, charging that’s a bit faster than the Pixel 7A’s, the Action Pan photography feature, spatial audio and a higher protection rating against water submersion. Even though the camera specifications differ between the two devices, both phones capture impressive photos that are more than adequate for casual photographers.

With the Pixel 7A, Google further closed the gap between its flagship Pixel device and its budget-friendly option. For that reason, I’m hoping to see more from the Pixel 8.

Google Pixel 7A

Best Android phone for $500

Google’s budget phone took a leap forward in 2023 with the Pixel 7A, which offers many of the same benefits as the Pixel 7 but at a cheaper price. Like the Pixel 7, the Pixel 7A runs on Google’s Tensor G2 processor, meaning it has many of the same photo editing and language translation features as its pricier sibling. The Pixel 7A’s 64-megapixel camera also takes excellent photos that rival the Pixel 7’s in quality.

While we still like the Pixel 7, the Pixel 7A’s lower price makes it a better deal for most people. Only opt for the Pixel 7 if you really want a slightly larger screen and are willing to pay the extra $100 for it. Otherwise, the main differences between the Pixel 7 and 7A come down to the former’s more durable build, slightly faster charging and its ability to wirelessly charge compatible accessories. The Pixel 7 also has a larger camera sensor that’s more sensitive to light, according to Google, but CNET’s Lisa Eadicicco didn’t notice much of a difference.

Read our Google Pixel 7A review.

$499 at Best Buy$499 at Target

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Google Pixel 7

From $599

Google’s flagship phone has a solid 50-megapixel camera, a 6.3-inch screen and Google’s Tensor G2 processor. While we generally recommend the Pixel 7A since it’s $100 cheaper and offers a similar experience, the Pixel 7 is still a great choice for those in need of a relatively affordable Android phone with a larger screen.

Read our Google Pixel 7 review.

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Adobe is building generative AI abilities into its flagship image-editing software with a new Photoshop beta release Tuesday. The move promises to release a new torrent of creativity even as it gives us all a new reason to pause and wonder if that sensational, scary or inspirational photo you see on the internet is actually real.

In my tests, detailed below, I found the tool impressive overall but far from perfect. Adding it directly to Photoshop is a big deal, letting creators experiment within the software tool they’re likely already using without excursions to Midjourney, Stability AI’s Stable Diffusion or other outside generative AI tools.

With Adobe’s Firefly family of generative AI technologies arriving in Photoshop, you’ll be able to let the AI fill a selected part of the image with whatever it thinks most fitting – for example, replacing road cracks with smooth pavement. You can also specify the imagery you’d like with a text prompt, such as adding a double yellow line to the road.

Firefly in Photoshop also can also expand an image, adding new scenery beyond the frame based on what’s already in the frame or what you suggest with text. Want more sky and mountains in your landscape photo? A bigger crowd at the rock concert? Photoshop will oblige, without today’s difficulties of finding source material and splicing it in.

Photoshop’s Firefly skills can be powerful. In Adobe’s live demo, the were often able to match a photo’s tones, blend in AI-generated imagery seamlessly, infer the geometric details of perspective even in reflections and extrapolate the position of the sun from shadows and sky haze.

Such technologies have been emerging over the last year as Stable Diffusion, Midjourney and OpenAI’s Dall-Ecaptured the imaginations of artists and creative pros. Now it’s built directly into the software they’re most likely to already be using, streamlining what can be a cumbersome editing process.

“It really puts the power and control of generative AI into the hands of the creator,” said Maria Yap, Adobe’s vice president of digital imaging. “You can just really have some fun. You can explore some ideas. You can ideate. You can create without ever necessarily getting into the deep tools of the product, very quickly.”

Now you’d better brace yourself for that future.

Photoshop’s Firefly AI imperfect but useful

In my testing, I frequently ran into problems, many of them likely stemming from the limited range of the training imagery. When I tried to insert a fish on a bicycle to an image, Firefly only added the bicycle. I couldn’t get Firefly to add a kraken to emerge from San Francisco Bay. A musk ox looked like a panda-moose hybrid.

Less fanciful material also presents problems. Text looks like an alien race’s script. Shadows, lighting, perspective and geometry weren’t always right.

People are hard, too. On close inspection, their faces were distorted in weird ways. Humans added into shots were positioned too high in the frame or in other unconvincing ways.

Still, Firefly is remarkable for what it can accomplish, particularly with landscape shots. I could add mountains, oceans, skies and hills to landscapes. A white delivery van in a night scene was appropriately yellowish to match the sodium vapor streetlights in the scene. If you don’t like the trio of results Firefly presents, you can click the “generate” button to get another batch.

Given the pace of AI developments, I expect Firefly in Photoshop will improve.

“This is the future of Photoshop,” Yap said.

Automating image manipulation

For years, “Photoshop” hasn’t just referred to Adobe’s software. It’s also used as a verb signifying photo manipulations like slimming supermodels’ waists or hiding missile launch failures. AI tools automate not just fun and flights of fancy, but also fake images like an alleged explosion at the Pentagon or a convincingly real photo of the pope in a puffy jacket, to pick two recent examples.

With AI, expect editing techniques far more subtle than the extra smoke easily recognized as digitally added to photos of an Israeli attack on Lebanon in 2006.

It’s a reflection of the double-edged sword that is generative AI. The technology is undeniably useful in many situations but also blurs the line between what is true and what is merely plausible.

For its part, Adobe tries to curtail problems. It doesn’t permit prompts to create images of many political figures and blocks you for “safety issues” if you try to create an image of black smoke in front of the White House. And its AI usage guidelines prohibit imagery involving violence, pornography and “misleading, fraudulent, or deceptive content that could lead to real-world harm,” among other categories. “We disable accounts that engage in behavior that is deceptive or harmful.”

Firefly also is designed to skip over styling prompts like that have provoked serious complaints from artists displeased to see their type of art reproduced by a data center. And it supports the Content Authenticity Initiative‘s content credentials technology that can be used to label an image as having been generated by AI.

Generative AI for photos

Adobe’s Firefly family of generative AI tools began with a website that turns a text prompt like “modern chair made up of old tires” into an image. It’s added a couple other options since, and Creative Cloud subscribers will also be able to try a lightweight version of the Photoshop interface on the Firefly site.

When OpenAI’s Dall-E brought that technology to anyone who signed up for it in 2022, it helped push generative artificial intelligence from a technological curiosity toward mainstream awareness. Now there’s plenty of worry along with the excitement as even AI creators fret about what the technology will bring now and in the more distant future.

Generative AI is a relatively new form of artificial intelligence technology. AI models can be trained to recognize patterns in vast amounts of data – in this case labeled images from Adobe’s stock art business and other licensed sources – and then to create new imagery based on that source data.

Generative AI has surged to mainstream awareness with language models used in tools like OpenAI’s ChatGPT chatbot, Google’s Gmail and Google Docs, and Microsoft’s Bing search engine. When it comes to generating images, Adobe employs an AI image generation technique called diffusion that’s also behind Dall-E, Stable Diffusion, Midjourney and Google’s Imagen.

Adobe calls Firefly for Photoshop a “co-pilot” technology, positioning it as a creative aid, not a replacement for humans. Yap acknowledges that some creators are nervous about being replaced by AI. Adobe prefers to see it as a technology that can amplify and speed up the creative process, spreading creative tools to a broader population.

“I think the democratization we’ve been going through, and having more creativity, is a positive thing for all of us.”

Standalone MP3 players dominated pop culture for a long time, but in 2023 almost no one needs one. Any iPhone or Android phone is an audio player that works with subscription music apps like Spotify, Apple Music, Tidal, Amazon Music and YouTube Music. You pay your $5 to $10 a month, and you get access to nearly every popular song ever recorded. And the tracks are downloadable, too, so you can listen to your music even when you leave a Wi-Fi or cellular coverage area. It’s quick, easy and convenient. What’s not to like?

“A lot,” I can hear some people saying. Maybe you’ve got one too many subscriptions already, so why pay for one more when you already have a music library of thousands of MP3 files sitting on your hard drive? Or maybe you’ve meticulously crafted iTunes playlists, like mixtapes of old, that you don’t want to re-create or transfer to another service. Maybe you have rare, one-off live tracks that don’t exist on mainstream services. (Phish fans, I’m looking at you.)

Now, truth be told, if any of that applies to you, you still don’t need an MP3 player — your iPhone can still sync music files from iTunes (on Windows) or the Apple Music app (on Mac), and it probably has more storage space than your old iPod ever did. Android phones, too, can play whatever music files you can load them up with. But if you want a dedicated device for your music — or, maybe, a parentally curated set of songs to give to a kid who’s not ready for a phone — there are still MP3 device options out there. They’re not all great, and they generally come with some caveats. But if you’ve gotten this far, here’s what I can recommend, more than two decades after the iPod was first released.

iPhone SE

Best MP3 player for die-hard iTunes users

$450 at Best Buy

The iPod Touch was the last dedicated music player in Apple’s lineup, but it was officially discontinued in May 2022. You can still find used models out there, but don’t expect them to be supported for much longer.

What to do instead? Get a used iPhone, or a new iPhone SE — and just use it on Wi-Fi. The latter will cost you about $429 all-in (for 64GB of storage), but you’ll get a device that can run the latest version of iOS, and it can pull music from iTunes (on Windows) or Apple Music (on the Mac). It works seamlessly with Bluetooth headphones and speakers, but you’ll need a pesky Lightning adapter to use old-school headphones. And, because it’s got the App Store, you can also opt for alternate services like Spotify, Amazon Music, YouTube and the like (so long as you can access a Wi-Fi hotspot), in addition to or instead of the Apple Music app.

Yes, this is way too much to pay for a “music player,” in my book. But it’s the most capable and flexible option here, especially for those who are already in the Apple services universe — or refuse to leave their iTunes-based MP3 library. It’s also a nice fallback portable MP3 player option for kids if you don’t want to spend up for an iPad, which starts at around $300 and isn’t pocketable.

$450 at Best Buy

Apple Watch

Music on your wrist

$240 at Amazon$249 at Best Buy$249 at Apple

Once upon a time, people strapped iPod Nanos to their wrists and called it an Apple Watch of sorts.

Nowadays the real Apple Watch can act as a sorta-kinda iPod, at least for Apple Music subscribers. Just sync some playlists to the Watch, and you can enjoy digital music (not to mention podcasts) on a set of wireless headphones, even if the iPhone is nowhere nearby. Get an Apple Watch SE for less than $250 for basic music playback, or go for an Apple Watch Series 8 or Apple Watch Ultra if you want more non-music features. Note that recent Apple Watch SE sales have seen the prices of the 40mm version drop to as low as $200 and the larger 44mm model dip below $230.

$240 at Amazon$249 at Best Buy$249 at Apple

SanDisk Clip Sport Plus

Basic budget MP3 player

$50 at Amazon$50 at B&H Photo-Video

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These days, you can still get very basic music players on Amazon, but they’re nearly all from no-name China brands. (We tried one like this, and it was fine, but nothing special.) In the (distant) past, the tiny SanDisk Clip family of players were a serviceable option for basic music playback (so long as you’re well versed in the old school drag-and-drop method of file transfer). But some Amazon reviewers have criticized the later iteration of that model — the Clip Sport Plus — saying that its Bluetooth connection wasn’t up to snuff. If you want to go this route, you might want to stick with wired headphones, which will also enable FM radio playback.

$50 at Amazon$50 at B&H Photo-Video

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Mighty Vibe

Screenless Spotify option

$120 at Amazon

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The Mighty Vibe is the closest modern equivalent to the iPod Shuffle, the screenless iPod that was beloved by runners for weighing next to nothing and just spooling off songs from their favorite playlist. (It’s also a great gadget loophole for sleepaway camps with “no screen” rules.) The catch is that this model only works with Spotify Premium and (thanks to a recent firmware update) Amazon Music, both of which can be synced wirelessly.

The Vibe can store upwards of 1,000 songs in its music library, and — unlike the old Shuffle — it supports wireless and wired headphones. But it charges through the headphone jack via a proprietary cable, rather than more ubiquitous micro-USB or USB-C connectors. The 5-hour battery life is so-so, as is the price tag over $100, which feels higher than what you want to pay for this MP3 device product in an era of $30 wireless headphones and $200 smart phones.

Read our Mighty Vibe Spotify Music Player review.

$120 at Amazon

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Other MP3 players

Yes, the products above are really the only ones I can recommend in this category with any degree of enthusiasm. But they aren’t the only options. If you’re looking for a bargain basement option (under $50), a serious high-end alternative (starting at $350 and going to four figures) or some interesting workarounds, read on.

Swim-friendly option: Aftershockz OpenSwim

This 4GB “player in a headphone” model uses Aftershockz’s patented bone-conduction technology. It’s also fully waterproof, and retails for about $150. (Note that CNET hasn’t tested these hands-on.)

The budget hack: Any old smartphone

If you’ve got an old phone — or you buy a new one without service — you’ll have access to the full realm of app-based music services, and any music files you care to upload. Something like the $160-ish Samsung Galaxy A03S (shown above) fits the bill nicely, since you can drop in a MicroSD card that you’ve preloaded with tunes.

High-end options: Sony Walkman, Astell & Kern

Audiophiles have long looked down on digital music because the sound quality was notably inferior for golden-eared listeners with distinguishing tastes. But the development of lossless file formats (such as FLAC) and cheap ample multigigabyte storage have made portable high-fidelity music a reality.

At this point, there are really only two major players in the high-end portable music space: Astell & Kern and Sony (where the Walkman brand still lives on). We’ve used earlier versions of each brand, but not the current models.

• Sony Walkman music players line starts with the new-for-2023 (really!) NW-A306, arriving soon for $348.
• Astell & Kern players start at $1,299, and are strictly for true enthusiasts.

If you’re the sort of person who has hard drives full of uncompressed music audio files — and can hear the difference between that and comparatively low-resolution MP3 and AAC files — then, by all means, pair up one of those players with your wired headphone of choice.

That said, nearly all of the streaming music services now offer lossless or high bitrate options — that’s nearly all the big players, from Tidal and Qobuz to Amazon and Apple. (Spotify HiFi, weirdly, remains a no-show.)

If you like what you hear, consider upgrading to a decent headphone DAC (that’s “digital to analog converter”) like the Audiofly Dragonfly and a serious wired headphone. Then you’ll have a solid audiophile option that’s good for the road, without the need for a standalone music player.

Music lockers: YouTube Music and iTunes Match

If you’ve got a digital music collection that includes one-offs and live tracks that aren’t available on the mainstream services, you can upload them to online services, where they can live alongside subscription tracks and be shared among multiple devices (including smart speakers).

YouTube Music, formerly known as Google Play Music, offers this service at no additional cost for up to 100,000 tracks.

Apple users can opt for iTunes Match, which lets you upload your own digital music to live in tandem with Apple Music tracks. Once available for $24 a year, the service now appears to be bundled in as part of an Apple Music or Apple One subscription.

If you opt for either of these options, make sure you keep a local backup of your files, just in case these services go away.

Note that Amazon shuttered its “MP3 locker” service in 2018.

More audio recommendations

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The next time you take yourself out to the ballgame, you might be able to pay for beer and prove you’re of age to drink it, all with a touch of your palm. Coors Field, home of major-league baseball’s Colorado Rockies, is the first sports venue to offer Amazon One’s age verification capability, Amazon announced Monday.

Amazon One is the palm-based identity service that lets you pay and verify your identity by hovering your hand above a scanner at various stores and venues. Some Whole Foods and Panera locations already use, or are adding, the palm scanners.

To use the Amazon One service, you first have to enroll. Coors Field offers enrollment kiosks at its SandLot Brewery, the first brewery inside a Major League Ballpark, and at Silver Bullet Bar, a full-service bar specializing in local and national craft beers. Those who are already Amazon One members can enroll in the age-verification part of the service by visiting one.amazon.com and uploading a photo of the front and back of your government-issued ID, such as your driver’s license, and a selfie.

The technology might not seem like it would save you much time, but every second may count as major-league baseball games are moving more quickly these days. The new pitch clock has cut almost half an hour off the average MLB game time this year, according to The Ringer.

Automated recognition via physical characteristics is known as biometrics, and it’s a controversial topic. Amazon and other companies face lawsuits claiming that they used photographs obtained without permission to train their technologies.

The age-verification service is now available at Denver’s Coors Field, and will be introduced to other venues in the coming months.

The Netflix app is getting a slew of fresh updates for its My List feature on iOS and Android, the streaming service announced on Monday. If you love to stream on your mobile device, you’ll be able to organize your watch list by using a new set of filters and sorting functions. The updates will start rolling out for Android beginning today, with iOS devices following in the coming weeks.

What’s new? Netflix viewers can choose from four filters to make it easier to sift through My List: Movies, TV Shows, Haven’t Started and Started. You’ll also be able to sort alphabetically, according to the date added to your watch list or a release date. And if you want to delete something from your list, all you have to do is swipe the title.

The TV app is also receiving a new feature to help you keep up with the latest releases. Netflix is adding a Coming Soon row to the home screen to let viewers know when TV series and movies are arriving and the option to set reminders.

Currently, subscribers can navigate to the New & Popular menu to scroll through rows for Coming Next Week, Coming This Week or Worth the Wait. While those carousels will still be available, the prominent placement of Coming Soon can help eliminate the need to click anywhere else in the app to find release date information. The new feature will roll out globally during the next few weeks.

Netflix also made some recent upgrades to its suite of accessibility features, including enhancements to audio description and ways to modify subtitle settings on TVs. To learn more about Netflix’s features, check out our cheat sheet of tips and this guide to secret codes.

Apple offers MacBooks from $999 all the way up to $3,499, and that’s just the default configurations. Optional upgrades can add thousands more to the price. With the new M2 chip, we’re now firmly in the second generation of Apple Silicon, and the M2 versions of the MacBook Air and MacBook Pro are strong performers, even if some models are more expensive than their predecessors.

The MacBook Air and MacBook Pro are known for excellent design, build quality and ease of use. MacOS, with its intuitive nature, plays a big part in that, as does the fact that Apple makes both the hardware and software, leading to inherent synergies.

That said, MacBooks aren’t flying off the shelves like they used to. Data from analyst firm IDC says that Mac sales in the first quarter of 2023 were down a whopping 40% from the same period a year ago. Part of that is because so many people bought new laptops during COVID-19, and those generally have a three- to five-year lifespan, so we’re between upgrade cycles at the moment.

Still, the current M2 version of the MacBook Air, which starts at $1,199, gets my vote as the most universally useful laptop most people can buy right now, and I use one almost daily.

Below, we go over each MacBook and its strengths and weaknesses, as well as offering some MacBook shopping tips and answers to common questions.

Apple is still offering education deals on MacBooks: Normally, the Apple Store is (ironically) not the best place to buy an Apple laptop (really, almost any Apple product) because sales are all but nonexistent. The big exception to the rule is Apple’s education discounts, which usually include MacBook deals. On the other hand, we’ve also found Apple laptop deals through Best Buy’s Student Deals page.

The Touch Bar is (mostly) dead: Apple announced the Touch Bar with great fanfare in 2016 but this slim secondary touchscreen, which sits above the keyboard, is now only available on one model. You can find it on the M2 13-inch MacBook Pro, which retains its dated design, despite having Apple’s latest chip.

Great webcam on the 14- and 16-inch MacBook Pro, and the 13-inch Air; 13-inch MacBook Pro webcam is still meh: The jump to a 1080p resolution camera in the newest MacBooks, as well as the 24-inch iMac, is a game-changer for people sitting in video meetings all day. Only that dated-looking 13-inch M2 MacBook Pro retains the not-great old camera. Here are some tips on making the 720-pixel cameras in those other Macs look better.

If you need something bigger and don’t mind it being tied to a desk: Apple updated its smaller iMac (formerly 21.5 inches, now 24 inches) in 2021, and it now comes in seven color options and runs on the company’s M1 processor. You can also pair a Mac Mini or Mac Studio desktop with the new 27-inch Mac Studio Display.

Almost all Macs have transitioned to Apple’s own M1 and M2 chips: Since late 2020, the MacBook Air, 13-inch MacBook Pro, Mac Mini, Mac Studio, 24-inch iMac, 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro now all run either M1 or M2 chips (including Pro, Max and Ultra varieties), which combine both CPU and GPU cores into a single package. Based on our testing, the Apple M1 and M2 line has largely delivered on Apple’s promises of better battery life and faster performance. You can still find the really old Mac Pro desktop with an Intel Xeon chip.

The key question is how to make sure you’re not buying too little MacBook — or too much. Which is the best MacBook for your needs? For most people, the 13-inch Air remains the default choice and rightly so. The 14-inch and 16-inch Pro models are more powerful but in a way that only people who need heavy GPU support will appreciate.

Watch this: MacBook Air M2 vs. MacBook Air M1: Worth the Extra $200

09:10

Read more: Best Mac VPN for 2023

Best MacBooks of 2023

MacBook Air (13-inch, M2, 2022)

The 2022 MacBook Air got its biggest refresh in many years, moving to the M2 chip and adopting a new design. Thanks to that MacBook-Pro-like design, larger display (13.6-inch vs 13.3-inch), faster M2 chip and a long-awaited upgrade to a higher-res webcam, it’s now my favorite Mac, with one caveat. At $1,199, the $200 price increase over the traditional $999 MacBook Air starting price is a disappointment.

The MacBook Air goes beyond the Pro models it mimics in one important respect — it adds new colors to the space gray and silver, with a new gold-like starlight and a deep, dark midnight finish. Midnight, which appears as a matte black finish, reminds me of the old matte black polycarbonate MacBooks of the mid 2000s, which I’ve always thought was a sharp look.

We’ve got a lot of different MacBook models, prices and specs to keep track of. To sum it up, the key reasons you’re going to prefer the new M2 Air over the previous M1 model are:

• Slimmer, more modern design in new colors
• Upgraded full-HD webcam
• Larger, brighter display (13.6 inches vs. 13.3 inches)
• Faster M2 processor

Read our full review of the MacBook Air M2.

$1,199 at Best Buy$1,199 at Apple$1,049 at B&H Photo-Video

MacBook Air (13-inch, M1, 2020)

This model has been surpassed, but not replaced, by the new M2 MacBook Air. Because it’s staying on as Apple’s sole $999 laptop, it still deserves a place on this list.

For many years, this Apple laptop was everyone’s favorite laptop. It was reasonably priced, thin, light and built like a tank. It could last for years and take lots of falls and bumps. For any college student or coffee shop creative type, $999 would get you sorted.

You get only two Thunderbolt 3 USB-C ports, but for most people that’s enough, as long as you can get a whatever-to-USB-C dongle.

The 14- and 16-inch MacBook Pro laptops, like the new M2 MacBook Air, have better displays, faster processors and more ports. The Pro models also have HDMI and SD card slots.

Read our full review of the MacBook Air M1.

$800 at Amazon$800 at Best Buy$999 at Apple

MacBook Pro 16-inch (2023)

Apple’s 2023 update to its flagship MacBook Pro 16-inch line follows the company’s usual MO. It offers a modest refresh from the more significantly redesigned 2021 model; notably, upgrades to the latest generation of M2-class processors, Wi-Fi 6E and HDMI 2.1, which means support for displays up to 8K, 60Hz and 4K, 240Hz and variable refresh rates.

We awarded it our Editors’ Choice award for its combination of the old and new. It’s a powerhouse Mac for creation and development work.

Read our full review of the MacBook Pro 16-inch.

$3,249 at Amazon$3,499 at Best Buy$3,499 at Apple

MacBook Pro 14-inch (2021)

Compared with the 13-inch Pro, the screen size here jumps from 13.3 to 14.2 inches. It’s what Apple calls a Liquid Retina XDR display, which is basically a mini LED screen, like in the 12.9-inch iPad Pro. It also has the same HDMI, SD card and MagSafe ports as the 16-inch MacBook Pro and the same 1080 webcam.

We last tested a 14-inch Pro in 2021, but the performance and configuration options remain substantially similar to the 16-inch M2 MacBook Pro, which we tested and reviewed in 2023.

If you’re a college student, coffeeshop writer or other mainstream laptop user, this is a hefty premium to pay for a better screen, better webcam and more ports. It might be like buying a sports car just for driving on city streets. Bring in all-day, every day web video meetings, you might be able to make a good case, but the new M2 Air also solves that problem.

Read our full review of the 14-inch MacBook Pro.

MacBook Pro (13-inch, M2, 2022)

This new 2022 version of the 13-inch MacBook Pro looks just like the 13-inch MacBook Pro that was part of Apple’s first wave of M1-chip Macs in late 2020. Same body, same camera, same limited ports, same Touch Bar. Yes, this remains the last holdout of the Apple Touch Bar, a clever-but-underused second screen that’s fallen out of favor.

And that’s exactly what this system is: The 2020 13-inch MacBook Pro, with the initial M1 chip swapped out for the new M2 chip. That makes it Apple’s most powerful 13-inch laptop, and it edges out the otherwise similar new M2 MacBook Air because its active cooling allows it to run at higher temperatures.

That means it’s less likely to be your best choice for a MacBook. But there are some reasons you may still want the 13-inch MacBook Pro over either the new MacBook Air or the pricier 14- or 16-inch MacBook Pro. We outlined the most obvious reasons here and they include:

• The last opportunity to get a MacBook with a Touch Bar
• Smallest MacBook with the longest battery life (at least until we test the new Air model)
• Platform continuity for your company or creative shop

Read our full review of the M2 13-inch MacBook Pro.

$1,099 at Amazon$1,149 at Best Buy$1,299 at Apple

Which MacBook should I buy?

My TL;DR advice is as follows.

• If you need a MacBook for everyday work, schoolwork, web surfing, movies and light creativity, go with the M2 MacBook Air. For most people, this is all the MacBook they’ll need.
• The new design and camera are great, as is the bigger screen, but the older $999 M1 version of the MacBook Air is still great if you don’t want to spend $200 more on the M2 version.
• The 13-inch MacBook Pro remains a tough sell. More expensive than the Air but essentially the same performance and same Apple M2 chip. It’s also the last holdout of the Touch Bar.
• The 16-inch MacBook Pro is the one high-end creative types have been waiting for. The video editor and creative pros I’ve spoken to have flocked to it and usually with the highest-end M2 Max chip.
• The 14-inch MacBook Pro can do almost everything the 16-inch can, but in a smaller package. It’s either a premium mainstream laptop splurge or a work tool for creative types who need something a little more portable.