It wasn’t too long ago that you had to be a creative professional to justify a pricey laptop with an OLED display. Plenty of mainstream and affordable laptops now come equipped with an OLED display, so more people can enjoy stellar contrast and accurate, vibrant colors.
How does an OLED panel achieve this goodness? A quick primer: The pixels in an OLED display can be completely turned off, which means the panel can produce absolute blacks and contrast ratios superior to an LCD screen (where the liquid crystal can only block some of the light). Even an LCD with local dimming can’t match an OLED’s ability to turn individual pixels on and off. OLED displays also offer a wide color range because primary colors can hit higher saturations that let the display produce more colors. Higher saturation levels lead to more vibrant colors, and with more colors on its palette, an OLED panel can create colors that are more accurate.
Another advantage? OLED displays feature thinner layers than LCD displays and don’t require a backlight, which allows for thinner and lighter laptop designs.
You might reasonably think that an OLED is more energy-efficient than an LCD because it doesn’t need to power a backlight and can turn individual pixels completely off. We have found, however, that OLED displays tend to have a negative impact on battery life. They do offer decent battery life; you just can’t expect to get a longer runtime from an OLED laptop in addition to the higher image quality.
With a basic understanding of the advantages of an OLED laptop, let’s take a look at the best deals I see right now. I’ve included mainstream laptops that have approachable prices along with high-powered laptops that are currently selling at a discount — and a Chromebook. Yes, you can get an inexpensive Chromebook with an OLED display. The prices and discounts are valid at the time of this writing, and I’ll update this story as sales expire and new deals emerge.
This mainstream model from Asus is one of the most affordable OLED laptops selling right now. It boasts a 15.6-inch OLED display with a full HD (1,920×1,080-pixel) resolution. Based on an 11th-gen Core i5 CPU and featuring 12GB of RAM and a 512GB solid-state drive, it has more memory and double the storage capacity that you’ll find in many laptops that cost less than $1,000. It also has both Type-A and Type-C USB ports, saving you from having to carry around an adapter. It’s a good deal at its $800 list price and an even better buy at its current sale price.
This Asus VivoBook is slightly smaller than the above unit but has a higher-resolution display and a newer, more powerful processor. The 14.5-inch OLED display has 2,880×1,800-pixel resolution. The laptop is powered by a Core i7-12700H CPU, 12GB of RAM and a 512GB SSD. The display is a 16:10 panel for more vertical space and has a 120Hz refresh rate — double that of the standard 60Hz for smoother visuals. It’s also rated for a substantial 550 nits of brightness.
Acer’s Swift 3 features a 14-inch OLED display with a crisp 2,880×1,800-pixel resolution powered by a Core i7-12700H, 16GB of RAM and integrated Intel Iris Xe graphics. In addition to the incredible contrast and color of the OLED panel, the display also features a 16:10 aspect ratio that provides more room vertically than a traditional widescreen 16:9 laptop display for more room to work and less scrolling through long web pages and documents. The laptop also supplies a roomy 1TB SSD and an all-aluminum chassis that weighs only a hair more than three pounds.
The 13.5-inch Spectre x360 is one of CNET’s favorite two-in-one convertibles for its premium styling, light weight and long battery life. This model features a 12th-gen Core i7 CPU, 16GB of RAM and a spacious 1TB SSD. In addition to Intel Evo goodness, the 13.5-inch display is the standout here. It’s an OLED touch panel with what HP calls a 3K2K resolution — that is, 3,000×2,000 pixels. The display also has a boxy 3:2 aspect ratio, providing more vertical space than wider screens for less scrolling through web pages and documents.
Dell’s 15-inch XPS OLED laptop isn’t necessarily geared toward gamers, but this configuration certainly can handle AAA titles with its 12th-gen Core i7-12700H CPU and GeForce RTX 3050 Ti graphics, if you keep the quality settings and resolution in check. You also get 16GB of RAM and a roomy 1TB SSD. The OLED touchscreen has a fine 3,456×2,160-pixel resolution in a 16:10 aspect ratio for more vertical space and less scrolling. It’s $500 off right now at Best Buy.
Did you know you could have an OLED display on a Chromebook? Lenovo’s two-in-one Chromebook Duet 5 is proof that such a thing is possible. It features a detachable, 13.5-inch OLED display with a full-HD resolution powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon processor, and boasts 4GB of RAM and 64GB of built-in storage. It’s a good value even at its full price, and right now you can pick it up for even less.
LastPass, one of the world’s most popular password managers, is yet again the subject of intense scrutiny after its latest security breach. Just before Christmas, LastPass CEO Karim Toubba revealed in a blog post that a security incident the company first disclosed in August had eventually led to an unauthorized party stealing customer account information and vault data. This is the latest in a lengthy string of security incidents involving LastPass that date back to 2011. It’s also the most alarming.
An unauthorized party now has access to unencrypted subscriber account information like LastPass usernames, company names, billing addresses, email addresses, phone numbers and IP addresses, according to Toubba. That same unauthorized party also has a copy of customer vault data, which includes unencrypted data like website URLs and encrypted data like the usernames and passwords for all the sites customers have saved in their vaults. If you’re a LastPass subscriber, the severity of this breach should have you looking for a different password manager.
What should LastPass subscribers do?
The company didn’t specify how many users were affected by the breach, and LastPass didn’t respond to CNET’s request for additional comment on the breach. But if you’re a LastPass subscriber, you need to operate under the assumption that your user and vault data are in the hands of an unauthorized party with ill intentions. Though the most sensitive data is encrypted, the problem is that the threat actor can run “brute force” attacks on those stolen local files. LastPass estimates it would take “millions of years” to guess your master password — if you’ve followed its best practices.
If you haven’t — or if you just want total peace of mind — you’ll need to spend some serious time and effort changing your individual passwords. And while you’re doing that, you’ll probably want to transition away from LastPass, too.
With that in mind, here’s what you need to do right now if you’re a LastPass subscriber:
1. Find a new password manager. Given LastPass’ history with security incidents and considering the severity of this latest breach, now’s a better time than ever to seek an alternative.
2. Change your most important site-level passwords immediately. This includes passwords for anything like online banking, financial records, internal company logins and medical information. Make sure these new passwords are strong and unique.
3. Change every single one of your other online passwords. It’s a good idea to change your passwords in order of importance here too. Start with changing the passwords to accounts like email and social media profiles, then you can start moving backward to other accounts that may not be as critical.
4. Enable two-factor authentication wherever possible. Once you’ve changed your passwords, make sure to enable 2FA on any online account that offers it. This will give you an added layer of protection by alerting you and requiring you to authorize each login attempt. That means even if someone ends up obtaining your new password, they shouldn’t be able to gain access to a given site without your secondary authenticating device (typically your phone).
5. Change your master password. Though this doesn’t change the threat level to the stolen vaults, it’s still prudent to help mitigate the threats of any potential future attack — that is, if you decide you want to stay with LastPass.
LastPass alternatives to consider
Bitwarden: CNET’s top password manager is a highly secure and open-source LastPass alternative. Bitwarden’s free tier allows you to use the password manager across an unlimited number of devices across device types. Read our Bitwarden review.
1Password: Another excellent password manager that works seamlessly across platforms. 1Password doesn’t offer a free tier, but you can try it for free for 14 days.
iCloud Keychain: Apple’s built-in password manager for iOS, iPadOS and MacOS devices is an excellent LastPass alternative available to Apple users at no additional cost. iCloud Keychain is secure and easy to set up and use across all of your Apple devices. It even offers a Windows client, too, with support for Chrome and Edge browsers.
How did it come to this?
In August 2022, LastPass published a blog post written by Toubba saying that the company “determined that an unauthorized party gained access to portions of the LastPass development environment through a single compromised developer account and took portions of source code and some proprietary LastPass technical information.”
At the time, Toubba said that the threat was contained after LastPass “engaged a leading cybersecurity and forensics firm” and implemented “enhanced security measures.” But that blog post would be updated several times over the following months as the scope of the breach gradually widened.
On Sept. 15, Toubba updated the blog post to notify customers that the company’s investigation into the incident had concluded.
“Our investigation revealed that the threat actor’s activity was limited to a four-day period in August 2022. During this timeframe, the LastPass security team detected the threat actor’s activity and then contained the incident,” Toubba said. “There is no evidence of any threat actor activity beyond the established timeline. We can also confirm that there is no evidence that this incident involved any access to customer data or encrypted password vaults.”
Toubba assured customers at the time that their passwords and personal data were safe in LastPass’s care.
However, it turned out that the unauthorized party was indeed ultimately able to access customer data. On Nov. 30, Toubba updated the blog post once again to alert customers that the company “determined that an unauthorized party, using information obtained in the August 2022 incident, was able to gain access to certain elements of our customers’ information.”
Then, on Dec. 22, Toubba issued a lengthy update to the blog post outlining the unnerving details regarding precisely what customer data the hackers were able to access in the breach. It was then that the full severity of the situation finally came to light and the public found out that LastPass customers’ personal data was in the hands of a threat actor and all of their passwords were at serious risk of being exposed.
Still, Toubba assured customers who follow LastPass’s best practices for passwords and have the latest default settings enabled that no further action on their part is recommended at this time since their “sensitive vault data, such as usernames and passwords, secure notes, attachments, and form-fill fields, remain safely encrypted based on LastPass’ Zero Knowledge architecture.”
However, Toubba warned that those who don’t have LastPass’s default settings enabled and don’t follow the password manager’s best practices are at greater risk of having their master passwords cracked. Toubba suggested that those users should consider changing the passwords of the websites they have stored.
What does all of this mean for LastPass subscribers?
The initial breach ended up allowing the unauthorized party to access sensitive user account data as well as vault data, which means that LastPass subscribers should be extremely concerned for the integrity of the data they have stored in their vaults and should be questioning LastPass’s capacity to keep their data safe.
If you’re a LastPass subscriber, an unauthorized party may have access to personal information like your LastPass username, email address, phone number, name and billing address. IP addresses used when accessing LastPass were also exposed in the breach, which means that the unauthorized party could also see the locations from which you used your account. And because LastPass doesn’t encrypt users’ stored website URLs, the unauthorized party can see all of the websites for which you have login information saved with the password manager (even if the passwords themselves are encrypted).
Information like this gives a potential attacker plenty of ammunition for launching a phishing attack and socially engineering their way to your account passwords. And if you have any password reset links stored that may still be active, an attacker can easily go ahead and create a new password for themselves.
LastPass says that encrypted vault data like usernames and passwords, secure notes and form-filled data that was stolen remains secured. However, if an attacker were to crack your master password at the time of the breach, they would be able to access all of that information, including all the usernames and passwords to your online accounts. If your master password wasn’t strong enough at the time of the breach, your passwords are especially at risk of being exposed.
Changing your master password now will, unfortunately, not help solve the issue because the attackers already have a copy of your vault that was encrypted using the master password you had in place at the time of the breach. This means the attackers essentially have an unlimited amount of time to crack that master password. That’s why the safest course of action is a site-by-site password reset for all of your LastPass-stored accounts. Once changed at the site level, that would mean the attackers would be getting your old, outdated passwords if they managed to crack the stolen encrypted vaults.
If you want the best tablet experience but don’t want to lug around a device of 10 inches or more all day, then Apple’s iPad Mini is the device for you. And right now, you can save $99 across ever configuration thanks to a huge sale at Best Buy. With prices starting at $400, this is within $1 of the lowest we’ve seen this iPad go since its release and one of the best iPad deals around right now. Amazon is matching select discounts, too.
The iPad Mini offers the smooth and familiar experience of iPadOS with just an 8-inch footprint. As well as being the best iPad for portability, it beats most similarly-sized Android tablet when it comes to performance and has a battery life of up to 10 hours.
It has a stunning 8.3-inch Liquid Retina display as well as a 12-megapixel camera, which can quickly scan documents, capture 4K video and will even keep you centered during video calls. It’s great for browsing, streaming, and reading, and its portable design makes it the perfect travel tablet.
Don’t discount its productivity chops, though. The sixth-gen iPad Mini is equipped with Apple’s advanced A15 Bionic chip, the same used on the iPhone 13, as well as 4GB of RAM. Its USB-C port makes it a versatile tablet when it comes to work tasks and support for Apple Pencil 2 opens up a world of creative possibilities. It has Wi-Fi 6 support for speedy web performance and offers all-day battery life (plus impressive standby time, so it won’t be dead every time you go to use it). It also boasts 5G support if you opt for one of the Wi-Fi and cellular models, which are on sale today too.
Which tablets have the best price?
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The last couple of years have been hard on the games industry. Development teams disrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic had to delay big games, Starfield and the Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom chief among them. But the losses of 2021 and 2022 are the gains of 2023, because we a lot to look forward to this year. This list of release dates for notable 2023 titles is already packed, but for now we’ve only added games set for launch in the first half of the year. More will be added as the year progresses and we get more concrete dates.
2022 was a pretty solid year for games. We got an open-world Pokemon, the long-awaited sequel to God of War and, of course, the tour de force that was Elden Ring. Only time will determine if the games of 2023 reach those same heights, but the numbers are certainly in our favor. Let’s just hope Zelda doesn’t get delayed again.
Here are all the big PlayStation, Xbox and Nintendo Switch games to keep track of in 2023.
The first big video game of 2023 is a big one, and I do mean big. Fire Emblem games are massive: Engage is a follow up to 2019’s Three Houses, a chunky RPG that players could sink over 100 hours into without seeing everything. Three Houses was loaded with critical acclaim and Engage will hopefully recapture both the scale and the magic of its predecessor. Engage features characters from the series’ long history — which at least means newbies can get properly acquainted with Super Smash Bros. characters like Marth, Corrin and Blyeth.
Forspoken (PS5, PC)
Release date: Jan. 24.
Forspoken is a new AAA game from Square Enix.
Square Enix
Excitement for Forspoken should straight away come with the asterisk that feedback to the game’s demo was mixed with both compliments and criticisms. But it’s worth paying attention to, even rooting for, because of the simple fact that it’s a new IP from Square Enix. In an industry filled with sequels and spinoffs, that has to count for something.
Forspoken is a fish-out-of-water tale that follows New Yorker Frey Holland, who somehow manages to get plunged into the fantastical land of Athia. Classic stuff. It’s developed by many of the same people who created Final Fantasy 15, something that’s immediately obvious when you see its real-time action in motion. Good luck, Frey, I hope you pull through. Forspoken will launch on PC and PS5, where it’s a console exclusive for at least two years.
Third time’s the charm is the magic rule, so hopefully Hogwart’s Legacy doesn’t break it. Set in the Harry Potter universe, this RPG was first announced in 2020 with a release date set for 2021. It was then delayed to 2022. But that didn’t pan out, and last year Hogwart’s Legacy was delayed once more. Its latest release date is Feb. 10. Set about 100 years before The Boy Who Lived and He Who Shall Not Be Named, Hogwart’s Legacy is a tantalizing concept: A big open-world game set at the most famous school of witchcraft and wizardry.
Games based on blockbuster franchises can be hit or miss. Hopefully all the delays are a sign that this promising idea has been given the love and nurturing it needs to succeed.
Note: The PS4 and Xbox One versions of Hogwarts Legacy will be released on April 4, with a Switch port coming on July 25.
Sony hopes Horizon Call of the Mountain will be a killer app for PlayStation VR 2
Guerilla Games
One of Sony’s goals for 2023 is to make VR happen. To help do that, it’s enlisted Guerilla Games to make Horizon Call of the Mountain, a virtual reality spinoff to Horizon Zero Dawn and Horizon Forbidden West. You won’t be playing as Aloy, but will rather take up the hunter bow of Ryas, a member of the Shadow Carja tribe that featured prominently in Zero Dawn. Being a VR game, Call of the Mountain looks to feature less open-world roaming, but more exhilerating climbing, exploration and bow-based combat. It launches alongside the PlayStation VR2 headset on Feb. 22.
Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty (PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, PC)
Release date: March 3.
Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty is a new IP with a pedigree: It’s developed by Team Ninja, the gang behind the acclaimed Ninja Gaiden and the even more acclaimed Nioh franchise. Wo Long is set during the Three Kingdoms era of Chinese history — roughly 220 AD — but features plenty of fantastical (and grotesque) beasts to slay. Like Nioh, this looks to be inspired by Dark Souls, meaning you should be prepared to die. A lot.
Resident Evil 4 Remake (PS4, PS5, Xbox Series X|S, PC)
Resident Evil 4 was originally launched in 2005 on the GameCube.
Capcom
After the roaring success of the Resident Evil 2 Remake, Capcom is at it again. Originally released in 2005 as a GameCube exclusive (imagine that) Resident Evil 4 is the most acclaimed title in the illustrious franchise. Because of its fanfare, Capcom has ported and remastered Resident Evil 4 over and over again. Hopefully you don’t have RE4 fatigue, because it’s now getting proper remake treatment.
If you’ve never played Resident Evil 4, and if Capcom can do for it what it did for Resident Evil 2, this is sure to be a must-play.
Crime Boss: Rockay City (PC, PS5, Xbox Series X|S)
Release date: March 28.
We know Rockstar is developing Grand Theft Auto 6, but it’s still yonks away. Crime Boss: Rockay City, by 505 Games, is clearly inspired by GTA, and may help fill the GTA-shaped hole in your heart while you wait for the next big open-world crime bonanza.
Crime Boss: Rockay City is a first-person game about 90’s Florida turf wars, and it’s designed to be played alone or with friends. The most attention-grabbing feature of the game is its celeb-heavy cast. Kill Bill’s Michael Madson stars as the protagonist, Travis Barker, and the supporting cast features Kim Basinger, Danny Trejo, Chuck Norris and Vanilla Ice.
The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom (Switch)
Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom is a sequel to one of the greatest games of all time.
Nintendo
Not much needs to be said here. The Legend of Zelda is one of gaming’s most renowned franchises, and 2017’s Breath of the Wild is incontestably one of the greatest games ever. Nintendo has a habit of delaying Zelda games — Tears of the Kingdom has already been delayed once — so hopefully the May 12 date sticks.
Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League (PS5, Xbox Series X|S, PC)
Though Gotham Knights was a sequel of sorts to Batman’s Arkham series, Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League is its true spiritual successor. It’s developed by Rocksteady, the same studio that developed the Arkham trilogy. The game lets you play as four members of the Suicide Squad — Harley Quinn, Deadshot, Captain Boomerang and King Shark — and includes Kevin Conroy’s last recorded performance as Batman.
Street Fighter 6 (PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, PC)
Street Fighter 6 is the franchise’s fifirst new mainline game since 2016.
Capcom
Street Fighter 6 is the first major new game in the franchise since 2016. As you can imagine, it’s expected to have dramatically improved visuals. There will also be five new characters, with more to potentially be announced. Other new additions include a single-player adventure mode and in-game commentary, a welcome feature for esports fans. But as nice as those extras are, the Street Fighter series is all about its rock-solid fighting system, which is simple enough for beginners to have fun but deep enough that dedicated fighters will spend years to mastering it. As long as that still works, this should be a banger.
Diablo 4 (PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, PC)
Last year we got an updated version of Overwatch, now it’s Diablo’s turn to get supercharged. Diablo 4, the latest major installation in Activision Blizzard’s long-running action RPG franchise, couldn’t come sooner. Fans have been awaiting Diablo 4’s arrival since its announcement in 2019, a whole pandemic ago.
Final Fantasy 16 is a timed PS5 exclusive until the end of the year.
Square Enix
I’m going to be honest with you, I’ve watched various Final Fantasy 16 trailers several times and I still have no clue what this game is about. There’s a fight going on between six different countries, and somehow giant summons like Ifrit are involved. I’m not super sure, but the fact that Final Fantasy is coming to a new console generation is reason enough for this game to turn into a massive cultural event. (It’ll be a PS5 exclusive until the end of the year.) It may also be the first of two big Final Fantasy releases this year, with Final Fantasy 7 Remake’s sequel potentially — but probably not — hitting during the holiday season.
Hollow Knight: Silksong (Switch, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, PC)
Hollow Knight, launched in 2017, was praised for being one of the best Metroidvania games without the words “Metroid” or “Vania” in its title. In 2023, indie developer Team Cherry wants to do it all again. You’ll play as a different character — a boss you fought in the original game — but the core gameplay here is the same. Explore, fight a bunch of dudes, get lost, explore some more, repeat a few times and ultimately succeed. I, for one, am ready.
Redfall looks like a mix of Deathloop and The Last of Us. It takes place in Redfall, a fictional Massachusetts town that was flowing along swimmingly until a swarm of vampires took it over and cut it off from the outside world. Like in The Last of Us, you’ll explore a town brimming with remnants of the before times, but the game looks to have a less serious, more quirky attitude about it, similar to Deathloop. That makes sense, as Redfall is developed by Arkane Austin, a sister studio to Deathloop creators Arkane Lyon.
Forza Horizon brought the driving franchise’s open-world exploration to the Xbox Series X|S, but in 2023 we go back to Forza’s driving-sim roots. This game will be more similar to Gran Turismo 7, which hit the PS5 last year, trading open roads for closed tracks. A little more finesse, a little more professional. No matter their flavor, Forza games can be relied on to provide some delicious drives — and 2023’s Forza Motorsport should be the prettiest one yet.
If it weren’t for Tears of the Kingdom, Starfield would be 2023’s most anticipated game.
Bethesda
Like The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, Starfield was one of 2022’s great delays. Originally slated for a Nov. 11 release, it was pushed back to the “first half of 2023.” It’s for the best: Starfield is a game from the same Bethesda studio that made Skyrim and Fallout 4.
If done right, Starfield could be a game that people will be playing for years to come. There are apparently 1,000 planets to explore, so an extra few layers of polish will go a long way. If Tears of the Kingdom is most predicted to be 2023’s best game, Starfield may be its most ambitious.
Assassin’s Creed Mirage (PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, PC, Luna)
Ubisoft is making a more focused Assassin’s Creed Mirage.
Ubisoft
Ubisoft is taking an unusual approach with Assassin’s Creed Mirage. After years of “bigger is better,” Ubisoft is now scaling down and trying the “less is more” approach. In announcing Assassin’s Creed Mirage, the company boasted it to be a “shorter, more narrative-driven game than recent entries in the series.” Sounds good to me. Mirage is set in 9th century Baghdad, a couple decades before Valhalla, and stars Basim, who played a supporting role in that game.
Lies of P (PS4, PS5, PC, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S)
Release date: 2023.
Lies of P sounds gnarly as hell: It’s the story of Pinocchio reimagined as a 2023 Dark Souls. Your goal is to find Mr. Geppetto, and a synopsis for the game talks about needing to lie your way through a rough city to do that. That’s all well and good, but from Lies of P’s trailer it looks like combat will be the real star of the show here.
Spider-Man 2 features both Peter Parker and Miles Morales.
Sony
I didn’t like 2018’s Spider-Man as much as I’d hoped to: It was good, but no Batman: Arkham City. Almost everyone else loved it, though: Spider-Man has an 8.7 rating on Metacritic, and beat out Arkham City to become the best-selling superhero game ever. Spider-Man 2 will launch in late 2023 exclusively for the PS5, and will feature both Peter Parker and Miles Morales, who starred in his own 2020 spin-off. The Spider-Men will need to combine their powers in this game, because there’s a wild Venom on the loose.
Mint Mobile, the prepaid carrier owned in part by actor Ryan Reynolds, could soon be sold. According to Bloomberg, the company is “in talks” to be purchased by T-Mobile.
The budget provider has made a name for itself in recent years with ads featuring Reynolds pitching Mint as a more affordable option to larger telecom companies like AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile. A division of Ultra Mobile, Mint Mobile has long been rumored to be up for sale.
T-Mobile didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. Mint Mobile declined to comment on speculation.
While Mint Mobile pitches itself as a rival to larger wireless companies, it doesn’t run its own 4G LTE or 5G service and instead is an MVNO that operates on T-Mobile’s network. That Mint is already using T-Mobile could help make any transitions of customers a bit easier.
It wasn’t immediately clear whether Ultra Mobile would be sold alongside Mint, or if T-Mobile was just interested in the latter. It’s also unclear whether the Mint Mobile brand would continue or if it would be folded into other T-Mobile-owned brands such as Metro by T-Mobile.
Reynolds became part-owner of Mint Mobile in 2019 and has promoted the company through TV ads he’s starred in and social media posts from his personal 21 million follower Twitter and 47 million follower Instagram accounts, as Bloomberg pointed out. He currently owns about one-fourth of Mint Mobile.
The last notable prepaid brand sale was Tracfone, which Verizon acquired for $6 billion in 2021. The carrier then launched its own prepaid brand, called Total by Verizon, in September 2022 to take on similar prepaid brands Metro by T-Mobile and AT&T’s Cricket Wireless.
CES 2023 is over, and together we’ve seen our share of both weird and wonderful devices at this year’s show, but… mostly weird.
Flying cars and obscure robots are so old hat now, and so I wondered if CES could do anything less practical and even more completely bonkers. Turns out it can! Over the past 20-plus years, I’ve seen gadgets so stupefying that sometimes they exist purely because journalists like me will write about them. But it’s time to call out the really awful ones, the worst of the worst. Vacuum shoes, toilet paper robots, MP3 weapon holsters, it’s your time to shine!
The most interesting part about this rogues gallery is that some of these products — the Pepe pet dryer, the HapiFork and the Hushme, to name a few — are still being sold today. That’s right: You blew it up, you maniacs!
Dyson Zone Air-Purifying Headphones
Nothing unusual here.
Andrew Lanxon/CNET
Not technically a CES product, as this was announced during 2022, but Dyson was demonstrating the Zone headphones in Las Vegas during CES 2023. Though the Zone looks like it should be a COVID mask, that’s unfortunately not what it does. According to the Dyson site, development on the Zone began way back in 2016 as a personal air filter — for pollution, mainly — and as such, it was never designed to protect against COVID. Furthermore, one critic has claimed the gadget’s force-driven fans could even help maximize your chances of catching coronavirus. CNET’s Katie Collins, who tried it out at Dyson’s HQ in the UK, thought it was “too brilliant and bizarre to ignore.”
Computer peripherals manufacturer Razer is the king of creating “look at me” products specifically for CES, but toilet tissue brand Charmin became notorious for this 2020 entry. That’s right, in the year that saw the mass panic buying of toilet paper came a robot that could bring you even more! Coincidence? Yes… probably. The RollBot was never going to be a real product, but we loved/loathed it anyway.
Kolibree’s new connected toothbrush tracks users’ activity, helping them brush in the most effective way they can.
Kolibree
Remember when we had to wash our hands for 20 seconds by singing songs to ourselves? The same methodology also applies to brushing your teeth, but why should you use your own brain and lips like a sucker? There have been many smart toothbrushes over the years, but today I’m picking on the Kolibree. Everything was just fine until the arrival of “the world’s first connected electric toothbrush.” Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you…
Back in the 2000s, the iPod became such a cultural phenomenon that every company rushed to create an MP3 player of its own. This culminated in what is one of the dumbest CES products in recent memory: the Tazer MP3 holster. Imagine trying to not only charge your holster but also connect it via USB to your computer to fill it up with 1GB of tunes.
Want to find a new way to make your small dog or cat hate you forever? Lock them in a cube prison for 25 minutes (!) and subject them to gusts of hot air. This combination torture device/dryer would have set you back $660, or you could just throw a towel over your wet dog like a normal human.
Throughout history, there have been so many gadgets designed to limit normal human behavior, but this one takes the (pan)cake. The HapiFork is yet another vibrating gadget that tells you to eat your meals slower (over 20 minutes), with the idea being that you are less likely to overeat. Personally, I wolf my own meals down like I’m in prison, so do your worst, HapiFork. I’ll eat with my hands if I have to! You’re not the boss of me!
The Hushme is literally a “dumb” product — it’s designed to make its user mute to other people in the immediate vicinity. It was pitched as being useful in workplaces, but… if a co-worker gave me one of these, they’d better be wearing vacuum shoes, in order to clean up the gleefully stomped-on bits.
Make room for Belty, a smart pant-holding device that slims or expands to adjust granular changes to your waistline. It is not a joke.
Nick Statt/CNET
The original Belty was a prototype smart belt with a motor in it that adjusted itself to whether you just ate or were sitting down. Impractical as hell, but kind of cool? While there is a newer model, also called Belty, this one is even weirder — there’s no auto-sizing, but it does have a power bank charger in the buckle. OK, two things. Not only do I not want a potentially volatile compound near my nethers, I don’t want to connect a series of devices there either.
Sean Captain, formerly of PC Advisor, models the Xybernaut Poma. Via seancaptain.com.
Sean Captain
First shown off at CES 1998, the Hitachi Xybernaut wearable computer was a terrible idea long before Google Glass was even a gleam in Babak Parviz’s eye. The Windows CE-based Xybernaut Poma offered a 128MHz RISC processor and 32MB of RAM for the low price of $1,499, plus it strapped to your arm and your face and your belt!
Shoes. You wear ’em. They wear out, you buy more. But that’s not exciting now, is it? They need things in them — phones, rockets, rollers and… vacuums? There are so many puns I could make about even just the name of the Denso Vacuum Shoes, but the fact that they existed at all was the biggest joke of all.
Xbox and Bethesda Games will host the Developers Direct showcase on Jan. 25, the companies said Wednesday. Gamers can expect snapshots of upcoming releases for Xbox, Game Pass and PC.
When to stream it
Xbox and Bethesda will livestream the event at 12 p.m. PT/3 p.m. ET on Wednesday, Jan. 25.
Where to watch
Catch the livestream on Xbox’s YouTube or Twitch channels — or on Bethesda’s YouTube or Twitch channels.
What to expect
The Jan. 25 presentation will include information on The Elder Scrolls Online, Minecraft Legends, Redfall and Forza Motorsport. Starfield will not be part of this showcase, but fans can follow Bethesda’s social media pages for details about a standalone event at a future date.
Fans will learn details on the fresh features and expanded gameplay regions on deck for Elder Scrolls. Mojang Studios will provide a glimpse of the multiplayer experience for the new Minecraft Legends, due out this spring. Arkane Austin will preview Redfall, in which “you and your friends will take down bloodthirsty Vampires on the picturesque island of Redfall.” Turn 10 Studios, the company behind Forza Motorsport, is poised to share what’s to come for the next generation of the game.
Microsoft is rolling out a new, less expensive subscription option for Microsoft 365 later this month, the company said Wednesday.
The new Microsoft 365 Basic tier for the company’s collection of productivity apps includes, among other things, “100GB of cloud storage, ad-free and secure email with Outlook, and access to support experts for help with Microsoft 365 and Windows 11,” Microsoft said in a statement.
Microsoft 365 Basic is scheduled to become available Jan. 30, at a cost of $2 a month or $20 for an annual subscription. That’s much cheaper than the $70 annual fee for Microsoft 365 Personal, and it includes more features than the current $20 annual subscription for OneDrive.
In addition to 100GB and ad-free email, security features like ransomware recovery and password-protected sharing links in OneDrive will be added to Basic later this year. Current OneDrive customers will automatically be transferred to a Microsoft 365 Basic account when the Basic subscription goes live later this month, according to Microsoft.
It seems like the cost of having a phone just keeps going up as time goes on, but there are ways to avoid major price hikes if you get creative. That might include looking beyond the three major players in the US market — those being Verizon, AT&T and T-Mobile — and scouting out some deals at the lesser-known carriers that piggyback on the larger carriers’ networks. Though your coverage and customer service experience may differ, it could open you up to a plethora of additional options you may not have known about and save you a decent chunk of change in the process.
Whether you simply want to lower your current bill or switch to something new so you can add some more lines, there are various cheap phone plans available and some great deals you should be aware of. Below, we’ll show you the best phone plan deals available right now below.
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One of the best deals in wireless service comes from Mint Mobile. You can sign up for service for as little as $15 a month (prepaid in three-, six- or 12-month blocks), which is just a fraction of what the big carriers are charging. Mint Mobile runs on the nationwide T-Mobile network, so you’ll have service all over the place and getting started is as easy as answering a few questions online. You can move your current number to Mint Mobile with your current phone, or look to get new of both. It’s entirely up to you. Mint Mobile just rolled out some new family plan options as well.
Visible is running several deals right now that are all worth considering depending on your current needs. If you bring in an old phone that’s not compatible with Visible’s network (which is built on Verizon’s nationwide network), you can get a ZTE Blade A7 Prime for free from Visible. If you finance your phone using Affirm through Visible, you can upgrade your phone once it’s paid off at least 50%. The final offer is a virtual gift card of up to $200 for people who transfer their existing number to Visible and complete three full months of service payments. After this, Visible will send a code to redeem for the virtual gift card.
Verizon is one of the largest carriers in the US. It offers both prepaid and contract plans, but on the prepaid side the company rewards people who keep using the service and paying for it. Verizon offers prepaid customers up to $10 off per month for loyalty discounts. You need to be a prepaid customer for 10 months to see the discount, but for months four to nine you can save $5. In addition, Verizon offers those who use Autopay an additional $5 monthly discount, meaning you can save up to $15 a month for sticking around.
Boost Mobile has been around for a long time and right now the carrier is offering a deal on a SIM card. New customers can try out Boost’s 5G network with 2GB of high-speed data and get the SIM Kit for just $1, making this deal a real no-brainer if you want to save some money. You can sign up for plans at Boost Mobile with prices as low as $15 a month, depending how much data you plan to use.
Metro by T-Mobile offers four different prepaid plans, with the top-tier option also including a one year subscription to Vix+, 20GB of hotspot data and a 100GB Google One membership. With this plan, you can also get four lines of service for $150 a month, which is cheaper than the price you’d normally pay to get only three.
Instead of offering a monetary discount each month on its contract plans, Verizon has just continued to expand the amount of free extra items that are included with the plans. Right now, select plans offer free subscriptions to things like Hulu, Disney Plus, Apple Arcade, Apple Music, TravelPass and more. The freebies that are included with Verizon’s 5G Get More plan total up to $65, plus Verizon offers a $10 discount for those who enroll in Autopay.
T-Mobile has a few different plan options that can save you money, but you have to meet certain requirements for some of them. For example, T-Mobile offers military, veterans, and first responders a discount as well as those who are over 55 years old. If you don’t qualify for either of those, everyone is eligible to buy two lines, get a third free, which means you can get three lines for as little as $85 a month. Like Verizon, T-Mobile also offers things like six months of Apple TV Plus a year of Paramount Plus for free, a standard Netflix subscription, and more.
On its Unlimited Premium Plan, AT&T offers up 50GB of hotspot data and unlimited talk and text in 19 Latin American countries. These are in addition to the other normal offers, like unlimited talk and text, 5G access, AT&T Active Armor advanced mobile security and more, plus discounts for military, veterans, and medical workers.
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Many work from home workers have become aware of just how important it is to have a good monitor. Even if you already have one screen for your home office setup, adding a second can make a huge difference in your productivity. And fortunately, you don’t have to break the bank to get a decent display for work, school or gaming. Below, we’ve rounded up some of the best budget monitors on that you can grab for less than $200.
There are a few things to keep in mind: When buying a budget monitor, you should check out the listing to see what’s included. Make sure it’s not missing items that you would have to purchase separately and that would drive the price above that “cheap monitor” threshold, like a stand or cables. The stand might not be an issue if you’re planning to use the VESA mount to put it on a wall or arm. But in that case, you should ensure the mount screws on the back of the monitor match yours: The bulk of these have 100×100-millimeter mounts, but in some cases, they have 200x200mm or 75x75mm mounts — or they don’t support a VESA mount at all.
Got a Mac? If it’s an old MacBook Pro with an HDMI port, or an iMac or Mac Mini, you won’t have a problem. MacBooks with USB-C/Thunderbolt 3 connections will require an adapter or cable with conversion built-in because they won’t have a dedicated display port. You may also need to fiddle with the resolution and scaling settings in Mac OS, since it natively prefers a 16:10 aspect ratio, not the 16:9 aspect ratio that’s much more popular on Windows.
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Unless you’re a hardcore gamer or creative professional, many of the most technical specs — latency and color gamut, for example — won’t really matter to you (though many of these could serve as a budget gaming monitor). You should always take them with a grain of salt, anyway.
For less than $200, you can generally expect to get:
A maximum of 1,920×1,080-pixel screen resolution (dubbed by marketers as “Full HD resolution” and also referred to as 1080p or 2K for its roughly 2,000 pixels across). Below 27 inches, that’s fine. At 27 inches or larger, it’s not great except in one important case. Essentially, the reason you buy a 27-inch monitor over a 24-inch is usually because you want to fit more on to it. But if it’s using the same number of pixels, it just makes everything bigger — it doesn’t put more on the screen. And because it’s spreading them across a bigger screen, some people (like me) may get annoyed at seeing the pixel grid. I find a pixel density (the number of pixels per inch, or ppi) of at least 90 a good balance, but YMMV. The exception? If you actually need things like text to be bigger, such as if you have impaired vision.
A stand that lets you tilt the computer monitor, not raise or lower it. We want to reduce eye strain and optimize ergonomics wherever possible.
While there might be one or two larger, the monitors go mostly up to 27 inches.
Between 250 and 350 nits of brightness. That should be fine for most uses.
Up to 75Hz refresh rate for an IPS (which stands for in-plane switching) monitor or 144Hz refresh rate for a TN (twisted nematic). A high refresh rate matters if you’re planning to play a lot of FPS, racing, fighting or other motion-sensitive gaming. An IPS monitor is better for general-purpose use, since it’s superior for off-angle viewing and typically has better color. But the fastest IPS monitor you’ll find for the money is 75Hz. A TN monitor is better for fast gaming and a better gaming experience; it has a higher contrast ratio, but poorer viewing angle — color accuracy and contrast changes as you move further from looking straight-on.
If it comes with built-in speakers, don’t assume they’re a replacement for real standalone versions. They’re occasionally better than expected, but think of the speakers as a nice perk for basic system sounds or videoconferencing and consider it a windfall if they’re satisfactory for entertainment. (I’ve been relatively impressed with the speakers in BenQ’s EW series.)
A lot of these cheap monitors support AMD’s adaptive refresh FreeSync technology, which works with AMD’s graphics processors for syncing game frame rates with the display.
A curved monitor, which can make a wide display fit into your field of view without requiring you to sit too far back, isn’t worth paying more for in monitors 27 inches or smaller; then the bezels are too far within your field of view. One potential exception is if you plan to span across three identical monitors for gameplay. Then they wrap around you better than three flat screens.
Upping your budget to between $200 and $300 will bring more 32-inch screen size options and 2,560×1,440 resolution. And, of course, the more you’re willing to spend, the more you’re likely to find something in stock and ready to ship.
If you are looking for budget gaming monitors, this budget FHD monitor’s 75Hz refresh gives you a little latitude for gaming and has an IPS panel for better color and viewing angle in the sea of VA competitors; plus, this cheap gaming monitor option is pretty attractive with thin bezels and a stand that’s less clunky-looking than some. You’ll get an HDMI cable in the box, and it has a 100×100 VESA mount. There are some drawbacks, such as some backlight bleed that buyers have noticed, and it has an HDMI 1.4 connection instead of 2.0 (if you care), plus the stand only allows the screen to tilt, not raise or lower.
The LG is a solid, attractive general-purpose choice with some gaming perks. Though I’d hardly call it a gaming monitor, it has features for a good gaming experience, such as AMD FreeSync support, the ability to overdrive the response time, a 1ms motion-blur reduction mode and an optional center crosshair. It’s slightly brighter than most, and there’s a Photo mode that seems to improve the color accuracy. It’s got a VGA connector in addition to the two HDMIs (though that’s not uncommon in this price range) if you’ve got a really old device to connect. The 24-inch is a smaller version of the 27-inch monitor we tested which has since been discontinued (though still available in places at a much higher price).
This looks to be a more recent follow-up to the 27MK600M-B we tested, with a different stand and a DisplayPort connection instead of the second HDMI. Like that one, it’s got some gaming perks, identical to the 24-inch LG I mentioned above.
This big ‘un doesn’t have ultraskinny bezels or a curved screen — it’s four years old — but when you consider its size, a 75Hz refresh rate and USB-C DisplayPort connector (as well as two HDMI 1.4 ports), you get a lot for the money. It often lists for closer to $300, but right now at Amazon you can snag it for less than $200, making it a pretty good value for the features. There’s a slightly more game-oriented model for $230, the 29WP60G-B, with FreeSync support, thinner bezels and a slightly sleeker design, but don’t get FOMO over the “HDR” you’ll see in the name; it has the same color and brightness specs as the cheaper model. LG has simply added decoding hardware that lets it more-or-less intelligently cram real HDR content to the dim, small gamut display, which is never pretty.
I don’t like curved 27-inch monitors or VA panels much, but in a sea of 75Hz options, the Gigabyte is a refreshing 165Hz. That makes it a lot more suited to gaming than all the 75Hz models. It also has a greater-than-sRGB color gamut, low-power stereo speakers and a USB hub, which you rarely find together in this price class. The lowest price you’ll find on this monitor right now is $230, but we’re keeping it on this list for the moment as we’ve often seen it discounted to $200 or even lower.
