Category: Technologies

David Carnoy/CNET

MyCharge calls its new line of magnetic power banks Superhero MagLock, implying that they’re real saviors. I was impressed by their design. Not only do the batteries, which come in various capacities, have strong magnets and stick really well to the back of your iPhone 12 or 13, but they have raised coils, which are supposed to help with reducing heat levels while charging. It does seem to work.

I’m showing the 3,000-mAh battery in the photo. It’s lightweight and slim and is nice to have around for some emergency charging. However, it won’t get you a full charge, so you may want to step up to one of the higher-capacity options like the 6,000-mAh model that retails for $60. The 9,000-mAh version is beefy and feels like your phone is attached to a small brick. The battery and phone do fit in your hand nicely but the combo certainly isn’t pocket friendly.

All the MagLock batteries charge Qi-enabled iPhones at 5 watts, although you can get faster charging if you go wired and use a USB-C to Lightning cable. I also liked how there’s a chime when the charging starts and your phone tells you how much juice is left in the battery pack (it’s tied into iOS15).

The SuperHero MagLock is available in a few color options and has a nice glossy finish. It currently is the best-designed magnetic power bank — better even than Apple’s.

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Mophie’s magnetic power bank is similar to Anker’s but has a more refined design. Like the Anker, this isn’t an official Apple MagSafe accessory, but it magnetically adheres to the back of your iPhone 13 model or MagSafe case — yes, it sticks nicely — and is svelte for 5,000-mAh battery. It can also be used with other phones that support wireless charging as it comes with a stick-on magnet.

Wireless charging speeds are limited to 7.5W for iPhones but if you need a faster charge, you can connect a USB-C to Lightning cable to bump the speed up to 12W. This has enough juice to fully charge an iPhone 13 or 13 Pro once but it’ll fall a little short of a full charge with an iPhone 13 Max Pro. I liked it.

Anker

This is Anker’s take on Apple’s MagSafe wireless charger. This MagSafe puck costs about half the price but only charges at up to 7.5 watts with iPhones (the white version costs a few bucks more than the black version). No AC adapter is included.

Amazon

This RAVPower combo includes a magnetic wireless charging puck with a 20-watt mini PD power adapter. The wireless charging puck and wall adapter lists for $30 but are on sale now for $23 when you input the code RPC2 at checkout.

Andrew Hoyle/CNET

Anker’s PowerCore Magnetic 5K magnetically adheres to the back of your iPhone 13 model or MagSafe case and wirelessly charges your phone. Alas, it doesn’t offer fast wireless charging — it only charges at 5 watts, not even 7.5. But it is convenient and fairly compact. It also adheres well. I slightly prefer the competing model from Mophie because it is a little slimmer.

David Carnoy/CNET

iOttie has released a nice MagSafe-compatible wireless car charger with a car vent mount. It has a strong magnet, so your iPhone stays on the mount, and it also has an integrated USB-C cable and cigarette-lighter power adapter so you’re ready to start charging out of the box. Note that iPhone “fast” charging caps out at 7.5 watts (this is designed for MagSafe-equipped iPhones and cases).

David Carnoy/CNET

Mophie’s Snap Plus 15W Wireless Charging Vent Mount is a magnetic mount that comes with an integrated USB-C cable (the charging puck is removable from the mount but the cable is integrated into the puck). It also comes with a cigarette lighter adapter and a magnetic ring you can stick onto the back of phones that aren’t MagSafe-enabled, including Android models. I tried it with a MagSafe case on my iPhone and the phone stuck well to the mount. That said, the magnet isn’t super-strong and I wouldn’t recommend this for heavier phones like the Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra. But overall it’s an attractively designed accessory.

It can wirelessly charge Android models at up to 15-watt speeds, but with iPhones wireless charging tops out at 7.5 watts.

Amazon

When it comes to external batteries, Anker tends to make reliable products. But if you’re willing to go with a more generic option, you can save some money by going with the iWalk Magnetic Wireless Power Bank, which costs $30 to $35 or about $15 less than Anker’s magnetic power bank. This iWalk is a little bigger and heavier than the Anker option. It’s a 6,000-mAh battery (instead of 5,000-mAh), but it does offer a little faster charging — iWalk claims up to 7.5 watts for iPhone — and the ring offers some security when you’re holding your phone and also converts into a kickstand charging stand for video watching, which is nice.

Moko

Many of the chargers you’ll see for the latest iPhone have your phone lay flat, which may not be ideal if charging at your desk or if you’re charging while watching a video on your phone. Moko’s Armor charger includes a little kickstand you can use to keep your phone sitting on the charging stand at an angle while horizontal, and does so at a fairly inexpensive price tag.

Tylt

For the most part, MagSafe chargers just sort of take up space when they aren’t charging anything. Tylt decided to change things up a little with its new Bowl charger. At the center of a bowl there’s a pedestal with a MagSafe charger on top, which magnetically holds your phone in place. Everywhere else in the bowl is open, and you can put whatever you want in it. Coins, keys and other metallic things can go in safely without interrupting charging. And, if we’re being honest, it looks way nicer than most other chargers.

David Carnoy/CNET

As its name implies, the Belkin Boost Up Charge Pro 3-in-1 Wireless Charger with MagSafe does triple duty, wirelessly charging your iPhone, Apple Watch and AirPods at the same time (your iPhone will start charge at 15 watts even with your Watch and AirPods charging). The charging pad/charging stand is not cheap at $150, but it’s one of the few MagSafe three-in-one chargers available right now.

Belkin also makes a two-in-one wireless charger with MagSafe for $100 that’s designed to simultaneously charge your iPhone and AirPods.

Apple

This is the official MagSafe charger made by Apple directly. It’s unclear whether its charging cable is any better than cheaper options from Aukey, RAVPower and others, but the wireless charging pad does look nice in silver and white. No power adapter is included.

David Carnoy/CNET

Belkin’s Car Vent Mount Pro with MagSafe technically isn’t a charger. It’s just a certified MagSafe car-vent mount. Belkin will soon have a wireless charging version of this (it costs $60), but you’d have to connect a cable to it anyway for charging. The advantage of a wireless version would be that unlike with this vent mount, you wouldn’t have to plug a cable into your phone every time you want to charge it (I have a USB-C-to-LIghtning cable set up in the car for fast charging, but I don’t love the extra step of having to plug in the cable each time I want to charge the phone).

All that said, what sets this Belkin apart from other generic, non MagSafe-certified mounts that look similar (and some even offer wireless charging), is that the Belkin has a very strong magnet while many of these other air-vent mounts don’t. If you have a MagSafe case on your phone (or just a naked newer iPhone model), the phone really sticks to the mount. The clip also keeps the mount securely in your vent and you can rotate the mount from portrait to landscape mode as needed.

Patrick Holland/CNET

Apple’s MagSafe Duo Charger is designed to charge your iPhone and Apple Watch at the same time. What’s nice about it is that the charging pad folds up, reducing its footprint by half, making it a nice travel charger for your iPhone and Apple Watch. It doesn’t come with a charging adapter — which is pretty ridiculous at this price — although a USB-C-to-Lightning cable is included. You should pair this with a 20-watt USB-C power adapter for fastest charging speeds.

The big pitch for Identity Guard is that it’s powered by IBM’s Watson. Earlier versions of Watson have done everything from winning at Jeopardy to helping doctors diagnose cancer. The version of Watson powering Identity Guard is, as you’d expect, focused on identity theft.

Identity Guard’s use of Watson involves building a corpus of knowledge and continuing to feed it information from many different sources, including social networks. There’s no doubt the Watson-enabled service can help advise you on identity management. Its service monitors the customer’s personal information for ID theft, including your credit files, DOB and SSN.

Identity Guard offers a clear summary of its insurance terms, which is very helpful for determining whether it’s the best identity theft protection for you. The company offers a basic plan at around $6 a month, but it doesn’t provide credit monitoring. If you want monthly credit report updates, that jumps to $13 a month and includes credit monitoring from three credit bureaus and a monthly credit score. Its most comprehensive plan is the Identity Guard Ultra plan, which costs $20 a month and includes annual credit reports.

Identity Guard Terms of Service

David Carnoy/CNET

Edifier makes some nice headphones and earbuds that offer good quality for your dollar. And while its Stax Spirit S3 is pretty pricey at $400, it’s essentially a value version of a high-end audiophile headphone. It features planar-magnetic drivers (with Audeze components) that deliver clean, clear, distortion-free sound. Though these aren’t noise-canceling headphones, they are wireless and are certified as hi-res. You can also use them as wired headphones, though you may want to pair them with a headphone amp in wired mode.

I found them comfortable to wear, and they’re relatively compact and reasonably weighted (329 grams) for planar magnetic headphones. Battery life is excellent at up to 80 hours of listening time at moderate volume levels, and these do have multipoint Bluetooth pairing so you can simultaneously connect them to two devices (such as a smartphone and a computer). They’re also decent for making calls and come with an additional set of “cooling-mesh” ear pads for outdoor use in warmer environments.

These are built on Qualcomm’s Snapdragon audio platform and support its aptX Adaptive audio codec (along with SBC but alas, not AAC), which is capable of delivering near lossless audio if you stream from an aptX-compatible Android device or dedicated music player and subscribe to a music service such as Qobuz or Tidal that offers high-resolution tracks. Certain smartphones are now certified for Snapdragon Audio, which simply means you’re getting the best end-to-end Qualcomm solution for wireless Bluetooth streaming. I tested these headphones with the Motorola Edge Plus 2022 smartphone, which features Snapdragon Audio. How much of a difference it made is debatable, but overall I was impressed with the sound, though sound does vary with the recording quality of certain tracks (the headphones are revealing, sometimes too much so).

Planar magnetic headphones are known for delivering detailed sound with well-defined bass and clear, natural-sounding mids (where voices live). These have a balanced, flatter sound profile and while the bass is punchy and ample, it’s not quite as meaty as what you get with some headphones like Apple’s AirPods Max or Sony’s WH-1000XM5. But they sound really good. And while they’re missing some features, like ear-detection sensors that automatically pause your music when you take the headphones off, and a customizable EQ (you only get a few presets along with a low-latency gaming mode), you’re ultimately buying these for their audio quality.

Sarah Tew/CNET

V-Moda’s M-200 are one of the few wired headphones on this list. Released in late 2019, these clean and detailed sounding over-ear headphones have excellent bass response, and the cushy earcups mean they’re also comfortable to wear. Featuring 50mm drivers with neodymium magnets, CCAW voice coils and fine-tuning by Roland engineers — yes, V-Moda is now owned by Roland — the M‑200 is Hi‑Res Audio-certified by the Japan Audio Society. Other V-Moda headphones tend to push the bass a little, but this set has the more neutral profile that you’d expect from studio monitor headphones. They come with two cords, one of which has a built-in microphone for making calls. It would be nice if V-Moda offered Lightning or USB-C cables for phones without headphone jacks.

Note that last year V-Moda released the M-200 ANC ($500), a wireless version of these headphones that includes active noise canceling. They also sound great, but their noise cancellation, call quality and overall feature set don’t match those of the AirPods Max.

Sarah Tew/CNET

The Bose Noise Cancelling Headphones 700 have been out a while but are still one of the best over-ear noise canceling headphones, with excellent sound, noise cancellation and top-notch headset performance for voice calls. Bose’s newer QuietComfort 45 headphones probably have the slight edge in terms of comfort and offer a tad better noise canceling, but the Headphones 700 arguably sound a little better with slightly more refined sound.

Josh Goldman/CNET

The HP Laptop 17 is a good pick if you want everyday performance and a bigger display. It’s perfect for home office tasks, entertainment and just general computing. Battery life is also good at nearly 9 hours in our tests. Although the configuration we reviewed is $650, HP offers many configuration options so that you can balance price and performance to match your needs. And if you’d rather have a smaller laptop, HP makes both 14- and 15.6-inch models in this line too.

HP Laptop 17 review

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The Acer Aspire 5 continues to be one of the best laptop deals available. Available in 14-, 15.6- and 17.3-inch sizes, I am partial to the 15.6-inch size because it’s relatively compact and lightweight but still full-featured. Acer has a wide range of configurations to choose from starting under $500. This budget laptop also features a USB 3.2 Gen 1 USB-C port, two USB-A 3.2 Gen 1 ports, Ethernet and an HDMI port. The Acer Aspire 5 regularly includes a backlit keyboard and fingerprint reader for quick sign-ins — rarities at this price.

Acer Aspire 5 review

Josh Goldman/CNET

This Lenovo 13-inch Chromebook two-in-one has a full-HD display as well as excellent performance and battery life for the money, thanks to an Intel Core i3-1115G4 processor, 8GB of RAM and a 128GB solid-state drive. Battery life is great, too, at nearly 11 hours.

While it’s not overflowing with extras, the Flex 5i Chromebook does have a privacy shutter on the webcam so you can physically block it when it’s not in use. The touch display is also pen-enabled so you can write or draw it with a USI pen. It is definitely one of the best Chromebook models for its price, power and size.

Lenovo has another two-in-one option on our best budget laptop list, the Lenovo Duet Chromebook. The Lenovo Duet Chromebook is similarly priced to the Flex 5i but is a detachable two-in-one — i.e., a tablet with a removable keyboard cover. If you need a Chromebook for full-day use, go with the Flex 5i. The Lenovo Duet Chromebook is better as a secondary device for on-the-go productivity tasks and entertainment.

Lenovo Chromebook Flex 5i review

Lenovo

The Windows version of the 14-inch Lenovo IdeaPad Flex 5i is also an excellent value. Along with the latest 12th-gen Intel processors, Lenovo includes higher-end features like a Thunderbolt 4 USB-C port, an SD card reader, a 1080p webcam with a privacy shutter and a fingerprint reader. Plus, it reached nearly 11 hours of battery life in our tests. It regularly sells for around $700, but right now you can get it for just $450.

Josh Goldman/CNET

The HP Pavilion 14 is a budget laptop that looks and performs above its price. At 3.2 pounds (1.4 kilograms), the laptop can easily be a daily carry for school or work. It could also be a good home office laptop that can be easily connected to a monitor, keyboard and mouse at a desk, but also has a screen that’s comfortably large enough for full-time use. It’s just a solid everyday laptop with a clean design. The starting price is $650, and the configuration we tested is normally $800, but it goes on sale for much less sometimes.

HP Pavilion 14 review

Dan Ackerman/CNET

The Lenovo Duet Chromebook (aka Chromebook Duet 3) is an awesome little 11-inch ChromeOS tablet with a detachable keyboard and touchpad. Its small size and performance aren’t ideal for full-time use. But the Chromebook Duet 3 is a good pick if you’re looking for an affordable ultraportable device to get some work done on the go, sketch or jot down notes in class, or do simple stuff like email, web browsing, gaming, reading and streaming video.

The original 10-inch version of the Duet Chromebook is also still available for $300 or less.

Lenovo Duet Chromebook review

As a rule of thumb, resist buying out of desperation — don’t spend $500 because you can’t find a cheaper laptop deal available, for example. Buying a need-it-now laptop can be like shopping for food while hungry.

Even for a laptop, $500 can be a lot of money, and you’ll likely be holding onto it for at least three years, if the statistics Intel and PC manufacturers hurl at us are correct.

You can also try to make your current laptop last a little longer. If you need something to tide you over for a few months, dig into possible places to buy refurbished machines and explore nonprofit or educational discounts if you’re eligible.

Also, if there’s something you really want in a laptop, like a touchscreen, a backlit keyboard, DDR4 RAM, an HD webcam, Intel UHD Graphics, AMD Radeon Vega Graphics or an HDMI port, check the manufacturer’s specs closely to make sure it has it. You’ll regret it if you don’t.

If you suspect you’ll be holding onto your new laptop for a while, see if you can stretch your budget to buy a slightly more expensive laptop to accommodate more than 8GB of RAM or a processor with more cores than you were otherwise considering.

If you haven’t thought about it, look at AMD Ryzen processors as alternatives to Intel Core for Windows laptops or alternatives to Intel Celeron and Pentium for Chromebooks.

Even better, if you’re comfortable with it, think about an affordable laptop with a replaceable battery (if you can find one), upgradable memory, graphics card and storage, or all of the above.

Remember to consider whether having a lighter, thinner laptop or a touchscreen laptop with a good battery life will be important to you in the future.

Read more: Best Monitors Under $200 You Can Get Right Now

When it comes to storage, you can always add an external drive or two (or five, if you’re me) at some point down the road or use cloud storage to bolster a small internal drive. You can frequently set a system to boot from an external solid-state drive if necessary, too. You may see references to Intel Optane in less expensive laptops; Optane is fast solid-state memory that acts as a temporary storage space for frequently accessed files on the hard drive to speed things up. It helps, but not as much as an SSD drive.

And finally, if you’re replacing an old Windows laptop that’s not up to running Windows anymore, consider turning it into a Chromebook.

As long as you manage your expectations when it comes to options and specs, you can still get quite a bit from a budget laptop model, including good battery life and a reasonably lightweight laptop body.

A bright spot is you don’t have to settle for a traditional clamshell laptop with a fixed display and keyboard. You can also get a convertible laptop (aka a two-in-one), which has a screen that flips around to turn the screen into a tablet, to position it for comfortable streaming or to do a presentation.

Keep in mind that all convertibles work as both laptops and tablets. A touchscreen is a prerequisite for tablet operation, and many support styluses (aka pens) for handwritten and sketched input. Don’t assume a stylus is included, though.

One thing you won’t find at these cheap laptop prices: a MacBook or any other Apple laptop. An iPad will run you more than $500 once you buy the optional keyboard (though it might work out to less if you look for sales on the tablet or keyboard), which is above our budget here. A base-model iPad with an inexpensive Bluetooth keyboard and cheap stand for the iPad might suffice.

You’ll see a lot of cheap laptops listed as coming with Windows 10 S, a stripped-down and locked-down version of the operating system intended for use by schools — it only allows you to install applications from the Windows Store, forces you to use Microsoft’s Edge browser and includes a subset of the administrative tools in Windows 10 Pro. You can upgrade to the full version for free, though.

It’s easier to find inexpensive Chromebooks than Windows laptops, making them one of the most popular budget laptops on the market, though we’re also seeing a lot more Chromebooks in the $500-to-$1,000 range.

Google’s ChromeOS isn’t nearly as power-hungry as Windows (check the specs), so you can get by with a lower-end processor, slower storage and less screen resolution or RAM — just a few of the components that make a laptop expensive.

But the flip side is Chrome and Google apps are more of a memory hog than you’d expect, and if you go too low with the processor or skimp on memory, the system will still feel slow.

ChromeOS is also a much different experience than Windows; make sure the applications you need have a Chrome app, Android app or Linux app before making the leap. Since Chromebooks are cloud-first devices, however, you don’t need a lot of storage built-in.

That also means if you spend most of your time roaming the web, writing, streaming video or playing Android games, they’re a good fit. If you hope to play Android games, make sure you get a touchscreen Chromebook.

For a cheap gaming laptop, though, you’ll still have to break the $500 ceiling to support most games. The least expensive budget laptops suitable for a solid gaming performance experience — those with moderately powerful discrete graphics processors — will run you closer to $700. Here are our recommendations if you’re looking for the best gaming laptop under $1,000.

Although, if you like to live on the bleeding edge, cloud gaming services such as Nvidia GeForce Now and Microsoft Xbox Game Pass Ultimate’s Cloud Gaming will let you play games on laptops with specs that hit the under-$500 mark.

While Chromebooks can run ChromeOS-specific and Android apps, some people need the full Windows OS to run heftier applications, such as video-editing suites. With that comes a need for a faster processor with more cores, more memory — 8GB RAM is the bare minimum — and more storage for applications and the operating system itself.

A lot of sub-$500 laptops have 4GB or 8GB, which, in conjunction with a spinning hard disk, can make for a frustratingly slow Windows laptop experience.

• A lot of Windows laptops in this range use AMD Athlon and lower-end A series or Intel Celeron and Pentium processors to hit the lower price. I don’t recommend going with an Athlon instead of a Ryzen or a Celeron/Pentium instead of a Core: Windows is too heavy for them, and in conjunction with the 4GB memory a lot of them have, you may find them abysmally slow at best.
• Because of their low prices, 11.6-inch Chromebooks are attractive. But we don’t recommend that size for any but the youngest students.
• SSDs can make a big difference in how fast Windows performance feels compared with a spinning hard disk. However, not all SSDs are equally speedy and cheaper laptops typically have slower drives. Still, even a slower SSD is faster than a slow 5,200rpm hard-disk drive.
• In the budget price range, you have to watch out for screen terminology when it comes to specs: An “HD” screen may not always be a truly high-definition screen. HD, which has a resolution of 1,920×1,080 pixels, is called “Full HD” so marketers can refer to lesser-resolution displays (1,280×720 pixels) as HD. In Chromebooks, HD usually refers to a screen with a resolution of 1,366×768 pixels. On the upside, the boom in 14-inch laptops trickles down to this price range, which allows for more FHD options in the size.
• A frequent complaint I see is about “washed-out” looking displays with poor viewing angles. Unfortunately, that’s one of the trade-offs: A lot of these use TN (twisted nematic) screen technology, which is cheap but meh. Look for IPS (in-plane switching) LCDs which are better for off-angle viewing.
• Pay attention to networking. Inexpensive models with older chipsets may only support Wi-Fi 5 (aka 802.11ac) or the older Wi-Fi 4 standard (802.11n). For the sake of longevity, look for at least 802.11ac but you can find inexpensive laptops with the latest wireless standard 802.11ax (Wi-Fi 6).

Considering all specs and options — battery life, storage space, screen resolution, screen size, core processor performance, general machine and battery performance — you’ll find some of our top picks for 2022’s best Windows laptops and Chromebooks under the $500 budget in the list above, along with their pros and cons.

The review process for laptops, desktops, tablets and other computer-like devices consists of two parts: performance testing under controlled conditions in the CNET Labs and extensive hands-on use by our expert reviewers. This includes evaluating a device’s aesthetics, ergonomics and features. A final review verdict is a combination of both those objective and subjective judgments.

The list of benchmarking software we use changes over time as the devices we test evolve. The most important core tests we’re currently running on every compatible computer include: Primate Labs Geekbench 5, Cinebench R23, PCMark 10 and 3DMark Fire Strike Ultra.

A more detailed description of each benchmark and how we use it can be found in our How We Test Computers page.

• Most universally useful: MacBook Air M2
• Best budget laptop: Acer Swift 3
• Best Chromebook: Acer Chromebook Spin 713
• Best budget gaming laptop: HP Victus 16

See the full list of best laptops for 2022.

• Best Laptop for 2022
• Best Windows Laptops
• Best Laptop for College
• Best Laptop for High School Students
• Best Budget Laptop Under $500
• Best Dell Laptops
• Best 15-Inch Work and Gaming Laptops
• Best 2-in-1 Laptop
• Best HP Laptops

• Best Gaming Laptop
• Best Cheap Gaming Laptop Under $1,000
• Best Chromebook: 8 Chromebooks Starting at Under $300

HP

If you work from home but need all the advantages of an office printer, the OfficeJet Pro is an excellent choice. In terms of sheer printing speed, the HP is ahead of most others in its price range. It printed the 10 pages in just 32 seconds and scanned and printed them in 1 minute, 12 seconds. Very impressive.

While the images and graphics aren’t the best, they were, on average, for at-home printers. The text was excellent, with clearly defined edges, even the Comic Sans parts. It’s a bit larger than some of the printers I tested, but the deep paper tray and auto-feed for the scanner make the size worthwhile.

Of the printers I’ve tested so far, the OfficeJet Pro is the most versatile. It also comes with six months of free ink, based on a standard usage if you sign up for HP Plus. While HP Plus does give you some extra helpful app choices for free and the ink, the downside is you can only use HP inks while subscribed to it.

Epson

First off, this is not a typical printer machine. The bulky square shape is not something you would want to see in a fashionable home office. It is solidly constructed, though, and unlike some of the other products in this price range, it doesn’t have any creaky plastic pieces. It’s built well and it shows.

Because of the extra paper tray, the Epson can hold a large amount of paper for use. This makes it perfect if you and another person use it daily. It prints fast too — the fastest in our test, though the scanning is a little slow. The graphic, text, and webpage text were all excellent, though the image quality on glossy paper was only good. This is a workhorse though, designed for high-volume text, not imagery.

My only real issue with the Workforce Pro was the size of the ink cartridges. It’s great that you have two large paper trays to hold a lot of paper, but if the amount of ink you have doesn’t match, then you are going to have a problem.

Canon

The Canon Pixma TR4720 is not going to be winning any awards in any category. In all of my testing, it came out around the middle of the pack in just about every category. While that could be seen as a negative in a printer that costs several hundred dollars, for one that is as cheap as the Pixma, it’s encouraging.

In fact, the Pixma scored better in color reproduction when placed against other, more expensive all-in-one printers when printing on glossy paper. Some printers suffer from dimpling when printing images but the Pixma didn’t and the skin tones were far better on the Canon image than on other brands. My only real negative is the machine’s volume. You can tell it was built on a budget, but as far as budget printers go, this one’s pretty good.

James Bricknell / CNET

Sublimation is the process of transferring ink from paper to another material like t-shirts, mugs and canvases. There are plenty of options if you are looking to convert a standard printer to use sublimation ink but if possible you should buy a dedicated printer for the job.

The Sawgrass SG500 is purpose-built to print using sublimation ink and paper. It works great too: You can print up a storm of artwork to put on t-shirts for the whole family. If you’re interested in starting your own business using your own art, then this printer is well worth the price.

Epson

After testing the Expression I was pleasantly surprised at how well this printer did. Being Epson’s budget option it could have been poor, but instead performed excellently at text reproduction and about average on the image quality.

The setup was quick and easy and the Wi-Fi connection seems to be solid wherever I put it in my house. Print time was average at 1 minute, 15 seconds, but the text quality more than made up for the speed. All of the text, even the photocopied text was legible and smooth.

The only downside is how small the ink cartridges are on this printer. I know ink is where companies make the most money, but replacing these tiny cartridges every few weeks or months will get old quick.

Ink subscriptions are becoming more common, with several of the printers on this list offering them as part of the original cost. Are they any good though? It all depends how much ink you use. If you’re printing more than 100 pages a month, then yes, it likely is a good deal. Less than that and you may find you don’t need it.

Most ink subscriptions offer you a certain number of months free, so it is worth trying it to see if it can fulfill your needs, but remember to cancel it before you are supposed to start paying if you don’t want it.

Dan Ackerman/CNET

Game Pass has evolved far beyond its Xbox-bound origins to become a subscription that delivers something for everyone who plays games, and now encompasses console and PC game downloads, access to online multiplayer services, a deal with gaming giant EA and a cloud-based service that streams games to nearly any device.

Microsoft offers several versions, but because of how the features are sliced up between them, only the $15-a-month Ultimate plan, with all the benefits detailed above, really makes sense. New subscribers can get their first month for just $1 right now as well.

Read our full review of Xbox Game Pass.

Dan Ackerman/CNET

This service went through a dramatic change in 2022. The new PS Plus incorporates a large game catalog and also Sony’s PS Now cloud gaming service. Subscribers have access to three tiers: Essential, Extra and Premium (called Deluxe in some countries).

Essential is the same as the previous version of PS Plus, allowing access to online multiplayer games, along with PSN in-store discounts, cloud game saves and two new free-to-you games each month (similar to Xbox Live Gold).

Extra has about 400 PS4 and PS5 games available to play via download for $15 monthly, while Premium costs $18 a month and adds PlayStation 1, PS2, PS3 and PSP games, a handful of time-limited game demos and cloud streaming for select games.

Essential is the least expensive ($10 a month), but Extra ($15 a month) is the tier everyone should have. Premium ($18 a month) feels like a stretch, unless you’re really into retro games. — Oscar Gonzalez

See our top picks for the best PlayStation Plus games.

Read our review of PlayStation Plus.

Nintendo

If you want to play online multiplayer with a Nintendo Switch, there’s only one option: Pay for Nintendo Switch Online. The service ranges in price depending on whether you’re playing by yourself or have other family accounts: $19 for a single person is the way to go for most, while $35 covers eight Nintendo family accounts in case others play (or have their own Switches).

Unlike other services, which charge by the month, this single fee covers an entire year. Besides online play, access to a bunch of free NES and SNES games are included, as well as Pac-Man 99. Online cloud saves are useful in case you play across multiple Switches, too.

A bonus tier introduced in 2021 called the Expansion Pack probably isn’t worth it unless you’re a serious Switch player or a lover of retro games. It comes with add-on Animal Crossing, Splatoon 2 and Mario Kart 8 DLC packs that normally cost around $25 each, and adds a bunch of Sega Genesis and N64 games.

But the $50-a-year plan ($80 a year if you choose the family account access) still doesn’t feel worth it yet. If you really love Sega games, there’s already a Genesis Classics compilation in the eShop that’s often on sale. — Scott Stein

Lori Grunin/CNET

GeForce Now differs from the competition in that it lets you play games you’ve already paid for rather than requiring you buy a special version of the game (like Google Stadia or Amazon Luna) or stream games from a circumscribed subscription library (like Xbox Game Pass Ultimate or the Sony PlayStation Plus Premium).

It also works, via an app or web browser, on Android, Windows and Mac OS devices, as well as Chromebooks, iPhones and iPads.

The service costs $10 a month for a version that supports 1080p resolution at up to 60 frames per second. For $20 a month, a premium tier supports 4K resolutions at up to 120fps. A free tier is a great way to try it out, but limits you to one hour of play at a time.

Because of its smart set of plan options, solid performance and big and growing list of supported games, along with Nvidia’s aggressive strategy for its data center and GPU businesses (the bedrock on which GeForce Now is built) I’m recommending it for gamers who’ve amassed large game libraries and want to play them in more places. — Lori Grunin

Read our full review of Nvidia GeForce Now.

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Apple Arcade has established a polished service with something for every kind of gamer since its launch in 2019. For just $5 per month, subscribers can play hundreds of games without ads or in-app purchases across all their iOS devices. New games are added weekly along with updates for existing titles. You can download and play all of Apple Arcade’s games offline.

The service is still a solid option for users seeking family-friendly gameplay, but Apple Arcade increased its appeal by adding more social and multiplayer games, as well as classic and well-known games already available in the App Store. — Shelby Brown

Read our full review of Apple Arcade.

• Sony PlayStation 5 Review
• Microsoft Xbox Series X Review
• Microsoft Xbox Series S Review
• Nintendo Switch OLED Review
• Meta Quest 2 Review
• Valve Steam Deck Review

The latest CNET gaming coverage is here.

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ExpressVPN is our current best VPN pick for people who want a reliable and safe VPN, and it works on a variety of devices. It’s normally $13 per month, and you can sign up for ExpressVPN and save 49% plus get three months of access for free — the equivalent of $6.67 per month — if you get an annual subscription.

Note that ExpressVPN offers a 30-day money-back guarantee.

NBC’s streaming service Peacock offers access to plenty of Premier League soccer throughout the season. You’ll need to be signed up with a Peacock Premium or Premium Plus account to stream games live. For a limited time, you can sign up for Peacock Premium at a 60% discount, dropping the monthly cost as low as $2 (or even less with an annual account).

Sky subsidiary Now (formerly Now TV) offers streaming access to Sky Sports channels with a Now Sports membership. You can get a day of access for 12, or sign up to a monthly plan from 25 per month right now.

FuboTV is the go-to destination for Canadians looking to watch the Premier League this season with exclusive streaming rights to every game. It costs CA$25 per month, though you can save some cash by paying quarterly or annually.