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For those already using Google’s ecosystem that are searching for a solid tablet, the clear pick is the Google Pixel Tablet. While there are cheaper Android tablets out there, this tablet is one of the best you can get your hands on, especially when you consider that it comes with a charging stand that doubles as a speaker. And if you act fast, you can pick up the upgraded 256GB model for less than you’d normally pay for the base model with just 128GB of storage.

The sale is available for today only at Best Buy with both the porcelain and hazel models discounted by $150 there. Amazon is matching the prices, dropping both models to $449, giving you an alternative place to snag the deal. We expect prices will rise at Amazon at the end of the day, too.

The Google Pixel Tablet is the first Android tablet to use Google’s own Tensor G2 chip, making it fast and smooth when opening apps, playing games and streaming movies and TV shows. It’s also efficient on the battery, so you’ll go longer between charges.

When it does come time to charge you can just place the Pixel Tablet on the included charging speaker dock, which CNET’s Scott Stein loved in his review. It’ll automatically start charging without any messy wires. While it’s there, it can act as a smart home hub and is ideal for watching videos in the kitchen, viewing recipes and more, all thanks to that large 11-inch display.

Not sure that the Pixel Tablet is for you or prefer something with a different set of features? Our list of the best tablet deals should have you sorted in no time all.

There are a plethora of Android tablets out there for you to choose from, but trying to differentiate between them as you shop can become difficult. The broad strokes that are worth taking note of include the size of the display, how much storage is available, and most importantly, how much it will cost. In all of those instances, the Samsung Galaxy Tab A9 Plus is a great choice — especially with the current discount making it even more affordable.

The Samsung Galaxy Tab A9 Plus comes with 64GB of storage, 4GB of RAM and a large 10.9-inch display, making the discounted price of $190 a solid deal. That’s a $30 saving over the normal $220 asking price, though we don’t know for how long the deal will remain on the table. If you want to be sure of taking advantage of this price, now is the time to act.

In terms of key specifications, that midsize display and decent amount of storage size are two of the main ones to take notice of, plus the whole thing is powered by Android and a Qualcomm Snapdragon 695 processor. If the 64GB storage limit is a concern, note that it can be expanded up to 1TB via an optional microSD card if required, and that’s something that can be resolved pretty inexpensively. Four speakers with Dolby Atmos support round out the main specs of note, making this a solid movie-watching device.

Don’t worry if this isn’t the tablet for you, though, as we have rounded up plenty more tablet deals if you’d prefer something at a different size or price point, or with a different power profile.

The Nothing Phone 2A is making a late arrival to Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, unveiling its full design while saving the rest of its details for a March 5 reveal event.

The phone arrived to the convention floor on Tuesday and was followed Wednesday with an unboxing video posted to Nothing’s YouTube channel.

The unboxing video highlights a number of design changes coming to the 2A when compared to the Nothing Phone 2, which include the centering of the two rear cameras and a plastic design that allows for a degree of transparency on the sides of the phone.

While the video does not show the phone powered on, social media posts that Nothing reposted onto its X account show its signature Glyphs lighting up on the top half around the camera. The bottom half has a swirving design that appears to integrate the number two.

But other then a peek at the Nothing Phone 2A’s look, this Mobile World Congress visit is serving as a teaser for Nothing’s own March 5th event. In a prior teaser video, Nothing also revealed that the upcoming 2A phone will run on a Mediatek processor instead of a Qualcomm one like prior Nothing phones. And while pricing wasn’t revealed for the 2A, this phone might be a cheaper alternative to the $599 Nothing Phone 2 if we take into account the choice to use plastic rather than metal for the phone’s body.

If the Nothing Phone 2A is indeed a cheaper flagship, it would join other companies’ efforts like the $500 OnePlus 12R, the $600 Samsung Galaxy S23 FE and the $499 Google Pixel 7A.

Honor said it will launch its first flip phone before the end of the year as it seeks to challenge Samsung and Motorola in the foldable phone sub-category.

Honor is “preparing for a flip phone launch” now that it’s in the “final stages” internally, CEO George Zhao told CNBC on Tuesday. This marks a major expansion for the Chinese company’s foldable phone portfolio, which currently consists only of book-style foldable phones.

A wave of flip phones have hit the market in recent years, signaling a comeback of the clamshell-style phone popularized decades ago. Samsung launched the Galaxy Z Flip 5 weeks after Motorola’s Razr Plus arrived on the scene in 2023. Both phones feature dramatic redesigns centered on the front screen. The Razr Plus for instance, is outfitted with a large 3.6-inch cover screen that raised the bar for flip phones, which until then had minuscule external displays that were good for little more than checking notifications. Oppo, a top Chinese phone-maker, shook up the design of flip phones before that in 2022 by introducing a vertically oriented cover screen on the Find N2 Flip.

Read more: Honor’s Smart Ring Is Coming for Oura, Too

Foldable phones are still a niche, but sales of both book-style and flip-style phones are expected to rocket. Global foldable shipments were expected to reach 20.4 million units in 2023 based on the IDC’s forecasts, representing 43.9% growth compared to 2022. Last year, IDC predicted that foldable phones would capture 3.5% of overall market share by 2027.

“We are very positive about foldables for the future,” Zhao said.

Running your own business can be very time-consuming, from ensuring your products and services are delivered on time to managing your team and making sure everybody is happy. That said, keeping tabs on your company finances is probably the most important thing, and while there are plenty of personal budgeting apps, they aren’t necessarily equipped for complex business needs.

Intuit QuickBooks is one of the biggest names in accounting software and is a super helpful tool for keeping your business’s finances in check. And while one-year subscription to its Simple Start plan usually goes for $30 per month, or $360 per year, StackSocial has a limited-time 30% discount that will bring it down to just $250. There’s also a similar 30% discount on the one-year subscription to the Essentials plan, dropping it down to $500 from $719.

One great thing about Intuit QuickBooks online is that it moves all of your bookkeeping to the cloud so you can access your information from all of your devices. That makes it a lot easier for collaborators to come in, like your accountant, and provide support virtually rather than needing to go into the office. In fact, Simple Start lets you connect one billable user and two accounting firms. Other useful features include income and expense tracking, receipt organization, cash-flow management, sales and sales tax tracking and more. If you go with the Essentials plan, you also get things such as the ability to add three billable users and three sales channels instead of one, plus more comprehensive reporting.

Since you access Intuit QuickBooks online, it’s important to have a solid internet connection, so check these internet deals for an upgrade. Alternatively, if you plan to use it away from your office, such as when traveling, be sure to check out these tablet deals and laptop deals for more convenient access.

Smartwatches are very useful in day-to-day life, from tracking your exercise to delivering glanceable notifications, but they certainly aren’t cheap, especially if you’re in the Apple ecosystem. Fortunately, there’s a big Woot sale running right now on Grade A refurbished Apple Watch models that will net you one for as little as $130. Be sure to grab a deal quickly because even though the deal ends on March 5th, supplies are likely limited and certain models may sell out before then.

Though the Apple Watch Series 4 is the cheapest option in the sale, the most budget-friendly option worth considering in this sale is the Apple Watch SE second-generation which is going for as low as $162, depending on the size. This model has an improved heart sensor compared to the first Apple Watch SE and is water resistant to 50 meters. It is missing a couple of more complex sensors, but all in all, it gives you a solid Apple Watch experience for less.

Of course, if you want something a bit fancier, the Apple Watch Series 7 is a great middle-ground if you don’t want to spend a ton of cash. You can grab this model in both the GPS and GPS and cellular variants for just $206, and that is for both versions, so be sure to grab the cellular-enabled model since it’s the same price while the deal lasts. The Series 7 has all the advanced features you’d find on most Apple Watch models, including the fancier ECG monitor and higher-end workout tracking.

If you want the best of the best, or close to it, you can grab the Apple Watch Ultra, and while it’s the first generation, it’s still one of the best smartwatches out there. The Ultra is designed for those who have very active lifestyles, with a longer battery life and various types of advanced tracking and sensors to keep you going, plus one of the best dive-tracking apps out there. You can get it now for $503 which is a few hundred dollars cheaper than it sold for brand new.

In terms of condition and functionality, Woot’s Grade A rating means that these devices will have minimal cosmetic blemishes and offer like-new functionality. Batteries are guaranteed to hold at least 85% off their original capacity and each device is covered by a one-year warranty.

Of course, if you’d rather go for a new watch, then check out these Apple Watch deals. Or, if you’re not in the Apple ecosystem and want another excellent watch brand, these Galaxy Watch deals are worth looking at.

After Samsung’s surprise announcement of a Galaxy Ring this year, Chinese company Honor said it’ll launch its own smart ring, called the Honor Ring, as early as this year.

“Internally, we have this kind of solution, now we are working on that part, so in the future you can have the Honor ring.” CEO George Zhao told CNBC, which first reported the news, at Mobile World Congress (MWC) on Tuesday.

That future Zhao referred to is coming soon. Honor later told CNET its high-tech ring will be up for sale before the end of 2024. The Chinese company’s upcoming entry into the smart ring business means consumers will have more choices in a wearables category dominated by a few key players. Celebrity favorite Oura, is currently the most prominent player, with new entrant Evie, which focuses in women’s health, vying to grab some market share away.

Samsung’s Galaxy Ring, which was physically shown off for the first time at MWC this week, is rumored to arrive as early as this year. Apple is also rumored to be experimenting with the idea of a smart ring, according to Bloomberg.

Chances are Honor’s ring will follow the lead of smart rings already on the market, and track a wearer’s heart rate, sleep statistics, temperature, exercise, and fitness. The arrival of a smart ring would mark a significant expansion of Honor’s wearable category, which counts smartwatches as its main wearable product offering.

At MWC, Samsung disclosed that the Galaxy Ring will be able track your sleep using four different metrics: heart rate, respiratory rate, night movement and sleep latency, as well as menstrual cycle and fertility tracking. Samsung said the Galaxy Ring will be part of a broader push of its app Samsung Health, where the company intends to have AI analyze health data collected by the Ring or by Samsung’s Galaxy Watch 6.

The Honor Ring will likely follow a similar approach, with Zhao citing AI as an essential tool for providing more personalized health tracking.

“This hardware capability will work together with AI-enabled apps (and) can help you make the professional training course tailored for you because they studied your habits and health data to give you professional suggestions” Zhao told CNBC. “I think AI will transform this kind of applications.”

Apple released the iOS 17.4 RC (release candidate) to public beta testers and developers on Tuesday. This release comes more than a month after iOS 17.3 was released to the general public. The latest iOS RC brings new features, including major changes for people in the European Union and new emoji and bug fixes to the iPhones of some developers and beta testers.

Read more: Why You Should Download iOS 17.3 Now

We recommend downloading the RC on something other than your primary device. Since this isn’t the final version of iOS 17.4, these features might be buggy and battery life may be short, and it’s best to keep those troubles on a secondary device.

If you’re a developer or public beta tester, here are some of the new features you can find in the iOS 17.4 RC. There’s no word on the public release for iOS 17.4 just yet, but Apple has indicated it’ll likely be in March.

Downloading other app stores in the EU

Apple introduced a significant change to Safari, the App Store and iOS with iOS 17.4 beta 1, but only for people in the EU. With iOS 17.4 beta 1, people in the EU can download an alternative app store and apps from outside the App Store. According to CNET’s Katie Collins, this marks one of the largest changes to the App Store since its inception in 2008. People in the EU will also be given new default app controls, giving them more ways to customize their iPhone experience.

Apple made these changes, which were announced Thursday, to comply with the EU’s Digital Markets Act. The company said these changes will go into effect once Europeans download iOS 17.4 in March or later. There’s no word on whether these changes will be available globally.

Read more: Apple Will Allow Installation of Rival App Stores On iPhones In Europe

More options for in-app payments

Apple introduced more ways to make in-app payments with the first iOS 17.4 beta. If you go to Settings > Privacy & Security, you’ll see an option called Contactless & NFC, or near-field communication. If you tap the new option, you’ll be taken to a mostly blank page that has a small disclaimer that says the page will show apps that have requested the ability to use contactless and NFC payments in the future. Apple announced these options alongside the changes for people in the EU, and there’s no word on whether this will be utilized by apps outside that region.

At least 100 new emoji

Apple introduced over 100 new emoji to iPhone users with the first beta of iOS 17.4. Those emoji include heads shaking up and down as well as left and right, a phoenix emoji and a slice of lime. These emoji were announced in 2023, and some Android devices, including the latest Samsung phones, already have them.

Improved iMessage security against future threats

With iOS 17.4, your iMessage chats will get a security boost to protect them from cyberattacks that involve quantum computing. According to CNET’s David Lumb, Apple said it hasn’t seen these kinds of cyberattacks yet, but the company wants to get ahead of the potential threat now.

Read more: Apple’s Next iOS Update Protects iMessage Against Future Quantum Computing Attacks

Podcasts can now show transcripts

In the first iOS 17.4 beta, you can read the transcripts of your favorite podcasts as you listen to them. To see the transcripts, go into the Podcasts app and start listening to a show, then tap the show’s banner across the bottom of your screen. Look at the bottom of the show’s title card and you’ll see a new button in the bottom left corner that looks like a speech bubble with quotes inside it. Tap this button and you’ll see the transcript of the show you’re listening to.

You can search within the transcript, too, so if someone mentions a book or movie title and you only remember part of it, you can search the part you do know and find the whole title.

Read more: Apple Music Launches Monthly Version of Replay

Virtual card numbers come to Apple Cash

Your Apple Cash gets an upgrade with the latest iOS 17.4 beta, too. Now you can have a virtual card that can access your Apple Cash. This card comes with its own number, expiration date and three-digit security code, like a physical card. You can also easily request a new card number if you think your card has been compromised.

This feature is helpful if you want to use your Apple Cash at an online store that doesn’t accept Apple Pay.

Another digital clock widget

In the second iOS 17.4 beta, Apple introduced a new digital clock app widget called City Digital. This widget displays the time as well as a set location as opposed to wherever your iPhone is at the moment. This can be helpful if you’re traveling or live far from family and friends but want to keep in touch without waking them up in the middle of the night.

Apple introduced the digital clock widget to iPhones with the release of iOS 17.2.

More Stolen Device Protection options

With iOS 17.4 beta 1, Apple introduced a few new options in Stolen Device Protection. The new options let you choose whether you want to always require a one-hour security delay to access certain settings or make changes, or to only require the delay when you’re away from a familiar location like your home.

Apple introduced Stolen Device Protection with iOS 17.3, and the intent of the feature is to protect some of your data if your device is stolen or falls into nefarious hands. The feature doesn’t protect all your data, but Apple still recommends everyone turn it on.

New Battery Health readout for iPhone 15 models

With iOS 17.4 beta 4, if you go to Settings > Battery there is a new Battery Health readout in the iPhone 15 models which tells you the status of your battery’s health in a word, like Normal or Service. You can also tap this option for more details about your battery, like its cycle count and maximum capacity. Before, your iPhone would show a percentage in relation to your battery’s health without any indication of what it means.

Read more: iOS 17.4’s New Tool Shows if Your iPhone 15’s Battery Health Is Normal

New Home button in the Music and Books apps

Apple introduced a Home button in Apple Music with iOS 17.4 beta 1 and in the Books app with iOS 17.4 beta 2. If you open either app and look at the bottom of your screen, the Home button is in the far-left corner. This button replaced Listen Now in Apple Music and Read Now in Books.

If you’re an Apple Music subscriber and tap the button, you’re taken to a page that shows you menus, like Recently Played, and recommendations based on artists you’ve listened to. If you tap this button in the Books app, you see menus like Current Bestsellers and Start Reading for Free.

Previous iOS updates brought Home buttons to the Podcasts and Apple TV apps, so this change is likely Apple trying to apply some uniformity across its apps.

Siri can send messages in more than one language

In the first iOS 17.4 beta, Apple gave Siri the ability to send messages in multiple languages. If you go to Settings > Siri & Search, you’ll see the option Messaging with Siri, which replaced Automatically Send Messages. Tap Messaging with Siri and you’ll see Add Language. If you tap this, you can have Siri send messages in other languages, like Arabic, Spanish and Thai. Apple writes that Siri will also read messages using the languages in this list, but choosing one from this list won’t change the primary language Siri listens and responds in. Prior to this, Siri could only send messages in English.

New Apple CarPlay and Maps experience in certain vehicles

With the fourth iOS 17.4 beta, if you use Apple CarPlay with Maps in certain supported vehicles, you’ll see a new instrument cluster.

“With supported CarPlay vehicles, Apple Maps will present a new instrument cluster experience with information about upcoming maneuvers,” Apple wrote online. “Users will be able to swap the desired display type between the main and instrument cluster screen by tapping the map configuration button on the upper right of the Maps main screen.”

However, Apple didn’t write which vehicles support this new feature, and the company didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

Here are the full release notes for the iOS 17.4 RC.

Emoji

New mushroom, phoenix, lime, broken chain, and shaking heads emoji are now available in the emoji keyboard.

18 people and body emoji add the option to face them in either direction.

Apple Podcasts

Transcripts let you follow an episode with text that highlights in sync with the audio in English, Spanish, French and German.

Episode text can be read in full, searched for a word or phrase, tapped to play from a specific point and used with accessibility features such as Text Size, Increase Contrast and VoiceOver.

This update includes the following enhancements and bug fixes:

Music recognition lets you add songs you have identified to your Apple Music Playlists and Library, as well as Apple Music Classic.

Siri has a new option to announce messages you receive in any supported language.

Stolen Device Protection supports the option for increased security in all locations.

Battery Health in Settings shows battery cycle count, manufacture date, and first use on iPhone 15 and iPhone 15 Pro models.

Call Identification displays Apple-verified business name, logo and department name when available.

Business updates in Messages for Business provide trusted information for order status, flight notifications, fraud alerts or other transactions you opt into.

Apple Cash virtual card numbers enable you to pay with Apple Cash at merchants that don’t yet accept Apple Pay by typing in your number from Wallet or using Safari AutoFill.

Fixes an issue where contact pictures are blank in Find My.

Fixes an issue for Dual SIM users where the phone number changes from primary to secondary and is visible to a group they have messaged.

Some features may not be available for all regions or on all Apple devices. For information on the security content of Apple software updates, please visit this website:

https://support.apple.com/kb/HT201222

Those are some of the new features developers and beta testers will see in the iOS 17.4 RC. That doesn’t mean these are the only features coming to the next iOS update, or that these changes will stick when iOS 17.4 is released to the public. As of right now, there’s no exact release date for iOS 17.4, but Apple has indicated it might be released in March.

For more on iOS 17, check out all the new features that were included in iOS 17.3 and iOS 17.2. You can also check out our iOS 17 cheat sheet.

T-Mobile has long offered an MLB.TV subscription for free to its users now we know when the recent tradition will continue. The carrier revealed today in its T Life app that it will once again be offering free baseball streaming to its customers starting on March 26.

To get the deal, users will need to use the T Life app (formerly T-Mobile Tuesdays) and claim the free subscription between March 26 and April 2. T Life is T-Mobile’s new all-encompassing app that incorporates its T-Mobile Tuesdays freebies, its new Magenta Status perks as well as being the place to manage services like home internet.

Read more: Best phone plans

Normally $150 for the regular season, MLB.TV allows baseball fans to stream out-of-market games (those not airing on TV in your local city) to a variety of devices including phones, tablets, computers and connected devices like game consoles or smart TVs through the MLB app.

T-Mobile has been giving away MLB.TV subscriptions for years as part of its partnership with MLB. Last year the carrier struck a new deal with the league to continue offering free subscriptions through 2028.

The Dodgers and Padres will open the 2024 baseball season on March 20 and 21 with a two-game set in Seoul, South Korea, though those games will air nationally on ESPN (which makes it unavailable on MLB.TV). The rest of the league will begin regular season play on March 28.

Hi, Barbie! This is Journalist Barbie reporting live from MWC in Barcelona, Spain, about the best day ever.

It turns out we, the Barbies, are getting our own phone. It’s pink and sparkly and it has our name on it. The Barbie Flip Phone will be made by HMD — the company responsible for breathing new life into Nokia phones — as the first in a series of brand partnerships it plans to announce over the coming year.

Read more: Best Phone to Buy for 2024

HMD is collaborating with Mattel on our phone, which should be available from July. We don’t know exactly what it’ll look like at this stage, but it promises to embody the vintage chic of our brand heritage, which as you all know stretches back to 1959.

“Barbie, she could have made her own phone by now, but we’re leaving it to HMD” said Isabel Ferrer, Mattel’s EMEA marketing director as she announced the phone on Sunday.

We know that the device will be a flip phone that’ll offer an updated-feature-phone experience, rather than a smartphone experience. This is in line with HMD’s commitment to encourage us to jump on the digital-detox trend. The company says that with the Barbie Flip Phone, it’s providing a new option to Gen Z and millennial phone users who are increasingly looking for ways to stay connected while protecting their peace by spending less time on social media.

When HMD talked about the idea of a phone that would allow people to disconnect, Mattel was “really intrigued,” said Ferrer. “The solution of a flip phones to meet consumers where they are together with the icon of Barbie sounded like a perfect match.”

The last year has seen so many Barbie brand partnerships that it feels impossible to keep track of them all. From Xbox to Airbnb, products and services are desperate to flaunt our name. It’s very flattering, but at the same time we’re being used to sell an awful lot of stuff — stuff that not everyone needs.

Bearing this in mind, I can’t keep out the big thoughts, like: Is the Barbie Phone in some way commodifying our resistance to doomscrolling? Is there a contradiction in HMD touting sustainability as a core company value while at the same time trying to capitalize on a potentially lucrative merchandising partnership that may well feed into the rampant consumerism that’s harming the Earth?

I don’t have all the answers. As Journalist Barbie, I’m just here to ask the questions. So I did. I spoke with HMD’s chief marketing officer, Lars Silberbauer, who told me that the Barbie phone won’t simply be a toy that doesn’t fulfill its purpose. It will be a fully functioning feature phone that will meet your core connectivity needs, so you can call all the other Barbies, or Ken, or even Allan (probably not though).

One of the biggest issues causing the accumulation of e-waste (more than 5 billion “dormant” phones are sitting unused in people’s drawers around the world) is that many devices aren’t built to last. That isn’t the case with the Barbie Flip Phone, Silberbauer said. “It’s going to last a long time,” he said.

Many phone companies, he added, still push people to upgrade on a yearly basis, which fuels consumerism. Conversely, the Nokia devices that HMD is known for making are durable and “very difficult to kill.” Those same standards will apply to the Barbie Flip Phone.

As a journalist who’s been writing about tech for some time now, there’s also part of me that wonders whether we Barbies really need pink, sparkly phones. It’s not that I don’t like pink, or sparkles (you should see my dream house). It’s just that not so long ago, it was a struggle to get technology companies run by boardrooms full of men to take women’s tech needs seriously. They used a strategy known in the advertising world as “shrink it and pink it” as a way to take a product that was already appropriate for both men and women and use gendered marketing to sell it to women — often charging more in the process.

Silberbauer quite fairly pointed out that there’s nothing to say that the Barbie phone is only for women. “It’s for any kind of fan of Barbie,” he said. The phone will pay tribute to the “great style” that Barbie has shown over the years, with the Mattel and HMD design teams working together to make it into the best possible product for the people who love Barbie.

As we know, everyone is a fan of Barbie, so that’s a lot of people. But for people who are also fans of other things, HMD promises there are more exciting partnerships in the pipeline, with the next collaboration coming this spring.

That’s all for now, Barbie! Stay tuned for more (non-Barbie) phone updates all this week from Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.

Read more: MWC 2024 Tech You Can Actually Buy Right Now

First published Feb. 24, 2024 at 4 a.m. PT.