Any sports fan can tell you about the concept of a “rebuilding year,” when your team doesn’t have a realistic shot at the title, so they give the foundations of their franchise some much-needed TLC. I’m feeling that a lot at the moment, albeit in a twisted way. Because in terms of PC gaming performance, rebuilding is the only thing I’m not doing this year.
If you have a budget for PC…
One of my favorite PC accessories is small enough to toss in any backpack yet makes using your laptop cooler, quieter and more comfortable. You can pay $50 or more for a good one, but a cheap model can be yours for less than the cost of a fancy coffee.
I’m talking about…
The only thing I miss about my old Brooklyn apartment is my office. Big enough for two desks, my office fit for four — count ‘em, four — 27-inch monitors, enough for two dual-screen setups. It was glorious.
After our recent move to Manhattan, though, the office is…
New laptops are using old CPUs. That’s a problem
July 17, 2026
One of the core tenets of productivity is to do more with less. But the opposite holds true, too — which a sneaky, pernicious trend permeating the laptop market might reveal.
Microprocessor vendors have begun reusing old silicon, but in a way that obscures that decision from consumers. Shoppers are left trying to figure out whether their productivity laptop is truly new — and should be priced…
This Windows Search revamp could win me over
July 16, 2026
The future of Windows Search looks a lot closer to what users have been asking for since day one: search. That’s it.
No ads, no visual clutter, no promotional links to the Microsoft Store, or Amazon. Just search. That’s all.
Microsoft might have put this vision of the…
Stop packing your laptop charger. Bring this instead
July 16, 2026
Do you still bring your laptop charger with you on business trips? I just realized that I do, and it’s a habit I need to break.
I have the option of carrying a mouse, though I can use my laptop’s touchpad for navigation. Likewise, a USB-C hub gives me extra ports. But…
Yesterday was Patch Tuesday, which broke records. But Microsoft didn’t just fix a bunch of security vulnerabilities. They also rolled out update KB5101650 for Windows 11 25H2 and 24H2, which makes many new features available for all Windows 11 users—features that you previously had to download manually as optional updates.
The most exciting new feature is called Point-in-Time Restore (PITR)…
Buying a Chromebook in 2026 can feel like a bit of a gamble. Many models are available, but pricing seems to vary wildly, and a lot of retail sites list new and ancient models side-by-side. The Acer Chromebook Plus 514 enters this confusing market as a sensible choice with…
New NVMe SSD releases have become increasingly rare — another casualty of the AI data center gold rush. Because of that, I was stoked to see a new SSD release from Samsung — the 990. The good news? It’s more power efficient and faster overall than the SSD Samsung says…
Just a few months ago, I could barely get an AI agent to open the Chess app on my Mac, much less actually play a game of it. But after testing the all-new ChatGPT super-app, I can report that the days of clunky AI “computer use” functionality are pretty much over.
Released last Thursday, the ChatGPT super-app boasts a variety of features, including the built-in Codex coding harness and ChatGPT…
