A VR headset is one of the biggest-ticket gifts you can put under the tree, and Meta’s Quest line is where almost everyone starts. Meta has two current headsets: the Quest 3 at $599.99 and the Quest 3S from $349.99, after Meta raised prices in April 2026 because of memory costs. Both use the same chip, run exactly the same games and apps...
AirPods are one of the most-given tech gifts of the holidays, and this year the choice changed. In September 2026 Apple replaced AirPods 4 with AirPods 5, which bring the strongest noise cancellation Apple has put in an open-fit earbud, at $129 or $149 with a wireless charging case. AirPods Pro 3, Apple’s in-ear model, lists at $249 but...
GoPro spent fifteen years making the same camera better. The Mission 1 Pro is the first time in a long while that it has made a genuinely different one. Inside a body you can still throw in a river is a 50-megapixel 1-inch sensor — roughly four times the surface area of the sensors GoPro has shipped for a decade — driven by a new GP3...
Spending $1,400 or more on a robot vacuum used to be indefensible. In 2026 it is merely expensive, because the machines at the top of the market have stopped being vacuums that occasionally push a wet rag around and started being genuinely capable floor-cleaning appliances. The two most interesting are the Roborock Saros 20 at $1,389.99 and the...
QD-OLED finally stopped being a luxury in 2026. Two years ago a 27-inch quantum dot OLED panel cost well over $1,000; today the same size and refresh rate sells for around $500, and Samsung has pushed refresh rates to a genuinely absurd 500Hz. The reason to want one has not changed — OLED produces true black because each pixel switches...
Sennheiser has spent a decade making wireless earbuds that sound better than they sell, and the Momentum True Wireless 5 — launched in August 2026 at $299.95 — is the most complete version of that formula yet. It is also, notably, one of the only flagship earbuds you can buy in 2026 with batteries you can actually replace when they...
For the first time in years, choosing a pair of Bose noise cancelling headphones is genuinely difficult. In August 2026 Bose pushed most of its flagship feature set — TrueSpatial immersive audio, lossless audio over USB-C, a six-microphone noise cancelling array — down into the $359 QuietComfort Headphones (2nd Gen), a full $90 below...
Wi-Fi 8 became real at IFA 2026 in Berlin, where TP-Link unveiled the world’s first complete Wi-Fi 8 product lineup with regional pre-orders opening on September 30th. If your instinct is that this means faster internet, it does not — and that is the most important thing to understand about this generation. Wi-Fi 8 has the same maximum...
The single biggest difference between a polished video call professional and a muddy webcam blob isn’t your camera — it’s your lighting. Even a $1,500 mirrorless looks bad when you’re backlit by a window or lit only by the cool blue glow of your monitor. A good ring light fixes 80% of bad-call complaints: it eliminates...
Podcasting in 2026 doesn’t require a $400 broadcast mic to sound professional. The USB microphone space under $150 has matured to the point where a $60 dynamic from Samson can rival audio quality that used to demand studio-grade XLR setups. We tested the best USB microphones across budgets and use cases — from no-fuss dynamics for...
