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The Google Pixel Tablet is one of the better options for those dead set on an Android slate, as it doubles as a sort of smart display when hooked up to an included charging speaker dock. If you've been interested, now looks like a decent time to take the plunge: The 11-inch tablet is back down to $399 at multiple retailers, including Amazon, Target and the Google Store. 

Google ran this deal a few times toward the end of last year, but it matches the lowest price we've seen and comes in $100 below the 128GB model's usual going rate. If you need more storage, the 256GB version is $150 off and available for $449, another all-time low. The offer comes as part of a wider spate of sales on Google devices and just ahead of Amazon's "Big Spring Sale" sales event. Google says these deals will run through April 3.

My colleague Cherlynn Low gave the Pixel Tablet a score of 85 in her review last June, and we note the device in our tablet buying guide. The aforementioned dock is really what helps it stand out: Plop the tablet onto that and it becomes something akin to a detachable Nest Hub Max. It doesn't have all the same functionality, but you can use it to control smart home devices, showcase photos, stream music with the improved speakers, cast video from your phone and so on. It all makes this the rare tablet that can be useful even when when you aren't holding it. 

Without the dock, the Pixel Tablet isn't quite as remarkable: Its LCD display is limited to a basic 60Hz refresh rate, its Tensor G2 chip is now a generation old and Google doesn't support it with a custom-made keyboard or stylus. The screen's rectangular 16:10 aspect ratio may take a bit to get used to as well. Samsung's Galaxy Tab S9, the top Android pick in our guide, costs a few hundred extra but has more premium hardware and better tools for getting work done. And all Android tablets still lag behind Apple's iPadOS when it comes to optimizing apps for large displays. 

That said, even if it's not superlative, the Pixel Tablet is still perfectly solid for web browsing, streaming video and playing games. Unlike the iPad, it also supports multiple user profiles, so it's a good choice if you want share one tablet with everyone in your family. Google says it'll supply OS updates through June 2026 and security updates through June 2028. There's at least some chance that a follow-up device is in the works, but for now, this is a decent deal if you want a big-screen Android device.

Your Spring Sales Shopping Guide: Spring sales are in the air, headlined by Amazon’s Big Spring sale event. Our expert editors are curating all the best spring sales right here. Follow Engadget to shop the best tech deals from Amazon’s Big Spring Sale, hear from Autoblog’s car experts on the best spring auto deals on Amazon, and find spring sales to shop on AOL, handpicked just for you.

Yes, securing your home is worth spending money on, but if you can do it at a discount, that's the way to go. Right now, there are a bunch Amazon Blink devices discounted as part of the site's Big Spring Sale. The new Blink Outdoor 4's deal is especially of note, with the device's three camera system down to $150 from $260. The 42 percent discount brings the fourth-generation camera to the lowest price we've seen this year (the three pack's all-time low was $135 on Black Friday). If one camera is all you need, then take advantage of the sale on a single Blink Outdoor 4. It's currently down to $65 from $100 — a 35 percent discount.

The Blink Outdoor 4 debuted last August as a significant upgrade to its predecessor. One of the biggest differences is the field of vision, which has increased from 110 to 143 degrees. It also boasts better low-light sensitivity and image quality. Blink claims the devices last two years before needing their AA batteries replaced. 

Another new feature of the Blink Outdoor 4 is its person detection. Basically, instead of just alerting you to the fact that there's some kind of motion, the camera can determine whether the movement is from a human. However, this feature is exclusive to anyone with Blink's subscription plan. If you're interested in it, there's a 30-day free trial, and then you can pay $3 per month or $30 annually to continue it. The plan also offers the ability to save and share videos through the cloud. 

Your Spring Sales Shopping Guide: Spring sales are in the air, headlined by Amazon’s Big Spring sale event. Our expert editors are curating all the best spring sales right here. Follow Engadget to shop the best tech deals from Amazon’s Big Spring Sale, hear from Autoblog’s car experts on the best spring auto deals on Amazon, and find spring sales to shop on AOL, handpicked just for you.

Based on the synopsis for Stars Wars: The Acolyte, you can expect more than just the typical action scenes and sci-fi world building from the show. It seems to have a mystery-thriller slant to it that you could find appealing even if you're not a Star Wars fan but love that particular genre — and now Disney+ has released its official trailer to give you an idea of what you can expect. Stars Wars: The Acolyte's story is set at the end of the High Republic era, around a century before the events of Star Wars: Episode I: The Phantom Menace. 

It revolves around a former padawan played by Amandla Stenberg (Everything, Everything and The Hate U Give) who reunites with her old Jedi Master (Lee Jung-jae from the Squid Game) to investigate a series of crimes. They, of course, unearth more and more clues as they look into the crime spree, which Disney says will lead them "down a dark path where sinister forces reveal all is not what it seems..." As a big fan of the mystery and detective stories, it sounds promising, and I'd love it if Disney can nail the execution to give us a satisfying (and unpredictable) ending, as well. 

Stars Wars: The Acolyte will be available for streaming on Disney+ starting on June 4. 

It's almost time for another Microsoft livestream event, the first since September of last year. The festivities start at 12PM ET on Thursday, March 21. The best way to watch everything unfold is via the official Microsoft stream; it doesn't look like they'll have a stream on YouTube this time. This is the first Microsoft live event without former chief product officer and longtime keynote presenter Panos Panay, who departed for Amazon last year.

What to expect from Microsoft

The event is being advertised as a “new era of work”, so there’s going to be a major focus on the commercial space. There are plenty of rumors that Microsoft will take the opportunity to unveil a spate of new Surface devices. Windows Central claims that an OLED Surface Pro 10 and a Surface Laptop 6 will headline the event.

The Verge suggests that both devices will only feature minor spec bumps compared to the previous generation. There’s also conflicting reports as to whether or not these Surface devices will get a more comprehensive redesign later in the spring to suit non-business consumers. We won’t know until Thursday.

Microsoft

There’s one safe bet. Microsoft will continue its commitment to AI. Rumors swirl that the Surface Pro 10 and Laptop 6 will be powered by Intel Core Ultra and Snapdragon X Elite silicon CPUs with next-generation neural processing units (NPUs) that have been designed specifically for advanced AI tasks. To that end, there are reports that these devices will be called “AI PCs” and will include a dedicated button to bring up the company’s Copilot digital assistant. The Intel variants are expected to launch in April, while the Arm-based Snapdragon ones will reportedly show up this June.

AI, AI and more AI 

The rumor mill has been grinding overtime for this event. Reports also suggest that Microsoft will unveil a suite of new AI features that could be coming to Windows computers, including real-time captioning and translating, upscaling and frame-rate smoothing for games and upgraded Windows Studio Effects.

There’s also likely to be something called AI Explorer announced at the event. This is rumored to be a built-in timeline feature that is searchable via natural language. It’ll reportedly live on your device and log everything you do and see. So, you could ask AI Explorer to “find that thing I looked at earlier about dinosaurs” and it would search through every moment in your PC’s history to find the relevant content. This could be a privacy nightmare, but it could also finally make digital assistants actually useful. We fully expect Microsoft to offer security assurances when it comes to AI Explorer.

These AI features won’t be exclusive to the Surface Pro Pro and Surface Laptop 6, as reports indicate they will be part of the company’s annual feature update for Windows 11, which is expected this fall. Engadget will offer full coverage of the event and will spotlight all of the interesting tidbits.

Robot vacuums are one of the great modern conveniences. They can check one time-sapping chore off your daily to-do list and if you can find a self-emptying model for a decent price, that’s one fewer thing for you to worry about. As it happens, the Shark AV2501AE AI Robot Vacuum is a self-emptying option and it’s 46 percent off for the Amazon Big Spring Sale. That means it’s currently $350, which is $300 off the regular price and not too far away from its record low.

This is a variant of one of our top robot vacuum recommendations and Shark devices are by and large nearly as good as the ones Roomba makes.

A self-emptying robot vacuum is generally preferable to one without that feature, as you won't need to keep buying garbage bags for it. This one's base holds up to 60 days of muck, so you may only need to empty it every couple of months. It has a HEPA filtration system that Shark claims can capture and trap up to 99.97 percent of dust and allergens.

The AV2501AE will run for up to 120 minutes on a single charge. If that's not enough to cover your home, it will return to its base, recharge and then continue from where it left off. The vacuum uses a matrix grid approach and it makes multiple passes over debris and dirt to pick up as much of it as possible. The device uses LiDAR vision to map your home and steer clear of objects in its path. You'll be able to set up a cleaning schedule or start an ad hoc clean through the app or by Alexa or Google Assistant voice command.

The price of this model has dropped as part of a broader sale on vacuums and robot vacuums. Meanwhile, the Amazon Big Spring Sale runs until March 25.

Your Spring Sales Shopping Guide: Spring sales are in the air, headlined by Amazon’s Big Spring sale event. Our expert editors are curating all the best spring sales right here. Follow Engadget to shop the best tech deals from Amazon’s Big Spring Sale, hear from Autoblog’s car experts on the best spring auto deals on Amazon, and find spring sales to shop on AOL, handpicked just for you.

Almost every major PC maker has dabbled with the idea of a dual-screen laptop at some point. Way back in 2011, Acer released the Iconia 6120 sporting not one but two 14-inch displays. Then at CES 2017, Razer showed off Project Valerie which bumped the panel count to three before demoing something a bit less extravagant a year later in Project Linda. Fast forward to 2020, when Dell dazzled us with the Concept Duet. Even Apple gave the category a go on the old MacBook Pros with Touch Bars, only to reverse course and ditch them completely a couple of years ago.

Meanwhile, Lenovo has an entire family of devices dating back to the original Yoga Book and culminating most recently in the Yoga Book 9i, with the latter coming extremely close to turning the promise of dual-screen laptops into an actual appealing choice. But now after several generations of its own devices, ASUS has put everything together with the Zenbook Duo. It’s a super sleek machine with two screens that’s barely larger than a similarly sized clamshell. There’s also a detachable keyboard and a built-in kickstand for maximum adaptability. And starting at $1,500, the Zenbook Duo doesn’t command a massive premium for something with a ton of extra utility. So while it’s been quite a journey to get here, ASUS has finally made a dual-screen laptop that proves once and for all that two screens really are better than one.

Design

One of the most impressive things about the Zenbook Duo is that it doesn’t look like some kind of Frankendeivce. It’s just a regular-looking 14-inch laptop. Even after you open it, things still look normal with a physical keyboard and touchpad, not to mention a healthy selection of ports around the outside (two Thunderbolt 4, one USB 3.2 Type-A and a full-size HDMI 2.1 jack). A small part of me wishes ASUS had found room for some kind of SD card reader, but I understand if there just wasn’t space.

It’s only after you remove the keyboard that things get interesting because as soon as you do, the Duo’s second display springs to life. From here, you have a ton of options. Tapping three fingers on the lower panel summons a floating touchpad. Alternatively, eight fingers makes a virtual keyboard appear, which you can follow with a swipe up to reveal a traditional keyboard/trackpad combo. But the cool thing is that because these are all virtual stand-ins, it's easy to swap in a new layout (like for other languages), move the touchpad off to the side or call up a numpad if you need to do some data entry. There’s just so much more flexibility when half of a laptop’s interior isn’t taken up by a rigid set of physical keys.

Photo by Sam Rutherford/Engadget

But things keep getting better, because on the bottom of the Duo is a flap that folds out into a kickstand. This allows you to prop the system up and use both screens as proper displays, sort of like a portable dual-monitor setup but all in a single self-contained system. And because the detachable keyboard connects wirelessly over Bluetooth, you can place it in front (or wherever you want) just like a desktop. The one small drawback to this design is that if you rotate the Duo’s displays into portrait orientation side by side, the design of the kickstand means there’s no way to adjust how far it tilts. This heavily favors the stacked setup with one display above, which is fine because I think that arrangement is more useful in most situations.

Another pleasant surprise is that for a device with two screens, the Zenbook Duo isn’t much bigger or heavier than a typical clamshell. It weighs 3.6 pounds and measures 0.78 inches thick versus the 2.82 pounds and 0.59 inches for a standard Zenbook 14 OLED. And when compared to something like a Dell XPS 14 (3.7 pounds and 0.71 inches thick), both systems are practically the same size.

Photo by Sam Rutherford/Engadget

My one gripe is that ASUS’ dark gray paint job color doesn’t help the Duo stand out. It’s almost like someone who wears subdued colors to avoid drawing attention. But this design is fantastic and I wish ASUS would give this laptop (and the engineers who designed it) the flowers it deserves.

Displays and software

The centerpiece of the Duo is its pair of 14-inch displays, which are an absolute delight. Not only do the matching OLED panels offer strong brightness (around 500 nits), they also pump out rich and accurate colors (100 percent of DCI-P3). But the real magic is when you use both panels together.

Photo by Sam Rutherford/Engadget

Moving apps from one display to another is as simple as dragging and dropping or using the handy menus that appear at the top of the display. In addition, there’s a floating button in the bottom left for ASUS’ ScreenXpert software, which provides shortcuts for adjusting brightness (separately or as a pair), disabling specific panels or pulling up handy widgets for things like a control panel, a handwriting recognition tool, news and weather and more. If the goal was to get as much value out of the Duo’s two displays, I think ASUS’ software does a pretty good job.

The downside to all this is that despite ASUS’ best efforts, Windows 11 and many apps still aren’t fully optimized for systems like this. For example, when I played a round of Teamfight Tactics and wanted to pull up some game stats on the lower display, I ran into an issue where the virtual touchpad stopped working. It was only after I set the game to borderless window mode, closed the game and relaunched everything that it started working again. Granted, situations like this were rare, but it’s important to remember that when you’re using a cutting-edge device, there may be some bugs or awkward interactions.

Performance

Photo by Sam Rutherford/Engadget

The Zenbook Duo comes with an Intel Core Ultra 7 155H processor, 16GB of RAM and a 1TB NVMe SSD. While you can upgrade it with double the memory and a faster Ultra 9 chip, I found the base configuration to be plenty fast. On tests like Geekbench 6 and PCMark 10, the Zenbook Duo turned in results that were identical to those from similarly equipped clamshells, including ASUS’ own Zenbook 14 OLED. This is great because it means there’s not a ton of overhead due to the addition of a second screen and even when setup in desktop mode, dragging apps from one display to another felt snappy and responsive. The obvious drawback is that unlike some 14-inch systems such as the XPS 14, there’s no room for a discrete GPU, which makes the Zenbook Duo better suited to general productivity than more demanding tasks like video editing.

Battery life

You might think a system with two screens would be a battery hog, but the Zenbook Duo fared better than expected. With just one screen on, it lasted 13 hours and 12 minutes on our video rundown test, which is pretty much equivalent to (actually a touch longer than) the Zenbook 14 OLED (12:43). And with both screens going, the Duo’s time only dropped to 10:17, which is still more than enough to survive an entire workday.

Wrap-up

Photo by Sam Rutherford/Engadget

OK, so the Zenbook Duo delivers on the promises of dual-screen laptops. But one question I get a lot is who are devices like this actually for? The most obvious application is for people who carry a portable monitor around while traveling. But more generally, this thing is aimed at anyone who appreciates multiple monitors and wants a system that can recreate that experience in a more travel-friendly way, which is something the Zenbook Duo does with aplomb. The best part though is that it doesn’t make major sacrifices to do so, because thanks to its detachable keyboard, it can function just like any other clamshell when space is tight (like on an airplane).

When you have room to spread out, it transforms into a portable workstation with plenty of screen space for a project up top and bonus real estate for Slack, email, video calls or anything else you might need down below. It's got ample ports so you don’t need to carry a dongle around and thanks to its gorgeous OLED screens, your work (or play) always looks great. The Zenbook Duo can do everything a traditional laptop can and more. Yes, the software experience could be a bit more polished, though that’s not entirely on ASUS. We still need a new version of Windows to provide better OS support for dual-screen machines. But considering all the struggles and multiple generations it took to get here, the Zenbook Duo is a marvelous torchbearer for a new class of portable PCs.

Amazon's Big Spring Sale officially starts tomorrow, but many tech deals are already live. Take the Google Pixel Buds Pro — our choice for 2024's best wireless earbuds for Android — down to $139 from $200. The 30 percent discount doesn't bring the earbuds to their all-time low, but this is the cheapest we've seen the Google Pixel Buds Pro so far this year.

The Google Pixel Buds Pro scored an 87 in our review thanks to the addition of solid active noise cancellation (ANC), a punchy base, and reliable touch controls. This generation is the first to include ANC, which can be reason enough to consider an upgrade. The earbuds are a good choice for working out, too, as they offer IPX4 water resistance.

The Pixel Buds Pro also offer wireless charging and a quick-charge feature that juices the earbuds up to one hour of ANC listening in five minutes. Speaking of charging, Google's earbuds can hold 11 hours of charge and 31 in total with the case's boost. 

However, there are a few aspects Google still needs to work on, such as spatial audio, which needs more support to function well. There's also the call quality, which is far from the clearest of all the earbuds on the market. But, at $61 off, these issues become less of a dealbreaker. 

Your Spring Sales Shopping Guide: Spring sales are in the air, headlined by Amazon’s Big Spring sale event. Our expert editors are curating all the best spring sales right here. Follow Engadget to shop the best tech deals from Amazon’s Big Spring Sale, hear from Autoblog’s car experts on the best spring auto deals on Amazon, and find spring sales to shop on AOL, handpicked just for you.

Steam is introducing a new way for your clan to play games together. The platform has announced Steam Families, a collection of game-sharing (and monitoring) features for parents and children currently available in beta. It takes the place of Steam Family Sharing and Steam Family View, rolling in some of their existing features alongside updates. 

Each member of a Steam Family will have a section called "family library" in their games list where they can access shareable games. Ownership remains with the purchaser, but each new title bought will appear in the list. You can play another member's games even when they're online (as long as they're playing another game). Plus, you can save your own progress and achievements. 

You can invite up to five other family members to your Steam Family account, with each member assigned the role of parent or child. Only adults can manage the account or implement parental controls, such as setting playtime limits (and reviewing requests for more), seeing playtime reports and choosing which games a child can play. Plus, they can control access to the Steam Store and chats. 

Steam Families also streamlines the process of children getting parental approval to buy games (thus, ideally for Steam, making them more frequent). Children can now request an adult on the plan to pay for their shopping cart, which a parent can manage via email or phone by pressing approve or decline. 

Steam Family is currently in beta and requires each member to join to participate. You can find the option to join under Interface and then choose Steam Family Beta in the Client Beta Participation dropdown menu. 

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Replacing a smartphone every two years is partially why billions of phones go into landfills each year. If stacked flat atop one another, that many handsets would reach farther than the ISS. But we’ve become accustomed to that 24-month time frame because wireless carriers often push an upgrade on biennial contracts, and many smaller phone makers only offer software support for two years. But now, with longer software commitments from major manufacturers, along with growing right-to-repair legislation, many newer phones can stay in our pockets for closer to seven trips around the sun. Here’s how you can extend the lifespan of your smartphone and avoid shelling out hundreds before it’s absolutely necessary.

How to make your smartphone last longer

Engadget

Use a case

It’s a flashy move to carry a naked phone around, but the chances of a handset making it through a tumble go up dramatically when you employ extra protection. We recommend a number of them in our guide to iPhone cases and in our eco-friendly phone cases guide. In my family, we’ve been happy with Mous cases. Though we’ve never subjected our phones to the brutality seen in the company’s ads, I can say that these cases have seen my partner’s aging Samsung Galaxy and my elderly iPhone through some pretty gnarly spills, sparing them from scratches or worse.

Take care of the built-in battery (or use a power bank)

Since a phone’s battery is often the first thing to show signs of age, it’s worth it to follow recommendations for extending its lifespan. Lithium-ion batteries don’t perform well in heat and you should avoid charging them if it’s hotter than 95 degrees — doing so can degrade the battery quickly and even cause them to malfunction. They’ll tolerate cold weather better, but can get sluggish when things get too chilly.

If you’re storing a phone for a while, it’s best to do so with the battery at half charge, rather than full or empty. In fact, Li-ion cells last longer when they spend less time being either completely discharged or full — that’s why battery optimization features in iPhones and Pixel phones delay overnight charging to 100 percent until about an hour before you typically grab your mobile. And while it’s sometimes necessary to charge a battery quickly, a slower charging method when speed isn’t critical will put less stress on the ionic components and help extend the cell’s life.

But over time, any battery will eventually wear down. The cell powering my iPhone 11 can make it through a typical day, but if I’m traveling, relying heavily on navigation or using the phone as a hotspot, it’ll need a top-off before bedtime. That’s easy if I’m home, but out in the world, a battery pack is an essential. I have a slew of them on hand after testing for our best power banks guide and the two I grab most often are the Otterbox Fast Charge, because it looks cool and has a good capacity, and the Nimble Champ Pro, because it’s crazy fast.

If you really want to give your phone a new lease on life, a new internal battery could be the ticket. For Pixel phones, you can go through Google’s official channel for either a walk-in or mail-in repair, or you can pick the DIY route with iFixit’s Pixel repair kits and instructions. For iPhones, you can start with Apple’s official page, go through Best Buy or other third-parties, or try iFixit’s methods. Samsung also has an in-house option, or you can try Best Buy or iFixit. Depending where you go and the model of your phone, the price for a new battery and installation will likely run you between $45 and $150 — still far less than ditching your handset for something brand new.

Clean up your phone’s storage

Most advice on how to declutter your phone and make it run faster centers on one thing: freeing up space. Your phone’s OS will likely have suggestions for clearing up storage space, like automatically offloading unused apps or deleting year-old messages. You can also do things manually by deleting any apps you don’t use. Next, consider the photos and videos you’re storing locally and either opt to pay for cloud storage or transfer the files to a computer or an external backup device. You can also consider getting rid of any music and movies you may have downloaded for offline use, and deleting old messages and large attachments. A good rule is to keep your storage at around 80 percent capacity. Once you’ve deleted and transferred what you can, restart your phone to give it a chance to clear up its temporary memory.

Why you can (and should) extend the life of your smartphone

Photo by Sam Rutherford/Engadget

The e-waste stream grows each year and doesn't do great things for human or planetary health. Smartphone companies are offering better and more consistent trade-in deals, but even some electronic recycling has its faults. Simply hanging onto a device instead of opting for a new one is the most efficient way of cutting back on a phone's environmental impact — plus it'll save you money.  

While every giant phone maker would like you to believe that upgrading annually is critical, it’s worth noting that new generations of phones often bear strong resemblance to the prior year’s model. We called both the latest iPhone and Google Pixel the most significant updates in years, but prior to that, upgrading didn’t make much sense. The latest Samsung Galaxy phone has a slew of new AI tricks, but physically, it’s not much different than the one that came before it.

With only minor hardware upgrades, the more exciting new features come via over-the-air software updates. When Google released the Pixel 8 last October, the company promised security and software updates for a full seven years. Samsung came out with the Galaxy S24 in January of this year and committed the same support for its handsets. Apple hasn’t made the same pledge, but when the launch of iOS 17 last year cut support for the iPhone 8 and iPhone X, both models had enjoyed around six years of updates from launch.

What Apple did announce is that the batteries in all four models of the iPhone 15 last twice as long as the company originally claimed. Originally, battery capacity was listed at 80 percent of the original full charge after 500 cycles. Now, that same capacity rate applies to 1,000 cycles. The improvement, Apple says, comes courtesy of advanced battery tech and better power management from the operating system. It’s true battery technology has improved in capacity over the years, but longevity hasn’t gone up across the board, as a study by PhoneArena makes clear.

More advancements in battery life spans may be on the horizon particularly as the EV industry grows, which also relies on lithium-ion cells. For now, declining battery health is usually the most noticeable issue affecting older phones. This year, the European Parliament voted for rules surrounding battery-powered devices and included a mandate to allow consumers to “easily remove and replace” batteries. That won’t go into effect until 2027, and there will be plenty of interpretation as to what “easily” means. But EU mandates are what made Apple finally ditch Lightning ports on iPhones in favor of USB-C, so this could eventually be a step towards (once again) having smartphones with swappable batteries.

Even in the US, legislation will soon compel companies to make repair a better option. Right-to-repair bills were passed last year in New York, Minnesota and other states. California has the strongest rule, and it even garnered Apple’s support. Once the law goes into effect in July, it will require companies to provide repair tools and documentation, and to sell components for seven years after the last new model is made for any device costing more than $100. Of course, the law didn’t say anything about prohibiting “parts pairing,” in which a device only works properly when repaired with official parts by a manufacturer-authorized repair center.

Currently, a number of phones have decent repairability scores, according to the online repair community iFixit (the FairPhone 5 gets the highest marks). After California’s law goes into effect, more models may become user-repairable, considering few manufacturers are likely to ignore the state’s nearly 40 million customers. In the meantime, authorized repair is an option, as is self-repair for the more industrious.