You may not have heard of messaging service Quill, but it was positioned as a Discord- or Slack-style app for team communications that tried to be less noisy and more structured. The platform only launched this past February, but today Twitter has announce it is purchasing Quill and shutting it down this weekend. Twitter's tech GM Nick Caldwell announced the move this morning, and Quill confirmed the news in a blog post on its own site.

The fact that it's shutting down this weekend is a stunningly fast turn-around; Quill is offering details on how to export data, which any team using it will probably want to do ASAP. (They'll also want to go and find a new messaging service to use post-haste.) 

The app had billed itself as "messaging for people that focus," and it's not clear how that mission will continue as part of Twitter. Caldwell said that the goal was to have the Quill team help "make messaging tools like DMs a more useful & expressive way people can have conversations." Chances are good this is more of an acqui-hire situation, in which Twitter wanted to have the Quill team working on Twitter's existing products. Given how fast Quill is shutting down, it's pretty clear Twitter doesn't have any interest in spending resources on that existing product.

It's the second major acquisition Twitter has made in the last month or so — in mid-November, Twitter purchased Threader, a popular tool that pulled threads of tweets together into an easier to read format. Just like the Quill purchase, Twitter didn't waste much time shutting down Threader — the app is set to disappear on December 15th. (At least it got a longer lease on life than Quill.) Threader is expected to be rolled into the Twitter Blue subscription service; we'll have to see if some of Quill's legacy ends up there, as well.

For the 35th anniversary of Super Mario Bros. last year, Nintendo released a special edition Game & Watch. (If you don’t know, Game & Watch were a line of handheld LCD devices from the ‘80s that could each play one very simple game.) Rather than featuring a single title, the Super Mario anniversary device had a full version of the original adventure as well as its Japan-only sequel, known in the West as Super Mario Bros.: The Lost Levels.

Nintendo’s pulling the same trick this year with a 35th-anniversary Legend of Zelda-themed Game & Watch that just went on sale. And like last year’s model, it includes a color screen and full games, but the selection is more generous. It includes the original The Legend of Zelda and Zelda II: The Adventure of Link, both originally released on the NES. It also includes The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening, which came out on the Game Boy in 1993, making this essentially a collection of Zelda’s early 8-bit adventures.

I actually have never really played the first two Zelda games, though I do love Link’s Awakening. I played the Switch remaster a few years ago, but I haven’t touched the original game since my childhood — so when we got a chance to check this tiny device out, I was pretty thrilled to give that game a go.

The Game & Watch itself is elegantly designed, but also feels rather cheap. It’s a tiny, palm-sized device with an eye-catching gold front, while the rest of the device is clad in green plastic. The front has a 2.36-inch color LCD screen that is very small but also looks great — and when playing Link’s Awakening, the upgrade from the Game Boy’s screen, which had no backlight, is dramatic. The D-Pad and buttons are nothing to write home about, but they’re good enough.

On the right side of the device is an exceedingly modern USB-C port for charging its battery (which is pretty meager, so you’re going to need to do that a lot) and a power button; the speaker is on the left side. Finally, there’s a great Easter egg on the back: When the screen is on, the Triforce glows subtly through the green plastic. It’s a great little detail.

Nathan Ingraham / Engadget

The Game & Watch has a few different modes: clock, timer and game. Pressing the “game” button lets you switch between the three Zelda titles, a Link-themed version of Vermin (from a 1980 Game & Watch), and the timer. The clock and timer are fairly self-explanatory, but their use of Zelda action as backgrounds is expertly done.

On the clock, you’ll see the original Legend of Zelda, and the CPU-controlled Link essentially battles his way through the game over the course of the next 12 hours, defeating Ganon and rescuing Zelda at 11:59. If you’re so inclined, you can pick up the console and control the action from the clock screen at any time. Likewise, the timer features a handful of different scenes from Zelda II: The Adventure of Link that you can either watch or play yourself. The device’s packaging even converts into a little stand so you can use the Game & Watch as a desk clock.

If you’re interested in this Game & Watch, though, you’re not in it for playing the clock: you want to relive Link’s earliest adventures on the smallest portable device you can find. Sure, you can play the NES Zelda collection on the Switch (or many other old Nintendo devices), but the Game & Watch’s miniature screen and old-school controls feel just right for these adventures. That’s doubly true with Link’s Awakening, since it was originally designed for portable systems.

The games themselves are exactly as you remember them, with no quality of life enhancements or graphics updates; Link’s Awakening is in black and white, rather than the later “DX” version released for the Game Boy color. I’m not complaining, though, as these original versions seem right for the Game & Watch as a celebration of the series’ 8-bit origins.

Nathan Ingraham / Engadget

How you feel about these games will depend on your history with the series. Like I said, I’ve never played the original NES Zelda adventures; I got on board with A Link to the Past in 1992. As such, I don’t have a lot of nostalgic love for the original pair, and playing the first game was an exercise in frustration. There’s barely a map, Link is slow while enemies are fast, and aiming is imprecise at best. I definitely died more than my fair share of times, which was rather humbling for this self-described Zelda expert. But hey, I shouldn’t have expected anything different from a 1986 game, and I started to get the hang of it soon enough.

Link’s Awakening, on the other hand, was like visiting an old friend. Muscle and brain memory combined to have me slashing my way through it in no time at all, and it controlled just like I remembered. The A and B buttons may have felt rather squishy, but the D-pad was close enough to the one on my old Game Boy that I felt right at home. I don’t know if I’ll finish the NES Zelda games, but I’ll definitely play through Link’s Awakening.

So who exactly is this $50 device for? The Super Mario Bros. Game & Watch was really only meant for people who loved that first Mario game, not necessarily people who love the Mario franchise in general. Likewise, The Legend of Zelda Game & Watch is best for someone who loved these original games growing up. It doesn’t even have to be all three, though — if one of them was a formative gaming experience, you’ll delight in getting a chance to play it on a cute little handheld. But someone raised on Twilight Princess or Breath of the Wild probably will find these a lot less essential.

Apple does not have a good track record in terms of letting customers repair their hardware. The last decade-plus has seen Apple’s computers become essentially impossible for users to service or upgrade, and the iPhone has always been a locked box. Adventurous owners might follow guides from iFixit to try and do repairs themselves, but it’s a dangerous proposition. Remember, it was just earlier this year, when we discovered that replacing the display on an iPhone 13 would disable Face ID (something Apple eventually made an about face on).

So Apple’s announcement earlier this week that it would start selling parts and tools directly to consumers and offer repair guides was a huge surprise, and a move immediately hailed as a victory for right-to-repair activists. “One of the most visible opponents to repair access is reversing course,” said Nathan Proctor, a senior Right to Repair campaign director at Public Interest Research Groups (PIRG). “Apple’s move shows that what repair advocates have been asking for was always possible.” iFixit was similarly pleased, saying that the move is “exactly the right thing for Apple to be doing.”

Both groups caveated their statements by noting a few catches; PIRG says that Apple’s plans weren’t as comprehensive as the right-to-repair legislation being discussed in more than two dozen states, while iFixit wants to “analyze the legal terms and test the program” before it can say just how much credit Apple deserves. But regardless, it’s still a major about-face. So what led Apple to this move?

Proctor told Engadget in an email exchange that he thinks “combined pressure from consumers, regulators and shareholders has shifted Apple's thinking.” But he was also quick to point out that there was pressure coming from inside Apple itself. “We saw from some leaked emails from 2019 that many inside Apple never wanted to be hostile to repair in the ways that Apple has been at times,” he said. You probably saw that [Apple co-founder Steve] Wozniak called [out] the practices, but leaked emails show internal concern they were doing the wrong thing.”

Apple has made some other movies recently that show that potential government scrutiny and oversight could be driving change at the company. In 2020, Apple finally let users set different browser and email apps as default on the iPhone and iPad, and Siri has gotten smarter about learning your preferences for different music apps when you ask it to play tunes.

While it’s likely that Apple is thinking about government pressure, this change might also simply be part of the company listening to its users and correcting some mistakes it made over the last five years or so. Take the new MacBook Pro, perhaps the biggest “mea culpa” Apple has ever offered; the company reversed its trend of pursuing thin and light design at all costs and instead actually made the both the 14- and 16-inch MacBook Pros thicker and heavier than their predecessors. The company also added back ports it had previously removed, killed the unpopular Touch Bar, and generally made a laptop that made it seem like they were listening to consumer feedback. The same could be said for its new home repair program.

Regis Duvignau / Reuters

Apple’s move this week can also be seen as an extension of a program the company launched last year, when it started providing parts and training to third-party repair shops that met Apple’s qualifications. Obviously, this isn’t the same as making it easy for anyone to do repairs, but opening up access means the repair landscape for Apple products has changed significantly in the last few years.

However big of a change this new plan is, though, Proctor and PIRG see this as a first step, something Apple will need to keep up and expand to really meet what right-to-repair activists think consumers deserve. “I think Right to Repair knows what it wants, and it will be really hard to convince us to settle for anything less than an open market for repair,” Proctor said. “If they had done this step years ago, maybe we would have to settle, but we have the momentum, and we are going to empower repair as much as we can. I think most legislators agree: this is just one company and a limited program. The floor got raised, but we aren't near the ceiling yet.”

iFixit has a similar view on the situation. “[Apple] pioneered glued-in batteries and proprietary screws, and now they are taking the first steps on a path back to long-lasting, repairable products. iFixit believes that a sustainable, repairable world of technology is possible, and hope that Apple follows up on this commitment to improve their repairability.”

As for what’s to come, it sounds like Apple is committed to making this just a first step. The company said that repair options would initially focus on commonly-repaired modules in the iPhone 12 and 13, like the screen, battery and cameras, but it says that more options will come in the following year. We don’t know if Apple will ever give right-to-repair activists everything they want. It seems unlikely that Apple will make an iPhone where you can just pop it open and drop a new battery in, like the phones of old.

Apple can often be a bellwether for the rest of the industry — just look how quickly other phone-makers dropped their headphone jacks. So, it’s possible we’ll see some other big consumer electronics companies make similar moves. “I think other companies will follow,” Proctor said. He also noted that Google had just released software that lets a replacement display on the Pixel 6 be properly calibrated to work with the in-screen fingerprint sensor.” We see a lot of changes in the works, and we are hopeful we can set a new baseline [for] access to repair.” If that happens, we’ll likely remember Apple’s about-face as a major catalyst for these changes — assuming the company follows through with its new stance and makes it easier for owners to repair a wider variety of its products.

Chrome OS tablets don’t have a pretty past. In 2018, Google released the Pixel Slate, its attempt to jumpstart the market, but poorly optimized software and expensive hardware made the device a non-starter for most people. Since then, Google stopped making tablets entirely, while most manufacturers making Chrome OS devices have also stuck with more traditional designs.

That started to change last year, when Lenovo built an inexpensive but useful Chrome OS tablet, the Chromebook Duet. This year, HP has followed a similar pattern with the HP Chromebook X2, an 11-inch tablet that’s pricier and higher-end than Lenovo’s Duet (the model I’m reviewing costs $600). But, like the Duet, it uses a mobile processor (in this case, the Qualcomm Snapdragon 7c) and includes a keyboard and pen at no extra charge. Based purely on specs and design, the Chromebook X2 should be a fine performer — but is its convertible form factor worth the premium over a more standard laptop?

Hardware

We’ll get into how useful Chrome OS tablets are soon, but based purely on hardware alone, HP’s Chromebook X2 makes a great first impression. The tablet itself is a metal-clad slap that feels sturdy and well built. There’s a small camera bump on the back, along with metallic HP and Chrome logos, but overall it’s a simple device with few adornments. The device has squared-off sides with rounded corners, much like the iPad Pro and iPad Air, but it feels different enough from those devices despite the fact there are only so many ways to make a tablet.

Nathan Ingraham / Engadget

When looking at the front, you’ll notice a small camera on the top bezel, with stereo speakers positioned near the top of the screen. On the left side edge you’ll find two USB-C ports and a volume rocker. In the top left corner there’s a multi-function power button with a fingerprint reader. When you’re using the Chromebook X2 with a keyboard attached, pressing the power button shows options to shut down, log out or lock the device. When you’re using it as a tablet, though, the button has the more standard “lock the device and turn off the screen” function. The fingerprint scanner is easy to set up, and I wish that more Chromebooks had them.

The right side of the tablet is basically unadorned, aside from a mark that shows where you can magnetically attach the Chromebook X2’s pen to its side for easy access. The iPad Pro and various Microsoft Surface devices also let you magnetically attach a stylus, so this isn’t really a big innovation — but it’s still nice to have.

When I reviewed the Pixel Slate back in 2018, my main takeaway was that Chrome OS still required a keyboard. As such, I was glad to find that the Chromebook X2 had one included. To turn the X2 from a tablet into a functional laptop, HP designed a two-piece case. The keyboard cover goes on the front, much like Microsoft’s Surface Keyboard. But instead of having a built-in kickstand, the X2 has a second cover that serves as a kickstand which magnetically snaps on to the back. Once you have that set, the X2 is basically identical to the Microsoft Surface Go, at least in looks.

The Chromebook X2’s keyboard is pretty good considering it has to fit a relatively small device. The keys have solid travel and are quite responsive, though they’re a little bit loud. It feels a little cramped, but not any worse than the Surface Go’s keyboard. But it definitely feels more cramped than the Magic Keyboard I use with my 11-inch iPad Pro. (That’s a $300 accessory, though, so it really should be better than a keyboard HP includes with every X2.)

Nathan Ingraham / Engadget

The main issue with the X2 keyboard is that it’s not ideal for using on your lap. As I’ve noticed with some other keyboard folios, applying just a little pressure on palm rests often causes the trackpad to register a click, which can be infuriating when you’re, say, typing a review and keep getting interrupted. It’s much better on a desk, where the keyboard is more stable. Microsoft’s Type Cover for the Surface lineup doesn’t have this problem, so it’s just a matter of build quality in the end. And for a small, light device meant to be used on the go, having a keyboard that only works on a hard, flat surface is less than ideal.

Despite occasional accidental clicks, the X2 trackpad is pretty good. It’s larger than the one on the iPad Pro’s Magic Keyboard and as well as the Surface Go’s keyboard, and it’s fast and responsive for both single-finger and multi-finger gestures. It’s still pretty small, though, so you might prefer an external mouse for extended work sessions.

The Chromebook X2 may be a small machine, but its 11-inch touchscreen with a 3:2 aspect ratio is a standout. It’s a high-resolution display, coming in at 2,160 x 1,440, and the taller aspect ratio makes it feel a lot less cramped for work than a 16:9 screen would, especially at this smaller size. It’s also a very bright screen, almost painfully so — even when working in a sunny office, I rarely turned brightness up higher than halfway.

As I mentioned earlier, HP included a stylus with the Chromebook X2. I’m no visual artist, so I’m not qualified to really judge its performance — but there’s no question stylus performance on this device lags behind Microsoft's Surface Go 3 and any iPad I’ve tried. But again, HP included a stylus for free, whereas Microsoft and Apple charge extra for it. That doesn’t make performance better, but at least you’re not shelling out additional cash for a sub-par experience. The pen might be fine for quick sketches or notes, but it doesn’t feel like something I’d want to use for very long.

Tablet mode

Nathan Ingraham / Engadget

Even though there aren’t many Chrome OS tablets, Google has made improvements to the OS’s tablet mode over the years. It’s quite a bit more stable and user-friendly than it was when the Pixel Slate came out in 2018; the main UI concepts are a mix of what you’ll find on iPadOS and Windows. Apps automatically launch in full screen, and the home screen is a grid of all the apps you have installed. Swiping up when you’re using an app brings you back to the home screen, and a more deliberate swipe from the bottom shows the Chrome OS dock. Finally, you can run two apps in split-screen mode when you want to multitask.

I haven’t used the Chrome OS tablet mode in a while. I’ve reviewed a ton of Chromebooks with 360-degree hinges that can be used in tablet mode, but they’re usually too heavy for that. But the Chromebook X2 feels great in the hand; with its 11-inch screen and a weight of 1.23 pounds, it’s not too big or heavy to be used as a tablet. The main issue with Chrome OS on a tablet is familiar to anyone who has used Android tablets: there just isn’t much software optimized for a large screen. That said, using the X2 to casually browse the web, watch videos and play the occasional game worked well. HP knows that this isn’t the primary way anyone should use a Chrome OS device, hence the included keyboard — but for casual couch browsing or watching a movie on a plan, the X2 does the trick.

As a laptop

Nathan Ingraham / Engadget

The main way I used the Chromebook X2 was as a laptop, with the included keyboard attached. The biggest question I had was whether the Qualcomm Snapdragon 7c processor was enough for my normal workflow. The answer was “more or less.” The X2 ran better than I expected, and I could usually have most of my normal apps running at all times. That means a couple Chrome windows with a handful of tabs in each, plus Chrome apps for Slack, Todoist, Keep, Trello and Tweetdeck. I also often had the Android version of Spotify running for music.

This all ran acceptably, but it definitely wasn’t the fastest — particularly if I had too many Chrome tabs going. The X2 that I tested has 8GB of RAM, and that helped keep most of my programs running without the need to refresh when I switched between them, but I ended up instinctively limiting how many tabs I had going at any given time to avoid pushing the X2 too hard. I also didn’t play music directly from the X2 much when I was running a lot of other apps, as I eventually would run into slowdowns or low memory skips if I had too much going on.

While I wish performance was a little better, it’s important to look at it in the context of how HP designed the device. Given its small size, I thought of it more as a secondary or travel computer rather than something most people would sit down and use for hours on end every single day. The display is certainly too small and performance not quite robust enough for me to use it that way, anyway.

One advantage of using a Snapdragon processor is that the Chromebook X2 had excellent battery life. While it’s too small of a computer for me to comfortably use all day long, I routinely got around eight hours of work when I used it as my primary machine, and still had charge left at the end of the day. It also performed extremely well in our battery drain test, which loops an HD video with the screen set at 50 percent brightness. The X2 lasted about 11 and a half hours in that test, which means this device should be a solid movie-watching companion if you’re on a long flight.

At only 1.23 pounds as a tablet and a little over 2.25 pounds with the keyboard and kickstand attached, the Chromebook X2 is an extremely portable computer for when you don’t need the full size and power that you get in a larger laptop. It again reminds me of Microsoft’s Surface Go 3, not just in the way it looks. Both devices are a bit underpowered, and I wouldn’t recommend either be someone’s primary computer. But, they can be great secondary computers if you’re aware of their limitations.

Pricing and the competition

Nathan Ingraham / Engadget

Of course, price is a big part of the equation. That was probably the biggest problem with the Surface Go 3 when I reviewed it recently: The kit I tested cost $860, and for that money it should be powerful enough to use as your only computer. But the Chromebook X2 is cheaper; the model I reviewed costs $600. That gets you the aforementioned Snapdragon 7c processor, 8GB of RAM, 128GB of storage, the keyboard and pen. And the X2 has already been on sale numerous times at Best Buy for only $400. At that price, it’s a pretty great portable secondary computer.

At $600, it’s a little pricey for what you get, though. That’s mostly because you can buy a larger, more powerful Chromebook for a little more money. Both the Acer Chromebook Spin 713 and Samsung Galaxy Chromebook 2 cost $700 and come with faster Intel chips, better keyboards and larger displays. You have to be really committed to the tablet form factor to not give those computers a look instead. Or, you can get Lenovo’s Flex 5 Chromebook for only $300 on Amazon as of this writing; you’ll save yourself money and have a better overall experience. If you can find the Chromebook X2 on sale for $400, it’s a much more compelling buy, but it’s still not the best Chromebook in that price range.

Nathan Ingraham / Engadget

Wrap-up

The main issue with the Chromebook X2 is neither its price nor its performance. It’s the fact that most people will be better served with a standard, laptop-style Chromebook. Sure, most Chromebooks are a little bigger and heavier than the X2, but they’re also generally more powerful and have better keyboards. The X2 only makes sense if you value portability and battery life over performance. If you can find the X2 for $400, it’s worth considering if you’re a Chrome OS user looking for a secondary computer that you can take with you anywhere. Otherwise, you’re probably better off considering one of the many other Chromebooks on the market.

Nintendo occasionally milks some of its big franchises, but Metroid is generally not one of them. In fact, Metroid Dread is the first all-new game in the series since the divisive Metroid:Other M arrived in 2010. As the fifth mainline, side-scrolling game in the series, Dread has a lot to live up to. And while it’s not a total reinvention of the franchise, like Metroid Prime was 19 years ago, it also does a great job of avoiding the pitfall of feeling like a retread, an issue that occasionally plagues Nintendo’s other flagship franchises.

If you’ve played any of the previous side-scrolling Metroid games, Dread will be familiar. As usual, Samus Aran loses all her powers and needs to escape an underworld maze, fighting baddies and retrieving power-ups that let you explore new sections (or old parts of the map you couldn’t get through before).

That’s a well-trodden path, but Nintendo flipped things this time with the E.M.M.I. encounters, terrifying robotic enemies that stalk you through specific parts of the map. They can’t be killed until you explore their area to find a weapon power-up that puts you on equal footing. At first, I was worried that these encounters would be too frequent, or too hard to escape, but developer MercurySteam did an excellent job balancing out the E.M.M.I. areas. Escaping from the dreaded robots by leaving the zones they patrol isn’t too tough, and you don’t have to spend so long in their areas that the whole game devolves into stealth tension.

On the other hand, if you get caught by an E.M.M.I., that’s pretty much it. You have one chance to block their lethal attack, and I’ve only done it right once. I’ve probably gotten caught several dozen times and have never made it out alive. Fortunately, the game just resets you to the door entering the E.M.M.I. zone if you fail, so you won’t lose much progress.

Nintendo

Meanwhile, I’ve had a blast exploring the dank tunnels and caverns that make up the world of Dread. As with most Nintendo games, the atmosphere and art style are top-notch, even if Dread doesn’t hold a candle to the more technologically advanced titles on the Xbox Series X or PS5. When I play a game that is this well-designed and thoughtful about what it does with the technology available to it, I don’t worry about counting pixels. That said, it also looks extremely impressive docked to my 4K TV.

Most of the gameplay hallmarks of Metroid titles are here, including power-ups like charged shots, the morph ball, the missile cannon and plenty of other returning favorites. But there’s enough new here, like the grapple beam and screw attack, to keep the game feeling fresh.

Maybe for people who have obsessively played the Metroid series before, Dread will feel like more of a retread. But while I’m familiar with the core components of these games, the first-person Metroid Prime is the game I know the best — I never beat the original game, or the highly-regarded Super Metroid on the Super NES. If you’re like me, don’t let that stop you from trying Metroid Dread. There’s a reason so-called Metroidvania games are still popular. 

And if you haven’t tried one before, getting the newest installment in the series that helped define the genre is a great way to get your feet wet. Most importantly, it doesn’t feel like MercurySteam and Nintendo just checked the boxes for this game. Indeed, the skill that MercurySteam brought to Samus Returns (a remake of 1991’s Metroid II: Return of Samus for the Game Boy) is on display here; Nintendo definitely picked the right developer to make the first mainline Metroid game since 2002. It’s an inspired addition to a series that already has an impressive legacy. Just don’t get cocky — run like hell if an E.M.M.I. tracks you down.

Valorant players are getting another hero to use in Riot's free-to-play shooter. As described by character producer John Goscicki, Chamber plays the "gentleman assassin" role, a Sentinel-class character who "bunkers down, and holds a location by getting frags.” He can do this through a skill and weapon set that includes a trap that scans for enemies, a heavy pistol and a sniper rifle that can take enemies out with one perfectly-placed shot. Chamber will go live in Valorant with Patch 3.10 on Nov. 16. 

Riot Games

Given that his abilities are focused around "highly lethal, pinpoint accuracy," as Goscicki says, they wanted his style to match. "A person like that would care about the finer things in life as well—from the cut of his vest, to the color of the threading, and how shoes would bring the whole outfit together." If that description speaks to you, Chamber might be an agent worth trying out.

That patch comes a few weeks after Riot is set to release the Valorant Episode 3, Act III Battlepass, which goes live on November 2nd and will be available for 10 weeks. It comes with five free and nine paid "Marquee Items," and the pack itself costs 1,000 Valorant Points, the game's in-game currency. According to Riot associate art director Sean Marino, the Battlepass is focused on bringing some fall holiday vibes to the game. Given that one of the items Marino mentioned is meant to fit in with Halloween, it's a little bit of a bummer that this doesn't launch until after the holiday. But hey, why limit Halloween to just one month?

Apple has made a lot of substantial tweaks to its product line up the last two years or so, and it appears to be making the right moves here. The company just reported its results for the quarter ending in September, and Apple made 29 percent more revenue than a year ago — that's $83.4 billion, for those keeping track.

As usual, the iPhone led the way. iPhone sales made up almost 47 percent of Apple's total revenue, and iPhone revenue of $38.9 billion was up 47 percent year over year. But it's worth remembering that last year, the iPhone 12 series was delayed and didn't go on sale until October (or November, in the case of the iPhone 12 mini and iPhone 12 Pro Max). This year, all four iPhone 13 models went on sale simultaneously, in mid-September. While that's only a few weeks of the quarter, it likely helped fuel that massive growth.

The iPad, too, had a strong quarter. While revenue of $8.25 billion makes it the smallest of Apple's five main product categories (iPhone, iPad, Mac, Services, and "Wearables, Home, and Accessories") the iPad category grew 21 percent year over year. The Mac, on the other hand, was flat — revenue of $9.2 billion was only up two percent — but that was just enough for Apple to say it was a new all-time high for the Mac. 

Apple's Services business has been growing steadily for years, so it's not surprising that this quarter's revenue of $18.3 billion was an all-time high, as well. But for the Mac, it's interesting to see it hit that high-water mark without new MacBook Pro models on the market to help move the needle. Now that the new MacBook Pro has been announced, it'll be worth seeing how it affects Mac revenue overall next quarter.

The wearables, home, and accessories group also grew in strong but not spectacular fashion (up 12 percent). But just like with the Mac, next quarter could be huge for that segment — the new Apple Watch Series 7 and third-generation AirPods just went on sale and it's easy to imagine those products making a big impact. 

As usual, Apple is holding a call with investors at 5PM ET, and we'll be listening in to see if CEO Tim Cook has anything of note to share this quarter.

With four movies under its belt, the Toy Story franchise remains the undeniable crown jewel in Pixar's portfolio. But after Toy Story 4 put something of a boy on Woody's story, the focus is now shifting to Buzz Lightyear. The first trailer for Lightyear just arrived, and it sure paints a different picture than what we're used to in the Toy Story universe. For one, the titular character isn't a toy, but a real flesh-and-blood human who appears to be the inspiration for the Buzz Lightyear figure we know so well. 

The trailer definitely gives off origin story vibes, as it looks like Buzz makes the journey from pilot to intergalactic explorer in his signature spacesuit. How he gets from there to a beloved toy in the Toy Story world remains to be seen — but since this is Pixar, we're expecting the two stories to collide in a way that's fairly unexpected. 

Lightyear is set to hit theaters on June 17th, 2022, with Chris Evans voicing Buzz for the first time. Unfortunately for those of us who have gotten used to watching new Pixar films on Disney+, it seems like you'll have to head out into the world if you want to see this during that summer release window.

The UN Climate Change Conference (COP26) kicks off on Sunday, and ahead of it some of tech's biggest companies are announcing new initiatives. Amazon is investing in three companies working on creating sustainable technology as part of its $2 billion Climate Pledge Fund. 

The first of these companies is Resilient Power, a company working to make delivering electricity from the power grid and delivering it to electric vehicle charging stations more efficient. The company appears primarily focused on fleets — think businesses that need to deploy vehicles en masse, like shipping services — rather than individual vehicles. The company claims it can build out EV fast-charging stations at one-tenth the standard size and installation time as current stations. Naturally, an efficient, fast-charging solution for fleets of delivery vehicles is something that could be directly relevant to Amazon. It also could relate to the company's existing investment in EV maker Rivian, which could plausibly make EVs for Amazon delivery services down the line. 

The second company, CMC Machinery, can design and manufacture custom-fit boxes for whatever items need to go inside, without waste like extra space and single-use padding materials. Again, the benefit to Amazon is obvious here — if the company is going to continue to ship things at the rate it currently does, reducing the amount of packaging waste the company produces would be significant.

Finally, a company called Infinium is working on renewable fuel technology as an alternative to traditional diesel and jet fuels. The company claims its Infinium Electrofuels are "ultra-low carbon fuels that can be used in air transport, marine freight, and heavy truck fleets." This marks Amazon's second investment round in Infinium, and it'll be used to help develop facilities for producing the company's fuel. Amazon also says that this investment will help the company actually deliver its fuel for the first time, which would be a pretty major milestone. 

With these three new companies, Amazon is now supporting 11 total companies with its Climate Change Pledge, a key component in its plan to eliminate net carbon emissions by 2040. Given that goal, it makes sense that these investments are in companies that can directly help Amazon reduce its carbon footprint. With COP26 about to start, both Apple and Microsoft have also made announcements around moves they're making to become more eco-friendly. Apple, which plans to be carbon-neutral by 2030, announced it has "more than doubled" the number of suppliers committed to using clean energy. Microsoft, meanwhile, is hoping to reduce data center water consumption by 95 percent by 2024, just a few short years from now.

One thing you can definitely say about Amazon’s Kindle: it’s not the kind of device you need to upgrade often, even if you’re an avid reader. I’ve been using the same one since late 2015, and it’s still going strong. But Amazon caught my attention with the 5th-generation Paperwhite. For the first time since the original Paperwhite, Amazon increased the display size to 6.8 inches, from six, and it has narrower bezels than ever before. It also now uses 17 LED backlights (up from only five) and an adjustable “warm light” to reduce eye strain at night. Amazon has also finally switched to USB-C for charging.

Those are some notable new features, but Amazon is also offering a “Signature Edition” (SE) this year, which has 32GB of storage (the standard model only has 8GB), an automatically adjusting backlight, wireless charging and no ads on the lock screen. And it's still waterproof, can play back Audible audiobooks over Bluetooth and has tremendous battery life. At $190, it’s not cheap; nor, at $140, is the standard Paperwhite. But, if you’ve been using yours for as long (or longer) than me, there’s a lot to like here. It doesn’t radically change the Kindle experience, but does make it a lot nicer.

If you’ve used a Kindle at all in the last decade, you’ll be familiar with the new Paperwhite’s design. Like other e-readers, the Paperwhite is dominated by an E Ink touchscreen that has gentle backlights you can turn on or off and adjust to fit your reading conditions. Like earlier Kindles, the rest of the device is soft-touch plastic that picks up fingerprint grease a little too easily.

Nathan Ingraham / Engadget

Also, like the 2018 Paperwhite, the screen here is flush with the front of the device, rather than being slightly recessed, like it was on previous models. Coming from an older device, I loved this change. It makes swiping the touchscreen to turn pages much more pleasant, and having the display a little bit closer to your eyes feels better too. It’s simply a higher-quality experience – but if you have a 2018 Paperwhite, or the more expensive Kindle Oasis, you know this already.

More significant is the larger screen size. Amazon kept the same 300 pixel-per-inch density here, so the display looks as nice as ever. There’s just more room for your books and navigating the Kindle UI. Between the extra screen space and some changes to the interface, using the device is much more comfortable than it used to be. It is worth knowing that the new Paperwhite is ever so slightly wider and taller – so if you have small hands or already found the Kindle to be a little too large, this might be an issue. But, for me, the larger screen is a massive improvement, and isn’t diminished in the least by the slightly bigger body.

The screen bezels are also significantly smaller, as well. The bottom bezel is on the large side, presumably so you can rest your thumb on it while reading, but the ones on the top, left, and right are all very thin. The smaller bezels, larger display, and lack of a recessed screen all combine to make this hardware feel far more premium than previous Kindle Paperwhite models.

Nathan Ingraham / Engadget

A less impactful change is the new LED front lighting system. There are 17 individual LEDs that give the Paperwhite its gentle glow that lets you read in poor light, up from five that were in the previous model. That sounds like a big improvement, but I can’t say I notice a major difference. The Old Paperwhite already had a very smooth front lighting system, and it looks great on the new model, too, just not dramatically better.

These LEDs do have a new trick, though: “adjustable warm lighting.” It’s similar to the Night Shift feature Apple added to its products a few years ago; it adjusts the color temperature of the display lighting to a more amber hue. The Kindle’s blighting system never felt too blue to me, and since we’re not dealing with a glowing LCD, they’ve always been less likely to disrupt sleep. But being able to adjust the screen’s color temperature is still handy.

Like with other devices, you can set two different color temperatures, one for during the day and a warmer setting for after the sun has gone down. There’s also an automatic schedule that uses location services to automatically and gradually change the color temperature based on sunrise and sunset in your current location.

Nathan Ingraham / Engadget

I appreciate the multiple ways you can customize the warmth of the Paperwhite’s screen, but it’s also a little confusing. When you pull down the settings shade, you’ll see sliders for both brightness and screen warmth. Then, when you dive into the section where you can set a schedule, there’s another slider to set the warmth for the scheduled time. It took me a bit to realize that one slider covered the warmth outside of the scheduled time and another was only in effect during the schedule.I eventually I got everything sorted out, though. And if you don’t care about scheduling the screen’s color temperature, you can just pick a setting that looks best to you and forget about it.

You’ve been able to set different brightness levels on the Kindle for years now, but the Paperwhite Signature Edition can automatically adjust to the ambient light. Smartphones have had this feature for years, and the more expensive Kindle Oasis has had it for a while, too. Here, it works pretty quickly and reliably. I first manually set the brightness to a comfortable level for the room I was reading in, and then put my trust in the auto brightness feature. I could definitely notice it kicking on in brighter rooms and turning things down in my dimly lit bedroom when I was getting ready to crash for the night. It’s not an essential feature, but it is nice to have.

Come to think of it, “nice to have” describes most of the difference between the standard Kindle Paperwhite and the Signature Edition. The standard version comes with 8GB of storage, versus 32GB in the SE. The SE also has wireless charging, which works quite well – I dropped the Paperwhite on a few Anker chargers I have around the house, and it charged up quickly and reliably. But given how long the device’s battery lasts, most people will be fine charging it with any old USB-C cable once a month or so. (I haven’t mentioned it yet, but the Paperwhite has a battery that lasts weeks, just like all the other Kindles.)

Nathan Ingraham / Engadget

The SE also has an ad-free lock screen. The fact that Amazon has long charged a premium to get a device without ads on it that try to sell you more stuff from Amazon is about the most Amazon thing ever. And my desire to not have ads shoved in my face makes the Signature Edition pretty appealing. A $50 price difference is significant – but given the fact that I generally use a Kindle for five years or more, why not get rid of those ads and get a few extra features while I’m at it? Given that the standard Paperwhite without ads is only $30 cheaper than the Signature Edition, this is an upsell that I’d probably go for.

Things like storage capacity, the number of LEDs, wireless charging and so on only really matter in service of one thing: reading. Fortunately, the new Kindle Paperwhite is the best e-reader I’ve ever used. I’ve never had a big issue with how E Ink screens need to refresh when you turn the page, but the Paperwhite refreshes so quickly and smoothly that this device feels a lot nicer to use than my 2015 model.

Beyond the refresh rate, the touchscreen is extremely responsive; I rarely had my taps or swipes go unrecognized. When I use the keyboard to search for books, I just plow ahead and don’t get caught up waiting for a key press to register. There are still times where you need to wait for the screen to catch up, though. That’s mostly when you’re navigating more complex layouts, like the Kindle Store.

In some regards, the new Kindle Paperwhite changes nothing; Amazon has had a stranglehold on the e-reader market for years, and the previous Paperwhite was the device to get. The new Paperwhite is still Amazon’s best e-reader. It’s not as expensive and fancy as the Kindle Oasis, but it offers a far better experience than the basic $90 Kindle. The bigger screen and higher resolution are reasons enough to choose the Paperwhite if you’re anything more than the most casual of reader.

Nathan Ingraham / Engadget

The other question is whether the $190 “Signature Edition” is worth the $50 premium over the standard model. For most people, the answer is probably no — the two devices are essentially the same in every significant way. Wireless charging is nice to have, but given how infrequently the Paperwhite needs to be charged, it’s not a huge upgrade in convenience. More storage is never a bad thing, but 8GB can still hold literally thousands of books. The extra space is really only important if you use Audible on the Kindle, because audiobooks can quickly eat through your storage.

The auto-adjusting light is probably my favorite of these Signature Edition features. Almost every other display in your life can do that, And having it here makes sense, especially if you power up your Paperwhite in the middle of the night. Plus, it’s hard to overstate how nice it is to not have to look at an ad every time you pick the device up.

Ultimately, if I was buying the Kindle Paperwhite for someone as a gift, I’d probably get the standard edition. If I was buying for myself, I’d get the Signature. But either way, I’d be buying a Kindle Paperwhite — it remains the best e-reader on the market.