It’s hard to remember, but 20 years ago, Apple was not a very cool company. Sure, OS X was intriguing, and the titanium PowerBook was definitely a cool computer, But when most people thought of Apple, it was probably the bulbous, colorful iMac G3 that popped into people’s heads. The company was starting to build its reputation for truly desirable products, but it wasn’t solidified just yet.

That all changed on October 23, 2001, when Steve Jobs pulled the first iPod out of his pocket. For a generation of music fans, it became the quintessentially cool item that was more than just a fad. It’s not a stretch to say it reinvented the music industry while simultaneously paving a path for Apple to become the world’s biggest company. It was the ultimate gateway drug to getting people who had never bought an Apple product before to see what all the fuss was about.

At this point, the somewhat skeptical reception to the iPod is part of tech industry lore – particularly Slashdot’s dismissal of the product as “lame” compared to a Nomad MP3 player. (Raise your hand if you ever used a Nomad. That’s what I thought.) And it’s not like the product was an instant hit – the first iPod cost $400 and only worked with the Mac, two factors that limited its appeal.

Those limitations helped it achieve some serious cachet, though. Seeing an iPod in the wild was a rarity, and my Mac-owning friends who were early adopters had to deal with my incessant questions and requests to hold it and spin its distinctive wheel. It didn’t help that my college suite-mate (who had a titanium PowerBook and iPod) and graphic designer friend (with a PowerMac G4 and iPod) were constantly going off about how great their hardware was. I was primed to become one of those switchers Apple liked to talk about in the early 2000s.

The iPod may have started out as a Mac-only product, but less than a year later, Apple opened it up to the other 98 percent of computer users by introducing a Windows-compatible model in the summer of 2002. Less than a year after that, Apple completely redesigned the iPod and released a new version of iTunes for Windows. At the same time, Apple launched the iTunes Music Store, making it a lot easier to get legal music onto an iPod. With that, the iPod moved fully into the mainstream.

There’s no good way to quantify how many people bought an iPod for Windows and then eventually switched to a Mac. But, Mac sales increased from about 3 million in 2003 to more than 7 million by 2007. Apple’s move to more powerful Intel processors in 2005 likely helped adoption, but the iPod “halo effect” was often cited in the mid-2000s as a driver of the Mac’s increasing popularity.

Growing Mac sales and the most popular consumer electronics device of the decade truly paved the way for the iPhone to be the monumental success that it was almost. Sure, the iPhone eventually killed the iPod, but as Steve Jobs said, he’d rather cannibalize Apple's sales with another Apple product than let some other company do it — this was how he justified the existence of the iPod touch, which was basically an iPhone without a phone.

I might be overselling the iPod to Mac to iPhone evolution, because I lived it. After getting a second-generation iPod in 2002 (embarrassing admission time: I also bought four more full-size iPods between then and 2009), I got my first Mac in 2003 and the first iPhone in late 2007. I remember being more excited about my first iPhone than my first iPod, mostly because it was light years better than the Moto RAZR I was using at the time. But my first iPod was similarly a huge step forward from the MP3 players I owned before. And in my early 20s, there was nothing more important to me than music.

That may not make me unique, but it’s still true. Before the iPod was everywhere, someone else who had one was someone you could trust. They took music as seriously as you did; they knew how liberating it was to have your 100 favorite albums with you, on demand, any time you needed them. In a world where Apple Music offers access to 90 million songs anywhere you are for 10 bucks a month, that might seem quaint. But 20 years ago, it was a revelation.

I still have the last iPod I ever purchased, a 2008 iPod classic with 120GB of storage – about the same space as I have in my iPhone 12 Pro. It’s still stuffed to the gills with music, some 11,000-plus songs, most of which come from albums I carefully selected over time. Most of them are still in my Apple Music library, which has now ballooned to more than double that size, with over 25,000 songs.

I’m still a firm believer in the art of making a good album, but I’ve also collected thousands of singles, or a handful of songs from artists who catch my ear on one of the many curated playlists out there. The music industry has changed, and so have I. Whether or not that’s a good thing is a debate for another time, but there’s no doubt that both the music and technology industries changed completely because of the iPod – something its humble introduction 20 years ago only barely hinted at.

Back in August, Google surprisingly announced its upcoming Pixel 6 and Pixel 6 Pro smartphones and said they would run on the company’s own “Tensor” mobile chip. We learned a few other things then and got a good look at the phones, as well, but today Google is finally officially revealing the PIxel 6 and 6 Pro.

Google tends to go back and forth with the Pixel lineup, alternating between phones with cutting edge features and prices to match and more mainstream, almost budget devices (last year’s Pixel 5 is a perfect example of the latter). Both the Pixel 6 and 6 Pro feel like they’re designed to compete with Apple and Samsung’s best, but also at slightly more approachable prices — the Pixel 6 starts at $600 (with 8GB of RAM and 128GB of storage), while the Pixel 6 Pro starts at $900 (with 12GB of RAM and 128GB of storage). Notably, the $600 Pixel 6 is $100 cheaper than last year's Pixel 5, but it looks to be a far better phone, at least judging from the spec sheet.

Google

The new Pixel 6 lineup looks unlike any previous phones Google made, thanks to the thick camera bar stretching across the back. The Pixel 6 has a dual-camera system, with wide and ultrawide lenses, while the Pixel 6 Pro adds a telephoto option. On both phones, the standard camera is a 50 megapixel sensor with a quad-bayer filter, which puts four pixels behind each standard color block — effectively, you’re not going to get 50-megapixel photos here, but something more in the realm of 12.5 megapixels.

Google

Despite the fact that this is a 50 megapixel sensor, these pixels are pretty large, and the sensor is pretty big, too. Putting this all together means the Pixel 6’s main camera is gathering more light info per pixel, which should give it better clarity. Combined with that large sensor and large pixels, we’re expecting to see some impressive results here. Indeed, Google says that this allows its “super res zoom” feature to go in up to 7x the standard field of view; we’ll have to wait and see how those results look, but it’s an intriguing camera setup nonetheless.

The second ultrawide camera is a more traditional 12-megapixel sensor with an f/2.2 aperture and a 114-degree field of view. Finally, the Pixel 6 Pro adds another impressive camera, a 48-megapixel shooter with 4x optical zoom. Given all the camera tech on board here, it’s not surprising that the camera bar on these phones is so large — once we get into our review, we can see if all this translates into quality photos, but Google’s track record here is pretty solid.

As for video capabilities, the rear camera array can record both 1080p and 4K video at 30 or 60 FPS, with other features like cinematic panning, slow-motion, timelapse, astrophotography timelapse and optical image stabilization on board. As with Apple’s iPhone 13, it’s safe to say that the video features Google loaded into the Pixel 6 and 6 Pro far exceed what most people need.

The front-facing cameras are different between the two new phones. The Pixel 6 has to make do with an 8-megapixel shooter with an f/2.0 aperture, while the Pixel 6 Pro has an 11.1-megapixel camera with larger pixels but a slightly smaller f/2.2 aperture. That camera lives in a small pinhole cut-out right in the center of the display. Rather than using that camera to unlock the phone, Google has equipped the Pixel 6 and 6 Pro with an under-screen thumbprint sensor, a first for the Pixel series.

While these cameras are definitely intriguing, the most notable thing about the Pixel 6 and 6 Pro is the Google-made Tensor processor. The company says it’s 80 percent faster than the Pixel 5, and it also provides on-device AI for things like faster and more accurate speech recognition as well as image processing. You can read all about Tensor here, but here's a quick breakdown. It's an eight-core chip, starting with two ARM Cortex-X1 cores running at 2.8GHz. It also includes two Cortex A76 cores running at 2.25GHz, and finally four 1.8GHz A55 cores. Those last four are the "small" cores, which are meant for efficiency, and as you step up the ladder you're getting more and more power. We talked to Google about Tensor in August and they said similar things then, but it’s another thing we’ll need to watch for in our review and see how Tensor stacks up to Qualcomm’s processors.

The Pixel 6 and 6 Pro come in one size each. The Pixel 6 is the smaller phone, with a 6.1-inch display, while the Pro counters with a 6.7-inch screen. The Pixel 6 has a 1,080 x 2,400 OLED, which works out to 411 pixels per inch; the 6 Pro’s screen is even more pixel-dense at 1,440 x 3,120, which works out to 512 pixels per inch. Both have high refresh rates, with the Pro going up to 120Hz. The Pixel 6 tops out at 90Hz, unfortunately, the same as the Pixel 5’s refresh rate.

As we’ve seen in the earlier photos Google released, the Pixel 6 and 6 Pro each come in three different colors. Both phones are available in the monochromatic “Stormy Black,” while the Pixel 6 also comes in “Sorta Seafoam” and “Kinda Coral.” The Pixel 6 Pro’s options are a bit more demure; besides black you can choose “Cloudy White” and “Sorta Sunny,” which you could just as easily call silver and gold.

Battery is among the most important factors in a smartphone, and Google is once again promising more than 24 hours of usage, even when the phone is connected to 5G networks. The Pixel 6 has a 4,614 mAh battery, and the 6 pro has a 5,003 mAh battery, both larger than the one found in last year’s Pixel 5. Given that the Pixel 5 managed to last as long as Google promised, we’re expecting these phones should last that day-plus as well, though we’re definitely curious to see how the Tensor processor might play into things this year.

After the rather lackluster Pixel 5, it’s pretty clear Google has re-dedicated itself to the smartphone game with the Pixel 6 and 6 Pro. The spec list, cameras, battery life, design and — of course — the Tensor processor all seem set to impress. But as usual, we’ll have to run these phones through a review to say whether Google has a high-end hit on its hands. You can find out for yourself on October 28th when they hit store shelves; if you’re already convinced, pre-orders are live now.

Catch up on all the latest news from Google's Pixel 6 event!

It’s been five years since Apple released a totally redesigned version of the MacBook Pro, a laptop that opened the company up to years of criticism for everything from its flawed keyboard design and the Touch Bar to its lack of any ports besides USB-C. But as expected, Apple is giving the MacBook Pro a complete do-over again, and it sounds like it’ll be an improvement in a number of areas over the models it replaces.

Naturally, Apple’s latest laptops are using the company’s own custom silicon — this time, it’s the M1 Pro. As the rumors predicted, it’s a 5-nanometer, 10-core chip with eight high-performance cores and two efficiency cores. It's 70 percent faster than the M1, and has one 16 graphics cores. Apple also announced an M1 Max, which has twice the memory bandwidth as the M1 Pro (400GB/s), and it also has 32 graphics cores. The M1 Max also supports up to 64GB memory, a huge improvement over the 16GB of memory that was supported by the M1. 

When it comes to ports, those of us out there who miss the plentiful options on older MacBooks should be pretty happy here. The new MacBook Pro unsurprisingly features USB-C ports, but it also brings back an HDMI port and SD card slot, two much-missed options. There aren’t any USB-A ports here, but the SD card slot and HDMI port should definitely reduce the number of dongles or specific cords MacBook Pro owners need.

Another old friend from MacBooks past is making a return. Apple has implemented a new version of its MagSafe connector, which it used on its laptops for years prior to 2016. It’s different from the old connector, so you won’t be able to bust out a charger from years past and expect it to work, unfortunately.

This story is developing. Follow all of the news from Apple’s Mac event right here.

Nintendo held a Direct video presentation this morning, announcing two major updates for Animal Crossing: New Horizons. One is a free bit of DLC, and the other is a paid, $25 expansion called Happy Home Paradise. Unexpectedly, Nintendo used this announcement to reveal the price of the upcoming Switch Online "expansion pack." The service, which adds classic N64 and Sega Genesis games to the existing Switch Online offerings, will cost $50 per year or $80 for a family plan. This expansion will include access to the $25 Happy Home Paradise DLC — so if you're an Animal Crossing: New Horizons player, it's like getting the rest of the Expansion Pack benefits for $5.

Nintendo didn't say when the Expansion Pack would go live. But, both Happy Home Paradise and the free update for New Horizons are set to arrive on November 5th, so it's safe to say that the new online service should be available then too. The company had previously said it would launch in October, but we haven't heard any details since. There are more details about the expansion pack up on Nintendo's site, but it still just says that it is "coming soon."

As part of its usual autumn laptop refresh, Acer is announcing a host of new Chromebook today that'll roll out in the coming months. There are four models being refreshed today: the Chromebook Spin 514, Chromebook 515, Chromebook 514, and Chromebook Spin 314. That's a lot of product names, but Spin devices can flip around with a 360-degree hinge, and the last two digits denote the screen size. That should hopefully ground you as we go through these new models.

Most interesting is probably the Spin 514 (pictured above), which combines a 14-inch 1080p touchscreen that has minimal bezels with Intel's 11th-generation Core i3, i5 or i7 processors. This laptop has no fans, which means these probably aren't the highest-powered versions of Intel's chips, but they should still provide solid performance for Chrome OS. Acer also put some focus on the webcam, a wise choice given how we're all still stuck on videos calls for the foreseeable future. It's a 1080p camera with a blue glass filter and new noise-reduction technology to remove things like light flares. We'll have to see how this works in practice, but given how many laptops have entirely mediocre webcams, any improvements here will be welcome.

Other specs include up to 16GB of RAM, up to 512GB of storage, Intel Iris X graphics and 10 hours of battery life. The Spin 514 weighs in at 3 pounds, so it's not going to be the lightest thing to use in tablet mode, but otherwise it sounds like it'll be a very good Chromebook — it also simply looks nice and well-built, at least as far as I can tell from these images. And Acer has a solid track record of making very good Chromebooks, so hopefully that'll continue here. The Spin 514 is expected to arrive in the US in January and starts at $700.

Acer's Chromebook 515 (which comes in consumer and enterprise editions) has similar specs to the Spin 514, though it has a larger 15.6-inch display. Given the large size, this laptop isn't a convertible, which is probably a smart move. For a 15-inch laptop, though, it's pretty light — only 3.75 pounds. It comes with the same 11th-generation processor options as the Spin 514, though it also has a budget Pentium Gold option (paired with Intel's UHD graphics rather than the Iris X). The Chromebook 515 will initially be available in Europe this month for €499; the Enterprise version will come to the US in January 2022 starting at $640.

Acer has a few less expensive Chromebooks coming out, as well. The Chromebook Spin 314 starts at $500 and arrives in the US in November. For that price, you'll get a 14-inch screen with an unfortunate 1,366 x 768 resolution, which is pretty unacceptable in the year 2021. It also features budget processors in the form of Intel's Pentium Gold or two Celeron options and has a 360-degree hinge, as the name implies. More intriguing is the Chromebook 514, which pairs a 14-inch, 1080p display with MediaTek's 8-core Kompanio 828 processor and 8GB of RAM. We haven't tested a MediaTek Chromebook in a while, so we can't say for sure how it'll perform yet. But Acer is promising 15 hours of battery life, and the laptop weighs less than 3 pounds, so it does have some potential as a budget Chromebook (the 514 will cost $400 when it is released in December). 

15 years ago, if you were writing a document, chances are you were doing it in Microsoft Word. Part of the company’s wildly successful Office suite, Word was the de-facto option for drafting text, whether you were an author, an office worker, a student, a teacher… you get the point.

But on October 11th, 2006, Google officially launched Google Docs and Spreadsheets in beta. As with everything Google, Docs and Sheets were cloud-based applications that also let you collaborate with others in real time. It’s easy to forget now, but this was completely different from how most people worked on documents at the time.

I was in a different career 15 years ago, one that required me to work on lots of spreadsheets and Powerpoint presentations that were accessed in a shared network drive. Submitting them to others for edits and notes was a fraught process. Making sure you had the most current version of the document usually involved six-digit numbers representing the last date it was modified, initials to note who had checked it out, and messy notes added to the end until you landed on something insanely convoluted like “April_Report_051504_NI_final_final_reallyfinal.doc.”

15 years later, I’m writing this story in a Google Doc shared with my editors; they can make as many changes as they want to the finished parts of the draft as I keep typing away here and nothing will get lost. Collaborative work is a lot better than it used to be, and Google Docs is a big part of that – but it wasn’t always smooth sailing to get here.

Google Docs began as a “hacked together experiment,” its creator Sam Schillace said in an interview with The Verge in 2013. Eight years earlier, he created a tool called Writely, a web-based text editing platform. Google bought the company in March of 2006. According to Schillace, 90 percent of the company was using Writely only a month later. “When we went to Google, Writely was internally adopted very quickly,” he said. Barely seven months after that, Google officially released Docs and Sheets at the Office 2.0 Conference in San Francisco. As with most Google products at the time, it was released in beta for free.

TechCrunch / Google

Unsurprisingly, it wasn’t quite up to par with what Microsoft was offering with Office. The text editor was, comparatively speaking, very simple. But more importantly, Google Docs only worked when you had an active internet connection. While good broadband was fairly common in workplaces and universities, it was far less easy to find when you ventured out into the world. If you wanted to get some work while traveling, say on an airplane, Google Docs was a non-starter.

It didn’t take Google long to realize it needed to come up with a way to sync documents to a computer for offline access. In May of 2007, at its first “worldwide developer day,” the company introduced Google Gears. Gears was an open-source project and browser extension for Mac, Windows and Linux that would help web apps work with no internet connection. While the project was meant for any developer to use, using it for Google Docs made perfect sense.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t the most stable tool. In late 2009, Google stopped development on Gears in favor of using the capabilities afforded by HTML 5. But even though Google continued supporting applications that used Gears, a technology transition probably didn’t do the company any favors in getting Docs and its broader app suite adopted in businesses and education institutions.

Around this time, Google was experimenting with a variety of ways to push collaboration and communication forward — Docs was just one of the success stories. There were failures though, the most high-profile of which was Google Wave — an ambitious combination of instant messaging, email, documents, multimedia and more. It was hyped by the tech press, so much that Google Wave invites were being sold on eBay. But interest dropped off quickly, in large part because it felt like even less of a finished product than most of Google’s “beta” launches.

Google / Engadget

Google didn’t do a great job explaining exactly what problem this new tool was designed to solve, and the company pulled the plug in 2010, after only a year. But many of the things Google experimented with in Wave ended up living on in other places. Indeed, right around the time Google ended development on Wave, the company added chat to Google Docs, letting people who had the same file open discuss what they were working on right alongside the content itself.

Google Docs clearly evolved past its early struggles, though. Google put a somewhat surprising amount of focus on the product over the last decade-plus, incrementally iterating and improving it at a steady pace. That’s the hallmark of products Google seems to really believe in. It’s the same way the company treated Android, Chrome (both the browser and OS), Drive, Photos, and, of course, Search and Gmail.

As internet access has become more and more widespread, the fact that Docs (like most of Google’s products) works best online was less of a hindrance. Not having to worry about saving a document took a while to get used to, but it’s something that we take for granted now — if your browser crashes, whatever you were working on should still be there waiting for you in the cloud.

Perhaps the biggest endorsement of Google’s cloud-first strategy came in 2010, when Microsoft took its first steps towards bringing Office applications online. For a long time, though, Google’s suite of apps were better-suited to the cloud. For example, you couldn’t have multiple people working on the same Office document until late 2013, something that was built into Google Docs from day one. Apple also followed Google’s lead, bringing its iWork apps online in 2013 and eventually enabling simultaneous collaboration as well.

While Office remains dominant in the workplace, it’s fair to say that Google gave Microsoft its first real competition in many years. Google has some giant customers, like Salesforce, Whirlpool, Twitter and Spotify. And Google’s apps, combined with inexpensive Chromebooks and its education platform, have made the company a force in the K-12 space as well as in higher education.

As for the next 15 years, it’s all but assured that collaborative and remote working will continue to be hugely important. That was clear before COVID-19, and the last 18 months have basically blown up the notion that everyone needs to go to an office. For a good idea of where collaborative work is going, consider Microsoft’s open-source Fluid framework. First announced in May of 2019, Fluid is meant to remove the barriers between different file formats and make it easy to pull in content from a wide variety of sources. Microsoft described it as a way to share atomized components of data across multiple files — so if you’re updating a spreadsheet in one document, you can link to that content in another file and it’ll automatically reflect those changes.

Dropbox hasn’t come up with its own “atomized components” of documents, but its Paper app works in a similar fashion. They’re collaborative like Google Docs, but they support a wide range of content plug-ins, so you can embed YouTube videos, Google Calendar elements, Figma documents, to-do lists, Trello lists, and even entire Google Docs.

Microsoft has been deliberate about developing Fluid, taking small steps since its initial release. Earlier this year, the company announced that some Fluid components would work in its communications platform Teams. I think that content moving outside of strict platforms like Google Docs or Microsoft Office into all the other places that we do work is going to be another important step forward.

That’s already happened to some degree. For years now, Dropbox has supported creating, sharing, and editing Microsoft Office documents right inside its own app and website, and it later added similar support for Google Docs as well. And apps like Slack have a host of integrations for things like Google Drive and Trello, though it’s not clear how widely used or essential they are to a Slack workflow. (I mostly just drop links to Google Docs I need edited.)

Somewhat ironically, as the barriers between content and file types fall away and more people do work in virtual spaces like Teams and Slack, Google’s vision for Wave looks to be rather prescient. The notion of a space for a project or team that encompasses all of its important elements, be they written documents, spreadsheets, images, videos or any other kind of content seems to be where we’re headed. But despite the fact that Google (and the rest of the industry) are moving back towards models that remind us of what Wave attempted, there’s still a missing piece in Google’s strategy.

That piece is messaging, something Google has struggled with, well, for about as long as Google has existed. As exhaustively detailed by Ars Technica, Google has never been able to stick with a coherent messaging plan for consumers or businesses. At some point, Google Chat (née Hangouts) could have been a solid Slack competitor, as well as the web that connects all the content people work on, but the company missed the boat as Slack solidified its dominance over the past five years. Even though Google Workspace has a huge user base, it hasn’t made inroads in the messaging side — which is what pulls a modern workplace together.

That said, Google’s Smart Canvas (announced at I/O this year) could be its own version of Fluid, a way to unify disparate forms of content and communication all in one place. From what we’ve seen so far, Smart Canvas has various “building blocks” that you can pull all into a single canvas — like a Meet call alongside a Google Doc for taking notes and a to-do list to assign items to team members. It’s only rolling out on a limited basis to paying Google Workspace customers, but it’s definitely worth watching to see how it evolves.

No one can really say what other cultural workplace shifts, like those brought on by COVID-19, will happen in the next 15 years. And those shifts are probably what will drive the most significant changes in products meant for work.

Gaze, if you will, upon the Xbox Series X. 

Aaron Souppouris / Engadget

It is a black video game console, with aggressively square edges. Its design connotes "serious video gaming." This is a video game console for Gamers, if you'll forgive all the baggage that comes with the word. 

Now, behold this Xbox Series X:

Microsoft

A bit of a different vibe. 

These new, garishly-colored Xbox Series X consoles and matching controllers go alongside the just-released Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl, which seems to be a Smash Bros. style multiplayer battle between iconic characters from franchises including, Spongebob Squarepants, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, The Legend of Korra, Aaahh!!! Real Monsters, The Wild Thornberrys, Rugrats and others. 

As is often the case with Microsoft's limited-edition consoles, these aren't actually for sale. To get your hands on the spot-on Spongebob Squareconsole, completely with his bulbous eyes gazing at you from the custom controller, you'll need to enter and win a sweepstakes by retweeting this tweet from the official Xbox account. The contest runs through October 24th.

While the TMNT console looks fine, the Spongebob one is particularly inspired in this writer's eyes. Given the fact that the Xbox Series X has a perfectly square bottom, there are few characters who fit the format better than Spongebob. Microsoft really should have given it a pair of little legs for a stand, though. 

Microsoft has been trying to straddle two different worlds with the Surface Go. When it launched in late 2018, Microsoft positioned it as an inexpensive way to get the 2-in-1 Surface experience. Three years later, that’s still true: The Surface Go 3, which Microsoft unveiled in late September, is an exceedingly well-built tablet, with a lovely screen and strong kickstand. For a device that starts at $400, it feels great.

But the full truth of the Surface Go 3 is a little more complicated. You need to shell out at least another $100 for a keyboard. And, seeing as Windows still doesn’t offer a great tablet experience you need the keyboard. Not to mention the basic $400 Surface Go 3 is underpowered – so by the time you’re buying a keyboard and bumping up the processor, storage and RAM, you’re spending as much money as you might on a full-fledged laptop with a larger display and more powerful internals.

Our review unit came with a 10th-generation Intel Core i3-10100Y processor, 8GB of RAM and 128GB of storage. But that configuration costs $630, not including the $130 Alcantara-clad Type Cover and $100 Surface pen Microsoft sent along as well. It’s a fairly capable machine despite its tiny size, making it a potentially great travel companion. But if you’re going to spend $860 for the kit that I’m testing, you should know exactly what you want to do with it that you can’t do with a standard laptop.

When we reviewed the Surface Go 2 last spring, we noted that it was nearly identical to the first version, with the notable exception of a larger screen. This time out, I’m pretty sure the external hardware is completely identical. The Surface Go 3 is the exact same size and weight as its predecessor, and the display is the same 10.5-inch, 1,920 x 1,280 touchscreen as before.

That’s not a knock on the hardware, though, as the Surface Go 3 is a wonderfully designed and constructed device. I haven’t used previous Surface devices extensively, but Microsoft’s reputation for thoughtful hardware is well deserved. The screen is bright, sharp and colorful, with great viewing angles. I also very much appreciate the taller 3:2 aspect ratio – a 16:9 panel here would feel very cramped for vertical space.

Nathan Ingraham / Engadget

I’m also a big fan of the infinitely adjustable kickstand. I’m no visual artist, but the way you can push it nearly all the way around to prop up the tablet for drawing is a brilliant design decision, and the way the Surface Pen magnetically snaps to the side for easy access is very handy. It really makes me wish I could draw, but alas.

As before, the Surface Go 3 only has a few ports and buttons. There’s a USB-C port on one side as well as a headphone jack and Microsoft’s proprietary charging port. The good news is you can use the USB-C port for faster charging (as well as any other peripherals you have) and use the cables you probably already have instead of the slower charger. Up top, there’s a power button and volume rocker; an 8-megapixel camera stares out from the back of the tablet. Two stereo speakers flank the display, and there’s a 5-megapixel front-facing camera with a 1080p resolution for video calls. It also works with Windows Hello for face unlock. Finally, under the kickstand you’ll find a Micro SDXC card reader, but you really have to go searching for it.

Nathan Ingraham / Engadget

Every time Microsoft releases new Surface tablets, questions follow about whether Windows is actually a viable platform for touchscreen use. With Windows 11, the answer is still “not really.” But purely on the strength of its hardware, the Surface Go 3 is a lovely tablet. The 3:2 aspect ratio makes it work well when holding it in either portrait or landscape mode. And at 1.2 pounds it’s a little heavier than an iPad, but not so much so that you’ll get tired of holding it.

We typically recommend Surface buyers use the device with some kind of keyboard, so nearly all my time testing the Go 3 was with Microsoft’s Type Cover attached. It’s unchanged from last year’s version, but that’s OK because Microsoft’s Surface keyboards are surprisingly good. Given the Go’s small size, it felt a bit cramped at first, but after giving my hands a little time to adjust it wasn’t an issue. 

The keys have decent travel and feel very solid, despite the Type Cover’s extremely thin design, and the magnets that attach it to the Go are very strong. The touchpad is fine given its rather small size, but – like the keyboard – it's not something I want to use for hours on end. When I was using the Go 3 at my desk for extended work sessions, I preferred using a Bluetooth mouse.

Nathan Ingraham / Engadget

The Type Cover weighs just over half a pound, so the tablet plus its keyboard cover is a good bit less than two pounds total. While the overall design hasn’t changed, the Surface Go 3 and its keyboard cover are still a very compact and well-designed set. There aren’t many devices that can provide the full Windows experience in such a portable package.

Unfortunately, as with the prior Surface Go models, you’re trading portability for performance. The Core i3 powering the $630 Go 3 that I’ve been testing is enough for basic tasks, but if you try and push things too much you’re going to be disappointed. My workflow is fairly modest: I mostly live in a browser (I used Edge for this review), and I also run apps including Trello, Slack, Todoist and Spotify. I also wrote this review in Word, to get the full Windows experience. Usually, the Surface Go 3 kept up with these tasks, but I had occasional music stutters and tabs often had to be reloaded if I navigated away from them for more than a minute or two.

Occasionally, things got worse. The Surface Go 3 mostly ran Adobe Lightroom fine, but moving through the interface definitely required patience as UI elements and photos took a while to load. And if I had it open along with any other programs, things slowed down significantly. Browser tabs were more likely to reload, and opening or switching between other apps took a lot longer. Lightroom performance itself was not terrible, though exporting an edited RAW file to a JPG took long enough that I did most of my photo editing and exporting for this review on my MacBook Pro. Exporting a single image probably took about 10 seconds, compared to a second or two on my Mac.

Nathan Ingraham / Engadget

I’m sure you’ll be shocked to know that being on a video call also led to serious performance issues. When I was on a Google Meet call with some co-workers, switching that and Slack was painfully slow, and Slack had to refresh entirely as if I just opened it. While we’re at it, Slack performance was mediocre on this machine; jumping between different channels and conversations led to noticeable delays. (I’m willing to put some of the blame on Google and particularly Slack, because Slack's Windows app is not good. But not all of it.) That sums up the Surface Go 3 experience pretty well — I often just had to wait a lot for things to catch up.

Running our usual suite of Windows benchmarks confirmed my impressions – indeed, according to Geekbench 5 and PCMark10, the new Core i3 processor is nearly identical to the m3 that it replaces. This just highlights that Intel still doesn’t have a great solution for smaller devices. Apple’s $330 iPad, which I just reviewed, hit 1,336 (single-core) / 3,349 (multi-core) on Geekbench 5, compared to the 859/1,450 I got running it on the Surface Go 3.

The battery situation also leaves something to be desired. I got about five hours using the Surface Go 3 during normal use doing my normal work routine — not awful, but given how low-powered the processor is, I expected more. It also makes the Go’s portability less useful, because if you can’t be away from a charger for a full work day, what’s the point of having such a small device? The device did last quite a long time in a lower-power test. The Go 3 lasted almost 11 hours while playing back HD video, which matches up with Microsoft's estimates for 11 hours. 

The Surface Go 3 isn't the fastest to charge, either. I had the device plugged in while running some benchmarks, and it took a whopping three hours to charge from 50 percent to 100 percent using the included charger. I was pushing the system pretty hard during that time, but even when I was doing less intense work, it took a good long while to charge. When the Go 3 was asleep, it still took about two hours to fully charge it up from 20 percent. 

Nathan Ingraham / Engadget

Benchmarks don’t tell the entire story, but they should give you a good idea of what to expect with the Surface Go 3. I could see the Go 3 making sense as a second computer, a companion to a more powerful Windows desktop for travel. If I was still commuting, I’d be happy to use the Go 3 on my hour-long train ride to go through email, do a little writing and manage all my to-dos. I could also see it being a good companion for running around at events like CES or E3. But I’d probably get tired of writing on that tiny screen.

But $630 plus another $100 minimum for the Type Cover is a lot of money for a device that feels rather slow and rather cramped. For that kind of money you could certainly get a more capable Windows laptop. Apple’s iPad is also a great option for a secondary computing device, and has the benefit of an OS that was built with tablets in mind; it’s also far more responsive than the Surface Go 3, and there are plenty of keyboard covers out there for getting real work done.

The value calculus does change if you’re a visual artist, I think. I have zero drawing ability, so the Surface Pen isn’t terribly useful for me. But it’s a very good stylus, and I could see artists who like to use Windows appreciating the Go 3 as a portable drawing tool that can also be a full-fledged computer when you need it. But once again, an iPad probably has better app support for artists who prefer a stylus.

Nathan Ingraham / Engadget

Probably the biggest issue with the Surface Go 3 is that nothing has significantly changed since Microsoft released the Go 2 almost a year and a half ago. The design is still good, but performance and battery life are essentially unchanged, despite the new chip. I can’t recommend that anyone get a Surface Go 3 with the Pentium Gold processor; it feels like the low-end model exists only so Microsoft can say it sells a $400 tablet.

Just like its predecessors, the Surface Go 3 can be a pretty useful tiny Windows device, though you’re paying a premium for the portability. And the price for performance ration is seriously out of whack. If you’re a Windows fan, it'a decent option as a secondary device for casual work and for when you want something extremely portable. There aren’t a lot of comparable Windows devices out there, and the hardware’s design and built quality remains outstanding. Just make sure you buy the Type Cover, don’t expect much from tablet mode and be patient if you’re running a lot of apps.

The YouTube / NBC drama is officially over. After reaching a temporary deal to keep NBC Universal channels on YouTube TV, the companies officially resolved their despite Saturday afternoon. "We’re thrilled to share that we’ve reached a deal to continue carrying the full NBCUniversal portfolio of channels," YouTube wrote on its blog. "That means you won’t lose access to any of their channels, and YouTube TV will continue to offer 85+ networks for $64.99. We appreciate NBCUniversal’s willingness to work toward an agreement, and we also appreciate your patience as we negotiated with them on your behalf."

Disputes between networks and cable providers (or internet TV services like YouTube) are not uncommon, but a few things made this particular spat noteworthy. For starters, YouTube TV would have lost 14 channels, including major ones like NBC, USA Network, Golf Channel, Bravo, CNBC and Telemundo. Because of NBC Universal's reach, it would have been a major blow to YouTube TV. 

It was such a potential problem for YouTube TV that the service said it would cut its price by $10 per month if it wasn't able to reach a deal with NBC Universal. Fortunately for YouTube TV customers, nothing is changing, at least for now. It settled its spat with NBC, but there's always another conglomerate of networks that YouTube will likely need to negotiate with before long.

Classic '90s sitcom Seinfeldjust landed on Netflix after a six-year run on Hulu. Given that the show was filmed years before HD was a thing, it was originally displayed in a 4:3 aspect ratio on TV (and the DVD sets that came years later). But on Netflix, the show has been cropped into a 16:9 widescreen format to fit on modern TVs. As noted by Rolling Stone, that means some visual gags have literally been erased. 

Twitter users @boriskarkov and @Thatoneguy64 succinctly pointed out the problem with a specific episode called "The Pothole." In the episode, George Costanza and Jerry Seinfeld are trying to find George's lost keys, which were dropped in a pothole that was then paved over. In a crop where George wildly yells at the pothole, the Netflix crop removes the pothole entirely. The 16:9 aspect ratio probably also cuts out some other gags in the series — or at the very least, it might be a jarring experience for people used to how the show originally looked.

Of course, this isn't a new problem. Crops of Seinfeld have been on cable TV for years, and Hulu also showed the series in 16:9, as well. Given Netflix's popularity, Seinfeld is getting lots of extra attention right now, and thus a bunch of new viewers are probably checking it out who might not have seen it on Hulu. A similar controversy happened in late 2019 when the entire run of The Simpsons hit Disney+. After plenty of complaints about missed visual gags, Disney eventually released the seasons that aired in 4:3 in their original aspect ratio. Hopefully Netflix will do the same thing with Seinfeld — but in the meantime, as with many classic shows, the most authentic way to watch them is probably on DVD.