Mrs. Davis is a deeply silly show deeply committed its silliness. And that's precisely what makes it so much fun. The new Peacock series from Tara Hernandez (The Big Bang Theory) and Damon Lindelof (Lost, The Leftovers), pits a nun with a mysterious past against an all-powerful, seemingly omniscient artificial intelligence. Her mission: to find the Holy Grail. You know, another one of those stories. Along the way, there are a slew of messy beheadings, a cheesy '90s-era car chase and a group of villainous German henchman spiritually descended from The Big Lebowski's trio of Nihilists.

If you were looking for another complex genre exercise like Lindelof's excellent Watchmen series or The Leftovers, Mrs. Davis ain't it. But from the first scene of the show, you can tell that he probably had a lot more fun making this. Initially based on a spec script by Hernandez, who also served as showrunner, Mrs. Davis is practically a live-action cartoon, filled with colorful set-pieces and a never-ending slew of zany characters, all set in a world where humans willingly subject themselves to the demands of an AI via wireless earbuds.

None of Mrs. Davis would work without Betty Gilpin (GLOW, The Hunt) as its heart and soul. As Simone, the nun being targeted by Mrs. Davis, she effectively juggles a hard-edged cynicism with an openness to pure devotion. It's hard enough to be a believable action lead, it's even tougher to make that same character seem believably devout. By the time we see Simone racing through city streets on a motorcycle, while also wearing her nun habit, we fully buy Gilpin in the role. It's like seeing Kill Bill's The Bride with a samurai sword — it's sure to be an indelible pop cultural image. (And of course, it hearkens back to Abel Ferrara's cult revenge classic, Ms. 45.)

As a piece of cultural commentary, Mrs. Davis is practically allergic to subtext. It's a nun versus AI, what else do you need? It's easy to draw parallels between religious devotion and the way we live with technology today. That's particularly true when it comes to the explosive rise of generative AI. Is there really a huge difference between plugging in a string into ChatGPT or Midjourney and hoping for an interesting result, compared to putting your hands together and praying for divine help? And if AI ultimately ends up fulfilling our needs more effectively, wouldn't people treat it with a certain amount of religious reverence?

These questions danced around my head as I watched Mrs. Davis, but the series itself is far more interested in goofy shenanigans and soapy plot twists than attempting any serious philosophical exploration. But I suppose even Damon Lindelof needs a vacation sometimes. Your enjoyment of the show will depend on well you sync up with its farcical wavelength. Why is there a group of well-funded, anti-AI militia bros, led by a shirtless buffoon? Don't worry about it, they're hilarious (Chris Diamantopoulos, one of the more memorable VC bros from HBO's Silicon Valley, truly commits.)

The idea for Mrs. Davis arrived in the early paranoid phase of the pandemic, Lindelof told us in an interview. During that time of sheer uncertainty — back when we were still wiping down groceries — Hernandez wished for an app that could just tell her what to do. "What if there was something that we trusted?" Lindelof said. He was also intrigued by the role of algorithms in our lives, something he noticed while going down YouTube and Tiktok rabbit holes with his teenage son.

Mrs. Davis was written and produced long before ChatGPT and other generative AI tools reached the public, but its release couldn't be better timed. Despite just making a show about an all-powerful algorithm, Lindelof is intrigued by the new AI tools. "Artificial intelligence is basically coded to give us what we want," he said. "And so, never before in the history of of technology have we had more of an opportunity to get clarity on what it is we want.... What is human existence? What is the meaning of life?"

Peacock

If Mrs. Davis more effectively wrestled with those questions, it would have been another prestigious series for Lindelof. Instead, it feels more like a creative exercise, one that gave Hernandez the opportunity to move beyond the world of sitcoms.  

"I think that we we have an unprecedented opportunity for the greatest therapist in the history of of of our species to tell us, here's what you really are like," he added. "For any fan of Douglas Adams, we now have that computer that's going to spit out "42" [Adams' comedic answer to the meaning of life]. I'm just curious to see what it says."

The first four episodes of Mrs. Davis premiere on Peacock on April 20th.

If you've been eyeing a new air fryer but don't want something too large or pricey, Instant's Vortex Mini is the top budget pick in our air fryer buying guide, and it's currently down to $40 as part of a new sale. While this isn't the lowest price we've seen, it's within $5, and it represents a roughly $10 drop from the 2-quart air fryer's typical street price. Just note the deal only applies to the aqua blue model.

As a refresher, an air fryer works like a smaller, pod-shaped convection oven. It can cook smaller foods better than a microwave, and it's typically faster and more energy-efficient than a traditional oven. The Vortex Mini is among the most compact models we've tested, so it can't cook a ton of food at once, but we've found it to perform well for single servings and side dishes like french fries, tofu, pizza slices or roasted veggies. It has four preprogrammed buttons — air fry, bake, roast and reheat — and we generally found it simple to operate. Because it's only about a foot tall and nine inches wide, it doesn't take up much countertop space, nor is it a hassle to clean. All of this makes the Vortex Mini a decent accessory for those living in smaller spaces who mainly cook for themselves.

This deal comes as part of a couple of wider sales on Instant kitchen accessories at Amazon. If you're looking for a larger air fryer, the top pick in our guide, the six-quart Instant Vortex Plus, is on sale for $130, which is about $20 less than usual. If you're after an electric pressure cooker, meanwhile, the Instant Pot Pro is the upgrade pick in our Instant Pot buying guide, and it's back down to $130 as well.

Too often now it seems you'll be watching a movie or show only for the characters' conversations to be muffled by what's happening in the background. Sure, you can pick up the remote and raise the volume, but then everything increases, and eventually subtitles are needed to catch everything. Amazon is attempting to resolve this issue by rolling out a new Prime Video feature called Dialogue Boost, which lets you increase the volume of conversation relative to other sounds. 

It appears pretty easy to use as it lives right in the audio menu with Low to High boost available, depending on what you're looking for. Amazon also claims that Dialogue Boost should benefit anyone who is hard of hearing. 

Amazon

The AI-based technology works by isolating audio and enhancing speech volume in any scenes it determines that the background sound or music may overwhelm the dialogue. Of course, the tool is exclusive to Prime Video and, right now, is only on a select few Amazon-produced titles. You can test it out through any device with Amazon Originals like The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel and Harlem or movies like Being The Ricardos and The Big Sick. Program to program, the details page will let you know whether Dialogue Boost is available. 

Amazon plans to integrate Dialogue Boost across more titles later this year. 

I’ve thought a lot about composting. It was a daily part of life for five years when I lived off-grid. Granted, we were composting more than just food, but I got to know carbon/nitrogen ratios, ideal moisture levels, proper aeration and everything else that distinguishes a healthy compost pile from an unpleasant mass of rot. Now as a city dweller, I still believe in composting and continue to do it – but no longer in my backyard.

Each person in the US throws away about 200 pounds of food per year on average. Once it hits a landfill, food waste does bad stuff, like releasing methane and contributing to climate change, instead of good stuff, like improving the soil and acting as a carbon sink. Composting solves those problems, and many cities are starting to realize it helps them with waste management, too. Nine of the 20 largest metro areas in the US now have some form of residentialcompostservice, or will in the next year or so. But if you live elsewhere and want to stop putting your food scraps in the trash, it’s up to you. You have three main options: compost in your backyard, buy a machine or pay someone to do it for you.

How to compost at home

It’s tempting to think of composting as building a holder, throwing in food and coming back a few weeks later to something you can toss in your garden, but the reality requires much more time, space and effort. For me, the toughest part of composting was the consistency it required. At least a few times per week, any active compost pile needs tending, including adding to it, turning it, watering it in dry climates or shielding it from excess rain. In addition to time, home composting requires the space and materials to build the bins. You’ll also need a regular source of “brown” or carbon-rich materials like dried leaves, untreated paper, cardboard, sawdust or wood chips.

Plenty of people (with more knowledge than I) have put together how-tos on the subject. I followed The Mini Farming Guide to Composting, but these online guides will also serve you well:

• EPA: Offers a high-level overview of the process and includes a handy chart with examples of green and brown materials.

• ILSR: A more in-depth guide, complete with illustrations and the reasoning behind each step.

• NMSU: A science-rich reference with multiple methods and troubleshooting suggestions.

• Joe Gardener: A multi-page, highly detailed PDF from Joe Lamp’l, the host of PBS and DIY Network gardening shows.

Each source gives the same basic advice: build your bin, collect your food scraps, stockpile brown materials, maintain your ratios, monitor and amend moisture and aeration levels, then let a full heap finish for six to eight weeks (so yes, you generally need two piles).

As you can see, composting correctly isn’t as easy as chucking scraps into a bin and letting time handle the rest. Of course, if the process appeals to you (and it is pretty fascinating) that’s not a drawback. Gardeners in particular, who are out in the yard anyway, make excellent candidates for keeping up healthy piles — not to mention, they also have the most use for the finished product. People without yards, however, are out of luck (unless they’re comfortable hosting an indoor worm farm).

Photo by Amy Skorheim / Engadget

Kitchen composting machines

Calling them “composters” is a misnomer, since these devices don’t actually create compost – that requires microbial processes that take weeks. Instead, these appliances chop and dehydrate food, creating an odor-free material that’s substantially smaller in volume than what went in. You can even include meat and dairy – an advantage over home compost piles in which animal products are generally not recommended. As for what comes out, it can be added to your backyard pile, spread in your garden, added to houseplants or thrown in the green bin or trash – where it will take up less room and won’t stink anything up.

I haven't tested any of these devices, but after researching from the perspective of a fairly informed composter, here’s what I see as the pros and cons of a few of the more popular devices on the market.

Mill ($33 - $45 per month)

I like that Mill offers a solution for the substance it produces and that it’s large enough to hold the scraps an average family might generate over the course of a few weeks. Instead of buying the machine outright, you sign up for a subscription, which includes the Mill bin and UPS pickup for the “grounds” it creates. Add food throughout the day and the dehydration, chopping and mixing cycles run automatically each night. Once it's full, you empty the contents into a prepaid box and ship it to Mill who will then turn the grounds into food for chickens.

Mill is in the pre-order phase, and according to the FAQs, the company hasn't yet worked through the “scientific and regulatory processes” for producing chicken feed. The service also costs $45 per month, unless you pay annually, then it works out to $33 monthly.

Lomi ($369 - $749)

Lomi also chops and dehydrates your scraps. The unit is smaller than the Mill, so you’ll likely have to empty it every few days. It offers three modes, one of which, Grow Mode, uses small capsules of probiotics called Lomi Pods to create “plant food” in about 20 hours. Lomi suggests mixing the results with regular soil at a ratio of one to ten.

If you have a yard, it’s easy enough to add a little here and there to maintain the ratio, and if you’re an apartment dweller with houseplants you can mix small amounts into the soil. But the end product should only be used sparingly, like a fertilizer, so you’ll probably need to do something else with the excess. Lomi suggests giving the excess away or dropping it into your green bin if your city provides curbside compost pickup.

Vitamix FoodCycler ($400)

All of these devices are basically blenders with a heating element, so it makes sense that Vitamix has a unit on the market. The FoodCycler is smaller than the Lomi, so it’s probably best for households with one or two people. The results can be mixed sparingly into plants, added to your green bins or thrown out. Whichever way, the processed scraps will stink less, take up less space and won’t add more methane rot to a landfill.

Reencle ($700)

Reencle is larger like the Mill bin, and involves microorganisms in the process like Lomi. You can buy it outright or rent it for $30 per month, but that doesn’t include pickup for the results. I like that Reencle is, in essence, a living pile of fermentation, using low heat, grinders and a regenerating bacterial population to break down your food scraps.

Adding scraps daily “feeds” the pile, and when it’s full, you’re only supposed to remove about half of what’s in there, leaving the rest to breed more Bacilli. Again, the material works as a plant food or fertilizer, not like standard compost. Reencle recommends a byproduct-to-soil ratio of one part to four, and that you let the mixture sit for five days before adding to your monsteras and gardens.

Photo by Amy Skorheim / Engadget

Why you should consider a composting service

DIY home composting is a lot of work. Countertop machines are expensive and, from what users say, noisy and often unreliable. Both methods leave you to figure out what to do with the byproduct, whether it’s the finished compost from your bins or the dehydrated proto-compost from the appliances.

If you’re a gardener, you’re golden – compost makes plants happy. But I’ve tried farming and now I’d rather ride my bike to the burrito stand than grow my own food. Since I don’t live in a city that offers municipal curbside organics pickup, I pay for a local service and I recommend it.

Most subscription-based compost pick-up services work the same way: for a monthly fee, they provide you with a bucket and lid. You fill the bucket with leftovers and set it on your front porch/steps/stoop on pickup day. They collect your bucket, leaving you a fresh one on a weekly, bi-weekly or monthly basis. Scraps are then composted on a large scale and the results are sold to local farms or people in the community.

Each service has different rules about what you can add, but most let you throw all food and food-related items in the bucket (including meat, bones, dairy and fruit pits). You can also usually include coffee filters, pizza boxes, houseplants, BPI-certified compostable plastics and paper towels (without cleaning products on them). All services ask that you remove produce stickers and pull the staples from your teabags.

I have our pickup scheduled for every other Tuesday. Does two weeks’ worth of food in a bucket stink? It does. To help with that, we keep our bucket outside with the lid firmly on. I keep a canister on the countertop to fill with scraps throughout the day and empty it into the bucket when the canister is full or starts to smell. I also keep old food in the fridge until right before collection day.

Of course, these services aren’t available everywhere, and they cost $20 to $40 per month, so it’s not a universal solution. I pay $22 for a twice monthly pickup and I look at the cost in terms of time: I would spend more than two hours a month maintaining a compost pile, so if I value my labor at $12 per hour, which is my state’s minimum wage, the cost is worth it.

I like the little perks too, like getting a “free” bag of compost twice per year and having a place to drop off our yearly batch of jack-o-lanterns once the faces start caving in. I also know that some of what I put in eventually goes to the lavender farm up the road from me. That’s a much better end game for my avocado pit than being sealed up for eternity in a landfill.

A sampling of composting services in the largest US markets

Modern tech is making it easier for these services to pop up in more cities. Sign-up is done online and most payments are automatic. My driver told me they use the Stop Suite app to optimize their pickup routes, send out text reminders and handle other customer service functions. Composting may be old as dirt, but the way we’re creating it is brand new.

Of the 20 largest metro areas in the US, nine have or will have municipally-run compost collection programs. Each of the other eleven areas have at least one community composting service available. Here’s a list:

• New Jersey: Garden State Composting, Neighborhood Compost

• Chicago: WasteNot Compost, The Urban Canopy, Collective Resource Compost

• Dallas: Recycle Revolution, Turn Compost

• Houston: Moonshot Compost, Zero Waste Houston

• Washington DC: Compost Crew, Veteran Compost, Curbside Compost

• Philadelphia: Mother Compost, Circle Compost, Bennett Compost

• Atlanta: Awesome Possum Composting, Compost Now

• Miami: Compost for Life, Renuable

• Phoenix: R.City

• Detroit: Midtown Composting, Scrap Soils

• Tampa: Suncoast Compost

• Albuquerque (the service I use): Little Green Bucket

It’s almost time to once again gather ‘round a screen with YouTube access to learn about upcoming video games, as Nintendo has scheduled its next Indie World showcase. At noon ET tomorrow (April 19th), you’ll get to take a peek at some of the fresh indie games you might end up playing between The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom sessions.

Nintendo hasn’t given much away about what to expect. The stream will run for around 20 minutes and include “reveals, announcements and updates on indie games for Nintendo Switch.” We might, for instance, finally get more details on Oxenfree II, which was delayed to this year. It seems less likely that Hollow Knight: Silksong will make an appearance, since much of the recent news on that front has come from Xbox events. You never know, though!

Here’s hoping that the tradition of games popping up in an Indie World showcase and hitting the eShop on the same day continues. You’ll be able to watch the showcase below:

After debuting the first "1-inch" mobile camera sensor with the 12S Ultra last year, Xiaomi is back with a familiar-looking successor but with some significant upgrades. The new Xiaomi 13 Ultra packs not three but four rear Leica cameras, with the 23mm OIS (optical image stabilization) main camera using the same "1-inch" 50-megapixel Sony IMX989 sensor, but now with variable aperture to toggle between f/1.9 and f/4.0 for different artistic takes. 

The remaining three cameras do ultra-wide (12mm, f/1.8, 122-degree FOV), periscopic 5x zoom (120mm, f/3.0, OIS) and the new 3.2x zoom (75mm, f/1.8, OIS) for sharp portraits with more bokeh. These all use the new 50-megapixel 1/2.51-inch IMX858 sensor, which claims to offer the same noise reduction, all-pixel focus and DOL-HDR performance as its 1-inch cousin. If true, this would ensure a more consistent image quality across all four cameras, which had been a big challenge for smartphone makers previously. On the other side of the phone, the punch-hole selfie camera remains at 32 megapixels.

As with recent flagship phones, it comes as no surprise that the Xiaomi 13 Ultra is powered by Qualcomm's Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 processor, with up to 16GB of LPDDR5X RAM and up to 1TB of UFS 4.0 storage. The device also supports USB 3.2 with up to 5Gbps of transfer speed — 10x faster than the 12S Ultra — and up to 4K 60Hz of DisplayPort video output. The slightly larger 5,000mAh battery is complemented by a 90W charger, which reaches 100-percent charge in 35 minutes. You can also use it with Xiaomi's 50W wireless charger, when you're not in a rush. But if you do run out of juice, the new "Hibernation mode" can apparently stretch the final 1-percent battery into 60-minute standby or a 12-minute call, thanks to Xiaomi's very own P2 and G1 co-processors.

While the AMOLED display still comes in at 6.73 inches wide with the same 3,200 x 1,440 resolution, this time it's a new LTPO panel supplied by CSOT (a TCL subsidiary). This supposedly benefits from a new C7 luminous material with a more precise 12-bit color depth, along with a peak brightness of 2,600 nits (or up to 1,300 nits in high brightness mode), better viewing angles and lower power consumption. You get Dolby Vision support as well.

Xiaomi

As with its predecessor, the Xiaomi 13 Ultra features IP68 rating for dust- and water-resistance. In addition to its metallic unibody, the device also consists of a second-generation nano-tech material with anti-bacterial properties and UV resistance. Internally, it touts a new loop-shaped vapor cooling chamber, which uses multiple liquid channels to supposedly dissipate heat three times faster than a conventional design. This is mainly to keep the phone cool while shooting 4K videos. 

The company also implemented a dual-wing cellular antenna module, which apparently offers a 58-percent boost in signal reception across all bands. As a bonus, the symmetrical antenna layout should reduce interference from hands, and there's also a new dedicated 5G antenna which apparently boosts the n78 band's signal by 100 percent.

Xiaomi

The Xiaomi 13 Ultra is already available for pre-order in China, starting from 5,999 yuan (around $870) for the 12GB RAM with 256GB storage model, all the way to 7,299 yuan (around $1,060) for the 16GB RAM with 1TB storage option. Color-wise, you can choose between olive green, black and white. For an extra 799 yuan ($120), you can get the "Xiaomi 13 Ultra Professional Photography Kit" which includes a camera grip attachment (with a physical shutter button) and a special phone case — one that lets you attach the included 67mm filter ring adapter and lens cap.

Engadget understands that the Xiaomi 13 Ultra will reach international markets at some point (except for the white version, sadly), so stay tuned.

Samsung is replacing its Free app on Galaxy devices with a client that's more focused, if also a little familiar. The company is launching a beta News app that, somewhat like its Apple equivalent, concentrates on top headlines (here organized into morning and evening briefings) as well as customizable feeds. Unlike many other news apps, though, you can also listen to podcasts.

The app will reach US-based Galaxy hardware in the weeks ahead, and will automatically replace Free if it's already installed. You can otherwise download it from Samsung's Galaxy Store. The news will initially come from "trusted partners" that include Axios, Huffington Post (formerly a sibling brand of Engadget) and Sports Illustrated. More outlets and additional features are coming, Samsung says.

The change may create a few hassles. Free combined news with Samsung TV Plus channels and casual gaming. Now, you'll have to go to separate apps to access that content. However, the News app may be considerably more useful if you're catching up on the day's events, or want to listen to a recap during the commute home.

There's no mention of a paid service comparable to Apple News+, which offers access to some subscription-only news sources as well as magazines. However, the strategy isn't all that different. Samsung is shifting its attention to services at a time when the phone market is grim — you may be more likely to stick to your Galaxy phone (and pay for content on it) if services like News prove appealing.

I’ve been a notebook person for most of my life. I’ve had dozens of notebooks over the years that served as repositories for to-do lists, story ideas, messages jotted down during meetings and everything in between. But at a certain point in my adult life, I turned away from physical notebooks because it became easier to save all of those things digitally in various apps that were always available to me on my phone. I sacrificed tactile satisfaction for digital convenience, and a small part of me mourns for all of the half-filled notebooks I left in my wake.

For some like me, an E ink tablet may be the solution to those dueling impulses. They can combine the feeling of writing in a regular notebook with many of the conveniences of digitized documents. E ink tablets allow you to take all of your notes with you on one device, while also letting you scribble with a stylus just like you would with pen-and-paper. Unlike regular tablets and styli, though, E ink tablets are nowhere near ubiquitous — but there are just enough players in the game to make deciding which one to buy more complicated than you might think. We tested out a bunch of the most popular E ink tablets available now to see how well they work, how convenient they really are and which are the best available today.

Are E ink tablets worth it?

An E ink tablet will be a worthwhile purchase to a very select group of people. If you prefer the look and feel of an E ink display to LCD panels found on traditional tablets, it makes a lot of sense. They’re also good options for those who want a more paper-like writing experience (although you can get that on a regular tablet with the right screen protector) or a more distraction-free device overall.

The final note is key here. Most E ink tablets don’t have the same functionality as regular tablets, so you’re automatically going to be limited in what you can do. And even with those that do allow you to download traditional apps like Chrome, Instagram and Facebook, E ink tablets are not designed to give you the best casual-browsing experience. This is mostly due to the nature of E ink displays, which have noticeable refreshes, a lack of color and lower quality than the panels you’ll find on even the cheapest iPad.

Arguably the biggest reason why you wouldn’t want to go with an iPad (all models of which support stylus input, a plethora of reading apps, etc) is because it’s much easier to get distracted by email, social media and other Internet-related temptations. An e-reader is also worth considering if this is the case for you, but just know that most standard e-readers do not accept stylus input. If you like to make notes in the margins of books, underline and mark up PDFs and the like, an e-reader won’t cut it.

What to look for in an E ink tablet

I discovered four main things that can really make or break your experience with an E ink tablet during my testing; first is the writing experience. How good it is will depend a lot on the display’s refresh rate (does it refresh after every time you put pen to “paper,” so to speak?) and the stylus’ latency. Most had little to no latency, but there were some that were worse than others. Finally, you should double check before buying that your preferred E ink tablet comes with a stylus. Believe it or not, many of them require you to purchase the pen separately.

The second thing to consider is the reading experience. How much will you be reading books, documents and other things on this tablet? While you can find E ink tablets in all different sizes, most of them tend to be larger than your standard e-reader because it makes writing much easier. Having a larger display isn’t a bad thing, but it might make holding it for long periods slightly more uncomfortable. (Most e-readers are roughly the size of a paperback book, giving you a similar feeling to analog reading).

The supported file types will also make a big difference. It’s hard to make a blanket statement here because this varies so much among E Ink tablets. The TL;DR is that you’ll have a much better reading experience if you go with one made by a company that already has a history in e-book sales (i.e. Amazon or Kobo). All of the titles you bought via the Kindle or Kobo store should automatically be available to you on your Kindle or Kobo E ink tablet. And with Kindle titles, specifically, since they are protected by DRM, it’s not necessarily the best idea to try to bring those titles over to a third-party device. Unless the tablet supports reading apps like Amazon’s Kindle or the Kobo app, you’ll be limited to supported file types, like ePUB, PDF, MOBI, JPEG, PNG and others.

Third, most E ink tablets have some search features, but they can vary widely between models. You’ll want to consider how important it is to you to be able to search through all your handwritten notes and markups. I noticed that Amazon’s and Kobo’s E ink tablets made it easy to refer back to notes made in books and files because they automatically save on which pages you took notes, made highlights and more. Searching is less standardized on E ink tablets that have different supported file types, but their features can be quite powerful in their own right. For example, a few devices I tested supported text search in handwritten notes along with handwriting recognition, the latter of which allows you to translate your scribbles into typed text.

The final factor to consider is sharing and connectivity. Yes, we established that E ink tablets can be great distraction-free devices, but most manufacturers understand that your notes and doodles aren’t created in a vacuum. You’ll likely want to access them elsewhere, and that requires some form of connectivity. All of the E ink tablets I tried were WiFi devices, and some supported cloud syncing, companion mobile apps and the ability to export notes via email so you can access them elsewhere. None of them, however, integrate directly with a digital note taking system like Evernote or OneNote, so these devices will always be somewhat supplementary if you use apps like that, too. Ultimately, you should think about what you will want to do with the documents you’ll interact with on your E ink tablet after the tablet portion is done.

Best for most: reMarkable 2

The latest reMarkable tablet isn’t topping our list because it’s the most full-featured or even most interesting E ink tablet we tested. Rather, it provides the best mix of features people will find useful in a device like this. We’ll get into them all, but first, it’s worth mentioning build quality. The reMarkable 2 weighs less than one pound and is one of the sleekest E ink tablets we tried. It has a 10.3-inch monochrome digital paper display that’s surrounded by beige-colored bezels, with the chunkiest portion at the bottom edge where you’d naturally grip it. There’s a slim silver bezel on the left side, which attaches to accessories like the folio case and the new Type Folio keyboard. Hats off to reMarkable for making an E ink tablet that feels right at home with all of your other fancy gadgets.

Let’s start with the writing and reading experiences on the reMarkable 2, both of which are great. From the get go, scribbling, doodling and writing was a breeze. We tested out the Marker Plus, which has a built-in eraser, but both it and the standard Marker are tilt- and pressure sensitive pens, and require no batteries or charging. I observed basically no lag between my pressing down onto the reMarkable 2’s screen and lines showing up. The latency was so low that it felt the closest to actual pen-and-paper. But I will say that this is not unique among our top picks in this guide – almost all of the E ink tablets we tested got this very crucial feature right.

When it comes to reading, the reMarkable 2 supports PDFs and ePUBs, and you can add files to the device by logging into your reMarkable account on desktop or via the companion mobile app on your phone. You can also pair your Google Drive, Microsoft OneDrive or Dropbox account with your reMarkable account and access files that way as well. That should be good enough for anyone who, say, reads a lot of academic papers or reviews many documents for work. It’ll be harder for people who purchase their ebooks from online marketplaces like the Kindle or Kobo stores, but there are other options for those.

Another fun way to get documents onto the reMarkable 2 is via the Read with reMarkable extension for Google Chrome. After installing it and pairing your reMarkable account, you’ll be able to send articles you find online directly to your reMarkable 2 so you can check them out later. You can even customize these files to be sent as text only, which will let you change their format directly on your reMarkable, or as a PDF. Regardless of which you choose, you’ll be able to mark up these articles as you would any other file on the E ink tablet. I used this extension a lot and I did enjoy reading longform articles on the reMarkable 2 more than on my iPhone. Being able to underline, highlight and otherwise mark up those stories was more of a bonus than a necessity for me, but for others who glean sources from online materials will be better off for it.

Overall, it’s pretty easy to get files onto the reMarkable 2 and it is possible to access them
elsewhere when you may not be able to whip out the E ink tablet. Those with a reMarkable Connect subscription will have the best experience, and it’s a nice perk that you get a one-year membership when you buy one. The $3-per-month subscription provides the ability to edit existing notes and take new ones from anywhere using the desktop and mobile apps, plus unlimited cloud storage and syncing. On that last front, if you don’t pay for Connect, only “notes and documents synced online in the last 50 days” will be available in reMarkable’s companion apps. I suspect 50 days worth of document syncing will be enough for some, but not power-users. Putting the ability to take notes anywhere behind a paywall is a bit of a bummer no matter what and makes it much harder for anyone to use the reMarkable ecosystem as their main note-taking space.

That said, I kept most of my testing to the reMarkable 2 itself and was impressed by its ability to be a digital notebook without a steep learning curve. You can create different notebooks and “quick sheets” to organize your handwritten notes, and folders to make sense of imported files. You’ll find eight different brush types with which to mark up documents and take notes, along with various line thicknesses and “colors” (which just show up as shades on the tablet itself). You can even type wherever you want in a doc, and the reMarkable 2 can translate handwritten notes into machine-readable text with surprising accuracy.

It was no shock that the reMarkable 2 ended up having the best mix of features, along with a relatively low learning curve. The company was one of the first on the scene with a truly viable E ink tablet back in 2017, and they’ve been refining the experience ever since. But that comes at a cost – the reMarkable 2 isn’t the most expensive E ink tablet we tested, but it’s not cheap either. The tablet alone will set you back $299, and then you’ll have to shell out either $79 or $129 for the Marker or Marker Plus, respectively. In all, you’re looking at $430 for the best version of the reMarkable 2 you can get (and that assumes you skip the new $199 Type Folio Keyboard). You could get a 9th-gen iPad and the 1st-gen Apple Pencil for the same price and you’d have a more flexible duo, purely based on the capabilities of iOS.

But you’re probably not considering an iPad for a specific reason, whether that’s your love for E ink or the feeling of pen-to-paper writing, or you simply want a more distraction-free experience. If you’re looking for an E ink tablet that will not take ages to get used to, offers a stellar writing experience and makes it relatively simple to access notes elsewhere, the reMarkable 2 is your best bet.

Best e-reader E ink tablet: Amazon Kindle Scribe

You really have two options in this space: the Amazon Kindle Scribe and the Kobo Elipsa 2E. The Scribe edged out the Elipsa 2E purely because of its low-latency pen-and-screen combination. The Elipsa has its merits, which we’ll get into in a bit, but it just couldn’t compete with the Scribe when it came to a seamless and smooth handwriting experience.

We already gave the Kindle Scribe the full review treatment, and in general, I enjoyed it while testing it out for this guide, too. As mentioned, there’s little to no latency when writing on the Scribe with its companion pen. Thanks to the latest software update, you also have more brush types to choose from now, including fountain pen, marker and pencil, which add to the charm. Like other E ink tablets, the Scribe makes it easy to create multiple notebooks, and you can add pages to them and change up their templates if you wish.

As an e-reader, the Scribe shines not only thanks to its 10.2-inch display with auto-adjusting front lights, but also because you have Amazon’s entire ebook store at your fingertips. If you get most of your reading material from Amazon or subscribe to Kindle Unlimited, you’ll be able to jump right into all of your titles instantly on the Scribe. It’s also easy to get ebooks from your local library and read them on a Kindle. This will be crucial not only for voracious readers, but especially for students who buy or rent digital textbooks and those who consume books regularly for research purposes.

I thought about students a lot when using the Scribe. I started college in 2009, two years after the first Kindle was released and one year before the first iPad came out. Getting textbooks digitally really wasn’t an option for me – but I can understand the appeal a device like the Kindle Scribe would have for students. It’s arguably even better than a standard Kindle because its screen is bigger, which will make it less tiring to stare at for long periods of time. Adding the ability to take handwritten notes while you’re studying is icing on the cake.

However, Amazon’s execution of book notes is not my favorite. You actually cannot take notes in the margins of Kindle ebooks. Instead you press and hold the pen’s tip on the screen to highlight text or add a note to a particular word or phrase. If you do the latter, a window pops up on the bottom half of the screen where you can either take a handwritten note or type a text note using the Scribe’s mildly frustrating and sluggish on-screen keyboard.

This is where I give a nod to the Kobo Elipsa 2E, where you can write notes in the margins, underline, circle and otherwise mark up your reading material. It’s a more natural (and fun) experience since it mimics what you’d do if you were reading a physical book. It’s a shame that the latency on the Elipsa was just a hair more noticeable than that of the Scribe. If it weren’t for that, it might have beaten Amazon’s device here.

What that extra bit of latency translates to in practice is handwriting that can come out just a bit messier, and that increases precipitously the faster you write. But that also means that you’ll notice this the most when taking notes longhand on the Elipsa; if you’re primarily using an E ink tablet to mark up documents, it won’t affect you as much. Despite that, I did like the way Kobo executed notebooks on the Elipsa. You can have a standard notebook where you can write and scribble away, or an “advanced” notebook that supports handwriting-to-text conversion and inserting things like diagrams and formulas. Text conversion is actually pretty accurate, too, even when dealing with some of my ugliest handwriting.

Kobo also has a pretty sizable ebook marketplace, so it’s certainly a decent option if you want to stay clear of the Amazon ecosystem. But Amazon has the upper hand when it comes to price. The Kobo Elipsa 2E pack that includes its stylus is $399, while the 16GB Kindle Scribe with the premium pen (which includes dedicated eraser and shortcut buttons) comes in at $369. Even if you max out the Scribe with 64GB of storage, you’d only spend $20 more than you would on the Kobo Elipsa. That, combined with the Scribe’s strong overall performance and the ubiquity of Amazon’s ebook offerings will make it the better choice for most readers.

Best as a notebook: Supernote X

I spent a while testing all of these E ink tablets, and the Supernote X is the one I was consistently most excited to use. As a notebook nerd, I find this thing so cool. Available in 10.3-inch (what I tested) and 7.8-inch sizes, the Supernote X has a “FeelWrite” screen protector that has a different feel than a standard E ink screen. When writing on it with Heart of Metal Pen 2, which is weighty and looks like a fountain pen, you get a gel pen-like feel rather than the subtly scratchy vibe that other E ink tablets have. In fact, the Supernote X has one of the best writing experiences out of any tablet I tested.

The Supernote X supports a range of file types, including PDF, ePUB, Word (.doc), PNG and JPG, which really opens up the content you can put onto the thing. I wanted to see if I could treat it almost like a digital bullet journal, and that wasn’t hard to do. There are built-in page templates, but I was able to download daily, weekly and monthly planner templates online, resize them and move them onto the Supernote X using Android File Transfer. The device has a dedicated “MyStyle” folder where you can save files you want to use as templates. The most difficult part was making sure I had the dimensions right while resizing the documents. Once saved in the right folder, I could make an entire notebook out of the templates I had gotten from the internet for free.

Supernote does have its own “app store,” but there’s not much in there, and its Play Store offerings are limited to only the Kindle app. This device doesn’t have a backlight, so it won’t be easy to see in dark environments. But you can download Amazon’s ebook app and read just like you would on a standard tablet (no, you can’t mark up books here either).

Honestly, the last thing I wanted to do with the Supernote X was read, though. The device really shines as an E ink notebook and the company clearly put a lot of thought into “building a better mousetrap,” so to speak. You can translate handwritten words into typed text, but you don’t have to do that in order for the software to recognize your handwriting. There’s a keywords feature that lets you basically bookmark important phrases for quick access later. All you need to do is lasso the word, press the keyword button and the tablet’s software will translate your writing into typed text. Then you can add it as a keyword and quickly jump back to it from the left-side tablet of contents menu. Similarly, you can bookmark titles and add stars to pages that are important, all of which help you jump between important bits.

That said, the Supernote X sometimes felt a little inconsistent. The writing experience was top-notch, but there were other things that felt a little less polished. For example, you can swipe down on the right bezel to bring up a menu that lets you quickly navigate between favorited notes and recent documents – that’s quite thoughtful. But then the Files page just has a couple of starkly named folders like Export, Screenshot and Inbox that I didn’t touch once, and the pen sidebar has more options than most people will know what to do with (and none of them have text labels).

These are small nit-picks, but they go to show that the Supernote X might not be the best device for tech novices. There is a learning curve here, but notebook nerds like myself will be thrilled with all that the Supernote X has to offer. Unsurprisingly, all those advanced features come at a steep price: the A5-sized tablet with a folio and pen will set you back at least $532, making it the most expensive set on our list.

Honorable mention: Boox Note Air 2 Plus

If you removed some of the notebook-specific features from the Supernote X and added in a more complete version of Android 11, you’d get the Boox Note Air 2 Plus. Boox makes a number of interesting E ink tablets and the Note Air 2 Plus is the one that best compares to the others on our list thanks to its 10.3-inch display. This is an Android tablet with an E ink screen, so that means you can actually download Android apps like Kindle, Kobo and others. There’s even a web browser, and yes, you can watch videos on this thing, too.

Of course, just because you can do all of that doesn’t mean you should. E ink screens are truly best for reading and writing, so I didn’t spend much time binge watching YouTube on the Note Air 2 Plus – but I was happy that I had the freedom to do so. Really, the utility of Android comes in with the app store and I expect that most people will use it to download all of their favorite reading and writing apps. Much like a standard tablet, the Note Air 2 Plus will be a great option for anyone that gets their reading material from a bunch of different places — and since you can manually transfer documents from your computer to the device, too, it’s far-and-away the most versatile option on our list.

I experienced little to no latency when writing on the Note Air 2 Plus and I was happy with the number of brush options it has. Like the Supernote X, it comes with a bunch of page templates you can use, or you can bring in your own PDFs and other documents to use as templates. There’s an “AI recognition” feature that translates a whole page’s handwriting into typed text, and it’s actually pretty accurate. (Though, it did consistently confuse my “&” for a capital A). I also appreciated that you can add other kinds of material to your notes, including web pages and voice recordings, and share notes as PDFs or PNGs via email, Google Drive and other services. Features like those ensure that, with this partially analog device, you don’t miss out on some of the conveniences that a true digital notebook system would have.

Instead of going into all of the features the Note Air 2 Plus offers, I think it’s most useful to talk about the value of this device. A bundle with the tablet, a standard pen and a folio case comes in at $500, putting it on the higher end of the price spectrum among the devices we tested. But considering it’s a full Android tablet, that doesn’t seem absurd. Those who want to avoid distractions most of the time while still having access to email and a web browser might gravitate towards a device like this. Also, most of Boox’s devices operate in the same way, so you do have more affordable options if you like this blueprint. For example, the Boox Nova Air 2 is a 7.8-inch version of the Note Air 2 Plus, with slightly different RAM and storage specs to match, and its bundle comes in at $370.

AirPods are known for two things: playing good audio and going on sale. Today, Apple's premium earbuds are living up to one of them in big way after Woot slashed the first-generation AirPod Pros back to an all-time low from $249 to $159. That's a savings of $90 (or 36 percent), but be quick because the deal is for today only.

If you don't care too much about having the latest model, this price drop puts the AirPod Pros around the cost of the standard third-generation AirPods. The big benefit of these headphones is their impressive active noise cancelling (ANC) feature, which makes them good for travel, but also calls. They also have IPX4 water resistance, so you can go on a nice Spring jog without worrying about sweat bothering them. Then there's the benefit of hands-free Siri access, so you can make calls, send messages and turn on alarms without having to dig deep into any bags for your phone. 

The first-gen AirPod Pros last about five hours per use and give you 24 hours of battery life with the case, which gives you the option to wirelessly charge. If you do happen to have some extra cash and could maybe spring for the second-generation AirPod Pros, Amazon has them priced at $200, a savings of $50 (or 20 percent).

Follow @EngadgetDeals on Twitter and subscribe to the Engadget Deals newsletter for the latest tech deals and buying advice.

Two weeks ago, Netflix confirmed it would livestream the Love Is Blind season four reunion. But when the time came, first it was delayed, then, after an hour, Netflix pulled the plug. The streaming service soon tweeted an apology and aired the reunion yesterday.

This was only Netflix's second attempt at livestreaming. Its first, Chris Rock's comedy special Selective Outrage, aired live in March. But Netflix edited his material about being hit by Will Smith at the Oscars. Rock got a film name wrong in a punchline when performing live and corrected himself mid-delivery. The streaming service subsequently cut around the hiccup. Netflix also owns the rights to stream the Screen Actors Guild Awards live, next year, which should give it enough time to fix those technical difficulties.

– Mat Smith

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