If you've been waiting on a sale for Apple's second-generation AirPods Pro, that patience has paid off. Amazon is offering them at the lowest price we've seen yet, $230 or $19 (8 percent) off the regular $249 price tag. While not an enormous price cut, it's a great deal on Apple's best wireless ANC buds, considering they only came out in September.
While they don't look too different from the original AirPods Pro, the new models have some notable improvements that helped them garner a solid 88 score in our Engadget review. The biggest change is the new H2 chip that delivers improved noise cancellation and longer battery life. Audio quality is also improved, as is integration with Apple products, letting you switch seamlessly between an iPhone and MacBook, for example. They also come with new touch controls for easier operation.
They're not perfect, as battery life could still be better despite the improvements from before, and the touch controls take a while to master. Also, they're really designed for Apple products, so Android users might need to look elsewhere. Still, the 2022 AirPods Pro are some highly desirable wireless ANC earbuds and this is the best price we've seen to date.
If you’re looking to buy additional storage for your PC or PlayStation 5, you don’t have to wait until Black Friday to score a deal on some of the best solid-state drives on the market. Ahead of Thanksgiving, Amazon is holding a sale on Samsung storage gear, including the company’s excellent NVMe models. PS5 owners will want to turn their attention to the Samsung 980 Pro. After a 53 percent discount, the 2TB model with heatsink is $190, down from $400. It’s the perfect plug-and-play upgrade for Sony’s latest console, meeting all the compatibility and cooling requirements set out by the company.
Amazon has also discounted the non-heatsink versions of the 980 Pro and 970 Evo. The latter is the highlight here. At the moment, you can grab the 2TB model for $160, rather than $500. The 500GB is also discounted by 54 percent, making it $60 at the moment. Both the 980 Pro and 970 Evo are great options if you want to add a fast Gen4 NVMe to your PC – just make sure you have a compatible motherboard and processor. If you want to give life to an older PC, Samsung’s excellent SATA SSDs are included in the sale.
Those looking for portable storage are also in luck. The 1TB and 2TB versions of the T7 Shield are currently 44 and 48 percent off, respectively. That means you can get the more expensive model for $150, and the 1TB variant for a record low of $90. Best of all, all three colorways – blue, black and biege – are included in the sale. The T7 Shield is an Engadget favorite. The combination of USB 3.2 Gen 2 support and IP65-certified protection make it a great option for anyone who wants a fast and reliable backup solution.
One last product worth highlighting is the Samsung EVO Select microSD. Amazon has discounted all four models, with the 512GB variant receiving the largest price cut. After a 47 percent discount, you can get that version for $45. It typically retails for $85. The EVO Select microSD is a great option for those looking to beef up their Nintendo Switch with fast storage. Make sure to check out the rest of the sale to see if there's something else that might fit your needs.
Little more than two after hitting store shelves, Apple’s 10th-generation iPad is on sale with a discount that makes it much easier to recommend the tablet. B&H has discounted the base 64GB model with WiFi to $399. The catch is that the deal only applies to the blue colorway. If you don’t mind the choice of color, you’ll want to act fast as the promotion ends tomorrow evening – or, more likely, when supplies quickly run out.
The 10th-generation iPad features several upgrades over its predecessor, but a more expensive price tag and odd design decisions make it less of a straightforward purchase. Engadget Deputy Editor Nathan Ingraham gave the tablet a score of 85, praising Apple’s decision to include a landscape-oriented front-facing camera and USB-C charging. The iPad’s fast A14 Bionic processor was also a highlight, as was the more than 10 hours of battery life he found he could get out of the device. However, the fact the new model is $120 more expensive and only compatible with the first-generation Apple Pencil means it lands in an awkward place among Apple’s other tablets. At $399, those flaws are easier to overlook.
Google will begin rolling out a software update early next week to address an issue with its recently released Nest WiFi Pro mesh router system. In a statement the company shared with The Verge, it said it was “investigating reports of a small number of users experiencing reduced internet speeds” when using the device, adding it was “working to roll out a fix.”
On paper, the Nest WiFi Pro is capable of supporting speeds of up to 5.4Gbps when connected with other WiFi 6E-compatible devices. However, shortly after the system went on sale on October 27th, reports began emerging on the Google Nest Community forums that the Nest WiFi Pro was limiting some to speeds between 40Mbps and 90Mbps. In many instances, those same users found their old WiFi 5 Nest mesh routers were outperforming the new device in speed tests.
It’s worth noting not everyone is seeing slower-than-expected speeds through their Nest WiFi Pro. Google told The Verge the issue is mostly affecting users in the United Kingdom with point-to-point protocol over ethernet (PPPoE) networks. That said, there have also been reports of users in the US and other parts of Europe seeing similarly poor performance.
You might think retailers would be holding their collective breath before the sales frenzy of Black Friday kicks in, but we found some pretty impressive deals on late-model tech this week. Apple's AirPods Pro dropped to a new low, while the Apple Watch SE with cellular cut $40 off the sticker price. Gamers looking for an entry point into the latest gear can get the base model Razer Blade 15 for a great discount, and there's a Friday-only deal on an Xbox Series X. We also found discounts on fitness trackers from Fitbit and Garmin smartwatches. Here are the best tech deals from this week that you can still get today.
Apple AirPods Pro (2nd gen)
Billy Steele/Engadget
As Apple's newest flagship buds, we were surprised to see a discount on the second-gen AirPod Pros this week. They're down to $234, which is the lowest we've seen them to date. We gave them a score of 88 in our review back in September, impressed by the full, immersive sound and what our reviewer called the "best transparency mode you’ll find on earbuds." Our tests gave a bit over six hours using a mix of active noise cancellation (ANC), transparency mode and calls. The AirPods Pro are among the best buds out there, and it's great to see them finally offering a discount.
When we reviewed the latest release of the Apple Watch SE, we said Apple's most affordable smartwatch was "the best smartwatch for the money." Right now Amazon is offering $39 off the list price for the cellular-enabled model. That brings it down to $289 and matches the lowest price we've seen so far.
We thought the newest Apple Watch SE deftly combined affordability with a comprehensive suite of features. We liked the easy-to-read screen, even in bright daylight and the comfortable, lightweight design. Since it uses the same S8 SiP advanced dual-core processor as the Apple Watch 8 and Ultra, its quick and snappy in its responsiveness. While it doesn't have the new temperature sensor that was added to the Series 8, it still does a great job of tracking your hear rate and other activities. We were also impressed with the way it looks pretty indistinguishable from the Series 8.
The cellular model adds even more connectivity, adding the ability to take on calling and texting duties even when you leave your iPhone at home.
Razer's Blade 15 made the cut as our favorite premium option in our gaming laptop guide and right now the base model Blade 15 is $250 off the list price, bringing it down to $1,550. The premium configuration got a review score of 86 and while that model is geared towards the gaming elite (and hasn't budged from it's lofty $3,700 price), this base model offers the quality build Razer Blade laptops are known for. This one's got plenty of features more casual gamers will appreciate, like dual graphics cards, a 15.6-inch full HD with a 144Hz refresh rate and 16GB of dual-channel RAM and 512GB of SSD storage.
It's been out less than a month and already the 11-inch iPad Pro has received its first discount. Both Amazon and B&H have knocked $50 off the list price of the 128GB model. That makes it $749, which still isn't cheap, but if you want to see for yourself the responsiveness of the new M2 chip and the improved battery life, may as well do so while keeping $50 in your pocket. There's also the addition of the app-organizing Stage Manager, which helps you take full advantage of what the iPad Pro can handle. This discount only applies to the Space Gray colorway, but if you're planning on using a case, color's not an issue.
The GoPro Hero 11 is usually a steep $500, but this week, GoPro is offering their newest action camera for $350 when you sign up for a one-year GoPro subscription. The subscription gets you things like auto uploads and unlimited backups on the cloud, plus discounts on products at the GoPro website and camera replacement. We found a lot to love about the Hero11 in our review, including admiration for the new taller sensor. It not only allows for a better horizon lock, but lets you record in "full frame," a mode that captures all possible action then allows you to crop it for different venues after the fact. For example, cropping to 16:9 for YouTube and 9:16 for TikTok. If you're subscription-averse, Amazon has the camera for $50 off the list price.
If you don't already own a smart TV, the Chromecast 4K with Google TV is one of the most affordable ways to turn virtually anything with an HDMI port into a powerful streaming device. Right now, Amazon has the dongle-and-remote combo on sale for just $40, which matches its all-time low price. We gave it a score of 86 when it debuted, particularly impressed by the intuitive remote and the Google Assistant integration, meaning it basically turns your TV into a smart home hub, with control over Assistant-enabled smart home devices.
We also liked the HD version of Chromecast with Google TV when we tried it out. If you've got an HD 1080p TV or monitor, the 4K version is probably overkill. You can pick up the HD version for $10 off list price, making it just $18 — possibly the lowest price you'll find on anything "smart."
There's a good chance "more exercise" is on your 2023 to-do list, which makes this deal on a Fitbit Charge 5 a right on time. The discount brings the price down to just $100 from its usual price of $150. That's not the lowest we've ever seen, but its still a great price. The Charge 5 is our current favorite fitness tracker thanks to its reliable delivery of sleep and activity stats. It's got GPS to record your runs and hikes, and Fitbit play for in-store payments so you can leave your wallet at home when you run. And since it's not a smartwatch, the battery lasted over five full days in our review, in which we awarded the wearable a score of 82.
Garmin's fenix 7 Series smartwatches have long battery lives, a slew of sensors and comprehensive GPS tracking capabilities — but they aren't cheap. MSRPs range between $700 for the smaller fenix 7S and $900 for the largest and solar-powered fenix 7X Solar. The current sale at Wellbots takes $100 off every model. And if you enter the code ENGWATCH15 at checkout, you'll get an additional $15 off. The battery on the fenix 7S can last up to 11 days in smartwatch mode, while the fenix 7X Solar can get a full month with regular exposure to the sun.
Garmin also makes a slightly more affordable GPS smartwatch in the Instinct 2 and Instinct 2 Solar Edition. Those are currently $50 off as well, bringing the price down to $300 and $400, respectively. Use the same code and you'll score $15 extra off of those models too.
If you have newer versions of a Mac Studio, Mac Pro, Mac Mini or even a MacBook, you might want to keep the display in the family and go with the Apple Studio Display. Only trouble is, Apple's latest screen costs $2,000 for the model with height and tilt adjustments, and $1,600 for tilt adjustment only. To lessen the blow, B&H has the tilt-only model for $100 off and the height-and-tilt-adjustable model for $200 off, bringing them down to a . In our review of the Studio Display, we thought the speakers were impressive and the image quality of the 5K panel really popped.
We thought the deal on SanDisk's 1TB Extreme Portable SSD was great when it was $109. Now that Amazon has it for $99, it's the lowest we've ever seen and 66 percent off its $250 list price. This is a good opportunity to up the time to up your storage capacity with a solid state drive (SSD) you can take anywhere. The tough exterior can handle falls from over six feet and shrugs off a heavy rainfall (or splash from your spilled soda). Once you plug it into your computer or phone using the included USB-C cable, you'll get data transfer speeds of 1GB per second. It comes with optional 256‐bit AES password protection and a built-in carabiner cut out to strap it to your pack.
We named the Lenovo IdeaPad Flex 5i the best overall pick in our guide to the best Chromebooks. Right now Amazon is taking 30 percent off the prices for both the 128GB model and the 256 model, bringing them down to $300 and $330, respectively. When we tested out he Flex 5i, our reviewer Nathan Ingraham said it was the best Chromebook option for most people thanks to its bright 1080p touchscreen, 11th generation Intel Core i3 processor and 8GB of RAM. It's got an eight-hour battery life and the screen folds open to create either a tent or all the way back to create a tablet experience.
Right now Amazon has the Wonderboom 3 portable speaker from Ultimate Ears for up to 20 percent off, depending on the colorway, with a light gray hue seeing the biggest deal. That's the lowest this small-but-mighty speaker has gone yet and a great buy if you want something tough you can take outdoors.
The speaker is compact, clocking in just shy of 15 ounces, but it delivers full, 360-degree sound. If you do take it outside, outdoor mode will boost the treble and bass so you can hear it farther afield. A strong IP67 rating means it can handle submersion in water for up to 30 minutes and shrugs off most of the dirt and dust you'll find in the wild. It made our list of recommended audio gifts and is a good deal even at its usual $99 price tag. Keep in mind, the Amazon listing includes the Wonderboom 2 speaker on the same page and the discount only applies to the newer Wonderboom 3, with savings of up to $20.
We called Apple's newest MacBook Air a "near-perfect Mac" when it came out in July, and right now it's $150 off at both Amazon and B&H. That matches the lowest price we've seen so far. This is the base model of the ultraportable, with 8GB of RAM and 256GB of SSD memory. And it only applies to the space gray and silver colorways at Amazon. If you want a little bit more storage, Amazon is also knocking $150 off of the 8GB RAM/512GB SSD configuration in all four colorways.
We gave the M2 MacBook Air a score of 96 earlier this year, giving enthusiastic props for the gorgeous, razor-thin design, the bright, 13.6-inch Liquid Retina screen, and a battery that lasted 16 hours and 30 minutes in our tests. One of our few caveats, other than the lack of Pro Motion, was the price. Now that you can pocket $150, it's a little easier to take.
Google's Nest Learning Thermostat is one of the better smart thermostats you can buy, and right now Wellbots has a discount code that knocks $70 off the price. When you enter THERMOENG at checkout, it brings the price down to $179, which isn't the lowest it's ever been, but beats many of the discounts we've seen recently. As a smart device, the Nest Learning Thermostat links up to your phone via the app, allowing you to control the thermostat from anywhere. In time, the Nest gradually learns your temperature preferences, allowing it to then automate your home's heading and cooling schedule with minimal input on your end. There are eco settings indicated by a green leaf, that let you know when you're optimizing your energy usage. It can even detect when no one's home and set the temps accordingly, so you're not overly heating or cooling an empty house.
If $179 still feels a bit steep, Google also makes a lower-end model called the Nest Thermostat. The lack of "learning" in the product name tells you the main difference between the two devices. The base model doesn't learn your preferences, but it retails for just $130.
Keeping an eye on your package deliveries just got easier with 40 percent off the Ring Video Doorbell. The discount brings the Ring down to $60, which is lower than we saw on Prime Day in July when the price dropped by just 25 percent. This is the most recent model of the standard video doorbell from Ring, released in 2020. It sends 1080p video to your connected device, and offers the ability to both speak to and hear whoever's at your door with its built in mic and speaker. You can set it up to send pings to you whenever motion is detected if you so desire and it runs on either a rechargeable battery or your existing doorbell wiring.
Right now Amazon is also pairing up the Ring in a bundle with an Echo Show 5, so you can keep tabs on your front door with the smart display. Together they're $70, which means you save $40 on the video doorbell and pay just $10 more for the display.
No one loves a dead phone, and Apple's MagSafe battery makes sure that never happens. At less than a year old, the brand's only battery pack is usually $100, and we don't see it getting a ton of discounts. This is the best deal we've seen so far at just $71 or 28 percent off. Small enough to carry in a pack or purse, the diminutive block snaps onto the back of your iPhone for on-the-move refills, and you can use your phone as it charges. While your mileage may vary, published specs say you'll get a 70 percent fill for smaller phones like the iPhone 12 or 13 mini, and 40 percent on bigger models like the iPhone 14 Pro Max. If you need to charge both the battery pack and your iPhone at the same time, you can, provided you use a 20W or higher power adapter. While we don't know whether the price will drop further for Black Friday, this deal beats all of last year's discounts.
Right now, and today only, Target is offering Apple's HomePod mini for just $80. That's a 20 percent discount and the lowest price we've tracked so far, which probably explains the limited-time, Friday-only deal. The smart speaker is geared towards a home that's already steeped in the Apple ecosystem, and if you like the way Siri handles your commands, this is a good time to bring home Apple's only home hub. It'll take voice commands from up to six different people in your home, seamlessly works with other Apple devices and works as an intercom when there's more than one.
When we reviewed the tiny smart speaker upon its debut in 2020, we liked the dead-simple setup and the responsive way Siri controls the music. That said, we did note that the sound quality was much better when there were two speakers paired up. Now that you can score a 20 percent discount, getting two might just be an option.
As a reward for those of you who read to the bottom of lists, here's Adorama's one-day-only sale on the Xbox Series S console. The $50 discount brings the $300 console down to just $250, which is at least $25 less than we've tracked so far. In our review, senior editor and video game expert Jessica Conditt called it a next-gen starter pack, praising the cute aesthetics and incredibly smooth gameplay.
The big differences between the Series X and the Series S is storage capacity and 4K gameplay. The Series X offers a solid 1TB of SSD space and 4K gaming. The Series S tops out at 512GB of storage and has a native resolution of 1440p. Also note that the Series S is digital only, as in you can't insert any physical game discs. That said, the Xbox Series X goes for over $500, granted you can find it. For those who want the smooth and fast play of a the latest generation Xbox, this might be the lowest price you see.
Apple's MagSafe Battery Pack is exactly what it says on the tin: a portable battery that snaps to the back of an iPhone through Apple's MagSafe magnetic charging tech and charges the handset wirelessly. The battery is a tougher sell at full price, but today it's available for $71, which marks the lowest price we've seen to date. For reference, Apple typically sells the device for $99, though its average price online has sat closer to $90 in recent months.
The MagSafe Battery Pack works with any iPhone 12, 13, or 14 model, and using it is as simple as slapping it on the back of one of those devices and letting it do its thing. You don't have to press any additional buttons to start the charge, unlike many third-party competitors. Design wise, it's a slim, matte plastic rectangle that's designed to match the dimensions of an iPhone 12 or 13 mini, so it'll fit entirely within the back of a larger device like the iPhone 14 Pro Max.
Because this is an Apple-made product, it's also able to integrate with an iPhone in ways competing MagSafe batteries can not. You can see the pack's charge level through iOS's Control Center and Batteries widget, for instance, and you can reverse-charge the battery itself from your iPhone when the latter is plugged in. By default, the pack will only charge your phone to around 90 percent to better preserve its efficiency, though you can turn that off if you wish.
If you have a 20W or higher charger and a USB-C to Lightning cable, you can also turn the MagSafe Battery Pack into a 15W wireless charging puck, which gives it a bit of utility when you aren't out of the house. Unfortunately, and perhaps expectedly, Apple doesn't include a cable or power brick in the box, but that's less of a problem if you already own both of those for your iPhone. (If you don't, our guide to the best fast chargers may be of interest.)
When it comes to actually charging your iPhone, the MagSafe Battery Pack is a bit more compromised. Part of that is just due to the nature of wireless charging; the tech has improved over the years, but if you want the fastest charge possible, a cable with a traditional battery pack will usually be quicker to top things off. But the capacity of the MagSafe Battery Pack itself is fairly small at 1,460mAh (or 11.13Wh), so it can only charge a standard iPhone 14 to about 60-65 percent from zero.
We've recommended Anker's 622 Magnetic Battery as a good alternative to the MagSafe Battery Pack in the past; that one has a larger 5,000mAh (19.25Wh) capacity that can get closer to a 80-85 charge on the same phone. It also costs less than Apple's pack even with the latter on sale, has a built-in kickstand, and comes in a wider variety of colors. (The MagSafe Battery Pack is only available in white.) It's not designed as neatly for iPhones and lacks the extras noted above, but it's a better value if you just want more power from a compact MagSafe pack. Anker's 633 Magnetic Battery, meanwhile, has an even greater capacity, albeit in a thicker frame.
Still, since their charging abilities limited, MagSafe packs like these are best thought of as battery extenders, things can use to fill up your phone in a pinch, more than full-on battery packs. For that, the MagSafe Battery Pack is fine, particularly since Apple released a firmware update earlier this year that boosted the pack's charging rate from 5W to 7.5W, which is still slower than using a cable but matches the Anker models above. If you can live with the lesser capacity and know you'll value some of its more iPhone-friendly features, it should be easier to justify at this deal price.
Microsoft hasn't been shy about wanting to improve the repairability of Surface devices, and that now includes the availability of spare parts. In a statement to iFixit, Microsoft says it plans "broad availability" of parts for individuals and independent repair shops in the first half of 2023. You can also expect complete repair manuals for the Surface Pro 9 by the end of this year. A wider repair network will be available in early 2023 with the help of a "major US retailer."
That improved stance is reflected in the company's latest designs. Microsoft says repairability was a "major focus" in the Surface Pro 9's construction, and iFixit has confirmed as much in its independently run teardown of the Windows tablet. The user-accessible SSD is just the start. The battery is screwed in rather than glued, and the display is easier to remove when you're digging into the internals. This is the "most repairable" Surface yet, according to iFixit, and a sharp contrast with the notoriously difficult-to-fix builds of the past.
This isn't the first time Microsoft has made nods toward do-it-yourself repair. The Surface Laptop 3 was easier to open, and even the extra-slim Surface Pro X had a user-replaceable SSD. iFixit also warns that it can't truly judge the Surface Pro 9's repairability until the manuals and parts are available. The RAM is still soldered on, too, even if it might offer added performance and energy savings as a result. This is a large step in the right direction, but not the definitive solution.
As with similar efforts by Apple, Google, Samsung and others, Microsoft isn't acting strictly out of kindness. The tech industry is facing pressure from federal and state governments to improve repairability, including through "Right to Repair" legislation that requires access to components, documents and diagnostics. If Microsoft didn't make the Surface lineup easier to fix on its own, governments might have stepped in.
My first “adult” TV was a 200-pound CRT monstrosity that lived inside an even more monstrous, 300-pound cabinet with doors. After that, I upgraded to a monitor-and-laptop setup that stowed in the hidey compartment of my coffee table. The thing is, I loathe black mirrors; the blank void that stares out when a TV is off creeps me out. (I blame The Ring.) I decided all screens had to stay hidden if I wasn’t actively watching them and just avoided a wall-mounted TV altogether – until the market came up with one that looks like art when it's off.
Samsung’s The Frame came out in 2017. I bought a 43-inch model back in 2019 and have been a big fan ever since. On the inside, it’s a thoroughly serviceable smart TV with a QLED panel and Samsung’s Tizen OS (which the company just licensed for use with non-Samsung TVs). The picture is bright, the sound is clear, and Tizen is easy to figure out – but I forked over $800 for the namesake feature.
The Frame does a great job of looking like art hanging on my wall. The thin panel has picture-frame edges and mounts flat against the wall, like a giant photo. The panel connects via a thin wire to an external receiver/port hub/tuner box combo, which means you can actually drop the wire behind the drywall and have it pop out elsewhere, furthering the illusion that there’s nothing electronic going on here. The brick walls of my old house aren’t letting that happen, so I hide the wire behind a plant.
Amy Skorheim
As for the effect, I’ve had people come over who asked me whether we had a TV at all, standing just a couple feet from The Frame. It’s fun to turn it on and witness their total surprise. I will say I’m jealous of the latest models, which have an anti-reflective matte finish that I wish my older model had. I think it enhances the effect.
The Frame’s elegant hardware is a perk, but the other important factor in the art-not-TV illusion comes from Samsung’s Art Store, an $8 monthly subscription that grants access to a ton of art to display. There are collections from the Louvre (though picking a Vermeer to hang on your wall might stretch credulity) as well as the Museum of Fine Arts Budapest, Etsy, Life Picture Collection, Saatchi Art, van Gogh Museum Amsterdam, BBC Earth, Magnum photos and lots more. I tend to go with abstracts and modern photography, and my kid likes the illustrations and wildlife photos.
But if you (understandably) have subscription fatigue from the 25 different services you pay for and don’t want to add another to the list, the included “Samsung collection” offers 10 artworks for free. You can also use your own images if you prefer (just make sure they’re large format or they’ll look pixelated). Personally, I’ve never tried using my own images; I leave art to the professionals.
Amy Skorheim
I like to swap out the image a couple times a month, and can easily kill an hour picking the next piece of art to grace my walls. There’s an option that’ll rotate through all images in a collection, automatically switching at regular intervals, from every 10 minutes to once a week. I firmly believe adding a mat to the image makes it look more real. After you pick the image you want to display, you have the option of selecting no mat, a modern mat or a shadowbox mat. Both mats come in ten different colors, but I’ve never found anything that beats the antique white color in the modern mat option.
Considering the Frame is technically always-on, you may have reservations about the TV’s energy usage. In art mode, Samsung says a 65-inch Frame consumes about 50 watts of power. I’ve personally made a series of changes in life – downsizing square footage, trading a car for an e-bike, cutting out meat, etc. – to ease my carbon footprint, and I allow myself this minor indulgence. But if that aspect weighs on you, you could even consider the same carbon offsets people buy when they fly.
Plus, there are a couple of features that make sure the Frame isn’t always on. With Night Mode, the TV shuts itself off when the lights go out. Then in the morning, after sensing light again, it turns the art back on. You can also set it to detect when there’s motion in the room, turning off when no one’s around. When I tried this, my model kept turning off and never sensing motion again, despite me doing jumping jacks right in front of it, so I opted to disable that feature. The same sensors that detect darkness and (theoretically) movement also adjust the brightness of the image, so it never looks too intense, a trait that keeps things looking more like a framed oil painting and less like a TV. Which, for me, is the whole point.
Magic Leap's glasses were supposed to lead us into the augmented reality era, a world beyond screens where we could interact with digital objects as if they were standing right next to us. Too bad they failed spectacularly. By early 2020, the company had raised nearly $2 billion. But aside from a few flashy demos and wild art projects, there wasn't much of a reason for anyone to buy a $2,295 headset (it reportedly only sold around 6,000 units). Like Google Glass before it, Magic Leap felt like a false start for AR, a solution to a problem that didn't exist.
But the company isn't dead yet. With a new CEO onboard — former Microsoft executive Peggy Johnson — it's aiming for something far more practical: AR for the enterprise. That may seem like a retread of the HoloLens playbook, which has focused on business customers for years, but Magic Leap has a shot at giving Microsoft some serious competition with its second-generation AR glasses.
Devindra Hardawar/Engadget
The $3,299 Magic Leap 2 (ML2), which launched in September, is easier to wear, far more powerful and it offers a dramatically larger (and taller) AR field of view than any headset we've seen before. It has the unique ability to dim its display, allowing you to block out light and focus more on virtual objects. And it should be easier for developers to work with, thanks to a new Android-based OS. While it's still unclear if the company's new business plan will pay off, ML2 is still a significant achievement, especially now that Meta is also pushing into similar AR-like territory with the $1,500 Quest Pro.
"It's been a long struggle," Magic Leap SVP and head of hardware Kevin Curtis said in an interview with Engadget. "When we came out of ML1, we learned a tremendous amount... Not just technically, but also from a market point of view. So that really was used to set the goals for ML2."
Some of those goals seemed impossible at the time. The company wanted to double the field of view (FOV) — the amount of screen area where you can actually see AR objects — as well cut the device's volume in half. Those moves would make its sequel headset even more immersive, while also being more comfortable for extended wear. According to Curtis, bumping up the field of view from 50 degrees to 70 degrees with ML1's projector and eyepiece technology would have required wearing something as large as an open hand. That's not exactly doable all day.
Magic Leap
Magic Leap spent years exploring existing forms of projection, including laser-scan based systems, uLED arrays and LCoS (liquid crystal on silicon), but found them all lacking. Instead, it developed its own custom architecture, which uses LCoS together with LED RGB light modules and a complex system of concentrators and polarizers to bring images to your eyes. That works together with a new eyepiece design to achieve its lofty 70 degree field of view.
But what does that actually mean? The Magic Leap 1 headset featured a FOV of 50 degrees, which made it seem as if you were viewing AR through a car's cramped rear window. (That was comparable to HoloLens 2's 52 degrees of viewing.) With Magic Leap 2, the company hit a 70 degree FOV by increasing the vertical viewing area, allowing you to see taller objects without moving your head up and down. During my brief demo, it felt more like standing in front of an open doorway.
Magic Leap
That's more akin to how you view things in real life, according to Curtis, and it goes a long way towards convincing you the AR objects you're seeing are real. I've tried a wide variety of headsets over the years (including the defunct entry from the startup Meta, which existed long before Facebook's name change), and the Magic Leap 2 is the first one that's delivered a genuine sense of presence. Whether I was viewing a large piece of medical equipment, or an expansive 3D model of downtown San Diego, I had to try hard to see the edges. It was almost aggressively immersive.
The new projection technology also helped Magic Leap achieve its goal of reducing ML2's volume by more than half, leading to a 20 percent weight drop (it clocks in at just 260 grams, slightly more than half a pound). The result is a pair of AR glasses that feel more like, well, glasses. While the original headset looked like a pair of enormous ski goggles, ML2 has flatter lenses and slimmer arms, making you seem less like a bug-eyed dork and more like an engineer or surgeon gearing up for a big project. (It's no wonder Magic Leap gave health startups a headstart with access to its new hardware and software.)
All of this custom development will also help Magic Leap deliver better headsets down the line. The company claims its eventual Magic Leap 3 glasses, which have no release date yet, will lose another 50 percent in volume and deliver a larger field of view. The technology can potentially be scaled beyond 80 degrees, allowing you to view a building-sized object unencumbered by any AR boundaries.
As I started demoing the Magic Leap 2 in a brightly lit hotel meeting room, it was mostly what I expected: A more comfortable and higher quality version of its predecessor. But at one point, I hit a button and the screen started to go dark, as if a shadowy cloud was blotting out the sickly fluorescent lights above me. I had flipped on the headset's global dimmer, which darkens the real world to better highlight virtual objects. The result is an almost VR-like experience. The virtual map I was viewing, which showed how first responders were dealing with wildfires in Colorado, all of a sudden looked sharper and more colorful. I wasn't distracted by the boring meeting desk in front of me, or the occasional bystander walking by.
Every AR solution adds light, Curtis explained, what's unique about ML2 is that it's able to add the color black. The dimmer module is another display that sits in front of the headset's eyepiece, allowing it to reduce light across the entire screen, or into specific areas, by a factor of 100. That'll let you use ML2 in brightly lit rooms, or even outside on a sunny day, without making the AR images seem washed out. Developers can also use the dimmer to add shadows to their objects, giving you an added layer of depth in AR.
Devindra Hardawar/Engadget
As Magic Leap was working on making AR more VR-like, Meta was also doubling down on bringing the real world into VR with the Quest Pro. Thanks to new cameras and upgraded hardware, Meta is pitching that headset as a way to bring VR elements into your typical workflow (just imagine viewing VR windows dancing above your laptop's screen). Based on my time with the Quest Pro so far, that's not something I'd actually want much of. The cameras just aren't good enough yet. But it's funny to see Meta tackling a similar problem as Magic Leap from another angle. Somewhere between these two headsets is the ideal balance between the immersion of VR, and the real world integration of AR.
I was so distracted by Magic Leap 2's expanded field of view and dimming capabilities, I barely noticed that its controller felt more ergonomic. And I didn't think much of the headset's computing pack, which can now be worn across your body like a messenger bag. Naturally, it has faster hardware inside (specifically, a quad-core AMD Zen 2 processor and RDNA 2 graphics). But my main takeaway, after years of AR and VR testing, and the seemingly endless drumbeat of metaverse hype from an increasingly desperate Mark Zuckerberg, is that it’s nice to be genuinely surprised by a new headset.
Magic Leap
But of course, tech alone won't make a successful product. Magic Leap isn't targeting ML2 towards consumers at all, instead it's being pitched to doctors who may want a bit of AR assistance during surgery, or engineers who would like to pull up schematics when they're standing in front of complex machinery.
"I think it's improved a lot, [Magic Leap is a] different company," said Chief Marketing Officer Daniel Diez, when I asked about the state of Magic Leap today. Amid dismal sales of its first headset, and increasingly dire financials, founder and CEO Rony Abovitz left in 2020. But now, thanks to more than $1 billion in additional funding and a new leader in Peggy Johnson, it has another shot at the AR market.
At the very least, it’s clear the metaverse isn’t a problem Meta can solve on its own. Magic Leap is one of the few established competitors out there, making it a company that’s still worth watching. And if the enterprise play doesn’t work out, there’s a chance a large company like Google (one of its original investors) may have some use for all of this AR tech.
Twitter Blue is currently missing from the iPhone app's menu rail. On iPads, it's still there, except clicking on the option to subscribe returns an error. One of Engadget's editors tried it out on his iPad and got a notification that says it will be available in his country in the future, even though he's in the US, which is one of the service's launch locations. Twitter has yet to announce why Blue is acting up, but according to reverse app engineer Jane Manchun Wong, the in-app purchase for Twitter Blue verification is no longer listed for production. One of her followers said they paid for a subscription and got verified, but now their blue checkmark has gone missing.
It's been chaos and mayhem since Twitter launched its $8 Blue subscription service. Its main draw at the moment is instant verification, and people quickly latched onto the idea that it can be used to create parody or fake accounts that look legitimate. A fake Nintendo of America account tweeted a photo of Mario giving everyone the middle finger, for instance, while a fake Valve account posted about a new competitive platform.
Twitter went on a banning spree to get rid of the inauthentic accounts, and it ultimately decided to block new users from being able to sign up for Blue. In addition, the website rolled out its "Official" gray checkmarks to select notable accounts and public figures earlier. Twitter pulled back these "Official" labels after a faulty initial release with the intention of verifying government and commercial entities first. But the company's Support account announced that it's doling them out again in an effort to combat impersonation.
In addition to dealing with impersonators and fake accounts, Twitter employees — those left after the mass layoffs, anyway — also have internal drama to think of. Chief information security officer Lea Kissner, chief privacy officer Damien Kieran and chief compliance officer Marianne Fogarty have all reportedly quit the company. Elon Musk, the company's new owner, also told remaining employees that Twitter is losing so much money that "bankruptcy is not out of the question."
