Apple just released two new iPads. One of them, the basic 10th-generation iPad, was rebuilt from the ground up. The new iPad Pro, on the other hand, is a much simpler update. The company took last year’s model, swapped the M1 chip for the M2, made a few other small tweaks, and called it a day. The iPad Pro is still ludicrously fast, and it’s still extremely expensive, starting at $799 for the 11-inch model and $1,099 for the 12.9-inch.

I can’t really fault Apple for this approach, though. Even though the basic design of the iPad Pro was first introduced in 2018, it’s still a marvelously engineered piece of hardware. It features one of the best screens Apple has ever made, and it continues to surprise me that the company can pack so much power into such a compact frame.

While this year’s model closely resembles what Apple was already selling, it does arrive at a significant time for the iPad’s evolution. That is thanks to iPadOS 16, which launched last week. For most iPads, it’s the expected collection of useful improvements — but for the iPad Pro, it offers an entirely new multitasking system called Stage Manager. It’s a clear response to the question we tech reviewers (and many iPad Pro owners) have been asking for years: When will we get software that lets us take advantage of the iPad’s power?

Hardware

First, a quick refresher. The iPad Pro is still available in two sizes: 11 and 12.9 inches. Storage options range from a modest 128GB up to a truly outrageous 2TB, and you can configure it with an optional 5G radio for when there’s no WiFi. And for when you’re at home, it supports the WiFi 6E, whereas last year’s model was limited to WiFi 6. As usual, we reviewers get to play with a near top-of-the-line iPad: the 12.9-inch model with 1TB of storage and 5G service from Verizon. This iPad Pro costs a jaw-dropping $1,999, and that’s before you add on the $129 Apple Pencil and $349 Magic Keyboard. We’re well into MacBook Pro or Mac Studio territory at this point.

At least the iPad Pro still feels like a device worth that kind of money. (Whether it is is a different question.) The fit and finish remains exceptional, and while the 1.5-pound weight makes it a bit more of a burden to hold compared to smaller and lighter iPad models, I’m still impressed at Apple’s ability to cram such performance into a device that’s so compact. There are other well-designed tablets on the market, but I still don’t think anyone has caught up to the iPad Pro.

The 11-inch model still has to make do with the same Liquid Retina LCD display it’s had for a few years now, but the 12.9-inch version has the Liquid Retina XDR panel that was first introduced on the M1 iPad Pro in May of 2021. This screen uses mini-LED backlighting to offer 2,596 local dimming zones to offer a wide dynamic range and a 1,000,000:1 contrast ratio. It also has up to 1,000 nits of full-screen brightness and 1,600 nits peak brightness when playing back HDR content, which can really make movies pop.

Nathan Ingraham / Engadget

There’s nothing new about the screen this year, but it’s worth highlighting just how good it is. Both iPad Pro models also have the 120Hz ProMotion refresh rate; support for the P3 wide color gamut; a screen that’s fully laminated to the front glass; and an anti-reflective coating.

Just like last year, the iPad Pro has an ultrawide 12-megapixel front-facing camera that supports Face ID authentication. This wide-angle camera supports Center Stage, which crops and zooms around your face to keep you in the middle of the frame on a video call. That’s all well and good, but unfortunately the iPad Pro still has its front-facing camera on the portrait edge of the screen, which means you’re always going to be somewhat off-center and not looking directly at the screen if your iPad is in a keyboard dock. This has been true of all iPads for years already, but now that the basic model has gotten a landscape-oriented camera, we’re going to be waiting impatiently for Apple to implement that across its entire lineup.

The back cameras are also the same: There are 12-megapixel wide and 10-megapixel ultra wide options, along with a flash and LIDAR scanner. However, the M2 processor unlocks a new video trick, as the iPad Pro can now record video in Apple’s ProRes codec in 4K resolution at 30 frames per second, a feature first introduced in the iPhone 13 Pro. This is admittedly something of a niche feature, but it shows off the M2’s improvements over its predecessor.

Nathan Ingraham / Engadget

Accessories

From an accessories standpoint, the iPad Pro uses the same 2nd-generation Apple Pencil and Magic Keyboard that have been available since 2018 and 2020, respectively. The Magic Keyboard still provides the best typing experience you can find on an iPad, though the whole package is pretty heavy. It’s also crazy expensive, as I already mentioned. And now that the basic iPad’s new Magic Keyboard Folio offers a row of function keys and a slightly bigger trackpad, I’m really missing those features here. But if you make your living with words, as I do, it’s still an essential tool.

The Apple Pencil remains a tool that I’m not particularly great at evaluating, because I am sorely lacking in visual arts skills. I sure wish I could sit down and sketch and doodle and make the wonderful creations I’ve seen others do, but that’s not happening. If you’re a visual artist, chances are you already know how well the Pencil works, though.

The M2 on the new iPad Pro also enabled a new trick called Hover. If the Pencil is within 12mm of the screen, icons and interface elements can react to it. The most simple example is how app icons increase in size when you hover the Pencil over, showing you what you're about to tap on. This works system-wide, at least in Apple apps. Third-party developers will have to build Hover features into their apps, but it should be a nice new tool in the Pencil’s arsenal. One place I was able to demo it was in the Notes app; when using the new watercolor brush, you can hover the pencil over the screen to see how the color will react with other elements you’ve already drawn.

I found another cool Hover implementation in the excellent image-editing app Pixelmator Photo. Hovering and moving the Pencil across a strip of different filters at the bottom of the app automatically applies them as a preview. It’s wickedly fast and a fun way to see what your picture will look like. That said, it’s something you could already do with the trackpad and pointer; so far, a lot of Hover actions I’ve seen are straight up clones of what you can do when hovering over an interface element with the trackpad. I’m looking forward to seeing what developers come up with going forward, though.

M2

But let’s get into that M2 processor, shall we? Thanks to our review of the M2 MacBook Air earlier this summer, we had a good idea of what to expect here. And running Geekbench 5 tests confirmed it. The M2 iPad Pro scored 1,888 and 8,419 on single-core and multicore CPU tests, respectively. Those are 12 percent and 42 percent better than the same tests on the M1 iPad Pro, and similar to the 18 percent and 38 percent gains we saw when comparing the M2 MacBook Air to its M1-powered sibling.

I saw similar improvements in the Geekbench 5 Compute test, which measures GPU performance. The M2 iPad Pro scored 32,834 – 52 percent better than the M1 model and a bit higher than the 27,083 we saw in the M2 MacBook Air’s test. Obviously, synthetic benchmarks like this aren’t the be-all and end-all way to judge performance, but it gives you an idea of what to expect. If you regularly push an M1 iPad Pro to its limits and use it in a setting where your time equals money, these improvements might justify upgrading, but unless your workflow is extremely demanding you can probably skip this generation. When you consider the fact that the iPad Pro’s basic design hasn’t changed since 2018, that’s another reason to hold off; it wouldn’t surprise me if Apple released an all-new Pro in the next year or so.

Stage manager

Finally, there’s the not-so-small addition of iPadOS 16, and more specifically Stage Manager. As a reminder, Stage Manager lets you have up to four apps open in one group at once, with overlapping, resizable windows. Four other groups (with up to four apps in each) show up on the left side of the screen, based on how recently you’ve used them. Only a select few iPads can run Stage Manager: The iPad Pro with either an M1 or M2, the M1-powered iPad Air that was released earlier this year, or the 2018 and 2020 iPad Pro models running on the A12X or A12Z chip. (Those older iPad Pro models won’t be able to use Stage Manager on an external display; that’s limited to M1 or M2 devices.)

Ever since Stage Manager arrived in beta versions of iPadOS 16 earlier this year, there’s been a lot of chatter among the iPad faithful about Apple’s execution. On one end of the spectrum you have someone like Federico Viticci over at Macstores.net — he’s well known for being a devout iPad Pro user and writes massive, detailed breakdowns of each iOS and iPadOS release. Viticci, to put it mildly, is not a fan of Stage Manager; he wrote around 10,000 words detailing its inconsistencies and bugs.

On the other hand, I have not run into nearly the same scale of difficulties as Viticci, but I recognize his overall point. There are probably too many different ways to do things in Stage Manager (like adding a new app to a group); window management is more restrictive compared to a Mac (or Windows, or ChromeOS); and the behavior of the Control Strip on the left side of the screen remains confusing. Stage Manager feels like a work in progress — but when it works, I have created app groupings that make me a lot more efficient and productive than I was using the standard two-app Split View multitasking mode with a third app in a small “Slide Over” window.

And while Stage Manager was (and still may be) buggy, I at least have run into a lot fewer problems here on the M2 iPad Pro with the final iPadOS 16.1 release. I’ve been working on this iPad for the entirety of my work day and think I’ve only had one app crash on me (Gmail, which isn’t exactly the best iPad app on its best days). There are some conceptual things about Stage Manager I’m still grappling with, like the best way to add or remove apps from a group, but I think the experience is worth spending a day or two with to see if you can find your flow.

Nathan Ingraham / Engadget

Wrap-up

There’s no question that the new iPad Pro is better than its predecessor. It’s the same price and comes with a more powerful chip as well as a few additional features. That said, I think it’s not as sure a bet as the last iPad Pro was when it came out in early 2021. That’s primarily because of the iPad Pro’s design, which has remained essentially unchanged for the last four years. That’s good news in some ways, because you could have bought an Apple Pencil in 2018 and a Magic Keyboard in 2020 and still use them with the M2 iPad Pro.

But at a certain point, probably not too long from now, Apple will advance the form factor yet again. Not that it necessarily needs to; the iPad Pro remains well designed and continues to be a standout performer, as it should be for the price. But that landscape-edge front camera on the 10th-generation iPad tells me that we’ll see an iPad Pro before long with a more substantial redesign and not just one with a faster chip inside.

Now's a great time to stock up microSD cards for your phone or console, or new portable drives for all of your most important files. A new sale at Amazon has knocked up to 67 percent off Samsung storage gadgets, including some of our favorites. The latest model in the company's T7 drive series, the T7 Shield, has dropped to a new record low of $90 for the 1TB model, plus you can get Samsung 980 Pro SSD in 1TB for only $120 or a 256GB EVO Select memory-card-plus-adapter set for only $24.

Samsung's T7 family of portable SSDs has been one of our favorites for some time thanks to its generally fast read/write speeds and its pocket-friendly design. All of the T7 drives can easily fit into your back pocket or a stuffed travel bag, making them one of the better options for professionals who travel often and need extra space to store important documents and files. The T7 Shield is the newest addition to the series and, along with being IP65 water- and dust-resistant, it has a more rugged exterior that helps it survive nearly 10-foot drops. When it comes to performance, it supports 1,050/1,000 MB/s read/write speeds and its Dynamic Thermal Guard controls heat to help maintain performance even when you're pushing the drive to its limits.

If you're finally getting around to expanding the storage available on your PS5, Samsung's 980 Pro internal drive is a good option, particularly at this sale price. It supports read speeds up to 7,000 MB/s and it uses a nickel coating to control heat levels for improved efficiency. You will need a heatsink in order to use this drive with the PS5, though, and if you want to keep things simple, you could spring for the $150 bundle that includes one with Samsung's drive.

Any of the microSD cards included in this sale will work well with the Nintendo Switch, smartphones and tablets, cameras and more. We like the 256GB EVO Select model on sale because the discount is pretty solid (it's only $4 more than it was during the Prime Early Access Sale last month) and it comes with a full-sized adapter.

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

Elon Musk’s vision for Twitter may include bringing back Vine, the short-form video app the company shuttered in 2016. According to Axios, Twitter’s new “Chief Twit” told a group of engineers to work on a reboot that could be ready by the end of the year. The Verge’s Alex Heath, who was among the first to report that Musk was considering making the company’s Twitter Blue subscription mandatory for verified users, corroborated the news.

“I have also heard this, though unclear if Vine will actually be relaunched at this point,” he said. “Musk also has a lot of people telling him to just bake the experience into core Twitter.”

While we’re probably at the stage where Musk is contemplating any and all options, there’s certainly some evidence to suggest he is seriously considering bringing back Vine. Earlier today, he polled his 112 million Twitter followers to ask them if the company should reboot the app. When MrBeast, one of the most popular YouTube stars on the planet, said it would be “hilarious” if Musk did that and Vine went on to compete with TikTok, the Tesla and SpaceX CEO asked him “what could we do to make it better than TikTok?” Bringing back the platform would also certainly seem to align with Musk’s stated goal of transforming Twitter into a “super app” akin to China’s WeChat.

However, the timeline, like the one Musk reportedly set for monetizing Twitter’s verification feature, is likely unrealistic. According to Axios, the company hasn’t updated Vine since it shut down the app more than six years ago. "It needs a lot of work," one source told the outlet, referring to the software’s codebase. At this stage, it’s also hard to see the platform competing with TikTok and YouTube Shorts, even if it does come back. So much of TikTok’s success is a result of its “For You” algorithm which always seems to know what videos will keep you glued to the app. Vine never had anything comparable, and many of its most prolific creators have moved on to other platforms.

Amazon's Fire HD tablets are still worthy options if you just want a competent media consumption device for as little money as possible, and within that lineup, the Fire HD 10 provides the best value for most. This is especially the case when the device is discounted, and as of this writing the 10.1-inch slate is back on sale for $75 at Amazon and Best Buy, among other retailers. 

While this isn't the absolute lowest price we've seen — the tablet was briefly available for $55 at Target earlier this year — it does match the price we saw during last year's Black Friday sales and Amazon's latest Prime Day events. The 32GB model here technically has an MSRP of $150, though a handful of smaller discounts have dropped its average street price closer to $130 in recent months. 

This is a nice price for what was already one of the better values on the tablet market. Like Amazon's other Fire tablets, the Fire HD 10 is a no-frills device: It's largely made of matte plastic, the speakers and cameras are mediocre, and very little about its performance or design feels as premium as what you'd get from even an entry-level iPad. But for the money, it's all good enough if you're just looking for casual web browsing, ebook reading, video streaming, and Alexa stuff. Its eight-core MediaTek Helio P60T processor and 3GB of RAM won't blow anyone away — don't expect much in the way of gaming — but it can handle the basics without consistent slowdowns, and it's generally more fluid than the lower-cost models in the Fire lineup.

Similarly, the 10.1-inch panel isn't the brightest or most vibrant you'll see, but it's plenty fine for $75. Again, its 1920 x 1200 resolution is a firm step-up from the lower-res Fire 7 or Fire HD 8, and simply having more real estate makes it more pleasing for video streams and quick Zoom calls. The tablet gets a good 12-ish hours of battery life per charge, and it charges over USB-C. While the discounted model here only has 32GB of built-in storage, you can expand that with a microSD card. (A version with 64GB of storage is also on sale for $95.)

The caveat with any Amazon tablet is, as always, software. Amazon's Fire OS is still a forked version of Android that lacks access to the Google Play Store — and thus, native Google apps like Gmail or YouTube — and frequently pushes you toward the company's own apps, services and online store. There are still lock screen ads, and it still costs a $15 fee to get rid of them. It remains easy enough to sideload the Play Store and its more expansive app library, but that's clearly not the most user- or security-friendly solution. Instead, a Fire tablet will work best if you stick to Amazon apps like Kindle and Prime Video, popular apps like Netflix or basic web browsing. All that said, the OS is still fairly robust when it comes to parental controls and supporting multiple user profiles, and there's still a handy "Show Mode" that can essentially turn the tablet into an Echo Show-like smart display when you're not holding it. 

The deal here comes as part of a wider sale on Amazon tablets. The Kids and Kids Pro versions of the Fire HD 10, for instance, are both back to their all-time lows at $120. Those come with large protective bumper cases (the Pro's is a bit slimmer), two-year warranties and a year of Amazon's Kids+ child-focused content service, though their hardware is otherwise identical, and it's worth noting that you can set up a kid-friendly profile on the base Fire HD 10 as well. 

The Fire HD 10 Plus, meanwhile, is on sale for $105, which matches the lowest price we've tracked. That one adds another gigabyte of RAM and wireless charging support, which are nice upgrades — particularly if you want to use that smart display functionality — but nothing we'd call essential for most people in the market for a good affordable tablet. We'll also note that the Fire 7 is down to a new low of $42, but we'd recommend waiting for the recently-updated Fire HD 8 and its altogether superior hardware to go on sale if you're simply looking for the cheapest usable slate. 

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

Amazon's Fire HD tablets are still worthy options if you just want a competent media consumption device for as little money as possible, and within that lineup, the Fire HD 10 provides the best value for most. This is especially the case when the device is discounted, and as of this writing the 10.1-inch slate is back on sale for $75 at Amazon and Best Buy, among other retailers. 

While this isn't the absolute lowest price we've seen — the tablet was briefly available for $55 at Target earlier this year — it does match the price we saw during last year's Black Friday sales and Amazon's latest Prime Day events. The 32GB model here technically has an MSRP of $150, though a handful of smaller discounts have dropped its average street price closer to $130 in recent months. 

This is a nice price for what was already one of the better values on the tablet market. Like Amazon's other Fire tablets, the Fire HD 10 is a no-frills device: It's largely made of matte plastic, the front and rear cameras are mediocre, and very little about its performance or design feels as premium as what you'd get from even an entry-level iPad. But for the money, it's all good enough if you're just looking for casual web browsing, ebook reading, video streaming, and Alexa stuff. Its eight-core MediaTek Helio P60T processor and 3GB of RAM won't blow anyone away — don't expect much in the way of gaming — but it can handle the basics without consistent slowdowns, and it's generally more fluid than the lower-cost models in the Fire lineup.

Similarly, the 10.1-inch panel isn't the brightest or most vibrant you'll see, but it's plenty fine for $75. Again, its 1920 x 1200 resolution is a firm step-up from the lower-res Fire 7 or Fire HD 8, and simply having more real estate makes it more pleasing for Zoom calls and video streams. The tablet gets a good 12-ish hours of battery life per charge, and it charges over USB-C. While the discounted model here only has 32GB of built-in storage, you can expand that with a microSD card. (A version with 64GB of storage is also on sale for $95.)

The caveat with any Amazon tablet is, as always, software. Amazon's Fire OS is still a forked version of Android that lacks access to the Google Play Store — and thus, native Google apps like Gmail or YouTube — and frequently pushes you toward the company's own apps, services and online store. There are still lock screen ads, and it still costs a $15 fee to get rid of them. It remains easy enough to sideload the Play Store and its more expansive app library, but that's clearly not the most user- or security-friendly solution. Instead, a Fire tablet will work best if you stick to Amazon apps like Kindle and Prime Video, popular apps like Netflix or basic web browsing. All that said, the OS is still fairly robust when it comes to parental controls and supporting multiple user profiles, and there's still a handy "Show Mode" that can essentially turn the tablet into an Echo Show-like smart display when you're not holding it. 

The deal here comes as part of a wider sale on Amazon tablets. The Kids and Kids Pro versions of the Fire HD 10, for instance, are both back to their all-time lows at $120. Those come with large protective bumper cases (the Pro's is a bit slimmer), two-year warranties and a year of Amazon's Kids+ child-focused content service, though their hardware is otherwise identical, and it's worth noting that you can set up a kid-friendly profile on the base Fire HD 10 as well. 

The Fire HD 10 Plus, meanwhile, is on sale for $105, which matches the lowest price we've tracked. That one adds another gigabyte of RAM and wireless charging support, which are nice upgrades — particularly if you want to use that smart display functionality — but nothing we'd call essential for most people in the market for a good affordable tablet. We'll also note that the Fire 7 is down to a new low of $42, but we'd recommend waiting for the recently-updated Fire HD 8 and its altogether superior hardware to go on sale if you're simply looking for the cheapest usable slate. 

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

Amazon's Fire HD tablets are still worthy options if you just want a competent media consumption device for as little money as possible, and within that lineup, the Fire HD 10 provides the best value for most. This is especially the case when the device is discounted, and as of this writing the 10.1-inch slate is back on sale for $75 at Amazon and Best Buy, among other retailers. 

While this isn't the absolute lowest price we've seen — the tablet was briefly available for $55 at Target earlier this year — it does match the price we saw during last year's Black Friday sales and Amazon's latest Prime Day events. The 32GB model here technically has an MSRP of $150, though regular discounts mean its average street price has fallen closer to $130 in recent months.

This is a nice price for what was already one of the better values on the tablet market. Like Amazon's other Fire tablets, the Fire HD 10 is a no-frills device: It's largely made of matte plastic, the front and rear cameras are mediocre, and very little about its performance or design feels as premium as what you'd get from even an entry-level iPad. But for the money, it's all good enough if you're just looking for casual web browsing, ebook reading, video streaming, and Alexa stuff. Its eight-core MediaTek Helio P60T processor and 3GB of RAM won't blow anyone away — don't expect much in the way of gaming — but it can handle the basics without consistent slowdowns, and it's generally more fluid than the lower-cost models in the Fire lineup.

Similarly, the 10.1-inch panel isn't the brightest or most vibrant you'll see, but it's plenty fine for $75. Again, its 1920 x 1200 resolution is a firm step-up from the lower-res Fire 7 or Fire HD 8, and simply having more real estate makes it more pleasing for Zoom calls and video streams. The tablet gets a good 12-ish hours of battery life per charge, and it charges over USB-C. While the discounted model here only has 32GB of built-in storage, you can expand that with a microSD card. (A version with 64GB of storage is also on sale for $95.)

The caveat with any Amazon tablet is, as always, software. Amazon's Fire OS is still a forked version of Android that lacks access to the Google Play Store — and thus, native Google apps like Gmail or YouTube — and frequently pushes you toward the company's own apps, services and online store. There are still lock screen ads, and it still costs a $15 fee to get rid of them. It remains easy enough to sideload the Play Store and its more expansive app library, but that's clearly not the most user- or security-friendly solution. Instead, a Fire tablet will work best if you stick to Amazon apps like Kindle and Prime Video, popular apps like Netflix or basic web browsing. All that said, the OS is still fairly robust when it comes to parental controls and supporting multiple user profiles, and there's still a handy "Show Mode" that can essentially turn the tablet into an Echo Show-like smart display when you're not holding it. 

The deal here comes as part of a wider sale on Amazon tablets. The Kids and Kids Pro versions of the Fire HD 10, for instance, are both back to their all-time lows at $120. Those come with large protective bumper cases (the Pro's is a bit slimmer), two-year warranties and a year of Amazon's Kids+ child-focused content service, though their hardware is otherwise identical, and it's worth noting that you can set up a kid-friendly profile on the base Fire HD 10 as well. 

The Fire HD 10 Plus, meanwhile, is on sale for $105, which matches the lowest price we've tracked. That one adds another gigabyte of RAM and wireless charging support, which are nice upgrades — particularly if you want to use that smart display functionality — but nothing we'd call essential for most people in the market for a good affordable tablet. We'll also note that the Fire 7 is down to a new low of $42, but we'd recommend waiting for the recently-updated Fire HD 8 and its altogether superior hardware to go on sale if you're simply looking for the cheapest usable slate. 

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

Google has been making high-end Chromebooks for almost a decade now, dating back to the $1,300 Chromebook Pixel in 2013. At the time, many people saw it as a beautiful but strange device. In the years that followed, both Google and its hardware partners have made premium Chromebooks more and more commonplace. Though, a still-unconfirmed report earlier this year suggests Google is giving up on making laptop hardware, at least for now. The company hasn’t said anything of the sort yet, but the reality is that Google hasn’t made a new Chromebook since the Pixelbook Go in late 2019.

Of course, that hasn’t stopped other manufacturers from making Chromebooks with gorgeous screens, great industrial design and powerful hardware. But HP’s Elite Dragonfly Chromebook, released earlier this year, might be the nicest I’ve used in a long time. It also has a jaw-dropping price point, starting at well over $1,000. Much like the original Chromebook Pixel, HP’s latest is a joy to use that is very hard to recommend because of that price.

Design

Before we talk about the bummer that is the HP Elite Dragonfly Chromebook’s cost, let’s go over the good stuff. The Dragonfly is similar in stature to a MacBook Air, weighing in at about 2.8 pounds and measuring only .65 inches thick. Combined with a fairly spacious 13.5-inch touchscreen display with a 3:2 aspect ratio, the Dragonfly is comfortable to work on and easy to travel with.

Design-wise, it’s a spartan affair, with a dark gray finish and only a few silver accents to be found. But given that HP is primarily targeting this computer at enterprise users, it makes sense that they went with a classic look here. There’s a decent selection of ports, despite the Dragonfly’s rather slim profile: it has two USB-C / Thunderbolt 4 ports, a USB-A connection, a headphone jack, HDMI and a microSD slot. That’s a lot better than you’ll get on a typical ultraportable.

Nathan Ingraham / Engadget

Screen and keyboard

There’s a handful of things that make the Dragonfly really stand out. For starters, it has an excellent display, with a 3:2 aspect ratio that provides a lot more vertical viewing space than your standard 16:9 screen. The configuration I’m testing has a 2,256 x 1,504 resolution, good for about 200 pixels per inch. Sure, there are more pixel-dense displays out there, but this one looks stunning, with sharp text and images and basically no visible pixels. It’s the nicest screen on a Chromebook I’ve seen in a long time. The only minor knock is its unremarkable 60Hz refresh rate, but that shouldn’t be a major issue for most people. Still, HP spared basically no expense on everything else, so it would have been nice to have.

Despite the refresh rate, the Dragonfly’s display is great beyond just the aspect ratio. It’s bright and has nice contrast without things being too over-exaggerated. It’s also rather reflective, which makes it not ideal if there’s a light shining on the display, but the screen is bright enough that it should be usable in all but the harshest of light.

The keyboard and trackpad are also excellent. The keys are firm, but not too firm, and have plenty of travel for a relatively thin laptop. The trackpad, meanwhile, is large and responsive. Nothing quite matches up to the trackpad on a MacBook for me, but this one feels pretty close. HP says it’s a haptic trackpad, with customized vibrations for some specific actions like pinning windows in split screen or switching between virtual desks, but I can’t say I noticed much of anything there.

Nathan Ingraham / Engadget

Good specs (for a Chromebook)

Finally, the Dragonfly mostly has cutting-edge spec options; the model I tested has a 12th-generation Intel Core i5 processor, built-in LTE, 256GB of storage and 8GB of RAM. LTE isn’t exactly cutting-edge anymore, and 8GB of RAM is a bit stingy on a computer this pricey. But aside from those quibbles, this is plenty of horsepower for basically anything you want to do in ChromeOS; I never experienced any stutters when switching apps or playing back music and video. Despite the high-resolution screen and powerful processor, battery life is solid if not spectacular. I got between six and eight hours of normal usage, which involved a lot of Chrome tabs, Spotify, Todoist, Slack, Google Keep, Trello and the occasional Android app here and there. It managed to play back a movie for 8 hours and 50 minutes in our battery drain test. If battery is your foremost concern, the model with a Core i3 processor or the lower-resolution screen will likely last even longer.

It also does a fine job running the handful of Android apps I tested it with. In the last year or so, you’ve been able to run downloaded apps in tablet, phone or resizable windows, and for the most part I was able to get Todoist, Spotify and Lightroom all working well in resizable windows. Even Instagram finally works properly, although now that the website now allows you to create posts, it’s not really necessary any more. Putting that aside, performance across basically all the Android apps and games I tried was solid. But given how many apps are in the Play Store, there’s still a good chance of running across some that don’t work well.

While Chromebooks aren’t known for gaming, the Dragonfly easily handled some cloud-based play via NVIDIA’s GeForce Now and Xbox Cloud Gaming – not a surprise given the powerful (for a Chromebook, at least) hardware. At this point, ChromeOS has pretty solid game controller support, and it obviously works with external keyboards and mice. So provided the titles you want are available, this is probably the best way to play games on a Chromebook at this point. That said, this hardware should more than meet the cut for installing Steam, once Google and Valve start rolling that out beyond its current limited alpha phase.

The catch

The problem that keeps me from recommending the Dragonfly is easy to explain. The cheapest model of this laptop costs an eye-popping $1,150. And that’s with an i3 processor and only 128GB of storage. As usual, HP has a dizzying array of different configurations, though I don’t think they’re actually selling the model I have through their site right now. But there is an option with an i5 processor that costs more than $1,500. That is crazy money for a Chromebook, no matter how nice it is.

For a comparison, Acer’s Chromebook Spin 714 has essentially the same processor, storage and RAM as the Dragonfly for only $730. The screen and build quality aren’t quite as nice, but we’re talking about a computer that’s essentially just as capable but costs half of what HP is offering. For the cost of the Dragonfly, you could also pick up an extremely capable Windows laptop or MacBook Air. As much as I like using Chrome OS, it’s nearly impossible to recommend anyone spend that kind of cash on a Chromebook.

To be fair to HP, the company isn’t positioning this as a broad consumer device. It falls under their enterprise category, and I could imagine some businesses heavily invested in Google’s ecosystem buying these for executives. But, there’s no denying that, at this price point, ChromeOS is a compromise compared to Windows or macOS.

In this way, HP’s Elite Dragonfly Chromebook is a lot like Google’s Chromebook Pixel: It’s the best Chromebook you can buy, and it shows how good the experience of using ChromeOS can be. But, it’s not so much better than the many other reasonably priced options out there for anyone to seriously consider unless they love ChromeOS and have money to burn.

Google has been making high-end Chromebooks for almost a decade now, dating back to the $1,300 Chromebook Pixel in 2013. At the time, many people saw it as a beautiful but strange device. In the years that followed, both Google and its hardware partners have made premium Chromebooks more and more commonplace. Though, a still-unconfirmed report earlier this year suggests Google is giving up on making laptop hardware, at least for now. The company hasn’t said anything of the sort yet, but the reality is that Google hasn’t made a new Chromebook since the Pixelbook Go in late 2019.

Of course, that hasn’t stopped other manufacturers from making Chromebooks with gorgeous screens, great industrial design and powerful hardware. But HP’s Elite Dragonfly Chromebook, released earlier this year, might be the nicest I’ve used in a long time. It also has a jaw-dropping price point, starting at well over $1,000. Much like the original Chromebook Pixel, HP’s latest is a joy to use that is very hard to recommend because of that price.

Design

Before we talk about the bummer that is the HP Elite Dragonfly Chromebook’s cost, let’s go over the good stuff. The Dragonfly is similar in stature to a MacBook Air, weighing in at about 2.8 pounds and measuring only .65 inches thick. Combined with a fairly spacious 13.5-inch touchscreen display with a 3:2 aspect ratio, the Dragonfly is comfortable to work on and easy to travel with.

Design-wise, it’s a spartan affair, with a dark gray finish and only a few silver accents to be found. But given that HP is primarily targeting this computer at enterprise users, it makes sense that they went with a classic look here. There’s a decent selection of ports, despite the Dragonfly’s rather slim profile: it has two USB-C / Thunderbolt 4 ports, a USB-A connection, a headphone jack, HDMI and a microSD slot. That’s a lot better than you’ll get on a typical ultraportable.

Nathan Ingraham / Engadget

Screen and keyboard

There’s a handful of things that make the Dragonfly really stand out. For starters, it has an excellent display, with a 3:2 aspect ratio that provides a lot more vertical viewing space than your standard 16:9 screen. The configuration I’m testing has a 2,256 x 1,504 resolution, good for about 200 pixels per inch. Sure, there are more pixel-dense displays out there, but this one looks stunning, with sharp text and images and basically no visible pixels. It’s the nicest screen on a Chromebook I’ve seen in a long time. The only minor knock is its unremarkable 60Hz refresh rate, but that shouldn’t be a major issue for most people. Still, HP spared basically no expense on everything else, so it would have been nice to have.

Despite the refresh rate, the Dragonfly’s display is great beyond just the aspect ratio. It’s bright and has nice contrast without things being too over-exaggerated. It’s also rather reflective, which makes it not ideal if there’s a light shining on the display, but the screen is bright enough that it should be usable in all but the harshest of light.

The keyboard and trackpad are also excellent. The keys are firm, but not too firm, and have plenty of travel for a relatively thin laptop. The trackpad, meanwhile, is large and responsive. Nothing quite matches up to the trackpad on a MacBook for me, but this one feels pretty close. HP says it’s a haptic trackpad, with customized vibrations for some specific actions like pinning windows in split screen or switching between virtual desks, but I can’t say I noticed much of anything there.

Nathan Ingraham / Engadget

Good specs (for a Chromebook)

Finally, the Dragonfly mostly has cutting-edge spec options; the model I tested has a 12th-generation Intel Core i5 processor, built-in LTE, 256GB of storage and 8GB of RAM. LTE isn’t exactly cutting-edge anymore, and 8GB of RAM is a bit stingy on a computer this pricey. But aside from those quibbles, this is plenty of horsepower for basically anything you want to do in ChromeOS; I never experienced any stutters when switching apps or playing back music and video. Despite the high-resolution screen and powerful processor, battery life is solid if not spectacular. I got between six and eight hours of normal usage, which involved a lot of Chrome tabs, Spotify, Todoist, Slack, Google Keep, Trello and the occasional Android app here and there. It managed to play back a movie for 8 hours and 50 minutes in our battery drain test. If battery is your foremost concern, the model with a Core i3 processor or the lower-resolution screen will likely last even longer.

It also does a fine job running the handful of Android apps I tested it with. In the last year or so, you’ve been able to run downloaded apps in tablet, phone or resizable windows, and for the most part I was able to get Todoist, Spotify and Lightroom all working well in resizable windows. Even Instagram finally works properly, although now that the website now allows you to create posts, it’s not really necessary any more. Putting that aside, performance across basically all the Android apps and games I tried was solid. But given how many apps are in the Play Store, there’s still a good chance of running across some that don’t work well.

While Chromebooks aren’t known for gaming, the Dragonfly easily handled some cloud-based play via NVIDIA’s GeForce Now and Xbox Cloud Gaming – not a surprise given the powerful (for a Chromebook, at least) hardware. At this point, ChromeOS has pretty solid game controller support, and it obviously works with external keyboards and mice. So provided the titles you want are available, this is probably the best way to play games on a Chromebook at this point. That said, this hardware should more than meet the cut for installing Steam, once Google and Valve start rolling that out beyond its current limited alpha phase.

The catch

The problem that keeps me from recommending the Dragonfly is easy to explain. The cheapest model of this laptop costs an eye-popping $1,150. And that’s with an i3 processor and only 128GB of storage. As usual, HP has a dizzying array of different configurations, though I don’t think they’re actually selling the model I have through their site right now. But there is an option with an i5 processor that costs more than $1,500. That is crazy money for a Chromebook, no matter how nice it is.

For a comparison, Acer’s Chromebook Spin 714 has essentially the same processor, storage and RAM as the Dragonfly for only $730. The screen and build quality aren’t quite as nice, but we’re talking about a computer that’s essentially just as capable but costs half of what HP is offering. For the cost of the Dragonfly, you could also pick up an extremely capable Windows laptop or MacBook Air. As much as I like using Chrome OS, it’s nearly impossible to recommend anyone spend that kind of cash on a Chromebook.

To be fair to HP, the company isn’t positioning this as a broad consumer device. It falls under their enterprise category, and I could imagine some businesses heavily invested in Google’s ecosystem buying these for executives. But, there’s no denying that, at this price point, ChromeOS is a compromise compared to Windows or macOS.

In this way, HP’s Elite Dragonfly Chromebook is a lot like Google’s Chromebook Pixel: It’s the best Chromebook you can buy, and it shows how good the experience of using ChromeOS can be. But, it’s not so much better than the many other reasonably priced options out there for anyone to seriously consider unless they love ChromeOS and have money to burn.

Currently, few things make people's eyes roll harder than the metaverse. As someone who grew up reading sci-fi novels and dreaming about what virtual worlds might look like in the future, that's kind of sad, but I get it. Mark Zuckerberg is so thirsty to make those dreams a reality that he’s betting billions of dollars and the survival of his company on the metaverse being The Next Big Thing. Meanwhile, the average person is still wondering what the point of having a VR headset really is, aside from maybe smashing some polygons in Superhot or Beat Saber.

However, even though it feels like VR headsets have been around forever, we're still very much in the early days of virtual reality. It was only a couple of years ago when the company previously known as Facebook brought VR to the masses with the Quest 2. And now with the Quest Pro, Meta is trying to foster a new baseline level of tech designed to make digital worlds feel more lifelike, intuitive and immersive. And honestly, I think Meta has done it, because while its $1,500 price is hard to justify, it’s easy to see the potential of what this hardware can support.

Hardware and optics

Packing a Qualcomm Snapdragon XR2+ chip, 12GB of RAM and 256GB of storage, the Quest Pro delivers 50 percent more performance than the Quest 2, according to Meta. However, the real challenge in designing this headset was blending its standalone design with something that's simple and comfortable to wear, and I think Meta has struck an almost ideal balance.

By switching to new pancake lenses, the company was able to reduce the thickness of the headset while still delivering a relatively high resolution of 1,800 x 1,920 pixels per eye. For comparison, that's higher than what you get from the Valve Index (1,440 x 1,600 per eye) but a bit less than the Vive Pro 2 (2,448 × 2,448 per eye). Though topping out with a 90Hz refresh rate, the Quest Pro’s visuals aren’t quite as fast as most of its high-end PC-based rivals. For me, that hasn't been a huge deal, as graphics and gameplay have been smooth and stutter-free. But I should mention I've never really had problems with VR-related motion sickness, so your experience may vary.

Sam Rutherford/Engadget

My one nitpick is that I wish the Quest Pro's 96-degree vertical field of view was a little bit taller. I've found that due to the headset's visor-like design and its FOV, you tend to always have a bit of the real world peeking in across the bottom of your eye line. Thankfully, its 106-degree horizontal FOV is pretty much as good or better than all of its rivals except for the Vive Pro 2's 116 degrees.

Elsewhere, the Quest Pro features 10 sensors on the interior and exterior of the device. The five outward-facing cameras support full-color passthrough, hand-tracking and stuff like scene understanding without the need for additional external sensors. Meanwhile, the five inward-facing sensors track eyes and face movements for features like foveated rendering and enhanced avatar animations, but more on that later.

Design and fit

Sam Rutherford/Engadget

To balance the trade-off between power and fit, Meta cleverly used a curved battery built into the back of the headset, so there's no need for wires or a belt-mounted power cell. And when combined with a soft forehead cushion and a handy dial for adjusting the headband, you get a headset that's extremely easy to put on and wear. Further adjustments are provided via a small dial in front that changes lens distance, while IPD (interpupillary distance) adjustment is handled by simply moving each eyepiece left and right as needed. All told, it's an incredibly straightforward setup, and thanks to the Quest Pro's fit calibration feature, the headset can remind you to adjust your settings if it notices things aren't quite right. And when it comes to sound, you get speakers that support spatial audio built into the arms of the headset, though if you prefer to use your own headphones, there’s a 3.5mm jack too.

Sam Rutherford/Engadget

That said, even with all the attention Meta paid toward creating a comfortable and balanced headset, the Quest Pro's heft can still be a bit of an issue. If you're hopping in and out of VR, you might not notice much. But with a weight of just over a pound and a half, in longer sessions, I noticed my forehead sometimes got a bit sore. Usually fiddling around with how the Quest Pro sat on my head was enough to relieve excess pressure. But I also wouldn't be surprised if this setup gave some people a low-grade headache during extended use. And I'd also be remiss not to mention the sweat factor, as the leather forehead pad can get damp depending on your activity, and sometimes I wonder if having active cooling on a VR headset is what we need. Heck, developers could even use fans to mimic a breeze in a game or movie, which could be kind of nice.

Controllers

The other big part of the headset's kit is the new Touch Pro Controllers. Meta is using the same basic design as what we got on the Quest 2. The big difference this time is that instead of relying on a big light ring with LEDs, the controllers now have their own built-in sensors for both hand and finger tracking. Not only does this help streamline their design, but I also found a noticeable upgrade in accuracy and responsiveness.

Sam Rutherford/Engadget

The controllers also have much-improved haptics that adds an extra level of immersion, especially in apps where you can flip the controllers over to use as a stylus. For example in Painting VR, brushes use a variety of rumbles and vibrations to convey a sense of size and weight. The overall effect feels much like HD Rumble on the Nintendo Switch's Joy-Con, but with even better fidelity for force feedback.

I also appreciate the controller’s subtly textured rubberized grips that make things feel secure even in the heat of virtual battle. However, I kind of miss the hand straps Valve uses on the Index controllers which allow you to quickly switch between buttons and finger or hand gestures without needing to set the controllers down.

General performance and apps

Of course the real magic happens when hardware meets software, and at least out of the gate, the Quest Pro offers some pretty impressive performance. The headset’s optics are sharp while eliminating nearly any hint of the screen door effect. Text is also very legible and I had no trouble writing part of this review in VR. Next, when my colleague Cherlynn Low visited my virtual office in Horizon Workrooms, I think the combination of Quest Pro’s eye and facial tracking to deliver more lifelike expressions on my avatar might have been convincing enough to get her to spend more time in VR. And on my end, support for spatial audio makes working in VR feel less like floating in a simulation and more like actually working in an office with someone else.So even though Cherlynn was sick that day, we were able to collaborate without me risking catching what she had, and it felt kind of heartwarming in a weird, nerdy way.

Sam Rutherford/Engadget

On top of that, a lot of tent-pole features like Meta's scene understanding just kind of work, at least most of the time. I found that the Quest Pro was pretty good at automatically detecting the position of floors and walls, so I didn't have to constantly redraw the boundaries for my room-scale guardian. It even automatically detected some objects like my desk (and remembered them in subsequent sessions), which makes it easier to set up a virtual workspace that mimics what I have IRL. Though I did notice in rooms that were more cluttered, things didn't always work quite as smoothly.

The Quest Pro's full-color passthrough is also really impressive. Don’t get me wrong, it’s still not as good as using your eyes to navigate meatspace. But it's more than accurate enough to let me walk from room to room to grab a glass of water without taking off the Quest Pro or bumping into anything.

In apps like Cubism, I had a blast positioning blocks to solve puzzles in three dimensions and in I Expect you to Die I got to live out my childhood fantasy of being a secret agent. And in Tribe XR, I was able to enjoy the basics of mixing and beat-matching while using the same equipment pro DJs use, at least virtually. The improved three-window multitasking in the Quest Pro’s desktop mode even makes it easier to switch between apps and stay connected while you're in VR. Or, well, it would be if there was a wider availability of 2D apps.

Sam Rutherford/Engadget

And that kind of brings me to the big issue with the Quest Pro: there just aren't a lot of optimized apps that really take advantage of its upgraded capabilities. For traditional 2D apps, while important stuff like Slack is supposedly on the way, there isn't even support for messaging software like WhatsApp. So if you're like me and aren't a frequent user of Instagram or Facebook Messenger, things can still feel a bit disconnected.

But perhaps the more telling thing is currently how few apps there are in the Quest Pro section of the store. Titles like Nanome, which lets you view molecules in VR are really neat and interesting, but rather niche. I don't know about you, but I don’t really spend a ton of time staring at various compounds and conformations in my free time – and I was a bio major in college.

Sam Rutherford/Engadget

This is sort of to be expected, as it's going to take a while for developers to take advantage of the Quest Pro's new features. This headset kind of feels like the Nintendo Switch at launch but without a tentpole game or app like Breath of the Wild to pair with it. Sure, you can go back and enjoy all the old Quest apps, as the Pro is fully backward compatible with existing software. But when you're spending $1,500 on a VR headset, you kind of want something you can lose yourself in for the next month or more.

My other gripe is that, while a lot of the big-ticket features work surprisingly well, a lot of the finer details seem half-baked. For example, it took almost an hour for Cherlynn to successfully visit my office in Horizon Workrooms. Because this is VR, you can't just send a link to a meeting like you would in Zoom, which meant she had to bounce back and forth between her headset, phone and laptop just to find where to accept my invite. And when I wanted to upload an image to pin on my virtual whiteboard, first I had to go back to my fake chair at my fake desk just to upload something, before needing to move back to the whiteboard again to post it. That's just convoluted, and that’s even with my having already set up Meta’s Remote Desktop app. And while Meta says it's working on it, there are other little frustrations like being limited to a single virtual desktop (which you can’t even move by the way, at least not right now) when connected to a Windows PC while Mac users get three.

Charging and accessories

While Meta doesn't provide official battery life claims for the Quest Pro, I've found that you're looking at between two and a half and three and a half hours on a charge, depending on the use case. This is typically longer than I want to be in VR in a single sitting, but if you need to be jacked in for extended periods, the Quest Pro also comes with a six-foot USB-C cable you can use to keep it running.

Sam Rutherford/Engadget

Other bundled accessories include a protective silicone cover and two light blockers that attach magnetically to the side of the headset, which helps cut down on potential distractions from the physical realm. But if you really want that complete VR-dive experience, you'll have to shell out $50 for Meta's Full Light Blocker. Or you opt for the low-tech solution and just move to a dark room. You also get two Quest Touch Pro controllers along with two wrist straps and stylus nibs that can be attached to the bottom of the gamepads to suit your needs.

When it comes to keeping everything juiced up, there's a really handy wireless charging dock that holds both the headset and the controllers. Admittedly, getting the controllers to sit properly in the dock is a bit tricky at first. But the secret is holding them as if you're using them, before twisting your wrists inwards and then dropping them on the dock. If you did it right, you'll feel a little rumble and see the tiny indicator lights fire up. There's also a dedicated cable for charging the controllers, but you only get one. So if you're traveling with the Quest Pro and you leave the dock at home, you'll need to charge the controllers one at a time.

Wrap-up

Look, trying to review a next-gen VR headset feels kind of like evaluating a Mars colony based on the spaceship that takes you there: Ultimately the Quest Pro is a vessel to experience fancy new software that doesn’t exist yet. And right now, there just aren't enough apps to really say if that colony is a utopia or Autobot city after Megatron attacks – burned down and wasted.

Sam Rutherford/Engadget

But if we can ignore that issue for a minute, at least on a hardware level, there's a lot to like about the Quest Pro. It offers similar or, in some situations, better performance than other high-end consumer headsets — all without the need for wires or a beefy PC. You can switch between controllers and hand gestures at a whim, while the plethora of sensors makes the headset a really great standalone device. You get sharp visuals, a streamlined design and surprisingly good battery life — not to mention a really handy charging dock.

But for now, we're going to have to wait for the headset’s software and experiences to catch up, which is a lot to ask when it costs this much to strap on the goggles. Purchasing a Quest Pro, at least for now, is something you do on faith, because you believe in the promise of VR and where it might go in the not-too-distant future. So while the Quest 2 can handle basic VR, the Quest Pro adds power and finesse in a way that could unlock how people explore virtual worlds. The tech is there but are you willing to fork over big money to try it?

Robot vacuums can be a godsend if vacuuming is one of your least favorite household chores. In recent years, new models from iRobot and Shark have become more intelligent, more powerful and, best of all, less expensive. Still, a robot vacuum is an investment, and it helps when they go on sale like iRobot’s models are right now on Amazon.

To start, the retailer has discounted the Roomba 694, one of our favorite budget picks. After a 35 percent discount, the robot vacuum is $179. The 694 is great if you want a no-frills option. It features WiFi connectivity, allowing you to connect to it through iRobot’s easy-to-use companion app. The software makes setup and creating a vacuuming schedule easy. Add a powerful motor and decent battery life, and you have a robot vacuum that meets the needs of most people. One of the few downsides of the 694 is that it doesn’t come with spare parts, so you’ll be forced to pay extra when you need a replacement filter or brush. But when you’re saving almost $100 off the price of the 694's usual price, that’s less of a concern.

For those with a bigger budget, Amazon has also discounted the Roomba j7+ and Roomba s9+. The former is $599 after a $200 price cut, while the latter is $799, instead of $1,000, thanks to a 20 percent discount. Of the two, the j7+ is the better pick for most people. It features Roomba’s latest computer vision software, making the vacuum better at avoiding obstacles like pet poop. The more expensive s9+ isn’t as smart as its newer sibling but features 40 times the suction power of a standard Roomba. If you have a lot of carpet in your home, the s9+ will leave your floors noticeably cleaner than the company’s other vacuum robots. Both models ship with a docking station where they’ll automatically empty their canisters at the end of a cleaning session. So if that’s a feature you’re set on, you don’t need to upgrade to the s9+.

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