Photoschmidt/Shutterstock While smartphone buyers can easily find iPhone models that can last five years, they may not have the same luck with the AirPods models they pair with those iPhones. A review of various threads about the lifespan of AirPods and AirPods Pro models sold by Apple over the past few years shows that the wireless earbuds probably won’t last that long. Average lifespan is 2 to 3 years with regular use. Taking good care of AirPods, which may involve regular cleaning of the wireless earbuds and case, can extend…
Author: Amelia Scott
DC Studio/Shutterstock Given how common 4K computer monitors are these days, it’s easy to think they’re the better option. Yes, this may be true in some cases – after all, many of them offer excellent display quality, wide screens and accurate colors. But Consumer Reports says otherwise. According to the CR rankings, the best computer monitor isn’t 4K and actually comes from one of the underrated monitor brands that can compete with Samsung and Dell; Asus. The top-ranked monitor is the Asus ProArt PA248QV. It is a 24.1″ IPS monitor,…
It’s frustrating to work on your PC and spot an errant spot on the screen. Once you notice it, you won’t notice it again, so you’ll want to clean it immediately, because proper screen care is essential for the proper care and maintenance of your PC. If you wear glasses, you might have a bottle of spray lens cleaner on hand that you’d be tempted to try, but if you spray it on your computer screen, you’re more likely to cause permanent damage than to clean it. There’s some logic to using lens cleaner on a monitor, but while it…
Many more affordable headphones on the market sound great. Most people would settle for a decent pair of headphones that don’t cost an arm and a leg. But if you’re serious about your music and your audiophile life, several fairly expensive headphones don’t quite justify their price. If you’re looking for really good sound quality, you might think that paying more means getting better sound quality. This isn’t always the case, and many expensive headphones from well-known brands don’t meet true audiophile standards. We’ve ranked 11 top audiophile headphones in the past, and none of these brands are on this…
These days, when you buy a new graphics card (or GPU) for your gaming setup, you can often choose between mounting your new GPU vertically or horizontally. The horizontal method is traditional, but the vertical method lets you show off your new GPU, as long as your side panel is clear. So you might wonder whether mounting your GPU vertically or horizontally is “better” for the unit. There is no universal answer to this question. That said, there are reasons why the horizontal method of mounting a GPU has always been more common. On the other hand, if aesthetics…
YouTube continues to make changes to the user experience. While some of these features have intentionally made watching YouTube worse, others have proven genuinely useful, such as the new Custom YouTube Stream feature. However, one area where YouTube has particularly struggled is with the influx of AI content. Thanks to new features like Reimagine — which lets you take short films and recreate them using AI prompts — and the influx of AI slop on the platform, browsing YouTube has become a minefield for those looking for real, authentic, human-centered content. But YouTube wants to solve this problem. Starting in…
Privacy-focused search engine DuckDuckGo has seen a surge in demand for its “AI-free” search option following Google’s May 19 I/O announcements. Google has launched a new “smart” search box reinvented with AI. It offers AI suggestions in the form of an upgrade to autocomplete, support for follow-up questions, expanded personal intelligence to connect Gmail and Google Photos, and search agents. DuckDuckGo said Woozad the number of visits to its No AI search page more than tripled after Google’s announcement. Traffic hit the 3x mark on May 28 and has continued to climb. Visits have averaged about 84 percent above baseline…
Hardware prices are in a really strange place right now. Thanks to the continued rise in demand for RAM and other components driven by the growth of AI, many manufacturers have begun to significantly raise their prices. We’ve already seen price increases on the Steam Deck, as well as in other areas of the industry, such as smartphones. However, Qualcomm has unveiled a new chip that could finally be a game-changer, at least for more budget-friendly options. Qualcomm’s new Snapdragon C platform is expected to enable Windows ARM laptops to reach prices as low as $300, according to a press…
Android Auto users, a new update is about to make your life a little easier. May brought a wave of updates to the Google UI for Vehicles platform, including one that will completely overhaul your dashboard. The updates also provide widgets for drivers and improvements to Google Maps. However, a new feature now in the Android Auto beta will make switching between certain apps much easier for users. Spotted by Android Authority, Google is pushing a new update that will bring sliding media cards to your dashboard. Essentially, this means you can switch between media apps and streaming apps more…
YouTube is rolling out three new quality-of-life features aimed directly at the more than 1 billion active podcast listeners who use YouTube and YouTube Music each month. Features include improved playback controls, which should make listening to podcasts much easier on the go, as well as an AI feature built right into the YouTube Music app that will help make finding new podcasts much simpler and more interactive. The biggest downside, of course, is that all of these new features are exclusive to YouTube Premium subscribers. We saw a YouTube Premium price hike earlier this year, raising the standard plan…