The cheapest iPhone still feels about $100 too expensive.The iPhone 16E is everything I love and hate about iOS. FaceTime at your fingertips. A reliable camera. Simplicity. Familiarity. They’re the pillars of the iPhone experience, and Apple’s newest phone has ‘em. My husband picked up the 16E, concerned that he would have to “learn something new” to use it. He swiped around for a second and said, “Oh. It’s just like my phone.” It is just like his phone — a six-year-old iPhone XR — only updated with a few essential improvements (a faster processor, nicer screen, and a modern camera, that kind of thing) and little else.That’s the other pillar of the iPhone experience: You get exactly what Apple gives you and nothing more. On Android, you can buy a $500 phone with a fast refresh-rate screen, two rear cameras, seven years of software support, and wireless charging. On iOS, you can buy this $599 phone with one rear camera, a standard 60Hz screen, wireless charging (but no MagSafe), and an ample but unstated amount of software support. Apple has no competition when it comes to phones running iOS. The company can gatekeep these conveniences behind a higher price tag, and that’s simply the way things will be. I’m …Read the full story at The Verge.

Navigating through dozens of files and apps on your MacBook can slow you down, so application launchers are a must-have. These tools make it easy to quickly access applications and files as you perform various tasks with just a few keystrokes. They streamline your workflow, making you organized and efficient. While many of these app launchers offer advanced customization, integrations, and automation, we believe these six will speed up your productivity on Mac.

Engwe’s Mapfour N1 Pro looking fine in Amsterdam.Europe has an electric bike problem. Direct-to-consumer e-bikes from inexpensive Chinese brands like Engwe and countless others can be easily purchased online despite openly flouting EU restrictions. They feature throttles and powerful motors that can be easily unlocked to far exceed the 25km/h (16mph) legal speed limit — no pedaling required.Here in Amsterdam, cheap Super73-knockoffs ridden at almost twice the legal speed have made the city’s renowned bicycle lanes increasingly chaotic and dangerous. Across the Netherlands, over 10,000 of these electric “fat bikes” were seized in 2024. Engwe’s new Mapfour lineup is the company’s attempt at going legit by expanding from souped-up electric fat bikes and foldables into “premium commuter” e-bikes. And because they’re the first e-bikes that Engwe has designed exclusively for European roads, the company swears they can’t be unlocked for more speed.I’ve been riding the new Mapfour N1 Pro model for the last few weeks. It lists for €1,899 (almost $2,000), or €1,799 during the initial launch — a price that brings heightened expectations. The N1 Pro is slathered in premium capabilities like GPS/GSM tracki …Read the full story at The Verge.

When leaks began giving us an image of what the GeForce RTX 5090 would look like, we knew immediately that it was going to be expensive. Sure enough, the card went on sale for $1,999; that is, if you managed to find one that wasn't being scalped. Well, if you're not keen on dropping that much money on a GPU, you can instead buy a whole new PC equipped with a Radeon RX 9070 XT and still have $200 left over for some games.

As you can tell by the fact that I authored this article, I'm a writer. Writing is what pays my bills, so I do it for eight hours a day, five days a week. Sometimes more if I empty my wallet on a cool new piece of tech. I generally use a markdown editor to write my articles as it makes it easy to copy and paste the article onto a content management service. This way, I can retain the format of the article without making any major edits. As you can tell by this, my workflow is quite simple. Conduct research about a topic I'm writing on, write about it, paste it onto the website's CMS, and publish it. Despite this, I generally end up with piled-up work by the end of the week. You'll often find me working long hours on Friday to cover up for lost time during the rest of the week -- all thanks to my procrastinating self.

Mini PCs have become popular in recent years due to their compact size, but they wouldn't be my top pick if I'm going to them playing games. Sure, they're great as console replacements, but that tiny size is not without its drawbacks. If you don't mind sacrificing a bit more space on your desk, a small form factor Mini-ITX PC would be a much better option for your money.

Did you help fund the Ayaneo Flip around a year ago? If you did, you may not have received a product even after some people got theirs. Well, if you're still waiting, I've got some bad news for you: not only is Ayaneo pulling the plug on the entire project, but you only have a month to manually file a refund before your money is presumably gone forever.

If you're looking to upgrade your current keyboard with something a little more substantial, we recommend taking a look at a mechanical keyboard. While there are a number of reasons to make the switch, some of the top reasons why we think you should make the change are going to be for the typing experience, durability, and price.

If you've been looking for an affordable charger that can do it all, be sure to grab this Anker 735 charger while it's on sale. Not only does it deliver tons of power with up to 65W, but it also features three USB ports, making it easy to connect all your devices at once. The best part is that you can now score a huge discount, with a deal that knocks 46% off, dropping the price down to just $30 for a limited time.

The Framework Laptop 12.The moment Vjeran and I got to the demo room at Framework’s San Francisco event, we knew right away — the mint and pink version of the Framework Laptop 12 was the one I wanted to touch, the one he wanted to photograph and film. @verge Could a modular repairable laptop look great and be cheap? That’s the goal of the Framework Laptop 12 — which is also the company’s first laptop with a touchscreen, its first with a stylus, and its first convertible 2-in-1 tablet PC. We haven’t seen its insides, and we don’t know its price, only that it’ll cost less than $750 when it arrives mid-year. #framework #laptop #repair #tech #techtok #todayimtoyingwith ♬ original sound – The Verge One of the women standing next to the demo stations thanked us for saying that out loud, because she wasn’t initially sure mint and pink would make the cut! She introduced herself as Esther Yen, the senior industrial designer of this entire laptop — and says they were the colors she had asked for.Yesterday, Framework announced the 12-inch convertible notebook as its first attempt to fix budget laptops, by making them modular and repairable. (It’s kind of Framework’s thing, but this is its …Read the full story at The Verge.

You know, I really like checking out what kind of stuff people get Doom running on as many things as possible. Enthusiasts have pulled some pretty amazing tricks to get Doom running on things it really shouldn't, such as a PDF document. Now, someone has worked out a way to render Doom within a TXT file, and while it's not pretty, it's definitely very impressive.

Despite all these years using Chrome, I never thought about how handy it would be to put the browser in a split-screen mode. I don't mean opening a new window and placing it beside my current one; I mean splitting one window into two separate tabs. It would make research for work a lot easier, especially for those who are on one monitor. Well, it turns out that Google is working on such a feature, and it's shaping up to be a staple in my workflow.