When you get a shiny new powerful laptop, you might set your old one aside to gather dust or send it to the manufacturer for recycling. But have you considered that you can keep that aging laptop and make it useful again? Even though your laptop seems to be on its last gasps, there are different ways to put it to use. There are endless possibilities for reusing an old laptop, some of which you may not have considered.

Photo Illustration by Sheldon Cooper/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images RedNote, the Chinese social media app also known as Xiaohongshu, rose to the number one spot on the Apple App Store as a US ban closes in on TikTok. The app offers a mix of pictures, short-form videos, and text posts across “follow,” “explore,” and “nearby” feeds.A cursory scroll through RedNote’s Explore page shows English-language posts scattered among those written in Chinese. Many American users call themselves “TikTok refugees” in videos, while others write in text posts that they’re in search of a new community because of the potential TikTok ban. Some are even asking questions to Chinese users, such as “What are some popular memes in China?” Screenshot: The Verge RedNote, which launched in 2013 as a shopping-focused app, now has more than 300 million monthly active users and surpassed $1 billion in profit last year, according to Bloomberg. Last week, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments over whether to uphold the law that will ban TikTok or force its China-based owner, ByteDance, to sell it to an American company. The Supreme Court has until January 19th to issue a decision. TikTok users may be flocking to RedNote now, but the ban also implicates other Chinese-owned apps, including RedNote, WeChat, and the other apps run by ByteDance like Lemon8 and CapCut.

I spent some time with Crucial, Micron's consumer brand of products, at CES 2025 in Las Vegas, where the company announced its newest Gen 5 SSD, the P510. This new model, launching at the end of Q1 2025, features numerous improvements over their previous Gen 5 product, including increases in power efficiency and cooling, and a single-sided design for a better fit in laptops. Its Microns hope that this new generation represents the closest we've come yet to a truly consumer-accessible PCIe 5.0 SSD. With more affordable and thermally efficient Gen 5 SSDs hitting the market, here's why you might finally consider upgrading in 2025.

There are a lot of tablets on the market right now. But if you're looking for something compact and powerful, the iPad Mini is going to be one of the best options. This is the latest model that utilizes the brand's A17 Pro chip.

Image: Games Done Quick Awesome Games Done Quick 2025 has concluded, raising just over $2.5 million for the Prevent Cancer Foundation. Every Games Done Quick event is worth tuning in to either live or later via VODs, but this AGDQ was uniquely fantastic, filled with runs that’ll go down as some of the best GDQ has to offer. Here are some of our favorites: New Super Mario Bros. WiiThe great thing about the speedrunning community is that it’s often not enough to be the fastest runner of a particular game. That’s boring. For Wes, simply running New Super Mario Bros. Wii wasn’t enough to satisfy him. He had to get creative with it, deciding to master playing the game as fast as possible while playing the piano. But how can someone play a video game if both their hands are occupied, you ask? The answer is obvious: by controlling the game with your head and feet. I don’t know what inspires a human to do this kind of thing, and I don’t care. All that matters is that Wes put the depth of human ability (and multitasking) on display, and it was brain-breaking to watch.Elden Ring bonus showcaseSpeaking of incredible human talent, how about playing Elden Ring — a game known for its punishing difficulty — with a saxophone. I was looking forward to this run all week, and Dr. Doot did not disappoint, but not for the reason I expected. It’s one thing to beat the likes of Malenia, Blade of Miquella with a specially programmed aerophone. But nothing could have prepared me for every input, from landing an attack to using consumables, sounding a hilarious “doot” noise. I cried laughing it was so funny. Super MetroidSuper Metroid is a GDQ staple, often anchoring the event’s last day in a week’s worth of programming. But lately, GDQ has gotten away from featuring a mere run of the game to instead showcase all the work the Super Metroid modding community has put into keeping this game from 1994 fresh and interesting. This four-way race of Super Metroid included a map randomizer, meaning the game’s normal layout had been shuffled around and put together in an all-new configuration.Map randomizers for a Metroid game are uniquely dangerous because all of the abilities you need to progress are no longer laid out in a logical fashion. Samus might run into the fiery pits of Lower Norfair long before finding the heat-shielding Varia suit. And with the map randomized, it’s now way harder (and takes way longer) to find where the suit is. Now add an element of competition, and you’ve got one of the finest races in AGDQ history.Crazy Taxi with live backing bandIt used to be that if you wanted to avoid DMCA strikes for playing a game on Twitch with licensed music, you just turned the music off. But AGDQ has come up with a novel way to get around this old problem. For this run of Crazy Taxi, every song was played by a cover band that transformed AGDQ from a speedrunning video game event into an impromptu punk rock show — mini-mosh pit and all — and it ruled. I’m not gonna share any details. Just go watch it for yourself.GDQ is a uniquely special event for more reasons than featuring cool, creative, or crazy-ass runs. In a world where cowardly corporations have decided it’s okay to call women and LGBTQ+ people slurs, and one where gamers have a unique reputation for being awful to each other for differences beyond our control, Games Done Quick has been very vocal in its support of marginalized people. Whether it be its diverse programming with Frame Fatales or Black in a Flash or the mere fact that every other donation featured a message of “Trans Rights,” which was enthusiastically read aloud and enthusiastically cheered by the live crowd.Games Done Quick has been a shining example of how intentionally curated communities can foster acceptance and be a source of joy and goodness in a climate that needs it, and AGDQ 2025 was one of the best.

The seventh-gen iPad is the cheapest tablet in Apple’s current lineup to support Apple Intelligence. | Photo: David Pierce / The Verge If you’re in the market for a highly portable tablet, Apple’s smallest tablet has fallen to its lowest price to date at multiple retailers. Right now, the latest iPad Mini is on sale at Amazon and Best Buy with Wi-Fi and 128GB of storage starting at $399 ($100 off). If you need more storage, you can also buy the step-up model with 256GB of storage for $499 ($100 off) or the 512GB variant for $699 ($100 off).With its 8.3-inch screen and lightweight design, the latest iPad Mini is closer in size to the iPhone than any other tablet in Apple’s lineup. As a result, it’s easier to carry on the go and hold with one hand, making it an excellent option if you read a lot on your tablet. Its small size doesn’t come at the expense of performance, though. In fact, the onboard A17 Pro chip is snappier than the A14 Bionic chip found in the entry-level iPad, even if it’s not as speedy as the processors in the M4-powered iPad Pro or M2-powered Air.Unlike the base iPad, the seventh-gen Mini supports Apple Intelligence, so you can take advantage of a host of AI-based features — such as AI-assisted summaries, Genmoji, ChatGPT, and the ability to erase unwanted objects in photos. It also supports the newer Apple Pencil Pro, along with Wi-Fi 6E and faster USB-C performance. They’re pretty iterative updates overall; however, they’re also a lot more appealing at $399 than they are at the tablet’s typical retail price of $499.Read our iPad Mini review.

Illustration: The Verge Google is adjusting the “profile sharing” feature in its Google Messages app to allow users to set custom contact names and photos on their own devices for their stored contacts and others they send text messages. As reported by 9to5Google, a change rolled out late last year that overrode your custom names and photos with each individual’s broadcasted profile, but now you can change it back to give friends, colleagues, and family members the names and avatars that you think they should have.The profile-sharing feature was announced in late 2023, as Google continued to push the rollout of RCS, and works similarly to Contact Posters on iPhones. Android Authority found a reference in Android code in October that Google was working to allow for customer profile photos yet again.Google’s updated support page for profile sharing now outlines steps to set a local contact photo that replaces the one shared by your contact. To customize their name or appearance, tap on a contact name or picture of a person in a Google Messages chat, then tap their photo on the details page. From there, you can switch between their shared one or your own custom one for them.

Both Pixelmator Pro and Affinity Photo are proprietary software that stands in good competition with Photoshop. These two software are Photoshop’s biggest closed-source competition, but they each stand as fantastic editing tools. With support from Apple and Canva, both Pixelmator Pro and Affinity Photo have powerful development teams behind them, helping you produce amazing image compositions, but one is better than the other.

This is one of the best Windows laptops that you can buy in 2025. While it's technically a tablet right out of the box, the optional keyboard accessory makes one of the thinnest and lightest laptops that you can buy. Of course, you also get plenty of power thanks to Qualcomm's Snapdragon X processor.

Illustration: The Verge Meta announced last week that it would be ditching fact-checkers in favor of X-like Community Notes, and self-described “leaker” Alessandro Paluzzi shared screenshots on Monday showing what the feature might look like in Threads.Based on the screenshots, it appears you’ll be able to start the process of writing a Community Note from the three-dots menu on a post, which is where you can already access features like muting an account or reporting a post. Another screenshot shows that when you write a Community Note, your note will be anonymous.A third screenshot appears to show an Instagram help center page about Community Notes that has a button to join a waitlist for the program. However, the layout of the page looks different from other live help center pages I can see right now.Meta didn’t immediately reply to a request for comment.Meta said last week that it plans to “phase in Community Notes in the US first over the next couple of months” and then “improve it over the course of the year,” but it hasn’t specified exactly when the feature might be available on Threads. My colleague Alex Heath reported Sunday that Community Notes “was not on the product roadmap before this week.”In addition to the move to Community Notes, Meta said it’s also getting rid of “a number of restrictions” on topics like immigration and gender, and phasing “civil content” back into Facebook, Instagram, and Threads. Instagram boss Adam Mosseri published a video today showing how to set the amount of political content you see on Threads.

While Excel is incredibly powerful for organizing data and performing calculations, repetitive tasks like data entry, formatting, and report generation can quickly turn into a nightmare. While several built-in ways to automate an Excel workbook exist, they feel limited during complex tasks.

Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge, Getty Images TikTokers are coping with the app’s potential ban with an unusual trend: by bidding farewell to their “personal Chinese spy.” The trend, which pokes fun at security concerns surrounding the app, has users thanking their “spy” for surveilling them and filling their For You page with entertaining content, while others proclaim that they’d rather share their data directly with the Chinese government than switch to Instagram Reels or YouTube Shorts.One post, which garnered more than 1.5 million likes, depicts an emotional scene from Squid Game with the caption, “Me saying goodbye to my Chinese spy on the 19th (He perfected my algorithm).” Other TikTokers are speaking — and singing — in Chinese, while some pretend to be the “spies” powering individual algorithms. @_unsc_ #tiktokban ♬ original sound - _unsc_ “It is a great honor to spy on you for the last few years,” TikToker yanxiao1003 says in a video. “I wish you all have a great life in the future... Laura from California, you shouldn’t drink that much Coca-Cola, it’s bad for your health.”For years, TikTok has faced scrutiny over the ties of its parent company, ByteDance, to China, with lawmakers calling it a “national security threat” and accusing the app of sending US user data to China. But now the platform’s ban is imminent, with the Supreme Court set to hand down a decision on whether to uphold the law that would either ban TikTok or force ByteDance to divest it by January 19th. @yneeky #tiktokban #fyp #fypシ #foryoupage ♬ original sound - Neeky @yanxiao1003 No gathering lasts forever #tiktokban #chinesespy ♬ See You Again - Saymon Cleiton & jhonatan Rodrigues @lisandravcomedy An open letter to my special Chinese Spy #tiktokban #politicstiktok #comedy ♬ Carmen Habanera, classical opera(1283412) - perfectpanda @cool_cammy i’m gonna miss my chinese spy ♬ original sound - cool_cammy @celestialdemon9909 #tiktokban ♬ original sound - Ancoleman9909 @matcha.mix sometimes it’s the one who’s always been in front of you that you never notice #tiktokban #invisiblestring #lovejourney #matchamix #data #china #datinglife ♬ original sound - alex @kozylifekiki Tiktok ban who they can have all the info they want on me to keep tiktok from getting banned #tiktokban ♬ original sound - JamieJL651