It's that time of year again when retailers crawl over each other to get your attention to buy all the things! Here at XDA, we won't sell you mattresses or other things that don't relate to our core coverage. We'll hunt down the best Black Friday deals and shortlist only the discounts worth caring for. You won't find a single deal here that we wouldn't purchase ourselves whether you're in the market for a discounted laptop, CPU, GPU, storage drives, an SBC, or even some networking equipment. We'll have all the best Black Friday deals right here.

Windows 11 is a very versatile and capable operating system, and while it works pretty well out of the box, there are many settings you can change and tweaks you can make to improve your experience with Windows 11 that much more. These may be things you don't even know about, or they may be things you forget to enable for one reason or another.

Image: Netflix Netflix is trying to carve a slice of the live entertainment market, and it’s enlisting help from Beyoncé to do so. The Houston-born singer will perform in her hometown on December 25th, headlining the halftime show for the Texans-Ravens NFL matchup as part of Netflix’s Christmas Gameday live show.Beyoncé’s performance will take place in the second of two NFL games that Netflix is streaming on Christmas Day, the first being between the Kansas City Chiefs and the Pittsburgh Steelers. The star is set to perform songs from Cowboy Carter live for the first time, and “is expected to bring along some special guests” that featured on the album, according to Netflix’s announcement. The games mark Netflix’s NFL streaming debut, having secured a... Continue reading…

OneNote has been my trusty companion for jotting down meeting notes, brainstorming project ideas, and organizing my chaotic thoughts for years. But recently, Notion, with its sleek interface, block-based editor, and powerful database features, has been making headlines. Intrigued, I decided to take the plunge and replace OneNote with Notion for an entire month to see if it could truly handle my note-taking workflow.

Photo by Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images President-elect Donald Trump said on Sunday that intends to name Brendan Carr as chairman of the Federal Communications Commission. Carr, a commissioner at the FCC since 2017, has made a name for himself by threatening to use the commission’s powers to regulate speech online and over the airwaves.Carr authored Project 2025’s section on the FCC, using it to propose restrictions on social media platforms meant to bolster conservative speech. He proposed limiting the legal shield that gives websites wide latitude to host and moderate user-generated content. He also suggested putting regulations on tech companies that would limit their ability to block and prioritize that content as they choose.In the lead up to the election, Carr... Continue reading…

Image: LG LG’s 27-inch OLED gaming monitor is one of the fastest models we’ve seen to date and it’s finally ready for preorder. The UltraGear 27GX790A (or GX7 for short) is priced at $999.99 and is built around a 480Hz panel from LG Display announced in early January with a 2560 x 1440 resolution and 0.03ms response time.The base specs of the GX7 are on par with the $1,100 InZone M10S that Sony released in September. That makes the UltraGear GX7 a smidge cheaper, but it lacks some of the performance modes and variable refresh rate features available on Sony’s offering.The UltraGear GX7 is listed as available for preorder on LG’s US website, but there’s no mention of a delivery date and it can’t yet be added to the basket for checkout. We’ve... Continue reading…

Half-Life 2 launched on November 16, 2004, and it's hard to understate its importance for "triple-A" gaming and PC gamers' habits for purchasing and playing games. Without it, the Steam distribution platform that eventually bankrolled Valve's hardware endeavors like the Steam Deck wouldn't have succeeded, at least not to the level of being the most used online platform for PC gaming.

Imagine urgently needing your Windows PC to meet a deadline but helplessly waiting for it to boot. I know this can be a really frustrating situation. A sluggish Windows startup can dampen your productivity and greatly test your patience. It may also indicate some deep-rooted issues with the OS. Thankfully, you can apply many simple, actionable steps on your Windows 10 or 11 devices to increase the boot time. Most of these steps just involve changes to some Windows OS settings, though a few would require you to invest in upgrades. Here are the best steps you can take to improve your system startup.

Illustration: The Verge Roblox is starting to roll out some recently-announced child safety features, and the updates include some new limitations for how users under 13 can communicate on the platform. Beginning Monday, users younger than 13 won’t be able to DM players outside of games or experiences on Roblox. And they’ll need parental permission to be able to send in-game DMs — though this change won’t be fully implemented across the platform until the first quarter of 2025.The changes follow recent reports highlighting instances of Roblox failing to protect children. A big article from Bloomberg described how predators on the platform use chat to communicate with kids. And a report from Hindenburg Research described Roblox as “an X-rated pedophile... Continue reading…

Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge, Getty Images Emails in Musk’s lawsuit against OpenAI expose the startup’s rocky origins. Continue reading…

Windows Search isnt exactly known for being great at finding your files or apps, and its web search isnt much better. By default, when you type a query in the taskbar search box, alongside results for apps, files, and settings, Windows Search will also suggest web searches. These will open Microsoft Edge and use Bing to answer your question.

These days, there are plenty of ways to play Windows games on Mac, but you don't have a great deal of choice when it comes to peripherals. However, it seems that Corsair is trying to change that. The company has announced that it's releasing the first keyboard for Macs designed specifically for gaming, and it may be a sign of things to come for hardcore fans who love macOS.