Microsoft Excel and Google Sheets are two of the popular spreadsheet solutions out there. Although Google Sheets is widely appreciated for its ease of use and real-time collaboration features, Excel continues to be the preferred choice for professionals and businesses that require robust capabilities, versatility, and superior performance. From boasting a rich templates library to handling complex calculations, Excel constantly edges out its web-based counterpart.

The launch of AMD's Zen 5 processors didn't exactly go as planned, with AMD dropping the ball with the Ryzen 9000 CPUs in some major areas. Arguably, the most disappointing aspect of the 9000 series was the lackluster gains in gaming performance compared to the previous-gen Ryzen 7000 processors.

Regular iPhone, rise up. | Photo by Dan Seifert / The Verge Look, I get it. People aren’t buying phones like they used to, so Apple’s really gotta put the squeeze on us every upgrade cycle. And recently, that has meant pushing more people toward the Pro iPhone, rather than the regular one. Every year for the past few years, Apple has withheld more and more features for its Pro phones, bring them down to the standard iPhone at a drip. But that might be changing this year, if the rumors are true, and to that I say: it’s about damn time.In the past couple of cycles only the “Pro” models have gotten the latest Bionic chipset. That doesn’t just mean that the Pro models are more powerful — it also means that the regular iPhone won’t be eligible for the same feature updates that the Pro models get... Continue reading…

You can buy a disassembled iPhone 4S framed for just $99. | Image: Grid Studio If you’re a fan of all things retro, Grid’s framed disassembled gadgets are a celebration of vintage tech you will likely find charming. The company turns obsolete smartphones, gaming consoles, controllers, and other old-school gizmos into collage-like artwork placed in shadowbox-style frames, making for incredibly unusual pieces of home or office decor. And right now through September 12th, many of our favorite Grid items are up to around 40 percent off in honor of the company’s fourth anniversary.A wide range of nostalgia-inducing gadgets are on sale; you can check them all out here. You can, for instance, buy the translucent Game Boy Color and the iPod Photo from 2004 for $159.20 when you use promo code GRID4 at checkout. For me,... Continue reading…

Starliner just after undocking from the ISS. | Screenshot: YouTube The Boeing Starliner spacecraft successfully completed its uncrewed flight back to Earth, NASA announced overnight. The return ended the Starliner’s most recent flight test months later than intended and leaves its original crew, NASA astronauts Barry “Butch” Wilmore and Suni Williams, aboard the International Space Station until next year.The Starliner touched down right on time at 12:01 AM ET at White Sands Space Harbor in New Mexico, according to NASA. Officials at the agency hailed its successful descent:“I am extremely proud of the work our collective team put into this entire flight test, and we are pleased to see Starliner’s safe return,” said Ken Bowersox, associate administrator, Space Operations Mission Directorate at NASA... Continue reading…

You don't have to spend a lot nowadays to get a good TV. This Hisense 58-inch ULED smart TV is a perfect example, offering impressive colors, resolution, and features at a price that's really affordable. While it has a retail price of $550, we are now seeing an impressive price reduction on this model that drops it to just $320 for a limited time. That's a pretty drastic discount that knocks 42% off the original price. Of course, you'll want to be quick, because a deal like this won't last long.

Microsoft aims to make a statement by jumping from the Surface Pro 9 directly up to the Surface Pro 11, just like it did when skipping from Windows 8.1 to Windows 10. If you ignore the confusing (and only peripherally relevant) release of the Surface Pro 10 for Business, this is Microsofts first new Surface Pro device to be made widely available in two years. Their leap ahead in version number should indicate that this is no iterative update.

While Microsoft 365 is the most popular productivity solution out there, it clearly isnt an ideal fit for many, especially those who prefer to stay away from the Windows ecosystem and are on a tight budget. While Google Docs is widely known as an ideal alternative to the Microsoft 365 suite, you cant completely rule out other alternatives. Among them, WPS Office remains an overlooked productivity powerhouse that strikes the perfect balance between features and asking price.

Image: Team Asobi The sequel to a simple pack-in game is a flawless love letter to both PlayStation’s history and video games in general. Continue reading…

Google's Pixel 9 Pro just launched, and it looks like another great phone for anyone who loves mobile photography. It's also packed full of AI features powered by Google Gemini, and has a very distinct design with a rounded camera bar. It's going to be one of the best Android phones you can get, backed up by seven years of software support and security updates. It's also covered in glass, which means you'll want to put it in a protective case so that it has a chance of surviving long enough to experience all those years of updates. Keep in mind that the Pixel 9 and 9 Pro both utilize the same cases. To help narrow the choice down for you, here are our top picks for the best cases.

A still image of Doom on a volumetric display. | Photo by James Brown (@ancientjames) In 2022, I introduced you to James Brown, the Weta Workshop graphics engineer whose hobby is building amazing displays. Now, he’s built a crystal ball filled with shimmering, spinning volumetric light — and of course he’s playing Doom on it. But not just any Doom. Voxel Doom, where every dot of the game’s graphics lives in 3D space, just like the dots of the volumetric display he’s created. As he explains on YouTube, the physical illusion is fairly simple: “It’s like a hologram fan, but instead of spinning a 1D strip to make a 2D image, it spins a 2D panel to make a 3D image.” On his Mastodon, he breaks it down a bit more with visual aids: Brown’s been working on this for over a year now: if I’m not mistaken, he introduced the... Continue reading…

Honor may not be the first name you think of when you think of high-end laptops, but at this year's IFA, the company introduced the all-new MagicBook Art 14, a laptop that feels like a true breath of fresh air in terms of design. In fact, the design alone is what drove me to write this very article. On top of top-tier performance, particularly when it comes to the Snapdragon variant, this is looking to be a fantastic laptop to both look at and use, and I'm very curious to see more.