With the launch of 2023's iPhone 15 Pro Max, Apple discontinued its leather products in favor of FineWoven accessories. One of the popular products that has adopted this eco-friendly alternative is Apple's FineWoven Wallet. While some customers have adapted to and love the new material, many others are concerned about its quality and price. To find out whether the new equivalent is actually a match for its leather predecessor, I decided to try it out. Unfortunately, there are much better options with the same features and price, and they don't look like they just escaped from prison.

With superb ANC and dynamic, rich sound, Bose’s latest pair of earbuds are a bonafide hit. | Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge Happy Saturday, dear readers! It’s been an extremely quiet week on the deals front, with the most notable discounts we’ve seen landing on Apple’s 15-inch MacBook Air, GOTY contender Baldur’s Gate 3, and Belkin’s 3-in-1 MagSafe charger. Luckily, despite the lack of new deals, there are some solid holiday discounts still hanging around.For instance, you can still snag the Bose QuietComfort Ultra Earbuds on sale at Amazon, Best Buy, and Target starting at $249 ($50 off), which remains the best price we’ve seen on the wireless earbuds since they made their debut earlier in the fall. They’re not all that different from last year’s QC Earbuds II in fit and finish, yet they add a new immersive audio component and improved fins that allow for... Continue reading…

2023 was a great year for laptops and technology in general. There were so many great devices that we loved this year, like the Yoga Book 9i and the new 15-inch MacBook Air. These laptops from Lenovo and Apple were special on their own, but HP has one-upped them all. In my eyes, HP was the best laptop maker in 2023. With innovative and groundbreaking devices like the Spectre Fold and even the HP Envy Move, HP went where no other laptop maker went this year with some excellent devices.

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge Apple is banning new sales of the Watch Series 9 and Ultra 2 in the US due to a patent dispute — here’s all the latest news. Continue reading…

Lenovo's ThinkPad series features some of the best business laptops available today, and the Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon Gen 12 is the latest, with a long-awaited redesign and increased power with Intel's new Core Ultra processors. But how does Lenovo's 14-inch business laptop compare to the newest 14-inch MacBook Pro, featuring Apple's very own, very powerful M3 processor?

Like many Linux distributions, and even Windows and macOS, Ubuntu comes with a firewall. This is a security feature that can prevent connections from unwanted sources on your system. Sometimes, though, you might want to disable it if you want to let all network traffic through. You might even want to open a specific port on your firewall for remote desktop connections, too. Well, Ubuntu's default firewall configuration tool is known as Uncomplicated Firewall, better known as UFW. Usually, UFW is off by default, but you can configure it easily with the terminal.

The Verge / Photo Courtesy of IMDB and Hulu Hulu got a big price hike this year, but it’s getting increasingly harder to cancel (at least for me) thanks to the overwhelming number of shows and movies to watch on the Disney-owned service. While those of us in the US can currently access Hulu separately from Disney Plus, things are about to change very soon.Disney is planning to launch a combined Hulu and Disney Plus app for users who subscribe to both services, and it’s set to come out next year after some initial testing. Keep in mind that this won’t change the content available on either service, just how you access it. For now, though, here are some of the best shows released on Hulu this year.Only Murders in the Building (Season 3)Selena Gomez, Steve Martin, and Martin... Continue reading…

Whether you've opted for the latest Apple Watch Ultra 2 or a slightly older model, you will get access to the same main set of watchOS 10 features. After all, most Apple Watch upgrades in recent years have been incremental, and older models share most of their technology. So, regardless of which edition you've got, there are ten things you may want to do right after you unbox your new Apple Watch.

2024 Chevrolet Blazer EV RS in Galaxy Gray Metallic | Image: GM Our automotive editor was scheduled to test a Blazer EV soon, but it looks like that will have to wait — GM has paused sales of its brand-new Chevy Blazer EV following reports of significant issues. In a statement provided to The Verge, Chevrolet communications executive director Chad Lyons said, “Our team is working quickly to roll out a fix, and owners will be contacted with further information on how to schedule their update.” Chevrolet vice president Scott Bell said, “We’re aware that a limited number of customers have experienced software-related quality issues with their Blazer EV. Customer satisfaction is our priority and as such, we will take a brief pause on new deliveries.” GM did not confirm how many vehicles are affected,... Continue reading…

Microsoft dropped plenty of jaws when it unveiled Windows Subsystem for Android, a way to run actual Android apps inside Windows 11 without needing to fiddle with any third-party solution. The integration is so seamless that you can convert your Windows tablet into an Android powerhouse in no time, even without sacrificing the factory-installed Windows version.

Most people want the newest electronic device on the market. But does it actually make sense to them? There are plenty of occasions where choosing the newest technology will benefit the consumer, but there are caveats to it as well. It can cost an arm and a leg, and it can be difficult to get used to. There is something to be said about a tried and tested product that has always been reliable.

The Verge What a year, huh? As 2023 draws to a close, it’s time to look back on the year that was. It was a great year for entertainment and a not-so-great year for the people who actually made that entertainment. It was the year Twitter died, and the year Matter mostly failed to launch. Gadgets got gadgety-er, photos got what-is-a-photo-ier, and generative AI was suddenly everywhere. Now through the end of the year, we’ll recap the highs and lows in gadgets, social media, and entertainment, and look ahead at how 2024 is shaping up (spoiler: even more AI). We’ll talk about our favorite movies and TV shows of the year, including the best stuff on Max, Apple TV Plus, Prime, and Disney Plus, and our favorite games on every platform, from... Continue reading…