If you have ever watched a fresh Windows 11 instance downloading update after update right after installation, you should understand how much annoying and time-consuming it can be. After all, Microsoft releases cumulative updates every month for its operating systems, which means even the freshly-downloaded ISO image for Windows is already old. Each time you deploy it, the target computer — be it one of the best laptops or your RGB-laden best gaming PC — then needs to download the latest updates on its own.

My everyday operating system is Windows 11, and I occasionally dip in and use macOS and ChromeOS. As a tech and how-to writer, enjoying other operating systems is the responsible thing to do, and not just one all the time. Yet one OS that I've always been reluctant to use is Linux. I was always "afraid" of it, thinking it was too technical and nothing like Windows or macOS, but recently, I spent a good week with it as my daily operating system for the first time.

Be it just for fun or taking full control of your data, the idea of maintaining a dedicated home NAS for media streaming, file storage, and various other tasks gives you a whole new notion of freedom. Cutting the cloud tether is rather easy, thanks to plenty of excellent self-hosted options that house your documents and media library. But there’s one service that’s proven stubbornly tricky to replace — Microsoft 365, or the subscription-based variant of Microsoft Office to be precise.

When we use computers, they're more than just number-crunching devices, but that's all they used to be known for when they were first conceived. Ada Lovelace changed all of that. She's considered to be one of the world's first programmers because she was the first to see that the Analytical Engine, a proposed mechanical general-purpose computer by Charles Babbage, could be used for applications that went beyond number crunching.

Looking to install Linux in place of Windows 11? Or maybe you just want to try one of the many great Linux distributions like Ubuntu for a bit on your PC's hardware before committing to it? Well, that's made easy. Thanks to tools like Rufus, you can create a bootable Linux installer that you can use to demo and install Linux on any PC, once you have access to the BIOS that is. We'll take a look at the process for you today, on Windows 11.

If you have a Lenovo Legion Go or you're thinking of picking one up, then you've probably been considering how to get the most amount of storage. There's an official 1TB option that isn't too expensive, but if you want to save money now and get the 512GB model, or you want more than 1TB of storage, you can upgrade it yourself.

Image: William Joel / The Verge Hi, friends! Welcome to Installer No. 17, your guide to the best and Verge-iest stuff in the world. If you’re new here, welcome, so psyched you found us, and also, you can read all the old editions at the Installer homepage.This week, I’ve been watching A Murder at the End of the World and (finally!) Barbie, reading about Gary Gensler’s war on crypto, robot trucks, and Taylor Swift’s world takeover, playing Puzzmo’s Really Bad Chess, and catching up on all the super-popular TikToks I missed this year. I also have for you a new Mastodon app, a bunch of new AI tools, a whole new Fortnite universe, an espresso maker, and much more. And I have some thoughts about messaging. Let’s dig in.(As always, the best part of Installer is your ideas... Continue reading…

If you want to do some gaming on the go, you may prefer a tablet over a traditional laptop, which can get cumbersome and expensive. However, deciding which tablet to go with can be confusing. Looking at the best tablets around or, perhaps, the best Android tablets out there is a good starting point, but not every good tablet is a good fit for playing video games. Plus, you'll also want to consider the best convertible laptops that are both tablet and laptop. This can become overwhelming quickly. Luckily, we've gone through tons of tablets to give you our top picks.

Although we're well into the 12GB/s era of PCIe 5.0 SSDs, it's not like first-generation 10GB/s drives are gone. There aren't a ton of them available, however, since some companies decided to wait for faster hardware to be available, so your options are pretty limited, especially if you want a 1TB model. KingSpec's VP101 is one of the very few 10GB/s PCIe 5.0 SSDs that offers a 1TB model, and in theory, it could be a great budget option within the wider PCIe 5.0 market. It even has an active cooler preinstalled, which is pretty unusual.

Illustration by Nick Barclay / The Verge Apple is reportedly making some changes next year that it hopes will make it easier for people to fit a specific iPad to their needs. For instance, Bloomberg reporter Mark Gurman wrote in his Power On newsletter today that the next iPad Air will get an M2 chip in addition to the larger second model that’s been rumored.One of the other ways Apple is reportedly tackling the issue is to drop the 9th-generation model that’s been dangling off of the front of the lineup since last year’s pricier 10th-generation iPad redesign launched. Gurman says sending the 9th-gen iPad out to pasture will let the company “slowly phase out some of its older Pencils.” Presumably, the 2015 Apple Pencil will be the first to go, once there’s no Lightning port... Continue reading…

When you hear the word "earbuds," your mind likely jumps to Bluetooth true wireless earbuds, but good old-fashioned wired earbuds are still out there. And some of them are definitely worth your consideration. Thanks to their reliable connection method, you'll never have to worry about signal dropouts or low audio quality. To help you decide which pair to buy, I've rounded up nine picks for the best wired earbuds.

For digital artists and graphic designers, not many products can beat Wacom's Cintiq lineup of precise and color-accurate pen displays. But what if you want to enjoy that experience without spending thousands of dollars? In that case, you might be turning to the Wacom One 13. It's a portable pen display with a 13.3-inch touchscreen that claims to offer precision and color accuracy on a budget, retailing for around $600. Although you'd be right to push back on the idea that $600 for a drawing display is budget, compared to the other products in this space, it is.