Random access memory (RAM for short) is an integral part of any gaming PC. The system memory is responsible for storing data for quick access by the CPU and other components. Think of it as a super-charged SSD. The faster the RAM (and more you have available) the better the performance you'll be able to enjoy with resource-intensive games and software. I'm going to run you through my best DDR5 RAM picks for gaming.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Tesla will release its 2023 Holiday Update next week with a few big changes, including one that lets Teslas call 911 automatically if the car’s airbags deploy in a crash. On Thursday, the company announced the update is coming next week, and it highlighted other coming features like Apple Podcasts support, rear-screen Bluetooth headset support, an updated version of the park assistance with 3D visuals, and new blind spot indicators.Apple Podcast support joins Apple Music, which Tesla added last year. Not a Tesla App reported yesterday that Tesla owners can sync podcasts with Apple devices. The site added other details about update 2023.44.25; for instance, Tesla owners won’t need a separate USB stick for every light show they want to... Continue reading…

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.

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.

Beeper Mini brought iMessage to Android. It didn’t last long. | Image: Beeper A few days after the team at Beeper proudly announced a way for users to send blue-bubble iMessages directly from their Android devices without any weird relay servers, and about 24 hours after it became clear Apple had taken steps to shut that down, Apple has shared its take on the issue. The company’s stance here is fairly predictable: it says it’s simply trying to do right by users, and protect the privacy and security of their iMessages. “We took steps to protect our users by blocking techniques that exploit fake credentials in order to gain access to iMessage,” Apple senior PR manager Nadine Haija said in a statement.Here’s the statement in full:At Apple, we build our products and services with industry-leading privacy and... Continue reading…

Image: Epic Games You could say that Fortnite is entering a new phase. With the launch of Lego Fortnite, Rocket Racing, and Fortnite Festival, the game is now more than a popular battle royale — it’s a platform designed to house lots of different kinds of experiences. That shift was preceded by an event that brought the game back to its roots with Fortnite OG, which returned to the original battle royale map alongside classic weapons and vehicles. And that was a very intentional strategy from Epic Games.According to Epic’s executive VP Saxs Persson, the launch of Fortnite OG was meant to create a stir ahead of this rollout of new games. “We had a goal of re-activating a lot of our 500 million accounts that maybe weren’t playing Fortnite anymore, and... Continue reading…

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…

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.