A common assumption when it comes to building a Plex or Jellyfin server is that more graphical horsepower would mean better performance, and that's a quite understandable mistake. For many years, video transcoding has relied on software encoding, where CPU core count was the key determiner of how many streams could be handled at once.

For the longest time, I used the GeForce Experience app to update my GPU drivers, even though it was far from perfect. The main reason for that was convenience and familiarity. I'd see an update notification in the system tray, click Download, proceed with express installation, and move on with my day. I didn't think much about what new features Nvidia was adding and whether I actually needed any of them. But ever since Nvidia replaced GeForce Experience with the Nvidia app, I felt like I needed a cleaner way to update my drivers.

Digital photo frames like the Aura Aspen are down to some of their best prices. Valentine’s Day is coming up fast, and if you haven’t started shopping yet, there are a lot of great gifts on sale that should still arrive in time if you order soon. Several Verge-approved gadgets are seeing some of their best discounts since the holidays, with options we think will appeal to a wide range of interests, from thoughtful picks like digital photo frames to e-readers, smart speakers, smartwatches, massagers, and even practical stuff like vacuums. While some are bigger-ticket items, quite a few cost under $100, so there’s something here for a range of budgets, too.Below, we’ve rounded up the best Valentine’s Day gift deals you can shop right now across a range of categories and prices, whether you’re buying for a partner, a friend, or yourself.Beats Powerbeats Pro 2The latest Powerbeats Pro are a no-brainer for athletes. They pack fantastic sound and thumping bass, along with active noise cancellation, IPX4 water resistance, and heart rate monitoring. Read our review.Where to Buy: $249 $199.95 at Walmart $249 $199.95 at Amazon $249 $199.99 at Best BuyThe Amazon Echo Dot Max is on sale for $79.99 ($20 off) at Amazon, Best Buy, and Target, which matches its best price. In her review, my colleague Jennifer Pattison Tuohy called it “Amazon’s best all-around smart speaker,” improving on the fourth-gen Echo with a new elegant look that features a flat face wrapped in 3D knit fabric. It also includes an LED light ring and touch controls on the front, along with a two-way speaker system that delivers richer bass. Plus, it works with more smart home devices thanks to support for Matter, Thread, and Zigbee. It includes the upgraded Alexa Plus voice assistant, which can handle more complex requests. Read our review.Speaking of Alexa-enabled gadgets, Amazon’s fourth-gen Echo Show 8 is down to $149.99 ($30 off) at Amazon, Best Buy, and Target, marking a new low. The smart display can show photos, play music, set reminders, and control compatible smart home devices without a separate hub, thanks to Zigbee, Matter, and Thread support. It also adds Alexa Plus, a faster chip, and new sensors, so it handles more complex tasks than its predecessor, though bear in mind it doesn’t always do so reliably. Read our hands-on impressions.Google TV Streamer (4K)Google’s terrific TV Streamer (4K) is the company’s best attempt at a streaming device yet, with built-in ethernet, an excellent interface, and smart home compatibility with both Matter and Thread. Read our review.Where to Buy: $99.99 $79.99 at Amazon $99.99 $79.99 at Google $99.99 $79.99 at Best BuyThe Lego Roses will last far longer than a real bouquet, and they’re probably cheaper, too. They’re now available for $9.99 ($5 off) at Amazon and Target, about $3 more than their best price to date. The 120-piece kit lets you build two red roses with adjustable stems and green leaves, so you can arrange them in a vase or pair them with other Lego botanical sets. The Kobo Libra Colour is $209.99 ($20 off) at Rakuten Kobo and Target, which is $10 shy of its best price to date. It’s a great e-reader if you’re not embedded in Amazon’s ecosystem, offering a similar 7-inch color display to the Kindle Colorsoft Signature Edition while adding physical page-turn buttons, stylus support, and wider support for more file formats.  Read our review.The Theragun Mini 3 is on sale for $179.99 ($40 off) at Amazon, Best Buy, and Target, one of its better prices to date. Although it weighs about a pound, the three-speed massage gun is powerful and includes three interchangeable attachments to target different muscle groups. The latest model is also quieter and smaller than its predecessor, so it’s even easier to travel with. You can connect it to Therabody’s app for personalized recovery plans and treatment guidance.Sonos Era 100Sonos’ Era 100 smart speaker is a replacement for the older Sonos One, utilizing two tweeters (left and right) and one larger woofer. In addition to Wi-Fi, the Era 100 also supports Bluetooth audio and line-in playback via an optional 3.5mm to USB-C adapter.Where to Buy: $219 $179 at Amazon $219 $179 at Sonos $219 $179.99 at Best BuyThe Sonos Arc Ultra is on sale for $899 ($200 off) from Sonos, Amazon, and Best Buy. Designed for larger spaces, it delivers powerful, room-filling sound thanks to its upward-firing Dolby Atmos drivers, which create a more immersive experience with audio that feels like it’s coming from above. It also improves on its predecessor with added conveniences such as Bluetooth and Trueplay tuning, making it a great option if you need better home theater audio. Read our review.If you’re shopping for something cheaper, the Sonos Beam is also on sale for $369 ($130 off) directly from Sonos, at Amazon, and from Best Buy, which is just $20 shy of its all-time low. It’s a good fit for apartments or smaller living rooms, offering Dolby Atmos support with virtual height channels that create a fuller sound than Sonos’ entry-level Ray, though it doesn’t produce the same overhead effect as the Arc Ultra. Like the Arc Ultra, it boasts HDMI eARC and doubles as a smart speaker, so you can stream music and control smart home devices with Amazon Alexa.Amazfit Active 2The Amazfit Active 2 delivers outsized value for the price. It looks spiffy and has a wide array of health tracking features, plus built-in GPS and AI chatbots to provide extra context to your data. Read our review.Where to Buy: $99.99 $79.99 at Amazon $99.99 $79.99 at Best Buy $99.99 $79.99 at TargetThe 41mm, Wi-Fi–enabled Google Pixel Watch 4 is down to $299.99 ($50 off) at Amazon, Best Buy, and Target, matching its best price to date. The smartwatch stands out for its great health and fitness tracking features, which include dual-frequency GPS and retroactive AI-powered activity recognition. It also offers Gemini support, along with handy features like raise-to-talk and a side-mounted charger that turns the watch into a small, at-a-glance display. iFixit also named it the most repairable smartwatch, in case you ever break it. Read our review.You can buy the AirPods 4 for around $99 ($30 off) at Amazon, Walmart, and Best Buy, which is about $16 shy of their all-time low and one of their better prices to date. The entry-level buds deliver the best sound quality of any Apple entry-level earbuds to date, while also improving call quality and offering a comfortable, lightweight design. Read our review.Aura AspenThe Aura Aspen digital frame lets you upload photos via the companion app, cloud services, or email from anywhere. Its 12-inch LCD display features slim bezels, a 4:3 aspect ratio, and an antiglare screen that mimics the look of real photos.Where to Buy: $229 $199 at Amazon $229 $199 at Aura $229.99 $199.99 at Best BuyThe Roborock Saros 10 is one of the best robot vacuums you can buy, and right now it’s down to $1,099.99 ($500 off) at Amazon and directly from Roborock, matching its best price to date. The Saros 10 combines 22,000Pa of suction with a vibrating mop and did an excellent job in our testing, picking up everything from Cheerios to pet hair. It can also lift itself by 10mm to cross taller room thresholds and retract its LiDAR tower to slide under low furniture.Hoto’s rechargeable AutoCare Air Duster & Vacuum is on sale for $59.99 ($40 off) at Amazon, which is its lowest price to date. The handheld vacuum offers three adjustable suction levels (8,000Pa / 15,000Pa / 20,000Pa) along with five interchangeable attachment heads you can swap out depending on whether you’re cleaning hard-to-reach areas in your car or digging dirt out of a keyboard.iPad Mini (2024)The seventh-gen iPad Mini comes with Apple’s A17 Pro chip and support for Apple Intelligence. It’s also compatible with the Apple Pencil Pro and offers faster Wi-Fi and USB-C speeds. Read our review.Where to Buy: $499 $399.99 at Amazon (128GB, Wi-Fi) $499 $399 at Best Buy (128GB, Wi-Fi) $599 $499 at Amazon (256GB, Wi-Fi)Anker’s Laptop Power Bank is on sale for $89.99 from Newegg (with code EPF366) and directly from Anker (with code VergeYWP0QJDE), which is $2 shy of its best price. The 25,000mAh / 90W power bank delivers up to 165W total output, enough to charge a laptop and up to three other devices simultaneously via three USB-C ports and one USB-A port. It also features a retractable USB-C cable, a second built-in cable for carrying, and an LCD screen that shows power levels.The Unihand rechargeable hand warmers are on sale for $16.99 ($13 off) at Amazon. They offer three heat levels and reach up to 130 degrees Fahrenheit. The warmers are also pocket-friendly and can last up to 20 hours on a single charge, with an LED indicator so you can easily check battery and heat status.Apple AirTagApple’s AirTag is unobtrusive, waterproof, and taps into the massive Find My network for out-of-range locating. Read our original review.Where to Buy: $29 $17 at Amazon $29 $17 at Walmart

You often hear about how Windows 11 has become an annoying operating system, whether it's because it's riddled with ads, AI features, or just "bloated" in general. Even if it's sometimes hard to point to one specific thing, it's the sum of a bunch of little things that gives Windows 11 a feeling of being slower and and less efficient than it should be.

It's been a couple of years now since the first Wi-Fi 7 devices started to hit the consumer market, and it would be an understatement to say that the response and reactions to the technology have cooled quite a bit. Despite this, some remain excited, and if you have the right hardware, it is worth upgrading, especially if you can manage to find a router that meets your needs without costing a ton of money.

For years, I assumed a NAS had to be powerful to be worth buying. If I was already spending good money on storage, why not get something with extra CPU headroom and RAM? Something that could grow with me without feeling outdated in a year. That logic makes sense on paper. In practice, it slowly pushed my NAS from being a storage box into something I had to actively think about. And that’s where things went wrong.

As much as I adore all my self-hosted tools, there are certain services that I simply couldn’t survive without. Pulse, for instance, is the sole monitoring utility for my home lab, especially since it pairs well with my server rigs, Docker hubs, and Proxmox workstations. Likewise, my Kopia, PBS, and TrueNAS instances are the sole reason I haven’t lost any data despite some catastrophic failures in my experiments.

CarPlay users could soon be able to use their chatbot of choice instead of Siri. As Bloomberg reports, Apple is working to add support for CarPlay voice control apps from OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, and others. Previously, users who wanted to access third-party chatbots in the car would need to go through their iPhone, but soon they may be able to talk with ChatGPT, Claude, or Gemini directly in CarPlay. However, Apple reportedly "won't let users replace the Siri button on CarPlay or the wake word that summons the service." So, users will need to manually open their preferred chatbot's app. Developers will be able to set their apps to autom …Read the full story at The Verge.

I have a horrible sense of direction. If it's possible to get lost while driving, I'll almost always find a way to do it. With that in mind, I've pretty much always relied on Waze to find my way around when I'm behind the wheel.

Buying PC hardware in 2026 still feels strangely prehistoric. You open new tabs, bounce between YouTube benchmarks, Reddit threads, spec sheets, and price listings. You convince yourself you're being thorough when really, you're just drowning in numbers. Somewhere along the way, you stop thinking about games and start thinking about boost clocks, VRAM, and core counts.

This is the final(ish) design of the T1 Phone, though it’s going to lose the T1 logo. | Screenshot: Dominic Preston / The Verge Where's the Trump phone? We're going to keep talking about it every week. We've reached out, as usual, to ask about the Trump phone's whereabouts. This time, surprisingly, we received a response - and an interview.The Trump phone is real - maybe, sort of, soon? - and I've seen it. Not in the flesh, but during an hourlong video call with two Trump Mobile executives who showed me a phone, and told me more about why it was delayed, when it might actually reach buyers, and why its spec sheet has changed again and again.I spoke to Don Hendrickson - yes, the one who had seemingly ghosted me last time - and Eric Thomas, two of the three executi …Read the full story at The Verge.

ChatGPT is still the default AI tool for most people, and for good reason - it’s fast and convenient, and also good enough at a broad range of tasks that you don’t really have to think twice about using it. That’s exactly why I didn’t expect a local LLM to make a difference once I started using one; it gives you the same functionality.