I tested a living room full of cheap Ikea speakers against Sonos and Bose
I tested a living room full of cheap Ikea speakers against Sonos and Bose

Ikea’s $10 Kallsup Bluetooth speaker is fun and colorful and sounds better than its price suggests. It’s not mind-blowing (it is a $10 speaker, after all), and there are no features to speak of, other than the ability to connect up to 100 of them together, but at that price, I don’t really care. They’re […]

The Korg Handytraxx Play finally got me learning to scratch
The Korg Handytraxx Play finally got me learning to scratch

About 20 years ago, I bought a turntable with the idea that it would be a staple of my music-making setup. I dreamed of learning to scratch and digging through dollar bin vinyl for samples. Instead, it just got hooked up to a stereo. But a few months ago, I got my hands on the […]

A YouTuber channeled his distaste for the PS5’s design into slick console covers
A YouTuber channeled his distaste for the PS5’s design into slick console covers

The PlayStation 5’s curvy design is divisive. The Verge’s Andrew Webster called it a “robotic clam” in his 2020 review, which is actually kind of endearing. Personally, I kind of got over hating it sometime during the past almost-six years of its existence. Small form factor PC enthusiast Devyn Johnston is someone who did not […]

The Galaxy S26’s photo app can sloppify your memories
The Galaxy S26’s photo app can sloppify your memories

The Google Pixel 9 walked so that the Samsung Galaxy S26 could run. Google introduced AI editing tools to Photos slowly. It started with changes to the background – make the sky more blue, or remove crowds of tourists. Things got weird once the company added natural language requests and let you ask for basically […]

The AirPods Max 2 are a great sequel, but not an ambitious one
The AirPods Max 2 are a great sequel, but not an ambitious one

It’s been over five years since the original AirPods Max came out. A minor hardware update in 2024 brought new colors and changed the Lightning port to USB-C (to meet EU regulations), and an update last year added lossless audio and ultra-low latency. But a new version was still well overdue. The $549 AirPods Max […]

These retractable studded tires might save our roads, ears, and lungs
These retractable studded tires might save our roads, ears, and lungs

If you want to feel truly invincible when driving in the snow, you need a set of studded snow tires. They’re illegal in some places, typically restricted to the frigid months of the year in others. Spring for a set, though, and they’ll see you through the worst, slipperiest, snowiest driving conditions you can imagine. […]

Can my favorite Game Boy gadget tell fake cartridges from real?
Can my favorite Game Boy gadget tell fake cartridges from real?

The $50 Epilogue GB Operator has a brand-new trick up its sleeve. In addition to backing up Game Boy, Game Boy Color, and Game Boy Advance cartridges and saves to a PC (and writing saves back to carts again!), it can now plug into your phone with a brand-new Retrace app for Android and iOS. […]

Oppo made the best foldable phone, again
Oppo made the best foldable phone, again

There are always a few reasons people give for not buying a foldable phone. Some – price, battery life, camera quality – are mostly a matter of manufacturers balancing spec sheets to offset the added cost of the folding hardware. Others – durability, size – were practical design problems that have mostly been solved. But […]

Bluetti’s Sora 500 solar panel is incredibly powerful for its size
Bluetti’s Sora 500 solar panel is incredibly powerful for its size

We don’t review many solar panels at The Verge, but the tech inside Bluetti’s incredibly portable Sora 500 panel makes it worth a deeper look. The new N-Type panels made by Bluetti and others give you more bang for the buck, pound, and square inch. That’s a big deal for vanlifers like me who depend […]

My brief, weird time with the Samsung TriFold
My brief, weird time with the Samsung TriFold

I was ready to give up on the Galaxy Z TriFold. We had a strong case for getting a refund from the eBay seller – they’d claimed it was the version sold in Taiwan, but the phone that arrived at my door came with a Chinese serial number. That meant no Google services and lots […]