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Remember when tech was an optional part of your life? You would go to the computer room and surf the Internet. When you were done you would turn it off, close the door, and it was gone. Now? It’s difficult to go more than five minutes without a notification. Most of us have a device on our person at all times.
But if you stop and think, you realize this has happened on a timeline that’s unprecedented throughout history. It has happened within a generation. My dad has a flip phone and a Gateway computer that somehow still turns on. He has never entered his credit card information on the Internet or even signed up for an online banking account. I, on the other hand, am sitting with a red-light mask on, reading on an e-reader (yes, separate from my phone), and getting ready for bed on an AI-powered sleep-tracking mattress cover. See, I’ve embraced all that the world of modern technology has to offer, and I’m the most relaxed, well-slept person in the office I know. Maybe the best way is forward.
Still, we understand if you’re a little bit closer to my dad’s view of tech—though going full Luddite is a bit much—and are a little hesitant to adopt everything on this list. What we set out to do is find the best products, at all preferred levels of techiness. In this list, you’ll find the new folding iPhone Duo (well worth the wait), Dyson’s AI-powered toothbrush with a camera on it (incredible, trust us), and TCL’s best-in-class TVs. But there’s also a Pininfarina-designed screen that pretends to look like a painting, high-design vinyl speakers, and not one but three different pocketknives with varying degrees of technical innovation. Tech means different things to different people, and we’ve covered every base.
To do that, we took a wide-net approach. And I mean wide. We put nearly a thousand products under the microscope this year, and these are the 91 that we unanimously agreed will make your life better. If you’re tech curious, we say lean in. Live a little. Who knows? You might sleep better, eat better, and improve your day-to-day. If you’re tech cautious, well ... in 20 years your toothbrush will probably have a camera on it, just like ours do now. These are the best and most noteworthy products and brands of the year. Watch out; they’re about to be everywhere. —Krista Jones, senior director, commerce and partnerships
The Best in Personal Gadgets
The Best Travel Charger
When the first flight delay hits, you’ll need this portable charger to power your tablet. When the flight gets canceled, it will charge your phone so you can rebook. The retractable cable makes it so that no matter how long you are stuck in transit and how many devices you need to charge, you won’t be left with a mess of cords when you finally have to scramble to a new gate. And when you finally reach your destination, jet-lagged as hell, you can use the foldable plug as your wall charger at the hotel. Absolutely brilliant.
The Best New Phone
How will Apple do it? That was this year’s big question. The rumors screamed foldable, as did the CEO switch. Well? It’s a masterpiece. The foldable market needed something to make it feel serious, and Apple was the company to do it. A genius aspect-ratio choice from Cupertino is the reason why we think this is the best foldable to ever be released.
The Best Android Phone
This year also marks a first for Samsung’s foldable phones. The Z Fold8 Ultra is the first time the power and superior camera of the Galaxy Ultra phones are in a folding format. The form factor got an upgrade too. It’s super slim, so you never feel the difference between this and a regular Galaxy Ultra phone.
The Best Laptop
This is the perfect laptop for anyone who wants the overall look and feel of a MacBook (imitation is the sincerest form of flattery...) with the software of a PC. It has an impressively long battery life, a powerful processor that lets you multitask without slowing you down, and the touch screen that can give it a leg up over Macs. You’re getting the best of all worlds here.
The Best Work-from-Home Monitor
Apple does most things well. But every now and then it will tweak a product so that it turns out just a little bit better. We could dazzle you with the specs: 27-inch, 5K Retina display; 1 billion colors; 14.7 million pixels. The list goes on. But the best Apple designs make you stop thinking about specs and let you just enjoy its glowing products. Put this on your desk and watch how work transforms.
The Best Work-from-Home Light
Ever log off from a day at the computer and feel like you got hit on kickoff duty freshman year of high school? Head hurt, vision blurred, ears ringing? It’s from that screen light blasting straight into your retinas. A good light bar—like this one specifically designed to match Apple’s high-end aesthetics—alleviates that pain and illuminates your workspace.
The Best Work Tablet
We really love these e-paper tablets for meeting notes, school notes, and productivity without having a stream of notifications—the kinesthetic effect of writing on memory is no joke. When using reMarkable’s new Paper Pure, our tester’s to-do and work notes never looked better.
The Best No-Screen Smartwatch
The release of the Fitbit Air marked the moment when it finally felt like screenless smart bands were for everyone. The slim and comfortable band, the low price, and the lack of a required subscription (wink, nudge, gesturing to every other brand) made it one of our instant favorites of the year.
The Best Wallet Tracker
Which is worse, losing your keys or your wallet? Keys, assuming you have another member of the house, can be remedied in a few hours. A wallet? Try a few weeks. So why has no one given the slim-digital-tracker treatment to wallets? (We cannot abide the Costanza monstrosities other brands sell.) Now we have Spotminders. It looks like a credit card (to fool would-be thieves for just long enough) and does one thing: tells you where your wallet is. Simple, headache-saving tech.
The Best Smartwatch
It’s not as if you need an excuse to buy the new Apple Watch, but if you did we’d say this time around it’s for the aesthetics, not the tech. The dark-bronze aluminum is gorgeous, as is the radiant gold case and any of the matching Milanese loop bands. This marks a stunning new chapter for smartwatch elegance.
The Coolest Smartwatch
Look, we love a smartwatch, and we love what other brands have done in the golf-watch space. But it can start to take you out of the game. We want course GPS, shot tracking, and club recommendations. TAG has put in development to improve all that stuff, and, crucially, it looks nice when you’re having a beer on the 19th. That’s what we want.
The Best Running Smartwatch
There are a lot of runners in the smartwatch pack, a lot of brands chasing the Garmin. The flagship Fenix 9 is Garmin holding its number-one spot. When any other brand’s “ultra” starts to challenge, Garmin pushes a better battery, a brighter screen, and more accurate tracking. Like a race, it’s a cat-and-mouse game of inches, and Garmin, for another year, will hold the inside track.
The Best Digital Notebook
Real paper, in the form of paperbacks and notebooks, takes up quite a bit of space in your home, not to mention if you’re traveling. Having a handy e-tablet makes reading, note-taking, studying, and learning actually enjoyable endeavors.
The Best in Home Tech
