Our Favorite Cordless Stick Vacuum Is Marked Down $50

Tired of pet hair and dust in the hard-to-reach spots of your home? Our favorite pick for cordless stick vacuums, the Bissell PowerClean FurFinder, is marked down to just $180 at Amazon. That matches the best price yet for this lightweight and capable stick vacuum, the same discount as Prime Day earlier this year. It…

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8 Best Gaming Laptops (2025), Tested and Reviewed

All of the major laptop manufacturers have gaming sub-brands these days. Just to name a few, Lenovo has Legion, HP has Omen and Victus, Asus has ROG, Acer has Predator and Nitro, and Dell has Alienware. These are a good place to start, especially if you’re looking for something more budget-friendly. Asus has the most…

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The Pixel Watch 3 Is $100 Off

Are you an Android user who is constantly looking at Apple Watch owners with envy? You’re in luck, as the Pixel Watch 3 is marked down to just $200 at Amazon in several colors. I spotted three discounted colors of the 45mm aluminum version in matte black, champagne gold, and polished silver. Photograph: Julian Chokkattu…

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AI Agents Are Terrible Freelance Workers

Even the best artificial intelligence agents are fairly hopeless at online freelance work, according to an experiment that challenges the idea of AI replacing office workers en masse. The Remote Labor Index, a new benchmark developed by researchers at data annotation company Scale AI and the Center for AI Safety (CAIS), a nonprofit, measures the…

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Best Budget Mattresses of 2025

Consumer Reports evaluates lower-priced mattresses the same way we test any mattress: by putting them through our exhaustive lab tests, as well as asking thousands of CR members about how well their mattresses have served them. Put together, this information provides a good sense of what a mattress offers for a variety of body sizes…

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Talking Cars 484: 2026 Hyundai Palisade

Main theme: In this episode, the podcast panel gives their first impressions of the 2026 Hyundai Palisade. How does the redesign of this popular SUV stack up in a rather competitive SUV segment? Does the update balance fuel economy and power delivery? And do some of the luxury appointments come at a premium price?  The…

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Best Lip Balms for Smooth, Hydrated Lips

Like Vaseline, ChapStick is a brand with a long, storied history. I’ve always associated it with the classic cherry ChapStick of my youth, so discovering this richer balm was a delightful surprise. We couldn’t agree on its hydration, longevity, and taste (yep, taste), which knocked it out of the runner-up slot, but it deserves an…

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Best Heated Blankets

Growing up in the Sacramento Valley in Northern California doesn’t prepare you for an East Coast winter. Weather that’s 100° F, relentless sunshine, warm days in November? Sure, I can handle it. A snowstorm in April? I don’t think I’ll ever get acclimated to that. An electric blanket is an obvious solution to the misery…

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The Oppo Find X9 Pro Has a Crazy-Long Detachable Zoom Lens

For several years, the top Chinese smartphone brands have been duking it out for photography dominance. Even though year-over-year changes are often minuscule, these companies try to one-up one another. Take Oppo’s latest flagship, the Find X9 Pro, as an example. It boasts a 200-megapixel telephoto lens developed with camera manufacturer Hasselblad, so you can…

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Hurricane Melissa Has Meteorologists Terrified

Meteorologists who have spent the past few days monitoring the rapid development of Hurricane Melissa in the Atlantic Ocean are sounding the alarm about the storm, which is set to make landfall in Jamaica today as a Category 5 hurricane. The sustained—and growing—intensity of the storm is remarkable, experts say, and has the makings of…

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