Which iPhone Should You Buy?

If you want Apple’s most budget-friendly option, the iPhone 16e is for you. That model is a refresh of the iPhone SE (2022), which is no longer sold by Apple, with some hardware upgrades. It has a 6.1-inch display that our testers say is excellent quality, with smooth scrolling and crystal-clear images. Ditching the Home…

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Are DJI Drones Still Banned? (2026)

As of December 23, 2025, the US Federal Communications Commission barred Chinese-based drone maker DJI from importing any new drones into the United State. That might sound like you can’t buy a DJI drone right now, but that’s not true. Head over to Amazon and just about the whole DJI drone lineup is still for…

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Best Tinned Seafood

You could do as I do and eat it standing up at the sink right out of the tin, but there are plenty of more glamorous, or at least dignified, ways to eat tinned seafood, too.  If you’re a tinned seafood newbie, Dan Waber of Rainbow Tomatoes Garden recommends starting out with sprats, also known…

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CR’s Holiday Tipping Cheat Sheet

There are no hard-and-fast rules about how much you should tip at the holidays, but some tipping norms have become a social convention. For example, giving your barber a holiday bonus equal to the cost of one haircut has become a customary way to show thanks for year-round service. (See “Your Giving Guide,” below, for…

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How to Shop for a Car Loan

That shortens the time you’ll be paying interest on the loan, says Alain Nana-Sinkam, co-founder of Remarkit Automotive, a firm that analyzes market trends. Putting down more money up front also means you’ll be paying interest on a smaller amount, costing you less overall. “With interest rates trending higher, CR recommends that buyers make a…

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Best Water Bottles From Our Tests

I used to feel as if something was missing if I went out without my water bottle, as if I’d left my house without my shoes or my phone. And yet I didn’t love my water bottle. It didn’t keep my water cold enough and didn’t come in a size I preferred. After testing seven…

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Research Reveals the Optimal Way to Optimize

The original version of this story appeared in Quanta Magazine. In 1939, upon arriving late to his statistics course at UC Berkeley, George Dantzig—a first-year graduate student—copied two problems off the blackboard, thinking they were a homework assignment. He found the homework “harder to do than usual,” he would later recount, and apologized to the…

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3 Best Room Fans

To find the best room fans for most people, we brought three fan types—tabletop, pedestal, and box fans—into our labs and vigorously tested them for wind speed, ease of use, noise, and energy consumption. As for safety—another one of our concerns during testing—all of the room fan models we tested are designed with guards that…

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How to Get PFAS Out of Your Drinking Water

If your water test report indicates the presence of PFAS, or if you just want some peace of mind, a home water filter can be worth considering.  Most water filters that CR tests are designed to improve taste and reduce odors (two of the biggest consumer complaints) by removing common contaminants in tap water. Many…

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