When I declared this spring that Vivo's X300 Ultra had the best cameras in any phone, two things made it stand out in my mind: its excellent main camera with a narrow 35mm focal length and what remains the most capable ultrawide in any phone worldwide.

You won't find either in the new X500 Pro Max. It has an impressive camera system with world-leading dynamic range and the same great telephoto lens found in the Ultra. But it's lost a little something of what made its predecessor quite so special.

Vivo X500 Pro Max

Pros	Cons
Fantastic telephoto camera 17 stops of dynamic range on the main camera Big 7,800mAh battery 1440p, 144Hz display	Ultrawide …

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When I first heard about the new $149 HomePod Mini 2 at Apple's Welcome Home event last month, I was disappointed. It's been six years since Apple launched its entry-level smart speaker, and all it got in the second gen was a chip bump, some color glowy stuff, and better AirPlay? For $50 more than the original, which launched at $99, Apple didn't even upgrade the sound system. It felt like the company phoned this one in.

Now that I've got my hands on a couple and set them up in my home office, I'm more enthused. The Mini 2 is so much faster than the first-gen Mini, playing music in a few seconds and responding to smart home commands just as …

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Apple's long-awaited touchscreen MacBook Pro is finally here. I got to try this MacBook that, according to the last two Apple CEOs, shouldn't exist. The most surprising thing is how normal it is.

The MacBook Pro with PROLED XDR Display (what a name) has one of the nicest screens I've seen on a laptop. The current Mini LED MacBook Pros are great, but the OLED has those even inkier blacks. It also gets super bright, with incredibly rich colors and infinite contrast. Apple calls it a "reference-caliber display," which is a very Apple-y marketing term, but it walks the walk by being the first laptop display with support for Apple CMF 2026 color …

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It's hard to make an Xbox controller that stands out these days, especially one that's expensive, due to a wealth of great semi-affordable options. Still, 8BitDo's $150 Ultimate 3E is a bold controller that holds its own against other feature-packed options. It's made for Xbox and PC gamers who want a deeper level of customization and a more refined design than Microsoft's pricier Xbox Elite Series 2 and 8BitDo's own $60 Ultimate 2.

Basically every feature I'm looking for in a controller is here, plus some, including drift-proof TMR joysticks, extra shoulder buttons, rear paddles, motion control support, modular buttons and joysticks, a 3.5 …

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Last week, I sank into my living room couch and watched a bedraggled, nihilistic Matthew McConaughey take a drag of a cigarette in season 1 of True Detective. "You know, someone once told me time is a flat circle. Everything we've done, or will do, we're gonna do over and over and over again." I assume most people aren't thinking about fitness trackers or gadgets while watching that scene. But in that moment, I couldn't help but think about the Fitbit Edge on my wrist.

The $179.99 Edge is a modernized version of the 2014-to-2020 era of fitness bands - your Charges, your Altas, your Inspires. If you've ever owned one, you already know the va …

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When Sony announced the WH-1000XM4C headphones, I was perplexed. A product revamp usually includes at least one or two significant improvements. Or if it's a nostalgia play, it's from a decades-old product and not one that came out in 2020. Beyond a few minor tweaks, though, the XM4C are remarkably similar to their six-year-old namesake, the beloved WH-1000XM4. They even use the same processor for active noise cancellation (ANC).

And while I went into this review questioning the XM4C's existence, after spending some time with them, I get it. The Sony XM4C aren't the cutting edge of headphone technology, but they are great headphones that I …

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The Crkd Nitro Deck was a saving grace for the original Nintendo Switch. The slide-on $59.99 accessory brought Hall effect sticks to drift-plagued consoles - no need to open up your Joy-Con for a complicated repair. The Nitro Deck 2, made for both the original Switch and the larger Switch 2, continues the tradition of having better sticks than what Nintendo puts in even the newest Joy-Con (though these aren't Hall effect or TMR). But it doesn't feel as essential, and there's one thing I really can't stand about it.

It's too difficult to use the Nitro Deck 2's ABXY face buttons without the right stick getting in the way. The stick-to-button …

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