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In the past, Wirecutter hasn’t recommended foldable phones due to concerns regarding their durability and price. But that has changed. Foldable phones are still expensive compared with other smartphones, and there are some factors to consider before you replace your standard smartphone with a foldable, such as whether you’ll really use dual screens, if you’ll actually benefit from multitasking capabilities, and whether you’re truly willing to foot the bill for any accidental damage. But if you want one, know that foldables released in the past two years are reliable and useful enough for many people. The best one, the Galaxy Z Fold8 , is made by Samsung, but if you’re feeling nostalgic, Motorola’s Razr is another excellent choice. from Wirecutter: Reviews for the Real World https://ift.tt/sPcIXqd via IFTTT

Gift baskets often get a bad rap, and many deserve it for their uninspired components: stale crackers, gritty chocolate, Red Delicious apples that are anything but. We wanted to find the standout choices, gift baskets that would be delightful all year long. After considering more than 130 gift baskets since 2018, we found 23 outstanding options. We also have a section featuring other gift baskets that we recommend, with caveats. In all, that means there are 25 gift baskets to choose from in this guide. from Wirecutter: Reviews for the Real World https://ift.tt/3PhByQJ via IFTTT

The right nursing pillow will help support a breastfeeding baby, making nursing more comfortable for parents and babies alike. Over the past nine years, we’ve interviewed 11 breastfeeding experts, conducted online research, and tested almost two dozen nursing pillows with four focus groups of nursing mothers. After our latest round of testing, we continue to recommend the Luna Lullaby Nursing Pillow , the Blessed Nest Nesting Pillow , and the My Brest Friend Twin & Plus Nursing Pillow , and we’ve added the Boppy Uplift Nursing Pillow to our lineup. It’s important to know that the pillows in this guide are not safe spots to allow a baby to sleep; the only safe place for an infant to sleep is on a firm, flat surface, like that in a crib, a bassinet, or a playard. In September 2024, the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) released a federal mandatory standard that reiterates the safety hazard of allowing a baby to fall asleep on a pillow, and compani...

The best sunscreen for your face is the one you’ll actually use every day. And while it’s perfectly fine to apply the sunscreen you use on your body to your face, products that are specifically made for the face can feel more comfortable. To find face sunscreens that suit a range of skin types, tones, and sensitivity levels, we’ve considered dozens of options since 2018, conducting brand-concealed tests with 30 panelists who have different complexions and preferences. Some of our recommendations are more moisturizing (for those who prefer to use one lotion, instead of layering sunscreen atop a dedicated moisturizer ), some contain no chemical UV filters, and others work better on darker skin tones or under makeup. Our picks include chemical sunscreens , which have filters that absorb UV light, and mineral sunscreens, which include UV blockers that reflect it. As with most sunscreens, the ones we recommend should be reapplied every two hours to meet their promised ...

College is expensive — including tuition, housing, and textbooks, not to mention food and other miscellaneous costs. So students need a reliable laptop that’ll last for years of taking notes, writing papers at 3 in the morning, and editing slides for a group project. But choosing the right laptop can be more challenging than writing a thousand words on Proust. We test dozens of laptops every year, and for this guide we’ve rounded up the picks from our other guides that are the best for students. A laptop’s price-to-performance ratio is the most important factor, followed by its battery life, its size and weight, and its keyboard and trackpad. Our top picks offer the best balance of all those factors for high school and college students. We also have more-portable picks, if you’re able to spend more. And for anyone on a tighter budget, we have less expensive options that are also well suited for younger kids. To achieve their more-affordable price tags, these cheape...

So you want to save your food waste for composting. That’s great! Composting takes food waste that would typically contribute to greenhouse gas emissions and diverts it into nutrient-rich material. As a bonus, composting also helps keep your kitchen trash cleaner and less stinky. To start, you need something to collect your food scraps. What works best for this is personal, and depends on your cooking routine, how much food you throw out, and your composting method—whether you compost at home , live in a city with curbside pickup, or drop off green waste at a community composting program. For this guide, I tested seven specially designed compost bins, but at the end of the day, I preferred my tried-and-true mixing bowl to all of them. To find what’s best for you, consider our tips for how to find the right compost bin and how to manage odors . They’ll help you think through your own habits and avoid buying something that won’t work for you. from Wirecutt...

Fitness trends come and go, but pedaling in place on an exercise bike is a classic, low-impact way to nurture cardiovascular fitness. Whether you prefer to tool along at a moderate pace a few times a week or tackle intense, studio-style workouts daily, we’ve found six bikes that will please a variety of riders. Over six years of testing, we’ve concluded that the Schwinn IC4 (also sold as the BowFlex C6 ) is the best magnetic-resistance indoor-cycling bike for those who prioritize versatility and want the option of adding their own touchscreen. Among our other recommendations is a recumbent bike and, yes, a couple of Peloton models. from Wirecutter: Reviews for the Real World https://ift.tt/D4hjOPb via IFTTT

I eat yogurt almost every single day — mixing it with sliced banana and honey at breakfast, using it to bulk up an afternoon smoothie, or topping a bowl of chili with it at dinner. Chances are, you do too. With the average American eating nearly 14 pounds of the probiotic marvel each year, it’s a wonder that yogurt’s only been part of our culinary zeitgeist since the ’70s, evolving from a fringe health food to a supermarket staple. Today, a head-spinning amount of the fermented milk product is in the dairy aisle, spanning styles, flavors, fat percentages, and milks (dairy and non). To make sense of it all, we tasted 61 plain cow’s milk yogurts, including nonfat, low-fat, and full-fat, and traditional (unstrained), Greek (strained), and Skyr (ultra-strained) styles. Just as a chef’s greatness can be judged by how well they make an omelet, we reasoned that yogurt should be judged by its plainest self. Ultimately, we landed on the 14 best, including standouts from Fa...

In this edition of The Gift, we share gifts — like a two-tone ring shaped like a pencil and an excellent salad bowl — that ease end-of-summer blues. “I’m not ready for summer to end :(” a friend texted last week. An innocuous text! A relatable text! A text that left me speechless. You see, here in Maine, for 12 weeks and 12 weeks only, the weather strums in perfect harmony with the topography: Hot days pair with cool nights, bracing waters accentuate lofty forests. June hits, and it’s a sprint through lobster shells, beach towels, and pockets loaded with ice cream napkins — straight on through Labor Day. It’s transcendent. It’s singular. And when it’s over, some of us breathe a secret sigh of relief. I am always ready for summer to end :) My longstanding, if unpopular, love for the start of the school year is well documented — and at least partially explained by the privilege of high-gear summers. What’s the perfect antidote to sand, sun, and sugar? Bath, brush, a...

Listen and follow The Wirecutter Show Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon Music | YouTube | iHeartRadio Buying a mattress can often be a boring, expensive task. And the mattress industry doesn't make it easy: Prices are constantly changing, brands use confusing terminology, and permanent “sales” can make it hard to know what's a real discount. In this episode, Wirecutter senior staff writer Elise Czajkowski explains when to look for deals and how to negotiate a better price when you're ready to buy . She shares why you should always ask for an additional discount, how to negotiate with a store or online chatbot, and why one popular online shopping trick—abandoning your cart—may not work for mattresses. This episode covers Why you should never pay full price for a mattress. Those constant website “sales” are often just the regular price in disguise; the biggest discounts tend to come around major holidays like Memorial Day, Labor Day, Black Friday, ...

Budget laptops are becoming endangered this year as essential components like memory and storage undergo significant price increases . This is a major change from previous years, where we saw an overwhelming glut of cheap laptops, most of which were downright awful. But that abundance is drying up as prices rise and as older, cheaper models get discontinued, making it harder than ever to find a good laptop at a reasonable price. To uncover decent options, we’ve researched and tested hundreds of cheap laptops over the years. Our picks are for anyone on a strict budget who primarily wants to browse the web, watch Netflix, or handle occasional school or work tasks. They’re not ideal for heavier workloads such as photo and video editing or gaming, and in just a couple of years they’ll feel more sluggish on everyday activities. But not everyone has $1,000 or more to spend on a better laptop that feels faster and lasts longer. We have picks here for Chromebooks and Win...

Whether you’re a longtime electric vehicle owner, or you’re still waiting for your first EV to leave the factory floor, you should consider investing in a Level 2 charger for your home. Most modern EVs ship with a Level 1 charger, which you can toss in your trunk (or frunk ) and plug into any standard wall outlet. But the fastest way to juice up an EV at home is to use a Level 2 charger, which can add at least four times as many miles per hour of charge. After researching and testing dozens of models for hundreds of hours, we found the Emporia Classic Level 2 EV Charger (J1772 version) to be the best at-home charger for EVs with a J1772 port. Likewise, we found the Emporia Classic Level 2 EV Charger (NACS version) to be the best for Teslas and other EVs with a J3400 connector (also called the North American Charging Standard, or NACS). In either configuration, this charger is powerful, simple to use, and equipped with a long cord. And thanks to its streamlined ...

Different projectors are designed for different uses. We carry much higher expectations for a 4K projector designed for a big-screen home theater than we do for a portable, battery-powered mini projector designed to be an everyday TV replacement. Some projectors excel with movies in a completely dark room, while others are better for sports or gaming in a room with some ambient light. We’ve tested more than 80 projectors to find the best options for a variety of uses and budgets. from Wirecutter: Reviews for the Real World https://ift.tt/0UDIbFK via IFTTT

This old Amazon commercial bugs the heck out of me. In it, a young boy jumps on a bed, raucously playing an electric guitar while another kid plays drums. Meanwhile, a father relaxes blissfully undisturbed because he’s wearing noise-cancelling headphones. This scene drives me bonkers because, as a headphones expert, I know the truth: That’s not how noise-cancelling headphones work. It’s a popular misconception that noise-cancelling headphones can block out any sound around you. People purchase them in the hopes of dimming the din of kids at play, loud-talking officemates, the barking dog next door, and airplane engines. The trouble is, active noise cancellation is really effective on only one of those things. (Spoiler: It’s the airplane engine.) The reason has to do with the physics of sound and how noise-cancelling headphones work. from Wirecutter: Reviews for the Real World https://ift.tt/dUyw26v via IFTTT

Of all the tools lying in wait in your toiletry bag, the humble nail clipper might be the most unassuming. From brand to brand, many seem indistinguishable at a glance. But an ergonomic pair with sharp, curved blades can be a make-or-literal-break factor in your nail health. They may even elevate a once-tedious chore to a satisfying ritual (with fewer trimmings soaring around the room). For six years, we’ve hunted for the best nail clippers and tested 15 pairs in the process. To select our picks, we haven’t just panel-tested our top competitors — we’ve snipped through hotel key cards and extra-thick acrylic nails with them. We also sent them to a professional nail technician to weigh in. In the end, we recommend one especially ergonomic pair with razor-sharp blades and a simpler but effective pair for a fraction of the price. from Wirecutter: Reviews for the Real World https://ift.tt/jtlRKNp via IFTTT

If you’re looking for a simple, small desktop computer for your home or office, consider a mini PC. These computers are best for everyday tasks such as working on documents and spreadsheets, browsing the web, taking video calls, or watching TV. However, our top picks are also powerful enough for editing media or compiling code. The best mini PC for most people is the Apple Mac mini (M4, 2024) . This tiny, powerful desktop operates silently enough to reside on your desk, and it has USB-C ports on the front for you to easily plug in flash drives or memory card readers. If you want more processing power for editing 4K video or running multiple virtual machines, we recommend the Mac mini with Apple’s M4 Pro processor . Nearly every kind of computer or PC component has gotten more expensive this year , with budget or niche products like mini PCs and lower-cost laptops increasing in cost by hundreds of dollars. However, we still think Apple makes the best mini PCs — even...

Don’t squander these final blissful moments of summer, moping around as the inevitable draws near — back to school , back to work, back to real life. Savor these fleeting hours and return feeling renewed, refreshed, and ready to tackle the rest of the year. Instead of trudging into autumn, make an entrance. Trade those thin tees and sandals for chunky sweaters and toasty socks . Swap your billowy summer bedding for something more cocoony . Establish a new get-ready routine, with juicier moisturizers , richer balms , and hydrating hair-care . Or, if you’re not ready to let go of summer yet, make your last beach days extra-special with a snazzy swimsuit or bright and breezy beach gear . Of course, we wouldn’t expect you to sacrifice summer’s swan song by spending hours scouring Labor Day sales. Our experts did that for you. Here are the best Labor Day deals — all of them truly great products at great prices, including some exclusive deals you won’t find anywhere el...

Listen and follow The Wirecutter Show Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon Music | YouTube | iHeartRadio It’s easy to overlook the conditioner sitting in your shower. But the right conditioner can do so much for your hair, like add moisture and shine, reduce frizz, and make hair easier to detangle. Yet the wrong one can leave your hair greasy or weighed down. In this episode, Wirecutter beauty writer Amanda Rosenthal explains how conditioner actually works and how to choose one based on your hair type and texture. She also clears up some common conditioner confusion, including who needs to use one, how to apply it, and whether “hair masks” are worth the extra money. This episode covers Why your hair type matters when choosing a conditioner. Rich conditioners can leave fine hair greasy and weighed down, while thicker or curlier hair may need heavier conditioning ingredients. How to tell if you actually need conditioner. Dullness, frizz, difficulty detangling, and ...