Don’t worry if you missed out on previous sales for the 14-inch MacBook Pro — you’re getting a second chance. Amazon is once again selling the base 14-inch laptop with an 8-core M1 Pro, 16GB of RAM and 512GB of storage for $1,749, or a substantial $250 below the official price. That matches the all-time low price we saw in February, and remains a good bargain if the ‘entry’ version meets your needs.
The starter 14-inch MacBook Pro represents a sweet spot in Apple’s rejuvenated laptop range. You get a speedy M1 Pro chip, a 120Hz mini-LED display, strong battery life, an exceptional keyboard and a healthy selection of ports in a body that’s still easy to carry around. While there are more powerful 14-inch variants available, this configuration is more than enough for day-to-day tasks and even serious media editing.
The caveats haven’t changed much since launch. You can’t expand the RAM or storage, so you’ll have to be content with what you get for the life of the computer. You’ll also need Apple Silicon-native apps to wring the most performance out of the M1 Pro, and that display notch might prove irksome. At this price, though, the 14-inch MacBook Pro is very competitive and could easily be worth the tradeoffs.
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Fortnite Chapter 3, Season 2 is underway and this time around Epic has temporarily ditched one of the game’s core mechanics: building. Your harvesting tool will still destroy objects, but you won’t receive any wood, stone or metal to create a temporary base or instantly build a barrier to protect yourself from enemy fire.
Epic Games
Building will still be available in competitive, creative and Save the World modes — it’s only gone in casual queues for now. It seems that restoring builds will be a key part of this season’s storyline (at least in the early going).
To make up for the lack of building (and last season’s excellent web shooters being removed), Epic Games has added some more movement mechanics. The default run is now faster, and you’ll be able to sprint even more quickly for short bursts. If you sprint at or slide into a door, you’ll bust it open. Also new is the ability to mantle onto ledges that are just a little too high to land on with your feet.
In addition, players now have an overshield on top of their health and regular shield, giving them 50 extra shield points. When an enemy attacks, your overshield will be depleted first. Unlike health and shields, your overshield will recharge by itself.
Many, many other battle royales have popped up in the wake of PUBG. Building was one of the key features that helped Epic set Fortnite apart and make it one of the most popular games on the planet. Disabling builds for now gives Epic a chance to gauge player reactions, possibly with an eye on offering a permanent build-free mode.
Elsewhere, an Armored Battle Bus is on the way to Resistance-occupied points of interest, while there are blimps packed with loot at Imagined Order-controlled sites. As is typically the case, Epic has vaulted some weapons and items while adding new ones and unvaulting some others. It refreshed the map with some new areas too.
Amazon’s Fire tablets make good secondary devices for those who aren’t looking to drop hundreds of dollars on a new gadget. They also make solid kids tablets, too, especially if you get one of Amazon’s kid-specific variants. Fire tablets are affordable to begin with, but now Amazon’s discounted many of them by up to 50 percent. The Fire HD 8 is half off and down to $45, while the Fire 7 slab is 30 percent off and down to only $35. Plus, the entire Fire Kids Pro lineup is on sale, so you can grab one of those for as low as $50.
The Fire HD 8 earned a score of 81 from us when it came out in 2020 for its refined design, USB-C charging, hands-free Alexa capabilities and long battery life. It’s slimmer than the previous version and has an 8-inch 1,280 x 800 display, the latter of which would make it a solid full-color e-reader for those that read a lot of graphics novels and manga. Inside is a quad-core 2.0GHz processor, 2GB of RAM and either 32GB of 64GB of RAM — plus, you could use a microSD card to expand the storage to up to 1TB. Performance is pretty good for a cheap tablet, and it’ll last up to 12 hours on a single charge. We’d recommend the Fire HD 8 for most people, and would only recommend the less powerful Fire 7 tablet for those with tight budgets, or those that want a super-affordable device to give to their kids.
Speaking of kid-friendly gadgets, the Fire Kids Pro slabs have some added features specifically for little ones and their parents. Along with all of the features you’d get on their standard counterparts, the Fire Kids Pro tablets come with a suite of parental controls, a two-year warranty, a protective case and one year of Amazon Kids+. With the latter, you’ll get access to age-appropriate books, shows, movies and more for one year before you’ll be asked to pay the $5-per-month charge ($3 per month if you’re a Prime member). Both the Fire 7 Kids Pro and the Fire HD 8 Kids Pro are half off right now, down to $50 and $70, respectively, while the Fire HD 10 Kids Pro is 30 percent less than usual and down to $140.
Apple’s new M1-equipped iPad Air arrived just a few days ago, but we’re already seeing our first discounts. You can now pick up both the 64GB and 256GB WiFi models for $570 and $720 respectively, or $29 off Apple’s direct prices. While the reductions aren’t huge, it’s unusual to see any at all on brand new Apple products, particularly ones like this that have generated considerable buzz.
The M1 chip provides a big performance boost over the previous model, making it a great option for creative, gaming and other demanding apps. You’ll get another dose of extra speed via the 10Gbps USB-C ports that have double the bandwidth over the previous iPad Air. At the same time, you still get the same excellent 10-hour battery life of the last model. All of those things make the 2022 iPad Air future-proof and helped it garner a top-notch 90 score in our Engadget review.
It has more than speed going for it. You get a 10.9-inch “liquid Retina” LCD display with Apple’s True Tone feature for optimizing the screen’s color temperature based on ambient light, to start with. It also comes with an improved 12-megapixel ultra wide front camera and supports the same accessories as the last model (keyboard cases, Magic Keyboard and Apple Pencil).
The main downsides are the relatively miniscule 64GB storage on the budget model, lack of Face ID and pricey accessories. Still, it’s a huge leap over the previous model with a nice little discount to boot.
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Lucid Motors had a plan: Instead of taking on Tesla, it was determined to shoot past the EV-only automaker with its vehicles and instead, go after Germany. More specifically, the German luxury sedan. With a combination of power, range and opulence, it …
Several Razer peripherals are on sale on Amazon, including the Kishi gaming controller for iOS and Android. The Android version is $50 off at $40. It’s best to make sure the “for Android” option is selected — the Xbox-branded variant is also on sale, but it’s $55. The iOS model has been discounted as well, but the savings are much more modest. The price has dropped from $100 to $80.
The Razer Kishi is a great option for playing games on the go without having to resort to touch controls or a Bluetooth controller. It works with many games that run natively on your device as well as cloud gaming services like Google Stadia, NVIDIA GeForce Now and Xbox Cloud Gaming. The controller plugs into your phone’s USB-C or Lightning port and holds it in place. There’s passthrough charging support, so you can keep your device’s battery topped up while you play.
Elsewhere, Razer’s BlackWidow V3 mechanical keyboard is on sale. At $60, it’s $40 off the regular price. The peripheral has Razer’s clicky green switches and fully programmable keys, but since it’s a tenkeyless model, it doesn’t have a number pad at the side.
You can also save on the Razer Viper Ultimate, which is currently $70, almost half off the usual price of $130. The ambidextrous wireless mouse has a battery life of up to 70 hours, low-latency HyperSpeed tech, a 20,000+ DPI optical sensor, Razer’s optical switches and eight programmable buttons. We picked it as our favorite gaming mouse for everyday use.
Just before the weekend, cosmonauts Denis Matveyev, Oleg Artemyev and Sergey Korsakov arrived at the International Space Station in bright yellow and blue jumpsuits. Being the first Russians to arrive at the International Space Station since the war in Ukraine began, it seemed like, well, a choice. Russia’s Roscosmos space agency dismissed the connection saying in a Telegram post spotted by Space.com: “Sometimes yellow is just yellow.” Roscosmos went on to claim the three were wearing the colors of Bauman Moscow State Technical University, their shared alma mater, which has a crest with blue and yellow details.
Roscosmos TV
The cosmonauts didn’t say too much about their choice of uniform during a press conference. “It became our turn to pick a color,” said Artemyev. “We had accumulated a lot of yellow material, so we needed to use it. That’s why we had to wear yellow.” Does this mean they crafted their own jumpsuits?
Then again, with the three men still in space, they couldn’t be further away from immediate repercussions from their government.
Doomfist will change roles from damage hero to tank.
The Overwatch 2 PvP PC beta lands on April 26th. Block out that weekend because as well as 5-on-5 battles — the Overwatch PvP was 6-on-6 — the beta also comes with four fresh maps and some reimagined characters, both in aesthetics and play style.
On February 25th, some 20 masked thieves broke on to the set of the production of popular Netflix show Lupin while it was filming in a Parisian suburb. They stole approximately $330,000 worth of equipment. As a distraction, perpetrators set off mortar-style fireworks during the heist. Now, French authorities have charged seven individuals allegedly involved in the robbery. Lupin isn’t the only Netflix project to fall victim to a robbery this year. Just one day before the thefts in Paris, thieves made off with more than $200,000 worth of antique props after breaking into vehicles used for the production of The Crown.
Starting today through April 3rd, Epic Games will donate all of its Fortnite proceeds to humanitarian organizations providing on-the-ground relief to Ukrainians affected by the invasion of their country. Direct Relief, UNICEF, UN’s Refugee Agency and Food Programme are all involved.
Samsung may have just won the battle for mid-range phones.
This week’s podcast centers on Samsung’s big mid-range phone show. Devindra Hardawar and Senior Writer Sam Rutherford discuss the new Galaxy A53 5G and A33. The Galaxy A53 has a 120Hz screen, four cameras and 5G support for $450. Can the iPhone SE stand up to those kinds of specs?
Nintendo stopped selling DSi and Wii games in 2017 and 2019 respectively, but it has continued to allow users to download games they already own. Now, both stores have gone completely offline with no explanation from the company, Eurogamer has reported. If you try to select the Wii Shop channel, you’ll just see a blank white screen and error code — a situation that has persisted for around four days.
When it initially shuttered those stores, Nintendo said that you’d still be able to download purchased games for an unspecified period of time. However, it warned that the servers would eventually be shut down completely, meaning folks wouldn’t be able to download or transfer purchased games using the Wii System Transfer Tool.
Nintendo has kept these stores running for a long time (since 2006 in the case of the Wii), but folks would rightfully be upset if Nintendo shut off access with no heads up whatsoever. Many would no doubt have liked at least a few months notice so they could download or transfer their games. The servers do appear to still be up, though, as some folks have found they can use third-party tools like NUSDownloader to access games.
Sony was recently forced to backtrack on a decision to close the PS3 and Vita stores after a consumer backlash. The situation isn’t quite same for Nintendo, but it should probably provide some kind of explanation if the stores don’t come back online soon.
