Our favorite tech in 2025

It isn’t every day that a new technology can be described as a paradigm shift, but Starlink is pretty close. Satellite internet, which used to be relatively slow and very high latency, is now competitive with broadband. My Starlink Mini has quickly become one of my favorite gadgets, and is my constant companion in my car.

I originally purchased the Starlink Mini because I was planning on taking a long road trip and working on the move, but it quickly became so much more than a luxury item. It wasn’t until I saw it in action while writing my review that I fully appreciated it.

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It’s been six months since I reviewed the Dell UltraSharp 4K Thunderbolt Hub Monitor (U2725QE), an LCD computer screen that convinced me to give up my search for an OLED upgrade.

As the name implies, the Dell UltraSharp 4K Thunderbolt Hub Monitor features an integrated TB4 hub with a wealth of high-speed ports—there are five Type-A ports, four USB-C ports, a Gigabit Ethernet jack, DisplayPort and HDMI input, plus an additional DP jack for daisy-chaining monitors. There’s built-in KVM, too. This port selection would be valuable in any monitor, particularly for laptop users like myself, but it’s not just the ports that I care about. Really, this monitor has the best LCD panel I’ve ever tested.

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If you’ve kept up with recent technology news, you may have noticed that the world’s most popular operating system has been in the headlines for all the wrong reasons. Users are now required to log in with a cloud account, the use of AI is basically a requirement, surveillance data is sent off to unknown servers, and users are forced to accept ever-changing license agreements that invade privacy. Why do we put up with this?

Security experts often recommend installing Linux to avoid these problems, but that can be inconvenient at best. Thankfully, since 2019, Kubuntu Focus has optimized a popular Linux OS for compatible hardware and assumed its installation and maintenance so that all the features you need continue to work for years after your purchase.

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Sometimes, the most thoughtful holiday gift is the practical one. Electric car drivers will tell you that a reliable charging solution for their vehicle is priceless. Though electric vehicles are becoming increasingly common in the U.S., the charging infrastructure still hasn’t fully caught up. The at-home electric-vehicle charging market, in particular, has been stuck in a frustrating place, with consumers being forced to choose between durability, compatibility, performance, installation, and price.

The MSI EV Life charger has broken into the U.S. market with a consumer-friendly, future-proof model that is easier to operate and more affordable than its competitors. MSI has a longstanding reputation for producing high-performance computing hardware and has translated its expertise to solve the most pressing problems in the at-home EV charging market.

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Cloud storage services like Google Photos and Dropbox force you to overpay for storage. And can you really trust these corporations to respect your privacy? For those who want to escape from cloud storage, Synology’s BeeStation is the easiest, most user-friendly solution.

The BeeStation is a network-attached storage (NAS) device, effectively a 4TB hard drive that connects to your internet router. You can upload files, photos, and videos to the BeeStation from your smartphone, PC, or tablet, regardless of whether you’re inside or outside of your home. Of course, you can also retrieve these files at any time, or share them with others via private links.

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Smartphone speakers have come a long way, but they’ll never sound as good as a proper speaker in a decent-sized housing. But what if you didn’t have to choose between sound quality and portability?

The Tribit PocketGo is smaller and lighter than most competitors in its class, but doesn’t sacrifice quality audio to achieve that. This makes it easier than ever to transport the speaker anywhere for group listening or better media consumption on your phone.

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OnePlus has always been at the forefront of zippy Android flagship phones—and the OnePlus 15 is no different. It’s one of the first Android smartphones on the market with the powerful Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 SoC, which will likely appear in many other Android flagships, including Samsung devices, starting in 2026. If you want to get a head start on this powerful new chip, the OnePlus 15 is your phone.

The phone pairs the 8 Elite Gen 5 with 12 GB LPDDR5X Ultra or 16GB LPDDR5X Ultra+ RAM and up to 512GB of UFS 4.1 storage for lightning-fast performance.

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Most of you reading this are probably using one of the popular “free” email services, but they aren’t really free, are they? In exchange for letting these companies analyze the contents of your email and track you across the web, you have the “privilege” of looking at targeted advertising stuffed in between your legitimate emails.

Suddenly, paying a small subscription fee to eliminate ads, spying, and all the other “bonus” features of free email services seems much more enticing—which is why users are flocking to Proton Mail.

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When it comes to charging my devices, I want everything to be the fastest and most convenient possible. At one point, I even 3D printed my own MagSafe mounts to help with charging my iPhone at my desk, but when I got Anker’s new Prime Wireless Charging Station, it solved every power problem I had at my desk.

I’ve had many 3-in-1 charging stations over the years, but Anker’s has to be one of the nicest that I’ve owned. At my bedside nightstand, I have the Belkin BoostCharge Pro which I do love, but it’s also getting a bit old and has a fixed-length cable, which is quite annoying in my setup.

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In the smart homes of the future, we were promised that everything would be automated. Today, there are robot vacuums to clean your floors and smart locks that secure your residence without a key—so why should you still be manually operating your blinds?

It’s not just about convenience. By using automated blinds or window shades and optimizing their schedule, you can enjoy significantly better energy efficiency as you use the power of the sun to regulate the temperature inside your home.

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There are a ton of gaming-centric microphones on the market. However, you just don’t get the same level of recording quality that comes from a specialist audio brand that knows what it’s doing. And few brands in the world of microphones are as respected or as trusted as Shure.

One of the brand’s most famous microphones is the Shure SM7B, used by everyone from Metallica to virtually every podcast host on earth—including Joe Rogan. Shure mics are typically associated with professional settings, but the good news is that the brand’s audio recording magic has finally started to trickle down to more affordable units.

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Android Auto and Apple CarPlay are some of the best features in newer cars, but if you’ve ever wanted to upgrade from a wired system to a wireless one, the options were somewhat limited—until now. Don’t waste your money on a no-name adapter from Amazon, and buy this one instead.

I have an older Toyota Tacoma truck that’s heavily modified and upgraded, including the Pioneer stereo, but it still doesn’t support wireless Android Auto. And unless you have a relatively newer vehicle, or a higher trim model, yours likely doesn’t either. Wired Android Auto and CarPlay are fine, but wireless is even better. The only adapter I’ve found that delivers a quality experience is the AAWireless TWO, or the new TWO+, which also works with CarPlay.

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If you want the most satisfying typing experience and a decent gaming keyboard, you should opt for a mechanical.

While mechanical keyboards were traditionally quite expensive without offering many extra features, today the opposite is true: You can get a fantastic mechanical keyboard at a shockingly low price.

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IP security cameras are a dime a dozen, so you might not think to look twice at the Aqara Camera Hub G5 Pro, except to note its premium design. However, beneath this flagship smart home camera is a cutting-edge smart home device.

While the G5 Pro is an excellent outdoor smart security camera, it’s far more than that. This camera is also a full smart home hub that speaks virtually every language, covering Zigbee and Thread, with the ability to act as a Matter controller. This is Aqara’s first outdoor smart home hub, and there’s an incredible number of features packed into the unassuming device.

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I’ve had dual USB-C/A flash drives for many years—they’re nothing new. However, when I got the PNY Duo Link V3, it changed how I used dual flash drives.

One of my favorite features of this flash drive has to be its build quality. I’m used to there being some metal in a flash drive, but plastic being the main component of the housing. PNY went the opposite route with an all-metal build here. The rotation mechanism is also very robust, and I don’t see it breaking anytime soon, as it uses magnets and positive stops to lock into place instead of plastic snaps.

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A CPU cooler doesn’t have to be expensive to be great. If you have a hot-running CPU, the ID-COOLING FROZN A620 PRO SE is all you really need. It’s a chunky air cooler with two 120mm fans that do an excellent job at keeping your modern AMD Ryzen or Intel CPU cool without breaking the bank.

Dual-tower designs aren’t common in this price range, which is one of several factors that contribute to the A620 PRO SE’s excellent cooling performance.

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I’m not a fan of gaming headsets, so for the Razer BlackShark V3 Pro to impress me enough for me to recommend it to you is no small feat.

I’ve tested well over a dozen gaming headsets in the last few years, and have only found two of them to be solid. The Razer BlackShark V3 Pro is the better one of the two, and although expensive, it was a definite tech highlight for me in 2025. With that said, I didn’t love it right away.

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Winter is here, and you may already be tired of taking off your gloves every time you get a notification. Stores are full of those cheap “touchscreen compatible” gloves, but they’re often not very good. I found a pair that actually works, and I’m never going back.

Anyone who lives in a cold climate knows the struggle. You buy a pair of gloves that promise to work with touchscreens, only to find they only work on one or two fingers—if they work at all. Swiping up to unlock your phone takes multiple attempts, and texts take twice as long to type. Eventually, you just give up, peel the glove off, and brave the cold for a few seconds to get out a quick reply.

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Choosing the right tool for multiple jobs can be tough. There are countless brands to choose from, and each one offers hundreds of tools with various models that often look identical. Earlier this year, I finally bought a Ryobi High-Torque Impact Wrench, and not only is it the tool upgrade I needed, but it’s something everyone should own.

Walk through any hardware store’s power tool aisle, and you’ll quickly be overwhelmed by all the choices. And that’s because most tools serve a specific purpose. While you probably already own some hand wrenches and sockets in various sizes, those tools can only get you so far before you need more power and torque. That’s where an impact wrench comes in, and now that I have one, I wish I had bought it sooner.

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Now that the Steam Deck is starting to show its age, gamers are searching for upgraded handhelds that can fill the void of a not-yet-realized “Steam Deck 2.” For me, the Legion Go S is that handheld, and it’s just generally a great platform for on-the-go PC gaming.

I first encountered the Legion Go S at CES 2025 and finally reviewed the handheld about seven months later, in July. While the Windows 11 version of the Legion Go S didn’t impress me too much, the SteamOS Edition naturally stood out—it was the first non-Steam Deck console to ship with SteamOS, a shockingly user-friendly platform that’s far snappier and more efficient than Windows 11. You can install SteamOS on any handheld PC, of course, but it’s nice to have the operating system preinstalled, and Valve’s official software support ensures a fairly bug-free experience.

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One of my favorite products of 2025 almost flew under my radar. The Keychron K4 HE is an impressively affordable and fully-featured Hall-effect keyboard, with a signature pillowy feel and a mature design.

I leapt at the chance to review the Keychron K4 HE. Not because of all the Hall-effect stuff, but because I thought it looked really cool. The wooden side panels evoke a sort-of retro feel that fits well with the wooden window frames, doors, floors, baseboards, and furniture in my office. In any case, I was right to judge a book by its cover—the keyboard’s pretty great. It offers all the benefits of a typical Hall-effect keyboard, like per-key adjustable actuation, but it feels far smoother and a lot less springy than other HE keyboards I’ve tested. I’m not sure whether it’s the Gateron Dual-rail Magnetic Nebula switches, the tray-mount design, or a combination of different factors, but the K4 HE is just fantastic for the price.

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If you want a holiday gift that blends smart home convenience with pure seasonal comfort, the SwitchBot Candle Warmer Lamp is a standout pick. It’s designed to elevate any space with soft light and customizable fragrance, and it just happens to be the world’s first smart candle warmer lamp with Matter-over-WiFi support. That alone makes it perfect for smart home fans, candle lovers, and anyone who wants their home to feel more inviting this winter.

Instead of using an open flame, the warmer gently melts candles from above, creating a fumeless, flameless experience that’s safer for households with kids, pets, or anyone who might forget to blow out the candle. You get all of the benefits from lighting your favorite candles with none of the soot or risk, and the warming approach distributes fragrance more evenly. When it comes to finding someone the perfect gift, the combination of safety and performance makes it an easy win.

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Choosing the right Wi-Fi 7 router can be tough. There are so many models out there, and which ecosystem is the right one to buy into? Earlier this year, I switched my entire network over to UniFi and I haven’t regretted it for a moment.

The UniFi system might seem daunting, but it doesn’t have to be all that complicated. You can, of course, build out a pretty complex system with Ubiquiti’s hardware, but the Dream Router 7 that I went with makes building out your home network super simple.asd

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When it comes to starting a homelab, it can be a bit of a daunting task. What hardware do you choose? What capabilities do you want? How do you build out your initial setup? Well, the TerraMaster F4 SSD NAS takes care of all that for you.

As an all-SSD NAS, the F4 SSD actually packs a punch in the power department for its small size. The Intel N95 processor does include Intel UHD graphics to handle Plex transcoding, and, while it ships with 8GB of DDR5 RAM, you can upgrade it yourself to 32GB if you start to run out of the 8GB.

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