How-To Geek

Right now, the most affordable MacBook you can buy is a MacBook Air—and they are brilliant, but as Apple has shown with the iPhone SE, it can go lower without losing that Apple magic.

Three-row SUVs dominate the family vehicle market, but one modern minivan challenges the trend by offering more space, better comfort, and greater value. If you’re comparing options for hauling people and cargo, this minivan makes a strong case for skipping the SUV altogether.

This was a quieter week for tech news after all the excitement around WWDC, but there's still a lot to talk about. T-Mobile announced an overhaul for its prepaid phone plans, more changes are coming to Windows 11, and much more—here are the biggest stories you might have missed.

Nothing can get your mood up like a good old sitcom, and with a Netflix subscription, laughs are on tap whenever you need a pick-me-up. The streaming platform boasts a large library of sitcom offerings, so you'll always be spoiled for choice.

You love your Mac, and you love your Android phone. But getting these two ecosystems to play nice together is often not easy. What if I told you there’s a free, open-source app that can sync notifications between your devices and so much more?

Game monetization is a dicey subject. Developers and publishers need to make money and recoup their investments, but how they go about it varies wildly. Some methods are fair and widely accepted. Others fall into a much grayer, more exploitative area.

Did you know that palm veins were unique enough to use as a security measure on a smart lock? I didn’t, but TCL did, and I’m happy they figured it out. The TCL D1 Pro smart lock’s headlining feature is using your palm to unlock it, which is fascinating—and I liked it a lot more than I expected to.

After years of Windows 11 being the most inflexible thing since DOS as far as customization goes, this seems to be a priority in Microsoft agenda with the upcoming Windows 11 25H2 update. Complaining works. Now, it's getting even more customizable.

I consider having a clean controller necessary to play games well. Over time, controllers get dirty, whether it be from dust, sweat, or tears from playing rough matches or environmental factors that we cannot control.

The Switch 2 has a number of tricks up its sleeve compared to the original, and one of the most surprising is the ability to convert those new Joy Cons into mice by simply flipping the controller on its side.

I haven't used a PC in a year. Well, almost. There's just one reason I need to have a conventional computer in the house, and that's making sure the other gadgets in my life get their latest software updates.

Whenever I need to kill some time (or distract myself from work), I like a good puzzle game. I've got a couple I'd love to share, but the best part is all these puzzle games can be played from your browser, and on almost any PC or phone.

Microsoft Excel has so many keyboard shortcuts that it can sometimes be difficult to remember the most useful. One of the most overlooked is F9, which gives you more control over formula calculation in your worksheets.

One of the reasons why I haven’t been super excited about Gemini is how many things it lacks compared to the ancient Google Assistant. For a very long time, Assistant has been able to identify songs when you ask it to, which can be a real lifesaver. But with Gemini stepping into the spotlight, that seamless experience vanished, leaving a frustrating void.

Not all cars depreciate at the same rate, and some brands are far better than others at holding their value over time. Whether you're buying new or planning to trade in down the line, resale value is a key factor that can save (or cost) you thousands.

The RTX 5000 series of GPUs was just released this year, and deals on hardware packing the new cards are hard to come by. Not impossible, though. One of HP's best Omen gaming laptops is currently heavily discounted, in case you want to hop on it now.

Cloud services offer a lot of convenience, but they also mean that your data leaves your home and ends up on a server you don't have control over. There's nothing to stop the brand from accessing that data, or for bad actors to get hold of it by malicious means.

Final Fantasy Tactics: The Ivalice Chronicles is a remake of the original Final Fantasy Tactics. This game is a vast improvement over the original, but there are plenty of other games you will enjoy if you were interested in FFT that tend to get overlooked.

Steam has added a new performance monitoring tool to its in-game overlay, giving you information about how your games are using your computer’s resources. This should help you spot potential performance problems, although it is currently in beta.

macOS has a wide range of quality open-source apps to choose from, and I couldn't do without some of them. They're powerful and feature-rich, and a lot of them are slicker and better designed than you might expect. These are the open-source Mac apps that I use all the time.