How-To Geek

Android might be famous as an open ecosystem, but Google has made some features exclusive to Pixel devices. A handful of Pixel-exclusive features have genuinely changed how I use my phone, but a few others are best left undiscovered. Here's every major Pixel exclusive, ranked from the one I can't live without to the one I'd happily never think about.

Affordable electric crossovers aren’t usually where you go looking for a premium experience. Most options in this segment focus on value first, with simple interiors, modest performance, and just enough tech to get the job done. Luxury brands, on the other hand, tend to sit comfortably above that price bracket. At least, that’s how it’s always worked.

Amazon is no longer Rivian's biggest investor. VW (specifically, Volkswagen Group Technologies) has raised its equity stake in Rivian to 15.9 percent, putting it ahead of Amazon's nearly 12.3 percent investment.

Have you ever wanted your life to feel like a video game? Do you want to see XP points pile up every time you do something productive? Me too. And so I built a gamification system using Claude and Habitica to turn my life into an RPG.

Plex's Remote Watch Pass is getting a 50% price hike starting June 1, 2026. Plex introduced the Remote Watch Pass in April 2025 as a cheaper alternative to the Plex Pass. Remote Watch Pass allows users to remotely stream from any Plex Media Server that a user has access to.

"Once you get past the first season, the show gets better." If I had a nickel for how many times I've heard that phrase, I'd be a rich man. I'm not a saint, either. I've said it plenty of times, and I'm about to do it again with these six shows. It's not that the shows listed below were terrible in the beginning. Quite the contrary. Most of them started fine, but they didn't hit their stride until the end of the first season. In some cases, these shows were on the brink of cancellation.

BMW has announced the U.S. pricing and release date for the 2027 iX3, including a pleasant range boost for the electric SUV.

The app store formerly known as the “Android Market” has been around since 2008. What started as a few thousand apps has exploded to nearly two million. Some of the best original Android apps are still kicking in the Play Store today—they’re still pretty good, too.

For years, the compact SUV world has run on one simple rule: if you want something reliable, you buy a Toyota. It’s a reputation built on strong resale values, loyal owners, and a long track record of dependable engineering.

You no longer need a Galaxy S26 to take advantage of some of Samsung's latest software features, as the company has started the stable rollout of One UI 8.5 to older phones and tablets.

Last month, Frankie Muniz, Bryan Cranston, and Jane Kaczmarek reprised their beloved roles from Malcolm in the Middle for the revival series, Malcolm in the Middle: Life's Still Unfair. For any revival, the biggest determining factor for their existence is viewership. Will audiences tune in for more episodes? In Malcolm in the Middle: Life's Still Unfair, the answer was yes, as the revival scored Hulu and Disney+'s most-viewed season premiere of 2026.

For a long time, Synology was the NAS brand. If someone asked what NAS to buy, you’d say Synology and move on. Their hardware was always decent but DiskStation Manager was genuinely exceptional—nothing else in the consumer space came close to the software experience. You were paying a premium, but it made sense.

Setting aside some time to write nowadays, in a distraction-free environment, isn’t the easiest thing to do. With so many distractions out there, it’s a miracle anyone gets any writing done at all.

If your Excel workbook shows everything at once, it's harder to use than it needs to be. The fix is simple: only surface what the user actually needs to see and hide the rest. Let me introduce you to the 10% rule.

From the day I ditched my old LG phone, I've been a regular user of Samsung phones. This year, I made the switch to Linux Mint as a daily driver on my PC, and that gave me the idea to try running a few of my favorite Linux apps on my Galaxy Z Fold.

If you've upgraded to a new router, you don't have to get rid of the old one. Instead, you can turn it into an access point or Wi-Fi repeater, or even use it as a secondary network node if you've got two routers from the same brand that both support the same proprietary mesh software.

There are some smart home sensors that you only truly appreciate when the worst happens. I had a water leak sensor in my home and assumed that it was keeping me protected. I found out the hard way how wrong I was.

Most Linux users never think twice about the kernel running under their system. It just works. But for those who want stronger security guarantees, there's an alternative worth knowing about—and living with it taught me more than I expected.

AV receivers can be finicky or hard to understand at first, so it's easy to mess a thing up or two during setup. Here are some settings to check if you're having any audio problems in your home theater.

When it comes to reading, I’m kind of the queen of it, at least in my family. You really can’t find me without a book at my side, headphones in my ears blasting an audiobook, or, in this case, an eReader in my hands. My Kindle and I have come a long way since I started, and there have been some great times so far.