The Monday before Thanksgiving is a magical time. We alternate between working furiously to try and finish up our deadlines before the holiday and totally bail on work to look at Black Friday deals on the internet. Take a break from both those grinds and check out all the tech news and new gear you may have missed last week.
The big tech news last week came from Elon Musk and his grand electric vehicle hype machine. He pulled back the curtain on Tesla’s new electric semi truck, then surprised everyone by unleashing a new Tesla roadster that will be the fastest mass production car ever, if it can live up to Elon’s promises. You can pre-order them now, of course. Bring money. And patience.
Hunger for your touch
Google’s first pair of wireless headphones showed a lot of promise, but the over-sensitive touch controls might drive you crazy. Check out our full review here.
Surface USA
The Microsoft Surface Book 2 is one the best laptops we’ve used, but it’s probably overkill for most people. The 15-inch touchscreen is fantastic as a comically-large tablet, and the high-powered guts make it fast enough for real creative work, like finishing my comic book about a superhero who reviews gadgets by day.
Bed buds
If you’re the type who can’t sleep without a fan or noise machine, you may want to check out Bose’s new Sleepbuds. They cost $300, but they use the company’s time-tested noise cancelling tech to block out the sounds of snoring partners or that obscenely early garbage pickup. A companion app lets you control things like the ambient sounds they play and the type of alarm you want to wake you up.
Budget-friendly flagship
OnePlus announced its new phone called the 5T. It’s an Android phone with a six-inch OLED screen, a double camera system, and even a headphone jack. It has a starting price of just $499, which sounds like a steel when lots of other high-end phones are tiptoeing around the $1,000 mark.
Super charge it
The new Tesla may be the fastest production car ever, but the new Corvette ZR1 is an entirely different beast. It has a 755 horsepower, a massive wing on the back, and carbon ceramic brakes like an F1 car. If you squint really hard, it looks like the Batmobile.
Late harvest
If you were hoping to find one of Apple’s new HomePod smart speakers under the tree this year, Santa is going to have to pull off something truly magical, because the product is now scheduled to hit the market in early 2018.
Ready for your close-up
Moment makes some of the best smartphone camera lenses around and they’re now compatible with the iPhone X. Options include a telephoto, a wide-angle, a fisheye, and my personal favorite: a macro lens that you can use to look at things uncomfortably close. Have you ever looked at table salt through a true macro lens? Fascinating.