If you’re going to splurge on something this Prime Day, it might as well be on free time and a spotless yard. You can get both those things by getting 20% off one of these Segway Navimow i Series robot lawnmowers. Usually available for $1,299, the i110N is on sale for $1,039 on Prime Day, the lowest price it’s ever had, while the i105 is down to $799 from its usual price of $999. The Navimow series of lawnmowers is exactly what you need if you want to gain more free hours during the weekends, and keep your lawn looking great while spending less time in the sweltering sun maintaining it. One of the best things about these Segway Navimow lawnmowers is that they don’t even need a perimeter wire. All that smart technology under the hood works to map out the yard, navigate the area, and meticulously cut the grass. These robots work just fine even if your yard has slopes and curves, and will even avoid your flower beds, as well as some 150 other types of objects. If your pets are out, a random hedgehog crosses your yard, or your kids leave their toys lying around, Segway’s AI-powered robots will successfully avoid it all. A Segway Navimov i105 robot lawnmower reduced to $799? Yes, please!Buy now at Amazon A great advantage is that Segway’s i Series robot lawnmowers are quiet. Unlike that massive mower you push around, waking half the neighborhood in the process, i Series robots will quietly make their way across your yard without bothering you or your neighbors. The app will help you schedule mowing jobs, create virtual zones, and so on. If you want to have even more fun, there’s a doodle function where you can create your own lawn art. The app can easily be integrated with Google Home and Alexa, meaning you can trigger a mowing job with a simple voice command. The results will always be spot-on, since the Navimow will change mowing directions after the first round to avoid leaving tracks on the lawn. In this way, you’ll also know it didn’t miss a single blade of grass. So, which Segway Navimow i Series is best for you? That depends on how large your yard is. The Navimow i105 is best suited for lawns of up to 1/8 acres, while the i110 was made for larger lawns of up to 1/4 acres. Of course, the price difference is also something to consider, but taking into account the fantastic Prime Day discount, it should be less of a problem. Given how Prime Day doesn’t happen every day and such deep discounts definitely don’t pop up every day, now’s the best time to finally get one of these fantastic Segway Navimow i Series robots. Amazon Prime Day 2025 starts on July 8 and wraps up on July 11. A premium robot lawnmower at an unmissable price – the Navimov i110N is down to $1,039!Buy now at Amazon Read...

ChatGPT is rapidly changing the world. The process is already happening, and it’s only going to accelerate as the technology improves, as more people gain access to it, and as more learn how to use it. What’s shocking is just how many tasks ChatGPT is already capable of managing for you. While the naysayers may still look down their noses at the potential of AI assistants, I’ve been using it to handle all kinds of menial tasks for me. Here are my favorite examples. Further reading: This tiny ChatGPT feature helps me tackle my days more productively Write your emails for you Dave Parrack / Foundry We’ve all been faced with the tricky task of writing an email—whether personal or professional—but not knowing quite how to word it. ChatGPT can do the heavy lifting for you, penning the (hopefully) perfect email based on whatever information you feed it. Let’s assume the email you need to write is of a professional nature, and wording it poorly could negatively affect your career. By directing ChatGPT to write the email with a particular structure, content, and tone of voice, you can give yourself a huge head start. A winning tip for this is to never accept ChatGPT’s first attempt. Always read through it and look for areas of improvement, then request tweaks to ensure you get the best possible email. You can (and should) also rewrite the email in your own voice. Learn more about how ChatGPT coached my colleague to write better emails. Generate itineraries and schedules Dave Parrack / Foundry If you’re going on a trip but you’re the type of person who hates planning trips, then you should utilize ChatGPT’s ability to generate trip itineraries. The results can be customized to the nth degree depending on how much detail and instruction you’re willing to provide. As someone who likes to get away at least once a year but also wants to make the most of every trip, leaning on ChatGPT for an itinerary is essential for me. I’ll provide the location and the kinds of things I want to see and do, then let it handle the rest. Instead of spending days researching everything myself, ChatGPT does 80 percent of it for me. As with all of these tasks, you don’t need to accept ChatGPT’s first effort. Use different prompts to force the AI chatbot to shape the itinerary closer to what you want. You’d be surprised at how many cool ideas you’ll encounter this way—simply nix the ones you don’t like. Break down difficult concepts Dave Parrack / Foundry One of the best tasks to assign to ChatGPT is the explanation of difficult concepts. Ask ChatGPT to explain any concept you can think of and it will deliver more often than not. You can tailor the level of explanation you need, and even have it include visual elements. Let’s say, for example, that a higher-up at work regularly lectures everyone about the importance of networking. But maybe they never go into detail about what they mean, just constantly pushing the why without explaining the what. Well, just ask ChatGPT to explain networking! Okay, most of us know what “networking” is and the concept isn’t very hard to grasp. But you can do this with anything. Ask ChatGPT to explain augmented reality, multi-threaded processing, blockchain, large language models, what have you. It will provide you with a clear and simple breakdown, maybe even with analogies and images. Analyze and make tough decisions Dave Parrack / Foundry We all face tough decisions every so often. The next time you find yourself wrestling with a particularly tough one—and you just can’t decide one way or the other—try asking ChatGPT for guidance and advice. It may sound strange to trust any kind of decision to artificial intelligence, let alone an important one that has you stumped, but doing so actually makes a lot of sense. While human judgment can be clouded by emotions, AI can set that aside and prioritize logic. It should go without saying: you don’t have to accept ChatGPT’s answers. Use the AI to weigh the pros and cons, to help you understand what’s most important to you, and to suggest a direction. Who knows? If you find yourself not liking the answer given, that in itself might clarify what you actually want—and the right answer for you. This is the kind of stuff ChatGPT can do to improve your life. Plan complex projects and strategies Dave Parrack / Foundry Most jobs come with some level of project planning and management. Even I, as a freelance writer, need to plan tasks to get projects completed on time. And that’s where ChatGPT can prove invaluable, breaking projects up into smaller, more manageable parts. ChatGPT needs to know the nature of the project, the end goal, any constraints you may have, and what you have done so far. With that information, it can then break the project up with a step-by-step plan, and break it down further into phases (if required). If ChatGPT doesn’t initially split your project up in a way that suits you, try again. Change up the prompts and make the AI chatbot tune in to exactly what you’re looking for. It takes a bit of back and forth, but it can shorten your planning time from hours to mere minutes. Compile research notes Dave Parrack / Foundry If you need to research a given topic of interest, ChatGPT can save you the hassle of compiling that research. For example, ahead of a trip to Croatia, I wanted to know more about the Croatian War of Independence, so I asked ChatGPT to provide me with a brief summary of the conflict with bullet points to help me understand how it happened. After absorbing all that information, I asked ChatGPT to add a timeline of the major events, further helping me to understand how the conflict played out. ChatGPT then offered to provide me with battle maps and/or summaries, plus profiles of the main players. You can go even deeper with ChatGPT’s Deep Research feature, which is now available to free users, up to 5 Deep Research tasks per month. With Deep Research, ChatGPT conducts multi-step research to generate comprehensive reports (with citations!) based on large amounts of information across the internet. A Deep Research task can take up to 30 minutes to complete, but it’ll save you hours or even days. Summarize articles, meetings, and more Dave Parrack / Foundry There are only so many hours in the day, yet so many new articles published on the web day in and day out. When you come across extra-long reads, it can be helpful to run them through ChatGPT for a quick summary. Then, if the summary is lacking in any way, you can go back and plow through the article proper. As an example, I ran one of my own PCWorld articles (where I compared Bluesky and Threads as alternatives to X) through ChatGPT, which provided a brief summary of my points and broke down the best X alternative based on my reasons given. Interestingly, it also pulled elements from other articles. (Hmph.) If you don’t want that, you can tell ChatGPT to limit its summary to the contents of the link. This is a great trick to use for other long-form, text-heavy content that you just don’t have the time to crunch through. Think transcripts for interviews, lectures, videos, and Zoom meetings. The only caveat is to never share private details with ChatGPT, like company-specific data that’s protected by NDAs and the like. Create Q&A flashcards for learning Dave Parrack / Foundry Flashcards can be extremely useful for drilling a lot of information into your brain, such as when studying for an exam, onboarding in a new role, prepping for an interview, etc. And with ChatGPT, you no longer have to painstakingly create those flashcards yourself. All you have to do is tell the AI the details of what you’re studying. You can specify the format (such as Q&A or multiple choice), as well as various other elements. You can also choose to keep things broad or target specific sub-topics or concepts you want to focus on. You can even upload your own notes for ChatGPT to reference. You can also use Google’s NotebookLM app in a similar way. Provide interview practice Dave Parrack / Foundry Whether you’re a first-time jobseeker or have plenty of experience under your belt, it’s always a good idea to practice for your interviews when making career moves. Years ago, you might’ve had to ask a friend or family member to act as your mock interviewer. These days, ChatGPT can do it for you—and do it more effectively. Inform ChatGPT of the job title, industry, and level of position you’re interviewing for, what kind of interview it’ll be (e.g., screener, technical assessment, group/panel, one-on-one with CEO), and anything else you want it to take into consideration. ChatGPT will then conduct a mock interview with you, providing feedback along the way. When I tried this out myself, I was shocked by how capable ChatGPT can be at pretending to be a human in this context. And the feedback it provides for each answer you give is invaluable for knocking off your rough edges and improving your chances of success when you’re interviewed by a real hiring manager. Further reading: No, don’t threaten ChatGPT for better results. Try this instead Read...

Achieving that perfectly manicured lawn is a whole lot less time-consuming now that a robot can do the job for you. And over the long term, a robot lawn mower will cost less than hiring a landscaper—and it won’t expect a tip every week. Top-of-the-line models cost a pretty penny, but they can climb slopes and handle very large yards (we’re talking acres of grass). While early robot lawn mowers required you to lay down a boundary wire to prevent them from wandering out of your yard, each of mowers listed here use advanced navigation technology that eliminates the need for any wires. The good news is that we’ve already spotted some great deals on robot lawn mowers ahead of Amazon’s Prime Day sale, and we expect there will be more when the sale actually gets underway on July 8. The LawnMaster OcuMow is well-suited to smaller yards—up to 1/6 of an acre or 7,260 square feet—and it doesn’t require a boundary wire. You can pick one up ahead of Prime Day at a 19% discount at Amazon, bringing its final price to just $650. Anthbot says its Genie 600 robot lawn mower uses AI to avoid obstacles as it mows lawns up to .22 acres (9,583 square feet). And since it relies on GPS technology for navigation, it doesn’t require a boundary wire. Amazon is offering a 20% discount on the mower, bringing its final price down to $799. You’ll need a robot mower with a powerful motor and all-wheel drive–the Mowrator S1 is shown here–to tackle a sloped yard.Ed Oswald/Foundry Eufy has expanded its smart home offerings to include a line of robot lawn mowers, including the Eufy E18. This mower can tackle lawns up to .3 acres (13,068 square feet) and it can climb up to an 18-degree incline. Ahead of Prime Day, you can buy the Eufy Robot Lawn Mower E18 for $1,700–a 15% discount off its $2,000 MSRP. The Ecovacs Goat A2500 uses LiDAR navigation to eliminate the need for a boundary wire, and its suitable for large lawns up to 5/8 of an acre (27,225 square feet). Amazon is offering an 11% discount ahead of Prime Day, bringing your final price down to $1,778. If your lawn has slopes, you’ll need a robot lawn mower like the Mowrator S1—one of our favorites—that has the power and traction to climb them. This model isn’t completely autonomous—you drive it with a joystick-equipped remote control—but its all-wheel-drive motor makes short work of inclines up to 37 degrees. Amazon is offering a 10-percent discount on the Mowrator S1, bringing its price down to $3,599. The Yarbo YB-M001 is another robot lawn mower suitable for sloped yards. Like the Mowrator S1, you control it with a game console-like remote control (this one closely resembles an Xbox controller), and it can climb up to a 35-degree slope. Where the Mowrator S1 is rated for yards up to 1.12 acres, Yarbo’s bot is rated to tackle lawns up to 6 acres. Amazon has sliced 10% off the price of the Yarbo YB-M001, reducing it to $4,499. We’ll update this list as we find new deals ahead of and during Amazon’s Prime Day 2025 sale. And if you’re looking to save money on more of the latest technology, visit PCWorld’s Amazon Prime Day Tech Deals 2025 hub. Remember, you need to have an Amazon Prime membership to score Prime Day deals, but you can sign up for a free trial if you’re not. Read...

Few maintenance tasks are as tedious and time-consuming as cleaning your swimming pool. The good news is that robots can now perform that job, leaving you more leisure time to actually swim in your pool. We’ve spotted some great deals ahead of Amazon’s Prime Day sale next week, and we’ll add more as they become available. The recently reviewed Airrobo PC10 is a mid-range robotic pool cleaner that did a very good job on our test pool, and Amazon has knocked 42% off its list price, taking it down to $350. Snag an Airrobo PC10 with a steep discount ahead of Prime Day.Christopher Null/Foundry While we haven’t had an opportunity to review the Wybot C1 robotic pool cleaner, we have obtained good results with some of the company’s other products. Ahead of Prime Day, you can pick up the Wybot C1 for $450, 40% off its usual price. Aiper is another brand of robotic pool cleaner that we’ve had good experiences with, and now you can pick up the Aiper Scuba X1 for $1,000—a 33% discount. Beatbot has a wide range of robotic pool cleaners, too, and you can get the 2024 AquaSense with a 22% discount off MSRP that brings its sale price down to $1,019. If you have a larger pool—or you just want a more sophisticated bot to clean it—Amazon is offering great deals on several higher-end robotic pool cleaners. The Beatbot AquaSense Pro can dispense a water-clarification agent into the water while it cleans, and Amazon is offering a 15% discount to bring its price down to $1,909. (Note: The AquaSense Pro appears to be sold out at the moment.)   Amazon has slapped a 15 percent discount on the Beatbot Aquasense Pro.Christopher Null/Foundry Clip a coupon to get a $500 discount on the Beatbot AquaSense 2, then click a box to get another 10% off to bring its price down to $1,200. Or clip a coupon and tag a box for an additional 10% off, and you can get the brand-new Aiper Scuba X1 Pro Max and caddy (pictured up top) for $1,840, a 30% discount off its $2,600 MSRP. In both cases, you’ll see the final sale price in your cart before you check out. Meanwhile, the top-of-the-line Beatbot AquaSense 2 Ultra is getting a 20% discount, bringing its final price down to $2,880. We’ll update this list article as we find new deals ahead of and during Amazon’s Prime Day 2025 sale. And if you’re looking to save money on more of the latest technology, visit PCWorld’s Amazon Prime Day Tech Deals 2025 hub. Read...

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Amazon’s Prime Day 2025 sales event is almost here and there are already early-bird deals to be found on chargers and power banks. This year, Prime Day runs from July 8 through July 11, and will include some great bargains. So, whether you’re looking to snag a travel-friendly pocket charger or upgrade to a high-capacity drive, there is no better time to get discounted chargers and power banks. You’ll need to be a Prime member to take advantage of Amazon’s steep discounts. If you aren’t a member already, check out our guide for how to get Amazon Prime for free. As a tech editor, I’ve been following and writing about the latest tech deals professionally for years, and have developed a keen eye for finding the best sales from all over the internet. My picks take into account a combination of online reviews from tech sites like PCWorld (when available), user feedback, and pricing history. Read on for all of the best deals on chargers and power banks, and be sure to check out our Amazon Prime Day Tech Deals 2025 hub for more great sales across all the tech categories. Best early Prime Day 2025 deals on chargers & power banks Anker 622 MagGo, 5,000 mAh/1x USB-C/Magsafe-compatible, $33.99 (29% off on Amazon) Blavor Solar Charger Power Bank, 10,000 mAh/2x USB-C/1x USB-A, $23.99 (40% off on Amazon) Anker 621 MagGo, 5,000 mAh/1x USB-C/Magsafe-compatible, $31.99 (20% off on Amazon) Anker Nano 3-in-1 Portable Charger, 10,000 mAh/1x USB-C/Wall plug, $34.99 (22% off on Amazon) INIU Portable Charger, 10,000 mAh/2x USB-A/1x USB-C, $17.99 (18% off on Amazon) Charmast Portable Charger, 10,000 mAh/2x USB-A/1x USB-C/1x micro-USB/1x Lightning, $19.99 (33% off on Amazon) OHOVIV Portable Charger, 50,000 mAh/2x USB-A/1x USB-C/1x micro-USB, $34.99 (83% off on Amazon) LoveLedi Portable Charger, 40,000 mAh/2x USB-A/1x USB-C, $20.15 (28% off on Amazon) This Prime Day 2025 early deals are already heating up. The Anker 622 MagGo Battery for $14 off on Amazon is a personal favorite thanks to its charging stand as well as its Magsafe charging compatibility for convenient on-the-go charging. If you need something rugged and reliable that you can bring on even the harshest of adventures, then look no further than the Blavor Solar Charger Power Bank on sale for $17 off on Amazon. This absolute tank of a power bank can recharge without the need for an outlet thanks to its built-in solar panel, and its IPX5 waterproof rating. FAQ 1. What should I look for in a portable charger and power bank? Quality can differ greatly among power banks, so it’s best to stick to recognizable brands like Anker, Mophie, Belkin, and the like. That said, there are a few things you should always look for when shopping for a power bank. First, make sure the battery pack is Quick Charge 2.0, 3.0, or PD certified. Next, don’t put too much confidence in a company’s claims that it can charge certain devices in a specific amount of time, such as the pack can charge an iPhone 15 in two hours. Focus more on the battery capacity, along with weight and size. Larger capacities in the 20,000 mAh or higher range should be enough for most small devices such as tablets or smartphones. Finally, make sure that the power bank comes with all of the correct connectivity options you need—USB-A or USB-C, etc. 2. What battery capacity should I look for in a charger? For a portable power bank that you can easily travel with, you should look for a minimum of 10,000 mAh. Most models these days even offer 20,000 mAh for reasonable prices. The more mAh, the better. Just be sure to weigh your capacity needs against the physical size of the power bank. Generally, the more mAh a power bank has, the larger its physical size and the heavier it is, as well. Therefore, we recommend when looking at a power bank, you first consider the amount of power you need to charge your devices, and then adjust your expectations according to the size and weight you are willing to carry around with you. 3. What is mAh capacity? The mAh (milliampere per hour) capacity rating refers to the available storage capacity for a battery. A higher number means that the battery can store more energy and has a longer battery life when charging a device. So for example, an iPhone 13 Pro Max’s battery is rated at 4,352 mAh. This means that a power bank with 10,000 mAh can fully recharge that phone a little over twice before running out of power. 4. Will tariffs affect portable charger and power bank prices? Yes, it’s likely that any tariffs on foreign imported power bank products or their component are going to lead to an increase in prices for the consumer. Many of the most common portable charger and power bank brands are located in, or are produced in China and other various Asian countries facing heavy tariffs. Since companies typically don’t want, or can’t afford, to eat these increased costs they usually shift the burden to consumers. At this point it’s still hard to tell how much prices will increase; just because a 20% tariff is imposed on a country’s goods doesn’t mean power banks and chargers will become that much more expensive. Every company will adjust prices differently and products with individual battery components—included in power banks—will vary due to the tariff effects on each component. 5. Is now a good time to buy a portable charger or power bank? The prospect of tariff-induce price increases may seem daunting, but I believe the timing on this Prime Day may actually make for a great time to buy a new portable charger or power bank so long as you time it right. Currently, tariffs have been paused until July 9 with many countries scrambling to make deals exempting technology products. This means that you might have a small window to get in and snag a good deal on a power bank during Prime Day before any additional tariffs take effect. Read...

Every year, we look forward to July because it brings Amazon’s annual Prime Day with it—and that means deep, delicious discounts for all kinds of tech. Right now, we’re still a few days away from the big event (which runs July 8-11), but we’re already seeing some killer early Prime Day flash drive deals. Everyone needs a great USB flash drive, and Prime Day is an excellent time to grab one for cheap. I’ve been a journalist for 19 years, with 13 of those years focused on consumer technology. I love sifting through deals and spend every day hunting down the very best sales on the very best tech. With Prime Day, I’m exercising those muscles to help you find the best USB thumb drives worth your money. These hand-curated recommendations take price, reviews, and brand reputation into consideration. Best early Prime Day deals on 64GB to 256GB flash drives Samsung Fit Plus, 128GB, USB 3.1 — $15 (35% off, was $23) SanDisk Ultra, 128GB, USB 3.0 — $12 (23% off, was $15.49) Samsung Type-C, 128GB, USB 3.2 — $18 (22% off, was $23) Lexar JumpDrive Dual, 128GB, USB 3.2 — $19 (14% off, was $22) Amazon Basics, 256GB, USB 3.1 — $11 (45% off, was $20) PNY Turbo Attache 3, 256GB, USB 3.0 — $11 (45% off, was $20) Samsung Bar Plus, 256GB, USB 3.1 — $22 (45% off, was $40) Kingston DataTraveler Kyson, 256GB, USB 3.2 — $25 (15% off, was $30) PNY Elite-X Fit, 256GB, USB 3.1 — $23 (12% off, was $26) The best deal of the lot is for the Samsung Bar Plus, where you can get 256GB of storage space for just $22. This is a super-fast flash drive that can reach up to 400 MB/s transfer speeds, comes with a rugged metal casing, and is even waterproof and shockproof. If you want a more affordable option, the Amazon Basics for $11 is a decent cheapie. Best early Prime Day deals on 512GB to 2TB flash drives SanDisk Ultra Flair, 512GB, USB 3.0 — $37 (21% off, was $47) Samsung Fit Plus, 512GB, USB 3.2 — $60 (25% off, was $80) PNY Pro Elite V3, 512GB, USB 3.2 — $54 (11% off, was $61) SanDisk Ultra Fit, 512GB, USB 3.2 — $40 (20% off, was $50) SanDisk Ultra Dual Drive Go, 1TB, USB 3.2, both USB-A and USB-C connections — $74 (32% off, was $110) SanDisk Extreme Pro, 1TB, USB 3.2 — $110 (25% off, was $145) A superb pick off this list is the Ultra Dual Drive Go from SanDisk. This is a flash drive with both USB-C and USB-A connectors, thus it’s a lot more versatile. It can reach up to 400 MB/s read speeds, too! USB flash drive deals FAQs 1. What capacity do I need in a USB flash drive? This is a question that you need to answer yourself because it really depends on what you plan to use it for. If you’re only moving work documents around, a small capacity like 64GB will be fine. If you want to use a flash drive for backing up photos, videos, games, and other big files, then you might want to go 512GB or larger. 2. What features should I prioritize when choosing a USB flash drive? First of all, our recommendation is to look at the flash drive’s transfer speeds. To ensure you get fast read/write speeds, you should get a USB 3.0 or above. USB 2.x drives are sorely outdated. Then, you have to make sure the flash drive can survive living in your pocket, getting crushed by your laptop, falling through your fingers, and so on. Aluminum casings will offer better protection in such cases. If the flash drive offers 128-bit AES encryption or better, your data will also have some extra protection in case you lose it, as the drive will be inaccessible and block out others from reading your data. 3. How did we find the best USB flash drive Prime Day deals? Finding great deals can be difficult because not all discounts are worth covering. When looking for good Prime Day deals, we compare the prices on Amazon with the regular retail price and check pricing history to see if there have been any changes lately and that the price drops are truly noteworthy. We also check product reviews to see if they’re reliable in the long run and live up to their promises. Read...

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At a glanceExpert`s Rating Pros Excellent benchmark performance PCIe 5.0 Less power draw than the T705 Reasonably priced for the category Cons Note quite as fast in the real world as some others Our Verdict With less power draw and better benchmark results, Crucial’s T710 is a worthy new member of the company’s NVMe SSD lineup. Price When Reviewed This value will show the geolocated pricing text for product undefined Best Pricing Today Crucial’s T710 is a very fast addition to a worthy stable of NVMe SSDs from the company. It’s marginally faster than the older T705, though it didn’t beat out its sibling in every test. What are the Crucial T710’s features? The Crucial T710 sports 232-layer Micron TLC NAND which is handled by a new Silicon Motion SM2508 controller. Being a single-sided 2280 (22 mm wide, 80 mm long), PCIe 5.0, NVMe 2.0 SSD, it’s suitable for just about any Windows PC or laptop. Peeling back the label on our 2TB test drive revealed a single Micron SDRAM which according to Crucial is 2GB on our drive as well as the 1TB model, with 4GB on the 4TB capacity. The T710 installed in our new Z890 test bed. We don’t measure power draw, but Crucial claims a 24% reduction in power use compared to the older Phison-based T705 — always good news for laptop users. That said, there are still a lot of other power hungry components in the laptop battery life calculation, so don’t expect miracles from an upgrade. Crucial warranties the T710 for five years and 600TBW (TeraBytes that my be Written before read-only) per Terabyte of capacity. That means you can write about that much data before the drive won’t let you write anymore — theoretically. In practice, SSDs track the number of worn-out cells and the spares available to replace them, then go read-only when the latter run out. The TBW rating is just an estimate of when that will occur, and is basically linked to the warranty so that consumer-priced SSDs aren’t used in high-volume servers that run them dry in less than the warranty period. How much is the Crucial T710? Like its older T705 brother the T710 is available with or without a heatsink. For the 1TB version the different versions cost $199.99/$179.99 respectively, for the 2TB it’s $299.99/$279.99, and for the 4TB $569.99/$549.99. Those prices are about average for a DRAM-endowed PCIe 5.0 MVMe SSD. Crucial did not send me a version with the heatsink, but if it’s anything like the ones that shipped with the T705 – it’s beefy indeed. The majority of users will not need the heat sink, but if you’re one that does rest assured, this one will do the job. How fast is the Crucial T710? As a successor to one of the fastest PCIe SSDs we’ve tested (it was fastest at its test date), the T705, we were expecting great things from the T710. Well.. depending on the test, it’s a bit greater — or not quite as great. Note that we have revamped our test bed, and to some extent our testing MO, so these numbers are only directly comparable to the drives listed in these charts. Older results are ballpark so not completely out of line for comparison purposes. According to CrystalDiskMark 8, the T710 offers a nice improvement in sustained throughput over the older T705 — especially with only a single queue, which is still what Windows uses for file transfers. The T710 ruled in the CrystalDiskMark 8 sequential tests, only lagging slightly behind the Samsung 9100 Pro in multi-queue reading — something most software doesn’t do. Longer bars are better. The Crucial T710’s single-queue random performance is also slightly improved over the T705, which is again, the most important test as regards current Windows. But multi-queue performance is a bit weaker, which might show up in programs that use their own multi-threaded I/O. As Windows uses a single-queue for most transfers, we’ll call this a slight win for the T710 over the competition, though we would like to see better multi-queue performance. Longer bars are better. The T710 improved in Windows Explorer over the T705, but was slower in most of the other tests which now include DiskBench and the command line Xcopy run in batch files. If these results seem very close — they are. To the point where they’re not particularly useful for comparing drives, only to see what performance is like in real life transfers. XC is xcopy, DB is DiskBench, and the last four are Windows Explorer drag and drop. Faster in some transfer, slower in others, the T710 in the real world is hard to tell from other DRAM PCIe 5.0 NVMe SSDs. EX is Explorer, DB is DiskBench, XC is Xcopy. Shorter bars are better. Where the Crucial T710 proved a disappointment was in the 450GB write, which we now perform with Windows Explorer, DiskBench, Xcopy, and FastCopy. All four showed the drive lagging behind both the T705 and Samsung 9100 Pro in this test. The 450GB write was a bit of disappointment for the T710. It doesn’t match the CrystalDiskMark 8 sequential ratings. Shorter bars are better. All in all, the T710 is a very good performer, though not the best of the PCIe 5.0 lot for large file transfers. Some current technology notes: the Z890/Intel Core Ultra combo we now use is found to be less adept at PCIe M.2 NVMe than the older Z790. Because of this, we use adapter cards in the PCIe 5.0 slots for testing. Should I buy the T710? Yes, it’s a very fast SSD. But it’s not the fastest and not a huge improvement over the T705. In short, either the Crucial T705 or this newer T710 will do nicely. Base any buying decision on price — the performance difference between DRAM-based PCIe 5.0 SSDs simply isn’t all that significant. How we test Drive tests currently utilize Windows 11 24H2, 64-bit running off of a PCIe 4.0 Samsung 990 Pro in an Asus Z890-Creator WiFi (PCIe 4.0/5.0) motherboard. The CPU is a Core Ultra i5 225 feeding/fed by two Kingston Fury 32GB DDR5 4800MHz modules (64GB of memory total). Both 20Gbps USB and Thunderbolt 5 are integrated and Intel CPU/GPU graphics are used. SSDs involved in the test are mounted in a HighPoint 7604A 16x PCIe 5.0 adapter card. We run the CrystalDiskMark 8, AS SSD 2, and ATTO 4 synthetic benchmarks to find the storage device’s potential performance, then a series of 48GB and 450GB transfers tests using Windows Explorer drag and drop, DiskBench, Xcopy, and FastCopy to show what you’ll actually see under Windows as well as what’s possible. The 48GB transfer tests utilize an USFMount RAM disk taking up 58GB of the 64GB of total memory. The 450GB file is transferred from a 2TB Samsung 9100 Pro. Each test is performed on a newly NTFS-formatted and TRIM’d drive so the results are optimal. Note that in normal use, as a drive fills up, performance may decrease due to less NAND for secondary caching, as well as other factors. This can be less of a factor with the current crop of SSDs with far faster late-generation NAND. Caveat: The performance numbers shown apply only to the drive we were shipped and to the capacity tested. SSD performance can and will vary by capacity due to more or fewer chips to shotgun reads/writes across and the amount of NAND available for secondary caching. Vendors also occasionally swap components. If you ever notice a large discrepancy between the performance you experience and that which we report, by all means, let us know. Read...

Have you got your heart set on a new computing life with Linux when Windows 10 bites the dust in October? It’s a noble idea, but Linux has its downsides too. For some users those downsides may be par for course. But for others, they’ll be total dealbreakers. Here’s a list of the most common to help you make up your own mind… 1. Software and driver compatibility is lacking There’s no denying that there are compatibility limitations with Linux that you won’t see with Windows. These issues affect software but also drivers. Take software as an example. Linux forums users are often miffed that common Windows software like Microsoft Office and Adobe Creative Suite aren’t fully compatible with Linux. There are workarounds to using these programs, of course, but they require a little tinkering. Driver incompatibility issues are another common complaint, especially the lack of support by manufacturers for GPU drivers. It seems illogical but GPU drivers aren’t always installed on some Linux distros (the different distributions of the Linux OS) when you first install your system, since standard GPU drivers are closed-source. Lack of driver support can be a big letdown for gamers especially, some of whom complain about acceleration issues with Nvidia graphics cards on Linux systems. (AMD’s Radeon group is better with this.) The driver issue is also a bummer if you want to deck out your Linux PC with cool peripherals. That’s because manufacturers of peripheral devices like printers and headsets don’t always provide driver support for Linux. Linux users often have to rely on open-source drivers to get them to work, for better or for worse. MSI 2. Rolling updates to distros can cause instability issues If you’re looking for a seamless OS user experience, Linux currently isn’t it. Updates to Linux distros often cause instability and breakages in tools and extensions that Linux users rely on. That’s because of the way Linux distros are updated. Instead of having comprehensive new version releases every year or so a la Windows, which tend to be a little more thoroughly tested (but not perfect), Linux distros tend to have a lot of rolling updates that aren’t anywhere near as fine-tuned. Understandably, these bugs can cause big disruptions. One recent update for the Linux distro Ubuntu broke Gnome’s Shell extensions. Gnome is an open-source desktop environment for Linux whose updates are usually bundled as part of Ubuntu updates. In 2024 an update to Gnome 46 led to widespread breakages in third-party shell extensions including important productivity tools, which left many users without the applications they count on every day. Dominic Bayley / Foundry 3. Some triple-A games aren’t supported Some big-name developers don’t provide support for their games to run natively on Linux, which means there’s currently fewer triple-A games available to play right now than there are on Windows. ProtonDB’s website (the community website for Valve’s Proton technology, which allows Windows games to run on Linux and the Steam Deck) reports that about 70 percent of triple-A games available on Windows are currently playable on Linux. Some of those unsupported games are big names, too. The multiplayer game Fortnite, for instance, isn’t playable on Linux unless it’s being played through a cloud gaming service like GeForce Now. Admittedly, that figure is a lot better than it used to be just a few years ago, when there were only a handful of triple-A games playable on Linux. Thanks, Steam Deck! One roadblock to getting even more games on Linux is the problem Linux has with anti-cheat software. On Windows, anti-cheat software — like Epic’s Easy Anti-Cheat (EAC) — prevents players cheating in multiplayer games by blocking them at the grassroots file level. Yet these anti-cheat programs don’t work on Linux, which means the games either aren’t unplayable, or aren’t playable without special workarounds — and those workarounds can sometimes get you banned. There has been speculation that Microsoft is working on a fix that will mean Windows games won’t need a special workaround for kernel-level anti-cheat software on Linux, but we have yet to see it happen. Dominic Bayley / Foundry 4. Game performance isn’t guaranteed If you’re super proud of your PC’s performance in a certain triple-A game — say, Cyberpunk 2077 — that cozy experience may be upended on Linux. Why? Because it’s common for game performance to be different on Linux than it is on Windows. That’s certainly the case for Cyberpunk 2077 which some Linux gamers have said is “unplayable,” others that they get “lower FPS on Linux than they get on Windows.” Still, that’s just one game. That’s not to say every triple-A game performs poorly on Linux. In fact, it’s sometimes the case that games perform better on Linux than they do on Windows. The point is, you can’t expect like-for-like performance, so keep that in mind before switching to Linux just to play a specific game. IDG 5. Linux has a steeper learning curve Linux often requires more tinkering than Windows or MacOS for a smooth user experience. It’s subjective, and people will have their own views and experiences, but it’s true in the sense that sometimes installing software or configuring settings on Linux requires the use of a command-line interface instead of the less intimidating graphical user interface (GUI). On Windows, you have the option of typing commands at the command prompt, but it’s not mandatory — you can still do most tasks via Windows’ GUI. Some users will get a kick out of learning the old-school commands for Linux. Others, not so much, so it’s worth considering that point before making the switch. get windows 11 pro for cheap Windows 11 Pro Read...