Monthly Archives: October 2022

Top 10 men’s gear gift guide that are the ultimate must-have for every guy

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Often we have heard the phrase, what women really want. While we may not know the answer to it, we surely have the answer to what men truly want! The answer lies in this collection of cool and curated designs – ranging from outerwear to EDC designs, big and small. Men want products that are unique in design, that are functional yet fun and can make them easily stand out in the crowd of neutral gear that floods the market. While we traditionally think that buying a gift for men can be boring and limit ourselves to the usual watch, wallet or belt, the curated designs here will show that men’s gear is not only cool, but also will make you want these designs for yourself as well as your crew!

1. Vollebak’s Solar Charged Jacket

When we say this is a Solar Charged Jacket, it is not a gimmick. Winner of TIME’s Best Inventions award, this jacket looks like something straight out of a sci-fi movie and lights you up, anytime, anywhere! The Solar Charged jacket is a highly light sensitive and responsive jacket which means the jacket acts like a regular windbreaker during the day, but when the darkness begins, it can shine with enough intensity to convert its wearer into a beacon!

The applications for this are endless – be it a hiker, biker or basically anyone who enjoys being out in the night, the jacket uses a special phosphorescent coating that captures light during the day. The fun part is, the light source can range from your phone’s flash to the sun – so indoor lights work as well. The jacket comes with a 3-layer fabric that protects the phosphorescent layer under a transparent waterproof membrane, making the jacket safe to wash as well!

Click Here to Buy Now: $495

2. Polar Pen

The Polar Pen is where the fun meets functional! Made from a series of silver plated high power neodymium magnets, the Polar Pen unleashes its form factor to become a multi-functional beast that can go from a compass mode which allows you to draw a circle just right, to a fun mode, which holds a fidget spinner for those meetings where sitting still is just not easy.

The power of the rare earth magnets is what lets you turn the humble pen into various forms such as a levitating fidget spinner or simply a way to calm yourself by playing with the magnets. This is not just a pen, this is your pocket-sized sidekick!

Click Here to Buy Now: $29 $44

3. Groove Belt

Imagine the clean, stress-free living of having a belt you never have to adjust…that is the promise the Groove Belt brings to the table. How often has it happened that you end up adjusting your belt when you go from a morning of sitting at your desk to post lunch scenes? Or every time you go from walking to hiking in one day? The requirement of your belt changes as the day progresses and the Groove Belt lets you do just that, with ease.

The magic to the Groove Belt is the Neodymium magnets – allowing you to snap the buckle using just one hand. The belt’s material has a stretch, that keeps you comfortable and flexible throughout the challenges we face daily. Even thought the belt is flexible, it comes with Stiff-Tech which means the back of your belt does not fold and retains it’s form. Lastly, literally, the end of the belt neatly tucks behind the belt, giving the wearer a clean, minimal finish minus all the flapping. And if you do manage to break this belt, which you won’t given its 94 year guarantee, you’ll have a new one sent to you!

Click Here to Buy Now: $59.95 $64.95

4. Xeric Leadfoot Automatic

Automotive and racing lovers will always hold the ’60s and ’70s as the golden years – the years that gave the underdogs the best chance to win given the minimal safety and design regulations. It was in this era where the lines were easily blurred and bold moves were made. The Leadfoot Automatic is designed to recreate and treasure those memories as this watch too, challenges the norm.

This vintage driver watch comes with a side-viewing display, allowing the wearer to read his watch with ease while driving the car and without leaving the steering wheel. The twin dials allow you to track your home and the destination time zone in true hardcore adventurer style! The single hour/minute hand encircles the hour while sweeping across the minutes arc. In a cheeky homage to the fuel gauge, the power reserve indicator lets you know the levels of mechanical energy stored in the watch. History has always cherished the oddballs that succeeded and if you appreciate or know someone who appreciates the intricacies of car racing with the crazy edge you get when you know you’re gunning for the impossible but you just can’t help yourself – it is that thrill and spirit the watch holds close to the wearer’s watch.

Click Here to Buy Now: $899 onwards

5. STORM 2

When someone says power bank, the first image in our mind is a boring rectangular block that does the job well, but that’s about it…until now! The Storm 2 comes with a transparent design and a display that clearly shows the metrics on the IPS display.

Armed with 2 USB-C, 1 USB-A and 1 DC output ports, the Storm 2 comes with an adjustable voltage – giving the users complete control over the charging of their devices. With a 25600 mAh density battery that charges in just 1.5 hours, the power bank is capable of charging via electric campers, coolers, drones, camp lights and more. With it’s Cyberpunk style see-through design, the intricate circuit board (including the 32-bit M3 ARM MCU chip) is beautifully displayed, showcasing the contrast between electronic components and the virtual world that it connects – the Storm 2 is not just a power bank, it is your ultimate power solution!

Click Here to Buy Now: $229 onwards

6. Tiny Pump 2X

I don’t exactly know what created this image in our heads – that pumps need to be big and a hassle to carry but the TINY PUMP 2X is here to bust all our myths with its tiny size and maximum capabilities. The 3-in-1 design is waterproof and combines an air pump, a vacuum pump and a camping lantern, making it hard for us to believe when you look at the sheer size of it!

Weighing only 96 grams and a 1300mAh rechargeable batteries, use it to inflate various products rapidly or use as a lantern for upto 10 hours. The TINY PUMP 2X also works in reverse, by deflating the air products and vacuum bags – making it a space-saving saviour on your travels as well as at home. And, its outdoor ready – by being IP44 level waterproof, drop resistance – its safe from water and dust and ready to brave the wilderness with you!

Click Here to Buy Now: $39.99

6. Kinetic Driver

To put it simply, the Kinetic Driver is a screwdriver…but that’s like saying Batman is just another guy! If you’re someone who enjoys working with wood, metal, 3d printing, cooking, or just enjoy high-quality products, the Kinetic Driver is a must have in your arsenal. The driver comes with a brass cylinder with a low CG, creating a flywheel effect that feels revolutionary.

The weight of the Kinetic Driver is just enough to create the right pressure on the screw, so you don’t have to manually figure that out. The design also holds a ceramic bearing in the head, giving a finish so smooth, it feels like the driver is levitating in your hands. With a grip that means business, the driver also comes in a sleek case that is a platform to hold your bits and the tiny parts that you are usually working with that go missing…well not anymore!

Click Here to Buy Now: $76.23

7. Skinners 2.0

When you think of outdoor footwear, what is the first thing that crosses your mind? More often than not, we oscillate between sneakers and shoes, until now. The Skinners 2.0 has created its own niche in the footwear industry with its 4-in-1 design that merges the comfort of socks with the protection of shoes! Finding it hard to believe? The Skinners are made using StretchKnit, a material that combines artificial and natural filers to create a fast moisture-wicking technology that retain its fit. Well, its even lightweight, travel-friendly, waterproof, washable, minimalistic and comes with its own patented design.

The Skinner 2.0 comes with a perforated insole, long-lasting polymer sole and functional filers all designed to keep you going with your activity or adventure. Given its wide-toe based design, it ensures your feet are not squished during longer journeys. Skinners will feel like the perfect second skin, supporting you as you do sports or just keep them as a backup shoe for a rainy day, literally!

Click Here to Buy Now: $47.80 $56.66

8. Manmower

Manmower

If you happen to discuss this idea with someone, the instant reaction you would get is a laugh, followed by a thoughtful pause, can we actually do this? That is exactly the reaction we had when we heard the name Manmower. Designed to be a lawn mower but for your jaw, this product actually has a lot of pros than we could imagine, making it the perfect travel buddy.

The Manmower operates without electricity, shaving foam, water or generally no prep. Take the Manmower and start running it across your jaw and the internal blade slices away at your facial hair, leaving behind an evenly trimmed stubble. It works only on the hair, without damaging or cutting the face under your beard. Once done, just run the mower under water and you’re good to go! For those who love to stay effortlessly maintained, the Manmower is the craziest and easiest tool to have in your kit – just try it out!

Click Here to Buy Now: $114.71

9. Sitpack Zen

Horizontal surfaces inspire us to lean and sit. Keeping that in mind, the Sitpack Zen is your horizontal surface that you carry with you at all times! Simply put, the Sitpack Zen is an extremely functional one-legged portable stool. The design comes to be used both indoors as well as outdoors and best of all, it helps improve your posture so you can relax without harming your back.

The Sitpack Zen can be adjusted from 25cm to 90 cm at 5 cm intervals. So whatever your height, the Sitpack Zen adjusts to you. This stool is the answer to the question we never asked – what if we can carry our seating with us that helps us correct our posture with just 30 mins of use? Well, we have an answer and the result is a product that is compact, stronger, lighter, more adjustable and just so much more comfortable!

Click Here to Buy Now: $79

10. CLIPIT 2.0

Wallet, phone stand, and a clip – if one design could do it all, it is the CLIPIT 2.0. Traditionally speaking, this tool so unique, there is no way to define it except showing you what all it does. To begin with, it is a money clip but with an elastic strap that allows you to tie in your notes as well as cards. Given its metallic design, we can easily suspend or mount things onto your clip and given its clip-inspired shape, its easy to mount the clip anywhere!

The fun doesn’t stop there – the elastic band gives added friction so your bag strap won’t slip off your shoulders. Use the CLIPIT 2.0 to organise your belongings – be it holding multiple straps together, hold your bills in place or even use it with a card as an instant phone stand. As versatile as this product is, there is a set of accessories that can make it more useful – such as a a cable holder, a magnetic holder or even a tiny portable fan! The possibilities are endless – start experimenting with yours right away!

Click Here to Buy Now: $19 $30

The post Top 10 men’s gear gift guide that are the ultimate must-have for every guy first appeared on Yanko Design.

Camber envisions chairs and benches made from a single sheet of metal

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Furniture is so critical and so common in our lives that few of us probably give a second thought to how they’re made. As long as they serve their purpose and look good, tables, chairs, and other pieces of furniture might as well be made from alien material for most people. Unfortunately, the materials and processes used to make these essential products have started to chip away at the health of the planet for the sake of keeping humans comfortable. Designers have started to become more aware and conscientious of this problem, and they have started to put their creativity to work in solving it. In addition to using sustainable materials right from the start, another potential answer is to reduce the amount of waste that results from the manufacturing process, like a single sheet of metal that is then cut and bent to form a sharp-looking chair.

Designer: Paul Coenen

Even the simplest piece of furniture sometimes uses multiple parts. A table will be made of at least four legs attached to a tabletop, and those connections might require screws or other means to keep the table from falling apart with the slightest weight. With conventional furniture designs, these parts are often cut out or formed at different times from different materials, a process that often yields wastes bits and pieces that can no longer be used anywhere else.

Some furniture designs have become a bit smarter by attempting to utilize every inch of a single sheet of wood or metal, but those might still need extra parts to connect them together. A more efficient way would be to just use the whole sheet and nothing else, but it’s also more challenging to create visually appealing designs. You might think it’s a simple case of folding metal, for example, but making it usable while also looking good is actually harder than you might think.

Camber is an attempt to check all those boxes by cutting and bending a single sheet of stainless steel to form seats you’d want to look at as much as sit on. Rather than simply bending two ends to form legs, the design actually involves making two angular cuts where the folds would happen before actually bending down the legs. This creates not only a more interesting design but also adds some stability to the bench or stool’s legs.

Sanding gives the seats a reflective yet matte surface, removing the need for any harmful coating. It’s an almost perfect complement to the designer’s SST mirror, which uses the same single-sheet principle, except that the surface is polished to the point that it becomes more reflecting. Stainless steel might not be the most environment-friendly metal, but its longevity ensures that these chairs and benches should last far longer than other types. Camber is simple, almost brutalist in its appearance, but its appeal goes beyond looks, offering a design that isn’t only efficient but also, in some odd way, charming in its own right.

The post Camber envisions chairs and benches made from a single sheet of metal first appeared on Yanko Design.

This wooden stool offers a sustainable replacement for a common household product

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No matter what part of the world you’re in, you’d probably come across a plastic stool that is employed for different purposes around the house. Of course, it is primarily a seat, but sometimes it’s also used as a makeshift side table for holding tools while you work around the house. Some more daring people even use it as an ad hoc ladder, though that largely depends on the build and stability of the stool. No matter the purpose, this kind of stool has become so ubiquitous that it could be one of the most common uses of plastic in the market. Of course, such a stool doesn’t need to be made from plastic, and this design translates that into wood with some additional quirks that make it stand out.

Designer: Antoine Laboria

Wooden stools are easy enough to make, but one that has the durability of the common thermoformed plastic stool presents a few more challenges. It gets even more complicated if you try to recreate the unique and somewhat iconic form of the plastic original, a form that doesn’t translate cleanly to wood. Throw in some requirements about sustainability, and you’ve got quite the design puzzle.

Thanks to thermoforming, plastic stools often have contours and curves that would be impossible to recreate on wood except through carving. That is definitely a possible solution to recreating the plastic stool faithfully, but it is also expensive and impractical, unlike these sundry pieces of furniture. The Plastic Translation Stool design tries to reinterpret the lines of the plastic stool instead, resulting in a form that is somewhat similar yet also unique, giving the wooden stool its own character.

Those legs alone, however, won’t be enough to offer the same stability as the plastic counterpart, so an additional element had to be added. Birch plywood buttresses distribute some of the force evenly across the beechwood legs, which, in turn, hold the buttresses together. These interlocking parts provide not only architectural stability but also visual accents to what would otherwise be a plain-looking stool.

Unlike a thermoformed plastic stool that comes as a single piece, this wooden reinterpretation has to be assembled together. It doesn’t require screws or nails, though, making the assembly easier and the packaging simpler. It is, after all, supposed to be a more sustainable option to the plastic stool, and such an alternative would need to not only be made from sustainable materials but also be sustainable right to the very end.

The post This wooden stool offers a sustainable replacement for a common household product first appeared on Yanko Design.

Elon Musk reportedly wants Twitter to bring back Vine

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Elon Musk’s vision for Twitter may include bringing back Vine, the short-form video app the company shuttered in 2016. According to Axios, Twitter’s new “Chief Twit” told a group of engineers to work on a reboot that could be ready by the end of the year. The Verge’s Alex Heath, who was among the first to report that Musk was considering making the company’s Twitter Blue subscription mandatory for verified users, corroborated the news.

“I have also heard this, though unclear if Vine will actually be relaunched at this point,” he said. “Musk also has a lot of people telling him to just bake the experience into core Twitter.”

While we’re probably at the stage where Musk is contemplating any and all options, there’s certainly some evidence to suggest he is seriously considering bringing back Vine. Earlier today, he polled his 112 million Twitter followers to ask them if the company should reboot the app. When MrBeast, one of the most popular YouTube stars on the planet, said it would be “hilarious” if Musk did that and Vine went on to compete with TikTok, the Tesla and SpaceX CEO asked him “what could we do to make it better than TikTok?” Bringing back the platform would also certainly seem to align with Musk’s stated goal of transforming Twitter into a “super app” akin to China’s WeChat.

However, the timeline, like the one Musk reportedly set for monetizing Twitter’s verification feature, is likely unrealistic. According to Axios, the company hasn’t updated Vine since it shut down the app more than six years ago. "It needs a lot of work," one source told the outlet, referring to the software’s codebase. At this stage, it’s also hard to see the platform competing with TikTok and YouTube Shorts, even if it does come back. So much of TikTok’s success is a result of its “For You” algorithm which always seems to know what videos will keep you glued to the app. Vine never had anything comparable, and many of its most prolific creators have moved on to other platforms.

Award-winning bedside clock has a built-in pill dispenser that reminds you to regularly take your medicines

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Snagging the coveted Red Dot Design Concept Award in the Best of Best category, the +CLOCK is an automatic pill organizer and dispenser that functions like a clock but distributes pills at the time set by the user. “It is intended to establish a routine for the user to take the medication on a regular basis”, says designer Ju Chan Ho. “When it is time to take medication, +CLOCK plays an alarm that the user has set and distributes the pills to the tray.”

The +CLOCK isn’t merely a clock. It’s more of a habit-building device that also happens to tell the time, hence the name +CLOCK for the fact that it’s also a clock. The gizmo sits on any bedside table and comes with an appearance comparable to the Tmall Genie Queen smart mirror. Underneath its large clock face sits a carousel featuring 28 slots for daily meds. You can input medicines based on days or the time of the day, with the ability to fill up to 28 slots. This effectively means the +CLOCK lets you schedule up to 28 days of medicines or a week of medicines if taken 4 times a day, giving caretakers enough time to refill the next lot once the pills have been dispensed. When it’s time to take your meds, the +CLOCK alerts you with an alarm that dispenses the pills when you snooze it, helping you build a habit to take your medicines!

The +CLOCK is a winner of the Red Dot Design Concept Award for the year 2022.

Designer: Ju Chan Ho

The post Award-winning bedside clock has a built-in pill dispenser that reminds you to regularly take your medicines first appeared on Yanko Design.

Bose’s QuietComfort 45 headphones are $80 off right now

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When it comes to noise cancellation, few over-the-ear cans tune out the world better than Bose's QuietComfort. Right now, the $80 discount puts these premium headphones at $249, which is pretty close to their all-time-low price. The deal is part of Bose's pre-Black Friday sale, so it's likely the lowest they'll go before the holidays. While $250 is by no means a cheap for a pair of headphones, we are big fans of the QC45s. They earned an 86 when we reviewed them late last year, getting special recognition for their balanced sound quality that works nicely with virtually all music genres.    

While this isn't the lowest they've ever been — they were $229 during the Prime Early Access Sale a couple of weeks ago — this remains a solid deal on one of our current top recommendations for wireless headphones. What's particularly nice is the deal applies to all four color options (black, white, navy and grey). 

Like the name suggests, the QuietComfort series are designed to stay comfortable for long periods of wear, and that's exactly what we found in our tests. The long battery life (we got a little over 22 hours on a charge) also lends itself to extended wear and that's what you want in a pair of ANC headphones — think long flights, workdays in noisy offices or co-working spaces/coffee shops, or just shutting out everything around you so you can finally catch up on the dragon show.

While we weren't crazy about their aesthetics (little was done to update the look from the previous models), the QC45 packs easy on-board controls and happily pairs with more than one device at a time — iOS, Android, Mac and PC included — while delivering clear, balanced audio in headphones that feel comfortable for the long haul.  

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Amazon’s latest tablet sale brings the Fire HD 10 back down to $75

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Amazon's Fire HD tablets are still worthy options if you just want a competent media consumption device for as little money as possible, and within that lineup, the Fire HD 10 provides the best value for most. This is especially the case when the device is discounted, and as of this writing the 10.1-inch slate is back on sale for $75 at Amazon and Best Buy, among other retailers. 

While this isn't the absolute lowest price we've seen — the tablet was briefly available for $55 at Target earlier this year — it does match the price we saw during last year's Black Friday sales and Amazon's latest Prime Day events. The 32GB model here technically has an MSRP of $150, though a handful of smaller discounts have dropped its average street price closer to $130 in recent months. 

This is a nice price for what was already one of the better values on the tablet market. Like Amazon's other Fire tablets, the Fire HD 10 is a no-frills device: It's largely made of matte plastic, the speakers and cameras are mediocre, and very little about its performance or design feels as premium as what you'd get from even an entry-level iPad. But for the money, it's all good enough if you're just looking for casual web browsing, ebook reading, video streaming, and Alexa stuff. Its eight-core MediaTek Helio P60T processor and 3GB of RAM won't blow anyone away — don't expect much in the way of gaming — but it can handle the basics without consistent slowdowns, and it's generally more fluid than the lower-cost models in the Fire lineup.

Similarly, the 10.1-inch panel isn't the brightest or most vibrant you'll see, but it's plenty fine for $75. Again, its 1920 x 1200 resolution is a firm step-up from the lower-res Fire 7 or Fire HD 8, and simply having more real estate makes it more pleasing for video streams and quick Zoom calls. The tablet gets a good 12-ish hours of battery life per charge, and it charges over USB-C. While the discounted model here only has 32GB of built-in storage, you can expand that with a microSD card. (A version with 64GB of storage is also on sale for $95.)

The caveat with any Amazon tablet is, as always, software. Amazon's Fire OS is still a forked version of Android that lacks access to the Google Play Store — and thus, native Google apps like Gmail or YouTube — and frequently pushes you toward the company's own apps, services and online store. There are still lock screen ads, and it still costs a $15 fee to get rid of them. It remains easy enough to sideload the Play Store and its more expansive app library, but that's clearly not the most user- or security-friendly solution. Instead, a Fire tablet will work best if you stick to Amazon apps like Kindle and Prime Video, popular apps like Netflix or basic web browsing. All that said, the OS is still fairly robust when it comes to parental controls and supporting multiple user profiles, and there's still a handy "Show Mode" that can essentially turn the tablet into an Echo Show-like smart display when you're not holding it. 

The deal here comes as part of a wider sale on Amazon tablets. The Kids and Kids Pro versions of the Fire HD 10, for instance, are both back to their all-time lows at $120. Those come with large protective bumper cases (the Pro's is a bit slimmer), two-year warranties and a year of Amazon's Kids+ child-focused content service, though their hardware is otherwise identical, and it's worth noting that you can set up a kid-friendly profile on the base Fire HD 10 as well. 

The Fire HD 10 Plus, meanwhile, is on sale for $105, which matches the lowest price we've tracked. That one adds another gigabyte of RAM and wireless charging support, which are nice upgrades — particularly if you want to use that smart display functionality — but nothing we'd call essential for most people in the market for a good affordable tablet. We'll also note that the Fire 7 is down to a new low of $42, but we'd recommend waiting for the recently-updated Fire HD 8 and its altogether superior hardware to go on sale if you're simply looking for the cheapest usable slate. 

Buy Fire HD 10 Plus at Amazon - $105Buy Fire HD 10 Kids at Amazon - $120Buy Fire HD 10 Kids Pro at Amazon - $120Buy Fire 7 at Amazon - $42

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Amazon’s latest tablet sale brings the Fire HD 10 back down to $75

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Amazon's Fire HD tablets are still worthy options if you just want a competent media consumption device for as little money as possible, and within that lineup, the Fire HD 10 provides the best value for most. This is especially the case when the device is discounted, and as of this writing the 10.1-inch slate is back on sale for $75 at Amazon and Best Buy, among other retailers. 

While this isn't the absolute lowest price we've seen — the tablet was briefly available for $55 at Target earlier this year — it does match the price we saw during last year's Black Friday sales and Amazon's latest Prime Day events. The 32GB model here technically has an MSRP of $150, though a handful of smaller discounts have dropped its average street price closer to $130 in recent months. 

This is a nice price for what was already one of the better values on the tablet market. Like Amazon's other Fire tablets, the Fire HD 10 is a no-frills device: It's largely made of matte plastic, the front and rear cameras are mediocre, and very little about its performance or design feels as premium as what you'd get from even an entry-level iPad. But for the money, it's all good enough if you're just looking for casual web browsing, ebook reading, video streaming, and Alexa stuff. Its eight-core MediaTek Helio P60T processor and 3GB of RAM won't blow anyone away — don't expect much in the way of gaming — but it can handle the basics without consistent slowdowns, and it's generally more fluid than the lower-cost models in the Fire lineup.

Similarly, the 10.1-inch panel isn't the brightest or most vibrant you'll see, but it's plenty fine for $75. Again, its 1920 x 1200 resolution is a firm step-up from the lower-res Fire 7 or Fire HD 8, and simply having more real estate makes it more pleasing for Zoom calls and video streams. The tablet gets a good 12-ish hours of battery life per charge, and it charges over USB-C. While the discounted model here only has 32GB of built-in storage, you can expand that with a microSD card. (A version with 64GB of storage is also on sale for $95.)

The caveat with any Amazon tablet is, as always, software. Amazon's Fire OS is still a forked version of Android that lacks access to the Google Play Store — and thus, native Google apps like Gmail or YouTube — and frequently pushes you toward the company's own apps, services and online store. There are still lock screen ads, and it still costs a $15 fee to get rid of them. It remains easy enough to sideload the Play Store and its more expansive app library, but that's clearly not the most user- or security-friendly solution. Instead, a Fire tablet will work best if you stick to Amazon apps like Kindle and Prime Video, popular apps like Netflix or basic web browsing. All that said, the OS is still fairly robust when it comes to parental controls and supporting multiple user profiles, and there's still a handy "Show Mode" that can essentially turn the tablet into an Echo Show-like smart display when you're not holding it. 

The deal here comes as part of a wider sale on Amazon tablets. The Kids and Kids Pro versions of the Fire HD 10, for instance, are both back to their all-time lows at $120. Those come with large protective bumper cases (the Pro's is a bit slimmer), two-year warranties and a year of Amazon's Kids+ child-focused content service, though their hardware is otherwise identical, and it's worth noting that you can set up a kid-friendly profile on the base Fire HD 10 as well. 

The Fire HD 10 Plus, meanwhile, is on sale for $105, which matches the lowest price we've tracked. That one adds another gigabyte of RAM and wireless charging support, which are nice upgrades — particularly if you want to use that smart display functionality — but nothing we'd call essential for most people in the market for a good affordable tablet. We'll also note that the Fire 7 is down to a new low of $42, but we'd recommend waiting for the recently-updated Fire HD 8 and its altogether superior hardware to go on sale if you're simply looking for the cheapest usable slate. 

Buy Fire HD 10 Plus at Amazon - $105Buy Fire HD 10 Kids at Amazon - $120Buy Fire HD 10 Kids Pro at Amazon - $120Buy Fire 7 at Amazon - $42

Follow @EngadgetDeals on Twitter and subscribe to the Engadget Deals newsletter for the latest tech deals and buying advice.

HP Elite Dragonfly Chromebook review: The best of ChromeOS, but not worth the price

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Google has been making high-end Chromebooks for almost a decade now, dating back to the $1,300 Chromebook Pixel in 2013. At the time, many people saw it as a beautiful but strange device. In the years that followed, both Google and its hardware partners have made premium Chromebooks more and more commonplace. Though, a still-unconfirmed report earlier this year suggests Google is giving up on making laptop hardware, at least for now. The company hasn’t said anything of the sort yet, but the reality is that Google hasn’t made a new Chromebook since the Pixelbook Go in late 2019.

Of course, that hasn’t stopped other manufacturers from making Chromebooks with gorgeous screens, great industrial design and powerful hardware. But HP’s Elite Dragonfly Chromebook, released earlier this year, might be the nicest I’ve used in a long time. It also has a jaw-dropping price point, starting at well over $1,000. Much like the original Chromebook Pixel, HP’s latest is a joy to use that is very hard to recommend because of that price.

Design

Before we talk about the bummer that is the HP Elite Dragonfly Chromebook’s cost, let’s go over the good stuff. The Dragonfly is similar in stature to a MacBook Air, weighing in at about 2.8 pounds and measuring only .65 inches thick. Combined with a fairly spacious 13.5-inch touchscreen display with a 3:2 aspect ratio, the Dragonfly is comfortable to work on and easy to travel with.

Design-wise, it’s a spartan affair, with a dark gray finish and only a few silver accents to be found. But given that HP is primarily targeting this computer at enterprise users, it makes sense that they went with a classic look here. There’s a decent selection of ports, despite the Dragonfly’s rather slim profile: it has two USB-C / Thunderbolt 4 ports, a USB-A connection, a headphone jack, HDMI and a microSD slot. That’s a lot better than you’ll get on a typical ultraportable.

HP Elite Dragonfly Chromebook
Nathan Ingraham / Engadget

Screen and keyboard

There’s a handful of things that make the Dragonfly really stand out. For starters, it has an excellent display, with a 3:2 aspect ratio that provides a lot more vertical viewing space than your standard 16:9 screen. The configuration I’m testing has a 2,256 x 1,504 resolution, good for about 200 pixels per inch. Sure, there are more pixel-dense displays out there, but this one looks stunning, with sharp text and images and basically no visible pixels. It’s the nicest screen on a Chromebook I’ve seen in a long time. The only minor knock is its unremarkable 60Hz refresh rate, but that shouldn’t be a major issue for most people. Still, HP spared basically no expense on everything else, so it would have been nice to have.

Despite the refresh rate, the Dragonfly’s display is great beyond just the aspect ratio. It’s bright and has nice contrast without things being too over-exaggerated. It’s also rather reflective, which makes it not ideal if there’s a light shining on the display, but the screen is bright enough that it should be usable in all but the harshest of light.

The keyboard and trackpad are also excellent. The keys are firm, but not too firm, and have plenty of travel for a relatively thin laptop. The trackpad, meanwhile, is large and responsive. Nothing quite matches up to the trackpad on a MacBook for me, but this one feels pretty close. HP says it’s a haptic trackpad, with customized vibrations for some specific actions like pinning windows in split screen or switching between virtual desks, but I can’t say I noticed much of anything there.

HP Elite Dragonfly Chromebook
Nathan Ingraham / Engadget

Good specs (for a Chromebook)

Finally, the Dragonfly mostly has cutting-edge spec options; the model I tested has a 12th-generation Intel Core i5 processor, built-in LTE, 256GB of storage and 8GB of RAM. LTE isn’t exactly cutting-edge anymore, and 8GB of RAM is a bit stingy on a computer this pricey. But aside from those quibbles, this is plenty of horsepower for basically anything you want to do in ChromeOS; I never experienced any stutters when switching apps or playing back music and video. Despite the high-resolution screen and powerful processor, battery life is solid if not spectacular. I got between six and eight hours of normal usage, which involved a lot of Chrome tabs, Spotify, Todoist, Slack, Google Keep, Trello and the occasional Android app here and there. It managed to play back a movie for 8 hours and 50 minutes in our battery drain test. If battery is your foremost concern, the model with a Core i3 processor or the lower-resolution screen will likely last even longer.

It also does a fine job running the handful of Android apps I tested it with. In the last year or so, you’ve been able to run downloaded apps in tablet, phone or resizable windows, and for the most part I was able to get Todoist, Spotify and Lightroom all working well in resizable windows. Even Instagram finally works properly, although now that the website now allows you to create posts, it’s not really necessary any more. Putting that aside, performance across basically all the Android apps and games I tried was solid. But given how many apps are in the Play Store, there’s still a good chance of running across some that don’t work well.

While Chromebooks aren’t known for gaming, the Dragonfly easily handled some cloud-based play via NVIDIA’s GeForce Now and Xbox Cloud Gaming – not a surprise given the powerful (for a Chromebook, at least) hardware. At this point, ChromeOS has pretty solid game controller support, and it obviously works with external keyboards and mice. So provided the titles you want are available, this is probably the best way to play games on a Chromebook at this point. That said, this hardware should more than meet the cut for installing Steam, once Google and Valve start rolling that out beyond its current limited alpha phase.

HP Elite Dragonfly Chromebook

The catch

The problem that keeps me from recommending the Dragonfly is easy to explain. The cheapest model of this laptop costs an eye-popping $1,150. And that’s with an i3 processor and only 128GB of storage. As usual, HP has a dizzying array of different configurations, though I don’t think they’re actually selling the model I have through their site right now. But there is an option with an i5 processor that costs more than $1,500. That is crazy money for a Chromebook, no matter how nice it is.

For a comparison, Acer’s Chromebook Spin 714 has essentially the same processor, storage and RAM as the Dragonfly for only $730. The screen and build quality aren’t quite as nice, but we’re talking about a computer that’s essentially just as capable but costs half of what HP is offering. For the cost of the Dragonfly, you could also pick up an extremely capable Windows laptop or MacBook Air. As much as I like using Chrome OS, it’s nearly impossible to recommend anyone spend that kind of cash on a Chromebook.

To be fair to HP, the company isn’t positioning this as a broad consumer device. It falls under their enterprise category, and I could imagine some businesses heavily invested in Google’s ecosystem buying these for executives. But, there’s no denying that, at this price point, ChromeOS is a compromise compared to Windows or macOS.

In this way, HP’s Elite Dragonfly Chromebook is a lot like Google’s Chromebook Pixel: It’s the best Chromebook you can buy, and it shows how good the experience of using ChromeOS can be. But, it’s not so much better than the many other reasonably priced options out there for anyone to seriously consider unless they love ChromeOS and have money to burn.

HP Elite Dragonfly Chromebook review: The best of ChromeOS, but not worth the price

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Google has been making high-end Chromebooks for almost a decade now, dating back to the $1,300 Chromebook Pixel in 2013. At the time, many people saw it as a beautiful but strange device. In the years that followed, both Google and its hardware partners have made premium Chromebooks more and more commonplace. Though, a still-unconfirmed report earlier this year suggests Google is giving up on making laptop hardware, at least for now. The company hasn’t said anything of the sort yet, but the reality is that Google hasn’t made a new Chromebook since the Pixelbook Go in late 2019.

Of course, that hasn’t stopped other manufacturers from making Chromebooks with gorgeous screens, great industrial design and powerful hardware. But HP’s Elite Dragonfly Chromebook, released earlier this year, might be the nicest I’ve used in a long time. It also has a jaw-dropping price point, starting at well over $1,000. Much like the original Chromebook Pixel, HP’s latest is a joy to use that is very hard to recommend because of that price.

Design

Before we talk about the bummer that is the HP Elite Dragonfly Chromebook’s cost, let’s go over the good stuff. The Dragonfly is similar in stature to a MacBook Air, weighing in at about 2.8 pounds and measuring only .65 inches thick. Combined with a fairly spacious 13.5-inch touchscreen display with a 3:2 aspect ratio, the Dragonfly is comfortable to work on and easy to travel with.

Design-wise, it’s a spartan affair, with a dark gray finish and only a few silver accents to be found. But given that HP is primarily targeting this computer at enterprise users, it makes sense that they went with a classic look here. There’s a decent selection of ports, despite the Dragonfly’s rather slim profile: it has two USB-C / Thunderbolt 4 ports, a USB-A connection, a headphone jack, HDMI and a microSD slot. That’s a lot better than you’ll get on a typical ultraportable.

HP Elite Dragonfly Chromebook
Nathan Ingraham / Engadget

Screen and keyboard

There’s a handful of things that make the Dragonfly really stand out. For starters, it has an excellent display, with a 3:2 aspect ratio that provides a lot more vertical viewing space than your standard 16:9 screen. The configuration I’m testing has a 2,256 x 1,504 resolution, good for about 200 pixels per inch. Sure, there are more pixel-dense displays out there, but this one looks stunning, with sharp text and images and basically no visible pixels. It’s the nicest screen on a Chromebook I’ve seen in a long time. The only minor knock is its unremarkable 60Hz refresh rate, but that shouldn’t be a major issue for most people. Still, HP spared basically no expense on everything else, so it would have been nice to have.

Despite the refresh rate, the Dragonfly’s display is great beyond just the aspect ratio. It’s bright and has nice contrast without things being too over-exaggerated. It’s also rather reflective, which makes it not ideal if there’s a light shining on the display, but the screen is bright enough that it should be usable in all but the harshest of light.

The keyboard and trackpad are also excellent. The keys are firm, but not too firm, and have plenty of travel for a relatively thin laptop. The trackpad, meanwhile, is large and responsive. Nothing quite matches up to the trackpad on a MacBook for me, but this one feels pretty close. HP says it’s a haptic trackpad, with customized vibrations for some specific actions like pinning windows in split screen or switching between virtual desks, but I can’t say I noticed much of anything there.

HP Elite Dragonfly Chromebook
Nathan Ingraham / Engadget

Good specs (for a Chromebook)

Finally, the Dragonfly mostly has cutting-edge spec options; the model I tested has a 12th-generation Intel Core i5 processor, built-in LTE, 256GB of storage and 8GB of RAM. LTE isn’t exactly cutting-edge anymore, and 8GB of RAM is a bit stingy on a computer this pricey. But aside from those quibbles, this is plenty of horsepower for basically anything you want to do in ChromeOS; I never experienced any stutters when switching apps or playing back music and video. Despite the high-resolution screen and powerful processor, battery life is solid if not spectacular. I got between six and eight hours of normal usage, which involved a lot of Chrome tabs, Spotify, Todoist, Slack, Google Keep, Trello and the occasional Android app here and there. It managed to play back a movie for 8 hours and 50 minutes in our battery drain test. If battery is your foremost concern, the model with a Core i3 processor or the lower-resolution screen will likely last even longer.

It also does a fine job running the handful of Android apps I tested it with. In the last year or so, you’ve been able to run downloaded apps in tablet, phone or resizable windows, and for the most part I was able to get Todoist, Spotify and Lightroom all working well in resizable windows. Even Instagram finally works properly, although now that the website now allows you to create posts, it’s not really necessary any more. Putting that aside, performance across basically all the Android apps and games I tried was solid. But given how many apps are in the Play Store, there’s still a good chance of running across some that don’t work well.

While Chromebooks aren’t known for gaming, the Dragonfly easily handled some cloud-based play via NVIDIA’s GeForce Now and Xbox Cloud Gaming – not a surprise given the powerful (for a Chromebook, at least) hardware. At this point, ChromeOS has pretty solid game controller support, and it obviously works with external keyboards and mice. So provided the titles you want are available, this is probably the best way to play games on a Chromebook at this point. That said, this hardware should more than meet the cut for installing Steam, once Google and Valve start rolling that out beyond its current limited alpha phase.

HP Elite Dragonfly Chromebook

The catch

The problem that keeps me from recommending the Dragonfly is easy to explain. The cheapest model of this laptop costs an eye-popping $1,150. And that’s with an i3 processor and only 128GB of storage. As usual, HP has a dizzying array of different configurations, though I don’t think they’re actually selling the model I have through their site right now. But there is an option with an i5 processor that costs more than $1,500. That is crazy money for a Chromebook, no matter how nice it is.

For a comparison, Acer’s Chromebook Spin 714 has essentially the same processor, storage and RAM as the Dragonfly for only $730. The screen and build quality aren’t quite as nice, but we’re talking about a computer that’s essentially just as capable but costs half of what HP is offering. For the cost of the Dragonfly, you could also pick up an extremely capable Windows laptop or MacBook Air. As much as I like using Chrome OS, it’s nearly impossible to recommend anyone spend that kind of cash on a Chromebook.

To be fair to HP, the company isn’t positioning this as a broad consumer device. It falls under their enterprise category, and I could imagine some businesses heavily invested in Google’s ecosystem buying these for executives. But, there’s no denying that, at this price point, ChromeOS is a compromise compared to Windows or macOS.

In this way, HP’s Elite Dragonfly Chromebook is a lot like Google’s Chromebook Pixel: It’s the best Chromebook you can buy, and it shows how good the experience of using ChromeOS can be. But, it’s not so much better than the many other reasonably priced options out there for anyone to seriously consider unless they love ChromeOS and have money to burn.