XDA

Lenovo Legion Tower 5i with the glass detached
Always answer these 6 questions before choosing a prebuilt gaming PC

Choosing your ideal prebuilt gaming PC isn't hard at all if you can answer these 6 questions honestly

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The age of prebuilt gaming PCs with poor performance and build quality is, thankfully, long behind us. You can still spot some gems with 10th Gen Core i5 CPUs selling for $1,000 on Amazon, but largely, the prebuilt PC scene has drastically improved over the last few years. Today, there are a lot of great options from both boutique builders and big-name manufacturers that rival custom gaming PCs in both value-for-money and build quality.

Anker 14-in-1 USB-C Hub on blurred background
Anker's 14-in-1 USB-C hub brings a plethora of ports and is now down to its lowest price yet

If you're looking for a great and affordable way to expand your port selection, this is going to be it.

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Although some of our favorite devices are getting lighter and slimmer, we sometimes tend to lose things with this kind of progress, especially with laptops, where a wide port selection can easily become a luxury. With that said, USB-C hubs can be lifesavers in these types of situations, providing an array of ports that's great for expanding your devices connectivity.

The controls of the Steam Deck OLED
How to play PS5 games remotely on Steam Deck

Play your favorite PS5 titles on Valve's portable handheld.

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Steam Deck is one of the best and most powerful handheld gaming consoles out there right now, that's capable of playing more than just the games in your Steam library. That's right, you can even add non-Steam games to your library and play them on your Steam Deck. Heck, you can even use Sony's Remote Play feature to run PlayStation games on your Steam Deck and play them from anywhere in your home. If you have both a PlayStation 5 and a Steam Deck and are wondering how to play your PS5 games on Valve's handheld, then you've come to the right place.

The Lofree Edge on a stand.
Lofree Edge review: It's the Magic Keyboard of mechanical keyboards

Lofree's new low-profile keyboard offers mechanical switches and solid travel while keeping an impossibly low profile and refined design.

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If Apple made a mechanical keyboard, what would it look like? Well, the company has made a handful of them, but we're a few decades removed from that. The better question is, what would a mechanical keyboard from today's Apple look like? It would probably be super thin, feature exquisite build quality and materials, and offer a solid low-profile typing experience. That description happens to fit the Lofree Edge, which is an ultra low-profile mechanical keyboard from Lofree that's available on Kickstarter beginning today. I'm not the only one making comparisons to Apple products, either. Lofree itself likens the Edge to the wedge-shaped MacBook Air design, striving to meet the same level of thinness and precision.

A custom PC based on Thermaltake's The Tower 500 case  modified with a lime green chassis. The installed GPU is also colored lime green
Best custom PC builders in 2024

Need help building your PC? Here are the best custom PC builders out there right now.

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Putting together a custom PC isn't a one-and-done purchase like consoles, and it requires a lot of effort to understand things like your needs, product compatibility, budget, and more. Additionally, you also have to track down and source individual components like the CPU and GPU before you can even get to the somewhat challenging part of building the PC. This entire process can be just as frustrating as it is rewarding, and it's certainly not for everyone.

The screen on the Retro Mini PC Am02.
I tried a PC with a screen, and here's why your next PC case should have one too

RGB is so old, it's time to really spruce up your PC setup with a sub-screen inside your case.

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One of the best parts of building a custom PC is making it your own, since no two custom-builds will end up exactly the same. There are a lot of ways to make your high-end gaming PC uniquely stand out from the rest, including by picking a stylish PC case, adding RGB components and accessories, and creating a custom cooling system. Those are classic, tried-and-tested options that date back to the early days of PC building. In 2024, there's a new option, and in many ways it's better and more uncommon than the others. You can install something known as a sub-screen into your existing PC case, and it's a secondary display that can display graphics, widgets, performance stats, and much more.

A woman organizes laundry beside her robot vacuum

If you’re still manually mopping and vacuuming your floors in 2024, it’s time to automate your cleaning process and get a significant slice of your life back. Your time is the most precious thing you have — there’s no reason to keep wasting it on cleaning when intelligent robot-vacuum options abound.

windows 10 feature image
Microsoft is making major reductions to the size of Windows 10 updates

If you're on Windows 10 version 22H2, you'll notice a significant decrease in the size of Windows updates moving forward.

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Windows updates can be fairly time-consuming due to several factors including download size, installation time, and the duration of the reboots that are needed to activate an update. Microsoft tried to solve a portion of this problem back in 2021 when it reduced the size of Windows 11 updates by 40%. Now, the Redmond firm has announced that it is bringing the same technology to Windows 10 version 22H2.

Half Life 2 on the Steam Deck
Valve closes Steam loophole with new refund policy

Changes have now been made, so choose your games wisely.

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Valve has had a pretty generous return policy for products purchased on Steam, allowing players to return a title so long as it was within 14 days and less than two hours played. From a consumer perspective, this is a very reasonable policy, allowing players to experience some of the game, and just return it, even if you just don't like it.

A Raspberry Pi 5 kept next to a camera module
Getting a camera working on Raspberry Pi 5 is easy; here's how it's done

Since the Raspberry Pi 5 features new four-lane MIPI ports, you'll need to follow a different strategy when connecting a camera module to the SBC

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Let’s say you finally decided to buy the Raspberry Pi 5 after hearing good things about the newest member of the most popular SBC family. If you’re into creating DIY projects, you may have already exhausted most of the cool stuff you could pull off with just the SBC. The next step is to start looking into peripherals that you can equip onto the Raspberry Pi to expand your repertoire of projects.

A photo of the extracting file archive in Ubuntu
How to extract and install a tar.gz file on Ubuntu

Tar.Gz files are archives, and you can easily install them through the GUI in Ubuntu or by using the terminal

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One of the things you'll come across during everyday use of a great Linux distribution like Ubuntu is installing apps and opening certain files. While most apps can be found in the Ubuntu Software Center or even as manual downloads, there might be a time when an app or a file you want will come as a tar.gz file type.

A laptop booting up with the Windows logo overlaid on the display
PC won't boot? Here's how to recover Windows back to a working state

If your Windows PC won't start, you may need to try one of these steps to get it working again.

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It's probably hard to think of a situation more frustrating than having your laptop or PC stop working altogether for reasons unknown. It's thankfully not that common, but any time it occurs is one time too many, and if you cna't even boot your computer, you might think you're out of luck. Thankfully, that's not the case, and you can always get back to a working state.

An iPhone 14 Pro running YouTube Music against a red background.
How to download your YouTube Music songs and playlists for offline listening

You can download all your songs and playlists offline with a YouTube Music subscription, but the process is different on iOS and Android.

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YouTube Music is a great music streaming service, especially if you're already subscribed to YouTube Premium. With a subscription, you can download all of your songs and playlists to your smartphone, but the process differs slightly on iOS and Android. Plus, there are a few features that allow YouTube Music to automatically download songs to your device without any of your input, so there are plenty of options. This guide shows you all the ways that you can download your songs and playlists to your smartphone with a YouTube Premium subscription.

The HP Dragonfly Pro Chromebook laid on top of printed documents.
Using Microsoft Office files on ChromeOS just got a ton easier

Just do a one-time setup and you're good to go.

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It can be tricky to work with a group of people when they all use different office suites. Whether you're getting a DOCX, a PDF, or an ODF, you sometimes need an app purely to handle one person who likes a specific app over all others. Fortunately, Google is making it easier to open Microsoft Office files in ChromeOS, meaning you'll find it a lot easier to work with people who prefer the Redmond giant's apps over Google's own.

Windows 11 background image
How to set up Windows Sandbox on Windows 11

Windows Sandbox is a very useful feature for testing software on Windows 11. Here's how to set it up on your own PC.

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If you follow news around Windows 11 (and Windows 10 before it), you might have heard of Windows Sandbox, but there's a good chance you may also not know what it is. This is a feature Microsoft added in later versions of Windows 10, specifically for the Pro or Enterprise editions.

PC installed inside the HYTE Y40 Snow White Edition
Never skimp on these parts when building a PC

"Buy cheap, buy twice!"

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Building a PC doesn't have to be expensive all the time, and there are plenty of components on the market right now to prove that. It is true that you may not get the latest and the best component out there when you stretch your budget a bit thin, but it's entirely possible to put together a solid PC without burning a huge hole in your wallet.

be quiet! Dark Rock Elite
be quiet! Dark Rock Elite review: Best-in-class CPU air cooling

Taking a look at be quiet!'s flagship CPU air cooler.

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The be quiet! Dark Rock Elite is a premium CPI air cooler with two fans, a beefy twin heatsink, and easy AMD and Intel system installation. The company's array of products isn't the flashiest on the market but is designed with function in mind. A similar sleek all-black design is found throughout the be quiet! hardware catalog, but every case, cooler, and power supply has a list of useful features.

A Raspberry Pi 5 with a power bank placed near it
I turned my Raspberry Pi into a portable computer — and you can too

The Raspberry Pi works well as a portable SBC, but there are a couple of things you should bear in mind before bringing it along on your next outing

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The Raspberry Pi boards are some of the best SBCs for DIY projects, but there’s no reason to confine them within the bounds of your house. Thanks to their small size, it's entirely possible to slip these devices into your pocket and use them on the move. But before you can bring your dreams of a portable Raspberry Pi to life, you’ll have to contend with the issues of powering and controlling the palm-sized system. So, I’ve put together a guide to help you free your Raspberry Pi from the shackles of cables, and use it anywhere outside your home lab.

Anker 717 on nightstand charging laptop
Anker's monster 140W charger gets irresistible 50% discount and can satisfy all your charging needs

If you're looking for a charger with a lot of power at a fair price, grab this Anker 140W charger for a steal for a limited time.

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Devices have gotten quite powerful over the past few years and, luckily, charging technology has managed to keep up, with brands utilizing the latest technology in order to provide speedy top-ups on some of our favorites smartphones, laptops, and tablets. Of course, these chargers aren't cheap, but if you're lucky enough, you'll be able to find a superb deal on one.

Dynabook Portege X40L-M over a pink-tinted office background
Dynabook's latest laptop packs all the ports, but it's still crazy light

The Dynabook Portégé X40L-M stands out by offering tons of ports while still being one of the lightest business laptops around.

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Dynabook may not be the first name anyone thinks of when thinking of laptops, but that's not stopping the company from launching new devices each and every year. And today, the company introduced the Portégé X40L-M, a laptop that aims to rise above its business laptop competitors by offering all the ports you could want while still being one of the lightest laptops on the market.

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