Articles by Ara Wagoner

Nothing can turn your great Android phone from state-of-the-art to overpriced paperweight faster than a dead battery. The best portable chargers and power banks can help recharge your tech when life plays keep-away with your power outlets. Portable chargers used to be big, bulky, and slow, but USB-C power banks and Power Delivery charging standards have made things much faster — fast enough to charge laptops, even — and have allowed power banks to get slimmer and better than ever. There are plenty of options in every shape or size, but our favorite is the affordably awesome RAVPower PD Pioneer Series 20,000mAh.

Best Overall: RAVPower PD Pioneer Series 20,000mAh

When choosing a portable charger, it’s all about balancing power with portability. After all, a power bank doesn’t do you any good if it’s so bulky that you forget it at home. Likewise, a power bank that’s small but low-capacity can run dry before your day is over, especially when you need to keep multiple devices aliv…

Whether the weather you need to weather is coming by land or by sea, we’re here to help you prepare for it.

Hurricane Season is still a few months off, but tornadoes and flash flooding can strike during any season. While we don’t yet have the technology to stop powerful storms from wreaking havoc, we do have the technology to help prepare us for them. Your Android phone is a tool that helps you through most major events in your life, and severe weather is no exception, so long as you properly prep your phone and have a plan in place to follow with it. We are here to help you, so let’s batten down the hatches and get the barn doors shut.

Severe Weather and Android:

Weather Essentials
Severe Weather Accessories
Blizzards and Winter Storms
Hurricanes
Tornadoes and Severe Thunderstorms

Weather Essentials

Regardless of the kind of weather you’ll face when you step outside your door, there are some weather essentials everyone should have on their phones, and that starts with a…

The wait is almost over.

What you need to know

Samsung has opened preorders for the Galaxy Chromebook 2, starting at $550.
Available in two colors, this more affordable version of last year’s ultrabook comes with either a Celeron or an Intel Core i3.
The Galaxy Chromebook 2 will go on sale March 1, and if you buy it from Samsung or Best Buy from March 1-14, you get a $30 credit to spend on your next purchase.
If you preorder in February, you get a $50 credit instead of $30.

Announced at CES 2021, the Samsung Galaxy Chromebook 2 took the original striking (and stunningly expensive) Galaxy Chromebook and reined in the over-the-top features in order to provide a premium Chromebook without quite as much of a premium price tag, giving us one of the Best Chromebooks without breaking our wallets in half. Rather than a 4K AMOLED display, the Galaxy Chromebook 2 has a 1080p QLED display. Rather than having the Active Pen garaged in the laptop, the stylus will now be sold separately. Rath…

Google wins 0% of the fights they give up on.

When we shell out hundreds for the best phones, tablets and laptops, to say nothing of all the services we spend our time in and our money on — we expect the manufacturers and tech giants responsible for these devices and services to give it their all, to battle for supremacy and build off each other in order to give us the best experience. It’s what we deserve. Instead, at least when it comes to one section of the market, what we have instead is a battle where the outcome is all but certain and one side’s efforts are almost comically lackluster, to the detriment of all: the way Android tablets — and especially tablet apps — continue to be a complete laughingstock compared to iPad.

Apple’s iPad and especially the iPad Air have ruled the tablet space from day one, while Android tablets have largely failed in both software and hardware for years and years. Sure Amazon’s Fire HD Tablets are so cheap you don’t care about their short…

Check to see if you need an umbrella

In today’s world, we’ve gotten used to seeing the weather change with little notice — and sometime no notice at all. From flash floods and hurricanes to knowing precisely how ungodly hot it is outside, having a trusty weather app on your side can make all the difference. There are a lot of options to choose from if you’re looking for the best weather apps for Android, and we’ve rounded up some of our favorites here.

The top 3 apps

1. Accuweather
2. Today Weather
3. 1Weather

More options

Yahoo Weather
Radarscope
Overdrop
Weather Live
Flux
Appy Weather

These are the best weather apps for Android

It’s easy to understand why Accuweather is one of the best Android apps after you download it. All of your pertinent information is laid out in an easy-to-view interface, while MinuteCast offers some of the most reliable notifications for when the rain is about to start, or stop.

Today Weather is a beautiful application that makes it easy t…

The best business Chromebook isn’t always the best Chromebook for everyone — we often need more powerful specs for Linux applications or longer-lasting machines that will make the most of your IT budget — but thankfully there are some great Chromebooks out there for when you need to get to work. Whether you need a big screen for your multi-tasking or a durable little laptop to take from meeting to meeting, there’s a model here for everyone! If you want the best of all worlds, I recommend going with the Acer Chromebook Spin 713, a powerful Project Athena Chromebook with a gorgeous 2K screen — and a 3:2 aspect ratio for better productivity — and all the ports you need including HDMI.

Best Overall: Acer Chromebook Spin 713

Business Chromebooks need power, stability, and longevity, and Acer delivers all three in a sturdy, portably package with the Acer Chromebook Spin 713, which is the best Project Athena Chromebook on the market today as well as the best blend of power and p…

Almost all of the best Chromebooks these days have touchscreens, and while just using your finger to swipe and tap your way through tabs and Android apps is fine, your fingers are nasty. Even went they’re not dirty or covered in crumbs from your latest snack, fingers are greasy, flabby, and not all that precise, which is why having a great stylus can make all the difference. Whether your Chromebook can use the fancy new USI styli or just the old-fashioned capacitive kind, these are the best Chromebook stylus models you can find.

The future is USI

iPlume USI Stylus

Staff Pick

USI styli are supported by the newest Chromebooks, and this is the only third-party USI stylus I’m confident recommending right now. It’s comfortable to hold and it doesn’t have the useless eraser button other models do.

$49 at Amazon (Silver) $49 at Amazon (Maroon)

Name brand quality

Adonit Mini 4

Adonit has been at the forefront of stylus innovation for years, and while most of its models focus on i…

Your OnePlus 8 Pro deserves a case as great as it is. After all, the OnePlus 8 Pro is big, beautiful, and boasts some great features, including IP water resistance and wireless charging. The back glass comes in funky colors like Glacial Green and Ultramarine Blue, but it’s still a glass-backed phone, and that means you’ll want to protect it so that you’re not blowing hundreds of dollars repairing or replacing it. After extensive research, these are the best OnePlus 8 Pro cases you can buy.

Let’s kick it

Poetic Revolution

Staff Pick

The OnePlus 8 Pro can last a long time if you protect it, and heavy-duty cases like the Revolution offer that protection in spades. Not only does this case come with a screen protector, but it also has a kickstand on the back for propping it up on your desk or nightstand.

From $17 at Amazon
$37 at Walmart

So sleek and svelte

X-Level Guardian

This case might not be textured like the Spigen Liquid Air, but it trades that texturing for a slimmer p…

Once upon a time, getting one of the best 100W USB-C chargers meant it would be bulky, expensive, and proprietary. Now with Power Delivery, you can now find 100W chargers, with 125W charging on the way, that will charge even the most powerful laptops quickly and will charge even lower-powered devices like Chromebooks and phones, alongside your laptop with ease. The scene is shifting on 100W chargers pretty quickly these days as gallium nitride (GaN) starts making its way into this class of charger, but right now, we have a clear winner in the AUKEY Omnia 100W PD Charger.

Deceptively powerful

AUKEY Omnia 100W PD Charger

Staff pick

For the most powerful and compact charger, you can’t deny the AUKEY Omnia 100W PD Charger is the one that stands out. Though it only has a single USB-C PD port, when it can pump-out this kind of power, you’ll be able to juice up your devices quickly. Due to its implementation of GaN, the size of the charger is small with big-time power.

$40 at Amazon
…

Nothing can turn your great Android phone from state-of-the-art to overpriced paperweight faster than a dead battery. The best portable chargers and power banks can help recharge your tech when life plays keep-away with your power outlets. Portable chargers used to be big, bulky, and slow, but USB-C power banks and Power Delivery charging standards have made things much faster — fast enough to charge laptops, even — and have allowed power banks to get slimmer and better than ever. There are plenty of options in every shape or size, but our favorite is the affordably awesome RAVPower PD Pioneer Series 20,000mAh.

Best Overall: RAVPower PD Pioneer Series 20,000mAh

When choosing a portable charger, it’s all about balancing power with portability. After all, a power bank doesn’t do you any good if it’s so bulky that you forget it at home. Likewise, a power bank that’s small but low-capacity can run dry before your day is over, especially when you need to keep multiple devices aliv…