Tech
Best Buy’s Black Friday Sale Drops Prices on Some of Our Favorite Tech of the Year
Whether you like it or not, Black Friday is here. The holiday shopping season is upon us, and it’s when some of the best deals of the year make their appearance. For Black Friday, Best Buy has really solid tech deals on some of our favorite products we’ve tested and reviewed, ranging from laptops and gaming mice to cordless vacuums. So, whether you’re shopping for the perfect gift for that tech lover in your life or if you’ve been waiting all year for prices to drop on something for yourself, there are a few great options below.
For more great discounts, check out our Best Black Friday Deals roundup and all of our deals coverage here.
Updated November 28: We’ve added the Breville Express Espresso Machine, AirPods Pro 2, and Oura Ring 4.
The Latest MacBook Pro
The M5 MacBook Pro (8/10, WIRED Recommends) is only a month old, and it’s already on sale. It’s the only Mac so far to receive the upgrade to the latest M5 chip, benefiting from improved performance across the board. In my testing, there was a significant step forward everywhere you looked, including the GPU, the CPU, and the Neural Engine for AI tasks. It’s the GPU that’s seen the biggest leap, though, which should speed up both gaming and creative applications. Other than that, this is the same MacBook Pro you probably already know and love, with its bright mini-LED screen, robust speakers, and extra ports (over the MacBook Air, at least).
This base 14-inch model doesn’t have the incredible value of the MacBook Air or the powerhouse performance of the M4 Pro and M4 Max MacBook Pro. Ultimately, when it comes to which MacBook you should buy, the answer is still the Air. But the M5 versions of these laptops aren’t coming until next year, so if you’re after the latest Apple Silicon in one of the best laptops you can buy, this deal on the M5 MacBook Pro is solid.
The Best Bluetooth Speaker
The JBL Flip 7 (9/10, WIRED Recommends) is a Bluetooth speaker that has it all. As our A/V reviewer Ryan Waniata says, “JBL’s Flip strikes the perfect compromise between mobility and sound quality, offering clean detail with plenty of punch.” Waniata also praises the durability of the Flip 7, which is important in a Bluetooth speaker meant to be used outdoors. There are tons of different color options to match your vibe, and it gets up to 16 hours of battery life. The increased water resistance means it’ll bring the party wherever you need it. Put simply, it’s the best Bluetooth speaker you can buy, and it’s at a great price.
Our Favorite Dyson Vacuum
Everyone wants a cordless Dyson vacuum, but they tend to be exorbitantly expensive. It’s still not cheap, but at $300 off, this is as good a deal as we’ve seen on this vacuum. The V15 Detect is our vacuum expert’s favorite Dyson. In her testing, Nena Farrell says she was impressed by how much dust and dirt it sucked up from her carpet, as well as from hard floors. The V15 Detect also comes with an extra sensor that can actually count the number of dust particles. That’s overkill for most people, but if you have severe allergies (or have friends or family that do), the Dyson V15 Detect can actually verify what you’re picking up.
The Best AirPods Deal
This discount on the AirPods Pro 2 is sold out some other retailers, but it’s still available at Best Buy. These updated AirPods Pro 2 is the model to come out in 2023, introducing the USB-C charging port and water resistance to the already-great pair of noise-canceling earbuds. The price cut to $191 from the retail price of $250 is great, and it’s probably the pair that most people should buy this holiday season. However, I should mention that the newer AirPods Pro 3 launched recently in September, bringing a huge boost to noise canceling, bass, and battery life. It also has the new Live Translation feature. These newer earbuds are $30 off right now, but they cost an extra $30 over the AirPods Pro 2.
The Best TV Deal Right Now
OLED TVs might be the best TVs you can buy, but if you’re shopping for a TV under $1,000 like most people are, the TCL QM6K QLED (8/10, WIRED Recommends) is what you should be eyeing. It’s a 4K mini-LED screen, and our TV reviewers call it “a versatile display that does just about everything well, from naturalistic colors to rich black levels and impressive clarity.” It’s not the brightest TV in the world, but it does come with a 144-Hz refresh rate for gaming and a smart Google TV interface for your streaming needs. There are screen options ranging from 55 inches up to 98 inches, all of which are on sale ahead of Black Friday, with the happy-medium 65-inch model starting at $500.
The Best MagSafe Power Bank
Most people aren’t using the wireless charging on their iPhone to its full extent. Picking up a MagSafe power bank is a great way to do that, and this one from Anker is our favorite. With a 10,000-mAh battery, it can power up an iPhone to a full charge nearly twice. It even works on Android phones because it supports the Qi2 standard. We also like that it comes with a built-in kickstand and a helpful LED light on the side that tells you how much charge is left. It’s $35 off for Black Friday, bringing it to its lowest price so far.
A Fancy Espresso Maker (That You’ll Love)
Don’t let price hold you back from your home barista dreams. $200 off the beloved espresso machine that WIRED editor Julian Chokkattu has been using for seven years without issues. He cites the excellent steam wand, consistent pressure for espresso, and easy cleaning as the top reasons to buy it. But the long-term reliability is its biggest strength. When you drop half a grand on a piece of kitchen tech, you need to know that it won’t need to be replaced in just a few years.
The Best Headphones
The best noise-canceling headphones from Sony are also the best wireless headphones you can buy right now. Bags of processing power can silence even the loudest sounds around you, and the included microphones are excellent for Zoom calls. Sound quality is top-notch, with custom-made drivers delivering Sony’s sleek and flat sound.
A Brilliant USB-C Hub
One of the biggest upgrades you can make to your remote work setup is a solid USB hub or laptop docking station. Most laptops don’t have enough ports, especially not if you’re trying to connect multiple, high-resolution monitors. The plug-and-play nature of this is super helpful, too, as you can have all of your peripherals and accessories connected via USB-C.
While you could just go out and buy any old USB hub, the Satechi Dual Dock Stand has some secrets up its sleeve. First off, it’s designed to prop up your laptop slightly with its wedge shape. My favorite feature, though, is the built-in storage slot. It doesn’t come with an SSD included, but any M.2 SSD will work. It’s a handy feature to have. The best part is the price, which is down to $105, a new low at Best Buy for Black Friday.
The Best Windows Laptop Deal
Just last week, this laptop cost $1,000. Now it’s down to $550. That’s a 45 percent drop in price. And while I wouldn’t say this laptop is worth $1,000, it’s an absolute steal for $550. The Zenbook A14’s calling card is its weight of just 2.16 pounds. It’s light enough that it’ll make you do a double-take when you pick it up off the table. That makes it an ideal travel companion to lug across campus or on airplanes. Unlike ultra-light laptops in the past, the Zenbook A14 doesn’t have any major compromises in battery life, performance, or keyboard. It even has an OLED screen, as so many Asus laptops do.
A Cheaper, Better iPad
This is a great price for the base iPad. But a cheaper iPad is only so good if it’s limited by its software. But with the iPadOS 26 update, you’re also getting a better iPad than ever before. With a more accurate cursor and resizable windows, the iPad is now more like a MacBook than ever before. Multitasking on an iPad has always been a nightmare, but now that you can pull up multiple windows side by side and resize them to your heart’s content. Connect it up with a wireless mouse and keyboard, and you’ve got something that could replace a laptop in a pinch.
The Best Phone Under $300
No one is calling the Moto G Stylus 5G the best phone in the world. In fact, our phone expert (and tech editor extraordinaire, Julian Chokkattu) recommends Nothing’s Phone 3a as the better cheap phone. But the 2025 Moto G Stylus is not only the best Moto G phone you can buy, it also has a lot of high-end features, such as a large 6.7-inch AMOLED screen with a 120-Hz refresh rate. It even has a beautiful blue back, a built-in stylus, and a headphone jack. That’s a lot of uncommon features in a remarkably cheap phone, especially at its discounted pre–Black Friday price.
The Perfect Travel Partner
These earbuds came out a couple of years ago, but they remain some of the best you can buy. When they came out, Sony’s fifth-generation of high-end wireless earbuds were trimmed down to around 25 percent smaller and 20 percent lighter than the previous generation. You also get two extra full charges from the case, for a total of up to 36 hours of listening. That all makes it the best pair of earbuds for traveling in particular. There’s no compromise in noise canceling either. In fact, our A/V experts say the XM5 has “some of the most advanced functionality in terms of EQ, touch controls, and adaptive noise canceling available on the market.” They’re $100 off the retail price ahead of Black Friday, which is the best discount we’ve ever seen on them.
The Smartest Android Phone
You can’t go wrong with Google’s brand-new Pixel 10. The smartest of the best Android phones, it boasts genuinely useful AI features, like Call Screen and Now Playing. There’s also an excellent, versatile, triple-camera system that includes a 5X optical zoom for capturing action from afar. There’s Qi2 support for magnetic wireless charging and magnetic accessories. It’s unusual to see a deep discount on this year’s Google flagship, so it’s worth biting.
An Incredible OLED Gaming Monitor
Samsung makes some of the prettiest gaming monitors, especially in the past couple of years. Within its Odyssey lineup, there’s now just about every size and form factor of monitor you can imagine. The Odyssey G6 (8/10, WIRED Recommends) is a 27-inch OLED with a resolution of 2560 x 1440 and a 360-Hz refresh rate, which should be great no matter what game you’re playing. Want extreme frame rates for competitive shooters? You can drop the resolution to 1080p and explore the higher echelon of the 360-Hz refresh rate. For slower-paced single-player games, the 1440p resolution is crisp, and the OLED panel gets you gorgeous HDR in games. It’s $250 off the full price ahead of Black Friday, down now to $650.
A Dirt-Cheap Chromebook
You can’t expect a laptop this cheap to be without compromises. But when it comes to budget Chromebooks, this is as good as it gets. It’s a reasonably affordable and attractive laptop, with lots of ports, decent performance, and a comfortable keyboard. For a Chromebook, the specs aren’t bad either, coming with 8 GB of RAM and 128 GB of storage. Unfortunately, the touchpad isn’t the best, nor is the display. It’s not bright enough, and the colors look off. For a laptop under $300, though, the CX14 should do the trick, especially for a student or a first-time laptop owner.
One Ring to Rule Them All
The smart ring space has been quiet this year, perhaps partially because of how fantastic the Oura Ring 4 is. It’s smaller and lighter, feeling more like a proper piece of jewelry than ever before. With new features like fertility tracking, an improved health app, and over three days of battery life, our reviewer Adrienne So was consistently impressed by the upgrade over the previous Oura Ring 3. At $100 off the full price, the Oura Ring 4 is continuing to feel like the only smart ring anyone should buy.
An Excellent Prebuilt Gaming Desktop
With RAM prices skyrocketing, just buying a prebuilt gaming desktop feels like an increasingly smart move, especially at this price. The Alienware Aurora Gaming Desktop is down to just $1,225, coming with an Nvidia RTX 5060 Ti, Intel Core Ultra 7 265F, 32 GB of memory, and 1 TB of storage. That’s cheaper than Dell’s own price for that configuration, but I wouldn’t recommend buying this particular model, as it comes with only a 500-watt power supply. While that’s enough power for the RTX 5060 Ti, you’ll be limited from upgrading to any GPUs more powerful in the future. So, I’d highly recommend buying one of the configurations with the 1,000-watt power supplies, such as the RTX 5070 configuration. Before buying, I’d also recommend comparing prices with Dell.com, as it has some strong deals on particular configurations, such as this RTX 5070 Ti model for just $1,000.
A Gaming Mouse
If you play MMOs, you know how useful it is to map various actions to buttons on your keyboard or mouse. Well, this gaming mouse from Corsair gives you a ton of options to customize your gameplay. There are 12 reprogrammable side buttons, but the mouse also has a high 33,000-dpi optical sensor and 1,000-Hz polling for low input lag and high responsiveness. It can connect via a 2.4-GHz dongle instead of Bluetooth, too.
A Mesh Wi-Fi System
Everyone could use faster and more reliable Wi-Fi, right? This high-performing, tri-band, Wi-Fi 7 mesh is the runner-up in our Best Mesh guide. You’ll get lightning-fast speeds on the 6-GHz band at close range. Each unit has plenty of ports (one 10 Gbps Ethernet port, one 2.5 Gbps port, a Gigabit port, and a USB 3.0 port), and the Deco app is very easy to use. The possibility of a TP-Link ban in the US might put you off, or it might encourage you to pull the trigger now.
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Tech
Light-activated gel could impact wearables, soft robotics, and more
Consider the chief difference between living systems and electronics: The first is generally soft and squishy, while the latter is hard and rigid. Now, in work that could impact human-machine interfaces, biocompatible devices, soft robotics, and more, MIT engineers and colleagues have developed a soft, flexible gel that dramatically changes its conductivity upon the application of light.
Enter the growing field of ionotronics, which involves transferring data through ions, or charged molecules. Electronics does the same, with electrons. But while the latter is well established, ionotronics is still being developed, with one huge exception: living systems. The cells in our bodies communicate with a variety of ions, from potassium to sodium.
Ionotronics, in turn, can provide a bridge between electronics and biological tissues. Potential applications range from soft wearable technology to human-machine interfaces
“We’ve found a mechanism to dynamically control local ion population in a soft material,” says Thomas J. Wallin, the John F. Elliott Career Development Professor in MIT’s Department of Materials Science and Engineering and leader of the work. “That could allow a system that is self-adaptive to environmental stimuli, in this case light.” In other words, the system could automatically change in response to changes in light, which could allow complex signal processing in soft materials.
An open-access paper about the work was published online recently in Nature Communications.
A growing field
Although others have developed ionotronic materials with high conductivities that allow the quick movement of ions, those conductivities cannot be controlled. “What we’re doing is using light to switch a soft material from insulating to something that is 400 times more conductive,” says Xu Liu, first author of the paper and former MIT postdoc in materials science and engineering who is now an incoming assistant professor at King’s College London.
Key to the work is a class of materials known as photo-ion generators (PIGs). These can become some 1,000 times more conductive upon the application of light. The MIT team optimized a way to incorporate a PIG into polyurethane rubber by first dissolving a PIG powder into a solvent, and then using a swelling method to get it into the rubber.
Much potential
In the material reported in the current work, the change in conductivity is irreversible. But Liu is confident that future versions could switch back and forth between insulating and conducting states.
She notes that the current material was developed using only one kind of PIG, polymer (the polyurethane rubber), and solvent, but there are many other kinds of all three. So there is great potential for creating even better light-responsive soft materials.
Liu also notes the potential for developing soft materials that respond to other environmental stimuli, such as heat or magnetism. “We’re inspired to do more work in this field by changing the driving force from light to other forms of environmental stimuli,” she says.
“Our work has the potential to lead to the creation of a subfield that we call soft photo-ionotronics,” Liu continues. “We are also very excited about the opportunities from our work to create new soft machines impacting soft wearable technology, human-machine interfaces, robotics, biomedicine, and other fields.”
Additional authors of the paper are Steven M. Adelmund, Shahriar Safaee, and Wenyang Pan of Reality Labs at Meta.
Tech
Dark Matter May Be Made of Black Holes From Another Universe
A recent cosmological model combines two of the most eccentric ideas in contemporary physics to explain the nature of dark matter, the invisible substance that makes up about 85 percent of all matter in the universe. To understand it, it’s necessary to look beyond the Big Bang we all know and consider two concepts that rarely intersect: cyclic universes and primordial black holes.
A Different Kind of Multiverse
There are different versions of the “multiverse.” The most popular model—that of the Marvel Cinematic Universe—proposes that there are as many universes as there are possibilities and that these versions of reality are parallel. Physics proposes something more sober and mathematically consistent: the cosmic bounce.
In this model, the universe is not born from a singularity, but expands, contracts, and expands again in an endless cycle. Each “universe” is not parallel, but sequential—that is, one arises from the ashes of the previous one.
Is it possible for something to survive the end of its universe and endure into the next? According to a paper published in Physical Review D, yes. Author Enrique Gaztanaga, a research professor at the Institute of Space Sciences in Barcelona, shows that any structure larger than about 90 meters could pass through the final collapse of a universe and survive the rebound. These “relics” would not only persist, but could also seed the formation of giant, unexplained structures observed in the early stages of the present-day universe. Moreover, they could be the key to understanding dark matter.
For decades, the dominant explanation for dark matter has been that it is an unknown particle or particles. But after years of experiments without direct detections, physicists have begun to explore alternatives. One of them proposes that dark matter is not an exotic particle, but an abundant population of small black holes that we overlook.
The idea is appealing, but it has a serious problem. For these black holes to explain dark matter, they would have to exist from the earliest moments of the universe, long before the first stars could collapse. There are indications that these objects could exist, but a convincing physical mechanism to explain their origin is lacking.
A Universe Born With Black Holes
This is where Gaztanaga’s newly proposed model shines. If cosmic bouncing allows compact structures to survive the collapse of the previous universe, then the current universe would have already been born with pre-existing black holes. They would not have to have been generated by extreme fluctuations or finely tuned inflationary processes, but would simply have been there from the first instant.
The assumption has the potential to solve two riddles at once: the origin of black holes and the nature of dark matter. If this model is correct, dark matter would not be a mystery of the early universe but rather a legacy of a cosmos that predates our own.
“Much work remains to be done,” Gaztanaga, also a researcher at the Institute of Cosmology and Gravitation at the University of Portsmouth, said in an article for The Conversation. “These ideas must be tested against data—from gravitational-wave backgrounds to galaxy surveys and precision measurements of the cosmic microwave background.”
“But the possibility is profound,” he added. “The universe may not have begun once, but may have rebounded. And the dark structures shaping galaxies today could be relics from a time before the Big Bang.”
This story originally appeared in WIRED en Español and has been translated from Spanish.
Tech
Europe’s Online Age Verification App Is Here
The European online age verification app is ready.
The app works with passports or ID cards, is built to be “completely anonymous” for the people who use it, works on any device (smartphones, tablets, and PCs), and is open source. “Best of all, online platforms can easily rely on our age verification app, so there are no more excuses,” said European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen at a press conference on Wednesday. “Europe offers a free and easy-to-use solution that can protect our children from harmful and illegal content.”
High Expectations
“It is our duty to protect our children in the online world just as we do in the offline world. And to do that effectively, we need a harmonized European approach,” von der Leyen said at Wednesday’s press conference. “And one of the central issues is the question, how can we ensure a technical solution for age verification that is valid throughout Europe? Today, I can announce that we have the answer.”
This answer takes the form of an open source app that any private company can repurpose, as long as it complies with European privacy standards and offers the same technical solution throughout the European Union. The user downloads the app, agrees to the terms and conditions, sets up a pin or biometric access, and proves their age through an electronic identification system, or by showing a passport or ID card (in which case biometric verification is also provided). The app does not store your name, date of birth, ID number, or any other personal information, according to the European Commission—only the fact that you are over a certain age.
After that, when a person using the app wants to access a social network (minimum age: 13), pornographic site (minimum age: 18), or any other age-protected content, if they are logged in from a computer, they need only scan the QR code shown on the site they want to visit. If, on the other hand, the person logs in from a smartphone, the app sends the proof of age directly. The platform does not access the document with which the user proved it in the first place.
Adoption Event
The need to introduce a common system for the entire European Union has been discussed for some time, and according to commission technicians, the technical work is now complete. Of course, it will still be possible to circumvent the system—all it takes is for an adult to lend their phone to a younger friend—but the technological architecture exists, and it will be up to EU member states to decide whether to integrate it into national digital wallets or develop independent apps.
“No More Excuses”
For the app to really be effective, platforms must be obligated to verify the age of their users—that’s where things get tricky. The Digital Services Act, which went into effect in 2024, requires “very large online platforms”—those with more than 45 million monthly users in the European Union—to take concrete steps to mitigate systemic risks related to child protection, with heavy penalties for noncompliance.
“And that’s why Europe has the DSA: to call online platforms to their responsibilities. Because Europe will not tolerate platforms making money at the expense of our children,” European Commission executive vice president Henna Virkkunen told a press conference. She added that after an investigation into TikTok, the European institutions plan to take similar action against Facebook, Instagram, and Snapchat, as well as four porn sites. “Since the platforms do not have adequate age verification tools, we developed the solution ourselves,” he concluded. In short, as von der Leyen also remarked, “there are no more excuses.”
Bare Minimum
So far, this is the European framework that sets the general rules. On this basis, member states can consider more restrictive measures. Italy was among the first to discuss how to regulate the use of social media by minors but has so far not landed on anything concrete. Elsewhere in the EU, France’s Emmanuel Macron has been a trailblazer on the issue, pushing France to discuss a rule to ban social networks for minors under the age of 15 entirely. So far, this measure has received broad political support—but the outcome depends largely on compatibility with the Digital Services Act and the availability of effective age verification systems like the app the European Commission just released.
This article originally appeared on WIRED Italia and has been translated.
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