Smartphones cases are often a necessary evil. They make your phone a little bulkier, and hide the design, but in exchange they can protect your device from damage in the very likely scenario of a drop. With Google’s updated official cases for the Pixel 8 series and the Pixel Fold, though, Google is turning something good into something back, and just making me long for the days of old.

Before the Pixel Watch, I happily used various Fitbit trackers because all the Wear OS 2 options were lacking. Now that a Google-made smartwatch is available, I didn’t foresee pairing any other wearable to my Android phone. The Fitbit Charge 6 changed that, and I very much consider it to be a Pixel Watch Lite.

The Pixel Watch was, in my eyes, better than I expected it to be. But, ultimately, it was still far from being as good as the competition. With the Pixel Watch 2, Google hasn’t gone back to the drawing board, but a collection of small tweaks add up to a much better overall product.

Before the Fold, I used the Pixel 7 daily because it was the smallest phone Google put out. That device, frankly, lacked a discernible personality and did not feel more than the sum of its parts. With the Pixel 8, Google designed something so entirely different – and good – that the whiplash is truly profound.  

Google has been making its own smartphones since 2016, but it’s really never felt as though the company has really hit the nail on the head. Each model has had some random dealbreaker or quirk that left it just short of really getting it all right. After the Pixel 7 Pro showed that Google was finally pointing itself in the right direction, the Pixel 8 Pro feels like it is the device that brings everything together.

Smart speakers were a craze for a while, but the hype has very much died down in recent years. With the JBL Authentics 300, though, it’s clear that there’s finally a Google Assistant speaker worth your time, and it has great sound, design, and cross-compatibility with Amazon Alexa.

The Nest x Yale lock first made its debut in 2018 and, five years later, it’s effectively been ignored for a while in Google’s updated smart home ecosystem. Without a proper sequel on the horizon, we’ve been looking at Yale’s new Matter-enabled smart lock which should be a good stand-in for Google’s overdue sequel, but instead, shows Matter’s limits yet again.

Robot vacuums have gotten really good in recent years, but the arrival of auto-empty docks and mopping stations have also led to these machines getting bigger and bigger. With the new Yeedi Cube, the goal is to provide an all-in-one machine that’s still fairly compact, and after a few weeks testing it out, it’s certainly a solid choice.

It’s still crazy to me that Google has made a foldable smartphone and, after using it for the past couple of months, I’m even more surprised that the Google Pixel Fold is as good as it is.

TVs have gotten incredibly affordable in recent years, but not every option is worth the cost savings. TCL, though, has built much of its success on affordable sets, and the 2023 TCL S Class S4 with Google TV is a testament to just how good of a TV you can get for an affordable price tag.

The Xgimi Horizon Ultra is the first 4K long-throw projector to introduce Dolby Vision, which is a pretty big feat. As skeptical as we want to be, it’s proven it deserves every bit of our attention. With Dolby Vision and its price point, the Horizon Ultra just might be one of the absolute best values on the market.

For many, laptops are portable workhorses designed to get work done and handle meetings, but for many, all they need to be are machines good for browsing the web and handling simple tasks around the house. With the Flex 3i and Slim 3 Chromebooks, that’s exactly what Lenovo delivers, and it does so with style and an affordable price.

SwitchBot has been one of our go-to smart home brands for a while and the Curtain 3 emphasizes exactly why. The Curtain 3 from SwitchBot adds tremendous functionality without overcomplicating things – it just works like it should.

Home security has been around for decades and can be very expensive and complicated to set up depending on what you’re trying to get. Over the past couple of months, I’ve been using ADT’s new Self Setup system that launched back in March, a DIY system backed by ADT’s monitoring and Google’s Nest hardware. It’s a solid security system, but a sad reminder of what Google gave up when killing its own hardware.

Samsung has been the main face for foldables over the past few years, but in the face of growing competition, the Galaxy Z Fold 5 feels rather tame in its attempts to improve. But, really, this is a foldable that knows what it wants to be and is about as good as this foldable can be.

The past several years of Galaxy Watch releases have shown that Samsung is committed to making detailed refinements to its wearable lineup. This year brings some of those small changes, but it retells the same story – minor features get even better, but the Galaxy Watch 6 brings no big changes.

Foldable flip phones are the form factor that really seems to be catching on, and the new Galaxy Z Flip 5 is a near-perfect version of the idea. Or, at least, it would be if the software hadn’t fallen short.

The E Ink market would likely have you believe that the technology is rather limited to black-and-white displays, which are well-suited for reading digital material. However, the Boox Tab Ultra C and Boox Tab Mini C make a big case for colored E Ink, which I didn’t know I’d like so much.

The Nothing Phone (2) is a smartphone from a company with huge ambitions and grand visions, and much of that narrative bleeds over into how people often talk about the device. After almost two weeks with Phone (2), though, I’ve really come away with just one conclusion – this is just a really good phone, nothing more.

Cases for Google Pixel phones have long been an afterthought. For the longest time, designs were boring and bland. Things are certainly getting better with time, and one gorgeous example of that is Carved’s Live Edge wood case, which turns Pixel 7 or Pixel 7 Pro into a true work of art.

Sometimes smart home tech results in the thought, “Why does anyone need this?” But in other cases, the benefits are abundantly clear, even if they aren’t always fully realized. Garage door openers are one of those pieces of smart home gear that fit into the latter, and over the past few weeks, the Tailwind system I’ve been using alongside Google Home has not only hit my expectations but has also gone above and beyond.

Flip phones were once a relic of the past, but the arrival of foldable smartphones has given new life to the form factor. And, now, the 2023 Motorola Razr+ is showing the modern flip phone at its best.

I’d like to believe that Google’s modern hardware division could have released a tablet primarily for content consumption – like the Nexus 7 – at any time since its inception in 2016 but just chose not to. Made by Google’s high-level MO is to add unique aspects to its products. On the Pixel Slate, that was deemed to be productivity, and it did not work. In trying again with the Pixel Tablet, Google clearly still believes it needs something unique, and that’s how we have a Nest Hub Smart Display UI sitting – literally – on top of Android.

There are generally two trains of thought to digesting streamed media in a common space. The first is the most common and involves a nice UHD or 4K TV. The second, less common approach, is getting a smart short-throw projector that takes up minimal space and offers up to 120 inches of clear, crisp 4K video. The Formovie Theater 4K projector does just that, and man do we love it.