At a glanceExpert`s Rating Pros Large touchpad compared to alternatives 16-inch 1200p display at a low price Lots of physical connectivity Good battery life for a budget gaming laptop Cons Sub-par CPU performance Terrible audio quality from built-in speakers Wireless connectivity stuck on the Wi-Fi 6 standards Slightly more expensive laptops offer better value Our Verdict  The Acer Nitro V 16 AI is a budget gaming laptop with ok game performance and good battery life (for a gaming laptop). Price When Reviewed This value will show the geolocated pricing text for product undefined Best Pricing Today Best Prices Today: Acer Nitro V 16 AI Retailer Price Check Price comparison from over 24,000 stores worldwide Product Price Price comparison from Backmarket Best Prices Today: Check today’s prices Shoppers looking to buy a laptop with Nvidia RTX 50-series graphics for around $800 or less have few options—one of which is the Acer Nitro V 16 AI, which retails for about $799 online. Although it provides acceptable performance for a budget machine, its day-to-day usability and battery life are what sets it apart from the pack. Acer Nitro V 16 AI: Specs and features as-tested The Acer Nitro V 16 AI’s specifications make the laptop feel like a vessel for the RTX 5050 8GB GPU. The AMD Ryzen 5 240 CPU is among the least capable in AMD’s line-up, and the laptop makes do with only 16GB of RAM as well as a 512GB solid state drive. Model: ANV16-42 CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 240 Memory: 16GB LPDDR5-5600 Graphics/GPU: Nvidia RTX 5050 8GB NPU: Up to 16 TOPS Display: 16-inch 1920×1200 180Hz IPS-LCD display Storage: 512GB M.2 PCIe 4.0 solid state drive Webcam and microphone: 720p webcam with dual-array microphone Connectivity: 1x HDMI 2.1, 1x USB-C with DisplayPort and Power Delivery, 2x USB-A 3.2 Gen 2, 1x USB-A 3.1 Gen 1, 1x microSD card reader, 1x Gigabit Ethernet (RJ-45), 1x 3.5mm combo audio Networking: Wi-Fi 6, Bluetooth 5.3 Biometrics: None Battery capacity: 76 watt-hours Dimensions: 14.2 x 10.9 x 0.92 inches Weight: 5.38 pounds Operating System: Windows 11 Home Price: $899 MSRP / $629 to $799 typical retail This is a common strategy for a budget gaming laptop. Most competitors, from the Asus ROG TUF line to the Lenovo LOQ 15 and Dell G15, also rely on entry-level CPUs and have 16GB of RAM alongside a 512GB solid state drive. You’ll usually need to pay about $1,000 if you want 1TB of storage (in a laptop with an Nvidia RTX 50-series GPU, at least). The Acer Nitro V 16 AI is a respectable budget gaming laptop that provides decent game performance and surprisingly good battery life. Acer Nitro V 16 AI: Design and build quality Foundry / Matthew Smith The Acer Nitro V 16 AI doesn’t make much of an impression. It’s a black laptop with a subtle metallic luster adorned only with a chrome “N” on the lid, which is the logo for Acer’s Nitro sub-brand. Besides that, there’s not much to say about the laptop’s style. It’s simple but inoffensive. Opening the laptop will reveal a couple subtle touches, though none are all that attractive. The Nitro logo is engraved into the palm rest, along with the phrase “Victory starts here” engraved just below the numpad. Build quality is acceptable. Quickly opening the laptop’s lid reveals obvious display flex, but the lower chassis is solid when the laptop is picked up from a corner or edge. Keyboard flex can be found if you try but it’s not a problem in normal use. As with most budget gaming laptops, the Nitro V 16 AI isn’t small. It measures over 14 inches wide, nearly 11 inches deep, and almost an inch thick at its thickest point. It also weighs 5.38 pounds. With that said, most gaming laptops of this size are at least this heavy (over six pounds is not uncommon). Acer Nitro V 16 AI: Keyboard, trackpad, mouse Foundry / Matthew Smith I found the Acer Nitro V 16 AI’s keyboard to be merely functional. The laptop’s size provides a good amount of room, which Acer uses to squeeze in a numpad. However, the spaces between each key are large, which in turn means the keys are smaller than you might expect. This is most noticeable for the right side Shift key, and left-side Tab and Control keys, which are tiny. Annoyingly, the Microsoft Copilot key is one of the largest keys on the keyboard. This is odd because, despite its name, the Acer Nitro V 16 AI doesn’t qualify as a Microsoft Copilot+ PC. Though the key layout does the keyboard no favors, it’s balanced by the fundamental advantages of a larger, thicker laptop. Keys have a good amount of key travel, the overall size of the keyboard is spacious, and the palm rest offers a good amount of room. I was able to hammer out a few thousand words in comfort. The touchpad is an advantage. It measures about five inches wide and a little more than three inches deep. Alternatives like the Lenovo LOQ 15 and Dell G15 have noticeably smaller touchpads that feel cramped by comparison. Acer Nitro V 16 AI: Display, audio Foundry / Matthew Smith The Acer Nitro V 16 AI ships with a 1920×1200 resolution IPS-LCD display that can achieve a refresh rate up to 180Hz. The 16-inch 1200p display is worth special mention. Most budget gaming laptops still use a 15.6-inch 1080p display. Compared to these, the Nitro V 16 AI provides a slightly taller display with more usable space. It’s not a big deal in games but it makes the laptop more enjoyable for web browsing and work. IPS-LCD displays tend to have lackluster contrast and color when compared to OLED alternatives. That translates to relatively dull, flat image quality. With that said, the IPS display is good enough in most situations. The contrast issue only becomes obvious when the laptop is used in a dark room, as darker scenes appear gray and hazy. The image is sharp and bright and the display has a semi-gloss coat that resists reflections. You may still find the display difficult to see if you sit near a large sunlit window, however, and outdoors use isn’t comfortable even with the display at its maximum brightness. The same is true for other budget gaming laptops. Motion performance is decent. The 180Hz refresh rate provides fluid, responsive motion when games render at a frame rate close to the panel’s maximum refresh rate. Motion clarity is decent with good detail across a scene, but small elements like fonts or HP bars can still be difficult to make out. G-Sync is absent, unfortunately, which means you’ll need to use a game’s V-Sync setting or risk unsightly screen tearing. Audio quality is a problem. The built-in speakers aren’t loud even at maximum volume. Despite that, I often noticed an unpleasant rattling sound caused by vibrations in the laptop chassis when the speakers were at high volumes. Acer Nitro V 16 AI: Webcam, microphone, biometrics You’re not going to want to take video calls on the Acer Nitro V 16 AI. The laptop has a barebones 720p webcam with a soft, grainy image. It’s a basic experience excused only by the fact most competitive budget gaming laptops also have a 720p webcam. The dual-array microphone is a bit more usable, but not by much. It picks up audio that’s crisp, clear, and loud enough to be usable on Zoom or Google Meet. But, once again, this is a minimalist experience. Biometric login is not supported. This, once again, is typical for a budget gaming laptop. Very few offer a fingerprint reader or IR camera for facial recognition. Acer Nitro V 16 AI: Connectivity You’ll find plenty of ports lining the Acer Nitro V 16 AI’s flanks. The left side provides Gigabit Ethernet, a USB-A 3.2 Gen 1 port, 3.5mm audio, and a microSD card reader, while the right side offers two more USB-A 3.2 Gen 2 ports. The rear includes HDMI 2.1, USB-C with Power Delivery and DisplayPort, and a barrel plug connector for the bundled 135-watt power brick. The USB-C port can be used to charge the laptop, though it doesn’t provide as much power as the 135-watt power brick. While the Nitro V 16 AI’s physical connectivity is solid, it’s not unusual for the category. Most budget gaming laptops have a similar number and configuration of ports. The microSD card reader is the only physical connectivity option that’s unexpected. Wireless connectivity is disappointing, as the Acer Nitro V 16 AI only supports Wi-Fi 6 and Bluetooth 5.3. This puts it two generations behind the latest Wi-Fi standard and a generation behind the latest Bluetooth standard. I wouldn’t call it an immediate problem, as Wi-Fi 6 is still rather quick and new standards are backwards-compatible, but this could make the laptop’s Wi-Fi connectivity feel outdated more quickly as new standards emerge (Wi-Fi 8 is already announced). Acer Nitro V 16 AI: Performance The Acer Nitro V 16 AI that I received for review had an AMD Ryzen 5 240 CPU. It’s a low-end CPU in AMD’s current line-up. It has the AMD Zen 4 architecture (a step behind the latest Zen 5) and a total of six CPU cores with hyper-threading for a total of 12 threads. The maximum boost clock is 5GHz. That’s paired with the Nvidia RTX 5050 with 8GB of VRAM and a maximum graphics power of only 95 watts—fairly low for a modern Nvidia mobile GPU in a dedicated gaming laptop. 16GB of DDR5-5600 memory and a 512GB PCIe 4.0 solid state drive round out the specifications. Foundry / Matthew Smith First up is PCMark 10, a holistic system benchmark. Here the Acer Nitro V 16 AI provides a good result of 7,259. That defeats the Alienware 16 Aurora and older HP Victus 15. On the other hand, there’s still a huge difference between the Acer Nitro V 16 AI and alternatives with a more power-hungry processor, such as the Lenovo Legion 5i with the Intel Core i7-14900HX. Foundry / Matthew Smith Cinebench 2024, a heavily multi-threaded CPU benchmark, reaches a modest score of 685 on the Acer Nitro V 16 AI. That’s not a huge surprise because, as mentioned, the AMD Ryzen 5 240 is towards the lower half of AMD’s product stack. Still, there’s significant gap between the Ryzen 5 240 and other CPUs you might find in budget gaming laptops, such as the AMD Ryzen 7 250 and Intel Core 7 240H. Foundry / Matthew Smith Handbrake is another multi-threaded CPU benchmark, but one with a longer duration. This test once again puts the Acer Nitro V 16 AI towards the bottom of the pack, though the margin of its defeat is smaller than it was in Cinebench 2024. I think it’s clear the AMD Ryzen 5 240 is not a performer in CPU tests. It’s fine, but it’s easy to find a gaming laptop with a faster CPU even in the sub-$1,000 price bracket. The Acer Nitro V 16 AI is aimed at gaming, however, so how does Nvidia’s RTX 5050 8GB perform? Foundry / Matthew Smith 3DMark places the RTX 5050 where I would expect it. The Acer Nitro V 16 AI is a fair bit quicker than the HP Victus 16 that PC World tested with an RTX 4050. However, new laptops with an RTX 5060 prove quicker. The margin of victory for the RTX 5060 is often slim, though, depending on the laptop used for comparison. The Lenovo LOQ 15 leaps ahead, but the Alienware 16 Aurora with RTX 5060 is only about 10 percent quicker in 3DMark benchmarks. Foundry / Matthew Smith Shadow of the Tomb Raider is an older game that just about any modern gaming laptop can handle, and the Acer Nitro V 16 AI is no exception. It achieved an average of 120 frames per second. As the 3DMark test results suggested, the Acer Nitro V 16 AI is not as quick as RTX 5060 laptops, but has an advantage over the older RTX 4050. Foundry / Matthew Smith Metro Exodus, though also an older game, remains extremely demanding if the Extreme preset is used. The Acer Nitro V 16 AI can’t even crack an average of 40 FPS. To be fair, though, most RTX 5060 laptops also barely exceed 40 FPS. And the Nitro V 16 AI once again shows a decent lead over the HP Victus 15 with the older RTX 4050. Foundry / Matthew Smith We round out things with Cyberpunk 2077. While the Nitro V 16 AI is definitely less capable than RTX 5060 machines, the RTX 5050 allows Acer’s budget gaming laptop to hit an average of 72 FPS at 1080p and the Ultra preset. In general, a pleasant 1080p/60 experience is possible on the laptop even without the use of DLSS, which was not active for this test. The Acer Nitro V 16 AI’s overall results are about what I would expect. Nvidia’s RTX 5050 8GB is an entry-level part and, predictably, it doesn’t quite match the performance available from an RTX 5060—though the two are often close. If you’re upgrading from an older RTX 3050 or RTX 4050 laptop you will see a noticeable improvement. Pricing doesn’t work to Acer or Nvidia’s favor, however. Laptops with the RTX 5060 are barely more expensive than the Acer Nitro V 16 AI. Lenovo’s LOQ 15 is a good example of this, as it can retail as low as $809.99. Acer Nitro V 16 AI: Battery life and portability The Acer Nitro V 16 AI has a 76 watt-hour battery. That’s a modest size for a gaming laptop (though typical for one priced below $1,000). You might expect battery life to be awful, but here the Nitro V 16 AI is able to pull off a surprise. Foundry / Matthew Smith Our standard battery rundown test, which loops a 4K file of the short film Tears of Steel, ran for over 12 hours before the Nitro V 16 AI had to call it a day. As the graph shows, that’s a much better result than is typical for a gaming laptop—at any price. Several factors combine to help the Nitro V 16 AI pull this off. It has support for Nvidia Optimus, which turns off the discrete GPU when it’s not needed. This transfers work to the AMD Ryzen 5 240, which is a miserly chip for a gaming laptop. I suspect the 1200p IPS LCD also helps, as it should draw less power than the higher-res OLED display you’d find on a more expensive gaming laptop. While this result is excellent, remember that battery life will vary depending on how the laptop is used. Gaming on the laptop will engage the Nvidia GPU, which in turn can drain the battery in under two hours if you’re playing a demanding game. Real-world use will also tend to be less than the benchmark suggests, depending on what you’re doing. Still, I experienced real-world battery life of roughly eight hours in a mix of web browsing and writing in LibreOffice. That’s not bad for a budget gaming laptop. Acer Nitro V 16 AI: Conclusion The Acer Nitro V 16 AI is a respectable budget gaming laptop that provides decent game performance and surprisingly good battery life. I also like the laptop’s 16-inch display with 1200p resolution, which is a step up from competitors with a 15.6-inch 1080p display. Other advantages include a wide range of physical connectivity and a decent touchpad. However, the AMD Ryzen 5 240 doesn’t post great results in CPU tests and the laptop has to make do with just 16GB of RAM and 512GB of storage. The built-in speakers are a miss, too. I recommend the Acer Nitro V 16 AI over most of the budget gaming laptops I’ve tested or used in 2025. It’s among the more affordable entries in this arena and manages to avoid issues (like short battery life and a sub-par display) that impact competitors including the Lenovo LOQ 15 and HP Victus 15. Also keep a sharp eye on price. Though it has an MSRP of $899, the Acer Nitro V 16 AI is currently $629 on Walmart, compared to $799 on Amazon. The Nitro V is worth an extra half-star when on sale below $700, as it’s a great value at that pricing. Read...

Online security used to be simple. All you needed was a good password and, in the early days, you didn’t need a ton of numbers, letters, and special characters to achieve that goal. No need for antivirus software to verify you were logging into legitimate sites, either. Privacy also wasn’t quite as fragile as it is today. Your email wasn’t constantly being lost to yet another data breach. But AI has helped hackers and criminals become sneakier with their attacks, so now the recommendations for best security practices have become more sophisticated, too. Currently, experts recommend the use of unique, random passwords (and the more characters, the better) plus two-factor authentication as a strong baseline. (Passkeys also work great.) But you can go further—and companies on the frontlines of cybersecurity have made that easier.  the best ANTIVIRUS SUITE Norton 360 Deluxe Read our review One such step is called masked email. (You may also hear it referred to as email masks or email masking.) It formalizes a long-available feature known as email aliases as a privacy and security measure. A randomized email address is created to hide (aka mask) your true email address for an online account. Any correspondence sent to the masked email address gets forwarded to your actual inbox. The sender doesn’t know about the email’s final destination. They’ll only find out if you accidentally reply to a message as your main account. The benefits are twofold. You get better privacy, because the more you use different masked email addresses (ideally, one per online account), the more you limit the potential damage of the information leaking in a data breach. That email address won’t work on other websites as a login ID or for a password reset. Nor can someone take over the address as they could with an actual account. It’s just a forwarding address, and a disposable one at that. Masked email vs email aliases Masked email is a more specific (and automated) take on email aliases. Mozilla / PCWorld If you already filter your incoming email and/or guard against spam by using email aliases, masked email may sound like an empty marketing term for a familiar feature. But there is a slight difference—email masking is a narrower use of email aliases, with a particular style in how the aliases are created. With masked email, the focus is on auto-generated random, unique identifiers. Think 4k9xkeo@emailservice.com or even siftflask.3242@emailservice.com. You don’t need to come up with your own aliases, thus streamlining their use. The suggested aliases also completely obscure your email address, unlike with inserting periods into your username (e.g., random.username@gmail.com) or adding a + sign and an extra phrase (e.g. randomusername+alias@gmail.com) don’t achieve. You should also get streamlined controls to block incoming mail or disable the forwarding address if it gets flooded with unwanted email. The result is a faster, easier way to maintain anonymity in your contact info—and for sites that default to email addresses as usernames, your login info too. With the added benefit of integration with some browsers and password managers, email masking saves time and reduces the hassles of the DIY route. Ways you can start using masked email Some email providers offer masked email as part of their plans. Fastmail takes that one step further by offering integration with password managers like 1Password and Bitwarden for super-simple creation and storing of aliases.PCWorld Two common ways to get email masking is through an email provider or a dedicated service. Email providers offer the feature as an integrated part of the service. Access often requires a subscription, though. Only a few providers offer masked email, typically bundled into paid plans (e.g., Apple iCloud+, Fastmail, Proton Mail). That said, Proton Mail does offer basic hide-my-email aliases for free to all users, and prices otherwise start as low as $0.99 USD per month (iCloud+). a password manager that supports email maskS 1Password Read our review Dedicated services can be used with any site, main email address, browser, password manager, etc. You create an account using the email address you want to receive the forwarded email, and then create masks through the web interface or a browser extension. Some services also offer premium plans that allow sending and replying from an email mask, support larger file attachments, and generate email masks for multiple email addresses. All email masks are managed through the service, which is less convenient than with an email provider. You won’t have a single spot to control your direct and forwarded email. To really simplify using email masks, choose a service that integrates with a password manager. Once you connect your email account or masking service, you’ll be able to create the email masks directly within the password manager. It eliminates the need to copy and paste the new forwarding address when saving login info. Currently 1Password has a partnership with Fastmail, and Bitwarden has relationships with Fastmail, SimpleLogin, Addy.io, DuckDuckGo, Forward Email, and Firefox Relay. Apple users can use the company’s Hide My Email feature; email masks automatically save to iCloud Keychain if you actively use the latter. Alternatively, you can pick a password manager like NordPass or ProtonPass that directly handles email mask generation. Free email masking services SimpleLogin is the most generous with the features available to free users. SimpleLogin / PCWorld While getting masked email through an email provider usually costs money, dedicated services usually offer a free plan. They’re more limited in scope but still a great start. SimpleLogin offers 10 free forwarding addresses. There are no bandwidth limitations, and forwarded emails can be up to 25MB each. The service also allows you to reply to email from an alias, too. Firefox Relay lets you create just five free forwarding addresses, with a 10MB size limit per email and no bandwidth limitations. You can’t reply to email on the free tier, however. This service makes the list for a couple of reasons: It works across devices, and upgrading to the paid tier with unlimited addresses and the ability to send email from aliases is just $12 per year. (You will need to switch to Firefox if you want to use the browser extension for maximum ease of use, but that’s not a bad thing given Firefox’s greater commitment to privacy.) Addy.io allows you to create unlimited “standard” email masks. These are based on your Addy.io username, however—so if you want more privacy, you can then use one of your 10 free shared domain email masks. You can send and reply from your aliases, too. The catch: You’re limited to 10MB (yes, megabytes) of bandwidth per month. The company estimates that to be roughly 140 emails max. (Start adding in attachments and that drops very, very fast.) Live exclusively in Apple’s ecosystem? Sign in with Apple is a free way to get started with the company’s take on email masking.PCWorld Apple users also have an alternative option called Sign in with Apple. For apps and websites that allow you to sign in with your Apple ID, you get access to a limited form of Hide My Email, the company’s email masking service. Apple will generate a random forwarding email that will pass messages from the site or app to your Apple ID’s linked email address. Unlike the version of Hide My Email that comes with iCloud+, you can’t change the generated aliases or create ones independently. Also, as a general security note, signing in with this method can carry risk, since anyone with access to your Apple account could also then access linked services and apps, too. P.S.—Unique user IDs help online privacy and security, too The general concept behind masked email can be applied to creating user IDs, too. For sites that ask you to create a dedicated username (e.g., randomuser1), going with a new identifier each time makes it harder for people to track you across the web. Unauthorized access to your other accounts is less likely, too, when your username and password are different for every site and app. And you can combine masked email with a unique user ID so that you’re really hard to trace—useful when signing into sites that have yet to implement passkeys, a more secure alternative to passwords. (Or when, in the name of saving your future bacon, you still keep a username/password combo as secondary method of logging into an account with passkeys enabled.) Sounds complicated? This is why a password manager is so handy. It lets you continually level up your security with very little mental burden, especially if you pick one with support for email masking and passkey storage. Choose a paid password manager or a free one—either will make life easy. Read...

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Amazon’s kicking off its Black Friday deals early this year with discounts on laptops from popular brands like Dell, HP, and Microsoft. Honestly? These will probably be the best laptop discounts you’ll see all season. Whether you’re looking for a powerful gaming machine that can keep up with the latesttriple-A titles or a reliable laptop for the day-to-day stuff, Amazon has it all. You need Prime to take advantage of those discounts and perks, though, so make sure you sign up for it! Amazon is running deals on Prime during the holiday shopping season. The best part is the convenience Amazon offers. Free Prime shipping gets your laptop right to your door as quickly as lightning, and easy returns take the stress out of online shopping, which can sometimes be an unpredictable beast. Plus, with early access to those scrumptious deals, you can shop before the big Black Friday rush and snag what you want before it’s gone. Below you’ll find a carefully assembled list of the best Amazon laptop deals you can grab right now. Best Amazon Black Friday budget laptop deals Sometimes all you need is a respectable, baseline-level machine. Personally, I use a low-powered laptop for writing, watching Netflix, checking email, and so on. I just dig the simplicity. So, if you’re not a gamer and just need a lightweight machine for day-to-day tasks, check out the list below. Lenovo ThinkPad E14 (Ryzen 7 5700U), AMD Ryzen 7 5700U processor/14-inch 1920×1080/12GB RAM/256GB SSD, $239.99 ($460 off at Amazon) Acer Aspire Premium, AMD Ryzen 3 7330U processor/15.6-inch 1920×1080 display/16GB RAM/512GB SSD, $379.05 ($20.94 off at Amazon) Asus?Vivobook?16 (F1605VA-ES56), Intel Core i5-13420H/16-inch 1920×1200/16GB RAM/512 GB SSD, $429.99 ($70 off at Amazon) Best Amazon Black Friday midrange laptop deals Looking for a little more oomph? A midrange laptop should do you just fine. These laptops typically offer more processing power and storage, and prices fall in the $500 to $800 range. Microsoft Surface Laptop (2025), Snapdragon X Plus processor/13-inch 1920×1280 touchscreen display/16GB RAM/256GB SSD, $549.99 ($350 off at Amazon) Samsung Galaxy Book4, Intel 7 150U processor/15.6-inch 1920×1080 display/16GB RAM/512GB SSD, $589 ($110.99 off at Amazon) Asus Vivobook 14, Snapdragon X Plus processor/14-inch 1920×1200 display/16GB RAM/512GB SSD, $649.99 ($100 off at Amazon) Apple 2025 MacBook Air, M4 chip/13.6-inch 2560×1664 display/16GB RAM/256GB SSD, $749 ($249 off at Amazon) Best Amazon Black Friday gaming laptop deals Calling all gamers! There’s no better time to scoop up a blisteringly fast gaming machine. The laptops below are both powerful and reasonably priced, and should be able to blitz through most games. HP Victus, AMD Ryzen 5 7535HS processor/RTX 2050 graphics/15.6-inch 1920×1080 display/8GB RAM/512GB SSD, $569 ($41 off at Amazon) Asus TUF Gaming F16, Intel Core 5 210H processor/RTX 4050 graphics/16-inch 1920×1200 display/8GB RAM/512GB SSD, $749.99 ($250 off at Amazon) Alienware 16 Aurora, Intel Core 7-240H Series 2 processor/RTX 5060 graphics/16-inch 2560×1600 display/16GB RAM/1TB SSD, $1,099.98 ($300.01 off at Amazon) Asus ROG Strix G16 (2025), Intel Core i7-14650HX processor/RTX 5060 graphics/16-inch 1920×1080 display/16GB RAM/1TB SSD, $1,199.99 ($300 off at Amazon) Best Amazon Black Friday premium laptop deals If you’re looking for more premium features like an OLED display or a 2-in-1 form factor, you’ve come to the right spot. Below you’ll find ultra-lightweight machines as well as laptops with high-resolution displays. Microsoft Surface Pro 2-in-1, Snapdragon X Elite processor/13-inch 2880×1920 OLED display/16GB RAM/512GB SSD, $999.99 ($500 off at Amazon) Dell 14 Plus, Intel Core Ultra 9 288V processor/14-inch 2560×1600 display/32GB RAM/1TB SSD, $1,049.99 ($350 off at Amazon) Microsoft Surface Laptop (2024), Snapdragon X Elite 12-core processor/13.8-inch 2304×1536 display/16 GB RAM/1 TB SSD, $1,099.99 ($500 off at Amazon) Black Friday: The best PC deals around Check out our roundups for the best PC-related deals in a wide variety of categories! Black Friday 2025: How to get the best prices on tech, and where to shop  Early Black Friday desktop computer deals Early Black Friday Thunderbolt dock deals Early Black Friday SSD deals Early Black Friday monitor deals Early Black Friday Chromebook deals Early Black Friday VPN deals Early Black Friday office chair and desk deals Early Black Friday power bank deals Early Black Friday USB flash drive deals Early Black Friday mini PC deals FAQ 1. When is Black Friday this year? Black Friday 2025 is on Friday, November 28. But make no mistake: The laptop deals have already begun, and the sales event that used to be just a single day might as well be called “Black Week.” Amazon’s Black Week kicks off on November 20th, in fact. 2. When is Cyber Monday this year? Cyber Monday 2025 is on Monday, December 1. To take advantage of the best deals, we suggest logging on at midnight. This gives you the best chance to snag a deal on something you want before stock runs out. 3. Which laptops does PCWorld recommend, the deals notwithstanding? Hey, the site is called PCWorld, so we test and review an insane number of laptops. To see our top picks, you can check out our master list of the best laptops of 2025. We also have more granular selections for the best laptops under $500, and the best laptops for students. Come Black Friday, there’s a good chance that many of our picks will be discounted, so if you’re looking for something that’s been tested and approved, check out these articles. Read...

Is nothing working on your Windows 10 or Windows 11 computer? Is an application hanging, or is your PC unresponsive? Many people will reach for the hallowed Ctrl + Alt + Del keyboard shortcut, which has been used since the earliest days of DOS to revive a frozen computer. You can also use the shortcut to call up the task manager (although Ctrl + Shift + Esc is faster at that). What many people probably aren’t aware of, however, is the emergency restart function Microsoft hid inside the Ctrl + Alt + Del screen. How to activate the hidden Windows emergency restart To get to the hidden emergency restart function, first press Ctrl + Alt + Del on your keyboard. The usual “lock,” “switch user,” “sign off,” and “Task manager” options will appear in a full screen. To initiate the emergency restart, hold down Crtl and click the power button.Foundry You don’t want any of those. Instead, at the bottom right, next to buttons for network settings and accessibility functions, there is a power button for switching off or restarting the computer. You can use this button to access the hidden function: Hold down the Ctrl key and click on the power button. Now the following note is displayed by Windows in full-screen mode: “Click OK to immediately restart. Any unsaved data will be lost.” It then ends with this dramatic-sounding message: “Use this only as a last resort.” Brad Chacos/IDG Click on the “OK” button and the expected happens: The computer restarts immediately without any further prompting. Why Microsoft added this feature to Windows 10 and 11 get windows 11 pro for cheap Windows 11 Pro Apparently, Microsoft integrated this method into Windows as an additional way of subjecting the computer to a warm start. Depending on the reason why Windows is having problems at the moment, the other options for a Windows warm start might not work. Before resorting to the last resort of a cold start (i.e. holding down the physical on/off button on your PC or briefly disconnecting the device from the power supply), the hidden emergency restart could offer a way out. Many ways to shut down Windows I have not yet been able to discover where Microsoft documented this feature, but it’s nice to have another reboot option with the hidden Windows emergency restart. Here are a bunch of other ways you can restart Windows: Method 1: Click Start button and then click Power button Method 2: Press “Ctrl + Alt + Del” and then click on the power button in the bottom right-hand corner Method 3: On the Windows desktop, press the combination Alt + F4 and then select “Reboot” from the drop-down menu Method 4: Open the command prompt with admin rights, type -shutdown -r -t 00 and press Enter. Method 5: Go to the Windows Powershell, type “Restart-Computer” and press Enter. Method 6: The hidden emergency restart option For even more secretive goodies, be sure to check out our guide to 10 obscure Windows features that will blow your mind. This article was translated from German to English, and originally appeared on pcwelt.de. Read...

With the incoming holiday season and (hopefully) some PTO, it’ll be time to cozy up under a blanket with your favorite books… on a Kindle. Black Friday is here and you can get a brand-spanking-new Kindle for as little as $80 on Amazon, the best price we’ve seen for the newest series. The 6-inch 16GB Kindle with 16GB of storage space comes with a 27% discount, which means that instead of paying $110 for it, you can get it for $80—the new best price for this model. It’s lightweight, fast, and just about perfect to take with you anywhere you go. The 16GB Kindle is only $80 for Black FridayBuy via Amazon The 7-inch 16GB Kindle Paperwhite—my personal favorite of the Kindle devices—features a better lighting setup that’ll make reading at night an even better experience than the basic Kindle. The battery lasts several weeks, long enough to forget when you charged it last. Instead of $160, the Kindle Paperwhite is down to $125, its very best price. The 16GB Kindle Paperwhite dropped to $125 for Black FridayBuy via Amazon If you want a bit more storage space, auto-adjusting light, as well as wireless charging, the 32GB Kindle Paperwhite Signature Edition is on sale for just $150—that’s 25% off and also its best price. The 32GB Kindle Paperwhite Signature Edition is now $150Buy via Amazon Besides the chance to get a new Kindle at an all-time lowest price, the best thing about these Black Friday deals is that you can get three months of Kindle Unlimited for free with your purchase. Kindle Unlimited unlocks access to over 5 million ebooks, audiobooks, comics, manga, and more. Don’t miss this hot opportunity! Read...

Microsoft is testing a new integration in Windows 11’s File Explorer that could allow AI apps—such as Anthropic Claude and Manus—to request access to files, reports Windows Latest. While the files aren’t uploaded to the cloud, the feature does let AI tools read content locally to do things like summarize documents, build websites, or create presentations based on files. Microsoft says that only the file contents are shared, not the files themselves. The first of these features, like summarizing documents via Copilot and Microsoft 365, will be rolled out in the coming weeks. It’s still not known when the full AI app integration will become widely available. Read...

Where’s the beef when it comes to AMD FSR Redstone? The much-touted next generation of AMD’s graphics-enhancing package, exclusive to the latest RX 9000-series GPUs, has taken its sweet time in getting here, only showing one feature in the newest Call of Duty title. But, according to a promotional post from an AMD representative, it should be rolling out more widely starting December 10th. Said AMD rep is Jack Huynh, who might be familiar to any tech-heads who follow the company, as he’s a senior VP for the Computer and Graphics Group. Over on Twitter/X, he posted a 30-second promo video (which is basically just the Marvel Studios intro logo, you don’t need to watch it) that ends with “FSR ‘Redstone,’ Premiering December 10th.” The post was spotted by KitGuru. Exactly what “premiering” means in this context isn’t super clear. Technically you can see Redstone, or at least one piece of it, if you’re playing Black Ops 7 on a PC with a Radeon RX 9000 GPU. The game launched with ML Ray Generation tech enabled. But it’s missing other crucial components of the suite, including terms that would twist the tongue of a Starfleet engineer: Neural Radiance Caching, ML Super Resolution, and ML Frame Generation. You can dive into the technical details elsewhere, but essentially this is Fidelity Super Resolution version 5 and it uses tons of different kinds of tech to make game lighting look better without bogging down framerates. Some or all of these features will need to be enabled by developers on a game-by-game basis. The stylized nature of the preview video doesn’t indicate which games might get it first, but I’m guessing I saw snippets of the previously-mentioned Black Ops 7, Red Dead Redemption 2, aaaaand… that’s it. There are a bunch of other games shown off, but sliding off the side of big blocky text I can’t tell which ones they are. Read...