Samsung took over July with a slew of product releases after its Galaxy Unpacked event a few weeks ago. The Galaxy Z Fold 6 stuck with a very familiar yet impressive design. The big surprises were the new Galaxy Watch Ultra, which gave the Apple Watch Ultra a run for its money, and the latest version of the Galaxy Buds 3 Pro, which might be my new favorite pair of earbuds.
And like always, we’ve also made sure to include super weird and fantastical tech, like this $5,000 pair of pants that help you not suck at hiking. For people who are too lazy to wash two separate dishes after they’ve downed their morning smoothie, there’s a new drinkable blender by Nutribullet.
The Galaxy Buds 3 Pro are the fancier of the two buds Samsung unveiled at its Samsung Unpacked event in July. Apart from the overly done bass, it’s hard to find many flaws in the Galaxy Buds 3 Pro review. The design, which looked weird initially, is pretty comfortable; the fit is snug, the sound rich and clear, and the ANC extremely powerful. I recommend them over their $70 cheaper counterpart, the Samsung Galaxy Buds 3.
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My coworker Kyle was way too hyped about these pants. The MO/GO (short for “Mountain Goat”) is a joint effort with established outdoor apparel makers Arc’Teryx and the tech startup Skip. The MO/GO is a pair of a whopping $5,000 Arc’teryx Gamma pants with cuffs to snap Skip’s carbon fiber exoskeletal thighs onto the outside of each leg, which should impact your quadriceps and hamstring muscles. The companies claim each ligament weighs 2 pounds, with the pants clocking in at 7 pounds, but instead of adding weight, the arms absorb the impact of each step, enough to make users feel “30 pounds lighter.” These pants promise to turn you into the world’s most efficient cyborg hiker. And anybody who meets you on the trail will know it, too.
The $650 Galaxy Watch Ultra is a well-built watch whose giant display will please the statistic-obsessed athletes. It is a step up from the base $300 Galaxy Watch 7 in several ways. It has a better battery, a more durable shell and screen, and far better water resistance, and it is rated for up to 100 meters underwater. Additionally, it has several more tweaks to Samsung’s suite of WearOS 5 apps, which offers more details about your cycling or running performance. It’s a watch that will take over your wrist and—if you let it—your life. If that’s what you’re after, then the Ultra and its massive watch face fits the bill.
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NutriBullet’s latest $100 small-scale blender is a portable blender that looks like a Stanley quencher cup. It is a compact, 20 oz thermos-like single-unit blender with an insulated base and a flip top. The device’s lid contains an 11.1 V motor to power the blender, plus a 3-cell lithium-ion battery. NutriBullet promises you should just over a dozen 30-second blasts of your blender on a full charge. Those specs offer more power than personal blenders like the Ninja Blast, which only promises ten cycles off a full battery. It’s also supposed to keep your drinks and mixtures cool for 24 hours, though we’re sure that a blender action will heat things a bit.
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Starting at $1,700 at 55 inches (reviewed at $2,000 at 65 inches), Sony’s Bravia 7 doesn’t quite meet the bar set by Sony’s own Bravia 9 mini-LED, but it’s still a great TV, so long as you ignore the off-angle viewing issues. In a crowded market for QLEDs, the Bravia 7’s bright, beautiful display makes watching colorful films a real treat with some excellent HDR. The biggest issues come from its bad off-angle viewing experience and unflattering glare in direct light, but if you’re set on a Bravia, this is a good choice for the price.
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This is the first time since the early generations of the Galaxy Z Fold series that it feels like a balanced device in the hand. The front and inside screens feel congruent, and I’m digging the sharp corners that make the Galaxy Z Fold 6 feel like two phones glued together rather than a flimsy plastic screen. The Galaxy Z Fold 6 retraces all the steps that have worked so far for the company to find some relative success in this niche gadget category. It’s powerful, well-built, and capable of handling all the software tricks Samsung pushes through Galaxy AI. The Z Fold 6 is a worthy update if you’re due for a new foldable and are three years behind.
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If you’re looking for a bulbous smartwatch with a long battery life, the OnePlus Watch 2R is a consideration for all it offers. This Android smartwatch runs Wear OS 4 and carries the traditions of its predecessor, the OnePlus Watch 2, including promising up to 100 hours of battery life on a single charge. The kicker is that it’s $70 cheaper.
The original OnePlus Pad was a decent all-around Android tablet, but it was not amazing in any one area. OnePlus is back with a new tablet device that packs more power, has a better screen, more speakers, and a higher starting price. OnePlus offers an Android tablet alternative that costs less than the latest iPad Airs.
Except for the underwhelming camera, the new Moto Razr is a great deal for just $700. The external display is far from a gimmick. It provides sufficient real estate and an easy UI to add any apps you want. The newly added default mode ensures that apps optimized for a 3.6-inch screen also run perfectly. It aced the crease and improved the hinge design-wise, but the lack of dust resistance, considering it’s crucial on a foldable, is concerning. Performance-wise, you’re sorted, too, with the MediaTek CPU efficiently handling switching between multiple apps and the battery lasting around a day and a half to two days.
Order Motorola Razr 2024 at Best Buy
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