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The best deals we found this week: Pixel 3a, the HomePod and more

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Buy Pixel 3a at Best Buy – $280

Buy Pixel 3a at Amazon – $280

HomePod

Apple HomePod smart speaker.

Engadget

Apple’s HomePod remains on sale for $200 at Best Buy, or $100 off its normal price. It’s a solid speaker in terms of audio quality, but it’s best if you’re entrenched in Apple’s ecosystem already — and especially if you’re an Apple Music user. Apple has also made significant improvements to the HomePod since launch, including adding features like multi-user support, live radio and Spotify voice control.

Buy Apple HomePod at Best Buy – $200

10.2-inch iPad

Apple 10.2-inch iPad.

Chris Velazco/Engadget

The base iPad is back on sale for $250 at Best Buy and Amazon (although stock is low at Amazon). Normally priced at $330, it’s an even better deal when on sale like this. Despite its aging design, we gave it a score of 86 for its good battery life and slightly larger and improved display. This deal is your best bet if you want to get an iPad right now and also stick to your budget.

Buy 10.2-inch iPad at Best Buy – $250

Buy 10.2-inch iPad at Amazon – $250

Google Nest WiFi

Google Nest WiFi and access point.

Daniel Cooper

Now’s a good time to grab a new WiFi router from Google. Memorial Day sales brought down the price of the Nest WiFi mesh router to $150 for one and $240 for a 2-pack that includes one router and one access point. The former is the best price we’ve seen on one, and the latter, while not the lowest price ever, is much better than the normal price of $300. We gave Google’s WiFi system a score of 84 for its minimalist design, easy setup and built-in smart speaker.

Buy Nest WiFi at Amazon – $150

Buy Nest WiFi (2-pack) at Amazon – $240

Google Nest Cam

Google Nest Cam Outdoor security camera.

Google

Google’s Nest Cam Outdoor is also on sale — $238 for a 2-pack. That’s just $10 more than its lowest price ever, making it a good deal to snag if you’ve been wanting security cameras for the exterior of your home. The Nest Cam Outdoor records video in 1080p and it has two-way audio as well as an IP66-certified water-resistant design. Nest Cams must be plugged in to work which makes them a bit more cumbersome than Blink XT2 cameras, but otherwise they are solid alternatives.

Buy Nest Cam (2-pack) at Amazon – $238

Google Nest Learning Thermostat

Google Nest Learning Thermostat.

Google

You can still get a Nest Learning Thermostat for $200 at BuyDig — that’s $50 off its normal price. The deal also includes $40-worth of freebies: one Deco wall plate cover for the thermostat as well as two Deco WiFi smart plugs. Just make sure to check that your home’s heating and cooling system will play nicely with the Learning Thermostat before you buy it.

Buy Nest Thermostat at BuyDig – $200

AirPods

Apple AirPods.

Engadget

Apple’s AirPods with wireless charging case is down to $150 on Amazon. That’s $20 lower than its normal going-price and $50 less than its launch price. The AirPods with the regular case are also on sale for $130, which is about $15 off of its normal price. AirPods rarely go on sale, so now’s a good time to grab them if you’ve wanted them. We gave the newest AirPods a score of 84 for their improved wireless performance and good battery life.

Buy AirPods with Wireless Charging Case on Amazon – $150

Buy AirPods on Amazon – $130

Free Mamba Elite with Razer Huntsman keyboard

Razer Huntsman gaming keyboard.

Razer

Razer’s Mamba Elite gaming mouse is still free when you buy a Huntsman gaming keyboard at Best Buy. The keyboard users Razer’s “opto-mechanical” switches that, even though we find them a tad overhyped, are still solid for PC gamers and typists alike. The Mamba Elite wired mouse normally costs $90 and it has most essential features you’d want in a gaming mouse including a 16K DPI sensor, eight programmable buttons and an ambidextrous design.

Buy Razer Huntsman keyboard at Best Buy – $150

New Memorial Day deals

HP Envy x360

Best Buy has a good sale on a fairly powerful model of the HP Envy x360 laptop that drops the price to $650. It has a 15.6-inch 1080p touchscreen, a 10th-gen Core i5 processor, 8GB of RAM and 256GB of storage — that’s enough power for most people, and it would even make a solid schoolwork laptop for college students. HP’s Envy line has improved a lot over the past couple of years, borrowing many design elements from the more expensive Spectre family. Not only does this laptop look sleek, but it’s also a convertible and it includes a full-sized number pad.

Buy Envy x360 at Best Buy – $650

Lenovo Yoga C940

You can also grab a Lenovo Yoga C940 laptop for $1,450 at Best Buy this weekend. This particular model is quite powerful: it has a 15.6-inch 1080p touchscreen, 9th-gen Core i7 processor, 16GB of RAM, 512GB of storage plus an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650 GPU. Those specs will provide more than enough power for most, plus the necessary chops for some light gaming. We like the Yoga C940 for its attractive metal design, the speaker built into its 360-degree hinge and the included stylus that lives in its chassis.

Buy C940 at Best Buy – $1,450

Lenovo ThinkBook 13s

Newegg has a sale on Lenovo’s ThinkBook 13s that drops the price to $640, which is roughly $150 off of its normal price. This model includes an 8th-gen Core i7 processor, 8GB of RAM and 256GB of storage. The ThinkBook 13s was signed for business users who value style and slimness as much as they do security. The ThinkBook has an attractive if plain aluminum design, USB-C and USB-A ports and a fingerprint reader built in to its power button.

Buy ThinkBook 13s at Newegg – $640

Razer Nari Ultimate headset

The Overwatch Lucio Edition of Razer’s Nari Ultimate gaming headset is down to its lowest price ever: $150. Normally priced at $230, this is a more colorful version of the standard Nari Ultimate headset that’s generally well-liked in the gaming community for its haptic feedback, comfortable design and retractable mic.

Buy Nari Ultimate at Amazon – $150

Anker Roav Duo dash cam

You can grab Anker’s Roav Duo dash cam for $90 on Amazon right now by clipping the $20 coupon and using the code DUALDC519 at checkout. It’s a handy dash cam that has cameras to record the road ahead of you as well as the interior of your car. You may not be keen to the idea of being filmed while driving, but that footage could protect you if you get into an accident. It has all the basic features you’d want in a dash cam, too, including night vision, emergency recording and a built-in GPS.

Buy Roav Duo at Amazon – $90

Follow @EngadgetDeals on Twitter for the latest tech deals and buying advice.



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Yes, the Patriot Act amendment to track us online is real

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Interestingly, one “Big Browser” company has a feature that’s a useful tool in this context. Like the way Apple can’t “read” your iPhone’s data (specifically, Apple can’t decrypt it), Google can only share what it can “read.” You can password protect your Chrome data by following the instructions here. 

Anyway, to validate the concerns a lot of you are having about your surveillance and privacy defenses, it’s important to know that the company running your browser goes on your Patriot Act 2020 “adversary” list. Even though, in this instance, companies like Apple and Google (etc.) are the ones having changes forced on them — putting them in a position that’s sure to destroy user trust at scale. Engadget reached out to Apple and Google for comment on this matter and did not receive a response by time of publication.

Now, I know some of you are reading and saying, that’s it, I’m just going to use DuckDuckGo from now on, I know for a fact they oppose this and they’ve got my back. DuckDuckGo, a VPN, and a full-body condom ought to do it. Except you’ll need a VPN that already doesn’t cooperate with FISA warrants. It’s possible. Interestingly, NordVPN’s Warrant Canary has strong language stating it has never handed over user data. But to order those body condoms, you still need internet access.

That’s why your internet service provider (ISP) should probably go higher on your Patriot Act 2020 “adversary” list than Big Browser. Last year, the Federal Trade Commission launched an investigation into AT&T, Comcast, Google Fiber, T-Mobile, and Verizon after “T-Mobile, Sprint, and AT&T were selling their mobile customers’ location information to third-party data brokers despite promising not to do so,” according to Ars Technica. And in case you didn’t know the background on it, the EFF proved in court that “Verizon Wireless, Sprint and AT&T [participated] in the NSA’s mass telephone records collection under the Patriot Act.”

(If you want to get into the details of ISPs, DNS, and protecting data in that context, check out what Mozilla is trying to do in The Facts: Mozilla’s DNS over HTTPs)

In infosec lingo, when it comes to Patriot Act 2020, your ISP is an attacker in a privileged position. And right now we depend on the internet for, well, almost our very lives. Lives which require privacy — a human right.

2020 is many things, and one of those things seems to be an agonizingly long version of the infamous “Leave Britney Alone” video, except it’s us, and we’re at the tear-streaked breaking point over our data privacy. Now that we’re essentially trapped online most of our waking hours, we feel more used, stressed, poked, prodded, extorted, angry, tricked, and helplessly subjected to violations about our data than ever. It’s exhausting at a time when everything seems exhausting.

For now, we can focus on how to control the things we can, like doing privacy self-checks or take inventory of app settings. We get to know tools like VPNs and start to use things that end-to-end encrypt our communications — we practice doing things that shore up our defenses a bit more than before. 

While we do that, we’ll have to flex one of the less popular survival skills — we wait. The ghastly changes to the Patriot Act, a thing that was already a shambling disaster of failed protections and rights violations, may still face a challenge or two before getting an Oval Office signature. Though even if McConnell’s amendment doesn’t squeak through this time, we now know that lawmakers at the top want an unprecedented, Facebook-level of spying and control over our online lives. 

We just thought that trajectory was the stuff of implausible video games and far-out films — which, turns out, are a lot less entertaining to live through.

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Microsoft flexed its cloud and AI muscles at Build 2020

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If you’re on the Targeted Release cycle, you’ll be one of the first people to try this out in Office.com and Outlook for the web. In the new format, you’ll be able to start whichever Office app you want — say Excel or Word, for example — and pull in Fluid components like charts, tables or task lists. 

Microsoft Build 2020 Rajesh Jha discussing Microsoft 365 updates

Microsoft

These components will stay updated wherever they are, so if you edit a cell in a table you pulled from an existing spreadsheet, the value will save in every place it exists. You’ll also be able to collaborate on these files in real time with others, too. These components can be inserted into emails or even a chat app like Microsoft’s Teams. The company also announced that Fluid Framework will be open-source, so you might see third-party apps make use of these features in future too. 

Microsoft also announced a new Lists app that’s based on the existing Lists feature in SharePoint. The project management tool will let you track your progress using checklists across Microsoft’s services, and you can create new to-do lists from within chat apps like Teams, too. You’ll also be able to import existing lists from elsewhere in the app for people in the room to comment and edit. Your coworkers can tweak or leave suggestions on both the full list and individual items in it as well. There’s also conditional formatting so you can have background or font colors change when items are checked off, or have the icons update based on specific situations. 

As Microsoft continues to build out and enhance its suite of productivity software, it’s also eyeing ways to reach more organizations. This week, the company announced its first Industry Cloud offering, which is a set of tools designed for specific industries. Microsoft is starting with Cloud for Healthcare, which is pretty smart and timely given the country’s pivot to telehealth. 

Microsoft Cloud for Healthcare

Microsoft

The new service offers medical workers access to a range of tools like Microsoft’s Teams and Healthcare Bot Service, in addition to patient engagement portals and systems for booking appointments and making referrals. Within Teams, healthcare providers can also conduct HIPAA-compliant telehealth visits and follow up on aftercare. The patient portals will also make it easier to manage appointment booking, send reminders and make bill payments across various devices.

Providers can also use Cloud for Healthcare to reach out to patients with preventative and care management programs. With Azure IoT integration, they can also remotely receive data from medical devices in real time to escalate care when needed and respond quickly to emergency situations. 

It all sounds like a comprehensive, well-rounded way to manage most of the aspects of running a healthcare business, which, given how fragmented America’s infrastructure is on this front, is welcome news.

Microsoft Build 2020 supercomputer illustration. Yes, seriously, this is what the company provided.

Microsoft

From improving productivity software to creating cloud-based systems for entire industries, to… a supercomputer? Microsoft also announced that it’s developed a supercomputer hosted on its Azure cloud network. It was built specifically to train OpenAI models to tackle large problems. Microsoft hasn’t shared detailed speed measurements yet, but the supercomputer does have 285 THOUSAND CPU cores and 10,000 GPUs that help it execute massive, complicated AI models. That should make it one of the five fastest systems in the world.  

While it’s not yet clear exactly what processes the supercomputer will work on, that amount of power could allow Microsoft to train AI for more complex tasks like moderating game streams, instead of simpler things like recognizing faces in photos, for example.

Again, Microsoft hasn’t laid out concrete plans for how it plans to use this supercomputer, but the company’s been public about its ambitions. It announced in April plans for a planetary computer that’s basically a system that takes in global data about the world, processes it with AI and machine learning, then delivers environmental and biological data to customers. The goal is to help inform decision-making around environmental issues in both the private and public sectors. 

That’s a whole lot of news out of Microsoft in two days, and surprisingly, I’m excited about some of it. Fluid Framework is the most immediately compelling, since it could actually change my day to day workflow. Even though I’m currently a hardcore Google user, I could see Microsoft’s advancements spurring its rivals to step up their games. I’m also intrigued by Cloud for Healthcare and what it could do for medical workers and organizations everywhere. 

This Build, Microsoft showed us improvements at the micro level with boosts to its productivity software, flexed its ample cloud muscle at the middle level with the Industry Cloud offerings, and finally, laid the foundation for good work to come at the macro level with its AI supercomputer news. It’s clear the company wants to be a part of your life at every turn.

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US Senators propose giving $2 billion to healthcare facilities for broadband

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“During this pandemic, telehealth services are helping families receive the critical health care they need,” said Senator Schatz. “Our bill will provide much-needed funding to help hospitals improve their connectivity so they can care for more patients.”

According to the press release Senators Schatz and Murkowski shared, several trade groups, including the United States Telecom Association, have endorsed the legislation. Alongside the Medicare changes the Trump administration introduced in March, the additional funding could go a long way toward making remote healthcare more accessible to the public.

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Petit Depotto, ‘Gnosia’ and the new, obsolete game

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The Vita is far from the oldest platform pushing past its expiration date. Avid communities are devoted to the 38-year-old Commodore 64, 40-year-old Atari machines, almost every Sega console and Nintendo’s 3DS and Game Boys. Console gamers bond deeply with the idiosyncrasies of each device, each with its own specs and technical limitations. 

“You are assured that everybody else who owns one shares the essentially same experience as you, that the machine is gonna perform the same way, that the games are exactly the same, the sounds are the same,” said Jason Scott, a tech historian who works at the Internet Archive. “So there’s a real strong sense of community among people who own a certain platform … even the console makers, I don’t think, 100 percent understand how cohesive that made these communities.”

There’s also nostalgia. “To understand that somebody going through a certain age thinks this console is part of their childhood or part of their life means that the lasting effects of it ends up being as meaningful as having come from a certain town or having gone to a certain school,” Scott continued. 

In 2010, retro gaming company Watermelon released an original 16-bit role-playing game called Pier Solar and the Great Architects for the Sega Genesis (also known as the Mega Drive), which was discontinued in 1999 and is remembered as Sega’s most popular machine. 

The game began as a project on Eidolon’s Inn, a now-defunct forum for old-school Sega enthusiasts, and was subsequently rereleased on the Dreamcast in 2015, 14 years after Sega’s final console was axed.  

Watermelon went on to make Paprium, another Genesis title designed to be played on the original hardware. Other speciality studios like Big Evil Corporation continue work on retro projects: In 2015 the UK company crowdfunded a new Genesis game, Tanglewood, and it’s currently working on The Alexandra Project. Meanwhile, in 2020, people are still making games for the Dreamcast.

But playing on old platforms means keeping them alive in a neophilic world that fetishizes upgrades. Retro gamers and niche developers maintain the hardware needed to play these games, while professional archivists help DIYers with everything from networking and troubleshooting to digging up technical documentation. 

Based in Oakland, California, Frank Cifaldi is the co-founder of the Video Game History Foundation and has made it his life’s work to preserve video game culture. The foundation’s mission includes documenting how video games are being played and finding alternative ways to preserve them. Companies like Analogue and Sega have followed this trend, fine-tuning emulators and homage hardware to replicate playing on original machines. Of course, for some purists, emulators simply won’t do — only the original console.

“Ninety-nine point nine percent of video game preservation is happening in the fan communities. It’s not happening with organizations like ours,” Cifaldi explained. “They’re the ones who are figuring out replacement parts when things go bad; they’re the ones figuring out how to modify these old systems to put out better video signals so that we can capture them better; they’re the ones who are figuring out how to replace the CD drive in old consoles so we can read games off an SD card instead.”

Screenshot from Nintendo's Sky Skipper

Nintendo

Game companies aren’t often helpful in grassroots restoration projects. But Cifaldi recalled an incident in 2016 when Nintendo — usually known for cease and desists rather than community outreach — allowed access to an incredibly rare artefact.

“[Nintendo of America] still had an intact arcade cabinet … for a game that they tested in the United States — and it failed, so it never went into manufacturing — called Sky Skipper,” he said. “And they actually let someone in the preservation community come and take photographs and scan the artwork and stuff like that from that cabinet.” In 2017, fans managed to rebuild this singular piece of arcade history.

While not all retro gamers focus on the posteric significance of these relics, preservation is a vital part of fan enthusiasm. “I often forget that one form of preservation is preserving interest in something,” Cifaldi mused.

In his experience, this can vary according to different cultural contexts. For instance, much enthusiasm for Japan’s old games and gaming systems has come from outside the country. “In Japan … the copyright laws are much more strict, and also I suspect because of that, there’s what I would call a cultural aversion to sharing a creator’s works without them being 100 percent on board with it,” he said. 

Japan’s NPO Game Preservation Society is one such organization trying to archive and protect the country’s rich cultural legacy in video games. Efforts to document and save rare Japan-only releases will face an even greater challenge, and one day, this might include Gnosia. In the future, perhaps Gnosia’s first port on the Vita will become an object of curiosity for retro hobbyists.

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Researchers squeeze 44.2 Tbps through existing fiber optic cables

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Today’s cable and fiber optic internet connections are good enough — at least where they’re available. Home users can browse the web, stream videos and play online games, and companies can keep business moving. But as content becomes more complex, the world will need faster speeds. Researchers in Australia have developed an internet connection that reaches 44.2 terabits per second. To put that into perspective, the average user in the US gets 50.2 megabits per second — about a million times slower than the researchers’ speed.

The team — which consists of researchers from Monash, Swinburne and RMIT universities — achieved such a fast connection by using an optical device called a microcomb to replace the standard bunch of about 80 lasers found in modern telecom equipment. According Phys.org, a microcomb “generates very sharp and equidistant frequency lines in a tiny microphotonic chip.” This specialized technology is compatible with existing fiber optic lines, which hopefully means that the internet’s pipelines don’t need to be overhauled in order to reach such fast speeds. “What our research demonstrates is the ability for fibers that we already have in the ground…to be the backbone of communications networks now and in the future,” said Bill Corcoran of Monash University.

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How good is Turtle Beach’s Recon 70 gaming headset?

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We’ve recommended the Turtle Beach Recon 70 to our readers a few times in the past year: The combination of robust build quality, crisp audio and low price make the Recon 70 a solid option for any gaming setup. It’s ideal for everyone from PC gaming enthusiasts to Switch players on the go, as long as you don’t mind that it’s wired.

However, we’re certainly not the final arbiters on the matter, and headset fit can be a very personal thing. Maybe you love your Recon 70. Maybe the way the mic flips up annoys you or you wish the cans were available in other colors. By now you know the drill: We want to hear your opinions about this headset in a user review on the Recon 70’s product page here at Engadget. Give us the run down and remember — the best remarks will be included in an upcoming user review roundup article!

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Summer Games Fest will host AAA and indie game streams in June and July

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The organizers don’t have a comprehensive list of participants yet, since they’re still accepting submissions from indie developers. But they’ve already revealed a list of confirmed participants that include Akupara Games, Annapurna Interactive, The Behemoth, Finji, Kowloon Nights, Longhand Electric, MWM Interactive, Panic, Sabotage Studio, Skybound Games, Team17, thatgamecompany, Tribute Games and ustwo games.

Viewers can stream the Developer Showcases on the Summer Game Fest website, as well as on Facebook Twitch, Twitter and YouTube.

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Surface Book 3 15-inch review: Beautiful, yet limited

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Take the new hardware. The Surface Book 3 features Intel’s quad-core 10th generation Ice Lake CPUs, which max out at a 3.9GHz Turbo Boost speed. (Those chips also appear in the Surface Laptop 3, an ultraportable that doesn’t even pretend to handle heavy lifting). The MacBook Pro 16-inch, on the other hand, offers Intel’s recent six and eight-core CPUs, including the monstrously powerful 5GHz Core i9. Dell’s XPS 15 can also be configured with similar chips reaching up to 5.1GHz. You do the math. There’s just no way the Surface Book 3 can compete in a CPU fight.

At least Microsoft is competitive on the graphics front. You’ve got NVIDIA’s GTX 1650, GTX 1660 Ti and Quadro RTX 3000 as options, the latter of which is much faster than the MacBook Pro 16-inch’s Radeon GPUs. You’ll have to jump through a few more hoops to get that Quadro GPU though, as it’s only available to corporate customers.

I’m not saying the Surface Book 3 isn’t impressive. It still looks and feels like a high-quality machine, though the design hasn’t budged at all since the last model. There’s the same all-metal case, the unique bulbous hinge (that leaves a slight gap open when closed), and a large 15-inch screen. But since we last saw the Surface Book, most PC makers have started seriously slimming down their bezels to fit in larger displays and reduce weight. The Book 3, unfortunately, still has thick screen borders that make it look like a notebook from 4 or 5 years ago.

Surface Book 3

Devindra Hardawar/Engadget

Previously, I also knocked the 15-inch Surface Book for being heavier than its competitors at 4.2 pounds. But, ironically enough, Apple ended up making the MacBook Pro 16-inch a bit chunkier as well, so it now slightly outweighs the Book 3. But as you’ll see, I think Apple justifies its heft a bit more. And the MacBook Pro is also significantly slimmer — the Book 3 is up to 23 millimeters thick, while the MacBook Pro maxes out at 16.3 millimeters.  As usual, Microsoft’s curved hinge makes things stick out quite a bit.

One benefit of being so large, though, is that the Surface Book 3 is able to fit a wide keyboard and roomy touchpad. It’s all the same hardware we saw a few years ago, but they’re still excellent. The keys have plenty of depth and responsiveness, making them a dream to type on. And the smooth glass touchpad is among the best I’ve used on a Windows notebook.

So sure, there’s a lot to love about the Surface Book 3. But if you want to know why I’m being so critical of its new hardware, just look at the benchmarks. In PCMark 10, it scores a notch below Dell’s recent XPS 13. And even more damning, it scores only a few hundred points higher than HP’s Elite Dragonfly, a 2-pound PC whose performance we called “middling.” If you’re trying to be a powerhouse machine, this isn’t the company you should be keeping. Its Geekbench 5 multi-core speeds also fell behind the new MacBook Pro 13-inch, and it was once again bested by the XPS 13. The Surface Book 3 fared better in Geekbench 5’s Compute benchmark, where the NVIDIA GPU brought it in line with ASUS’s excellent Zephyrus G14 (a much cheaper machine with far better CPU scores).

The GTX 1660 Ti is clearly the lynchpin of the Surface Book 3’s performance, and it also means the notebook can finally handle some decent gaming. Running in 1080p, I clocked between 110 and 130 FPS in Overwatch with “epic” graphics settings. The Hitman 2 benchmark also delivered a solid 72 FPS with maxed out settings. To be clear, you can get similar performance from gaming notebooks that cost half as much. But at least Book 3 owners will be able to get some fragging done alongside their creative work.

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The best fitness trackers you can buy

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When I say “focus,” I’m alluding to the fact that fitness trackers are made to track activity well and anything else is extra. They often don’t have the bells and whistles that smartwatches do that would distract from their activity tracking abilities. They also tend to have fewer sensors and internal components, which keeps them smaller and lighter. Fitness trackers are a better option for those who just want a less ostentatious device on their wrists all day long.

Battery life tends to be better on fitness trackers, too. Most fitness bands will last five days to one week on a single charge — and that’s with all day and all night use.

When it comes to price, there’s no competition. Most worthwhile smartwatches start at $175-$200, but you can get a solid fitness tracker starting at $70. Yes, more expensive bands exist (and we recommend a few here), but you’ll find more options under $150 in the fitness tracker space than in the smartwatch space.

When to enter Smartwatch Land

If you need a bit more from your wearable you’ll want to opt for a smartwatch instead. There are things like on-watch apps, alerts and even more robust fitness features that smartwatches have and fitness trackers don’t. You can use one to control smart home appliances, set timers and reminders, check weather reports and more. Some smartwatches let you choose which apps you want to receive alerts from, and the options go beyond just call and text notifications.

But the extra fitness features are arguably the most important thing to think about when deciding between a fitness tracker and a smartwatch. The latter devices tend to be larger, giving them more space for things like GPS, barometers, onboard music storage and more. While you can find built-in GPS on select fitness trackers, it’s not common.

Engadget picks

Best overall: Fitbit Charge 4

Fitbit Charge 4 fitness tracker.

Valentina Palladino / Engadget

While on the expensive side for a fitness tracker, the $150 Fitbit Charge 4 has all the features you’d need from an activity band and more. Its major selling point is built-in GPS. it will track outdoor runs, bike rides and more on its own and automatically upload maps to the Fitbit app. It has a good heart rate monitor as well that works all day and all night to record pulse data. Fitbit’s new active zone minutes will also let you know when you’ve moved into a different heart rate zone while working out, which can be really motivating mid-run.

The Charge 4 also includes Spotify control and Fitbit Pay as standard features, so you can pause and play tracks while you’re working out and pay for a coffee on your way home without having your wallet. Lots of competing trackers don’t have features like that (especially NFC payments), so we think they, along with its litany of other fitness features, justify the Charge 4’s higher price tag. We also appreciate that the Charge 4 gets roughly five days of all-day and all-night use on a single charge, and you’ll be able to get a couple days of battery life even when using the GPS regularly.

Buy Charge 4 at Amazon – $150

Alternative: Garmin Vivosmart 4

Garmin Vivosmart 4 fitness tracker.

Engadget

A more subtle-looking alternative is the $130 Garmin Vivosmart 4. It’s thinner than the Charge 4 and fits in a bit better with bracelets and other jewelry you might wear regularly. But its attractive design is only part of its appeal — Garmin knows how to track fitness, and the Vivosmart 4 is proof that you don’t need to drop hundreds on one of the company’s fitness watches to get a solid device.

Like the Charge 4, the Vivosmart 4 tracks all-day activity and sleep and has a pulse ox sensor for blood oxygen saturation measurements. It has only connected GPS capabilities, and it has universal music controls that can control the playback of most anything. The band is also waterproof and can track basic swim workouts, plus it also has a battery life of up to seven days. While it’s similar to the Charge 4 in that the Vivosmart 4 works with both Android and iOS devices, it’s a bit more flexible as it syncs with Apple Health (the Charge 4 and other Fitbit devices do not).

Buy Vivosmart 4 at Best Buy – $130

Best budget: Fitbit Inspire HR

Fitbit Inspire HR fitness tracker.

Engadget

If you only have $100 to spare, the Fitbit Inspire HR is the best option. It strips out all the luxury features from the Charge 4 and keeps only the essentials. You won’t get built-in GPS, Fitbit Pay or Spotify control but you do get excellent activity tracking, automatic workout detection, smartphone alerts and plenty more. The “HR” designation means it includes an optical heart rate monitor — you could save an extra $30 and opt for the Fitbit Inspire, which doesn’t track pulse, but we recommend the Inspire HR if you can afford it.

The Inspire HR is thinner than the Charge 4 but it also has interchangeable bands, so you can switch up its style whenever you feel like it. It has connected GPS instead of a built-in sensor, so you can map workouts — you just have to bring your smartphone along for the ride. Its design is also swimproof and it should last up to five days on a single charge. All of these features make it the best value fitness tracker you can get.

Buy Inspire HR at Amazon – $100

Alternative: Samsung Galaxy Fit

Samsung Galaxy Fit fitness tracker.

Cherlynn Low / Engadget

The $100 Samsung Galaxy Fit band is almost like a more affordable Garmin Vivosmart 4. The two trackers share the same skeletal design but the Galaxy Fit looks a bit more utilitarian — you can swap out its bands, though — something you can’t do on Garmin’s device. Engadget’s Cherlynn Low was impressed with the tiny tracker: the Tizen-based interface is colorful and easy to use, and plenty of people will appreciate its durable, no-nonsense design. It tracks a bunch of workouts as well and even has auto-exercise recognition. That’s on top of its daily activity tracking and sleep monitor, all of which uses the built-in heart rate monitor to collect pulse data throughout the day. Samsung estimates a seven-day battery life on the Galaxy Fit, which means constant charging will not be a concern. Samsung isn’t as comprehensive as Garmin is when it comes to fitness data collection and analysis, but the Galaxy Fit is a good option for those that want an easy to use tracker that sticks to the basics.

Buy Galaxy Fit at Best Buy – $100

Most fashionable: Withings Move

Withings Move fitness tracker.

Engadget

All of the previously mentioned fitness trackers are attractive in their own way (bonus points to those that have interchangeable bands), but they share a similar look. There aren’t many alternative designs for these devices anymore. The $70 Withings Move watch is an exception, and one of the most traditionally fashionable fitness trackers you can get. It’s an analog watch with a couple of health monitoring features including step, calorie, distance and sleep tracking, connected GPS, auto-recognition for more than 30 workouts and a water-resistant design. But we really love it for its button-cell battery, which can last up to 18 months before needing a replacement.

Buy Withings Move at Amazon – $70

Specs at a glance

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