Engadget

02.01.2025 22:10 The 8Bitdo Ultimate Wired Controller for Xbox is on sale via Amazon for just $29. This is a record low price and represents a discount of 36 percent. That’s a pretty good deal, especially when considering that first-party Xbox controllers are around $60. This isn’t a cheap knockoff. 8Bitdo makes fantastic controllers that regularly find a place in our best of lists. It’s licensed by Xbox and compatible with the Xbox Series X, Series S, Xbox One and Windows 10 and above. In other words, this can double as a PC and Xbox controller. There are two extra buttons on the back that aren’t included with the official controller, which could be useful for mapping To that end, the controller offers custom button mapping and stick/trigger sensitivity for control over vibration. The Hall effect joysticks and impulse triggers should increase both durability and sensitivity, while minimizing drift. There’s also a 3.5mm audio jack on the back to directly connect to headphones. Other features include a classic d-pad and an enhanced grip. So what’s the catch? It’s right there in the name. This is a wired controller, which is both a blessing and a curse. Wired controllers offer reduced latency, making them the preferred choice for pro-level gamers, but keep folks tethered to a cable. It ships with a fairly long cable, at nearly ten feet, but the wireless range of a standard Bluetooth controller comes in at around 20 feet. Follow @EngadgetDeals on Twitter and subscribe to the Engadget Deals newsletter for the latest tech deals and buying advice.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/deals/8bitdos-ultimate-wired-controller-for-xbox-drops-to-a-record-low-of-29-173842848.html?src=rss

02.01.2025 22:10 You can now play Jeopardy! on your Fire TV Stick. Volley, the developer of the Alexa version of the game show, launched a new edition for Amazon’s streaming device on Thursday. Unlike the voice assistant edition, this one lets you see the clues onscreen, which I have to imagine makes it much more enjoyable. Of course, you also get a familiar view of the 60-year-old show’s iconic game board. The game is only available through the developer’s new Volley Games app for Fire OS, which requires a $13 monthly subscription. Jeopardy! is exclusively voice-powered, apart from holding the voice button on the Alexa Voice Remote when you want to answer . Volley Although the photo above hints that the game might support local multiplayer, the developer says the feature won’t be available at launch but “will be coming soon.” For now, the only way to play with friends is to work as a team or take turns with the remote. Jeopardy! only works on the Fire TV Stick, Fire TV Stick 4K and Fire TV Stick 4K Max. So, you’re out of luck if you have a Fire TV Cube or television with Fire TV baked in. However, Volley says it has plans to expand compatibility. This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/this-is-jeopardy-on-your-fire-tv-stick-170008005.html?src=rss

02.01.2025 22:10 Tesla has reported its first-ever decline in annual deliveries. The total number of deliveries for 2024 hovers at around 1.78 million, but the company delivered 1.81 million vehicles in 2023. Company shares fell by as much as seven percent at the news, but has since rallied a couple of points. This follows similar news from Q1 of 2024, but that was just for a single quarter. Q4 showed a slight uptick in deliveries, with 495,000 this year and 484,000 in 2023. However, analysts had predicted a more robust final quarter, according to reporting by CNBC. These analysts expected Q4 deliveries to be somewhere in the range of 506,000. Tesla doesn’t publish actual sales numbers in the US, so these delivery metrics are the closest we get. Numbers are also down in Europe, with a 14 percent decline in 2024 when compared to last year. This is according to registration data from the European Automobile Manufacturers’ Association. We don’t have a concrete reason as to why Tesla deliveries have started to falter, but there are a myriad of options. The company still hasn’t made a budget-friendly EV, instead focusing its energies on the oft-maligned Cybertruck and dreams of robotic taxis. Patrick George, editor in chief of InsideEVs, told CNBC that Cybertrucks have begun “piling up on used car lots.” Sales of Tesla’s radical got off to a great start, but they seem to have slowed down.https://t.co/4BWTa21Mrd— InsideEVs December 20, 2024 The company is also no longer the only EV game in town. It faces steep competition from rival upstarts like Rivian, but also legacy manufacturers. Entities like BMW, GM, Hyundai and Volkswagen have all begun cranking out electric vehicles in large numbers. Finally, there’s the Elon Musk of it all. Tesla’s stock still finished strong for the year, with a 60 percent increase from 2023. Shares actually hit a new high in December, dwarfing the previous all-time high from 2021. In other news, I do not understand stocks. Ford, which sold 1.72 million vehicles in the US by Q3, is worth under $10 per share. Tesla is currently trading at $380 per share, all while selling significantly fewer vehicles than Ford and, well, just about every other major automobile manufacturer. Maybe rival stocks would shoot up if the big US auto companies started putting more effort into humanoid robots that don’t actually do anything. This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/transportation/evs/tesla-reports-its-first-ever-annual-drop-in-deliveries-163154201.html?src=rss

02.01.2025 17:20 Ahead of the official start of CES, Samsung has announced a trio of new Odyssey gaming monitors. Of the bunch, the G81SF is the most interesting. Samsung says it’s the first 4K, 27-inch OLED gaming monitor. The panel features a 240Hz refresh rate and 0.03ms gray-to-gray pixel response time. At 4K and 27 inches, pixel density clocks in at 165 pixels per inch, meaning the G81SF should produce an incredibly sharp image. As Samsung is the main supplier of QD-OLEDs, the G81SF’s panel will almost certainly make its way to other gaming monitors released this year. With CES 2025 about to kick off, some of those could be announced as early as sometime in the next few days. If you don’t want to sacrifice motion clarity for sharpness, Samsung has you covered there too. The second new Odyssey gaming monitor the company announced, the G60SF, features a 500Hz refresh rate. Resolution is limited to 2,560 x 1,440 on this model, but both the G6 and the G8 detailed above will offer VESA True Black 400-certified HDR performance, so the G60SF will still be great for single player games and exceptional for competitive titles like Overwatch 2 and Valorant, thanks to that 500Hz refresh rate. Samsung Rounding out the new Odyssey monitors Samsung announced today is something of a curio and a CES throwback. The 27-inch G90XF has a lenticular lens attached to the front of its panel and stereo camera, meaning you can use it to watch 3D content without wearing 3D glasses. The G90XF includes AI software Samsung says can convert 2D video to 3D, but if we had to guess, the resulting footage won’t look great. If you primarily use your computer for productivity, Samsung hasn’t forgotten you and the company’s new offerings here aren’t any less interesting. First, there’s the Smart Monitor M9 . It features a 32-inch 4K OLED panel that offers True Black 400 HDR performance. It also comes with Samsung’s space-saving Easy Setup Stand, but what separates the M90SF from all the other monitors Samsung announced today are the couple of AI features that come included with it. The first, dubbed AI Picture Optimizer, analyzes the input signal from your PC to automatically adjust the M9’s display settings to produce the best image possible for the content you’re consuming, be that a game, movie or productivity app. The other feature can upscale lower-resolution content to 4K. Lastly, there’s the ViewFinity S8. It’s not an OLED, but at 37 inches, it’s the largest 16:9 4K monitor Samsung has ever offered. It offers 99 percent sRGB color gamut coverage, a built-in KVM switch and 90W USB-C power delivery. It’s not the most exciting monitor in Samsung’s new lineup, but it should appeal to design professionals who want the biggest possible screen but would rather not deal with the line distortion produced by an ultrawide. Samsung did not share pricing and availability information for any of the monitors it announced today. Expect those details to come sometime after CES.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/computing/the-first-27-inch-4k-gaming-oled-monitor-is-here-courtesy-of-samsung-155118244.html?src=rss

02.01.2025 17:20 The US Treasury Department told lawmakers in a letter back in December that its documents and workstations were accessed by an external party in a security breach. It described the attack as "a major cybersecurity incident" and attributed it to a "China state-sponsored Advanced Persistent Threat actor." Now, The Washington Post has reported that the bad actors infiltrated a "highly sensitive office" within the Treasury in charge of deliberating and administering US government sanctions. As The Post explains, the Office of Foreign Assets Control is in possession of some important information that could be very useful to another country's government. While the hackers were only able to steal unclassified data, they could still have gotten their hands on the identities of potential sanction targets. They could also have stolen pieces of evidence that the agency had collected as part of its investigation on entities that the government is thinking of sanctioning. Overall, the attackers could have gotten enough information to give them the knowledge of how the US develops sanctions against foreign entities. In addition to OFAC, the Office of the Treasury Secretary and the Office of Financial Research were also affected by the breach. The attackers infiltrated the Treasury's systems by gaining access to a key used by BeyondTrust, a cloud-based service that provides the department with technical support. The US government has attributed numerous cyberattacks on its agencies and American companies to China state-sponsored actors over the years. Just last year, the FBI blamed "PRC-affiliated actors" for a massive hack on US telecom companies. The actors, a group known as Salt Typhoon, reportedly targeted the mobile devices of diplomats, government officials and other people linked to both presidential campaigns. According to The Post, Chinese officials called claims that their country was involved in the attack on the Treasury Department "groundless" and insisted that their government "has always opposed all forms of hacker attacks."This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/cybersecurity/china-linked-attack-on-us-treasury-department-reportedly-targeted-its-sanctions-office-150033082.html?src=rss

02.01.2025 17:20 Telegram has introduced a new third-party account verification system as part of its latest app update, the company announced in a blog post. The idea is to let public figures or companies that are already verified by Telegram in turn verify others, for instance employees in the organization. "This decentralized platform for additional verification will help prevent scams and reduce misinformation — with a unique proactive solution that sets a new safety standard for social platforms," Telegram wrote. Individuals or groups that want to be able to verify others must already have an official bot verified by Telegram. Once that happens, they can apply to become a third-party verifier on Telegram. They're also required to have a unique icon that will appear next of the names of accounts they verify. Any accounts verified in this way will have that logo next to their name, and opening their profile will show a detailed explanation of that status and what it means. The company emphasized that this type of verification is "completely separate" from its internal verification, and provided more details in a guide. Telegram also introduced new search filters that let you refine a list of results only from private chats, group chats or channels. It also added custom emojis for folder names, reactions for service messages and the ability to upgrade gifts to NFTs. The company also announced that it reached profitability for the first time thanks to monetization features like Premium subscriptions, ads, Telegram Stars and more. Not all has been rosy for the company of late, though: In August last year, the founder of the chat app, Pavel Durov, was arrested over charges that the company hadn't done enough to stop illegal activity on the app. This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/social-media/telegram-introduces-third-party-verification-and-new-search-filters-140013424.html?src=rss

02.01.2025 17:20 Welcome to 2025. Wave farewell to yesteryear with the biggest losers in tech. Picking our favorite villains in 2024 was challenging when it simply wasn’t a great time for tech. With the depressing spiral that is social media, the will-they-or-won’t-they dance of banning TikTok in the US and the neverending edited and deepfaked content, it’s just so noisy. Is it the internet of slop? Is it exhaustion? Is it AIs talking to AIs about AIs? In between all that, there’s the obsolescence of connectors past, Intel’s major struggles to turn around its fortunes, and, ugh, those AI assistants. Engadget And, because it's a new year, we'll be making some changes to the Engadget newsletter in the next few weeks. We'll still be hitting the biggest tech stories and events, but also fold in more context, more writers and editors and even some features from Engadget's past. Is there something you'd like to see in your inbox? Get in touch. – Mat Smith The biggest tech stories you missed Dang, 2024 was a great year for horror game fans Bluesky and Threads showed us very different visions for a post-X future CNBC's new streaming service can cost up to $600 a year Get this delivered daily direct to your inbox. Subscribe right here! New year, new public domain characters and media Tintin dancing to Rhapsody in Blue. Engadget It's the start of a new year, and a fresh crop of creative works have entered the public domain. Today, many materials copyrighted in 1929 and sound recordings from 1924 become fair game to freely adapt, reuse, copy and share. Several seminal directors debuted their first projects with sound, such as Alfred Hitchcock's Blackmail and Cecil B. DeMille's Dynamite. 1929 was also the year when Walt Disney directed the iconic Skeleton Dance short animated by Ub Iwerks, as well as when Mickey Mouse starred in his first talkie. Continue reading. The first PlayStation Plus games of 2025 include The Stanley Parable and Suicide Squad Two games from a decade ago and a critical flop. Sony just revealed the first set of PlayStation Plus games in 2025 available for all subscribers. This month includes Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League, Need for Speed Hot Pursuit Remastered and The Stanley Parable: Ultra Deluxe. Suicide Squad is a surprising addition: It went through multiple delays, got largely negative reviews and reportedly cost Warner Bros. some $200 million. Developers announced that the current season of content would be its last, though there are no plans to shut the game down yet. So play it while you… can? Continue reading.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/general/the-morning-after-engadget-newsletter-121556766.html?src=rss

02.01.2025 02:33 It's the start of a new year, which means a fresh crop of creative works have entered the public domain. Today, many materials that were copyrighted in 1929, along with sound recordings from 1924, become fair game to freely adapt, reuse, copy and share. The Center for Public Domain at Duke Law School collected some of the more notable properties that entered public domain with the start of 2025. This is a big year when it comes to film, with several seminal directors debuting their first projects with sound, such as Alfred Hitchcock's Blackmail and Cecil B. DeMille's Dynamite. 1929 was also the year when Walt Disney directed the iconic Skeleton Dance short animated by Ub Iwerks, as well as when Mickey Mouse starred in his first talkie. The intrepid Tintin and original Popeye characters have arrived in the public domain as well. The compositions for several great songs joined the public domain today. There are memorable show tunes like Singin' in the Rain and An American in Paris alongside jazz standards Ain't Misbehavin' and Black and Blue and classical hits like the masterwork Boléro. On the recording side are tracks like George Gershwin's beautiful Rhapsody in Blue and the legendary singer Marian Anderson's take on My Way's Cloudy. Finally, several authors had titles in the Duke Law roundup. Noir fans will be happy to see Dashiell Hammett's The Maltese Falcon and Red Harvest here. Other notable literary works now in public domain include A Room of One's Own by Virginia Woolf, A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemmingway, Seven Dials Mystery by Agatha Christie and The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner. And for the verse lovers, the original German version of Rainer Maria Rilke's Letters to a Young Poet is also on the list.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/entertainment/thanks-to-public-domain-tintin-can-now-skeleton-dance-to-rhapsody-in-blue-230014559.html?src=rss

02.01.2025 02:33 CNBC is getting in on the streaming game with a service called CNBC+. The platform will have a global livestream with financial news happening in the US, UK and Asian markets. Subscribers can also watch full show episodes on demand. The service is available via iOS and Android apps or on cnbc.com. According to Variety, CNBC announced the news and pricing plans for CNBC+ on January 1 in an email to people who had signed up for the network's digital offerings. Seems odd to announce a brand new property intended for business and financial professionals on a day when most companies are closed. CNBC is also one of the properties current owner Comcast is planning to spin off into a new company, which makes this a potentially challenging time for the network to launch an expensive new endeavor. And expensive is the key word. Not only is it costly to run a digital platform like this, but CNBC+ also doesn't come cheap for viewers. A regular subscription will cost $15 a month, while the Pro tier bundles in additional stock ratings and picks as well as a My Portfolio feature for $35 a month or $300 a year. For the truly committed fans, there is also an All Access plan that includes participation in an online investment club led by CNBC personality Jim Cramer. That plan costs a staggering $600 annually. This isn't the first time cable news has tried a streaming standalone. Warner Bros. Discovery launched a CNN+ service in March 2022, only to immediately pull the plug mere weeks later. We'll see if CNBC+ can last longer.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/entertainment/streaming/cnbcs-new-streaming-service-can-cost-up-to-600-a-year-211554221.html?src=rss

01.01.2025 21:53 Sony just revealed the first set of PlayStation Plus games in 2025 available for all subscribers, regardless of what service tier they're signed up for. Up this month are Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League, Need for Speed Hot Pursuit Remastered and The Stanley Parable: Ultra Deluxe. I can't say it's the most exciting set of games, but at the very least The Stanley Parable is a classic, albeit an old one — the game was first released way back in 2011 as a mod for Half-Life 2. The game then got a proper full release in 2013, and the Ultra Deluxe version was released for modern consoles in 2022. Original creators Davey Wreden and William Pugh put together the Ultra Deluxe edition, with an expanded script and a number of other new changers that the developers weren't exactly forthcoming about: "Everything you remember has been recreated, yet it's different somehow. We've been here before, haven't we?" Broadly speaking, though, the game expands on the original with more choices, more dialog and more choices for the player to navigate. If you haven't given the game a shot, you now have no excuse not to check it out. Need for Speed Hot Pursuit Remastered is another oldie — released originally in 2010, but updated for the PS4 in 2020. That's the version available here, with full career modes for either a racer or cop, depending on which side of the law you feel like being on. This version also includes multiplayer modes and all the DLC that was released for the original game. Finally, the newest game in the batch is Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League, a live service game that went through multiple delays, got largely negative reviews and reportedly cost Warner Bros. some $200 million. Adding insult to injury, developers announced that the current season of content would be its last, though there are no plans to shut the game down yet. Given that it only came out this past February, that's a pretty short lifespan. I'm not sure that I'd want to jump onto the sinking ship at this point, but at least you can give it a shot without shelling out the $70 it still costs. All these games are available as of January 7 to PS Plus subscribers, and you have until then to add December's games to your library. This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/playstation/the-first-playstation-plus-games-of-2025-include-the-stanley-parable-and-suicide-squad-172531311.html?src=rss

01.01.2025 02:02 Squid Game has set a new high for Netflix's television programming. Variety reported that the second season of the Korean show drew in 68 million views over its first four days. That's the biggest debut for a TV show on the streaming platform, besting the 50.1 million set by Wednesday in 2022. The first season of Squid Game also held the crown as the top-watched Netflix series for a while; 142 million households had watched it as of October 2021. The third and final season could deliver a hat trick of record results for the company when it airs next year. While the show offers a skewering critique of capitalism, Netflix has been turning Squid Game into quite the cash cow. The streamer launched a less deadly reality show spinoff, an in-person pop-up experience and a multiplayer mobile game based on the TV series. This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/entertainment/streaming/squid-games-second-season-is-officially-netflixs-biggest-tv-debut-205113266.html?src=rss

01.01.2025 02:02 When it comes to boosting your system’s performance, upgrading to one of the fastest SSDs is a no-brainer. Whether you’re building a gaming PC, speeding up an older laptop or simply craving lightning-fast load times, an SSD is the way to go. Unlike traditional hard drives, SSDs rely on NAND flash storage, meaning you get faster data transfer speeds, improved reliability and a more responsive experience overall.Modern SSDs are quite versatile, catering to everyone from gamers chasing the best performance to those hunting for the best budget options that still deliver solid speed. Pair a quality SSD with a powerful GPU, and you’re set for seamless gaming and multitasking. Plus, with advanced firmware improving efficiency and durability, SSDs are now better than ever at handling high-intensity workloads. In this buying guide, we’ll explore the best SSDs on the market, whether you’re after raw speed, affordability or a combination of the two. Best SSDs in 2025 How we test SSDs I’ve either tested or personally use daily every SSD recommended on this list. Out of our top picks, I bought four with my own money after doing about a dozen hours of research. Separately, Engadget Senior Reporter Jeff Dunn has also tested a handful of our recommendations, including the Crucial X9 Pro listed above. What to look for in a PC SSD The most affordable way to add fast storage space to a computer is with a 2.5-inch SATA drive. It’s also one of the easiest if you don’t want to worry about compatibility since almost every computer made in the last two decades will include a motherboard with Serial ATA connections. For that reason, the best SATA SSDs are an excellent choice if you want to extend the life of an older PC build. Installation is straightforward, too. Once you’ve secured the internal SSD in a drive cage, all you need to do is to connect it to your motherboard and power supply. The one downside of SATA drives is that, in terms of responsiveness, they’re slower than their high-performance NVMe counterparts, with SATA III limiting data transfers to 600MB/s. But even the slowest SSD will be significantly faster than the best mechanical drives. And with high-capacity, 1TB SATA SSDs costing about $100, they’re a good bulk-storage option. If your PC is newer, there’s a good chance it includes space for one or more M.2 SSDs. The form factor represents your ticket to the fastest SSDs on the market, but the tricky part is navigating all the different standards and specs involved. M.2 drives can feature either a SATA or PCIe connection. SSDs with the latter are known as Non-Volatile Memory or NVMe drives and are significantly faster than their SATA counterparts, with Gen3 models offering sequential write speeds of up to 3,000MB/s. These drives rely on NVMe NAND technology for their superior performance and durability. You can get twice the performance with a Gen4 SSD, but you’ll need a motherboard and processor that supports the standard. If you’re running an AMD system, that means at least a Ryzen 3000 or 5000 CPU and an X570 or B550 motherboard. With Intel, meanwhile, you’ll need at least an 11th or 12th Gen processor and a Z490, Z590 or Z690 motherboard. Keep in mind that Gen4 SSDs typically cost more than their Gen3 counterparts as well. More expensive still are the latest Gen5 models, which offer sequential read speeds of up to 16,000MB/s. However, even if your computer supports the standard, you’re better off buying a more affordable Gen4 or Gen3 drive. At the moment, very few games and applications can take advantage of Gen3 NVMe speeds, let alone Gen4 and Gen5 speeds. What’s more, Gen5 NVMe drives can run hot, which can lead to performance and longevity issues. Your money is better spent on other components, like upgrading your GPU, for now. As for why you would buy an M.2 SATA drive over a similarly specced 2.5-inch drive, it comes down to ease of installation. You add M.2 storage to your computer by installing the SSD directly onto the motherboard. That may sound intimidating, but in practice the process involves a single screw that you first remove to connect the drive to your computer and then retighten to secure the SSD in place. As an added bonus, there aren’t any wires involved, making cable management easier. Note that you can install a SATA M.2 SSD into an M.2 slot with a PCIe connection, but you can’t insert an NVMe M.2 SSD into a M.2 slot with a SATA connection. Unless you want to continue using an old M.2 drive, there’s little reason to take advantage of that feature. Speaking of backward compatibility, it’s also possible to use a Gen4 drive through a PCIe 3 connection, but you won’t get any of the speed benefits of the faster NVMe. One last thing to consider is that M.2 drives come in different physical sizes. From shortest to longest, the common options are 2230, 2242, 2260, 2280 and 22110. For the most part, you don’t have to worry about that since 2280 is the default for many motherboards and manufacturers. Some boards can accommodate more than one size of NVMe SSD thanks to multiple standoffs. That said, check your computer’s documentation before buying a drive to ensure you’re picking up a compatible size. If you’re buying a replacement SSD for the Steam Deck or Steam Deck OLED, things are less complicated. For Valve’s handheld, you will need a 2230 size NVMe. Simple. If you don’t want to open your Steam Deck, it’s also possible to expand its storage by installing a microSD card. Engadget has a separate guide dedicated to SD card storage, so check that out for additional buying advice. I alluded to this earlier, but the best buying advice I can offer is don’t get too caught up about being on the bleeding edge of storage tech. The sequential read and write speeds you see manufacturers list on their drives are theoretical and real-world performance benchmark tests vary less than you think. If your budget forces you to choose between a 1TB Gen3 NVMe and a 512GB Gen4 model, go for the higher-capacity one. From a practical standpoint, the worst thing you can do is buy a type of SSD that’s too small for needs. Drives can slow dramatically as they approach capacity, and you will probably end up purchasing one with a larger storage capacity in the future. What to look for in portable and USB flash drives Portable SSDs are a somewhat different beast to their internal siblings. While read and write speeds are important, they are almost secondary to how an external drive connects to your PC. You won’t get the most out of a model like the SanDisk Extreme Pro V2 without a USB 3.2 Gen 2 x 2 connection. Even among newer PCs, that’s something of a premium feature. For that reason, most people are best off buying a portable drive with a USB 3.2 Gen 2 or Thunderbolt connection. The former offers transfer speeds of up to 10Gbps. The best external hard drives also allow you to transfer data from your Windows PC to a Mac, or other device, if compatible. Be sure to consider this beforehand if you plan to use your portable drive across multiple devices. Additionally, if you plan to take your drive on trips and commutes, it’s worthwhile to buy a model with IP-certified water and dust proofing. Some companies like Samsung offer rugged versions of their most popular drives with a high endurance rating. For additional peace of mind, 256-bit AES hardware encryption will help prevent someone from accessing your data if you ever lose or misplace your external SSD. Some of the same features contribute to a great thumbstick drive. Our favorite picks for best budget external SSD models feature USB 3.0 connections and some form of hardware encryption. A note on console storage Seagate If PC gaming isn’t your thing and you own an Xbox Series X|S or PS5, outfitting your fancy new console with the fastest possible storage is far more straightforward than doing the same on PC. With a Series X or Series S, your options are limited to options from Seagate and Western Digital. The former offers 512GB, 1TB and 2TB models, with the most affordable starting at a not-so-trivial $90. Western Digital’s Expansion Cards are less expensive, with pricing starting at $80 for the 512GB model. The good news is that both options are frequently on sale. Your best bet is to set an alert for the model you want by using a price tracker like CamelCamelCamel. With Sony’s PlayStation 5, upgrading the console’s internal storage is slightly more involved. Instead of employing a proprietary solution, the PS5 uses NVMe storage. Thankfully, there aren’t as many potential configurations as you would find on a PC. Engadget maintains a comprehensive guide to the best SSDs for PS5; in short, your best bet is a high-capacity Gen4 drive with a built-in heatsink. Check out that guide for a full list of gaming SSD recommendations, but for a quick go-to, consider the Corsair MP600 Pro LPX I recommend above. It meets all the memory specifications for Sony’s latest console and you won’t run into any clearance issues with the heatsink. Corsair offers 500GB, 1TB, 2TB, 4TB and 8TB versions of the drive. Expect to pay about $110 for the 1TB variant and about $200 for 2TB. For those still playing on a previous generation console, you can get slightly faster game load times from a PlayStation 4 by swapping the included hard drive to a 2.5-inch SSD, but going out of your way to do so probably isn’t worth it at this point and you’re better off saving your money for one of the new consoles. SSD FAQs What size SSD is best? There is no one size fits all rule for SSDs, but we generally recommend getting at least a 1TB SSD if you’re looking to upgrade PC or game console storage, or looking to add an external drive to your toolkit. A 1TB drive will be plenty for most people who need extra storage space for photos, documents and programs. If you’re a hardcore gamer, you may want to invest in even more storage considering many high-profile titles today can take up a ton of space. Is a 256GB SSD better than a 1TB hard drive? The short answer is that it depends on what you need your drive for. In general, SSDs are faster and more efficient than HDDs, but HDDs are usually cheaper. We recommend springing for an SSD for most use cases today — upgrading a PC, saving important photos and documents, storing games long term, etc. But if you’re focused on getting the most amount of extra space possible , an HDD could be a good option for you. Does bigger SSD mean faster? Getting a bigger SSD doesn’t always translate into a faster drive overall. A bigger SSD will provide a higher storage capacity, which means more space for storing digital files and programs. To understand how fast an SSD will be, you’ll want to look at its read/write speeds: read speeds measure how fast a drive can access information, while write speeds measure how fast the drive can save information. Most SSDs list their approximate read/write speeds in their specs, so be sure to check out those numbers before you make a purchase.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/computing/accessories/best-ssds-140014262.html?src=rss