Hisense secured nine IFA Innovation Awards 2025 across home entertainment, appliances, and design, while extending its FIFA World Cup sponsorship to 2026. Read...

No professional sport has been more savvy and enthusiastic about offering new ways to present football games to fans. There are more options than ever for watching–and streaming–NFL games in 2025. Our in-depth guide will show you all the ways you can watch every game of the season without needing to pay for an expensive cable or satellite TV subscription. Watch football with an over-the-air antenna Unlike the NBA, NHL, or MLB, the NFL plays a simple 17-game schedule, with each team playing one game a week. That lends itself to predictable TV programming. The league splits the Sunday afternoon telecasts by conference: generally, AFC games air on CBS, and Fox televises the NFC games. NBC hosts the popular Sunday Night Football broadcast. Those games generally kick off each week at 8:20 p.m. ET. ABC broadcasts many Monday Night Football at 8:00 p.m. ET, but you’ll need access to ESPN to see every Monday-night game. So, if you have an over-the-air TV antenna and reasonable proximity to a broadcast tower, you should be able to watch most of the NFL action for free. We can help you find the right antenna for your needs. When I want to know which game is on which channel, I consult either 506Sports.com or Sports Media Watch. I suggest you bookmark one or the other for easy access. Amazon Prime Video will stream all Thursday Night Football games for the 2023 NFL season. Streaming services offering NFL games Even if you don’t have a cable subscription or a TV antenna, you still have plenty of options for catching all the pro pigskin action. Streaming options continue to expand each season, and you need only a smart TV or a media streamer and a subscription to access them. These are our top picks in streaming devices If you don’t already have one. Verizon is once again offering a free season of NFL Sunday Ticket to new and existing subscribers who are willing to jump through some hoops, but Sling TV offers the least-expensive means of watching NFL games if you can’t use an antenna. Its new short-term “passes” deliver access to its Orange channel bundle, which includes ESPN. A $4.99 Day Pass provides 24 hours of access, a $9.99 Weekend Pass is good Friday through Sunday, and $14.99 Week Pass covers you for seven consecutive days. Unfortunately, ESPN owner Disney has filed a lawsuit to stop Sling from including ESPN in these passes. Stay tuned. Sling also offers a more complete TV offering with its Orange and Blue packages, which include local broadcast channels (ABC, Fox, and NBC, but not CBS) in some markets. Subscribe to both for $60.99 per month, and you’ll also get ESPN and the NFL Network, while its Sports Extra add-on ($11 a month) includes NFL RedZone. I’ll cover the streaming services that compete with Sling in a moment. NBC-owned Peacock streams Sunday Night Football on its Premium ($10.99/mo) or Premium Plus ($16.99/mo) service tiers if you can’t use an antenna to receive those broadcasts. Prime Video is the home of Thursday Night Football (TNF). Amazon will stream 15 games, including the Black Friday game (Eagles vs. the Bears, in Chicago, November 28) and the Christmas night game (Broncos vs. the Chiefs, in Kansas City, December 25). You’ll need to be an Amazon Prime subscriber to watch those matches. While only the hardest of hardcore football fans will sign up solely for NFL games, membership does offer lots of other benefits, starting with free expedited shipping on Amazon purchases; Amazon music, movies, and TV shows; video games; and a Grubhub+ subscription. Subscriptions cost $14.99 per month or $139 per year. Netflix, now in the second year of its three-year Christmas deal, will exclusively stream two games on December 25: The Dallas Cowboys at the Washington Commanders at 1:00 p.m. ET, and the Detroit Lions at the Minnesota Vikings at 4:30 p.m. ET. Netflix subscriptions range from $7.99 per month for the ad-supported tier to $24.99 per month for 4K resolution and spatial audio. Together with the evening game on Prime Video, this creates a Christmas tripleheader. DirectTVStream offers CBS, NBC, Fox, and ESPN in its $84.99-per-month Entertainment package. New subscriptions come with a $35 discount for a month, before reverting to whatever the current monthly price is. Sling TV’s Day, Weekend, and Week Passes give you access to its Orange channel bundle, which includes ESPN.Sling Fubo will give you CBS, FOX, and NBC for all Sunday games, as well as ESPN for Monday Night Football and the NFL Network as part of its Pro package, which costs $84.99 per month. Currently, it’s offering $30 off the first month. For an additional $10.99 per month, you can also get NFL RedZone via the service’s Sports Plus add-on. Hosted by Scott Hanson and existing only for about a seven-hour window each Sunday, RedZone airs nothing but the day’s highlights (mostly touchdowns, as the name suggests) at a frenetic pace that perfectly evokes the adrenaline rush of a game-winning drive. Here’s an easy guide to signing up for NFL RedZone. Both Hulu + Live TV and YouTube TV include ABC, CBS, Fox, NBC, ESPN, and NFL Network in their subscriptions for $82.99 per month each. Currently, New YouTube TV customers can get the first three months for $49.99 before the rate reverts to the regular price. YouTube TV also offers NFL RedZone as part of its Sports Plus add-on for an additional $10.99 a month. YouTube also offers NFL Sunday Ticket, which lets you stream every out-of-market NFL game on Sundays. Returning NFL Sunday Ticket subscribers can add it to their YouTube TV subscription for an additional $47.25 per month for the eight months of the regular season ($378 in total). New subscribers who sign up before September 30, however, will pay $34.50 per month for those eight months ($276 in total). If you don’t want to pay for YouTube TV, returning NFL Sunday Ticket subscribers can sign up via YouTube PrimeTime Channels for $60 per month ($480 for the season). Here again, new subscribers get a break, paying $34.50 per month ($276 for the season). Just be aware that neither of these options can be cancelled and there are no refunds. Netflix, which created the popular Quarterback documentary, has deepened its ties with the NFL through a three-year deal to host the league’s Christmas package. This year, that includes the Cowboys at Commanders at 1 p.m. ET and the Lions at Vikings at 4:30 p.m. ET. Netflix offers three paid plans: Standard with ads ($7.99 a month), Standard ($17.99 a month), and Premium ($24.99 a month), with perks such as additional device support, the ability to add members, and spatial audio tacked on as you move up the tiers. Paramount+ streams CBS’s NFL telecasts to subscribers of its $7.99-per-month Essential plan. We have another story that provides even more details about watching NFL games on Paramount+. Peacock will exclusively carry a Week 17 primetime matchup on December 27, 2025, as part of its “Peacock Holiday Exclusive.” It will also stream all NBC Sunday Night Football games, including the playoffs, and the Football Night in America studio show. A Peacock Premium plan costs $10.99 a month; a Premium Plus Plan, $16.99 per month, removes ads and enables you to download and watch select titles offline. What’s included with an NFL+ subscription? NFL+ is the NFL’s own streaming service, which replaced its popular subscription package, NFL Game Pass. A $6.99-per-month ($49.99 per season) NFL+ subscription allows you to watch local and primetime games live on your mobile devices. It also includes access to live out-of-market preseason games, live game audio, and the NFL Network. If you level up to an NFL+ Premium plan, which costs $14.99 per month ($99.99 per season), you’ll get everything in the standard NFL+ plan; plus, NFL Red Zone and the ability to replay every regular-season game after its conclusion in either full or condensed versions. The NFL+ Premium plan also gives you access to the NFL Pro platform. Targeting the league’s most rabid fans, this offering allows subscribers to dive into the games’ minutiae via the ability to search through the All-22 coaches film, which lets you watch games from different angles to analyze plays in detail. You also gain access to player and performance metrics via NFL Next Gen Stats, which uses sensors and RFID tags to collect data on everything from ball movement to player speed, acceleration, and location. It’s worth noting that you don’t need to purchase a separate subscription to get on-the-go access to live games, as that’s offered with many of the services listed above. NFL+ replaces the league’s NFL Game Pass subscription streaming service. With it, you can stream out-of-market pre-season games live on any device. You can watch live regular-season games on your smartphone or tablet.Michael Brown/Foundry What’s next for NFL streaming? Super Bowl LIX, drew more than 123 million viewers across all platforms, once again ranking as the most-watched broadcast in U.S. television history. That record audience proves fans are willing to follow the league wherever it goes. The bigger question is how far the NFL will push exclusive streaming in future seasons. With multiple platforms now claiming pieces of the schedule, fans already face juggling subscriptions—and rising costs—if they want to see every game. If the league continues down this path, it could reshape how we experience live sports in the 21st century as profoundly as the shift to broadcast television did in the 20th. Read...

Did you know that, between 1976 and 1978, Microsoft developed its own version of the BASIC programming language? It was initially called Altair BASIC before becoming Microsoft BASIC, and it was designed for the 6502 (a microprocessor used in the Apple II, Atari 2600, VIC-20, Commodore 64, and Nintendo Entertainment System). As of yesterday, Microsoft has released the version 1.1 source code of “Microsoft BASIC for 6502 Microprocessor” on GitHub, which means you can freely view the assembly code and even download it if you want to. Why did Microsoft publish this code? Because it has historical significance and was one of the pillars of modern software: This source code represents the foundation upon which the modern software industry was built. The techniques, patterns, and business models pioneered in this BASIC interpreter directly influenced: The development of MS-DOS and subsequent Microsoft operating systems The standardization of programming language implementations The establishment of software licensing as a business model The democratization of computer programming Microsoft’s version of BASIC was one of the first programming languages that the general public came into contact with, making it an important milestone in computer history. While Microsoft BASIC is no longer used in earnest, its spirit lives on with Visual Basic .NET. Read...

Illegal sports TV streams are popular all around the world—so much so that they’re among the most popular IPTV offerings alongside classic streaming content from Netflix, Prime Video, etc. Unsurprisingly, these streams are also a huge thorn in the sides of authorities. But yesterday, sports piracy took a huge blow after Egyptian police successfully took down Streameast, the largest known provider of illegal sports streaming content. According to the US-based Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment (ACE), Streameast (and its 80+ related domains) were recently taken offline. With around 1.6 billion visitors per year and content offerings from around the globe—including Champions League matches to Formula 1 races to MMA fights to other sports like the NFL, NBA, and NHL—Streameast was the most iconic provider of pirated sports streams. The operators of Streameast were reportedly tracked down in a large-scale operation on August 24th. Two men from Cairo, who were arrested by police, were apparently responsible for running the sites and have been operating for around 15 years. They also apparently invested a large part of their income in bogus companies and property. It isn’t yet known whether revenue from the streaming portals or material assets were confiscated in the process. All existing Streameast domains will now be redirected to an ACE information page that highlights 140+ legal providers of streaming content and live broadcasts. More action against illegal providers Authorities around the world are increasingly taking action against providers of illegal streaming services, and more and more operators have been arrested in recent years. As a rule, they operate professionally and disguise their operations by distributing offers to potential users via numerous intermediaries and splitting them across several domains. However, users of such sites should be careful because piracy sites can be attack vectors for viruses and other malware. In some jurisdictions, use of illegal streams can result in steep fines and claims for damages. Even if it’s unlikely that the authorities will be able to trace every single user, the providers and their intermediaries usually keep logs of user activity and their associated payment methods, which can then be used to prosecute users after a service takedown. Read...

LG launches the StanbyME 2, a portable 27-inch QHD smart screen in Australia, priced at AUD $2,199, offering flexible, AI-enhanced entertainment at home. Read...

At a glanceExpert`s Rating Pros Absolutely stunning display Ripping CPU performance RTX 5050 has huge advantage over iGPU Potent, six-speaker audio system Largely silent operation Cons Mics need noise cancelling Front edge of laptop can dig into wrists Our Verdict If you want a laptop that exudes greatness everywhere you look, the Lenovo Yoga Pro 9i 16 Gen 10 Aura Edition is it. From brilliant performance in its class and respectable battery life to a brilliant display and solid design, this machine makes the price tag seem reasonable. Price When Reviewed This value will show the geolocated pricing text for product undefined Best Pricing Today Best Prices Today: Lenovo Yoga Pro 9i 16 Gen 10 Aura Edition Retailer Price Check Price comparison from over 24,000 stores worldwide Product Price Price comparison from Backmarket Best Prices Today: Check today’s prices Usually, when I think of a high-end laptop, I think of one that has pulled out all of the stops, going far too exotic on build materials, cramming too much hardware in too thin a machine, and winding up with an exorbitant price tag that perfectly illustrates the concept of diminishing returns. At first glance, the Lenovo Yoga Pro 9i 16 Gen 10 Aura Edition looks like it might just be that kind of machine. With a high-power CPU, a discrete GPU, and two display options that both are geared up to dazzle, the Yoga Pro 9i 16 Gen 10 Aura Edition certainly has the hardware, but it’s packed into a modest aluminum frame that’s not overly ambitious in its thinness. And with a $1,949 price tag for the potent configuration tested here, it feels like Lenovo struck the right balance, delivering solid quality everywhere it counts to make for a very respectable machine for folks who need a machine that can do a bit of everything and do it well.  Lenovo Yoga Pro 9i 16 Gen 10 Aura Edition: Specs and features Model number: 83L00009US CPU: Intel Core Ultra 9 285H Memory: 32GB LPDDR5x-8400 Graphics/GPU: Nvidia RTX 5050 8GB (100-watt TGP) Display: 16-inch 2.8K OLED, 120Hz, DisplayHDR True Black 1000, Touch Storage: 1TB PCIe Gen4 SSD Webcam: 5MP + IR Connectivity: 2x Thunderbolt 4 / USB4 with 65-100W Power Delivery and DisplayPort 2.1, 2x USB-A 5Gbps, 1x HDMI 2.1, 1x SDcard reader, 1x 3.5mm combo audio Networking: Wi-Fi 7, Bluetooth 5.4 Biometrics: Windows Hello fingerprint, facial recognition Battery capacity: 84 watt-hours Dimensions: 14.28 x 9.99 x 0.75 inches Weight: 4.52 pounds MSRP: $1,949 as-tested ($1,869 base) At the time of testing, the Lenovo Yoga Pro 9i 16 Gen 10 Aura Edition was available in just a few configurations. All of them shared the same Intel Core Ultra 9 285H CPU, 32GB of memory, and 1TB of storage. The type of display and GPU were the only different points. Lenovo provides the option between a 2880×1800 OLED display paired with an RTX 5050 for $1,999 and a 3200×2000 Tandem OLED paired with an RTX 5060 for $2,299, though at the time of writing, those prices were discounted to $1,899 and $1,949 respectively. Best Buy also had the former configuration available for $1,949.  In addition to its preconfigured models, Lenovo offers a custom configuration tool. This starts at $1,869 for the same configuration as the base model above. But you can upgrade to 64GB of memory, an RTX 5070, and the 3.2K Tandem OLED display for $560 more. Or you can stick with the base specs and just upgrade to the Tandem OLED for $150 extra.  Lenovo’s full technical specifications for the product suggest quite a few more configurations to come, including touch and non-touch display options and an Intel Core Ultra 7 255H. The Lenovo Yoga Pro 9i 16 Gen 10 Aura Edition is a great machine. It comes at a price, but the premium isn’t so unreasonable when factoring in all that it brings to the table. Lenovo Yoga Pro 9i 16 Gen 10 Aura Edition: Design and build quality IDG / Mark Knapp The Lenovo Yoga Pro 9i 16 Gen 10 Aura Edition is simple and elegant, but a little bland as a result. Lenovo has done a nice job rounding corners all over the place for a smoother look and feel, though the edges of the keyboard deck could still be a little more rounded for comfort. That said, it’s still a big gray slab, and nothing about it being an “Aura Edition” gives it anything more than an aura of plainness.  The construction is good. Just about everywhere you look — aside from the keycaps — is smooth aluminum or glass, including the display and its bezels. There’s some flex here and there, but it’s very slight. The display hinge moves smoothly, and is easy to open with one hand thanks to the weight of the base and a little lip at the top of the screen for this purpose and to give more space to the webcam and IR sensor. The hinge does wiggle for a second or two after moving the display or shifting the laptop around, but it holds firm while I’m typing.  The base sits on three rubber feet, a long one at the back and two small ones at the front. These are taller than is typical on productivity laptops, and this helps create an extra large channel underneath the laptop for airflow into the large grille underneath. Most of this grille is filled in, with sections at either side actually serving as intakes for the two fans.  Lenovo has squeezed in six speakers in total with two tweeters and four woofers. You’ll find speakers on either side of the keyboard and on the edges underneath the laptop.  Ports are all packed reasonably close together on either side of the laptop, including a dedicated power plug. The right edge also includes a privacy shutter switch that deactivates the camera — nice to see and easier to avoid accidentally swiping every time I open the laptop, though a little less reassuring than a shutter that actually covers up the camera sensor. The Yoga Pro 9i 16 Gen 10 Aura Edition’s power button is also on the right edge of the laptop, where it’s a little too easy to accidentally press any time I shift the laptop around on a desk or table.  With all the Lenovo has jammed into this 16-inch laptop, it’s little surprise that it’s over four pounds, but at just 4.52 pounds, it’s not unreasonably heavy. The laptop has a tapered design, seeing it sit at about 0.7 inches thick near the front and 0.75 inches thick near the back, though the rubber feet add almost 0.2 inches to that. At 14.28 inches wide and 9.99 inches long, it’s still fairly modest in size for a 16-inch laptop. Lenovo Yoga Pro 9i 16 Gen 10 Aura Edition: Keyboard, trackpad IDG / Mark Knapp The Lenovo Yoga Pro 9i 16 Gen 10 Aura Edition has a pretty good keyboard on it. It’s a little bland to look at with its drab gray keycaps, but that doesn’t hurt its usability. Thanks to the slight dish to each keycap, good stabilization, and a short, poppy travel, I was able to quickly get up to a 118-word-per-minute typing speed with 98 percent accuracy in Monkeytype. Comfort while typing is an issue though. The laptop’s depth makes the keyboard quite a reach up the keyboard deck even for me (I’m 6’3”), and this leaves my wrists pressing into the front lip of the laptop, which isn’t very comfortable. It also can take some adjusting, as the keyboard is off-center to make room for a full number pad, albeit with keys slightly narrower than standard.  The keyboard has bright backlighting that can even be seen in the daytime with ambient lighting. It effectively illuminates the keycap legends. It has two levels, and a third option lets it turn on automatically. It’s a bit too aggressive, though, turning on even in a room plenty bright for seeing the keys.  The trackpad here is substantial. It’s both wide and tall, providing a huge surface to mouse around on and perform multi-finger gestures. Its glass surface is also wonderfully smooth. It has a shallow travel to perform physical clicks with a nice soft feel. Like the keyboard, it’s off-center, shifted to the left slightly to be centered under the keyboard alphanumerics. For left-handed users, this may be ideal. But for righties, it might not be. I often find this alignment has me largely using the right side of the trackpad, so when I go for a physical click, it ends up being a right click instead of the left click. If you tap to click, it won’t be a problem though. Lenovo Yoga Pro 9i 16 Gen 10 Aura Edition: Display, audio IDG / Mark Knapp The Lenovo Yoga Pro 9i 16 Gen 10 Aura Edition has an absolutely excellent display, and this configuration of the system has the lower-end display option. The upper-tier’s tandem OLED display should only improve on its quality. The only quality to knock is that the screen is glossy, which leaves it subject to glare when set to low brightness levels. Beyond that, it’s brilliant. It’s perfectly sharp for a display its size, and its variable refresh rate keeps visuals smooth at up to 120Hz while also providing energy savings by dropping as low as 30Hz. The display offers 100 percent coverage of the DCI-P3 color space and provides a reasonable degree of accuracy, hitting an average dE1976 of 0.95 and a max of 2.4 — a bit of calibration would likely have it ready for professional color work. In SDR, the display was able to reach a peak brightness of 486.1 nits for a full white screen, and with its OLED panel, it can achieve perfect blacks for infinite contrast. Turning on HDR, the display’s capabilities leap up even higher. I measured the fullscreen white peak brightness at 606 nits, and when displaying a 10 percent window of white, it achieved 1040 nits. The display is even a responsive touchscreen.  With its set of two tweeters and four woofers, the Yoga Pro 9i 16 Gen 10 Aura Edition puts out impressive sound for a laptop. Most impressive is the clean, low-end it provides, giving musical bass lines a nice heft. Meanwhile, the upper registers get a clean presentation, albeit a little bit lacking in brilliance. There’s even some surprising stereo imaging. When listening to music with the laptop at a comfortable distance for typing, I was caught off guard by how sounds actually seemed to be coming from my sides and not just from the laptop right in front of me. At full volume, the speakers can distort a little, but they sound reasonably loud even at 50 percent volume.  Lenovo Yoga Pro 9i 16 Gen 10 Aura Edition: Webcam, microphone, biometrics IDG / Mark Knapp The webcam on the Yoga Pro 9i 16 Gen 10 Aura Edition is excellent. It can exhibit a little noise in the video, but otherwise has a very sharp image with natural lighting that looks great. Though Lenovo doesn’t have a physical shutter to cover the lens, it does provide a hardware switch on the side of the laptop to disable the camera. The webcam also provides Windows Hello facial recognition, which has worked quickly throughout my testing. You won’t find fingerprint scanning though. The mics aren’t quite as impressive. On one hand, they pick up my voice clearly without any weird compression artifacts. But on the other hand, they’re not doing much to eliminate background noise, picking up things like a nearby fan and my hands clapping — noises I’ve seen some laptops completely eliminate while still picking up my voice well.  Lenovo Yoga Pro 9i 16 Gen 10 Aura Edition: Connectivity IDG / Mark Knapp The Lenovo Yoga Pro 9i 16 Gen 10 Aura Edition provides respectable connectivity, both wired and wireless. You’ll find two USB-C ports on the left edge offering Thunderbolt 4/USB4 capabilities and up to 100W power delivery to charge the laptop if you forget the standard charger (a 170W unit with Lenovo’s charging plug). The ports also support DisplayPort 2.1, but you can rely on the HDMI 2.1 port for video output as well. The left side is rounded out by a 3.5mm audio jack. On the right side, you’ll find a pair of 5Gbps USB-A ports and a full-size SD card reader. It would have been nice to see 10Gbps ports or at least to get the USB-C ports split between the two sides.  For wireless connections, the Yoga Pro 9i 16 Gen 10 Aura Edition offers Wi-Fi 7, and it’s proven both fast and reliable in my testing, never showing signs of lag or being slow to re-establish a connection when booting up the machine. Bluetooth 5.4 is also supported, and it has worked consistently while listening to audio on Bluetooth headphones. Lenovo Yoga Pro 9i 16 Gen 10 Aura Edition: Performance The Lenovo Yoga Pro 9i 16 Gen 10 Aura Edition is built like many other productivity laptops in the 16-inch class. This sees it face off against models like the Acer Swift 16 AI, the HP OmniBook X Flip 16, the Dell Inspiron 16 Plus, and the Dell 16 Plus, which all offered as-tested prices hundreds of dollars below the Yoga Pro 9i 16 Gen 10 Aura Edition. But, even as the Yoga Pro 9i 16 Gen 10 Aura Edition competes on size and weight with these other systems (save for the particularly thin and light Acer Swift 16 AI), it goes a little heavier in performance with a more robust CPU selection and a discrete GPU, an inclusion only the Dell Inspiron 16 Plus made at its as-tested price. The Yoga Pro 9i 16 Gen 10 Aura Edition offers excellent performance thanks to its combination of a high-end CPU in the Core Ultra 9 285H — a 16-core beast — with plenty of memory, fast storage, and its discrete GPU. The RTX 5050 inside gives it a strong edge in content creation, where it outpaced all of these other systems, including the RTX 4060-powered Dell Inspiron 16 Plus.  Cinebench helps us see just how much of an edge Lenovo’s choice of CPU gives the Yoga Pro 9i 16 Gen 10 Aura Edition. In Cinebench R23, the Yoga Pro 9i 16 Gen 10 Aura Edition simply obliterates the performance offered by the Intel Core Ultra 7 256V and Intel Core Ultra 7 258V, more than doubling their results. It even cruises ahead of the Dell Inspiron 16 Plus. This is a level of performance that can put the Yoga Pro 9i 16 Gen 10 Aura Edition in league with heavy-duty gaming laptops, like the Lenovo Legion 5i 15IRX10 running on an Intel Core i7-14700HX. The CPU’s single-core performance is also exceptional, giving it all the performance it needs to feel responsive and power through heavy workloads.  That performance is showcased well in our Handbrake encoding test. This is effectively an extension of our CPU test, as it tasks the system with a long multi-core workload encoding a large video file. This not only requires a powerful CPU to perform well but also solid cooling to prevent heat from building up and slowing the system down as the test stretches on. Here, we see the Yoga Pro 9i 16 Gen 10 Aura Edition do a great job, keeping its encoding time at under 11 minutes. That’s not only well underneath the encoding times of these other machines, some of which almost ran for 30 minutes, but it even slips underneath the encoding time of the AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 370-powered Razer Blade 16 (2025).  Though the Yoga Pro 9i 16 Gen 10 Aura Edition might have already successfully set itself apart from its competition on CPU performance alone, its discrete GPU helps take it to another level still. Intel Arc graphics work wonders for lightweight productivity machines, but even lower-tier discrete GPUs provide a world of difference. That’s true of the RTX 4060 in the Dell Inspiron 16 Plus and even more so for the RTX 5050 in the Yoga Pro 9i 16 Gen 10 Aura Edition. That discrete GPU soared ahead of the competition in 3DMark’s Time Spy benchmark, a rather demanding graphical test. Despite its thinner design and largely quiet operation, the Yoga Pro 9i 16 Gen 10 Aura Edition actually managed to offer performance that lines up with many RTX 4060-powered gaming laptops.   Lenovo Yoga Pro 9i 16 Gen 10 Aura Edition: Battery life With as much performance as the Lenovo Yoga Pro 9i 16 Gen 10 Aura Edition was happy to put down, it’s unsurprising that it falls a bit behind its rivals where battery life is concerned. The Yoga Pro 9i 16 Gen 10 Aura Edition still managed a commendable runtime of almost 14 hours, but most of the other machines pushed closer to 17 or 18 hours, except the Dell 16 Plus, which also had a small 63Wh battery.  While that’s not as impressive as these other machines, it’s not a bad showing, particularly for a machine with a discrete GPU and higher-power CPU. It’s striking a nice balance with performance that borders on gaming laptop while maintaining battery life more in line with productivity machines. Its offline video playback performance also carried over well into real-world use, where I was easily able to get through a full workday on battery power (albeit without tapping into the dGPU).  Lenovo Yoga Pro 9i 16 Gen 10 Aura Edition: Conclusion The Lenovo Yoga Pro 9i 16 Gen 10 Aura Edition is a great machine. It comes at a price, but the premium isn’t so unreasonable when factoring in all that it brings to the table. Not only do you get exceptional performance from the internals, but you get them in a well-built package with plenty of extras to get excited about. The speakers and display combine for a great entertainment experience. The chassis is elegant and feels solid. And even with such high-power hardware, the Yoga Pro 9i 16 Gen 10 Aura Edition is happy to run on battery power for an entire workday. If you need a machine that largely excels in every respect, you’ve just found it. Read...

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The best way to watch Monday Night Football without paying for a full TV package or ESPN subscription could be short-lived if Disney gets its way. Disney is suing Sling TV over its Day Passes, which provide access to Sling’s Orange bundle (including Disney-owned ESPN and more than 30 other channels) for $5, with weekend and weeklong passes also available for $10 and $15 respectively. By comparison, a full month of Sling Orange costs $46, and ESPN’s new streaming service costs $30 per month on its own. With Day Passes, Sling is solving a real problem with sports streaming: Even if you’re only interested in a single game, you must pay for an entire month of service. Programmers like Disney should be embracing this approach to reach audiences who otherwise might not pay anything, but they’re too short-sighted to realize it. Why Sling is right While we all want more flexible options, new standalone offerings from the likes of Fox and Disney’s ESPN are insufficient. Both companies have intentionally set prices high—$30 per month for ESPN, $20 per month for Fox One—hoping to prolong the pay TV model that’s collapsing under them. The appeal will likely be limited. We’ve already seen this play out with regional sports networks, most of which now offer their own standalone services in the $20 to $30 per month range. Despite offering more local team games than ESPN and Fox combined, these offerings aren’t gaining much traction because they’re just too expensive. The networks themselves have admitted it. Meanwhile, younger viewers are tuning out. According to Front Office Sports, the average primetime NFL viewer is 62.5 years old, and ESPN chairman Jimmy Pitaro acknowledged that executives at the company worry about resonating with young audiences. A recent survey of sports executives found that 65 percent are concerned about maintaining live sports’ relevance. So here’s a wild idea: Maybe make it easier for people to get in the door. Let them buy access to a game, or a weekend, or a week, and maybe they’ll come back for more. If not, at least they’ll have paid something instead of turning back to piracy. The old TV business model is falling apart regardless, so now is the time to try new things. Disney: Sling didn’t ask us As we’re learning now, Disney isn’t the one willing to experiment. While Sling previously indicated that it briefed its programming partners on the Day Passes, it never explicitly said that they were on board. Disney, meanwhile, says it didn’t even get the memo. “Sling TV’s new offerings, which they made available without our knowledge or consent, violate the terms of our existing license agreement,” the company said in a statement to media outlets. It wants the court to make Sling remove Disney’s channels from the Day Passes. Keep in mind that in the pay TV world, distributors like Sling typically pay a per-month, per-subscriber “carriage fee” to programmers like Disney in exchange for their channels. The per-subscriber fee for ESPN alone was reportedly around $10 per month a couple of years ago, and that cost gets passed onto customers. The fact that Sling launched its day passes without Disney’s blessing raises some knotty questions, like: How much does Sling pay Disney when someone only signs up for a day? Is it counting per-subscriber carriage fees in a different way, or eating the month’s fee in hopes that day pass holders become regular subscribers? Were any other programmers on board with the idea, or was this all just a gambit to bring them to the bargaining table? Sling’s PR department didn’t answer those questions, but said it plans to fight the lawsuit, which it called meritless. “We will vigorously defend our right to bring customers a viewing experience that fits their lives, on their schedule and on their terms,” the company said. A long history of short-sightedness Unfortunately, this kind of hardball hasn’t ended well for TV distributors in the past. Back in 2015, Verizon tried to offer a flexible TV package for Fios customers, with a base channel lineup and a selection of “Channel Packs” for things like sports and news. Disney sued over it, and while Verizon initially claimed it was within its rights, it eventually watered down the offering and settled the lawsuit. Then, in 2020, T-Mobile tried to launch a new TV service with two distinct packages—one with broadcast, news, and sports channels, and one focused on entertainment. Programmers flipped out, claiming that T-Mobile tricked them into splitting up their channels, and T-Mobile wound up exiting the TV business entirely. With the bottom dropping out on the pay TV business, programmers have only now started embracing a modicum of flexibility, with companies like DirecTV offering “Genre Packs” for less than a typical pay TV package. But even that only happened because DirecTV was wiling to wage a PR war against Disney and subject its customers to extended blackouts. These kinds of changes shouldn’t have taken a decade, and deep down, programmers know it. They’ve quietly bemoaned the destruction of the pay TV bundle, yet they did nothing to avert it. With day passes, programmers like Disney have another chance to innovate on a tired business model and reach folks who might not otherwise even pay for their services. While it’s no surprise that they’re against it, hopefully Sling can force the issue. 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Back in 2019, an indie game launched with a simple tagline: “It’s a lovely morning in the village and you are a horrible goose.” And Untitled Goose Game tells no lies. This one sentence describes its premise accurately. I tell everyone to play it.  I’ve been especially vocal during the past week, when its price on Steam dropped to its all-time low of just $7 for the second time ever. Normally, it’s $20 and already worth the several hours of entertainment it provides. Why is being a jerk to everyone in the most serene, chill, and nonviolent hamlet so delightful? I’m too cheap to pay for the therapy to unpack that. I’d much rather sing the game’s praises. Developer House House calls its creation a “slapstick-stealth-sandbox” game, which is decently accurate (and pretty funny). I’d call it humor masquerading as a low-key puzzle game. With the ability to terrorize everyone with your honking. Assassin’s Creed: Goose (I’d play that game if it were real.)House House / Steam Already have played the game? At $7, it’s cheap to gift a copy to friends who’ve so far missed out. The sale runs until next week, ending September 4 at 10am Pacific, so you can think a bit on who deserves such an act of love. Or self-defense. You learn a lot about people as they inflict psychological warfare on harmless village inhabitants. While also desecrating their belongings. Especially if you’re playing with said loved ones during local co-op mode. Get Untitled Goose Game for $7 on Steam Read...