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13 May 2025   
  
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Grab Samsung’s ultra-tiny 128GB flash drive for only $15 right now
Big things come in small packages, or so they say. That maybe isn’t always the case, but it sure is with the Samsung FIT Plus! This super-fast, super-tiny USB flash drive is smaller than your thumb, and the price for it is equally miniscule right now: get 128GB for just $15 on Amazon, or 256GB for $23 (was $35), or 512GB for $60 (was $80). The Samsung FIT Plus is small enough that it blends in with Bluetooth and wireless dongles, and it’s so invisible that you’ll probably forget it exists once plugged into your laptop. It may even end up being a permanent fixture in its port as it won’t get in the way and might just be more convenient to just leave it plugged in all the time. But it’s not just small. It’s fast. With read speeds up to 400 MB/s, it can stream 4K video files without issue and transfer large data files within seconds, not minutes. It’s the perfect high-speed USB flash drive for laptops, smart TVs, gaming consoles, and even car audio systems. And it’s pretty robust, too. The FIT Plus is waterproof, shockproof, magnet-proof, X-ray-proof, and secure even if you accidentally drop it. With price drops on all the capacities from 128GB to 512GB, you can snag whichever one best fits your data needs. But be sure to grab it soon because we don’t know how much longer these prices will last. Get the 128GB Samsung FIT Plus for $15 (was $23)Buy now at Amazon Get the 256GB Samsung FIT Plus for $23 (was $35)Buy now at Amazon Get the 512GB Samsung FIT Plus for $60 (was $80)Buy now at Amazon 
© 2025 PC World 1:35am 

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Score HP’s OLED gaming laptop with RTX 4060 for $470 off today
With so many laptop models available today, it can be tough to figure out which laptop is the right one to get if you’re looking for high-end greatness. But if you ask me, it doesn’t have to be that difficult. Any laptop with powerful specs—CPU, GPU, and display—at a reasonable price is a winner in my book. Like the HP Omen Transcend 14, which ticks all the boxes and is now on sale for $1,230 at Best Buy. That’s a solid $470 off its MSRP! And the specs are worth it. We reviewed this laptop and we loved it enough to give it a 4.5-star rating and our Editors’ Choice award. At 14 inches, this isn’t the largest laptop, but most days you don’t need anything bigger than that. Plus, the 2880×1800 OLED panel will make you forget all about the screen size because images will pop with vivid crispness. And it’s good for gaming, with a 120Hz refresh rate that ensures the screen can keep up with all the action going on in your multiplayer games without tearing or stuttering. This laptop runs on an Intel Core Ultra 7 155H processor, and that’s nothing to turn your nose up at. Combined with 16GB of LPDDR5X RAM, it’ll handle Windows 11 and most apps with aplomb, plus all those browser tabs you rack up in Chrome. But the pièce de résistance here is the GeForce RTX 4060 graphics card that’s powerful enough to crank out the frame rates in modern 3D games, at least on modest settings. Top it all off with a 1TB SSD for fast, ample storage. That’s a lot of laptop goodness for what you’re paying. This HP Omen Transcend 14 normally goes for $1,700, but right now you can grab it for $1,230 at Best Buy with this deal. Don’t miss out! Save $430 on HP's OLED laptop with RTX 4060 Buy now at Best Buy 
© 2025 PC World 1:15am 

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I punished this Bluetooth speaker for a year. It just won’t die
As a tech expert, I’m used to disappointment when it comes to gadget failures. Actually, we’re all used to it. Too used to it. Just last night, I put an endlessly restarting Apple HomePod mini into an early grave. My “smart” speakers spout gibberish when I’m not even there. I have smart bulbs that ignore my commands. The list goes on.  So when a humble Bluetooth speaker that I’d accidentally left outside endured a soaking Brooklyn thunderstorm last summer, I assumed the worst. Heck, I’d been planning on replacing it anyway–it was a few years old, and a tech gadget, so naturally it was due for an upgrade. No big deal.  But the dripping speaker, a Soundcore Motion+ that I’d reviewed back in 2019, surprised me when it powered right back up, sounding as good as it had the previous night.   Maybe I shouldn’t have been that surprised—the Motion+ is, after all, IPX7-rated, meaning it’s designed to withstand immersion in up to a meter of water for 30 minutes. Still, I’ve seen tech gear with higher IP ratings wilt after being looked at the wrong way, so I was impressed by the Motion+’s endurance.  It takes a lickin’, but keeps on tickin’.Ben Patterson/Foundry Without ever making a conscious decision, I ended up just leaving the Soundcore speaker outside for the rest of the summer. I may have brought it in once or twice to recharge it (the thing has terrific battery life, seemingly more than its promised 12 hours), but otherwise it was out in the elements for months, enduring several more thunderstorms, heat, humidity, and—worst of all—days on end of direct sunlight, which eventually faded its black rubberized exterior to a ghostly white. Oh, and the bugs, lots of little red bugs crawling all over its shell and inside its speaker grille.  No problem! The Motion+ kept going, cranking out tunes for our backyard barbecues without skipping a beat. Sure, it was looking pretty beat up, but it still sounded good.  Then the fall came. We secured the backyard for the coming winter, stacked our outdoor chairs, brought in the umbrella, and–once again–I just kind of left the Soundcore where it sat.  As fall stretched into winter, we got more rain, temperatures dipped, and we got a fair amount of snowfall. For days at a time, the Motion+ would be buried in a snowdrift.  By March, the mercury was coming back up, and at one point I noticed the Soundcore speaker lying on the deck next to a shattered ceramic pot, a victim of an aggressive pack of neighborhood squirrels. I let the speaker sit out there for at least a week until my wife finally brought it inside.  Here’s what the top of the Soundcore Motion+ looked like back in 2019.Ben Patterson/Foundry At that point, I just assumed the Motion+ was dead, and I’d already purchased a discounted Beats Pill as a replacement. All I needed to do was toss the Soundcore into a recycling bin.  But as we settled in for our first outdoor barbecue of the season, we fired up the brand-new Beats speaker and the sounds was… kinda meh. Not terrible, not great.  Where’s that other speaker, my wife asked. The old Soundcore, I said? Don’t bother. It’s dead.  Nonetheless, we picked it up off the floor, brought it outside, and turned it on. It worked. And it sounded pretty good. The battery still had a 70-percent charge, by the way, and I know I haven’t charged it since last fall. Now the Motion+ is our backyard speaker again, and the Beats Pill is in a closet somewhere.  What strikes me about the resilience and longevity of this particular Bluetooth speaker is my surprise about it. Maybe it’s because I focus primarily on smart products, which have vanishingly short shelf lives. In the smart home market, it’s common for devices to conk out, flake out, or get bricked by their manufacturers after just a few years or less. I’m just used to it. But we shouldn’t be used to it. We should expect more. Just ask my little Bluetooth speaker, which is about to start another sweltering and soaking summer in the open air. Something tells me it’ll be fine. And with that, please excuse me; I’ve got a brain-dead HomePod mini that needs to be put out of its misery. 
© 2025 PC World 1:15am 

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