How to Clean a Laptop

Take a look at your laptop. Is it covered in dust? Small scraps of hair? Maybe a stray crumb rests inside an awkwardly placed molding.

One Option You Shouldn’t Overlook When Setting Up a Security Camera

If you own or plan to buy a home security camera or smart doorbell camera, you need a place to hold all of the footage it captures. That means you need to decide where video will be saved once the camera captures it, because where the video goes determines how long it lasts, how secure it is, what it costs, and how easy it is to access.

The Best Leggings

Great workout leggings are a sartorial Swiss Army knife: a technical powerhouse while in motion and a comfortable go-to when pants don’t appeal. As pandemic life continues, performance wear is expected to do double duty, providing both support and comfort, on the go and at rest. We worked out (and worked from home) in numerous pairs, scrutinizing fabric, fit, performance, and style to find the best pair of workout leggings for however you choose to move.

How to Clean and Polish Silver

I remember as a kid helping my mom polish our silver flatware before the holidays and feeling like I was one of Miss Haniggan’s orphans. Surprisingly, that chore made me appreciate silver even more as I got older. And over the years I’ve picked up pieces at estate sales and thrift stores, and I’ve inherited some, too.

The Wirecutter 2020 Year in Review

2020 did not go the way we’d planned.

In 2019, we opened a beautiful new flagship office, which sat dormant for most of 2020 due to the pandemic. We prepared a special “How to Work From Home Week” series for April, and then that “week” became tens of millions of people’s day-to-day reality. Conversations about systemic racism were amplified in every area of people’s lives, which showed us the importance of both resolving to do better and then following through. The long-planned migration of our site from thewirecutter.com to nytimes.com/wirecutter in May was successful, but we had to cancel our yearly all-company in-person meeting in June. And this year Prime Day was in October instead of July, causing the holiday deals season to last nearly three months. It’s hard to believe 2020 was only 12 months long. Keep reading for a trip down memory lane.

The Best Ukulele for Beginners

Everywhere from elementary-school music programs to retirement homes, people are taking up the ukulele in record numbers, and we think the Alvarez Regent Series RU22C concert uke is the best all-around choice for the average beginner. Our panel of instructors and students loved this model’s sound and styling, and its size is perfect for kids and adults alike.

How Our Readers Made Wirecutter Better in November and December 2020

As 2020 comes to a close, we’re featuring one last round of your good questions and excellent comments, with a particular focus on a few things that could help make the last few weeks of the year a little more cozy, from new popcorn-topping ideas to how to mix up your Christmas stocking routine. Thanks for sticking with us, sharing your wisdom, asking good questions, raising your concerns, and holding us accountable. We appreciate you. Take care of yourselves this holiday season. We’ll see you in 2021.

Hidden Gems of Wirecutter, From A to Z

Many readers arrive at Wirecutter looking for something specific: perhaps a new vacuum, some TV buying advice, a gift for someone special, a great deal on a sought-after gadget, or practical tips for using or maintaining something they already bought. But whether you come to Wirecutter with a mission or just to browse, you may have missed how vast our coverage actually is. As of December 2020, we have more than 1,100 reviews, spanning the alphabet and dozens of categories. Something we hear often from readers is: “Wow, Wirecutter even covers that? You review everything.” Well … we try!

The Best 4K TV on a Budget

Not everyone can sacrifice a mortgage payment to buy a high-performance 4K TV. Many shoppers are content to find a TV that looks good, is easy to use, has a variety of streaming features built in, and—most importantly—doesn’t cost a lot. For those people, we recommend the TCL 5-Series. It delivers a great-looking 4K picture with good contrast and accurate colors, integrates our favorite smart-TV system from Roku, and is also good for gaming.

Get Ready for 2021 With These 7 Great Personal Care Deals

The Wirecutter Deals team scans the virtual aisles of the internet, searching for great discounts on Wirecutter-recommended products so you don’t have to. In our Deals blog posts (like this one), we highlight the discounts that we think Wirecutter readers will love. For more deals information, check out our Deals page, follow us on Twitter @WirecutterDeals, and subscribe to our daily deals newsletter.

The Best OLED TV

If you want the best-looking TV image that money can buy, choose an OLED TV. With perfect blacks, superior viewing angles, infinite contrast ratios, and better motion quality than other TVs, OLED displays outperform even the best LCD options—but they usually cost hundreds more. We recommend the LG CX because it offers the same excellent video performance as 4K OLED TVs that cost a lot more.

The Best Men’s Razors (for Any Face)

After nine Wirecutter staffers spent more than two months shaving with 11 different cartridge razors, we think the Gillette Mach3 is the best combination of a close shave, an affordable price, and a comfortable grip. Marketed for men but appropriate for anyone who wants to shave their face, it will leave a smooth look regardless of skin and hair type.

The Best Lenses for iPhone Photography

If you’re looking for a serious tool to amp up your smartphone videos and photos, we recommend Moment’s Anamorphic Lens. We found it to be the best in this category after testing 70 smartphone lenses over five years while traveling to the Grand Canyon, Hawaii, and the French countryside. For more casual smartphone shooters, we also have a more budget-friendly pick, the Criacr 3-in-1 Lens Kit.

The Best Action Camera

From snowboarding to snorkeling to hiking to half-pipes, an action camera is the best way to show your friends and the world all of your adventures. For most people, the GoPro Hero9 Black is the best option. It has excellent video quality, an integrated mount, ridiculously effective image stabilization, a smart hyperlapse mode, and more. Its overall performance is among the best, if not the best, in every scenario, and it’s very easy to use.

The Best Air Purifier

A great air purifier can really improve your life. But to qualify as great, it needs to be powerful enough to clean the air in a large living room or playroom, quiet and dark enough for you to sleep near it in a bedroom, and inexpensive enough that it’s reasonable to have several spread throughout your home. Few machines meet that standard, but after seven years of testing 42 different air purifiers, we believe the exceptional Coway AP-1512HH Mighty is the best among them—as we have since 2015.

The Best MacBooks

The best Mac laptop for most people is the 13-inch MacBook Air with Apple’s M1 processor. It’s more than fast enough for the things most people use a computer for—web browsing, working on documents, and light photo and video editing—but the M1 even handles professional work like 3D rendering or compiling code pretty quickly. Plus, it has a great keyboard and trackpad, a colorful high-resolution screen, and outstanding battery life.

Wearable Sleeping Bags: the Height of COVID Function and Fashion

In early September, when the East Coast evenings hadn’t quite started to crisp into fall, I was hanging out around a fire pit with some friends. They had on T-shirts. I was wrapped in a throw blanket and wearing a knit cap and winter gloves.

The Best Ultrawide Monitors

Ultrawide monitors are exactly what they sound like—so wide that you can keep three full-size browser windows open side by side. And as good as they are for comparing documents or viewing huge databases and spreadsheets, they’re also good for the fun stuff: They’re great for gamers who want what they’re playing to fill their entire field of view. Whatever you’re using it for, we think the Acer XR342CK Pbmiiqphuzx (yes, that’s the full model name) is the ultrawide monitor that offers the best combination of price, color accuracy, and other features (despite its large and unwieldy stand).

The Best Cloth Face Masks for Kids

Kids are superheroes for enduring the COVID-19 pandemic, and they have the gear to prove it. Cloth face masks are easily the most important kid accessory you’ll buy this year, but they are also among the most challenging. We looked at some 90 cloth masks for kids, pored over scientific studies, spoke with health experts and researchers, and tested the finalists with a panel of 10 kids, ages 3 to 10.

Outdoor and Backyard Lighting We Love

Your phone’s flashlight app will work in a pinch, but if you’re spending serious time outside after sundown—eating dinner alfresco, reading a book in your tent, throwing a nighttime garden party or beach bash—you need an outdoor light, or several. After nine hours of research and 20 hours of testing, we’ve found the best packable lights, tabletop lanterns, flameless candles, string lights, and path lights for all your outdoor adventures.

The Best Coffee Grinder

Many coffee experts insist that the most important thing for making good coffee–more important than the brewer or the beans themselves–is a good burr grinder. Even the best beans won't brew evenly (or taste great) if they aren't ground evenly. After over 70 hours of research and hands-on grinding since 2015, we think the uber-consistent, no-frills Baratza Encore is the best grinder for most people. At a practical price, it reliably delivers the high-quality grind needed to make a great cup of drip or French press coffee.

The Best Toaster

After toasting over a dozen loaves of bread, as well as piles of bagels, English muffins, and frozen Eggo waffles in 23 toasters over the years, we think the Cuisinart CPT-122 2-Slice Compact Plastic Toaster is the best for most people. With slots wide enough to accommodate the puffiest bagels and deep enough to toast taller slices of bread, it browns bread as evenly as toasters five times the price. If you want a four-slice toaster, we recommend the Cuisinart CPT-142 4-Slice Compact Plastic Toaster, a larger version of our top pick.

The Best Smart Home Sensors for HomeKit

Smart sensors let you run your smart home on autopilot. When you use them with Apple’s HomeKit platform, they can detect when changes occur—motion, temperature, or opening and closing doors or windows—and then trigger other connected devices such as lights, locks, and thermostats. Only a few options are available so far, but we think the Fibaro Motion Sensor, the Fibaro Door/Window Sensor, and the Eve Degree temperature sensor work well and look good, too.

Save The Good Parts of 2020 With These 5 Digital Storage Deals

The Wirecutter Deals team scans the virtual aisles of the internet, searching for great discounts on Wirecutter-recommended products so you don’t have to. In our Deals blog posts (like this one), we highlight the discounts that we think Wirecutter readers will love. For more deals information, check out our Deals page, follow us on Twitter @WirecutterDeals, and subscribe to our daily deals newsletter.

The Best Android Phones

Android phones can vary widely in both price and quality—from just a couple hundred dollars to well over a thousand, and from unbelievably frustrating to unbelievably impressive. We spend hundreds of hours each year testing the latest Android smartphones, and we think the Google Pixel 4a is the best one for most people. It offers outstanding software and camera performance, and it costs much less than high-end phones. It also receives guaranteed software updates for a longer period than most Android phones.

Should You Sign Up for Target Same Day Delivery (Shopped by Shipt)?

For many people, the convenience of doorstep delivery has shifted over the past year, changing from a merely helpful amenity for ordering gifts or one-off items to a crucial service for getting groceries and other everyday essentials. Partly because of the pandemic, you also have more drop-off and pickup shopping options than ever before. All of this may leave you wondering whether it’s worth the investment to subscribe to a service like Target’s Same Day Delivery (shopped by Shipt), which can bring you all of your daily must-haves (not to mention lots of Target’s other irresistible merchandise) in as little as one hour.

How to Clean Leather and Suede Shoes

Your leather and suede shoes can last for years with just a little TLC every now and then. Here’s how to keep yours clean.

The Best Wireless Bluetooth Earbuds

We love the Jabra Elite 75t wireless earbuds because they deliver the best combination of performance and features for the money—and they’re delightful to use. Their diminutive size makes them both comfortable and discreet, the controls are painless (literally and figuratively), they offer approximately a full workday of battery life per charge, and they sound great with music and phone calls.

Essential Tools to Ride Out a Winter Storm

In The Long Winter by Laura Ingalls Wilder—the sixth book in her Little House series—she wrote that the brutal snowstorms of 1880-1881 gave “the impression of a malignant power of destruction wreaking havoc as long as possible.” While we now have many more resources at our disposal than Laura’s family did to help us survive a blizzard, winter storms can still do plenty of harm with extended power outages, icy roads, and frozen pipes, which can severely damage a home. To get through an extreme whiteout unscathed, you need to be prepared.

6 Small Desks We Love

Space is at a premium during the coronavirus pandemic, with more people working from home or attending remote classes than ever before. Traditional desks just won’t cut it for many of us, because they’re often so wide and deep that they can practically fill a room—a room that we need to share with our kids, our roommates, our partner, and/or our pets.

The Best Beard Trimmer

In a world turned upside down, who’d have guessed that a beard trimmer would become vital to the safety and well-being of so many? Whether you’re taking on a grooming task once entrusted to your barber or learning to sculpt new facial hair that sprouted after a few months of isolation, we think the cordless Philips Norelco MG7750 is the trimmer best suited to get most beards looking great.

Why Your iPhone Has So Many New Privacy Alerts in iOS 14

Apple’s iOS 14 brings some big changes, and included in those changes are a variety of new privacy controls. Once you update your iPhone, it will ask for new permissions, possibly for several days. Here’s what they mean.

The 22 Best Gifts for Coffee Lovers

Plenty of people love coffee, but it can be difficult to find the right gift for someone with a real compulsion—sorry, predilection—for a good brew. To find gifts for the person who worships at the altar of great espresso and can’t stop tapping their heel at 4 in the afternoon, we spoke with a handful of experts—including the owner of New York City’s Ninth Street Espresso—and Wirecutter’s coffee-obsessed staffers.

The Best Blankets

After a long day, crawling into a bed that’s outfitted with fresh sheets and a comfortable blanket is one of life’s greatest pleasures. A good blanket is warm, but a great blanket is also breathable, soft, and stylish, and should last for years and years. We’ve spent 500-plus hours testing 44 blankets for every season, and we’ve found seven that should make you thrilled to go to bed.

The Best Sheets

To find the best sheets, we’ve washed, dried, stretched, rubbed, and slept on dozens of sets, and we think most people will be happy with the L.L.Bean 280-Thread-Count Pima Cotton Percale Sheet Set. And if you prefer smooth sateen, plush flannel, or airy linen, we have other recommendations to help you get a great night’s sleep.

9 Great Deals on Car Gear for a More Enjoyable Trip

The Wirecutter Deals team scans the virtual aisles of the internet, searching for great discounts on Wirecutter-recommended products so you don’t have to. In our Deals blog posts (like this one), we highlight the discounts that we think Wirecutter readers will love. For more deals information, check out our Deals page, follow us on Twitter @WirecutterDeals, and subscribe to our daily deals newsletter.

The Best Audiophile Headphones for Everyday Use

If what you seek in a pair of headphones is the best sound possible for serious listening sessions, but you don’t want to drop thousands of dollars, this is the guide for you. We’ve tested hundreds of audiophile headphones and picked our favorites for specific uses. These wired, over-ear headphones forgo features such as Bluetooth and active noise cancellation, and just focus on delivering a great sonic experience.

The Best Computer Speakers

During this year when gamers are spending more time gaming, musicians are spending more time recording, and everybody else is just eager for good entertainment, anyone can use a great set of computer speakers. After extensively testing new models, we’ve selected the Mackie CR5-XBT pair as our favorite set of computer speakers because it sounds great, fits on most desktops, and can play bass-heavy music without threatening to self-destruct.

The Best Christmas Lights

Christmas lights bring a unique glimmering warmth to your holiday season—or your backyard, your favorite dive bar, or really anywhere else, for that matter. After more than 100 hours of researching, interviewing experts, and testing more than 25 different string light sets, we believe GE’s Energy Smart Colorite LED Miniature Lights (available in strands of 150 bulbs in multicolor or warm white) offer a combination of light quality, color accuracy, and wide availability that has been unmatched among competitors since we began recommending GE’s Colorite strands in 2014.

The Best Bluetooth Wireless Headphones

The Jabra Elite 85h is our favorite Bluetooth pair because the intuitive operation and comfortable fit make this set a pleasure to use every day. These over-ear headphones are delightfully uncomplicated, with easy pairing and clear, simple controls. And they are versatile performers, offering great sound, clear calls, active noise cancelling, long battery life, and water resistance.

The Best Things We Bought in 2020 (Or How We Learned to Cope in a Pandemic)

Each December, Wirecutter’s staff shares the items we’ve purchased over the year that have genuinely made a difference in our lives. The events of the past 12 months made us rethink this list in an entirely different context. Like many people, we’ve found ourselves looking for ways to adapt and figuring out how to cope in a new normal (and we know we’re lucky to even be in a position to do so). From the items that improved our homes to the gear that helped us get outside more, here are the best things we purchased for ourselves and our families that made an unbelievably weird year just a little more manageable.