A great chef’s knife can revolutionize your daily meal prep. If your knife is comfortable to grip and razor-sharp, you can chop ingredients faster and with more control (and therefore more safely).
After putting in over 150 hours of research—and chopping more than 70 pounds of produce with 23 knives—we recommend the Mac MTH-80. It’s been our pick since 2013, over the years appealing to a wide range of testers for its comfortable handle and sharp, agile blade.
A great floor lamp can transform the dimmest corner of a room into the most inviting space for reading, relaxing, or working. And it can be the illuminating punctuation mark of a room’s decor.
Over the past few years, we’ve dedicated more than 60 hours to researching hundreds of floor lamps. Then we’ve assembled, inspected, and pelted them with basketballs to simulate the inevitable accidents that happen at home.
We know style is subjective, but we think our picks—for task, console, tripod, tree, arc, and rod lamp—will complement a wide variety of interior spaces.
Designed to provide a smooth, cushy ride at higher speeds and on uneven terrain, jogging strollers are preferred not just by runners but also by caregivers who like how easy they are to push and maneuver in everyday use.
After testing 18 models, we found that the Thule Urban Glide 2 is the best jogging stroller for people who are traversing mostly paved terrain. Though this model can handle the occasional off-road detour, too.
If you’re looking for a slightly narrower jogging stroller, with rugged wheels designed to handle off-road terrain, you may prefer the BOB Gear Wayfinder, our also-great pick.
If you haven’t looked at what your cell phone bill might be under a new plan or on a new service, you should check now. In recent years prices have come down and data allocations have gone up, especially among the dozens of smaller carriers reselling services from the big three. But as always, most deals come with a catch.
There isn’t one carrier or plan that we can recommend for everyone, but T-Mobile’s Magenta plan is best for unlimited data, and AT&T’s Unlimited Extra plan offers the most comprehensive coverage. We also have picks for people with more specific needs.
If you awake confused and panicked at the sound of your alarm clock beeping in the dark, you may find mornings more pleasant with a sunrise alarm clock, also called a wake-up light.
We dove into the research on circadian rhythms and woke before dawn with 10 different sunrise alarm clocks and two non-clock lighting devices.
Our favorite, the Philips Wake-Up Light HF3520, emits soothing red-tinted dawn and dusk simulations and gentle wake-up sounds.
Sometimes, there’s one spot in your home where Wi-Fi just doesn’t quite work right. If your standalone Wi-Fi router keeps your laptop or phone reliably connected everywhere in your house except for that one trouble spot, a good Wi-Fi extender is the quickest, cheapest fix. After a new round of research and testing, we’ve reaffirmed that the TP-Link RE315 can make a network noticeably more reliable in a small area, for an affordable price.
Cyber Monday isn’t just about tech. And these reader favorites prove it, with the most popular deals among Wirecutter readers running the gamut from laptops to kitchen tools to outdoor gear.
Take a look below to find the most popular deals on expert-vetted Wirecutter picks, all on sale at truly great prices.
You can also check out the Wirecutter Deals page for the latest discounts on more Wirecutter picks that meet our rigorous testing and pricing standards.
Few things deliver a dose of holiday cheer like a gorgeously wrapped present. But for several reasons—cost, sustainability concerns, the fact that you’re wrapping gifts at midnight and you just ran out of paper and all the stores are closed—many people would love to find simple ways to do so on the cheap, ideally using materials they already have on hand. Paper and cloth gift bags can be reused over and over, of course, but if you’d prefer a paper-wrapped present (or you’ve already used up your gift-bag stash), we have tips from two gift-wrapping pros: Lisa Fu, head of design at NYC Gift Wrapping, and Mary Domo, CEO of Los Angeles Gift Wrapping. The everyday, inexpensive (or even free) materials they recommend will help you wrap your gifts easily and beautifully.
Every morning, as I walk through my kids’ playroom to get to my home office, I pass thousands of Lego. Some built into gleaming pre-determined sets from Lego Friends, Harry Potter, City and Technic. Others have been fashioned freehand into monsters, structures and vehicles sprung directly from the weird, creative minds of my kids.
Lego is a simple idea well executed: tiny plastic bricks that can literally build worlds that spans generations. From elementary age (if you’re old enough to know not to stick them in your mouth, you’re old enough to build with them) to old-as-the-hills, almost everyone can enjoy Lego.
My favorite birthday gift to give is the good old classic box that comes, charmingly, in a tub designed to look like a Lego brick. It contains hundreds of bricks in various shapes, sizes and colors, and appropriately lists the recommended ages of 4 to 99.
Fashion may be subjective, but these Cyber Monday deals on Wirecutter’s favorite apparel are definitely some of the best we’ve seen. Whether you’re shopping for yourself or looking to give the gift of style this holiday season, chances are you’ll find something to love. From cozy pajamas and soft robes to stylish everyday wardrobe staples, these are the clothing and apparel deals we’re most excited about.
If you have ever been bumping down a country road, belting out your favorite tunes from the car stereo, only to have it turn to angry static the moment you enter a radio signal-free zone, then you know precisely what it was like to wake up every morning in our bedroom with a crummy old clock radio.
It is a pitiable way to start the day’s NPR updates reduced to a series of broken phrases, like a deranged Mad Lib, daggers thrown by your spouse because you insisted on bringing that cursed electronic into her life.
Well, problem solved, relationship healed, we’re gonna live happily ever after.
The Echo Dot (5th Gen) with clock entered our world and has been a revelation.
At a glance we check the time without fiddling with anything (it’s got a cool retro LED clock!). Whatever audio I want to listen to—music, radio, podcasts, news, books— streams in clarion perfection, and in an instant using a voice command to the third partner in our marriage (Alexa). Setting an alarm clock involves no hacking of arcane menus or button mashing as before.
Rarely has a relationship win been so thoroughly, easily, and affordably achieved.
It’s no surprise that an event dubbed Cyber Monday would boast a ton of deals on laptops.
Many of these deals stink. But some are great.
Whether you’re on the hunt for a Chromebook, a MacBook, a Windows ultrabook, or even a business laptop, we’ve rounded up the best deals on all of the laptops we recommend.
You can also check out the Wirecutter Deals page for the latest discounts on more Wirecutter picks that meet our rigorous testing and pricing standards.
Cyber Monday has all but arrived. And Apple superfans know how rare it is to see a truly good deal on the company’s shiny gizmos—which makes these discounts on Wirecutter’s Apple picks that much better.
You can also check out the Wirecutter Deals page for the latest discounts on more Wirecutter picks that meet our rigorous testing and pricing standards.
The Wonderboom 3 Bluetooth speaker is one of my all-time favorite Wirecutter picks.
It’s portable, durable, and adorable. And it easily fills any space with great-sounding music and podcasts.
As the editor responsible for Wirecutter’s kid gifts coverage, I’ve often been pleasantly surprised by just how much our readers love old-school puzzles and games. (Maybe I shouldn’t be, since my own family loves them as well.)
Some of the best are the brightly colored, feature-filled, kid-friendly puzzles made by Mudpuppy. And right now the company is having a site-wide sale, with 30% off many puzzles that Wirecutter writers and editors have tried and loved with our own kids, including some we’ve recommended in our guides to the best gifts and stocking stuffers for kids.
I didn’t buy my first brand-new mattress until I was in my mid 30s.
We’ve found a bunch of great discounts on Wirecutter picks at Target, whether you’re a Circle member, a RedCard holder, or an everyday bargain hunter.
You can also check out the Wirecutter Deals page for the latest discounts on more Wirecutter picks that meet our rigorous testing and pricing standards.
During the holidays, you’re likely preparing large quantities of food. This is inevitably the time that your favorite tools decide to break, or you realize that your current appliances just aren’t up to the task.
If you need a bit of a kitchen refresh, these Wirecutter-approved things are on sale at prices we stand behind.
Babies need stuff—not just cute and cuddly stuff like blankets and binkies, but also essential gear for feeding, bathing, transporting, and generally keeping them safe and sated. (Well, as much as a newborn can stay sated, which is rarely long enough.)
Fortunately, many of the baby and kid things Wirecutter recommends—after thorough vetting and testing—are on sale for Black Friday 2023, at deal prices we’ve also vetted. The best of them are below; if you’re shopping for fun kid stuff, check out our age-appropriate gift guides as well.
As a kid, I used to bring books out to the playground to read during recess while my classmates ran circles around me.
As a teenager, I used to go to school exhausted after pulling all-nighters to read, and whenever I was bratty, my mom would get her revenge by hiding my half-finished books, a particularly cruel punishment for a dork with a bad attitude.
And as an adult, I spent hundreds of dollars to ship at least 75 pounds of hardcovers and paperbacks across the country when I moved from New York to Denver.
So please believe me when I say it pains me to admit that I’m a recent Kindle convert—and I love reading on it so much, I worry that I may never pick up another physical book again.
OLED TVs are the best-looking TVs you can buy, delivering extremely high image contrast, rich colors, smooth motion, and much better viewing angles than LCD TVs offer. They carry a higher price, but they’re a worthwhile upgrade for anyone who is truly passionate about movies or gaming.
We recommend the Samsung S90C Series because it provides awesome picture quality at a relatively competitive price.
Hunting for gaming deals over Black Friday can feel like being caught in a real-world MOBA. (That stands for multiplayer online battle arena, for anyone who’s just here shopping for the gamers in their lives.) But don’t worry: We’re here to help with some RTS (real-time strategy) for snagging the most coveted games and gaming devices at prices that’ll make you cheer, “Achievement unlocked!”
Whether you’re shopping for Xbox, PS5, or Nintendo Switch games and consoles, here are the early Black Friday deals we recommend. Plus, we have some expert insight on why we’re not recommending that you buy a Nintendo Switch just yet, and whether it will go on sale soon.
And if you don’t find a deal on a specific game you want, here’s a tip from senior editor Nathan Burrow, who leads our Deals coverage: GameStop is offering $5 off most purchases of $15 or more when you buy online and pick up in-store, which allows you to save at least a little something on rarely discounted must-haves.
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.
Anytime a person with a kid in their life has asked for my holy-grail toy (as Wirecutter’s former editor of baby and kid coverage and a person generally known to be opinionated, I’ve had this happen to me somewhat often), I’ve had one answer: Magna-Tiles.
Alongside Lego, I’m convinced that these colorful plastic shapes with magnetized edges offer just about the longest arc of playability across childhood.
Shifts in the number of daylight hours—due to changing seasons or long-distance travel—can have varying effects on people. For some, limited daylight hours can sap energy. For others, the effects can be more serious. After putting in 33 hours of research—including reading two books and five comprehensive studies on the subject and interviewing one of the scientists who discovered seasonal affective disorder (SAD)—we’ve concluded that the Carex Day-Light Classic Plus is the best light therapy lamp to treat SAD symptoms.
Using a Bluetooth tabletop speaker is the simplest way to get satisfying sound in the home, since it will work with almost any mobile device and doesn’t require a network connection or the use of a special app.
Klipsch’s The One II is the best all-around choice. This speaker has a full, clear, robust sound (which made it our panelists’ favorite in a brand-concealed listening test), and its operation couldn’t be simpler. Plus, the Klipsch speaker’s handsome, retro design should make it a welcome addition to practically any room.
A good, multi-cup coffee maker can save the morning after a crummy night’s sleep. It can endear you to your groggy houseguests, and make working from home more efficient. And if you care about coffee, it’s worth investing in a machine that will brew a truly delicious pot every time.
Of the brewers we recommend in our guide to the best drip coffee makers, the Technivorm Moccamaster KBT is not the most high tech. It doesn’t have a bunch of preset functions or features like an auto-brew program. But it (along with other Moccamaster models) does have a following of fiercely loyal fans among our staff, as well as the greater community of coffee obsessives for its great coffee, good design, and reputation for longevity.
