A cordless vacuum might not change your life, but it can make the housework easier. Not being tethered to the wall is freedom you didn’t know you needed, letting you move from room to room without having to unplug and find a closer outlet. They’re also generally lighter and take up less space than upright vacs, and they’re great for getting under couches or coffee tables.
However, they aren’t for everyone or every situation. If you have a big house, you may need to recharge the battery just to finish the job. Also most of them can’t stand up on their own, and they require a base or somewhere they can lean against a wall.
We’ve tested a handful of cordless vacuums, and these are our favorites so far. We’re continuing to test more, so check back for more recommendations if none of these picks catch your eye. And be sure to check out our other buying guides, like the Best Dyson Vacuums, Best Robot Vacuums, and Best Eco-Friendly Cleaning Products.
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One of the biggest pain points with fitness trackers is how each one has its own proprietary charger. It’s a serious inconvenience—if you forget a Lightning connector or a USB-C charger, you can always borrow one from a friend or find one in a store. But a proprietary Fitbit connector? Sorry! Guess you won’t be getting your steps tallied on that Italian walking vacation!
So it was with a sense of almost mystical reverence that I removed the Vivomove Trend from my wrist and placed it on the Qi charging pad next to my desk. I leaned over it breathlessly and examined the screen. Charging! Granted, it’s not incredibly fast, but it works! Never again will I be trapped on a work trip with an uncharged watch!
Garmin’s latest entry-level hybrid watch is still a little clunky to operate, but I do love its attractive, streamlined looks and that new charging system. Wireless charging on any Qi charging pad is almost magical. That, in itself, does a lot to put it at the head of the pack.
Best of Both Worlds
Photograph: Garmin
If you want to track your health without wearing an overtly chunky, sporty watch, you have a few options. Withings makes a tracker that looks as much like an analog watch as possible; Fossil’s Wellness watch packs as many metrics as possible into an analog watch face.
The Vivomove Trend gives you the best of both worlds. It comes in a variety of colorways (my tester is a beautiful, if slightly dated, peach gold with an ivory band). It has a dainty 40.4-mm case and an analog watch face. However, when you click on your device in the Garmin Connect app, you can pick up to three complications that will be visible when you swing the watch up toward your face.
This allows for much more customization than you might think, because some of the complications can combine—I opted for the Techie face, with the date up top and steps, battery, and floors climbed on the bottom.
To start an activity, check your heart rate, go to settings, or set a stopwatch or timer, you just touch your fingertip to the watch face. With a haptic buzz, the options pop up as glowing icons. If you click through to the timer but then realize you want to start an activity instead, you swipe back. As a side note, I do wish more trackers would just include one measly on-off button. (Even analog watches have at least one button!)
The buzz also alerts you when you get a notification or start an activity (you can change the strength of the buzz, but I didn’t notice a big difference). You can either start an activity manually or turn on auto activity tracking with Garmin’s Move IQ.
Move IQ is remarkably accurate—it picked up a wild 3-minute dash from the parking garage to a doctor’s appointment—but if you start an activity manually, you have to double-tap to start the activity once you’ve selected it. Since it connects to GPS via your phone, my tracked results from walking, biking, and running are consistent with results from other trackers—unless I forgot to start the activity manually, which happened a lot.
The Fujifilm X-T5 is the best camera the company has ever made. For the right photographer, it might even be the best camera to buy right now.
It was once the flagship mirrorless camera in the X Series, but that role is now filled by the X-H2 ($1,999), which leaves the X-T5 free to become a great stills-oriented camera for photographers. It’s not perfect—the autofocus could be better—but if you love manual controls, the ergonomics of classic film cameras, and the distinctive color and character of Fujifilm’s X series cameras, this is the camera for you.
Still Life
The X-T5 represents a return to form for the X-T line. It’s smaller and lighter than its predecessor and doesn’t have much in the way of new video features. Instead it takes mainly stills-oriented features from the flagship X-H2, including the new 40-megapixel, fifth-generation X-Trans sensor; better autofocus; and in-body image stabilization.
The new sensor is the highlight. This is the first APS-C sensor to match the image quality of my Sony A7RII. It’s not as large or high-resolution as newer full-frame cameras, like the Sony 7R V, but it’s good enough that when I was editing images I never found myself thinking “I wish I’d shot that in full frame.”
Photograph: Fujifilm
The X-T5 shoots surprisingly good video footage but lacks some high-end features—like ProRes support (available over HDMI)—that you’ll find on the X-H2. Likewise, it’s missing the flip-out variable-angle rear screen that was so handy for shooting video (again, it’s been relegated to the X-H series cameras). The clear message is that if you want a high-end hybrid still and video camera, the X-H2 is the one for you. The new X-T5 is very much geared toward still photographers, and it manages to strike a near-perfect balance between technical chops and that ill-defined thing photographers call “character.”
First, the technical chops. As noted, the 40-megapixel sensor is wonderfully detailed and doesn’t fall victim to the higher noise issues that sometimes come with more megapixels. That said, performance will depend somewhat on how and what you shoot. I tend to use fast lenses in low-light situations, and I rarely shoot over 1600 ISO. In testing, I found that once you went over this, noise became more of an issue. While 3200 is still usable, I would not go above that.
There is also a new processor, which Fuji claims is four times faster than the previous model. This is part of the new autofocus system which, while very good within the Fuji X-series cameras, is not that great compared to what you get with Nikon or Canon systems. If you need extremely fast, completely accurate autofocus, you’re better off with Nikon, Canon, or Sony. For most people’s purposes, though, the X-T5’s system is good enough. What troubled me more than the speed was that sometimes the autofocus just missed, especially with eye-tracking turned on. I’ve read that other reviewers have had similar experiences, which makes me hope this is something Fujifilm will address in a future firmware update.
When I’m testing a webcam, I often play with the lighting in the room, both ambient and artificial. I do my best to throw off the autofocus and white balance to see how the webcam adjusts and responds. I move farther back in my chair and wobble around like a bowling pin. I got more oohs and ahhs from my colleagues as they marveled at how smoothly the Link refocused on my face. I’ve tested a lot of webcams that have jarring autofocus, but not the Link. It’s capable of focusing with my face as close as 4 inches (10 centimeters) to the lens, which is closer than I’d ever need to get to a webcam.
The Link can zoom up to four times, but it’s a digital zoom. That means zooming in will create a picture that’s more pixelated the more it closes in on a subject. However, this is a 4K webcam, so by supporting such a high resolution, you can zoom in a fair bit and still retain a sharp image. At the top end, the Link supports 4K resolution at 24, 25, and 30 frames per second. For less bandwidth or for a faster frame rate, which makes the video look smoother, you can downscale to 1080p at 50 or 60 frames per second, among other choices.
Twenty-four frames per second might sound redundant when 25 is also an option, but it’s the gold standard for movie productions, so capturing at this frame rate is desirable for anyone recording themselves on camera to upload later to YouTube or for a cinematic project. There’s support for High Dynamic Range (HDR) too, which helps keep the bright lights in your frame in check without underexposing or overexposing the image. It’s optional, but only works in 1080p or 720p at 24, 25, or 30 frames per second.
Most webcams come with pretty awful microphones, but the dual noise-canceling microphones on the Insta360 Link make me sound pretty decent (according to my colleagues). That said, I still prefer a standalone USB microphone like the Blue Snowball Ice.
There’s no physical privacy shutter, but the Link deters hackers and weirdos from peeking through your webcam uninvited by automatically spinning its gimbaled head downward, away from you. This happens 10 seconds after the webcam is no longer in use by a conferencing app. When you start a video meeting, the Link perks back up and awakens to begin streaming again (it supports the likes of Zoom, Microsoft Teams, Google Meet, and more).
The Sign Off
Photograph: Insta360
The problem? Three hundred bucks is a lot of money for a webcam. It has competition too. There’s the Obsbot Tiny 4K, another PTZ (pan-tilt-zoom) webcam that has many of the same tricks (albeit with less polish) for a little less. The sublime Logitech Brio 4K Webcam is frequently under $150 and delivers almost-as-good image quality sans all the motion.
The question is whether you need automatic tracking and gesture control. If the answer is no, then even the slightly superior video quality of the Link isn’t enough to justify spending almost twice as much as a webcam like the Brio, which is already an expensive webcam. You can get a great, simple webcam for just $50.
If you’re recording video often, though, or if you give virtual presentations regularly—or you just want to film your dance practices—then the Link is a fantastic choice. It nails the basics (great video quality) with a suite of polished extras, like automatic tracking, gestures, and what I refer to as the privacy droop. It’s not a bargain, but it is the best.
If you own as many backpacks as we do, you might have noticed that they’re categorized by liters rather than their inch-by-inch dimensions. The volume, or bag capacity, is a critical factor to keep in mind when purchasing a backpack. For example, a 15-liter backpack is fine for day-to-day activities, but it’s probably not going to be big enough for an overnight trip.
It’s surprisingly difficult to convey a bag’s volume given its dimensions. Let’s compare two of my favorite bags: The Rains Mini measures 15.7 inches by 11.4 by 3.9, and the Herschel Heritage measures 18 inches by 12.25 by 5.5. Given a side-by-side visual comparison, they look pretty comparable, but the Rains holds nine liters, while the Herschel holds 21.5.
So how exactly are liters measured and what amount is right for you? We talked to backpack brands to get the answers. Once you’ve determined what liter amount is right for your needs, we have more recommendations than any one person could possibly need. Check out our guides on the Best Backpacks, Best Messenger Bags, Best Recycled Bags, and Best Camera Bags, as well as options for those who prefer purses and totes.
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How Volume Is Calculated
Photograph: Herschel
Photograph: Rains
When you think about liters, you might think about water. While there may be brands filling their bags with liquids and adding up the amount as they go, there’s a drier way to do it. According to Ahren Bonnema, product design manager at JanSport, most brands use small plastic balls (think Ping Pong balls).
“We fill a bag with them, zip everything up tight, then pour the balls into a very large, graduated cylinder with lines on the side marking liters,” Bonnema says. “It sounds a bit primitive, but it is surprisingly accurate, and the industry standard used by most pack brands.”
Since something like volume should be universal, you’d hope that translates from brand to brand. “I’ve personally probably measured dozens of competitor packs, and it is not uncommon to come across inaccuracies,” Bonnema says. Countless message boards and Reddit threads agree. The reviewers at Tree Line Review found that the claimed volume versus the volume they measured were different. (Instead of balls, they used pinto beans!) JanSport was not among the bags they looked at.
This is frustrating, especially since most of us don’t have hundreds of pinto beans on hand. Luckily, most of us don’t need such a precise capacity measurement. If all you need is a running backpack to hold your phone, jacket, and some snacks, you can comfortably assume that an 8- to 10-liter capacity will probably work. Now all you have to do is figure out what you need the bag for.
How Many Liters Do I Need?
What will you be doing? If you take your backpack to work, and all you need to carry is a laptop, wallet, chapstick, and notebook, look for a backpack that has the correct-size laptop pocket. I use the Rains in this situation to carry my 13-inch MacBook. But if you need a backpack to double as a diaper bag, to hold a full semester’s worth of books, or to take hiking and camping, the amount it holds starts to get more critical.
Backpackies has a great video guide comparing sizes. With that advice and our testing in mind, this is the broad size guide we recommend:
