The Xbox Series X is one of Digital Trends’ favorite gaming consoles right now, and for good reason — the best Xbox Series X games rival lineups on other platforms, Game Pass is still an absolute steal and performs well compared to the PS5. If you’re looking to jump into the Xbox ecosystem or make a significant upgrade the Xbox you already have, there’s a holiday deal you need to know about.
New to the Xbox lineup this year is the Xbox Series X Digital 1TB, and it’s my favorite console in quite a while. You can buy a Xbox Series X Digital 1TB (and a new controller) at Best Buy right now for just $440. That’s a nice discount of about $70, or enough cash to buy a new game to go along with it.
If you’re in the market for a new Xbox on a budget, the Xbox Series X Digital 1TB fits the bill. The lack of a disc drive knocks a bit off the retail price and doubling the storage of the standard Xbox Series S goes a long way with modern file sizes. Just take a look at how much storage some recently released games require:
Game file sizes are getting larger and larger, it seems. Most standard edition consoles can only handle a few games at a time, meaning you’re going to have to constantly manage your storage to try out new games. That’s less of a problem with the 1TB Xbox Series X.
I’ve been using the Xbox Series X Digital 1TB for a couple of months now and I’ve never played a wider variety of games. Instead of perusing the Game Pass library and having to debate whether a game is worth the effort to manage having on my console currently, I can just download and install game after game without thinking about it. If you’re looking to grab an Xbox Series X this year and want to spend more time playing games than you do managing storage, this is the model for you.
Acer’s Predator Atlas 8 finally has a US release date and price, several months after the company first showed off the handheld in May. The highlight is the Intel Arc G3 Extreme chip inside, which has been adopted by only a couple of other consoles besides the Atlas 8. This version will go on sale exclusively at Best Buy on November 1 for $1,299.99.
Acer originally said the Atlas 8 would arrive in North America in October, but left pricing open at the time. The launch came amid the ongoing DRAM crunch, which has made memory more expensive across the PC industry and complicated pricing for hardware makers.
Gaming laptops and I have a complicated relationship. One of my first gaming rigs was an Acer Predator that was already outdated when I bought it. I was a broke college kid, and that was the best I could afford. So trying out high-end gaming laptops is always fun. But ASUS' ROG Zephyrus G14 is a lot more than a laptop that can run AAA games. It is portable, so you're not lugging around a 2.5kg machine everywhere you go. It is built well, none of that plastic chassis, and can even function as a normal laptop outside of just gaming.
Google Play is borrowing one of the Nintendo Switch’s most useful little tricks. A new Sidekick tool called Playbacks captures a short clip after something interesting has already happened, sparing players from running a screen recorder throughout an entire game.
Playbacks is part of Google Play Store v53.8 and keeps saved clips on the phone. Google first announced it earlier this month, but the new Play Store update marks its arrival for players. Anyone who has watched a perfect win vanish because the record button came too late already understands the appeal.