Believe it or not, May is now just a few weeks away, which means both Mother’s Day and graduation season are just around the corner. If you’re planning to buy a gift for either occasion, it might be wise to start shopping now before your calendar gets packed with festivities.
If you’re already embedded in Apple’s ecosystem, the HomePod Mini lets you do more than just play music and check the weather. It also lets you make calls via your iPhone and acts as a hub for your HomeKit devices. Moreover, thanks to some recent software updates, it can monitor room temperature and humidity. As a result, you can program your smart thermostat or air quality monitor to adjust itself when those levels go up or down. The fact that it offers good sound for its size and comes in a number of vibrant colors only makes it more appealing, especially as fun desk decor.
Thanks to Microsoft’s spring sales, there are also some good deals for Windows fans this week. As part of the ongoing promotion, Microsoft is discounting various configurations of the 13.5-inch Surface Laptop 5. For example, right now you can grab the model with a 12th Gen Intel Core i7 Evo processor, 16GB of RAM and 512GB of storage for $1,399.99 ($300 off) from Best Buy And Microsoft. That’s the best price we’ve seen for this configuration so far this year; however, if you can get away with less power, it’s also for sale at Best Buy and the Microsoft Store with a Core i5 chip from $899.99 ($100 off).
If you’re looking for a general purpose Windows laptop, the Surface Laptop 5 is a beautiful and very capable machine. It offers more than enough power for everyday work and even some prowess when it comes to photo editing. The thin, light construction also makes it highly portable, while the spacious 3:2 screen is bright enough for home use. It even has an audio jack and support for Thunderbolt, even though the port selection is quite limited.
The apt-titled kit includes three white A19 Philips Hue smart bulbs, each offering 800 lumens of brightness and designed to emit varying shades of white light. The lights are also compatible with Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant, so you can turn them on and off with your voice. The kit also comes with a Philips Hue smart button that lets you control your lights without a smartphone, and a Philips Hue Bridge that lets you add up to 50 lights, set up automations and control them from anywhere in the world.
The Bridge isn’t necessary as the bulbs support Bluetooth, but it’s a nice touch since it normally only retails for $59.99.
If typing long-winded emails on your iPad Pro or iPad Air is out of place, you might want to check out today’s offer at Apple’s Magic Keyboard. At the moment it is useful accessory for sale at Amazon And Walmart in black for $229 ($70 off), the best price of the year.
Essentially, the keyboard allows you to use your iPad more like a traditional clamshell laptop. It attaches to your tablet magnetically so you can position your iPad at a more comfortable angle, and it has an excellent trackpad with gesture support. It also offers a great typing experience, along with a USB-C port on the side that allows for pass-through charging. Keep in mind that while it’s compatible with any iteration of the 11-inch iPad Pro, it only works with the fourth and fifth generation iPad Air.
