An anonymous reader shares a report: Google said hackers are sending extortion emails to an unspecified number of executives, claiming to have stolen sensitive data from their Oracle business applications. In a statement, Google said a group claiming affiliation with the ransomware gang cl0p, opens new tab was sending emails to “executives at numerous organizations claiming to have stolen sensitive data from their Oracle E-Business Suite.” Google cautioned that it “does not currently have sufficient evidence to definitively assess the veracity of these claims.”

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Did you know you can customize Google to filter out garbage? Take these steps for better search results, including adding my work at Lifehacker as a preferred source.

When you updated your iPhone to iOS 26, you were probably expecting to try out a bunch of new features. Maybe you were excited to see the new Liquid Glass design, or interested to see how the new spam prevention tech works. But if you opened Messages to send a text after updating, you might have run into a frustrating problem: All of a sudden, you aren’t able to activate iMessage with your phone number.

It’s not clear how widespread the problem is at this time, but it seems to be a big enough issue for Apple to formally address it. As spotted by MacRumors, Apple now has official troubleshooting steps for anyone experiencing iMessage activation issues specifically after updating to iOS 26.

Though we don’t know the scope of the users affected, we do know who might be affected. According to Apple, the issue might occur when updating to iOS 26 if you have an inactive SIM with the same phone number as your active SIM. If this is your issue, you may run into the following problems:

• When you try to send an iMessage, you get a “Not Delivered” notification.

• You can only send SMS or RCS messages—or, in other words, green bubble texts only.

• Your sent messages go through your email address instead of your phone number when you don’t have it set up that way.

• You see the same phone number twice under Settings > Apps > Messages > Send & Receive.

Reactivating iMessage after installing iOS 26

If this is the case, the fix is pretty simple: All you need to do is remove or delete the inactive SIM. Here’s what to do: First, head to Settings > Cellular. If you see two SIMs here with the same number, choose the one that isn’t active. If the inactive SIM is a physical SIM card, remove it from your iPhone. If it’s an eSIM, choose “Delete eSIM” to delete it.

Once you get rid of the inactive SIM, head to Settings > Apps > Messages, then choose “Send & Receive.” Here, choose your phone number, which should trigger iMessage to reactivate.

If you’re still having trouble with iMessage after following these steps, your issue might not have to do with this bug. Apple has a series of general troubleshooting steps for getting iMessage back up and running, which includes things like turning iMessage and FaceTime off and on again, activating your account online, and using your email address to sign into your account instead.

It’s been quite the year for Aggro Crab. After stopping production on a sequel to Going Under (with funding issues and burnout both factoring into that decision), the studio decided to focus on self-funded game jam projects before moving onto another big game. Some of the team collaborated with Content Warning developer Landfall to create Peak. With the help of clever marketing, that co-op climbing game turned out to be a huge hit, selling 10 million copies in just two months. 

The rest of the Aggro Crab squad focused on a different multiplayer game, which is called Crashout Crew. This is a party game for up to four players (there’s a single-player option too) in which you’ll try to complete orders in hazard-filled warehouses using cute, color-coded forklifts. Time is of the essence as you race to meet quotas by loading boxes into trucks, so it’s just as well that you can drift around corners. Just be careful not to drop any explosives.

You’ll be skidding around icy environments and spinning out if you run over a broken egg. Falling rocks, bees and blackouts all add to the chaos. You can upgrade your forklift and warehouse, though they’ll reset after the level ends.

The reveal trailer reminds me quite a bit of Overcooked. I wonder if this could turn out to be just as effective as a litmus test for how well you communicate with family and friends.

I adore Another Crab’s Treasure, Aggro Crab’s last large-scale game, so I’ll always be interested in whatever the studio is cooking up. I’m looking forward to trying out Crashout Crew when the demo goes live on October 13 as part of Steam Next Fest. The game is scheduled to hit Steam next year.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/crashout-crew-looks-like-overcooked-style-mayhem-from-one-of-the-studios-behind-peak-193854718.html?src=rss

Did you know you can customize Google to filter out garbage? Take these steps for better search results, including adding my work at Lifehacker as a preferred source.

Besides measuring heart rate and other metrics like steps, pretty much every fitness tracker and smartwatch measures heart rate variability, abbreviated as HRV. This measurement is the basis for recovery scores and stress readings, and you can usually find it as a standalone measurement in the “vitals” section of your chosen app. So let’s break down what this number actually measures, and how to interpret yours. 

HRV is heart rate variability

HRV stands for heart rate variability, but that doesn’t mean what you might think. HRV is not related to your heart rate changing throughout the day or during exercise. (Your heart beats faster when you’re exercising hard, which is what heart rate zones measure. Totally different purpose.) 

Heart rate variability refers to how rhythmically your heart beats. If the time from one beat to the next is always the same (at a given heart rate), you have low HRV. But if some heartbeats come more closely together, and some are more spaced out, you have high HRV. 

This may be surprising, but you actually want your heart rate to show some variation. High HRV is considered to be better than low HRV. Your fitness app will say you’re well recovered if your HRV was higher than usual last night, and it will say you’re stressed or not recovering well if your HRV was low. 

That said, it’s of course possible to have a heart rate that is too variable. In a sense, that’s what an arrhythmia is. When I’m talking about HRV here—and when fitness apps report your HRV—they’re considering the teeny tiny differences from beat to beat in an otherwise normal(ish) healthy(ish) person. 

These differences are measured in milliseconds, and you wouldn’t notice them if you didn’t have a watch sampling data while you sleep. If you ever notice anything wildly strange about the rhythm of your heart, ask your doctor (or seek emergency medical help, if appropriate). 

What does a high HRV mean? 

High heart rate variability (that is, high for you) tends to mean that you’re relatively relaxed and not too stressed. Fitness apps will bump up your readiness and recovery scores when your HRV measured during sleep is high. 

The variation in beats is thought to come from the push and pull of two different body systems, the sympathetic (“fight or flight”) and parasympathetic (“rest and digest”) nervous systems. It’s normal for your brain and body to be balancing these needs, so this is considered a good, normal functioning. 

What does a low HRV mean? 

Low HRV tends to occur when your body is working on something—recovering from hard exercise, fighting off a cold, experiencing lots of stress. If your HRV measured during sleep is low, you’ll get lower readiness or recovery scores. I find my HRV tanks when I’m sick or when I’ve been through a rough time either physically or mentally. (The day after a race or a weightlifting competition is always a low HRV day for me.) 

What is a “good” HRV number? 

I’ll give you some numbers in a minute, but the most important thing to know is that HRV is most useful when you compare readings to what is normal for you. Your HRV can be higher than mine, but still low for you, or vice versa. 

So please don’t go around asking whether an HRV of 50 is “good.” Is it higher than usual for you? Then it’s good. Is it lower than usual for you? Then maybe it’s indicating that your body is under stress. If your typical HRV readings range from 35 to 50 (for example), then 50 is high for you. 

It doesn’t matter whether the average person your age has a HRV of 20 or of 100; those numbers are just fun facts about the population in general. They don’t apply to you. Studies tend to show that fitter people have higher HRV, but also that HRV declines as we age. The average man’s HRV is slightly higher than the average woman’s, but the full range of what’s “normal” for each gender almost fully overlaps.

There’s one more important caveat: when you look up HRV data, you’ll find that different studies and different devices each measure HRV differently. For example, this meta-analysis found the average HRV was 42, with a range of 19 to 75, when measured as rMSSD (root mean square of successive differences). 

So—and remember this is just for fun, here are some graphs from two wearable companies that publish their data and they both use rMSSD:

• Whoop’s breakdown of HRV data from their users finds men have an average of 40 and women 37. They have graphs breaking down how this changes with age, and showing the variation for each group. 

• Oura’s breakdown of HRV from their users finds an average of 41 across all users, and they also graph it by age and gender. 

As I’ve found when comparing multiple devices on HRV, devices don’t always report the same HRV numbers, but usually you can follow similar trends on all of them. If you’re sick, they’ll all report low HRV. If you have a good day, they’ll all report high HRV. So pay more attention to the trend than the specifics.

Walmart plans to deploy sensors across its 4,600 US stores by the end of 2026 to track 90 million pallets of groceries shipped annually [Editor’s note: non-paywalled source]. The retailer and technology vendor Wiliot announced the expansion Thursday. The sensors will monitor the location, condition and temperature of perishables as they move from warehouses to stores. Walmart started testing Wiliot’s sensors at a Texas warehouse in 2023 and has expanded to 500 locations. The full rollout will cover the retailer’s US store network and 40 distribution centers.

The microchips measure 0.7 square millimeters and are embedded in shipping labels. They use Bluetooth to transmit real-time data about pallets. Walmart previously relied on manual scanning and paper checks by employees. The Arkansas-based company employs 2.1 million people but increased revenues by $150 billion over five years without adding workers. Walmart accounts for more than a fifth of US grocery sales.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Did you know you can customize Google to filter out garbage? Take these steps for better search results, including adding Lifehacker as a preferred source for tech news.

Two of the biggest names in fitness tracking are beefing: Fitness app Strava has filed a lawsuit against Garmin, demanding that the device manufacturer cease selling effectively all of its fitness watches and cycling computers. The suit claims patent infringement on two core features—segments and heatmaps—and alleges that Garmin violated a decade-old cooperation agreement between the two companies.

But according to Strava’s Chief Product Officer Matt Salazar, the lawsuit is a response to a much more immediate threat: Garmin’s plan to cut off API access unless Strava plasters the Garmin logo across virtually every part of its platform.

What is Strava’s lawsuit about?

At first glance, Strava’s lawsuit centers on two main patent claims. The first involves heatmaps and popularity routing, covered by patents filed in December 2014 and issued in 2016. These patents describe technology for generating maps that show where users work out based on aggregated GPS data from multiple users. This first claim is pretty clear-cut, but before diving into that, know that the second patent focuses on a different signature feature: segments. This patent, filed in March 2011 and granted in August 2015, covers the concept of user-defined route segments where athletes can compete for best times using GPS data.

Backing up a little, it’s worth noting here is how Strava and Garmin’s relationship has been close for over a decade. As trusted fitness tech blogger DC Rainmaker explains, Garmin introduced its own segments feature back in June 2014, before partnering with Strava to implement “Strava Live Segments” on Garmin devices in July 2015 through a Master Cooperation Agreement. Strava now claims that Garmin expanded beyond the scope of that agreement by continuing to develop and deploy its own Garmin-branded segments alongside Strava’s features. Notably, this alleged infringement has been ongoing for approximately 10 years.

For more context, the timing of this suit comes on the heels of recent friction between the companies. In 2024, Strava implemented controversial API changes that disrupted many third-party fitness apps. Around the same time, Garmin began requiring API partners to provide attribution for data sourced from Garmin Connect—a policy Strava reportedly resisted.

Additionally, Garmin launched its Trails+ feature in May 2025 as part of a paid Garmin Connect+ subscription, which Strava may view as encroachment on its subscription-based revenue model. According to DC Rainmaker’s sources, Strava formally notified Garmin of the patent concerns in late June 2025, with a follow-up in July. So, how did we get to today’s suit?

What sparked the lawsuit now?

In a Reddit post addressing the Strava community this afternoon, Salazar revealed that on July 1, Garmin announced new developer guidelines requiring its logo to appear “on every single activity post, screen, graph, image, sharing card etc.” for all API partners, including Strava. The deadline for compliance: November 1. The consequence for refusal: Garmin would cut off API access, preventing all Garmin activities from uploading to Strava.

“We consider this blatant advertising,” Salazar wrote. “These new guidelines actively degrade your user experience on Strava (and the other 150M+ athletes). We already provide attribution for every data partner, but Garmin wants to use Strava and every other partner as an advertising platform—they told us they care more about their marketing than your user experience.”

Salazar emphasized that Strava views this as fundamentally about user data ownership: “If you recorded an activity on your watch, we think that is your data. We believe you should be able to freely transfer or upload that data without requiring logos to be displayed alongside it or have that data be used as an advertisement to sell more watches.”

According to Salazar, Strava spent five months trying to negotiate with Garmin, proposing alternative attribution methods that would be less intrusive, but Garmin refused to compromise. Unable to justify complying with what they view as mandatory advertising requirements, Strava filed the lawsuit.

What this means for you

The good news for athletes: Your devices and data should be fine, at least for now. When asked about user impact, Strava stated that “our lawsuit is between two companies; we do not intend to take any actions that would disrupt the ability of Garmin users to sync their data with Strava.”

Plus, the legal process will likely take months or years to resolve. And Strava faces an uphill battle. Perhaps most damaging to Strava’s case is the timeline issue, particularly regarding heatmaps. According to DC Rainmaker’s research, Garmin actually introduced heatmaps in Garmin Connect in early 2013—more than a year and a half before Strava filed its patent application in December 2014. Multiple other platforms, including third-party developers using Strava’s own API data, had also created heatmap functionality during this period.

“The fact that they got a patent for it is a testament to how messy software patents have been over the years,” DC Rainmaker observes. He suggests that Garmin’s lawyers will “easily argue this patent shouldn’t have been granted and get it invalidated,” drawing parallels to a similar case where Wahoo sued Zwift and quickly dropped the suit after a judge questioned the validity of their patents.

The bottom line

A lot of athletes are feeling like children of divorce right now. Here’s how mom and dad see it:

Garmin’s position, as outlined in their July 2025 API Brand Guidelines, is that data attribution is standard practice across the industry—similar to what Google Maps and other platforms require. The guidelines give developers until the end of 2025 to comply, with Garmin noting flexibility on timelines. From Garmin’s perspective, they’re simply asking for the same attribution treatment that Strava demands from its own API partners.

Strava’s position, articulated by Salazar this afternoon, is that Garmin’s requirements go far beyond reasonable attribution and constitute forced advertising that degrades user experience. Strava points out that Garmin doesn’t provide attribution for third-party devices like heart rate monitors or power meters on its own Garmin Connect app, suggesting a double standard.

For now, users of both platforms can continue using their devices and syncing data as usual. But the lawsuit highlights growing tensions in the fitness tech ecosystem as companies increasingly compete not just for users, but for control over all the data and features that athletes have come to rely on.

A court in the Netherlands has ordered Meta to change Facebook and Instagram’s timelines, after finding that the element ran afoul of the European Union’s Digital Services Act (DSA). As reported by Reuters, the Dutch court said that the company needs to provide users with simpler options — namely ones that don’t rely on an algorithm.

“People in the Netherlands are not sufficiently able to make free and autonomous choices about the use of profiled recommendation systems,” the court said in its decision. It ruled that the timeline must honor a user’s choice of chronological order or other non-profiled options, instead of reverting to the algorithm-driven version whenever a user closes and reopens either app.

The case was brought by Bits of Freedom, a Dutch digital rights group. “It is unacceptable that a few American tech billionaires can determine how we view the world,” said the group’s spokesperson, Maartje Knaap.

Meta said it will appeal the decision, and that these DSA issues should be handled by the European Commission and other EU regulators, not by the courts of individual nations. “Proceedings like this threaten the digital single market and the harmonized regulatory regime that should underpin it,” a Meta spokesperson said. Meta faces a potential fine of $117,450 for every day it fails to comply with the court’s order, up to a maximum of $5.8 million.

The DSA has been a common thorn in the side of big tech companies since its approval in 2022. The European Commission has levied hundreds of millions of dollars in fines against the likes of Apple, Meta and Alphabet for violations of the DSA. The regulations have also been used to effect certain changes on these platforms in the name of privacy, data security and the protection of minors.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/big-tech/dutch-court-orders-meta-to-change-its-facebook-and-instagram-timelines-185106583.html?src=rss

Top college degrees may no longer provide the edge they once did in the job market, per LinkedIn CEO Ryan Roslansky. “I think the mindset shift is probably the most exciting thing because my guess is that the future of work belongs not anymore to the people that have the fanciest degrees or went to the best colleges, but to the people who are adaptable, forward thinking, ready to learn, and ready to embrace these tools,” Roslansky said. “It really kind of opens up the playing field in a way that I think we’ve never seen before.”

A 2024 Microsoft survey found 71% of business leaders would choose less-experienced candidates with AI skills over experienced candidates without them. LinkedIn data showed job postings requiring AI literacy increased about 70% year-over-year. Roslansky said AI will not replace humans but people who embrace AI will replace those who don’t.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Did you know you can customize Google to filter out garbage? Take these steps for better search results, including adding my work at Lifehacker as a preferred source.

If you’re in the Apple ecosystem, there are few earbuds out there better suited for your devices than AirPods. AirPods sync between all your Apple devices, sound great, and ship with features like Live Translate and even a heart rate monitor. The problem comes, however, if something happens to your buds—especially when your battery starts to lose its capacity to hold a charge. Unlike your iPhone, whose battery is easily replaceable, AirPods aren’t simple to repair. As it happens, they might not be repairable at all.

It seems that hasn’t changed with Apple’s latest earbuds, the AirPods Pro 3. iFixit put the newest AirPods Pro through a teardown test to see how repairable they might be. The result? A whopping zero out of 10: totally unrepairable.

AirPods Pro 3 can’t be fixed

There are a number of issues in the AirPods Pro 3’s design that lead to iFixit’s declaration here. Chief among them is that Apple chooses to seal the entire casing with strong glue. In order to open up the buds, you need to heat them to loosen that glue, then pry the buds open with sharp tools. You need to both avoid melting the plastic of the earbuds themselves, while also trying hard not to disfigure the case while slicing it open. It’s a tough balancing act.

Once inside, however, the trouble only continues. The battery is also held down with strong glue, so, once again, you need to apply heat without melting the earbud itself. Even if you successfully remove the battery, it’s extremely difficult to reassemble all of the elements here—or to, god forbid, attempt to replace one of those elements should they break. Apple has designed these earbuds to pack a ton of tech into a tiny package, with both glue and soldering, which means you run the risk of destroying crucial components when moving them around. It’s all too easy to accidentally ruin the microphones or noise cancelling tech here.

The same goes for the stem of the buds, and even the AirPods Pro 3 case: Both are all glued up, and are too easy to destroy while attempting to open or fix a component. In fact, iFixit says these “repairs” are so difficult, many repair shops don’t even bother. Between the need for special tools and the risk for failure, they simply forgo AirPods repair attempts.

This nothing new for AirPods. According to iFixit, all of Apple’s previous Bluetooth earbuds have the same problem. As it happens, all AirPods models—save for the AirPods Max—have achieved a zero out of 10 on iFixit’s scale.

Are there repairable earbuds?

While many other earbud brands score better on the repairability scale, many also don’t fare much better than AirPods. Scroll through iFixit’s list, and you’ll find other scores ranging from zero to three out of 10. It seems a lot of companies follow Apple’s lead here and solder their batteries and components together with glue.

Still, there are some winners here, according to iFixit. The undeniable champ comes are the Fairphone Fairbuds, which scored a perfect 10 out of 10. The batteries in the earbuds are easy to replace, the case is modular and easy to disassemble, and Fairphone offers replacement parts and instructions. Samsung’s Galaxy Buds Live are the runner-up with an eight out of 10: They’re similarly repairable to the Fairbuds, but they don’t have official repair instructions or parts, other than the batteries for the earbuds. Sony’s WF-1000XM4 scored a respectable seven out of 10, as they also have easy to replace batteries with a modular case—though they don’t include official parts or instructions.

If your primary goal when buying earbuds is repairability, you do have options out there. If you want the best possible experience when using your Apple devices, AirPods are still where it’s at. Just know that when something fails, such as the battery or another component, your Apple earbuds are kind of toast.

An anonymous reader shares a report: It’s not the vibes; Earth is literally getting darker. Scientists have discovered that our planet has been reflecting less light in both hemispheres, with a more pronounced darkening in the Northern hemisphere, according to a study published on Monday in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The new trend upends longstanding symmetry in the surface albedo, or reflectivity, of the Northern and Southern hemispheres. In other words, clouds circulate in a way that equalizes hemispheric differences, such as the uneven distribution of land, so that the albedos roughly match — though nobody knows why. “There are all kinds of things that people have noticed in observations and simulations that tend to suggest that you have this hemispheric symmetry as a kind of fundamental property of the climate system, but nobody’s really come up with a theoretical framework or explanation for it,” said Norman Loeb, a physical scientist at NASA’s Langley Research Center, who led the new study. “It’s always been something that we’ve observed, but we haven’t really explained it fully.”

To study this mystery, Loeb and his colleagues analyzed 24 years of observations captured since 2000 by the Clouds and the Earth’s Radiant Energy System (CERES), a network of instruments placed on several NOAA and NASA satellites. Instead of an explanation for the strange symmetry, the results revealed an emerging asymmetry in hemispheric albedo; though both hemispheres are darkening, the Northern hemisphere shows more pronounced changes which challenges “the hypothesis that hemispheric symmetry in albedo is a fundamental property of Earth,” according to the study.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Black Friday remains the best time to grab a new TV at a discount, but Amazon’s latest October Prime Day sale should be a decent time to take the plunge if you need to upgrade right away. While the two-day Prime Big Deal Days event doesn’t officially start until October 7, a small handful of well-regarded TVs from the likes of TCL, Hisense, Sony and Samsung are cheaper than usual right now. You can find our full list of the best October Prime Day TV deals below. We’ll update this roundup as prices change and new offers arise in the days ahead. 

Best Prime Day TV deals

Hisense U8QG 65-inch Mini-LED TV for $1,082 ($416 off): Several reviews suggest that the Hisense U8QG ticks most of the requisite boxes for a LCD TV in 2025: robust local dimming and mini-LED backlighting, exceptionally high brightness, vibrant quantum-dot colors, a fast refresh rate (165Hz in this case), support for the major HDR formats and so on. It’s a higher-end option than something like the TCL QM6K with much better brightness and contrast, though it still falls short of a good OLED TV when it comes to the latter. Like most LCD panels, it’ll also look a bit washed out if you view it from an angle. It has three HDMI 2.1 ports, which is one fewer than many other TVs in this price range, though it uniquely includes a USB-C video input if you want to hook up a gaming laptop or Nintendo Switch. (Just note that you won’t get VRR or HDR when using that.) You’d mainly get it over an OLED TV if you’re willing to trade some picture quality for something that’s better-suited in a bright room. This deal on the 65-inch model isn’t an all-time low, but it matches the best price we’ve tracked since July.

Samsung S90F 55-inch QD-OLED TV for $1,498 ($100 off): The Samsung S90F is an upper-tier model with a QD-OLED panel, which blends the usual perks of a quality OLED set — near-perfect contrast, wide viewing angles, clear motion, low input lag — with a layer of quantum dots. This helps it produce a wider gamut of more vivid colors compared to traditional WOLED TVs. It also comes with four HDMI 2.1 ports and has a fast refresh rate of 144Hz. It doesn’t support Dolby Vision HDR, however, and reviews we trust say that the LG C5, a competing WOLED model, retains darker black levels in a bright room. (The S90F has a more colorful image, though.) We saw this 55-inch model go for $100 less earlier in the month, but this deal matches the best price we’ve tracked otherwise. The 65-inch version is similarly discounted. Just make sure you only buy the 55-, 65- or 77-inch model, as every other size in the US uses a lesser WOLED panel. Shady, we know.

Sony Bravia 8 II 65-inch QD-OLED TV for $2,998 ($502 off): It’s certainly not cheap, but the Sony Bravia 8 II has earned plaudits for its excellent image processing, upscaling and overall accuracy alongside the expected color, contrast and motion benefits of its QD-OLED display. This should help it make lots of movies and shows look closer to their original intent. It also uses the handy Google TV interface. Outside of an extremely brief dip in June, this deal matches the best price to date for the 65-inch version. That said, if you can’t stomach the high price, other reviews note that the older Sony A95L offers similar performance a bit less, while more recent competitors like the LG G5 and Samsung S95F can get noticeably brighter (even if they’re not always as accurate). Those two should be better for gaming as well, as the Bravia 8 II only has two HDMI 2.1 ports — one of which is an eARC port for soundbars — and its input lag is slightly higher.

Amazon Fire TV Stick 4K for $25 ($25 off): The standard Amazon Fire TV Stick 4K offers the same core experience as the pricier Fire TV Stick 4K Max, only it comes with a slightly slower processor, half the storage (8GB) and Wi-Fi 6 instead of Wi-Fi 6E. For most people just looking for a casual streamer on the cheap, those shouldn’t be huge losses. This model is also more powerful than the just-announced Fire TV 4K Select, though its Fire OS interface can still be messy and ad-heavy, with special emphasis on Amazon’s own services. This deal is $3 more than the stick’s all-time low, though it matches the best price we’ve seen since Black Friday last year.

Amazon Fire TV Stick HD for $18 ($17 off): The Fire TV Stick HD is the budget pick in our guide to the best streaming devices. It can only stream up to 1080p, and it can run a bit choppier than the 4K models since it has a slower chipset and half the RAM (1GB). The usual issues with the Fire TV interface still apply here too. But if you just want to add streaming apps to an aging TV or basic monitor for as little cash as possible, it should get the job done. This discount ties the device’s lowest price to date.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/deals/the-best-early-october-prime-day-tv-deals-save-on-sets-from-tcl-sony-hisense-and-more-180051769.html?src=rss

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Deal pricing and availability subject to change after time of publication.

Did you know you can customize Google to filter out garbage? Take these steps for better search results, including adding Lifehacker as a preferred source for tech news.

With early Prime Day deals going live, now is the perfect time to start shopping for new tech essentials like TVs, headphones, and speakers. If you’re a gamer or a movie and TV fanatic in the market for a new screen, the 2025 Hisense U65QF 55-inch QLED TV is currently 42% off on Amazon, bringing it down to less than $500.

2025 Hisense U65QF 55-inch QLED TV

$467.99
at Amazon

$799.99
Save $332.00

$467.99
at Amazon

$799.99
Save $332.00

According to this PCMag review, the Hisense U65QF QLED stands out for its bright, well-balanced, and colorful picture quality. It has 4K resolution, a 16:9 aspect ratio, and 1,024 nits of brightness, making it one of the most affordable TVs to surpass 1,000 nits. Its mini-LED backlight adapts to different lighting conditions and helps the screen achieve dark blacks, as the review mentions, but there may still be some light bloom around high-contrast edges. Dolby Vision performance and color accuracy are impressive for a budget TV at this price point (as is off-angle viewing), though some greens may appear slightly oversaturated.

Gamers will appreciate the native 144Hz refresh rate, HDMI 2.1, and AMD FreeSync Premium Pro. The PCMag tester notes responsive performance, with Game Mode input lag coming in at 13.1 milliseconds with a 4K60 signal and 4.6 milliseconds with a 1080p120 signal. Dolby Atmos support and a built-in subwoofer add to the immersive experience. While there’s no hands-free voice control on this model, it does have built-in Alexa and Amazon Fire TV, with access to all major streaming services.

Ultimately, if you’re in the market for a mini-LED smart TV with exceptional value for gaming or viewing shows, sports, and TV shows, the Hisense U65QF 55-inch QLED TV provides stunning 4K visuals, QLED color accuracy, a smooth refresh rate, and other attributes that make it an excellent mid-range pick for anyone who wants premium-tier features without spending over $500.