A great mouse mat is a must for gamers, reducing wear on wrists during hours of intensive play. Many modern ones use chemical coatings or specially engineered surfaces to improve sensor accuracy or reduce drag?a boon if you?re doing repetitive motion that requires high accuracy.

(Don't mistake mouse mats for the smaller mouse pads, once an absolute necessity in the era of mechanical mice. Because optical and laser mice can work on so many different kinds of surfaces, the humble mouse pad has largely disappeared.) 

Plenty of mouse mat manufacturers exist, but few provide clarity or consistency in describing their products. For example, most don?t report how much friction you?ll encounter when using their mats with the most popular mice. To help you find the best mouse mat for your needs, we?ve tested several from a few different companies that represent a range of surface types (metal, plastic, or cloth) and usage cases (business or gaming).

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Saint?s Row?s Achilles heel was always combat. It hid this fact by peppering each game with a handful of absurd weapons, from a recliner that fired missiles to the Dubstep gun to the iconic purple dildo bat?still the weapon I most associate with the series.

But even armaments that creative couldn?t hide the fact that combat was often a by-the-book affair. Enemies were brainless, and each encounter involved simply trying to get through it as fast as possible without dying. It?s telling that most of the memorable moments in Saint?s Row had nothing to do with combat, be it the Tron-esque ?Deckers Die? mission, singing Biz Markie in a car with your friends, or an Aerosmith-backed rocket ride into space.

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Choosing a gaming keyboard is a matter of personal taste. One person could be into Cherry Browns and white backlighting. Another might favor Razer Greens and a rippling RGB glow. Gigantic wrist pads, compact shapes, numeric keypads, macro keys, volume controls?a plethora of keyboards exists because everyone wants a different mix of features.

To help you sort through the many options, we?ve sifted through the latest and greatest planks to come up with our top recommendations. All of these are mechanical keyboards, and for good reason?they?re simply more comfortable to use over the long haul. But we?re open-minded, so if we encounter an alternative that works well, you may see it appear on this list. We?ll keep updating it periodically as we test new keyboards.

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Among the TV shows, magazines, and games services unveiled at Apple?s ?Show time? event was a surprise entry into a category that couldn?t be further outside Apple?s wheelhouse: a credit card. Dubbed Apple Card, it?s not a traditional plastic credit card that gives you points on things you buy. Rather, it?s a whole new way to shop online and offline. Here?s everything you need to know about it.

Updated 01/17/20: You can now apply for Apple Card on the web, rather than only in the Wallet app on an iPhone. 

What is the Apple Card?

The Apple Card is an Apple-branded credit card from MasterCard. Unlike the current Barclaycard Visa with Apple Rewards, which is a partner card, the Apple Card is owned and operated by Apple.

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The reviews for the new M1 MacBooks are here and they're spectacular. They're not just faster than the previous Intel machines, they're among the fastest Apple laptops ever made, with some tests besting even the flagship 16-inch MacBook Pro. And I really, really want one.

I?ve made no secret of my intention to hold off on buying a new Mac until Apple started using its own silicon inside, and the day finally arrived. The Apple Store was down, the event clock was ticking down, and I was ready to buy my first new MacBook in nearly a decade.

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For years, it?s been iPhone this, iPhone that. And for good reason. But now, the Mac?the platform that pushed Apple to the forefront of computing?is back in the spotlight. And for good reason.

While the Intel years were good for the Mac, Apple needed something to take its computer to the next level. That something now comes in the form of Apple?s own system on a chip (SoC), called the M1. Along with macOS Big Sur (the OS built for the M1), the Mac makes breakthroughs in performance and battery efficiency that were never possible with Intel silicon.

This review takes a look at the $1,299 13-inch MacBook Pro, which has an Apple 8-core M1. This SoC includes 8GB of RAM and an 8-core graphics processor. The laptop also comes with a 256GB SSD, a 13.3-inch LED-backlit display, a 58.2-watt-hour lithium-polymer battery, and a 61W USB-C power adapter.

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When Apple said it would start producing Macs with its own system-on-chip processors, custom CPU and GPU silicon (and a bunch of other stuff) to replace parts from Intel and AMD, we figured it would be good. I never expected it would be this good.

Looking at the incredible performance of Apple?s A-series SoCs for iPhones and iPads, one could extrapolate to a laptop chip that offers really good efficiency and performance. To say that Apple delivered would be the understatement of the year.

For great holiday deals on Apple gear see our roundup of the best Black Friday deals on iPads, AirPods, Watches, MacBooks, and more.

The MacBook Air with the new M1 processor so absolutely and thoroughly trounces the Intel version released earlier this year (with Intel?s ?Ice Lake? Y-series CPU/GPU) that it defies belief.

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