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Our favorite things: gear, gadgets, and other stuff

We all have our favorite stuff. It could be a laptop that you’ve used for several years or the snazzy new one that just arrived last week. It could be the headphones that deliver your favorite music and podcasts, the controller that helps you win your games, or the app that puts a weird background on your Zoom calls.

Of course, we’re not just talking tech. We’re also talking about your favorite coffee maker, the TV shows that you binged through the pandemic, the hiking boots that have never given you a blister, and the immersion blender that your friend gave you for your birthday.

We’ve talked to the people who work at The Verge and asked them to tell us about their favorite stuff, whether it be for working at home, cooking, or playing. Some of these things may be what you already like to use; others may give you ideas of the kind of items you could use for yourself. Either way, we hope you enjoy reading about the things we use and enjoy.

  • The Verge’s favorite gardening gadgets

    Becca in her garden
    Photo courtesy of: Becca Farsace

    We know how much you’ll miss the icy streets, freezing temperatures, and misbehaving radiators that the winter season brings, but spring is right around the corner, which means that while you no longer have to worry about shoveling snow off your driveway, it is time to start thinking about plants — whether it’s in your garden or on your windowsill. We asked the staff members of The Verge what they are planning to grow over the coming spring and summer months and how they are planning to care for those flowers, vegetables, and other flora. Here’s what they told us about starting new plants and caring for the seedlings — although some are using rather unusual gardening tools.

    Mia Sato, reporter

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  • The Verge’s favorite mobile phone gadgets

    Samsung phone with blue stand on desk.
    Image: Moft

    Every year, major phone manufacturers such as Apple, Google, and Samsung hold elaborate events meant to introduce and publicize their upcoming phones. Well, buying a new phone is all well and good, but things don’t stop there. Once you’ve got the phone, you have to buy yourself a case (so you won’t crack that shiny new device the first time you drop it on the sidewalk), some earbuds, a charging stand — all sorts of gadgets.

    The staff of The Verge is as prone to buying neat accessories for their phones as anyone, so we asked them what they were using to enhance their mobile tech. Here’s what some of them answered.

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  • Oct 6, 2023

    Verge Staff

    The Verge’s favorite tools to stay organized

    A phone showing Google Tasks on the screen
    Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge

    Life these days can be very complicated, and many of us — I’d guess that most of us — are constantly looking for the best method to keep our lives in order. What do you need on your grocery list? When is that work project due, and who is working on it with you? A friend wants to do a movie-watching session, but is that the same day you promised your parents to help clean the garage? Which bills are due, and can you afford to pay them all? Where is that article about which masks to wear? And on and on.

    So we’ve asked the staff of The Verge what they use to keep track of all their appointments, tasks, projects, and workflows. And it turns out that they use a variety of different apps or some fairly old-fashioned paper-and-pen solutions — or both.

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  • Barbara Krasnoff

    Aug 28, 2023

    Barbara Krasnoff

    Cheap stuff that doesn’t suck

    Tool kits floating diagonally over a purple background.
    Art by William Joel / The Verge

    Okay, let’s face it — there’s a thrill when you go into a store and try out, or even buy, an $1,800 Samsung Z-Fold 5 or a $999 iPhone 14 Pro. But sometimes, you can feel a real sense of accomplishment when you find that you own something that costs under $50 and turns out to be something you really, really enjoy using.

    We asked the staff of The Verge to come up with their favorite inexpensive items, and we got some really interesting answers, ranging from electric screwdrivers and wired earbuds to stick vacuum cleaners and snazzy watch bands.

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  • Jul 28, 2023

    Verge Staff

    The Verge staff chats about our favorite backpacks, slings, and bags

    A picture of a black Peak Design Every Day Backpack lying flat against white hardwood floor.
    Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge

    Now that most of us are traveling around again — to work, to the movies, to friends, or just to get outside and experience the summer — we are pulling our favorite backpacks and bags from our closets and filling them up with laptops, phones, cameras, clothes, groceries, and other stuff. (Not to mention trying to figure out if they might suit any kids of our acquaintance for back-to-school purposes.)

    Here are some of the carry-alls that we here at The Verge have been using. As you will read, most of these have gotten months or even years of good use — which is what you want in a good backpack or bag.

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  • Jun 6, 2023

    Verge Staff

    The Verge’s favorite travel gear

    Hikers on a rocky summit
    Photo: Allison Johnson / The Verge

    It’s travel season, which means it’s time to pack your bathing suit, your hiking boots — and your tech. We asked the staff of The Verge what their favorite travel gear was, and as you can imagine, we got a wide range of answers — from backpacks and travel apps to power strips and selfie sticks.

    So sit back, think about vacation, and take a look at some of the stuff that our editors and writers find most useful when it’s time to get out of the house and on their way to relaxation or adventure.

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  • Barbara Krasnoff

    May 1, 2023

    Barbara Krasnoff

    The Verge’s favorite Stream Deck hacks

    Stream Deck MK. 2 in dark purplish room
    Image: Elgato

    Recently — this week, in fact — I purchased my first Stream Deck. Specifically, I decided to try the Stream Deck Mini, the smallest and most inexpensive model. Why? Because I saw how much fun many of my colleagues were having with theirs.

    The Stream Deck is a device that lets you program a series of physical buttons (and, in the case of the Plus, knobs) to perform a single task or a series of tasks on your computer or on your home’s smart devices. In other words, it lets you do something that usually demands several keystrokes — say, starting a new email, dropping in a template, and sending it to a specific contact list — with a single button press. Neat, right?

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  • Barbara Krasnoff

    Apr 24, 2023

    Barbara Krasnoff

    The Verge’s favorite pet tech

    Olivia the cat
    Olivia.
    Photo by Helen Havlak / The Verge

    If you’ve got a pet, it’s likely you have something cool that you use to either feed the pet, amuse the pet, watch the pet, track the pet, or travel with the pet. Well, the folks here at The Verge are no different: many have animal companions whom they feed, pamper, worry about — even obsess about — and totally enjoy.

    We asked our co-workers to tell us about some of the techie (and not-so-techie) gadgets that they use to keep their pets clean, fed, and amused — along with portraits of the much-loved dogs and cats. We’ve got some great photos to show you. Enjoy.

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  • Mar 29, 2023

    Verge Staff

    The Verge’s 13 favorite kitchen tools

    Rows of toaster ovens, milk frothers, and coffee grinders
    The Verge

    We’ve all got to eat, and unless you’re the type of person who lives on instant meals and takeout, you probably need to cook as well. Most of The Verge’s staff not only cook but enjoy cooking, so we asked them to tell us what type of kitchen tools they are using these days.

    We got a wide variety of answers — and at least one debate. We have recommendations for instant thermometers, rice cookers, and toaster ovens as well as a back-and-forth about the best way to grind your coffee beans, and more.

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  • Mar 10, 2023

    Verge Staff

    The Verge’s favorite music for work

    Rows of blue headphones floating diagonally against a pink background.
    The Verge

    Some people work at home with a speaker system droning out their favorite background music. Some sit in an open office with a carefully assembled playlist blasting through their headphones. And some scrub the toilet while singing to the latest pop songs vibrating in their earbuds.

    While there are people who prefer to work in silence, others feel more comfortable laboring to the beat of their favorite tunes. We asked staff members of The Verge what kind of music — if any — they liked to play while they worked. Here is a sampling of the very varied answers we got.

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  • Feb 17, 2023

    Verge Staff

    The Verge’s favorite media obsessions

    A line of the book of “A Psalm for the Wild-Built” on a diagonal
    The Verge

    It’s hard to admit, but it’s all too easy to get caught up in obsessive behavior occasionally, especially when it comes to entertainment. It can be a TV series, a game, a series of novels, a comic book universe... It’s the kind of thing where you look up and suddenly realize that it’s 2AM and you have to get up early for work, and then you think, “Well, one more episode won’t hurt,” or, “If I try one more time, I can survive into the next round.”

    We asked the staff of The Verge what their current media obsessions were. Here are the answers we got, divided into four categories: games, TV series, books, and music. Maybe you even share the enthusiasm they have for some of these.

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  • Aug 28, 2022

    Verge Staff

    The Verge staff talk about their favorite backpacks and other bags

    man crossing street with messenger bag
    Photo: Mission Workshop

    In August 2021, we asked the staff of The Verge to tell us about their go-to laptop bags. Now, a year later, some are still using the same bags — but not all.

    It’s surprising how attached you can get to a bag — especially the bag that you use to carry your laptop, your sweater, your lunch, your notebook, your exercise shoes, your kids’ diapers, or any of the other stuff you need. Whether you’re heading to the office, visiting a friend, hanging in a coffee shop, going on a hike, or just sitting outdoors to read or work, having a bag that can accommodate everything on your “gotta have this” list can help you avoid a lot of aggravation.

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  • Aug 4, 2022

    Verge Staff

    The Verge’s favorite ways to relieve stress

    Mitchell hiking in the woods
    Going offline.
    Photo: Becky O’Bryan

    It’s been a really stressful few years. We’ve all been living through pandemics (plural!), political upheaval, economic awfulness — you name it. And this isn’t even mentioning the normal pressure of work and family. So how do you deal?

    We asked the staff of The Verge to let us know how they cope with the anxiety and pressures of living in today’s world (including having to write about these problems on a day-to-day basis). We got a variety of answers, ranging from running and meditation to pulling weeds and creating chain mail.

    Read Article >
  • Aug 3, 2022

    Verge Staff

    The Verge’s favorite tools to stay organized

    Illustration by Samar Haddad / The Verge | Photography by Vjeran Pavic

    Life these days can be very complicated, and many of us — I’d guess that most of us — are constantly looking for the best method to keep our lives in order. What do you need on your grocery list? When is that work project due, and who is working on it with you? A friend wants to do a movie-watching session, but is that the same day you promised your parents to help clean the garage? Which bills are due, and can you afford to pay them all? Where is that article about which masks to wear? And on and on.

    So we’ve asked the staff of The Verge what they use to keep track of all their appointments, tasks, projects, and workflows. And it turns out that they use a variety of different apps or some fairly old-fashioned paper-and-pen solutions — or both.

    Read Article >
  • Jun 16, 2022

    Verge Staff

    The Verge’s favorite camera gear

    Photo by Becca Farsace / The Verge

    When it comes to taking photographs, the range of interest and knowledge among practitioners — and the range of the equipment they use — can be immense. You can be happy just taking the occasional snapshot with your phone; you can own a reasonably priced camera and a couple of decent lenses; you can save up your salary for your dream camera along with some really good lenses, straps, and tripods; or you can be a pro whose expertise demands a major investment in top-line equipment.

    So, when we asked a staff as diverse as The Verge’s about their favorite camera gear, it wasn’t surprising that we got back a wide variety of answers. Recommendations ranged from $37 backpacks and $58 mini tripods to $450 roller bags and $2,000 lenses.

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  • Barbara Krasnoff

    May 18, 2022

    Barbara Krasnoff

    The Verge’s 23 favorite kitchen gadgets of 2022

    Illustration by Grayson Blackmon and Alex Castro / The Verge

    When you’re stuck at home because of pandemics, bad weather, or just because you don’t feel like going out, there’s nothing more satisfying than cooking something really fantastic. Even if you’re not an experienced or enthusiastic cook, sometimes it’s really satisfying to create a new and tasty dish for you, your friends, and / or family.

    We asked the staff of The Verge what kinds of equipment, gadgets, and tools they use to make their kitchen adventures better tasting, easier, or just more fun. Here are some of the answers we got.

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  • May 3, 2022

    Verge Staff

    The Verge’s favorite gadgets for your car

    iOttie Wireless Car Charter
    Photo: iOttie

    Cars have become bastions of electronic gadgetry — but that doesn’t mean that we can’t add a few of our own. Some of us are simply not content with what came with our vehicles, some of us want to have emergency gear available just in case, and some of us have older cars that need help in order to be able to accommodate modern electronics. 

    Here are some of the gadgets that staffers at The Verge have used to upgrade their various vehicles.

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  • Apr 14, 2022

    Verge Staff

    The Verge’s favorite gear for outdoor fun

    It’s time to prepare for a summer outdoors.
    It’s time to prepare for a summer outdoors.

    Sumer is icumen in — or, in other words (and if you’re not Chaucer), “Get ready, summer’s around the corner!” Especially if you’ve been cooped up all winter watching the COVID stats and waiting for a chance to get outdoors, now’s the time to get ready to see the sky.

    We asked the staff of The Verge to tell us about their favorite gear to help them enjoy the outdoors, whether it was on a bike, on a scooter, hiking, camping, or just hanging out and watching the world go by. Here’s what they reported.

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  • Mar 4, 2022

    Verge Staff

    The Verge’s favorite non-tech gadgets

    Illustration by Kristen Radtke / The Verge

    Let’s admit it — most, if not all, of the people who work here at The Verge are gadget enthusiasts. But while most of those gadgets come under the heading of tech — headphones, smartphones, laptops, speakers, and all the other electronic gear that we love to play with — there are also some really interesting, fun, and useful gadgets out there that we don’t usually think of as tech, per se.

    So, for this article, we asked the staff to come up with their favorite non-tech gadgets — things that don’t have Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, or an app. Admittedly, some of what they came up with sit on the border between tech and non-tech — where, for example, do espresso machines belong? But hey, let’s not be picky. Here are the kitchen gear, home tools, and personal items that we most treasure.

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  • Feb 15, 2022

    Verge Staff

    The Verge’s favorite audio gear for 2022

    Photo by Alix Diaconis / The Verge

    It’s been about a year since we first asked the staff of The Verge to tell us about some of their favorite audio gear. As we said in last year’s piece, the people here spend a lot of time listening to a variety of music, podcasts, and other interesting sounds — and that hasn’t changed. Many of us have used music to get through the ups and downs of the past year, and our audio devices have made it possible not only to lose ourselves in our tunes but to communicate with remote friends and relatives and to get work done via Zoom, Slack, and other apps.

    But that isn’t to say that we have the same tastes in music or tech. The Verge is an assembly of distinct personalities, and our tastes in music — and the tech we use to listen to that music — is distinct as well.

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  • Barbara Krasnoff

    Dec 7, 2021

    Barbara Krasnoff

    The Verge’s favorite guilty pleasures

    Photo: Ember Technologies

    We all have stuff that we’ve bought ourselves — or asked others to buy for us — that makes us happy, even if we suspect our friends may not understand why it’s so great. It could be a $100-plus coffee cup that keeps your liquid at the exact right temperature. Or a video game that you’ve been playing for years. Or a hair styler that is way expensive but would make you look fabulous.

    We asked the staff of The Verge what some of their guilty pleasures are, and the braver among us volunteered some answers. Here they are.

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  • Barbara Krasnoff

    Nov 13, 2021

    Barbara Krasnoff

    The Verge’s favorite unrealistic gift wishes for 2022

    Let’s face it — somewhere inside us all is a greedy five-year-old who wants that wonderful, beautiful, fascinating toy that seems completely out of reach. But what that toy is depends very much on who we are. So, just out of curiosity, we asked the staff of The Verge to tell us something that they would love to get for the holidays — if money (and opportunity) was no object. (And the rule was that idealistic longings like world peace or the end of the pandemic didn’t count — for this once, we were not going for idealism.)

    So let’s see what hidden longings lie in the hearts of The Verge’s staff...

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  • Jul 3, 2021

    Verge Staff

    The Verge’s favorite summer gear for 2021

    Photo: Wise Owl Outfitters

    After over a year of indoor living, people are finally able to go out and enjoy the outdoors: beaches, sports, hiking, camping, bird-watching, bicycling, picnics… you name it. We asked some of our colleagues from The Verge what they were planning to take with them in their outdoor escapes. Here are some of their recommendations, including outdoor tech, camera gear, rugged footwear, and gadgets that help you take it easy.

    Twelve months predominantly spent indoors did wonders for my battery anxiety. Not only was I using my phone less, thanks to having constant easy access to a tablet and laptop, but even when my phone got close to running out, my trusty charger was never far out of reach. However, I know that’s going to change this summer, and I’ll be confronted by the fact that my shiny new iPhone 12 Pro’s battery life really isn’t as great as I’d like it to be. 

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  • Jul 3, 2021

    Verge Staff

    The Verge’s favorite summer gear for 2022

    Kristen Radtke / The Verge

    The last few years have been incredibly hard for almost everyone, so now that summer is about here, it’s a good idea to step outside and decompress a bit with whatever activity suits you best — whether it’s a favorite sport, a long hike, overnight camping, bird-watching, bicycling, or just sitting on a beach and watching the waves come in.

    As we’ve done for the last couple of years, we asked some of our colleagues from The Verge what they were planning to take with them in their outdoor escapes. Here are some of their recommendations, including outdoor tech, camera gear, rugged footwear, and gadgets that help them take it easy.

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  • May 15, 2021

    Verge Staff

    Our favorite pandemic gifts to ourselves

    Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge

    When you’ve been through tough times — and we all have — sometimes you just need a distraction or something that just makes you feel good to get you through it. We asked the staff of The Verge what they’ve treated themselves to in order to help make all the upheavals and lockdowns of the past year just a bit more bearable.

    These are some of the things that made them smile over the past year. Hopefully, you’ve got something that made you smile as well.

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