The Logitech Wireless Keyboard K350 boasts a slightly curved, contoured keyboard. It could be just the thing for typists with aching wrists and tendons. But while we like the keyboard’s roomy design, padded palm rest and array of programmable hotkeys, we’re disappointed by the cheap feel of the keys themselves. You’d also need to warm to the wave-like form factor.

Note: This review is part of our wireless keyboard roundup. Go there for details about competing products and how we tested them.

Basic features

• Windows OS support (XP and up)
• Wireless 2.4GHz RF connectivity
• USB Unifying Receiver
• 2X AA batteries preinstalled (3 years’ advertised battery life)

Design

Measuring 19 x 10 x 1.5 inches and weighing about 2 pounds, 3 ounces, the K350 is one of the biggest keyboards I’ve ever tested. Indeed, if you extend its rear two-step feet to their full height (which props the keyboard up 8 degrees), the keyboard rises to a full 2.5 inches in height—so tall, in fact, that it blocked my keyboard tray from sliding back into my desk. Thankfully, the second of two steps in the retractable feet raises the keyboard only 4 degrees, shaving a half-inch off its overall height.

Melissa Riofrio/IDG

Besides its imposing height, the K350 also boasts a padded palm rest. The keyboard itself is both slightly curved and contoured in a wave shape, creating a pair of dips roughly where the A, S, D, F, and J, K, L, and semicolon keys sit. Logitech says its so-called “Comfort Wave Design” is intended to “support the actual, varied lengths of your fingers.” We’ll delve into the actual feel of the keyboard in a moment.

Another attention-grabbing design feature on the K350 is its array of hotkeys and controls, complete with a central volume toggle surrounded by media playback buttons, prominent buttons for Photo, Music, Windows Media Center (which maps to Groove Music in Windows 10), Settings and Task View, plus a Zoom toggle, hotkeys for Microsoft Word, Excel, Edge, Search, E-mail, and more.

In all, I counted 30 hotkeys on the K350 (assuming toggles count for two keys), 17 of which can be reprogrammed using Logitech’s aging SetPoint app. (Logitech has a newer, slicker Logitech Options utility, but it doesn’t work with this keyboard.)

Melissa Riofrio/IDG

Connectivity

The K350 keyboard connects to a PC via the included USB Unifying Receiver, a wireless 2.4GHz USB dongle, which plugs in and works instantly without the need for drivers. The K350’s wireless connection never dropped or sputtered during my testing, and it quickly reconnected after going to sleep following periods of inactivity.

While Logitech says the K350 will work only with Windows PCs, anecdotally it also connected to my iMac. Because there’s no Mac version of Logitech’s SetPoint software, however, Mac users won’t be able to customize the K350’s hotkeys.

Typing feel

Whether the K350’s waved keyboard works for you will likely be a matter of taste. I found the contoured design to be a bit gimmicky and distracting, although I’d probably grow accustomed to it over time. That said, the slight curve in the overall keyboard shape does help keep your wrists at a straighter, more comfortable angle. Your experience with Logitech’s Comfort Wave Design may vary, so I’d urge you to try it in person to decide whether it’s a fit.

As for the keys themselves, they’re disappointing given the price of the keyboard. While the sculpted design of the keys make for easy discovery, the key caps feel a tad hollow and cheap, and there’s a fair amount of clickity-clack noise as you type. On the plus side, the K350’s keys boast a solid, tactile bump in the middle of each keystroke, along with a decently springy rebound.

Conclusion

Big, roomy, hotkey-happy and ergonomically minded, the Logitech Wireless Keyboard K350 could be just the ticket for Windows users whose aching fingers need a break. That said, we wish the loud keys felt more substantial.

Switching to a solid-state drive is the best upgrade you can make for your PC. These wondrous devices obliterate long boot times, speed up how fast your programs and games load, and generally makes your computer feel fast. But not all solid-state drives are created equal. The best SSDs offer solid performance at affordable prices—or, if price is no object, face-meltingly fast read and write speeds.

Samsung managed the feat by designed the 860 QVO around quad-level cell NAND, making it one of the first QLC SSDs on the market along with the NVMe-based Intel 660p. The new technology lets drive makers stuff SSDs with hard drive-like levels of capacity while simultaneously maintaining those juicy SSD speeds we all love so much—most of the time. If you exceed the 860 QVO’s cache, speeds plummet to hard drive-like levels too. Fortunately, that limitation doesn’t kick in unless you’re shifting very large amounts of data (and Intel’s QLC drive suffers the same fate). Our tests moved around 42GB of data before blowing past the cache and seeing those slower speeds.

That might be an issue for some specialized workloads, but when you consider the drive’s overall capabilities and mouthwatering price-per-gigabyte, it’s a stellar low-cost option for many people, especially if you’re considering the larger 2TB and 4TB capacities.

Best NVMe SSD

If performance is paramount, the Samsung 970 Pro is the best NVMe SSD you can buy, backed by Samsung’s excellent Magician SSD management software—but most people should buy Adata’s XPG SX8200 Pro instead. This ludicrously fast drive roars past SATA-based SSDs in sustained read/write tests and delivers better performance as the chart-topping 960 Pro. But it does so for significantly less cash: 256GB for $75 on Amazon, 512GB for $120, and the 1TB model we tested for $215. Wow. 

The Samsung 970 EVO Plus is an excellent alternative, delivering up to 42 percent better performance than the older 970 EVO it replaced, and at far lower prices. The 970 EVO Plus is available in 250GB, 500GB, and 1TB flavors for a $90, $130, and $250, respectively. That’s astoundingly good bang-for-buck with a drive this potent.

The WD Black SN750 is the successor to the WD Black 3D SSD that reigned as our top pick for most of 2018. It’s just a hair slower than the Samsung 970 EVO Plus (and nearly as fast as the 970 Pro), but you’ll never notice the difference, and the WD drive handles extremely large file transfers better. It’s one of the best combinations of price and performance you can find in an NVMe drive, at $80 for 250GB, $130 for 500GB, $250 for 1TB, and $400 for 2TB on Amazon.

Fastest SSD

If performance is paramount and price is no object, Intel’s Optane SSD 905P is the best SSD you can buy, full stop. The drive doesn’t use traditional NAND technology like other SSDs; instead, it’s built around the futuristic 3D Xpoint technology developed by Micron and Intel. Hit that link if you want a tech deep-dive, but in practical terms, the Optane SSD 900P absolutely plows through our storage benchmarks and carries a ridiculous 8,750TBW (terabytes written) rating, compared to the roughly 200TBW offered by many NAND SSDs. If that holds true, this blazing-fast drive is basically immortal—and it looks damned good, too.

But you pay for the privilege of bleeding edge performance. Intel’s Optane SSD 905P costs $550 for a 480GB versionRemove non-product link and $1,279 for a 1.5TB model, with several additional options available in both the U.2 and PCI-E add-in-card form factors. That’s significantly more expensive than even NVMe SSDs—and like those, the benefits of Intel’s SSD will be most obvious to people who move large amounts of data around regularly. And the Optane SSD 900P actually uses the NVMe protocol to communicate with your PC, so you’ll need to meet some additional criteria to be able to boot from it—which we’ll cover next.

The step-down Intel Optane SSD 900P is like a miniature version of the 905P, still beating out traditional SSDs (albeit by a smaller margin) at lower capacities and prices—though at  $285 for a 280GB version and $600 for a 480GB model, it’s still drastically more expensive than most NVMe drives.

The Intel SSD 800P ($129 for 58GB, $199 for 118GB on Newegg) isn’t anywhere near as compelling a purchase despite being far more affordable. It still offers best-in-class longevity and very fast random file access, but the 800P delivers mundane results in other performance areas, and it’s crippled by low capacities and sky-high prices. Grab one of our other top SSD picks instead.

NVMe SSD setup: What you need to know

Be aware of what NVMe drives deliver before you buy in. Standard SATA SSDs already supercharge boot times and loading times for PCs, and for a whole lot cheaper. You’ll get the most use from NVMe drives, be it in a M.2 form factor like the Samsung 960 Pro or a PCIe drive, if you routinely transfer data, especially in large amounts. If you don’t do that, NVMe drives aren’t worth the price premium.

If you decide to buy an NVMe SSD, make sure your PC can handle it.  This is a relatively new technology, so you’ll only be able to find M.2 connections motherboards from the past few years. Think AMD Ryzen and mainstream Intel chips from the Skylake era onward, for the most part. NVMe SSDs that were mounted on PCIe adapters were popular in the technology’s early years, before M.2 adoption spread, but they’re rarer now. Make sure you’re actually able to use an NVMe SSD before you buy one, and be aware that you’ll need 4 PCIe lanes available in order to use it to its full potential.

Brad Chacos

To get the most out of an NVMe drive, you want to run your operating system on it, so you must have a system that recognizes the drive and can boot from it. PCs purchased during the past year or two should have no problem booting from an NVMe drive, but support for that can be iffy in older motherboards. Do a Google search for your motherboard and see if it supports booting from NVMe. You may need to install a BIOS update for your board. If your hardware can’t boot from an NVMe SSD, your machine should still be able to use it as a secondary drive.

What to look for in an SSD

Capacity and price are important, of course, and a long warranty can alleviate fears of premature data death. Most SSD manufacturers offer a three-year warranty, and some nicer models are guaranteed for five years. But unlike the olden days of SSDs, modern drives won’t wear out with normal consumer usage, as Tech Report tested and proved years ago with a grueling endurance test.

The biggest thing to watch out for is the technology used to connect the SSD to your PC.

If you’re about to get into live streaming, creating YouTube videos for the masses, or simply want great sound out of a microphone, then today’s deal is for you. BuyDig is selling the Blue Yeti microphone in midnight blue for $100Remove non-product link. Plus, you get Assassin’s Creed Odyssey for free. That’s a great deal as these mics in other colors usually go for $125, though this particular model is $106 on Amazon.

Our pals over at Haveaheartsavealife reviewed the Blue Yeti way back in 2010 and loved it. Admittedly, it’s a little on the bulky side, but you get great sound, a gain knob for adjusting input levels, pattern selection, and a mute button.

The Blue Yeti is one of the most popular USB microphones out there and is a favorite among live streamers, podcasters, and many others who need to record high quality sound online. Its patterns are very flexible for multiple recording situations. You can, for example, use the omnidirectional capture pattern if you have a bunch of people gathered around the mic, or switch to bi-directional for a one-on-one discussion.

If you need to talk online there’s just no question this is the mic you need, and today it’s available at a great price. On top of that you get one of the most popular games of 2018 for free with your purchase. 

[Today’s deal: Blue Yeti midnight blue microphone plus free game for $99 at BuyDig.Remove non-product link]

With just a couple weeks left until Mobile World Congress, a clearer picture—quite literally—is beginning to emerge of LG’s next flagship phone, the G8 ThinQ. Previously teased in a cryptic video with the tagline “Goodbye Touch,” we now know one thing for sure about the new handset: It’ll take great selfies.

In a joint announcement with chipmaker Infineon, LG says the G8 ThinQ will feature time-of-flight technology in the front camera, allowing it to sense depth in all kinds of light. Infineon touts the tech as having little impact on battery life and providing faster results than the algorithm-based depth-sensing methods that we see in the Pixel and other phones.

Infineon

We’ll have to wait to see exactly what that means for the G8, but the technology presents some very exciting possibilities. Here are three ways the new Real3 Image Sensor Chip could transform selfies and security in Android phones:

Better AR

Augmented reality has yet to really take off, but a time-of-flight sensor could be what’s needed to power the next generation of AR apps and services. Light and accuracy pose the biggest challenges for AR, and if the G8 can solve these issues, it could turn ARCore-enabled apps into something we actually want to use. With superior sensing and a greater understanding of distance and obstacles, the G8’s camera could forge a better relationship between the real world and the virtual one. 

Enhanced emoji

Emoji might not be revolutionary, but Android phones have yet to deliver any true answer to Apple’s Animoji after more than a year. Samsung’s AR Emoji come closest, and, well, they’re not quite on the level of Apple’s smooth cartoon-style characters. G8’s selfie cam might finally replicate Apple’s system on Android, even to the point of bringing customizable characters that work in the dark. Now that would be a winner.

Super selfie portraits

Portrait mode has gone from being a novelty to a necessity on our smartphones, but it’s still not quite as good on the front camera as it is on the rear one. A time-of-flight sensor would up the ante considerably for selfies, as it would grant the camera the ability to sense multiple people in order to create Instagram-worthy bokeh-style shots with realistic lighting and adjustable depth-of-field.

Secure facial authentication

Apple unveiled its Face ID facial authentication system back in 2017, and most Android phones are still trying to catch up. So far, only a couple of phones have implemented secure face-scanning tech, and none of them use it for more than unlocking. It’s already been rumored that Android Q will include support for the biometric, and the time-of-flight sensor could be the thing that finally makes it mainstream.

Microsoft has rolled its long-awaited background-blur feature to Skype for the PC and Mac, returning the focus to you and away from the clutter that can distract video callers.

Microsoft brought background blurring to Microsoft Teams last year, promising that it would end up on Skype soon after. Now it’s available on what Microsoft calls Skype (version 8) on Windows, Mac, and Linux—or what you might know as the traditional Skype app. It’s also available on the built-in version of Skype for Windows 10, which Microsoft confusingly refers to as Skype for Windows 10, version 14. (The upshot is, you should have it.)

Skype’s background blurring is essentially portrait mode for video calls, using artificial intelligence to separate you—your hair, arms, glasses, and the like—from whatever’s cluttering up your background. As you can see from the screenshots, background blur did an excellent job separating me from the assorted detritus of my home office: a summer fan, treadmill, and assorted boxes.

Mark Hachman / IDG

Microsoft says that background blurring can be enabled with just a right-click on the video stream, or alternatively with a simple toggle. You can also just switch it on within the Skype settings menu, as seen here.

It’s not clear whether Microsoft plans to add background blurring to the Skype platforms for the smartphone, such as Android or iOS. Keep in mind that while Android and iOS already have excellent portrait modes that blur the background, neither can apply blurring to video—yet. (The Huawei Mate 20 and Mate 20 Pro feature a proprietary bokeh video mode that blurs the background in a video.) 

What this means to you: Skype’s background blurring doesn’t totally obscure what’s behind you the way a green-screen effect would, but it’s effective at keeping the focus on what matters. It’s a handy and welcome addition to Skype, and simple to toggle on and off.