Chris Welch

Former Senior Reviewer

Google Pixel 7A leak reveals new blue color

Chris WelchApr 10, 2023

Chris WelchApr 7, 2023

Party speaker season is upon us.

LG’s latest party speaker, the beefy XBoom XL7, is now available for $599.99. You’re getting a 250-watt system with 20 hours of battery life, an 8-inch woofer, and IPX4 water resistance. It’s got the built-in telescoping handle and wheels for keeping the party moving. Karaoke mode? Obviously.

But the real draw, as usual, is all the customizable lighting. The woofer ring lights up, but that’s old hat. This thing does text and even full-on animations. I challenge someone to get The Verge logo on there.

Your move, Sony.

WWE and UFC are merging into a sports entertainment behemoth

Chris WelchApr 3, 2023

Chris WelchApr 2, 2023

WWE nears sale to UFC’s parent company, Endeavor.

World Wrestling Entertainment has very openly been pursuing a sale over the last several months. And after speculation that has included names like Amazon, Disney, Fox, and others, it seems that Ari Emanuel’s Endeavor (the parent company of UFC) will be the buyer.

CNBC reports that both sides are in advanced talks for a deal that would see UFC and WWE form a new publicly traded company. The news could be announced Monday — just after the conclusion of WrestleMania 39.

WWE’s long-running Monday Night Raw and Smackdown still often rank among the highest-rated programs on TV, and the company is quick to tout its massive presence on social platforms: WWE has over 94 million subscribers on YouTube alone, far beyond the NFL, MLB, and NBA combined.

Combine that with the UFC and you get quite the sports/entertainment juggernaut.

Chris WelchMar 28, 2023

This is how you know you’re dealing with a different kind of music app.

My favorite part of Apple’s FAQ about the new Apple Music Classical app is this repudiation of shuffle — from the company that named an iconic music player after the word. Classical fans prefer to not have their movements broken up, thank you very much.

Reminder: while Classical itself doesn’t support offline downloads, you can download any album or playlist you’re enjoying from the regular Apple Music app.

Chris WelchMar 27, 2023

You might never look at eBay the same way after watching this video.

The targeted harassment campaign coordinated by several of its former employees is something that eBay is probably desperate to move past. But last night, 60 Minutes on CBS did a supremely effective job chronicling all the unsettling threats, creepy deliveries, and other torment that Ina and David Steiner endured before authorities cracked the case.

I still can’t get over how high up this whole thing went among eBay’s (former) leadership. Nothing good was ever going to come from senior executives sending texts like “take her down” and “I want to see ashes” — even if eBay is very apologetic now.

Sonos Era 300 review: too ahead of its time

When you find a good spatial audio song, Sonos’ new speaker can blow your mind and sounds like nothing else. But it trails the Sonos Five at stereo playback and suffers from the wildly inconsistent state of Atmos mixes.

Chris WelchMar 27, 2023

Sonos Era 100 review: the new default smart speaker

The more affordable Era speaker improves upon the Sonos One by nearly every measure and will likely find the same success and popularity among Sonos customers.

Chris WelchMar 27, 2023