Just how badly do you want people to stare at you? It's a question I had ample time to consider, hunkered down in the comfortable leather sports seats of the 2020 BMW M8 Competition and trying not to make eye-contact with fellow motorists, pedestrians, or the cyclist that almost swerved into its Java Green Metallic flanks.
The first thing I did with the 2020 Land Rover Defender 110 was get over my guilt that I didn't have some grand, off-roading adventure planned. Well, to be fair that was the second thing: first was pausing to appreciate just how handsome the SUV this storied nameplate is attached to is, as it makes its long-awaited return to North American shores.
As anybody who wished for a more eventful 2020 now knows, sweating the details is important. How else to describe the LG Wing, a rotating dual-screen curio that - even in a time of foldable smartphones - still manages to be an outlier. We asked LG for more interesting phone designs, but maybe we should’ve been more specific.
For those getting started with coffee, pour over is arguably the easiest route. You can get a cheap plastic cone for a few dollars, filter papers are similarly inexpensive, and then all you need is coffee and a way of boiling water. It's not to say you can't go deeper down the rabbit hole and make things more complex, but in terms of taking beans and making a brew from them it's one of the most straightforward.
You can't please all the people, all the time, but Audi certainly comes closer than many with the 2020 S5 Sportback. The automaker may get some - not entirely undeserved - criticism, like its fellow Germans, for its "a car version for every tiny niche" approach over the past few years, but that doesn't mean the strategy can't come up with some gems.
Driving pickup trucks gives me some insight into what it must feel like being a big, burly boy rather than a 5'8 pipsqueak with a British accent and social anxiety, so it should come as little surprise that I particularly enjoyed the 2020 Ram 2500 Power Wagon. While it may not be the largest of the Ram truck family - it lacks, for example, the sumptuous hips of the Ram 3500 - the Ram 2500 is hardly discreet.
For all the talk that the sedan is dead, there sure are plenty of them. The sales chart rise of the SUV may be steep enough to give even experienced mountaineers vertigo, but three-box four-doors like the Mercedes-Benz A220 4MATIC prove there's more to the market than its broadest trends.
Money can't buy taste but it can buy exclusivity. If you're both wealthy and lucky, then as in the case of the 2020 BMW Alpina B7 those two stars can sometimes combine. The German tuning house may not have the brand recognition of, say, AMG or BMW's own M Sport division, but in the rarity stakes that only makes the new B7 more appealing.
Of all the reasons to be excited by Apple Silicon, its potential to put high-end performance in more affordable computers like the Mac mini M1 could be the biggest. Apple's diminutive desktop is the cheapest way to get your hands on a new Mac and, while there may be some compromises to accommodate, it's arguably the most impressive way to experience the new M1 chipset so far.
Though many of us often devote our attention to flagship devices, budget tablets and phones are particularly easy to find today. Samsung has a robust lineup of more affordable devices itself, and one of the more recent additions to that is the Galaxy Tab A7. As always, the major concern with budget devices is whether or not you’re buying something that can last a reasonable amount of time before its hardware begins to show its mid-tier quality. So, with that in mind, is the Galaxy Tab A7 a winner or is it something to avoid?
We've reviewed our fair share of smartphones through more than a decade, most of them conventional while a few outliers to end up in our hands from time to time. Although by no means unusual or rare, rugged smartphones aren't exactly a staple in the consumer market, often reserved for industrial customers, nor do they often spark curiosity beyond their thick, rugged frames. Some do try to stand out from the crowd with some extra feature or utility. The new Doogee S96 Pro definitely fits that bill and we give it a hard look to see there's more to it than meets the eye.
It's tough to argue against the idea that the real excitement in the compact luxury sports sedan segment is happening away from the big German dealerships. Witness, as prime example, the 2020 Alfa Romeo Giulia, perhaps not the first car you'd think of in the category but carving out an enthusiastic little niche there all the same.