Geeking Out: Summer Travel Tech

If you've ever been intimidated by the thought of flying a drone, this is the one built specifically for you. The HoverAir X1 Pro Max is an incredibly compact, light, and durable smart drone that requires absolutely zero piloting experience. It features slick preset modes that cover tons of scenarios. You can have it orbit around a group, fly straight up for a bird's-eye view, or automatically track you while playing a sport. Most of the time it does exactly what you want, though about 20% of the time it doesn't fly quite as expected, which gives a tiny bit of hesitation. The editing and video extraction process could also be a bit more refined. For a pro-tip, look for a bundle deal with extra batteries and the phone-to-controller add-on to maximize the experience, though the extra costs do add up quickly. Pro Tip 2, for an option that is $699 you can get the Pro bundle version, which has a few less features than the Max, but is still quite capable.

You really do not feel limited in what you can do with the new iPad Air, especially when you pair its powerful M4 processor with a Magic Keyboard case. This combo gives you true laptop-like productivity, alongside the brilliant touch screen portability that makes travel entertainment a breeze. While on vacation, you can take advantage of Apple's Visual Intelligence feature to identify landmarks, historical sites, birds, or flowers right through your camera lens. It also includes great on-the-fly translation features. If you don't mind being "that person" shooting videos on a tablet, the built-in camera produces stellar results. If you're due to upgrade your tablet, or you have an old laptop and are wondering "could I get by with just an iPad instead" the latest MacBook Air models are worth a look. They come with two screen sizes (11 and 13 inch) and four colours.

I really assumed smart water bottles were just a gimmick, but this double-walled vacuum insulated bottle completely changed my mind. Plenty of smart bottles track your water intake through an app, but the LARQ PureVis 2 stands out because of its built-in purification system. It uses mercury-free UV-C LED tech in the cap to eliminate bacteria like E. coli, providing an extra layer of safety if you're traveling and a little leary of the local water situation. It also features a Nano Zero filter to enhance taste, an integrated soft-touch handle, and a self-cleaning mode that runs automatically to keep the interior pristine over long travel stretches. Of course, you'll have a built-in expense of replacment filters throughout the year ($15-$20ish). The rechargeable battery keeps the cleaning cycles going for two to three weeks on a single charge. Depending on how concerned you are about the water you're putting in the bottle you can switch between different purifying modes running for 1 minute (normal mode), 3 minutes (adventure mode), or 6 minutes (apocalypse mode). I truly didn't want to like this, but I gotta say, it's won me over between the self cleaning features, and the ease with which you can track and log your hydration on the app.

There are a lot of portable gaming consoles hitting the market right now, but the thing that truly sets the MSI Claw 8 EX AI+ apart is the elite Intel Arc G3 Extreme chip powering it. Built on Intel's brand-new Xe3 graphics architecture, this chip delivers incredible performance optimization tailored directly for handheld gaming. It introduces Intelligent Bias Control to smoothly balance power between the CPU and GPU, ensuring your games run flawlessly even at lower power levels when you're trying to save battery. It also leverages XeSS 3 AI-based upscaling and multi-frame generation to deliver incredibly smooth framerates on its vibrant 8-inch 1200p display. It runs on Windows 11, meaning you can seamlessly jump into games across multiple libraries like Steam, Xbox Game Pass, and Epic Games.