Month: May 2022

Enlarge (credit: Ars Technica)

Update (5/30/22 10:55 am ET): We've updated our roundup of recommended Memorial Day deals for the holiday proper, crossing out expired offers and adding new discounts on Nintendo's Switch Pro Controller, Roomba robot vacuums, Roku streamers, and Xbox Series S bundles, among others.

Original post (5/28/22 2:30 pm ET): It's Memorial Day weekend, which means the time has come for another Dealmaster. Our latest roundup of good tech deals from around the web includes all the best offers we could dig up from this weekend's crop of holiday sales. While Memorial Day promotions generally focus on home goods, appliances, and mattresses more than electronics, we've still found a few gadget deals of note for those who can't wait for more tech-centric sales events like Black Friday or Amazon Prime Day.

The highlights include a number of deals on Apple devices. The Apple Watch Series 7, for instance, is back down to $329, which is about $25 off its street price online, $70 off Apple's MSRP, and generally a good price for the top pick in our guide to the best smartwatches. The 256GB version of the latest iPad Air is available for $679, which matches the lowest price we've tracked, while the MacBook Air is discounted to $900, which matches the lowest price we've seen this year. (Just note that the latter is expected to receive a refresh with a faster chip at some point in 2022, if you can afford to wait.) Best Buy is running a promotion that gives a bonus $10 in store credit if you buy a $100 Apple Gift Card, and other gadgets like the third-gen AirPods and MagSafe Charger are cheaper than we typically see as well.

Enlarge / The official Star Trek Wine collection has expanded from two varieties to six. (credit: Sean Carroll)

Back in 2019, (partly)  in honor of the announcement of Star Trek: Picard, Ars staffers held an informal tasting session to sample two bottles of official Star Trek Wines, a collaboration between CBS Consumer Products and Wines That Rock. And the wines were.... far better than we expected, although very much over-priced.

Picard has now wrapped its second season, with a third currently in production, and the folks behind Star Trek Wines have expanded their collection from two varieties to six. So a second informal wine tasting was clearly in order. And who better to help us in this noble endeavor than Q himself—aka actor John de Lancie—and The Orville writer Andre Bormanis, who launched his career as a science advisor on TNG? They joined a fresh group of tasters (eight people in all) on a cool late spring evening in Los Angeles, where the nibbles were plentiful and the conversation flowed freely. (Wine assessments were anonymous, in keeping with the gathering's super-casual vibe. And the wine was purchased out of pocket, not gifted for promotional purposes.)  

Let's start by revisiting the original two varieties. First up: a 2017 Sonoma Valley zinfandel, described as a blend of 87 percent zinfandel, blended with petite sirah and just a hint of syrah.. The packaging plays up the fictional connection, claiming the wine is produced under the United Federation Special Reserve Label, "blended by our intergalactic sommelier and designed to fit the palates of multiple planets." (The back label tasting notes adds "Andalorian spice" to the description just for fun.)