Technologies

My Favorite Motorola Phone in 2023 Is on Sale for $400

Commentary: The Lenovo ThinkPhone surprised me with its elegant design and top-notch hardware. It’s a steal at $300 off.

If you want a phone for less than $500 that isn’t used or refurbished, there are two main options.

The first is to consider a phone that was made to be affordable, of which there are plenty from the likes of Samsung, Motorola, OnePlus and Google. These phones typically have a lot to offer for their price, such as great battery life, 5G support and a processor that isn’t the fastest but is still powerful enough for mundane daily tasks (i.e. scrolling through social media, texting, video chats, etc.). But to keep the price down, these cheaper phones come with compromises including lower-resolution screens that aren’t very bright, cameras that take just OK photos and plastic designs.

Read more: Best Phones of 2024

The other option is to find a more expensive phone that came out last year, or even two years ago, for a discount. The Lenovo ThinkPhone by Motorola, currently priced at $400, is a great example. I can almost hear you asking: «Wait, Lenovo makes phones?» They did this year, and it’s one of my favorite phones I tested in 2023.

The ThinkPhone was a good deal at its original price of $700, but it’s definitely worth buying with a $300 discount.

As the name suggests, the ThinkPhone is a collaboration between Motorola and its parent company, Lenovo. It has a similar design as Lenovo’s popular ThinkPad laptop lineup, right down to the signature red hardware button for triggering software shortcuts. It has impressive hardware for $400 that includes 256GB of storage (most sub-$500 phones only have half that capacity), a Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 Plus processor (two generations old but still powerful) and a lovely 6.6-inch 144Hz display (a higher refresh rate than most phones).

It also supports 68-watt fast charging and ships with the required wall plug. That alone makes the ThinkPhone stand out; phones from Samsung and Apple take longer to charge and don’t include the power adapter in the box. In my tests, the ThinkPhone went from an empty battery to 92% in 30 minutes, making it one of the fastest-charging phones sold in the US. For perspective, the $799 iPhone 15 only added 53% in the same amount of time.

But it’s the ThinkPhone’s harmonious design that made it stand out in 2023. Smartphone hardware, especially in the sub-$500 range, has moved away from being an expression of style and design and has instead become an aluminum or plastic housing for a rectangular glass screen. A phone’s color and camera bump shape are usually their most distinctive aspects.

The ThinkPhone’s design is a bit more ambitious. It’s refined and mature, replicating the ThinkPad’s buttoned-down corporate look. The diagonal aramid fiber weave inlay on the back gives it a sophisticated finish and feels great to the touch. The hardware and lightly customized Android 13 software feel like a single cohesive design. It’s the kind of thing a lot of reviewers, including myself, usually credit Apple with. I should note that Motorola and Lenovo commit to three years of major OS updates and four years of security updates.

The ThinkPhone by Motorola badge on the back of the phone

I spoke with Sudhir Chadaga, global lead of Motorola for business, about the ThinkPhone this past summer. He said the phone’s design took time to find.

«We wanted to make a statement that the ThinkPhone should be the best companion to your PC,» said Chadaga on a video call. «It’s not just that they need to look like each other; they need to work well together.»

Besides being a solid Android phone, the ThinkPhone has a number of nifty shortcuts and cross-platform utilities with Windows. The cross functionality isn’t limited to Lenovo ThinkPads; the ThinkPhone can work with most recent Windows computers.

ThinkPhone by Motorola next to a ThinkPad laptop

You can connect it to PCs, monitors and TVs. For example, I copied and pasted text and photos from the phone to a PC laptop and used the ThinkPhone’s 50-megapixel main rear camera for a video call I took on the ThinkPad. The video quality looked much clearer than the laptop’s built-in webcam.

Those integrations between Android and Windows are the result of customers, and even Lenovo staff, wanting a better experience between their laptops and phones. Chadaga tells me many of his employees frequently file expenses on the road, which can be a clunky experience that often involves emailed photos of receipts. He wondered if there was an easier way.

«Android and Windows haven’t always played well together,» said Jerry Paradise, vice president of global commercial portfolio and product management at Lenovo. «Customers were always saying, ‘You guys really need to do a ThinkPhone.'»

Clearly, the ThinkPhone made a good impression on me. But I should mention some of the drawbacks, and the first are the cameras. For $700, these cameras take decent photos, but they struggle in low light. If you’re buying this for $400, the ThinkPhone’s cameras are good compared with most other cheap phones.

The interconnectivity between the phone and PCs worked well most of the time, but there were times (such as when I had the ThinkPhone’s screen on a ThinkPad display) when I experienced an occasional lag.

In terms of software support, Motorola and Lenovo still fall behind Samsung, which offers four years of major OS updates, and Google, which offers seven years for the new Pixel 8 and Pixel 8 Pro.

While Chadaga and Paradise praised the ThinkPhone for business-minded users, it’s also a splendid Android phone. You may not care about having a phone that syncs to your PC or lets you use Microsoft Teams at the press of a button. But the ThinkPhone’s speedy charging, iconic design and otherwise high-quality hardware still makes it a worthwhile phone.

With its $300 discount, the ThinkPhone is the best $400 phone you can buy right now. The question now: How long will it remain at this price?

Technologies

Today’s NYT Strands Hints, Answers and Help for Nov. 28 #635

Here are hints and answers for the NYT Strands puzzle for Nov. 28, No. 635.

Looking for the most recent Strands answer? Click here for our daily Strands hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Mini Crossword, Wordle, Connections and Connections: Sports Edition puzzles.

Today’s NYT Strands puzzle is pretty tricky. If you’re not familiar with certain superstitious beliefs, you might not find all the answers. And some of the answers are difficult to unscramble, so if you need hints and answers, read on.

I go into depth about the rules for Strands in this story.

If you’re looking for today’s Wordle, Connections and Mini Crossword answers, you can visit CNET’s NYT puzzle hints page.

Read more: NYT Connections Turns 1: These Are the 5 Toughest Puzzles So Far

Hint for today’s Strands puzzle

Today’s Strands theme is: If all else fails…

If that doesn’t help you, here’s a clue: Don’t tell, it won’t come true.

Clue words to unlock in-game hints

Your goal is to find hidden words that fit the puzzle’s theme. If you’re stuck, find any words you can. Every time you find three words of four letters or more, Strands will reveal one of the theme words. These are the words I used to get those hints but any words of four or more letters that you find will work:

GLUB, RATS, TARN, DALE, FONT, FOUNT, LASH

Answers for today’s Strands puzzle

These are the answers that tie into the theme. The goal of the puzzle is to find them all, including the spangram, a theme word that reaches from one side of the puzzle to the other. When you have all of them (I originally thought there were always eight but learned that the number can vary), every letter on the board will be used. Here are the nonspangram answers:

DANDELION, STAR, COIN, FOUNTAIN, LADYBUG, EYELASH

Today’s Strands spangram

Today’s Strands spangram is MAKEAWISH. To find it, start with the M that’s three letters down on the far right, and wind backwards.

Technologies

Today’s NYT Connections Hints, Answers and Help for Nov. 28, #901

Here are some hints and the answers for the NYT Connections puzzle for Nov. 28, #901.

Looking for the most recent Connections answers? Click here for today’s Connections hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Mini Crossword, Wordle, Connections: Sports Edition and Strands puzzles.

Today’s NYT Connections puzzle is kind of tough. If you need help sorting the answers into groups, you’re in the right place. Read on for clues and today’s Connections answers.

The Times now has a Connections Bot, like the one for Wordle. Go there after you play to receive a numeric score and to have the program analyze your answers. Players who are registered with the Times Games section can now nerd out by following their progress, including the number of puzzles completed, win rate, number of times they nabbed a perfect score and their win streak.

Read more: Hints, Tips and Strategies to Help You Win at NYT Connections Every Time

Hints for today’s Connections groups

Here are four hints for the groupings in today’s Connections puzzle, ranked from the easiest yellow group to the tough (and sometimes bizarre) purple group.

Yellow group hint: Appropriate.

Green group hint: I win!

Blue group hint: Musical instrument.

Purple group hint: Time to talk.

Answers for today’s Connections groups

Yellow group: Fitting.

Green group: Achieve victory over.

Blue group: Parts of an electric guitar.

Purple group: Phonetic elements of speech.

Read more: Wordle Cheat Sheet: Here Are the Most Popular Letters Used in English Words

What are today’s Connections answers?

The yellow words in today’s Connections

The theme is fitting. The four answers are fair, just, proper and right.

The green words in today’s Connections

The theme is achieve victory over. The four answers are beat, best, take and worst.

The blue words in today’s Connections

The theme is parts of an electric guitar. The four answers are fret, peg, pickup and string.

The purple words in today’s Connections

The theme is phonetic elements of speech. The four answers are intonation, loudness, rhythm and stress.

Technologies

Anker’s New MagSafe Car Mount Keeps Your Phone Cool While Charging, and It’s 30% Off for Black Friday

Get wired-like charging speeds and MagSafe compatibility with Anker’s wireless car charging bundle for $62.99.

Black Friday is the best time of the year to upgrade the little essentials that make your everyday tech life more pleasant. I’ve found the perfect deal to amp up the phone charging setup in your car. This Anker MagSafe wireless car charging bundle is 30% off for the holidays, and it gives your iPhone a fast and steady way to power up while you navigate. It delivers up to 25-watt wireless charging speeds and with onboard active cooling, your phone stays comfortable to the touch.

Get it now for $62.99 verses the list price of $89.99.

What sets this charger apart is that its performance and cooling tech is built into a surprisingly compact package. The stand uses an ultra-strong Qi2 magnetic lock to keep your phone secure through bumps and turns. You can even tilt the mount and switch between portrait and landscape modes for navigation without blocking the view. The bundle has everything you need to get started including a 60-watt dual-USB-C charger, an adequately long USB-C cable, and cable organizers for a clean setup. Anker also includes a two-year warranty for peace of mind.

If you are getting your car prepped up for driving to a holiday vacation or just need a faster charging mount for your daily commute, this deal makes a lot of sense. CNET’s experts are also tracking more Black Friday and Cyber Monday picks across Apple products, headphones, and more, so you can score more savings before the sales season wraps up.

MOBILE DEALS OF THE WEEK

iPhone 17 Pro on Us With Any Condition Trade-in and Qualifying Plan
Google Pixel 10 Pro 128GB Unlocked Phone (Obsidian):

$749 (save $250)
Samsung Galaxy S25 FE 128GB Unlocked Phone (JetBlack):

$475 (save $175)
Google Pixel 9 128GB Unlocked Phone (Obsidian):

$499 (save $300)
Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra 256GB Unlocked AI Phone (Titanium Black):

$900 (save $400)

Deals are selected by the CNET Group commerce team, and may be unrelated to this article.

Why this deal matters

A high quality charger is a great addition to any car to speedily top up your phone on the go. You will especially want to look out for options from a top-tier brand like Anker for its fast charging speeds and reliability. This Black Friday deal is an excellent opportunity to save big on a staple car accessory. With holiday shopping heating up and tech accessories being one of the most popular categories, we expect the deal to sell out quick. So don’t wait too long before jumping on it.

Don’t miss any of our unbiased tech content and lab-based reviews. Add CNET as a preferred Google source.

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