Technologies

With $70 Off, The Stealthy Black Apple Watch Ultra 2 Just Hit Its Lowest Price of 2025

The Apple Watch Ultra 2 is a beast of a smartwatch, and this is your chance to put one on your wrist at a huge discount.

Look at anyone’s list of the best smartwatches money can buy, and you’ll find the Apple Watch Ultra 2 sitting pretty towards the top. Then there’s the black titanium Apple Watch Ultra 2, a watch that’s so stealthy you might think you’ve lost it when you check the time. Smartwatches don’t come much cooler than this one, but at the usual $799 asking price, they also don’t come much more costly. That’s why this deal that slashes the price to just $730 is well worth paying attention to, but it might not be here for long.

This deal saves you $70 off the original price without any of those pesky on-screen coupons or discount codes to deal with. But these prices are often so volatile that we can’t promise this deal will stay around for much longer. That means that ordering now is the best way to make sure you take advantage of the lowest price we’ve seen this thing sell for all year.

This new low is available on the black titanium Apple Watch Ultra 2 in a few different configurations, including those with the ocean band, trail loop and alpine loop. All you need to do is choose the one you like best and then make sure that your favorite is part pf the deal before checking out.

Hey, did you know? CNET Deals texts are free, easy and save you money.

No matter which band you choose, you’ll get the same Apple Watch Ultra 2, which means a large-yet-comfortable 49mm size and a gorgeous display that’s easy to read even in direct sunlight. Its size also means that it has the longest-lasting battery of any Apple Watch, so you can go longer between charges. There’s even the option to enable a low power mode to eke every last bit of juice out of it if the need arises.

Each Apple Watch Ultra 2 comes with cellular connectivity, so you can leave your iPhone at home while the corrosion-resistant titanium case is joined by a sapphire front crystal that makes it more resistant to scratches.

Like all Apple Watches, the Ultra 2 supports the same health and fitness features that have made these wearables so popular. You can track workouts, including heart rate zones and training load, among other things.

All of that and more make this the go-to smartwatch for people who live an active life and want their wearable to keep up, no matter what they get up to.

Why this deal matters

The Apple Watch Ultra 2 is often discounted, but savings are harder to come by on this black titanium model. That means that any discount is worth taking note of. This $70 savings is the best we’ve seen since last year’s Black Friday fun, and this is likely the best deal we’ll see this side of Memorial Day sales.

Technologies

A Hacker Threat Is Hiding in Your Car’s Tire Pressure System

A new study reveals that a car’s tire pressure monitoring system can be easily accessed by hackers.

Technologies

Today’s NYT Mini Crossword Answers for Friday, Feb. 27

Here are the answers for The New York Times Mini Crossword for Feb. 27.

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

Was today’s Mini Crossword too short for you? The New York Times now has a Midi Crossword, which is not as big as the original NYT Crossword, but longer than the Mini. Read on for the answers to today’s Mini Crossword. And if you could use some hints and guidance for daily solving, check out our Mini Crossword tips.

If you’re looking for today’s Wordle, Connections, Connections: Sports Edition and Strands answers, you can visit CNET’s NYT puzzle hints page.

Read more: Tips and Tricks for Solving The New York Times Mini Crossword

Let’s get to those Mini Crossword clues and answers.

Mini across clues and answers

1A clue: Lacking locks
Answer: BALD

5A clue: One of the Great Lakes
Answer: ERIE

6A clue: Movie with the fake newspaper headline «Wonder Elephant Soars to Fame!»
Answer: DUMBO

8A clue: Live tweeter?
Answer: BIRD

9A clue: The slightest bit
Answer: ATAD

Mini down clues and answers

1D clue: Hard thing to leave on a cold day
Answer: BED

2D clue: Caribbean island northwest of Curaçao
Answer: ARUBA

3D clue: The sky, in a saying
Answer: LIMIT

4D clue: Actress Messing
Answer: DEBRA

7D clue: Like this clue number
Answer: ODD

Technologies

Smartphone Sales to Plummet 13% in 2026 Due to RAM Crisis, Says IDC

AI-fueled memory scarcity is hitting the phone market hard this year, particularly for inexpensive, low-end devices.

The projected shortage of memory chips worldwide will have a more serious impact on smartphone sales in 2026 than previously projected, according to new data from International Data Corporation Worldwide. Whereas the company just in November had estimated a drop of between 0.9% and 5.2% (the latter being its «pessimistic scenario»), now it sees a 12.9% decline this year, based on its Worldwide Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker.

«What we are witnessing is not a temporary squeeze, but a tsunami-like shock originating in the memory supply chain, with ripple effects spreading across the entire consumer electronics industry,» Francisco Jeronimo, vice president for Worldwide Client Devices at IDC, said in a statement.

The hardest-hit companies are expected to be those selling to the lower end of the market, which can’t absorb the higher component costs while maintaining profitable margins. As a result, Jeronimo says, many of those players will pass the added costs on to consumers.

That also includes regional markets like the Middle East and Africa that sell mostly inexpensive smartphones, which could see a steep 20.6% drop year-over-year.

By contrast, IDC expects Apple and Samsung to be better able to withstand the crisis. «As smaller and low-end-positioned Android vendors struggle with rising costs, Apple and Samsung could not only weather the storm but potentially expand market share as the competitive landscape tightens,» said Jeronimo.

Memory has become scarce due to the insatiable demand to feed generative AI. Essentially all of the memory set to be manufactured this year is already earmarked. What started as a demand for graphics processors has expanded to other components. For example, hard drive manufacturer Western Digital announced in early February that it had already sold out of its supply for 2026.

«We expect consolidation as smaller players exit, and low-end vendors face sharp shipment declines amid supply constraints and lower demand at higher price points,» said Nabila Popal, senior research director at IDC, projecting a 14% rise in the average selling price of smartphones to $523.

Popal expects memory prices to stabilize by the middle of 2027, but doesn’t see them coming down to earlier levels. The sub-$100 segment, made up of approximately 171 million devices, will be «permanently uneconomical,» she said. «In short, there is no return to business as usual for vendors and consumers.»