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Flipping through The Manual: Elephant Gin, future national monuments, and more

Burned out on apps, keys and screens? Improve your analog life this weekend! Digital Trends’ brother site The Manual exists to give men straight-up advice, from unspoken suit rules you need to know, to the latest in fashion, food, drink, travel, grooming and culture. Here are a few of our favorite stories to appear on The Manual lately.

Achieve next-level beardliness with Dollar Beard Club

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Dollar Beard Club Image used with permission by copyright holder

Dollar Beard Club makes it easy to maintain your beard. Instead of spending hours scouring stores for beard oils and other beard care products, you can have said products delivered to your door for as little as $1/month.

Read the full story on The Manual

Q&A with J.Hilburn founder Veeral Rathod

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Image used with permission by copyright holder

“Men want to look better but lack a combination of the education and the time to be able to do it.”

Read the full story on The Manual

KEEN champions America’s mountains, rivers, canyons, and deserts

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Jeremy Fox/Oregon’s Owyhee Canyonlands Campaign Image used with permission by copyright holder

KEEN, an adventure footwear company, is working to increase the number of American national monuments with the “Live Monumental” campaign.

Read the full story on The Manual

Swill: Elephant Gin does London Dry with a unique African twist

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Image used with permission by copyright holder

Elephant Gin is a bit of an oddity. It’s a London Dry gin that’s made in Germany with a bunch of African ingredients — and it’s probably one of the most interesting gins I’ve ever tasted.

Read the full story on The Manual

Micro Guide: Portland, Maine

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James Mattil/Shutterstock Image used with permission by copyright holder

Here, we present some of our favorite spots to play, eat, and drink in Maine’s most prominent urban center.

Read the full story on The Manual

The Puma X Stampd Capsule Collection

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Image used with permission by copyright holder

Puma teams up with the fast-rising streetwear brand Stampd for a line of shoes that embrace contemporary luxury without losing iconic styling cues.

Read the full story on The Manual

Digital Trends Staff
Digital Trends has a simple mission: to help readers easily understand how tech affects the way they live. We are your…
The 4 best smart thermostats in 2024
A person operating the Google Nest thermostat.

A lot of folks may feel that a smart thermostat device is just a gimmick for the lazy that lets you control it remotely, but there are actually quite a lot of good things when it comes to smart thermostats. Depending on which model you buy and how much money you spend, there can be some significant savings, especially if you spring for the kind that learns your patterns and adjusts the temperature to eat up less electricity. Some thermostats even know what time of day electricity is expensive and adjust to use less of it to help bring your costs down.

As such, if you rely heavily on your HVAC, then having a smart thermostat can save you money and add a ton of convenience, even if you don't go for one of the smarter ones. Just knowing your energy usage over time can help you adjust and spend less money while also being a bit more eco-friendly. While there are a ton of options, we've collected four of our favorites below across various budgets and features, so be sure to check things out thoroughly and be sure a smart thermostat supports your HVAC system before taking the plunge.
The Best Smart Thermostats in 2024

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The best open-world games
The Witcher 3-Wild Hunt

Just like you probably enjoy getting to choose your own path in real life, you want to have the same freedom in your favorite video game. Open-world games like The Division 2 have only continued to grow in popularity since their release. 

While this genre of gaming can be a little intimidating for anyone without tons of experience in gaming, there are plenty of great open-world games to chose from. Ranging from first-person shooter games to RPGs and action-adventure titles, our list will have something for everyone.

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What is HDR TV? High dynamic range and why you need it
A Sony Bravia A80K 4K TV sits on a table in front of a large window.

HDR, or High Dynamic Range, is a TV spec you've undoubtedly seen in your TV's settings or while shopping for a new TV, and we're willing to bet that if you're here, you're wondering what the heck HDR is. HDR can be found in pretty much all of today's best TVs, from 8K to 4K to HDTVs, and in TVs across a wide range of price points -- HDR has become standard in most new mid-range and high-end televisions.

But what is it? When viewing TV, movies, video games, sports, or other content displayed in HDR, an HDR-capable TV will deliver extra-brilliant brightness levels, ultra-rich colors, an expanded color palette, and higher contrast.

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