Flipping through The Manual: Elegant homes, whiskey glasses, gift-worthy watches

By Brandon Widder December 5, 2015

Burned out on apps, keyboards, 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.

Give the gift of class with The Manual’s holiday watch guide

Shore Watces — Image used with permission by copyright holder

Gifting a friend or family member a stylish and classy watch is the gift that never stops giving. Here are five of our favorite watch brands from 2015.

Read the full story on The Manual

Man School 101: Winterizing your car

Winter Road — Image used with permission by copyright holder

Winter is here, if not coming to a city near you. Fortunately, we’ve pulled together a few tips and tricks to help you winterize your car for the months ahead.

Read the full story on The Manual

Finally, a glass designed specifically for top-shelf whiskey

norlan2 — Image used with permission by copyright holder

Unfortunately, purpose-built, drink-specific glassware is still mostly confined to the realm of craft beer and wine. Nobody has really ventured too deep into the world of glassware that’s scientifically optimized for craft spirits — until now, that is.

Read the full story on The Manual

Micro Guide: Southern Louisiana

Food 2 — Image used with permission by copyright holder

Here’s where to play, eat, and sleep in the Bayou State’s southern half — the most authentically Cajun region in the country.

Read the full story on The Manual

Hudson Woods brings together architecture, design and nature

Mountain 2 — Image used with permission by copyright holder

Lang Architects gathered the finest makers like SMEG, Kaufmann Mercantile and more to create an idyllic development in New York.

Read the full story on The Manual

Acustom Apparel: The Custom Future

Acustom-5 — Image used with permission by copyright holder

With Acustom Apparel’s advanced body scanning technology, custom clothing has never been more accurate or affordable.

Read the full story on The Manual

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Brandon Widder is a multimedia journalist and a staff writer for Digital Trends where he covers technology news, how-to…

Computing

The war between PC and console is about to heat up again

Intel NUC 12 Enthusiast sitting on a desk.

There's no question that consoles are increasingly becoming more like PCs, but thanks to Nvidia, it appears that the opposite may be taking place too.

According to a new report by Wccftech, Nvidia is working with its partners to create a new ecosystem for gaming on small form factor (SFF) PCs. When it comes to Nvidia, many of us think of some of the best graphics cards that are as powerful as they are massive, like the RTX 4090. However, Nvidia is planning to flip that narrative and set its sights on an unexpected target.

Computing

Buying a Steam Deck has never been cheaper

Steam Deck over a pink background.

Valve is serving up huge price cuts on the Steam Deck, but there's a catch -- the consoles are refurbished. Part of the Certified Refurbished Steam Deck program, these handhelds have been fixed up by Valve to reportedly run like new -- and they're significantly cheaper. You can save up to $90, but is this too good to be true? It doesn't have to be.

Buying refurbished devices and hardware can be scary, but when the goodies come directly from the manufacturer, it becomes less risky. This is the case with Valve, which is now selling all three models of the LCD Steam Deck, refurbished and at a price cut. If this sounds good, you can now grab the base model for $279 instead of $349 ($70 savings), while the 256GB NVMe model costs $319 instead of $399 when purchased new. Lastly, the top handheld in the lineup with 512GB of storage costs just $359 instead of $449, which is $90 in savings.

Computing

AMD’s upcoming APUs might destroy your GPU

AMD CEO Lisa Su holding an APU chip.

The spec sheets for AMD's upcoming APU lineups, dubbed Strix Point and Strix Halo, have just been leaked, and it's safe to say that they're looking pretty impressive. Equipped with Zen 5 cores, the new APUs will find their way to laptops that are meant to be on the thinner side, but their performance might rival that of some of the best budget graphics cards -- and that's without having a discrete GPU.

While AMD hasn't unveiled Strix Point (STX) and Strix Halo (STX Halo) specs just yet, they were leaked by HKEPC and then shared by VideoCardz. The sheet goes over the maximum specs for each APU lineup, the first of which, Strix Point, is rumored to launch this year. Strix Halo, said to be significantly more powerful, is currently slated for a 2025 release.