The Buying Game (Issue 34)

This week's picks include electric scissors, a party speaker, and a donut light.

Tyler H

13 Mar 2026 • 4 min read

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The Buying Game consists of me selecting three products worth buying at different price points. Each product is given a Value Score—based on price and function—and then one is crowned the winner at the end. Affiliate links may be used.

How I’d spend $500: JBL PartyBox On-The-Go 2

The newest party box on the market is JBL’s On-The-Go 2. It features 100W of power and lights that move to the music. The name should make it clear that this speaker can go anywhere, but it can also do it all. It comes with a wireless microphone and has XLR and aux inputs. It has 15 hours of battery life. The newest features require the JBL app and can do Smart Key Change to match the playing song to your vocal range, automatically.

Price: $420 (link)
Value Score: Fair

If you’re looking for one speaker that you can take to the little league fields, use for karaoke, or just play music in the backyard, this one can do all that and more. Musicians in particular should keep their eye on this one. The One-The-Go 2 is available for pre-order now and ships in early April.

How I’d spend $150: IKEA Varmblixt

The latest product to get swept up in IKEA’s smart revamp is the iconic Varmblixt lamp—otherwise known as the donut lamp. The 12-inch LED lamp can be used on a table or wall-mounted. The lamp itself only has an on and off button, but it does come with the Bilresa smart remote control that can be used to cycle through colors or jump right to a pre-set color of choice.

Price: $100 (link)
Value Score: Fair

For as good a deal as some of IKEA’s latest electronic products are, this one remains just outside of impulse-buy territory. Because, as cool as a wall of four or more of these looks, adding more than one starts to get pricey. I've only just begun to test this new lamp, but so far, it's everything you would hope it would be.

How I’d spend $50: Fanttik C8 Nano

I went far too long before jumping on the electric cardboard cutter—electronic scissors—train. There are a lot of these out there, but the Fanttik C8 Nano works well, even on its lowest setting. I picked this model for its bright screen, twisting speed adjustment, and because it uses USB-C for charging. It comes with a carrying bag and an extra blade.

Price: $50 (link)
Value Score: Fair

If you look through Fanttik’s Amazon shop, you might be hit with deja vu. The company sells a lot of similar products to Hoto, which also has a new cardboard cutter. The price of the C8 Nano isn’t the cheapest, but so far I’ve been impressed.

The winning pick: IKEA Varmblixt

Ever since I saw the Varmblixt at CES in early January, I’ve been waiting for it to become available for sale. Even though its $100 price isn’t a steal, it’s not a bad deal. It is a striking decor piece with lots of function because of how it can integrate with Apple, Google, or Amazon’s smart home platforms.

Are you looking for even more picks this week? Here are a few things worth considering.

An expensive pick: Ecovacs Winbot W3 Omni

Robots are everywhere and can do everything, including washing your windows. The Winbot W3 Omni is Ecovacs’ latest entry. I’ve tried the previous versions, and overall, they’ve been impressive. The W3 Omni adds a few improvements to the actual robot, but the biggest update is for the attached base station. It will now wash the mop pads for you, instead of you needing to do that part manually.

Price: $599 (link)

Media pick: Imperfect Women

Apple TV's latest show coming this week is the psychological thriller Imperfect Women starring Elizabeth Moss, Kerry Washington, and Kate Mara. The short of it is that things get messy between two friends when the third friend ends up dead. Twists and turns are expected for this kind of show, but even then, it's probably not going to end like you think it will. The first episode debuts on March 18.

This week's other interesting deals and product news

Disney announced 'Verts,' a vertical video feature in its streaming app.
Epic is raising the price of Fortnite's V-Bucks by 20%.
iRobot has a new mini vacuum about half the size of its normal one.
Apple Music is adding invisible meta tags to help mitigate the issues of AI songs taking over.
Soundcore's newest speaker (Boom Go 3i) is on sale and down to $59.

This week's published stories

I wore the Dexcom Stelo glucose monitor for a month. This is how it went [PCMag]
Soundcore Boom Go 3i vs Bose SoundLink Micro 2 [Yahoo]
Opinion: Amazon Alexa+ ads are a big swing and a miss [Yahoo]
Sonos just announced the Play wireless speaker for $299 [Yahoo]
MacBook Air or MacBook Neo: Which Apple laptop should you buy? [Yahoo]