The week in gadgets: the 10 most popular stories

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This is the first edition of a weekly chart, and the rule is simple: we don’t pick the ten, you do. Every story below is ranked by its biggest single day in Google Discover this week, pulled from Search Console, and the countdown runs from ten to one.

Saturday rewrote the chart. A classroom robot, two Seikos and a Honda bike took the top off it, and the near-tie that led the early version of this list got pushed down to seventh and eighth.

A note on the numbers: a story’s rank is its peak 24-hour Discover reading, not a running total, so a piece that spiked hard on day one can outrank one that simmered all week.

Both kinds are in here. One slot breaks the rule, and it closes the chart at number ten, where the CJRB Spud makes its case with orders instead of clicks.

Key points

• StarBot’s Spark robot posted 11,192 Discover clicks in 24 hours, the biggest single day any Gadgeteer piece has had
• Saturday’s surge put five weekend pieces into the ten and pushed Monday’s kitchen list out of it
• The Seiko Prospex GMT and the Dell XPS 13 deal still finished one click apart, 2,024 to 2,023, now at numbers seven and eight
• The Spud ranks on checkout numbers, 40 orders from 57 Amazon clicks on its original piece, and its $39.99 price still checks out today

10: CJRB Spud keeps selling, and the orders prove it

One entry here didn’t win its slot in the Discover feed: the CJRB Spud.

It won at the checkout. Reah’s October 31 piece on the tiny folder sent 57 clicks to Amazon and 40 of them turned into orders, a 70.18% conversion rate and $751.59 in ordered revenue, numbers no other piece this week came close to matching.

On Friday we rounded up five reasons the Spud keeps selling, built around a 25% price cut that took it to $39.99 from $53.32. We re-checked that price on Amazon this morning and it’s still $39.99, in stock. Small knife, short blade, four-finger grip, and readers keep buying it. That’s a popularity story too, measured in orders instead of clicks.

9: CIVIVI Lil Yonder packs a crossbar lock into a compact EDC knife

A compact crossbar-lock folder at $55 on Amazon is the site’s core formula: small knife, real lock, easy price. The price still checks out today, $55 and in stock.

Peaking at 1,687 Discover clicks on Thursday, the CIVIVI Lil Yonder sat at number one in window after window through Wednesday and Thursday, and on the early version of this chart it stood fourth. Saturday’s surge is the only reason it’s down here.

It also leads our November EDC list, and the feed keeps agreeing with both.

8: Dell XPS 13 drops to $599 at Best Buy

Tuesday’s Dell XPS 13 deal took $200 off and landed at $599.99, and it held the top of the chart for the better part of two days. Deal pieces usually burn fast and die young; this one was still pulling hundreds of clicks days later, because a current XPS at that price needs no sales pitch.

It topped out at 2,023 clicks, one behind the watch at number seven.

7: Seiko green-dial Prospex pairs GMT function with 300m water resistance

A diver that tracks a second time zone and shrugs off 300 meters of water, the Seiko green-dial Prospex peaked at 2,024 Discover clicks in a day and was still in the top five a day later.

It beat the Dell deal by a single click. On Thursday night that fight was for the top of this chart; the weekend’s surge turned it into a fight for seventh, and the watch took this round too.

6: Starbucks holiday merch brings the Bearista back

The Starbucks holiday merch piece ran Friday morning, Bearista cups from $14.95 and the glass cup coming back December 1, and it peaked at 2,097 Discover clicks.

It wasn’t a one-day spike either. The piece kept drawing readers straight through Saturday, the kind of legs holiday merch doesn’t usually get in the first week of November.

5: Benchmade Mini SOCP Folder opens three ways

Saturday’s Benchmade Mini SOCP Folder is a $350 tactical folder built on Greg Thompson’s SOCP design, and it gives you three ways to open the blade: thumb studs, a wave hook and the finger ring. S30V steel, sand G10 scales, swappable ring setups.

Published at midday, it peaked at 2,172 Discover clicks inside its first day, the strongest knife debut of the week.

4: CIVIVI’s bushcraft trio starts at $74

CIVIVI built its name on folders, and this week it turned to fixed blades: the WoodPal, Thaloryn and Farrow, three drop points with leather sheaths, two of them ground scandi, up for preorder now and shipping November 24.

The WoodPal starts at $74 with a Dutch Bushcraft Knives design credit, the Thaloryn stays under $90 with the thickest stock of the three, and the Farrow runs past $100. The trio peaked at 2,708 Discover clicks, the biggest knife number of the week.

3: Honda RN0 e-MTB, the bike Honda will sell next to its motorcycles

Thursday night’s Honda RN0 piece led the early version of this chart. Honda is putting an electric mountain bike in dealerships next to its motorcycles, built with ROTWILD on a carbon monocoque frame with Shimano’s EP810 drive unit, 100 Nm of torque and about 24 kg all in. European motorcycle dealers get it in 2027, test rides and handover included.

It posted 3,027 Discover clicks in a single 24-hour window, about a day after it went live. Two Saturday pieces are the only reason it’s standing at number three.

2: Seiko Presage puts Tomioka silk on the dial from $995

The Presage Classic Series skips the sunburst finish. The dial is embossed to follow the drape of Tomioka silk, the cloth woven around the Tomioka Silk Mill in Gunma, and it shifts like fabric when the light moves. Three watches run $995 in a new 38mm case, a 2,000-piece limited edition runs $1,150, and the enamel and urushi pair above them runs $1,400 and $1,650.

Live at 4 AM Saturday, it peaked at 3,053 Discover clicks and spent the weekend trading the top spot with the robot below. At four figures, you’re paying for the dial, and readers paid attention.

1: StarBot Spark is a three-foot humanoid robot built in the US for $7,999

Nothing else was close. StarBot’s Spark stands about three feet tall, weighs 35 pounds and moves on 22 degrees of freedom, and it’s built in Santa Barbara for classrooms, school robotics programs and developers who want a real bipedal platform in the room. Standard price starts at $7,999; the first 100 confirmed orders started at $5,999.

It posted 11,192 Discover clicks in 24 hours, more than triple the number two piece and the biggest single day any story on this site has had. Humanoid robots have been research-lab hardware at research-lab prices. A school-budget one is a different story, and the feed treated it that way.

What the chart says

A classroom robot, two Seikos, a Honda mountain bike, three knife stories, a Starbucks cup drop and a $599 laptop deal. The top three all published Thursday night or later, and five of the ten weren’t even live when the early draft of this chart was built.

That’s the week in one line: carry gear and wrist gear first, a real discount second, and a robot walking away with the whole thing. Next week’s chart builds from a full field, Black Friday rush included.

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