Indholdsfortegnelse for May 2017 i Stuff UK

Usually being Stuff editor is a pretty fun job. You get to mess around with the latest gadgets, travel around the world a fair bit and make a magazine at the end of the month. Sounds like a proper doss, right? Not on the day when you find out the phone you’ve put on your cover – Samsung’s infamous Galaxy Note 7 – has started exploding. And it’s getting a worldwide recall. That day was a nightmare. So why are we are we proclaiming the brilliance of another Galaxy handset only eight months later? Firstly, the S8 is the most exciting phone in the world right now. Secondly, Samsung has put a slew of new protections in place to stop ‘a Note 7 scenario’ happening again. Finally, I really want…

Amazon Fire TV Stick £40 / amazon.co.uk Amazon has taken its tiniest streamer and given it a makeover fit for 2017 (but it still looks like a stick) •You can talk to it It’s still a small black rectangle that you plug straight into an HDMI port on your telly, but the Fire TV Stick now also comes with voice control skills. No laborious cursor shunting – you can just hold down the microphone button and say the name of what it is you’re after. It’s pretty smart: if you say “games” it will show matching movie and TV results at the top (starting with Game of Thrones and The Hunger Games), followed by games you can download and play on the TV underneath. It’s not afraid to suggest a…

Facebook 360 for Gear VR £free / Android Time was, getting a 360° experience meant going outside, picking a spot to stand in and simply turning around. What a chilly waste of time. Now, with the advent of stellar smartphone cameras and nifty stitching software, 360° photos and videos are ten a penny. Panoramic effects don’t seem quite so astounding on a flat little phone screen, though – which is precisely why Facebook has announced the Facebook 360 app for Samsung Gear VR. Yippee! In short, download the app and you’ll get a streamlined carousel of 360° content from your timeline – some of it is going to be quite ropey, of course, but access like this can only pave the way for better video content to come.…

Wi-Fiwhiteboard JOTO Draw a picture in the app and it’s re-drawn by your wall-mounted Joto, whether it’s in the same room or across the world. It’s a process that looks a lot cuter with some actual art involved: Joto has commissioned some press-and-play illustrations for the device from the likes of Fred Deakin, Ben the Illustrator and Will Scobie. But you can also set this Alexa-compatible gadget to draw out the name of the currently playing Spotify track, the weather forecast or a to-do list. Or, should you let your teenage nephew anywhere near the app, you can watch it produce endless puerile drawings of male anatomy. £165 /joto.rocks Wall in one place FETCHITGO Watched everything on Netflix? Well, there’s still the last four buttons of your wall-mounted smart home…

£369 / stuff.tv/GalaxyA5 There’s no doubt the S8 will steal all the headlines, but if you like high-end features without high-end prices, the A5 is an intriguing proposition. The 5.2in A5 is not far off an S7 in disguise: a Full HD screen, 1.9GHz octa-core processor, 16MP cameras front and back, and 32GB of memory that’s expandable up to 256GB with a microSD card. Did we mention it’s also waterproof? While wireless charging skills have been ditched it does come with a USB-C port. But it’s the build quality that’s most surprising – many people will think this is a phone that costs twice as much as it does. •Android 6.0 • Cortex-A53 • 3GB RAM • 5.2in 1920x1080 • 32GB, expandable via microSD • 16MP rear, 16MP front STUFF…

£200 / stuff.tv/NuuX5 Nuu Mobile’s X5 might look like a nondescript 5.5in Android mid-ranger from a company you’ve never heard of, but it comes with one very special feature: it’s the first phone to have Konnect global roaming. Essentially, there’s a virtual SIM inside that keeps you constantly connected to a local 4G network, no matter where you are in the world (it works in over 100 countries). And not only that – it’ll find the cheapest one, so you won’t arrive home saddled with a bill that forces you to subsist on sardines and sawdust. You also get 3GB of RAM, an octa-core processor, 13MP rear and 5MP front cameras, a fingerprint sensor, dual SIM slots and 32GB of expandable storage – nothing to phone home about, but at…

£599 / madebygoogle.com Google’s first ‘made by’ phone failed to make a real dent in the competition when it was released last year – but the Nexus’s successor still has a lot going for it. For starters the camera’s an absolute belter, with speedy autofocus and excellent lowlight performance thanks to electronic image stabilisation tech shared by no other phone. A 5in 1080p screen doesn’t sound like much but this one’s sharp and full of detail. There’s 4GB of RAM and it does 15-minute charging – but with that rapidly becoming the norm, and a processor that’s beginning to be outpaced, the Pixel will start to show its age soon enough. Expect a refresh around October. STUFF SAYS Some standout features but the Pixel’s all a little predictable What’s next…

Xbox Elite Wireless Controller What’s the story? The Xbox Elite Wireless Controller is the best gamepad ever made. There, we said it. If you’re sick of using standard controllers where the buttons stick, triggers squeak or thumbsticks wear out, then the Elite is for you. It’s built for three things: performance, durability and customisation. It feels great for gaming, it’ll last years without the components wearing out, and it can be tweaked to the nth degree to give you the edge over the competition. It also comes with a carry case, a 9ft USB cable and a variety of optional pads, sticks and buttons for particularly ‘pro’ gamers. Is it any good? The Elite Controller exudes quality from top to bottom. Every stick, button and trigger is incredibly responsive, and…

Audi Q7 e-tron from £66,675 / audi.co.uk What is it? A hybrid version of Audi’s standard Q7, this car packs in a 202kg battery under the boot that robs it of the ability to seat seven. Despite its size, this is still only enough to provide a maximum electric range of 34 miles. But with 369bhp and 516Ib/ft of torque, there’s performance here to make many a hot hatch blush. Time to go green? Increase your speed and there’s barely a murmur from beneath the bonnet. As for the interior, the dash is a wonderful piece of minimalist design, the seats are comfortable and there’s plenty of space for rear seat passengers. Plus, 650 litres of load capacity is more than enough for most families. Tech specs Engine 2967cc V6…

THE BASICS •Set up alerts. First up, create alerts to make sure you don’t miss any episodes of your favourite channels. Head to settings, then notifications. Choose the kind of alert you want, then go to ‘manage all subscriptions’ to fine-tune. •Save for later. One lunch break is never enough to get your fix of cute animals. Save a video to a playlist by tapping the ‘+’ button in the top corner of the player. Or, if you’re browsing, hit the three-dot menu button. •Banish autoplay. One day, YouTube decided to be ‘helpful’ and started automatically playing videos. Thankfully you can kill this off in a flash by flicking a ‘disable auto-play’ switch, which you’ll find on the upper right-hand side of the page, above the ‘related videos’ column. •Straight…

OnePlus 3T £399 / oneplus.net This phone is just like the OnePlus 3, aside from its higher price and a few little extras that don’t really change how it is to use – or, crucially, where it sits relative to its pricier rivals. In other words, it remains a bargain. If you could still get the original OnePlus 3, we’d advise you to save your £70 – but when the only genuine alternatives to the 3T cost over £500, this continues to be the best smartphone choice for shrewd buyers. Stuff says It’s not quite as bargain-tastic any more, but the 3T still packs great performance 1 HOT BUY BARGAIN BUY TIPS & TRICKS Worried about your battery life? You can customise the level indicator to show a precise percentage.…

SoundMagic E10C £40 / soundmagicheadphones.com BARGAIN BUY HOT BUY With the SoundMagic E10Cs you get fantastic sound for the money, a quality cable and plenty of ear tips – and unlike the old E10Ss, you don’t need to tell these buds whether you’re plugging into an (old) iPhone or an Android phone. In truth, there’s still nothing out there that can topple SoundMagic as the king of cheap headphones, but the E10Cs prove that it is still possible to improve on something good without hammering up the price at the same time. Stuff says Our budget champions are a phenomenally good pair of headphones for the price AKG K451 £55 / uk.akg.com These on-ears offer agile and punchy sound in a stylish foldable design. Add standard and three-button control cables…

Apple Watch Series 2 HOT BUY from £369 / apple.com The original Apple Watch was already the best smartwatch to date; now it’s found its focus. The Series 2 devices come with an array of upgrades – more power, a brighter screen – along with a greater emphasis on fitness functions without a phone in tow. Both GPS and waterproofing make this a far more compelling gadget for exercise obsessives. No alternative is as fast or as well made, or has the same quality and quantity of bespoke apps. Stuff says Apple’s small tweaks and renewed sports focus add up to make the Series 2 a watershed wearable Withings Steel HR £170 / withings.com Combining style and functionality in a way few other smartwatches manage, the Steel HR is a…

I SHOT SOME BEARS IN BAVARIA Don’t worry, no bears were harmed as the shooting in question was done using the SP 150-600mm f5-6.3 VC USD lens from Tamron (available in Nikon, Canon and Sony mounts). The Bavarian Forest National Park served as the perfect location to try out my wildlife photography skills, and this sub-£1000 super-telephoto zoom didn’t disappoint. The vibration compensation was faultless on my Nikon D750 and I was able to get pin-sharp shots handheld at 600mm, which is bear-ly believable. Will Clarke, Senior Designer I GAVE MY CATS 20 SECONDS TO COMPLY Rather more successfully, I gave my 10-year-old an introduction to real-world coding by putting her in charge of the Jimu TankBot (see p29). Using drag-and-drop lines of Scratch-style code, this trundling titan can be…

#21 HDMI 2.1 Fraser Macdonald You know that 4K TV you bought? Well… don’t worry. It’s not obsolete quite yet. But, refracting rather prettily through the horizon are some of the technologies of tomorrow’s TVs. How far hence are we talking? The Tokyo Olympics in 2020 is an obvious waypoint, as 8K broadcast coverage has often been mentioned for what has been billed from the start as a hi-tech Games. Which means – yay! – we need a new HDMI standard for all our AV connections. Now, 2.1 doesn’t sound like a massive upgrade over the existing 2.0, but there are some big numbers to ponder. First up is the classic: bandwidth. Ye olde HDMI 1.4 had a throughput of 10.2Gbps, then HDMI 2.0 jumped to 18Gbps. Now, with the…

SUPER STICKMAN GOLF 3 £free / Android, iOS Thwocking a-plenty as you hole-in-many on a range of bonkers golf courses. SUPER MEAT BOY £10.99 / various formats Help your meaty hero jump from wall to wall, dodging death, death and yet more death. GOLF ZERO £free / iOS Leap about like a lunatic dodging saw-blades and spikes, and wall-jump like a ninja, all before unleashing a trio of balls in slow motion aiming for a hole in one.…

1 Cote & Ciel Isar S Back when Cote & Ciel devised its unusual, organically shaped Isar bag, the future looked big. But whaddaya know: the future’s here and it’s small, and so a mini-Isar is born. It’s called Isar S, for ‘Small’. €265 / coteetciel.com 2 Pacsafe Ultimatesafe Z15 The Z15 is more of a cage than a bag. Ostensibly its steel mesh stops slash ’n’ grabs… but it also makes this a handy place in which to keep your fantastic beasts. €170 / pacsafe.com 3 Trakke Cuillin Handmade in Scotland using only British materials; if the bag feels light, that’ll be gaseous karma holding the waxed cotton aloft. Should you do something evil, it’ll suddenly get much heavier. £140 / trakke.co.uk 4 Manfrotto Windsor Reporter That name pretty…

Delivery drones – we’ve all seen them. Well, the concept of them at least. Amazon UK has been running extensive tests of its flying post-bots in Cambridge for a while, but this new idea from Ford is something different. The dodgily titled Autolivery is a system of self-driving vans, robots and drones that will operate in urban areas to make package processing simple and entirely people-free. See, like the rest of us, Ford is bored of being stuck in traffic – and it reckons that by automating the process it’ll be able to beat the queues and drop your orders right on your doorstep – even if that’s in the middle of the night. Robots don’t need time and a half for the night shift, and don’t stop delivering. Unless,…

HANDS ON The one that just won’t die £tba stuff.tv/ XPower2 Nokia’s 3310 reboot isn’t the only long-life mobile heading our way this year. LG’s 5.5in X Power 2 packs a whopping 4500mAh battery into a surprisingly svelte chassis, albeit one that’s slightly too plasticky. It’s chunkier than some of its rivals, sure, but this is hardly a bloater. Besides, where do you expect it to store all that extra oomph? After all, 4500mAh is over a thousand more than the OnePlus 3T. Even the bleeding-edge Sony XZ Premium on the opposite page only comes with a 3230mAh cell. The downside? A 720p screen, a 13MP camera that’s not likely to be great and a 1.5GHz processor that won’t set any records… but the end result is enough juice for…

£550 stuff.tv/ MiMix The one with the bezel-free screen At first glance, you might think the Mi Mix was just one big screen. Not only is it an absolute whopper, but the tiny bezel makes it look even bigger than it is. Xiaomi has managed to draw out impressive brightness, contrast and colours from this monster. It hasn’t found a way to stretch the pixels out enough to fill all 6.4in, though, so sharpness will drop off noticeably when you get up close. Still, the slightly lower screen resolution means the battery should last longer than you might expect. There’s a lot to like about the Mi Mix… but a pair of average-at-best cameras, limited availability and a high price mean only the truly dedicated should bother. •Android 6.0 •…

£399 / oneplus.net OnePlus’s 3T update didn’t add all that much to the 3 – but it was already the best, so why try harder? What do you get for your extra £70? A Snapdragon 821 CPU that should make it about 10% faster than its predecessor, nippier RAM, more storage, a bigger battery and a 16MP front camera. Not the kind of specs worth upgrading for but enough to keep it ahead of the pack, despite the price bump. The 5.5in AMOLED has been tweaked and it now shoots 4K video too. Its ultra-clean version of Android is still a joy to use and it hasn’t lost anything in the build quality stakes. This still feels like a phone that should cost a hell of a lot more than…

• Apple iPhone 7 Plus The dual-lens setup of the 7 Plus not only gives you a fine 12MP camera, but also hands you a 2x zoom that really delivers for close-ups. • Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge The S7 Edge might be old now but that doesn’t mean its camera is past its sell-by date. For sharp, detailed photos this is still a winning pick. • Google Pixel XL As a whole, we don’t rate the Pixel as highly as the 7 Plus or S7 Edge. But as a camera, there are few better alternatives to this Android flagship.…

£649 / stuff.tv/UDP203 •Stop fretting about streaming bit-rates – if you really care about how your films look at home, then 4K Blu-ray is still the best way to watch them… and Oppo’s UDP-203 is the machine to buy. It lavishes your senses with oodles of detail and super-sharp sound. •Design-wise, the UDP-203 looks just like a normal Blu-ray player – albeit one that’s housed inside a sleek metal chassis with clean lines, a brushed aluminium front panel and a dinky display. •There’s nothing ‘normal’ about the picture, though. Watching Life of Pi is almost as jaw-dropping as it was on the big screen – every ounce of detail is etched out with superb clarity and subtlety. •Audio performance is similarly stellar –you really get that blockbuster oomph when glass…

KURZGESAGT YouTube is just a modern version of You’ve Been Framed plus a few cat videos, right? Not if you dig deeper. Kurzgesagt (German for ‘in brief’) is a series of beautifully animated monthly videos that explain complex subjects like quantum computers and gamma ray bursts. GAME MAKER’S TOOLKIT Journalist and game designer Mark Brown explains the mechanics behind video game designs in this insightful series. You’ll find out how Jonathan Blow designs puzzle games and why regenerating health systems are so popular in first-person shooters. PRIMITIVE TECHNOLOGY Watching a modern-day caveman building mud huts might not sound like the biggest thrill for tech fans, but this channel is a great example of how to tell stories without speech and a brilliant way to unwind before nodding off into your…

Garmin Vivoactive HR £180 / garmin.com HOT BUY Garmin has a frankly bewildering array of fitness trackers and outdoorsy GPS watches, but the Vivoactive HR is the one you really want. It’s packed to the gills with long-lasting, easy-to-use and rewarding fitness cleverness. That means it contains the daily step and sleep tracking that you can get in other bands costing under a ton, but also the optical heart-rate monitor, touchscreen display and smartphone notifications that you’d normally pay more for. Stuff says Not super-stylish, perhaps, but crammed with sensors, sports and stamina: a fab all-round fitness tracker Moov Now BARGAIN BUY £50 / moov.cc Since it’s cheaper than the Fitbit Flex 2 and basically does the same stuff, the Moov Now has been elevated up this list. Thanks to…

Better Call Saul (S3) Every time Better Call Saul has a Breaking Bad reference, we point at the screen excitedly. Well, prepare for more pointing, as Gus Fring will make an appearance in season three, while Jimmy embraces his dark side. Bill Nye Saves the World (S1) Anyone who says science is boring hasn’t seen MythBusters or Brainiac. But if the closest you’ve got to scientific TV is The Big Bang Theory, Bill Nye’s here to save you with his new boffinry-based talk show. Ex Machina Love your Amazon Echo? Wait until you see this philosophical sci-fithriller about artificial intelligence. You’ll either want to free Alexa from her cylinder prison, or lock her in the cupboard where she can’t hurt you. Bosch (S3) A crime drama featuring a brooding detective?…

Sky Q from £15 + £22/month / sky.com HOT BUY Sky Q works flawlessly and could change the way you watch TV – especially now 4K’s arrived. With Sky Movies’ huge range of films and Sky Sports’ weekly dose of football now both in stunning Ultra HD, there’s something for everyone to treat their eyes with. And 2TB of storage means you can record 350 hours’ worth of entertainment, so you’re unlikely to be sweating over which show needs deleting. Factor in its multiroom skills, and Sky Q is undoubtedly the best TV experience you can get. Stuff says You’ll have to cough up for a subscription, but this is the best box for watching both live and recorded shows Q Acoustics Media 4 £329 / qacoustics.co.uk HOT BUY This…

0 TO SHOPS IN 3.2 SECONDS To celebrate its success in Formula E, Renault has shoehorned a load of race tech into its ZOE electric city car. The e-Sport Concept generates 460bhp, can reach 130mph and accelerates faster than the Tesla Model X we’ve tested on p89. PAPER MAKER Epson has created a machine that takes your unwanted or confidential papers, mushes them up and spits them back out… as blank paper. PaperLab is office-sized at the moment, but is a home recycling revolution in the making once the tech begins to smallerise. TINY PI GOES WI-FI In a marvellous feat of miniaturisation, Raspberry Pi has managed to squeeze a wireless chip and antenna onto its tiny Pi Zero board. Wi-Fiand Bluetooth LE should open up a load of new…

€31,500 / ressencewatches.com THE HANDS ARE SUSPENDED IN OIL, MAKING THEM EASY TO SEE UNDERWATER Ooh, weird. Analogue or digital? Magical, isn’t it? At first you think it might be a screen because of the sheer two-dimensionality of the display – and because some of the hands don’t seem to make any sense. Well, pick up your jaw off the floor and chew on this: it’s analogue. There are real spinny widgets in there. Does it wobble like jelly? There is an element of viscosity to Ressence’s watches – what you’re seeing is the hands suspended in oil. This kills internal reflections to make them legible from all angles down in the briny depths… for this watch is being pitched at divers. The hand-wound mechanical movement, which wouldn’t like being…

1 Popcorn £free / iOS This sort-of Tinder for films has you peruse lists, flicking left to heartlessly discard, or right when you love something enough for your watchlist. Then gaze at trailers, with moony eyes. 2 Yarn - Chat Fiction £free (IAPs) / iOS If you spend too much time in messaging apps, you might like fiction presented that way too… although, if you get stuck into this app, subscriptions will rack up bigger bills than a ton of texts. 3 The Gruffalo Spotter £free / Android, iOS If you’ve a youngling who loves a furry beast with a poisonous wart at the end of his nose, this app is Pokémon Go with Gruffalo characters. Ish. It only works at Forestry Commission sites, though. 4 Airplane Window £free /…

Hang on, haven’t I seen this before? If you were paying attention to Stuff’s coverage of last year’s Mobile World Congress show, then yup. Sony showed it off in concept form, but it wasn’t quite ready for the prime time. This, though? It’s the real deal. Sony has decided there’s enough interest to roll its portable projector into full production, so you’ll be able to buy one by the summer. Or at least you will be if you don’t mind splashing out a whopping €1499 on one. Ouch – it had better be the stuff of my sci-fidreams for that kind of cash. If you’ve ever wanted to turn your kitchen table into a giant tablet screen, you’re sorted. It’s basically a tiny Android box that beams a touch-sensing ‘display’…

28th NORTH ATLANTIC FLUX: SOUNDS FROM SMOKY BAY North Atlantic Flux sounds like a digestive complaint but is, in fact, a four-day Nordic music festival curated by (and including) bearded groover John Grant. Where? Hull, of course, as part of its duty as the UK’s City of Culture for 2017. 7th GOING IN STYLE Old geezers getting up to mischief – us Brits have seen it all, via endless Last of the Summer Wine episodes. But this remake of the 1979 film is directed by Scrubs/Garden State man Zach Braff, with Michael Caine, Morgan Freeman and Alan Arkin. Hope they slide down a hill in a bath. 10th 360 DEGREE ZOO EDINBURGH Meerkats in a ball pool. Need we continue? That phrase alone should have you booking tickets to Edinburgh’s…

£tba / stuff.tv/ZTEV8Mini Normally you have to shell out for a flagship phone to get the latest version of Android, but ZTE’s new sub-£200 member of the Blade family has its own skinned version of Nougat. It’s still as different and divisive as it was on Marshmallow, so Google purists aren’t going to be happy, but lots of Nougat’s features make it across, including the battery-saving Doze Mode 2.0. The ZTE has a 13MP/2MP dual camera system. It won’t add a significant amount of detail or give you wide-angle panoramas, but it does do a convincing bokeh. With a 5in screen, ‘Mini’ doesn’t seem to mean what it used to, but it is only 720p – maybe that’s just as well with a 2800mAh battery. Combined with a Snapdragon 435…

£399 / stuff.tv/HTCUPlay Take HTC’s U Ultra (see p52), remove the fancy second screen, knock £250 off the price and you’ve basically got the U Play instead. With that same pearlescent finish as the Ultra it doesn’t feel any less expensive, but you will have to be careful to make sure it stays that way. The 5.2in screen is a good size for just about anyone. It’s not really powerful enough for the price you’re paying, though, and a 2500mAh battery just isn’t good enough for a phone with a 1080p screen. Still, lay it face-down on a desk and you’ve got a lovely paperweight. •Android 6.0 • Mediatek Helio P10 • 3GB RAM • 5.2in 1920x1080 • 32GB, expandable via microSD • 16MP rear, 16MP front STUFF SAYS Classy…

PHOTO COPY The KeyOne has the same 12MP Sony camera as the Google Pixel. That’s good news, because the Pixel takes very nice photos and this one should too. The one with the keyboard £499 stuff.tv/ KeyOne BlackBerry has returned from the dead more times than the baddie in a B-movie – but is it back for good this time? The KeyOne is very clearly a BlackBerry and has almost everything a BB addict would want from a phone in 2017: a hardware QWERTY, premium build and decent specs. The difference is, this phone is running Android with a couple of BlackBerry’s enhancements rather than its bespoke OS, so you’ll get the same access to apps as any Samsung or HTC owner. THE KEY DIFFERENCE That keyboard, while not exactly…

The ones we still love £579 apple.com Yes, we know the iPhone 7 came out in 2016, but it didn’t disappear off the face of the earth after the Christmas lights came down, did it? For many (and we don’t just mean Apple fanboys) it’s still No1, even without a 3.5mm headphone socket. Newly water-resistant, despite looking hardly any different to the iPhone 6, and with a new home button that’s not actually a button at all, it’s a case of evolution rather than revolution – but that’s been the Apple way for a while now. Sure, on pure specs alone it’s eclipsed by more powerful phones, but the finely tuned A10 processor, improved screen a fine camera make for an irresistible package. STUFF SAYS Who needs a headphone port…

FOR TRICKSY TEXTERS • Text Mess A former Pixar animator wanted more beautiful text messages, and Text Mess is the result. Living inside Messages, the app lets you select a shape, palette, font and arrangement, before it mashes your word or phrase into a lively word balloon. If you think words are ‘so 2010’, you can use emoji instead. Hate Messages? Then export your creations to Photos and hurl them at Facebook, Twitter or (if you print them out) random passers-by in the street. Stuff says £1.99 / iOS FOR PODCAST PRIMPERS • Overcast Plenty of podcast players faff about with managing downloads – and Overcast does this too, with smart playlists and filtering. Mostly, though, this app’s concerned with improving what you hear. You get options to remove gaps…

COMMUTING The versatile bargain Vitus Razor VR A perfect first road bike, the Razor VR combines a lightweight alloy frame with a carbon fork to hit the sweet spot between price and pothole-absorption. For commuting, there’s a relatively upright riding position and enough wheel clearance for adding mudguards. £495 / chainreactioncycles.com The bike in shining armour Brompton Nickel Edition Brompton’s limited-edition stunner will turn heads faster than your pedals. The nickel-plated finish acts like a force field against corrosion and it folds down in a matter of seconds, which means more time to lecture everyone in your train carriage about British engineering. £1470 / brompton.com The fuss-free adventurer Charge Plug 1 Need a two-wheeled friend that’s as happy on gnarly towpaths as it is on the commute? The Charge 1…

BIT OF A BLUR There’s an issue with TruMotion mode, as it introduces a touch of the blurred-motion ‘soap opera effect’, but turning it off leaves you with a little judder. MAGIC WAND You don’t have to rely on buttons with LG’s Magic Remote. With motion and voice controls, navigating is made considerably less fiddly. LG 49UH668V £499 / currys.co.uk We’re opening with what is probably the biggest bargain of the bunch. The specs are obviously exciting – 4K, HDR and a 49in screen – but there was always going to be a suspicion that in action the UH668V would be a letdown. Well, hooray for nice surprises! The big picture Unlike some aff ordable HDR TVs, this is a proper 10-bit panel that can handle millions more colours for…

There are many things we don’t yet know about the future. Will there be life on Mars? How long until monocles are back in fashion? When will The Rock win his Academy Award? The answers to these questions are all a mystery, but there’s one thing that we’re certain will continue for years: humanity will keep multiplying. Given the need to keep Earth hospitable, the days of buying a huge petrol-powered SUV to ferry around your sprogs are numbered. That’s why Tesla’s Model X has completely rewritten the rulebook for big cars. Somehow it takes the seven-seater and transforms it into a sleek, luxurious object of automotive desire. It’s fast enough to embarrass supercars at traffic lights once you add the Ludicrous mode upgrade, and manages to make gull-wing doors…

£50 / stuff.tv/SegaClassic •For some gamers, the ’90s were the halcyon days – and the Sega Mega Drive was the console of the decade. Rub the nostalgia from your eyes, though: this reborn Mega Drive is no high-end piece of hardware. It feels plasticky and oddly hollow, and doesn’t even look like the original console. Still, it’s the games that really matter… •Among the 80 pre-installed titles, there are some true classics to get into. Sonic is the obvious choice, but there’s also a host of endless runners and fighters, from Ristar and Golden Axe to Columns and Streets of Rage. •Sixteen-bit graphics spread across a big screen make your eyes work hard, but it’s worth it for the button-bashing thrill of hearing that Sonic Ring ‘ping’ in your living…

Should I upgrade? VIRGIN TV V6 Ryan Jones Staff Writer You may have noticed that 4K has been one of the biggest buzzwords in tech lately. Virgin has certainly noticed, and so has made it the headline feature of its new TV box. Unfortunately, this headline is just as hyperbolic as one you’d find in a red-top tabloid. It’s not a false claim – the TV V6 does run 4K on Netflix and YouTube, but that’s all for now, which is a disappointment when those apps are already available on most UHD TVs. Virgin has promised it’s working on providing more 4K content, but it’s way behind Sky – which already offers sport, films and box-sets in Ultra HD. Sky’s your limit? We could end the debate now and say…

1 Subscribe to a podcast Perhaps your ears are better at learning than your eyes? The LanguagePod101 podcast series offers a range of languages for you to learn for nothing. Download the app and you can listen on your commute. 2 Get yourself a pen pal When it comes to languages, there’s no substitute for old-fashioned talking. HelloTalk is a free app that connects you with native speakers of your chosen language. This way you can learn the lingo and make a friend so you’ll have a sofa to crash on. 3 Watch a foreign film Watching a movie can be a great way to get immersed in a language. Netflix has a wide range of international titles, from Pan’s Labyrinth (in Spanish) to Battle Royale (Japanese). You know how…

PlayStation 4 Pro £350 / playstation.com HOT BUY As a gaming platform, PlayStation 4 is the best around – which makes the PS4 Pro the best of the best. Games optimised for the new console look stunning on a 4K HDR TV, and are substantially improved by the extra grunt inside this slightly bigger machine. If you’ve already splashed out for a 4K HDR screen and you enjoy video games at all, it’s well worth the upgrade. The missing 4K Blu-ray drive means it isn’t a perfect entertainment system, but streaming converts won’t care. Stuff says The system for console gamers who have a 4K TV and want the best gaming experience possible Xbox One S from £204 / xbox.com Microsoft dumps Kinect, the £400+ asking price and the fugly…

Raspberry Pi 3 £33 / raspberrypi.org You don’t have to be big on coding to enjoy the Raspberry Pi. With some basic tweaking, you can turn this £33 tiny-puter into a very respectable desktop PC, retro gaming machine or media centre – and that’s just the start. The Pi 3 is also the perfect update to its predecessor: you get loads more power (about the same as a mid-range smartphone), integrated Wi-Fiand Bluetooth, and it still costs less than a PS4 game. Stuff says Opens up a world of tech possibilities for what is a positively diddy asking price BARGAIN BUY HOT BUY TIPS & TRICKS Plonk that Pi camera you bought on a birdfeeder and you’ll be able edit your own Springwatch. The free, open-source Kodi will turn a…