Innehållsförteckning för Issue 189 från T3 Australia

Instead of trying to deliver ever-higher resolutions or more frames per second, GoPro’s latest flagship focuses more on making your videos less shaky. The result is a new technology called HyperSmooth: built-in electronic stabilisation that enables you to ditch the gimbal and capture smooth, professional-looking footage all the time. You do still get 4K video at a slick 60fps, of course, as well as 8x slo-mo at Full HD. Crucially, the image quality is excellent, with vibrant colours and great dynamic range. The higher bit-rate and advanced colour profile option are welcome news for pros. HyperSmooth works incredibly well, and doesn’t present any of the traditional warping or artefacts found on older GoPros. It is, just about, the best auto-smoothing on the market so far, but it’s not so far…

Sony’s professional full-frame mirrorless cameras often steal the limelight, but the company’s smaller-sensor APS-C mirrorless options still deserve attention. The a6400 offers many of the features of the top-of-the-range a6500, but it lacks in-body image stablisation. It’s a surprising omission given the cheaper Olympus E-M10 III does have this feature, and it means you’ll need to rely on lens-based stabilisation to help ensure sharp shots. Where the a6400 beats both the Olympus and Fujifilm cameras is ergonomics. It’s comfortable in the hand, and the 3-inch rear screen can hinge through 180 degrees to face forward for easy selfie framing. It’s not perfect, however: the screen resolution is relatively low, and Sony’s dated menu interface hasn’t been designed to make the most of touchscreen control. Compared to the others, the Sony’s…

Backgammon is one of the oldest games in the world, but this new limited edition design brings it bang up to date; the lush tropical pattern is also amusingly on-point with one of this summer’s key home interiors trends. Designer Alexandra Llewellyn’s exquisite, handcrafted board games have long caused a stir among the sartorial elite, due to their appeal as objets d’art. Each design has its own charms, but this is an instant fan favourite. The board itself is crafted from beautifully grained laurel burl, and features photographic leaves, brass fastenings and antique gold and black playing pieces to exude vintage allure. $8,500, calexandrallewellyn.com NEXT ISSUE IS ON SALE SUMMER 2019 Get ready for the sun with our guide to this year’s best gadgets for summer!…

All year long the T3 team lives and breathes gadgets, and between us I like to think we know a thing or two about what separates the wheat from the chaff. Well, there’s no chaff in this issue because it’s our very special best of the best annual T3 Awards issue. Nothing but lovely golden wheat here, folks. As you know, we’re about far more than just the coolest watch or phone at T3. If it’s tech, it’s on our radar. So, that means everywhere in the house, and beyond. As a stylish and savvy tech fan yourself, you don’t want to waste precious time and money on anything that doesn’t quite sit at the top echelon. Whether indoors or out, buying something you expect many years of reliable use…

6 APPLE MAC PRO $TBA, apple.com/au The unveiling of the first new Mac Pro in six years was a strictly hands-off affair, but you didn’t need to touch the machine to recognise its two most distinguishable traits: it looks like a cheese grater and it’s very powerful. The lattice pattern aids extreme airflow, which will come in very handy when the computer is performing at its maximum capabilities – you could outfit it with up to a 28-core Intel Xeon processor, a ridiculous 1.5TB of RAM, and a specialised Radeon Pro Vega II Duo graphics card Apple says is the most powerful in the world. Apple also revealed a new Pro Display XDR monitor that offers 32 inches of 6K resolution and a 1,000,000:1 contrast ratio. It can maintain 1,000…

MOUNTAIN DESIGNS PEAK 700 $199, mountaindesigns.com Join the MD club for free and The Peak 700 becomes an absolute bargain at $199 and exactly what I imagine wearing a cloud should feel like – idulgent, warm and cozy and ideal for sitting around the fire on a frosty evening in the mountains or keeping warm while on belay. Throw on the hood and the outside isn’t getting in (there’s plenty of room in there for a helmet too). Unfortunately there’s no stretch, so mobility can be an issue. THE NORTH FACE STRETCH DOWN $380, thenorthface.com.au Not quite as much of a cloud to wear, the Stretch Down is for anyone who likes to keep active in the Winter months. 700 fill goose down keeps you warm while 9% stretchy elastine…

Getting a dig in at the Hero7 Black, the Osmo Action is waterproof to 11m without a case, versus the GoPro’s 10m, and the rear touchscreen is larger at 2.25 inches, although this means the DJI has a fractionally larger body. It’s was once also $50 cheaper than the Hero7, but recently GoPro has been selling its cam at a price to rival that of the Osmo Action. But all that pales compared to the showpiece colour screen on the front of the Osmo Action, just to the left of the lens. If you’re a vlogger or plan on shooting activities where the camera needs to be trained on you, this is a game-changer. It’s easy to toggle the screen on and off, using buttons, the touchscreen or voice. The…

01 4K OR NOT 4K? Just because you can film in 4K, should you? Generally yes, for reasons we’ll come to soon, but there are specific exceptions. If you need to maximise battery life or storage, for example, switch down to 1080p, since these will both last longer that way. And if you want to get slo-mo footage you’ll have to use a lower-res. But otherwise, stick with 4K because it gives you flexibility later: you can keep the footage at 4K for sharing, but if you share the 4K footage at 1080p, it will look even better than if you recorded it at 1080p. This is thanks to ‘oversampling’ – where information from the unused pixels helps to sharpen what see. You can also crop into 4K footage to…

For most people, the first image that springs to mind when they think of a mirrorless camera is the Fujifilm X-series model. The X-T30 is a prime example of the breed, with its classic camera looks delivering instant visual appeal, while also providing great ergonomics. Those old-school dials festooning the top panel enable instant access to the camera’s shooting modes, as well as more advanced settings like shutter speed and exposure compensation. Stick the camera in Auto mode and you may never need them, but if you want to get creative with your shots, the X-T30 is a great camera for learning the ropes. Beneath the retro aesthetic is seriously cutting-edge tech. Fujifilm’s flagship X-T3 may have slightly quicker continuous shooting and can capture 4K video at a faster frame…

In T3, we feature only the finest gadgets out there, and we believe that you – our loyal reader – deserve only the best tech in your life. We don’t want you to waste time, and money, on inferior products, and that’s exactly why our Tested section exists. In here you’ll find only the latest and hottest tech. Each product has been handpicked and tested by T3’s experts. We only choose people with specialist knowledge for each test, so you know you’re going to get an outcome based on many years of experience in their respective field. As well as our traditional five-star rating system (right), we also give out awards to particularly exceptional gadgets, using the line-up below - so when you spot one of these, you’ll know you’re…

From $5,199 msi.com MSI laptops are evolving. The company is established as a reliable purveyor of mainly gaming-oriented machines of questionable design maturity, and has now moved into delivering professional PCs with the more austere looks designers and content creators will find acceptable. Its slab-sided design is reminiscent of the MacBook Pro and, now, Razer Blade Pro machines it’s competing against. The case is plastic, though, which detracts from its overall classiness, but does help keep the weight down to just under 2kg. Under the hood the P65 is a beastly thing. The 8-core/16-thread i9-988H CPU @ 2.3GHz base and 4.8GHz turbo is near top of the line from Intel’s current range and will eat anything thrown at it. 1TB of fast NVMe SSD storage is excellent, and is far…

$179 garmin.com The Dash Cam Mini is probably smaller than your car’s key fob, meaning it fits neatly behind the rear view mirror of most cars, on a smart quick-release mount, where it quietly but reliably gets on with the job of shooting Full HD video and saving it to a microSD card. There’s no touchscreen or display of any kind: one button mutes audio, and larger one saves a section of video when pressed. To view videos, you’ll need to use Wi-Fi. Simple. The Mini shoots at a lower resolution than most of Garmin’s current dash cam range, but this is still 1080p, which means footage is perfectly sharp and clear. While it lacks HDR, the picture quality is perfectly acceptable for such a small camera – number plates…

Yves Saint Laurent is enjoying a long love affair with tech, lending its powerhouse name to everything from USB chargers to boomboxes. And now it has expanded its collaboration with Beoplay, bringing its ‘none more black’ look to the collection, which includes the Beoplay A9 home speaker and the dinky A1 Bluetooth, a favourite of ours for soundtracking gatherings in the garden. In terms of tech, nothing has been tinkered with on these stunning speakers – the changes are aesthetic, with the Saint Laurent logo emblazoned across the back of the powerful A9 free-standing speaker, and a high-gloss version splashed across the aluminium grill of the dust- and splash-resistant A1. The A9 also features solid anodised mirror black aluminium legs, and supports AirPlay 2 and Chromecast built-in. The ultra-portable A1…

T3’s mission is to help you find the best products for every area of your tech lifestyle. From traditional gadget buys like phones and TVs to connected home security and sports sensors, if it can make your life better, we’re here to make sure you get the right one for you. The products we feature are chosen by our expert writers, with years of experience in their key areas. We wouldn’t recommend something we wouldn’t be happy to live with ourselves – the tat is filtered out long before we print a page. This goes for reviews too – you won’t us wasting your time with products you don’t need to know about. More than that, our aim is to make sure you get the most out of the things…

Sorry GoPro, you’ve had it too good for too long. Your grip on the top of the action camera market has been as strong as one of your mounts on a handlebar, but now the imagery skills of DJI and Sony are gunning right for your throne. What we have here are three premium cams, all built to be highly portable and highly rugged. They’re all 4K-capable, of course, and have video features geared towards making their footage more suitable for pro-level applications (though are equally ready for just throwing what you’ve got up onto YouTube). Being tiny, they can be mounted pretty much anywhere, and have some features to make it easier to see what you’re shooting (or what your settings are) even when you can’t see the screen.…

Despite the rugged design, Sony describes this as a ‘tiny tough’ as opposed to an ‘action camera’. Like the GoPro and DJI, it’s designed for survival and features its own take on image stabilisation, plus some very nifty imaging hardware, but its more involved operation means it’s less suitable for capturing impromptu bursts of action, and better suited to supercharging vlogs and outdoors photography. One of the standout features is a 180-degree tiltable 1.5-inch screen. That’s smaller than its rivals here, but enables you to capture cool angles, avoid sunlight when framing a shot, or see yourself in frame. Getting up and running with the camera presents little drama, however it’s when you start delving into settings that your patience is tested. Prodding fiddly buttons to navigate almost 30 menu…

1 LUME CUBE MINI Shed some light on dark or underwater shoots with Lume’s Bluetooth portable LED action light, to be paired with the Lume Cube GoPro Mounting Kit (compatible with a range of action cams). The light is waterproof to 100 feet, sports 10 adjustable light levels, and can be controlled manually or via the app (available on iOS and Android). $69, amazon.com.au 2 RØDE VIDEOMICRO Audio quality on the GoPro Hero7 Black is good anyway, but for the best audio indoors and out, draft in the VideoMicro compact camera microphone. It’s compatible with a range of cams and sports an aluminium body and shock mount that are as tough as your action shooter. $69, amazon.com.au 3 GOPRO DUAL BATTERY CHARGER + BATTERY Planning a longer day of shooting?…

Olympus mirrorless cameras are all based around the Micro Four Thirds image sensor design, which is around 50% smaller in area than the APS-C-sized sensors in the Fujifilm and Sony cameras. This means the size of the whole camera can be reduced. At 121.5mm x 83.6mm x 49.5mm, the OM-D E-M10 III is a similar size to the competition, but this is due to protrusions around the camera body. It feels less bulky in the hand than the boxier Fujifilm and Sony cameras. The smaller sensor also allows for smaller lenses - take almost any Micro Four Thirds lens and it’s likely to be significantly more compact than an equivalent Fujifilm or Sony optic, as these lenses can often be a similar size to their DSLR lens counterparts, somewhat negating…

01 X-T30 BUNDLED LENS The X-T30 is available in a kit with a Fujinon XC 15-45mm f/3.5-5.6 OIS PZ lens for around $50 more than its body-only price. It’s as light in your pocket as it is on the camera, but this is a result of the mostly plastic construction that feels at odds with the premium X-T30. 02 X-T30 TRAVEL LENS Your best bet for a single, do-it-all Fujifilm travel lens is the 18-135mm f/3.5-5.6 WR LM R OIS. It’s pricey at $799, but you get weather sealing, excellent autofocusing, and class-leading image stabilisation. 03 OM-D E-M10 III BUNDLED LENS The E-M10 III’s kit lens adds $198 to its body-only price, and for that you don’t get much lens, but in a good way. This M.Zuiko Digital ED 14-42mm…

From $10,000 samsung.com/au Samsung’s Q950R is the successor to last year’s Q900, combining its superb 8K display with new image-processing technology introduced in its Q90R 4K flagship, which we drooled over last issue. And so here you again have superlative picture quality with wider viewing angles, AI-enhanced processing, a better black filter and exceptional HDR performance. It also delivers the most comprehensive Smart TV platform on the market, with support for Alexa, Google Assistant and Siri (plus Samsung’s Bixby, but… ehhhh). The Q950R is available in three sizes: 65 inches, 75 inches and 82 inches. A 98-inch model is promised and a 55-inch version will be offered in some territories. Prices start at around $10,000 for the 65-incher (which we tested), rising to $12,999 for the 82-inch. At first glance,…

$700 bose.com Bose’s previous over-ear noise cancelling cans didn’t just sell like hot cakes, they defined a new lucrative market for Bluetooth wireless headphones with advanced active noise cancelling and premium price tags. These are the successors to the near-legendary QuietComfort 35, and while they’re not a big leap forward, they do look and sound very pleasing and have one hugely impressive trick that no other NC headphone can match… Noise-cancelling on the QC35 II was jaw-dropping when it launched in 2016. Since then, the likes of Sony’s WH-1000XM3, Beats’ Studio 3 Wireless and Bowers & Wilkins’ PX have made improvements over the Bose NC – but not by much. Suffice to say, the noise cancelling here when listening to music is very good… but not that much better than…

If you’re looking for the very best tech available today, you have definitely come to the right place. Best of the Best is the most useful gadget-buying guide you will ever encounter. To create it, we’ve ruthlessly filtered down to the biggest groups, to bring you rock-solid recommendations for your home life, daily commute and the tech you use all the time. Within each of those groups, we’ve got a dozen categories for key tech buys. We’ve picked one product for every category that we think is the best you can get on balance, taking into account price, quality and features, so it’s easy to know what you need in your life. You should also check out T3.com, where you’ll find even more categories, if you’re looking for something that…

It’s rare that we find a product that fully encapsulates true style and incredible sound, so when we do, we get excited. Allow us, then, to break out the bunting for the Orbitsound Air D1. Described as ‘the world’s only one-box luxury loudspeaker’, this sumptuous floor-standing active speaker has been designed by renowned audio engineer Ted Fletcher (a music world luminary who has worked with Dusty Springfield, Dire Straits and The Who) and son Daniel. Orbitsound’s own Airsound technology (first developed in 2005) has been polished and perfected to deliver audiophile performance with a compelling stereo image, meaning you’ll hear the same tonal and spatial presentation wherever you’re sitting in the room. You can stream music wirelessly, connecting your device to the Air D1 via either Bluetooth or Wi-Fi, and…