htxt.africa's Tech Made Easy - December 2015 by htxt.africa

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E A S Y ,

htxt africas WINDOWS IS 30

Bill’s baby enters mid-life We look back at 30 years of Windows’ best and worst moments

FALLOUT PC IS DA BOMB

Modder builds epic PC inside Fallout Collector’s Edition bomb case

THE YEAR 2015 THE BEST

EPIC’S NEW HERO SHOOTER

Is called Paragon, and it’s the prettiest shooter ever

ISSUE 22 | DECEMBER 2015 | HTXT.CO.ZA

F O T I K E I H TEC 2015 As voted by you!

Contents

www.htxt.co.za

ISSUE #22

December 2015

Need To kNow: News

SEASON’S GREETINGS

t’s becoming cliché to say that the year has just flown by, but that’s exactly what 2015 has done. Happily, the year has also produced a great deal of wonderful tech, which we’re celebrating in this issue of Tech Made Easy with our Gear of the Year awards. The star of this year’s awards is you, our reader: we conducted a poll back in October/November asking you all to vote on a list of carefully-selected tech which we felt was really good, and your outpouring of support was phenomenal. The votes we received determined what the majority of you felt to be worthy of the title of Gear of the Year, and you’ll see the results between pages 17 and 33. Some results surprised us while others lined up with our own thoughts, and we wouldn’t have it any other way. That’s what we have lined up for you in this issue, so all that’s left to do is wish you all a safe and happy holiday season, and we’ll see you in the New Year. Cheers

MTN launches supercheap smartphone

Operator’s sub-r500 Steppa is firs

t of its kind.

obile operator MTN has Deon launched South Africa’s first Android-powered smartphone that’s available on pre-pay for less than R500. It certainly an African first, and may even a world one: as far as we know, there’s no other smartphone in this class PUBLISHER: Brett Haggard – brett@htxt.co.za available for less than $50 anywhere. EDITOR-IN-CHIEF: Adam Oxford – adam@htxt.co.za That makes it quite a milestone in MANAGING EDITOR: Nick Cowen - nick@htxt.co.za putting high-tech handsets within the DEPUTY EDITOR: Deon du Plessis – deon@htxt.co.za reach of everyone. Which is awesome. TECH & NEWS: Charlie Fripp – charlie@htxt.co.za The phone itself isn’t, of course, hugel y STARTUPS & STUFF: Lungelo Shezi – lungelo@htxt.co.za powerful. It’s based on a Qualcomm MAKERS: Brendyn Lotz – brendyn@htxt.co.za, Clinton reference desigMatos n, so it- has a 1GHz single clinton@htxt.co.za core Snapdragon processor, a 3.5in ch screen and a mere 2MP camera on SENIOR DESIGNER: Estelle Masana – estelle@htxt.co.za board. More limiting is the fact that there’s only ADVERTISING: Dorothy Haggard – dorothy@hypertext.co.za 512M B of Msowoya memory and Sengezo Jubane – sengezo@hypertext.co.za, Alfred - 1GB of storage on-board. alfred@htxt.co.za, Masego Leshora - masego@htxt.co.za The screen is a decent enough multitouch affair, which takes up most

It’s a milestone which puts hightech handsets within the reach of everyone…

of the front of the device. There’s no physical keyboard. It also runs a positively ancient versio n of Google’s Android OS, Gingerbre ad. Still, that does still mean it’s able to access BlackBerry Messenger, which is hugel y

important for South Africa. Sadly, MTN has confir med that there ’s no plans to upgrade the Steppa to a more recent version of Android, although local hackers are investigating the possib ility of unlocking the phone and flashing a custom firmware. There’s an FM radio though, along with a microSD port for upgrading the storag e. What you don’t get, however, is a fast HSPA radio for high speed internet access – you’ll have to settle for plain old 3G. All in all, though, it’s a heck of a phone for the price. Not even Nokia can come close with its Asha range of semismartphones, which start at about R799 and don’t have access to half the numb er of apps and services the Steppa has. Like the sound of this super budget smartphone? See our full review at

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htxt.africa’s Tech Made Easy is At the bottom of almost every produced by: Hypertext Media, 102 on 11th, article in Tech Easy Climate Cha nge willMade Cause more Highlands North, 2192, Johannesburg storm dam agesee you’ll one of these strange in sa More news at Contact Us: sts from short codes.Two It’sscienti a Bit.ly adress Wits have published a paper which says Email: info@hypertext.co.za shortening link, which means that that South Africa may be at when you type it into web go to htxt.co.za Tel: (011) 023-8001/4 increas ed riskyour of tropical storm damag browser it will take e. you to a longer Fax: 08654 83304 Our content is licensed under a Creative 6 | tech made easy | March 2014 Commons Attribution-NonCommercialShareAlike 4.0 International Licence. Other rights may apply for non-original materials.

I am a cy bit.ly /nww6kr about clURL one with more information forming over Madagaswhat you’ve just read. Give it a car

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FaCebook buys whatsapp For r200bn Facebook has just dived into its war chest again to make another big purchase, this time it’s buying the popular messaging service WhatsApp. bit.ly/1npd8wj

Typ e into this c you ode r bro web wse r! WWW.HTXT.CO.ZA | 1

Contents ISSUE #22

December 2015

Need to Know 4

Kameraz new to come

www.htxt.co.za

The important stuff in SA tech Our top 10 moments from 30 years of Windows Windows is three decades old this year, and it’s had its share of moments, both laudable and embarrassing Tech News Round-up More video on demand services land in SA Huawei’s amazing fast-charging battery Hisense’s most advanced 55-inch 4K TV is made in SA Maker News This PC was built inside a Fallout bomb shell, because makers are awesome Games News Epic unveils Paragon, a new shooter League of Legends team sold for around R14 million Deus Ex: Mankind Divided delayed to August 2016 The PS4 gets PS2 backwards compatibility

Gear of the Year 2015 19 21 22 24 25 27 29 31 32 33

The best kit, as voted by you Smartphones Tablets Laptops Cameras Wearables Gaming Accessories Games Cellular Networks Most Anticipated Best Innovation

The Stuff at the Back Just the stats, ma’am

The Month in Stats Here, have some numbers

25 WWW.HTXT.CO.ZA | 3

NEED TO KNOW: NEWS

on the intended touch devices), but everyone just wanted their classic Start menu and Start Button back, and Windows 8’s Start Screen will forever be seen as a horrible decision that took those away.

WINDOWS XP

After being released in 2001, Windows XP proved to be the most popular OS until the end of 2011 when Windows 7 finally overtook it. In the world of software, an OS being popular for an entire decade is unheard of. Even the default XP wallpaper – titled Bliss, an image of a hill in California – has gone on to become famous in its own right.

Our top 10 moments from three decades of Windows

Microsoft’s operating system is 30 years old; here are some of its most memorable moments and glorious gaffes.

n November 20, 1985 an operating system named Windows hit the market that would go on to dominate the world with an estimated 90% market share and help makes its parent company, Microsoft, worth around $290 billion (R4 trillion). In November, Windows turned 30. To mark the event, we had a powwow in the office to create a list of ten standout Windows moments - both good and bad from the last three decades.

WINDOWS 10 IS FREE!

While other operating systems have always been free, Microsoft in the past insisted on charging for Windows. While the quality of this new OS is disputable, it is free for most existing Windows users and will remain so until June 29th 2016. All of this is slightly tempered by the fact that many consider Windows 8 (the previous version) to be a train wreck, and the free upgrade is simply an apology. Still, kudos to Microsoft for the gesture.

GAMES FOR WINDOWS LIVE

Games for Windows Live was an almost universally-detested service for playing PC games online and linking into Microsoft’s Xbox Live service from a PC. From its planned service fee of $50 (R700) per year, a la Xbox Live, to the unreliable service and game redemption to its abandonment in 2014, GFWL did the opposite of getting players online.

THE ABILITY TO DELETE SYSTEM32 (WHICH YOU SHOULD DEFINITELY NOT DO) A prank originating on the message board 4Chan that has been perpetuated for years, involves getting unsuspecting victims to delete System32 – a vital part of any Windows PC. Deleting this file will effectively cripple a computer and render it unusable. The prank itself isn’t as important as the flexibility and customisation Windows offers. While not

CORTANA nearly as open as Linux, Windows still gives most users all the tools they could ever want, to do anything they could ever want.

browsers.” It’s all kind of sad, it’s like asking someone to hire their replacement, and then fire themselves.

THE GAMES

THE “EVERY OTHER VERSION IS BAD” CURSE

From Microsoft-made classics like Minesweeper and Space Cadet Pinball, to almost every PC game in the world having Windows support, this is the operating system of choice for most gamers. Valve and its Steam store have helped in making buying and playing games on the platform an absolute breeze, and it’s one of the reasons why PC gaming is as popular as ever.

INTERNET EXPLORER

At one point, the best way to browse the internet was Internet Explorer, but as the years went on, more browsers hit the market and Window’s built-in offering seemed to get worse. Even Microsoft seems to have given up on it and created an unofficial successor called Microsoft Edge. It seems the once-dominant browser will remain “the browser used to download other

4 | TECH MADE EASY | DECEMBER 2015

Windows 95: Bad. Windows 98: Good. Windows ME: Awful Windows XP: Great Windows Vista: “Windows ME on drugs” Windows 7: Probably the best yet Windows 8: Train wreck Windows 10: Train wreck recovery/apology that’s actually quite good

THE START SCREEN

Windows 8 was a massive play by Microsoft to try and create an operating system that could work across phones, tablets and PCs, and a lot of features felt the burn because of it. As an example of this, Microsoft’s infamous Start Screen confused and annoyed many people. As a concept, it is actually quite useful (especially

Cortana, a virtual assistant created especially for Windows, is a strange amalgamation of Apple’s Siri and the “artificial intelligence construct” from the Halo games. Regardless of your feelings towards Apple, Siri and Halo, being able to speak to your device like a person and have it do things for you is just plain cool. This is the future that old sci-fi was telling (and warning us) about, and so far it’s pretty awesome.

IT’S EVERYWHERE

Maybe this is a terrible case of depending too much on one company, maybe it’s a case of popularity breeding popularity, or maybe it’s just become the norm. Whatever the reason, it’s difficult to go a day without coming across the OS in one form or the other, doubly so if your job depends on working on a PC. The ability to sit down at almost any PC and be instantly familiar with the way it works is an often overlooked benefit of Window’s high market penetration. While this may be moot (especially today, where most modern OSs are easy to use) for those familiar with PCs, not everyone is, and new things are scary. Bit.ly/1I9RkuX

WWW.HTXT.CO.ZA | 5

NEED TO KNOW: TECH

Wi-Fi Clone Powerline Amplified Wi-Fi Coverage 300Mbps AV500 WiFi Powerline Extender Starter Kit TL-WPA4220KIT

Wi-Fi Clone Button

500Mbps Powerline Speed

2 PA42 TL-W

300Mbps Wireless Speed

4010 TL-PA

2 LAN Ports

TL-WPA4220

One-button Configuration • Plug in the wireless powerline extender near your router • Press the Wi-Fi clone button on the wireless powerline extender • Press the WPS button on your router and the same network has been extended TL-PA4010 Wi-Fi Clone Button

SSID Password

Ericsson to launch R71-a-month on-demand content service in South Africa hile folks continue to debate whether or not on-demand TV and movie services like Hulu and Netflix will arrive on the African continent anytime soon, competitors are coming thick and fast. The latest video on demand service to arrive is a new subscription service designed expressly for the African market called NuVu. It’s from one of the least likely suspects, Ericsson – a firm better-known for building networks than delivering content. NuVu is different from the vast majority of the services available today in that it’s designed expressly for use on smartphones and tablets in the African market. It’s also ridiculously affordable. Ericsson believes that operators (who will be the channel to market for the service) will be able to bring NuVu to market at anywhere between US$2 and US$5 a month. That (let’s face it) relatively inconsequential fee will give users access to about 3000 titles made up from a mix

Plug and Play

Wi-Fi Clone –

NuVu heading to South African screens

Wireless Router

of international blockbusters and locally produced (and relevant) content. What’s astounding however is that this very low monthly subscription includes the data charges users would normally have to build into their monthly budget in order to utilize such a service. This win is achieved by driving the content down to users’ phones and tablets during low and off-peak times on the network. Its’ not a streaming service, but a download service, complete with DRM and offline storage capabilities. The low/off-peak download strategy means there might be a wait before users can enjoy their content. But, that’s of course way better than paying a much higher monthly fee. Users with access to a WiFi network won’t have to ensure this wait however, as these downloads will be instantaneous. Airtel Nigeria has been named as the launch partner for NuVu and the service is due to see the light of day in the first quarter

of 2016. Specifics aren’t available about where else it will launch on the continent (and when), but the team working on the project has said that its confident it will launch with another four African operators over the coming year. The service sure sounds great, but isn’t without its drawbacks. The most notable issue some customers will have with it is its picture quality. Ericsson’s platform will transcode content down to 480p, which might be perfect for most smartphones, but will almost certainly get up the nose of folks that have devices with 720p, 1080p or even 4K displays. Over time however, Ericsson says users can expect the resolution of the content to improve (as network capacity naturally increases). At the price (don’t forget, it includes the data costs), there’s frankly nothing that comes close to competing. It will be interesting to see how the rest of the market responds. Bit.ly/1NB5VkB

SSID Password

Wireless Router

Home-Wide Network Through Powerline Powerline

More stories at go to htxt.co.za

8 | TECH MADE EASY | DECEMBER 2015

many popular smartphones today. According to a report on Computer World, Huawei has said that despite this lightning fast recharge rate, the life and size of the battery is not affected by this new charging technology.

FACEBOOK EXPANDS SAFETY CHECK IN WAKE OF THE PARIS ATTACKS The social media giant decided to flip the switch on its “safety check” feature after November’s Paris attacks, and will activate it for every other “human disaster”. Bit.ly/1OOwRU2

Sadly we have not yet been told by Huawei when we can expect to see this technology hit the company’s smartphones. But rest assured, when it does, gone will be the days of phones taking forever to charge. Bit.ly/1N8W7nO

THERE ARE FEWER THAN 45 000 TELKOM PAYPHONES LEFT

14 years ago, Telkom looked after just under 196k payphones; today, that number is just below 45k. The drop is attributed to - you guessed it - the growth of mobile phone adoption. Bit.ly/1HT3LjV

SMART Wi-Fi SIMPLIFIES

PARENTAL CONTROL

GUEST ACCESS

MEDIA PRIORITIZATION

ACCESS FROM ANY W HERE

NEED TO KNOW: MAKERS

PC built inside a Fallout bomb shell What do you do when the collector’s edition of your favourite game ships inside a plastic bomb case? Why you turn it into a PC case, of course.

he guys over at Linus Tech Tips have built a full PC inside a medium-sized bomb. Okay, so it’s not a real bomb, it’s the casing that the Fallout Anthology shipped in. The handy little package comes with all the Fallout games (sans number four, sadly), and it’s all packed into a case designed to look like a deadly nuclear bomb. The team started off with the smallest pieces they could get their hands on. The tiny components were built around the graphics card, an AMD Radeon R9 Fury Nano. This card measures in at

More stories at go to htxt.co.za

10 | TECH MADE EASY | DECEMBER 2015

only 6 inches long, but packs a wallop and is more than powerful enough to run the latest games at high detail settings. Before the parts were squeezed in, however, some tricks were pulled with the power button. The original plastic bomb comes with a button that, when pressed, makes the sound of bombs falling. This was repurposed to also act as the PC’s power switch. With that sorted out, the squeezing could begin. This immediately lead to the realisation that the bomb was simply not big enough to fit the build, so, like the Americans and Russians before the Berlin Wall went down, the bomb needed to be made bigger. This was easily done with a 3D printed extension that was sanded and painted to

MEET THE G PRINTER, A CROWDFUNDED RESIN 3D PRINTER

Gooo3D is taking a crack at resin printing with their G Printer Indiegogo campaign. If successful, the G Printer will not only use resin to 3D print items, but also pull designs from memory sticks. Bit.ly/1Of01Zi

match the aesthetic. Further problems came from how the components would be mounted in the bomb. The initial plan was to simply suspend everything from zip ties and the like, but this was (wisely) replaced by a scaffold-type construction created with metal rods. The bomb’s unique shape also dictated how the input and output (IO) of the PC would be accessible. In the end, the IO - including the power cable - came out of the bottom near the fins, and the top has a small slit to allow the hot air inside to escape. Through many more problems (including a red screen of death, something we’ve personally never seen) the little bomb that could was happily running Crysis 3 and operating below the melting point of the case. Bit.ly/1NAX82l

NOVA TERRA’S 3D-PRINTED ARMOUR TOOK 500 HOURS TO MAKE

This dedicated cosplayer recreated Blizzard’s Nova Terra character from the iconic StarCraft series by 3D printing her armour in great detail, a painstaking process that took 500 hours to complete. Bit.ly/1j7v4uW

NEED TO KNOW: GAMES

League of Legends team sold for around R14 million

eam Diginitas – a British company that owns and manages many esports teams – has sold one of its League of Legends teams for about $1 million due to rules in the professional circuits the team was competing in. The company previously had two LoL teams – one North American and the other European. Unfortunately, due to a rule which prevents a single company from managing more than a single team, the decision was made to sell the European team. The team was bought by Follow Esports which, like Team Diginitas, also manages multiple teams across several games. LoL is one of the most popular esports in the world alongside the “other” bigname game, Valve’s DOTA2. LoL’s biggest tournament was the “LoL 2014 World Championship” which had a prize pool of

more than $2 million (R30 million). While not quite at the level of DOTA2’s “The International 2015” at $18 million (R250 million), it’s still a substantial payday. To compare those numbers to “traditional” professional sports, recently,

the manager of Chelsea Football Club was rumoured to be fired soon. If let go, a clause in his contract would force the club to pay him around £9.5 million (R202 million), which is estimated to be his yearly income. Bit.ly/1N8FzfF

Epic unveils Paragon, its new Hero shooter

pic Games, the studio behind the highly lucrative Gears Of War franchise, has unveiled a trailer for a new PC game called Paragon. On a new website the development studio quietly launched in November, Epic announced that its new shooter is set for release in 2016 and that it will be revealing

More stories at go to htxt.co.za

12 | TECH MADE EASY | DECEMBER 2015

characters that star in it up until 3rd December. The first one, Twinblast, has been revealed and as his name implies, he’s armed with two guns. He also has a dress style and haircut guaranteed to make any Anime fanboy froth at the mouth. Aside from the game’s name, Twinblast’s shiny good looks and the proposed release

UBISOFT SEES PC GAME GROWTH, CONSOLE GAME SALES DECLINE

French megapublisher Ubisoft has revealed that it saw an increase in PC game sales for the first quarter of its 2016 financial year, and a decrease in next-gen console game sales. Bit.ly/1PLSNO9

date, Epic is being deliberately vague on Paragon’s details. The character reveal and website indicate that it looks like players will be able to choose between a number of characters – named Steel, Sparrow, Dekker and Grux – and that they’ll have different playing styles and buffs. By all accounts it seems that Epic Games may be the latest developer attempting to enter the FPS/MOBA genre, but that is simply speculation at this point. We have to applaud it for managing to keep Paragon firmly under wraps however; in an industry that seems these days to have more leaks in it than a shotgunned sieve, the fact that no one saw Paragon coming is, quite frankly, amazing. If Twinblast looks like a character you might want to play with, the website also has a link that’ll allow you to sign up to the beta – although, once again, there are no details about when this may go live. Bit.ly/1MPiz36

FALLOUT-THEMED PC BUILT INSIDE A PLASTIC BOMB CASE

Modders have built a full PC inside the Fallout Collection’s bomb-shaped case, with only a bit of a nudge needed to accommodate all of the required hardware. Bit.ly/1NAX82l

SET THE WORLD ON FIRE 01 DECEMBER 2015

Just Cause 3 © 2015 Square Enix Ltd. All rights reserved. Developed by Avalanche Studios. Published by Square Enix Ltd. Just Cause 3 and the Just Cause logo are trademarks of Square Enix Ltd. Square Enix and the Square Enix logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of Square Enix Holdings Co. Ltd. “PlayStation” and the “PS” Family logo are registered trademarks and “PS3", “PS4" and the PlayStation Network logo are trademarks of Sony Computer Entertainment Inc. All other trademarks and trade names are the properties of their respective owners.

NEED TO KNOW: GAMES

Deus Ex: Mankind Divided kicked to August

Megarom Rainbow Six Ad new to come

idos Montreal has announced that Deus Ex: Mankind Divided won’t be released until August of next year. This means that fans of the developer’s cyberpunk RPG series will have to wait an

extra six months to play the next instalment, as it was originally scheduled for release in March of 2016. While Eidos Montreal hasn’t gone into great amounts of detail about why the game

is being delayed, it has said that the extra time is required to ensure that Deus Ex: Mankind Divided is a “worthy successor” to its last game, Deus Ex: Human Revolution. “I know that expectations are extremely high, and we not only want to meet those expectations, but exceed them,” said Studio Head, David Anfossi. “We’re confident and proud of the game so far. However, as we are now playing through the game in full we can see that it will require more time in post-production for tuning, iterations and refinement to meet our high standards. In order to achieve this, we need to move the release of the game to August 23, 2016.” “We are sorry to disappoint you with this news, and also thank you for all of your support and comments. This game is a huge part of our lives and we don’t want to compromise on its quality. So please be patient with us a little longer, and thanks as always for your passion and support – through thick and thin,” Anfossi added. Deus Ex: Mankind Divided is set to drop on PS4, Xbox One and PC when it eventually sees release. Here’s hoping there are no more delays. Bit.ly/1Ng3zgV

Soon you’ll play your old PS2 games on your shiny new PS4

ony has stated in an email to Wired that “We are working on utilising PS2 emulation technology to bring PS2 games forward to the current generation. We have nothing further to comment at this point in time.” This confirmation comes after Digital Foundry had discovered that PS2 Star Wars games (from a PS4 Star Wars bundle) were being run on the newer system via emulation in place of porting. Star Wars: Jedi Starfighter, Star Wars: Racer Revenge and Star Wars: Bounty Hunter are the games in question. Emulation is a process of creating a software environment that can mimic the hardware and software of an older console, a trick that gets older games to work on newer platforms. Porting, on the other hand, is far more involved and, in some cases, involves remaking the game almost entirely so it runs on modern systems.

More stories at go to htxt.co.za

Digital Foundry stated that some games have had a bump in quality thanks to a higher native resolution, improved 3D effects, improved performance and even trophy support. The PlayStation 4 joins the Xbox One in

EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT THE XBOX ONE UPDATE The latest update for the Xbox One brings with it plenty of changes and tweaks. Here’s a rundown of everything you should know about it. Bit.ly/1NYV9cs

using emulation to run older games. Unlike the PlayStation, the Xbox is using the technology to run previous generation games from the Xbox 360, instead of two generations back with the PS2. Bit.ly/1jaWAYy

PLAYSTATION VR IS GETTING A LOT OF GAMES

2016 is certainly shaping up to be the year of virtual reality, and Sony is ready for it with a list of over 50 games reportedly in development for its VR platform. Bit.ly/1PLVZt5 WWW.HTXT.CO.ZA | 15

GEAR OF THE YEAR

htxt africas

GEAR THE YEAR 2015

elcome to our Gear of the Year awards for 2015! This year, we’ve done things a bit differently; we asked you, our readers, to vote in our online Gear of the Year – Readers’ Choice poll that we ran over the past few months, and we’ve featured your category picks, as determined by the overall number of reader votes, prominently on each page. We’ve also added in our own two cents’ worth, highlighting other Gear of the Year choices from the perspectives of our writers. We were very happy to see that there was some overlap between your choices as the buying public, and ours as Professional Kit Reviewers. There were a few surprises, particularly when it came to 2015’s games. We were sure you’d all pick one of the newer games or even an Indie as your favourite of the year, but apparently established franchises carry a lot of weight with South African gamers. Check the results out on page 29. Overall, we were very pleased with the poll’s results, and are only too happy to present this year’s Gear of the Year awards, which consists of some of the best tech we’ve yet seen. Read on for greatness! The htxt.africa Team

As voted r by you, ou readers in our online poll! WWW.HTXT.CO.ZA | 17

Locomut Ad new to come

GEAR OF THE YEAR

htxt africas

THE YEAR

htxt africas

Smartphones

THE YEAR

Tablets

015 was a big year for smartphones; LG brought out its leather-backed G4, Sony hit its stride with the gorgeous and fast Xperia Z5 and cheap phones stopped being rubbish and started delivering some great value for money. But as you’ll see, Samsung has maintained its status as the brand South Africans aspire to, even more so than that other big-name tech giant. On the other hand we, the tech writers at htxt.africa, had our own opinions on which phones deserved to win. See the results below.

ooking at the numbers generated by our GOTY competition poll, Apple and Samsung were neck-and-neck this year, thanks to the release of the iPad mini 4 and Samsung’s well-received Galaxy Tab S2. As you’ll see, Cupertino just edged out South Korea’s biggest electronics company in the final tally, but it was literally by a handful of votes. Looks like it’s consumers who win this year, then, and that’s what we like to see.

htxt africas Choices

SAMSUNG GALAXY TAB S2

FROM R10 999

While almost all htxt.africa staffers agreed with our readers, Deon was far more impressed by Samsung’s Galaxy Tab S2. The Tab S2 is even lighter than the iPad Air so it’s really comfortable to hold and use, plus it has a stunningly beautiful screen and runs Android. It’s much more up his alley, and going on the closeness of the votes, many of our readers’ alleys, too.

READERS’ CHOICE

SAMSUNG GALAXY S6 EDGE

R8 499

The arrival of Samsung’s sexy Galaxy edge clearly made an impression on South African phone enthusiasts with its curved screen that extended down the edges of the phone, and its competition-slaying performance. It garnered its share of critical praise, too, as that edge proved surprisingly functional with the quick and easy access to information it provided at a glance. The S6 edge’s metal unibody and glass-backed design added to an already-impressive phone that clearly won over South Africans in their droves; the S6 edge easily garnered the most votes in our poll, making it the fan favourite.

htxt africas Choices

R2 499

HUAWEI P8

The P8 is easily Brendyn’s favourite phone of 2015, because it shows that Huawei’s engineers and design people have really upped their game. This is a featurecomplete, easy on the eye phone that does what it does extremely well. Throw in excellent all-round performance, and all of this comes together to make the P8 one of Huawei’s finest efforts so far. We can’t wait to see what other great phones 2016 will bring.

htxt africas Choices INNJOO ONE 3G

While this year saw many gorgeous high-end phones arrive in the country, typically they also came with crazyhigh prices that put them out of reach of a lot of South Africans. So the phone that gets Deon’s vote this year is InnJoo’s gorgeous One 3G, a budget smartphone with some seriously impressive attention to detail.

20 | TECH MADE EASY | DECEMBER 2015

READERS’ CHOICE

R5 999

FROM R6 799

APPLE IPAD MINI 4

FROM R14 999

htxt africas Choices

MICROSOFT SURFACE PRO 3 Apple and Android tablets are fine and all, but the ability to run a full version of any Windows program available online and being able to play proper PC games that aren’t terrible mobile offerings is something they just can’t provide. For that reason, Clinton is throwing his lot in with the Surface Pro 3.

South Africans continue their love affair with the iPad, having voted the fourth iPad mini as their favourite tablet of 2015. That shows you’re a rather discerning bunch, because technically, the iPad mini 4 is a superlative example of everything Apple has become known for: incredibly sleek looks, super-fast performance in everything from zipping around the interface to animating game graphics. Throw in Apple’s fingerprint reader tech that secures the iPad against unauthorised use, great cameras and LTE connectivity of up to 150mbps, and you see why the iPad mini 4 was voted to be the best tablet around.

WWW.HTXT.CO.ZA | 21

GEAR OF THE YEAR

htxt africas

THE YEAR

Laptops W

indows 10 bounded onto the scene this July, bringing with it the very best Windows Microsoft has put out since 7, but that wasn’t quite enough to stop our readers from voting a nonWindows laptop as their favourite of the year. Dell put in a very good showing with its superb Studio XPS 13, and gaming laptops enjoyed a stunning year as they grew in power while somehow managing to remain thin and svelte at the same time. 2015, then, was a fantastic year for laptops, no matter your operating system allegiances.

READERS’ CHOICE

APPLE MACBOOK AIR 13 INCH

FROM R15 999

The raw appeal of Apple’s Macbook Air laptops continues to show through in our reader poll survey results - an overwhelming majority of you picked the Macbook Air 13 inch as your favourite laptop of 2015, and with good reason. The entry-level model sports a speedy 128GB solid-state hard drive and a very capable Core i5 processor, but that’s just jam to the stunningly-engineered exterior and incredible nine-hour battery life that the Air offers. And then there’s the multi-touch trackpad that lets you interact with OS X with gestures and Thunderbolt 2 ports that let you copy data faster than ever. It’s easy to see why the Macbook Air is so popular, because all of this is sandwiched into a body that’s almost lighter than a tablet from two years ago. Truly a 2015 laptop.

R39 999

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GIGABYTE AORUS X7 PRO V3 While everyone else seems wowed by sleek looks and great battery life, Deon was far more impressed by Gigabyte’s latest Aorus gaming laptop - a surprisingly thin machine that hides two GTX970M graphics cards that produce desktop-level gaming performance.

22 | TECH MADE EASY | DECEMBER 2015

FROM R22 999

htxt africas Choices DELL STUDIO XPS 13

Macbooks are all well and good, but for Brendyn nobody came close to Dell’s gorgeous, full-featured and incredibly fast Studio XPS 13 for the best Windows laptop of 2015.

GEAR OF THE YEAR

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THE YEAR

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Cameras I

t would seem that readers are becoming more discerning in what they want from their cameras, looking at our poll results. DSLRs are replacing the much simpler point-and-shoots as reader favourites thanks to the finer control they offer over each shot than their less-complicated brethren. More features for less money proved popular, as you’ll see, and that’s something we expect will happen even more in the coming year.

R20 995 Body Only

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CANON EOS 7D MARK II Charlie has always been a fan of Canon’s DSLRs, but the 7D II proved especially worthy of his attention this year with its simple menu system, exceptional build quality and its incredible ease of use. So he was only too happy to see that our readers felt the same way about it.

THE YEAR

Wearables W

earables is a rather new category in anyone’s Gear of the Year awards, but in our readers’ poll it became quite clear that there is really only one company whose wearable tech people want draped on their bodies: no prizes for guessing it’s Apple. Fitbit and Pebble did well, though, clawing back at least some of the votes, but still not enough to offer a serious threat to Apple’s total dominance. Not even our own writers proved immune to Apple’s charms, as you’re about to see.

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JAWBONE UP2

R1 600

While Clinton doesn’t get on well with watches, he got on swimmingly with the Jawbone Up2. It gave him the stats he wanted, integrated into the apps he already used and was comfortable enough to sleep with so it could track that too. He says it’s not the best looking thing, though, but it works really well.

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APPLE WATCH

Nick’s usually hype-proof eye for PR guff wasn’t enough to help him resist the allure of Apple’s Watch: even he succumbed to the Watch’s beauty, simplicity and the fact that “it just works”. His only criticism is around its price, which he says puts it out of reach of a lot of tech enthusiasts.

FROM R5 899

READERS’ CHOICE CANON EOS 7D MARK II The remarkable EOS 7D Mark II picked up its fair share of accolades this year, including the Prosumer DSLR Camera of 2015-2016 handed out by the European Imaging and Sound Association, and clearly our readers don’t disagree. The 7D II won over its fan base by offering features usually found in more expensive full-frame models, like a 65-point autofocus system that captures action no matter how fast it’s going and full weatherproofing that keeps its sensitive innards protected in just about any conditions. Speed, durability and superb imagery meant it earned more votes by far than its closest competitor in this year’s poll.

24 | TECH MADE EASY | DECEMBER 2015

READERS’ CHOICE APPLE WATCH

R9 995

htxt africas Choices SAMSUNG NX500

When Samsung decided to take many of the best features of the excellent NX1 and put them into a smaller and more affordable body, Lungelo was blown away. 4K video recording and a huge 28.8MP sensor top off what is, for her, easily 2015’s best camera.

FROM R5 899

There really was no competition for the best wearable of 2015 in our reader poll - the Apple Watch won by a country mile. Maybe it’s Apple’s legendary design or the easy integration of the Watch into the lives of iPhone owners, or maybe it’s the Watch’s impressive responsiveness that has everyone staring googly-eyed at it. Regardless, the fact remains that despite only just having arrived in South Africa and costing about as much as a high-end smartphone, the Apple Watch is easily the mostdesired piece of wearable tech around. The closest competitor attracted less than half the Watch’s vote tally.

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GEAR OF THE YEAR

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THE YEAR

Accessories W

Prestigio new to come

e’ve had a very good year when it’s come to gaming accessories, having seen many of the big-name companies really up their game in terms of the features, quality and functionality of the keyboards, mice, controllers and other gaming-related hardware. But none of them came close to impressing gamers as much as Microsoft did with a redesign of what has proven an already-great controller, into one that’s even better according to our readers, and even some of our team.

READERS’ CHOICE

XBOX ELITE CONTROLLER R2 499

What do you get when you redesign a very popular gaming controller to promote better accuracy, interchangeable parts intended to suit various play styles and a high level of customisability? You get the Xbox Elite controller, an overhauled Xbox One controller. It comes with two removeable D-pads that can be switched out at will, magnetic paddles that can be set up according to the player’s preferences and hair trigger locks that give players some serious control over how they fire their in-game weapons. The new additions are so impressive, readers voted the Xbox Elite Controller their number one gaming accessory of 2015, even though it costs just shy of half the price of the console it’s intended for.

R7 299

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INTEL 750-SERIES PCIE SSD

If you want to supercharge your desktop-based PC gaming, forget about a regular solid state hard drive what you want is one of these, an SSD that uses the far faster PCI-express interface. It’s Deon’s pick for gaming accessory of the year thanks to performance that’s up to four times faster than a regular SSD. That extra speed means less time watching loading screens, fewer seconds spent waiting for Windows to boot up or programs to load, and all-round better performance. It may be expensive you’re looking at over R7k for a 400GB SSD - but it’s worth it if you want a speed boost you’ll notice across everything you do with your PC.

R2 499

htxt africas Choices

XBOX ELITE CONTROLLER

Clinton’s choice for gaming accessory of the year mirrors that of our readers. Having handled the controller extensively at this year’s rAge, he is utterly convinced it’s the best gaming controller he’s ever used.

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GEAR OF THE YEAR

htxt africas

THE YEAR

Games

The Lime Ad new to come

015 was one of the best gaming years on record, and choosing the very best of the bunch was a tough task. Our readers rose to the challenge, though, voting overwhelmingly for this year’s entry in the Assassin’s Creed franchise. While certainly a good game (and better than last year’s), we were a bit surprised to see new IPs like Dying Light not even featuring in the final tally.

R899

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BATMAN: ARKHAM KNIGHT

The game that blew Nick away the most was the latest Batman, partly because the Batmobile finally made an appearance and partly because the story, setting and visuals were superb. It had everything: frantic action, a suitably broody Batman and one of the most memorable villains in the franchise so far.

READERS’ CHOICE

R899

ASSASSINS’ CREED SYNDICATE R899

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THE WITCHER 3

Clinton didn’t particularly enjoy the previous two games in the Witcher franchise, but The Witcher 3 blew him away by not only fixing all the problems the older games had, but introducing so much to see and do that he never wanted to stop playing. Its open world is so finely hand-crafted that he can’t help but choose it as his Game of the Year for 2015.

After last year’s somewhat buggy entry in the long-running Assassins’ Creed franchise, Ubisoft had its work cut out to make it up to fans, but going on the overwhelming support we saw for Syndicate from our readers in our poll, they did a fine job of it. Syndicate’s Victorian-era London setting and the addition of not one, but two protagonists in the way of twins Evie and Jacob Frye were apparently enough to win fans over once again. Being able to talk to famous historical figures like Alexander Graham Bell, Charles Darwin and others (and do quests for them, naturally) only added to the atmosphere. Of course, the lovingly-rendered city itself played as much a part in Syndicate’s appeal, as did the newfound ability to zip between buildings on the game’s first-ever zipline contraption. In all, a great choice for GOTY 2015.

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GEAR OF THE YEAR

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THE YEAR

Best Network S

READERS’ CHOICE VODACOM

Vodacom is a huge company with a massive presence in South Africa, so it’s no real surprise it is quite popular with the people. But Vodacom was also helped along this year by the absence of any scandals or massive fines, continued operating profit and some pretty enticing contract and prepaid offers. Its network continues to grow; LTE coverage extended to 46.8% of the country’s surface area according to its latest earnings report, which means all major centres are covered as well as the majority of outlying areas. So there are plenty of reasons for our readers to give Vodacom their voting love, and that’s exactly what the majority of you did, giving Vodacom the win by a significant margin.

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NONE OF THEM – THEY ALL SUCK

Brendyn chose none of them as his favourite network, because it annoys him that he has to decide between good signal (Vodacom), cheap data (Cell C) and tons of SMSes every time he recharges (Telkom Mobile). Until one network offers all of the things he wants from his cellular provider, his answer must remain “None of them, they all suck”.

outh Africans are spoiled for choice when it comes to cellular service providers, as the number expanded greatly in 2015 thanks to the arrival of what are known as “Mobile Virtual Network Operators” (MVNOs). These companies piggyback on bigger networks, and set themselves apart by offering creative and often enticing packages designed to lure people away from the bigger names, and are branded under the likes of FNB, Mr Price and Virgin. Sadly for them it hasn’t really worked, because two of our big four networks still managed to feature quite prominently in our poll results. For one of our writers, none of them – not even the big names – proved their worth this year. The poll results didn’t really surprise us, but we would have liked to see more MVNOs featuring. Perhaps next year’s results will be different.

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MTN

Charlie has been with MTN since 1999, and not even their current legal woes are enough to discourage him. Others have complained about MTN’s coverage, but except for one dip in a road close to his house, Charlie hasn’t had any bad experiences – either with coverage or customer service. He firmly believes there’s a reason the company has around 233 million subscribers across its operations in 22 countries, and that’s because MTN is the best cellular provider around.

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GEAR OF THE YEAR

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THE YEAR

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Best General Innovation

Most anticipated T

his category drew the most interest from us here at the htxt.africa offices – we were dying to know if our readers were looking forward to futuristic tech like virtual reality headsets, or if their interest lay with slightly less forwardlooking tech and somewhat more useful concerns. Turns out, South Africans are a practical bunch.

READERS’ CHOICE

FASTER, CHEAPER INTERNET ACCESS

Our poll numbers suggest that the vast majority of our readers don’t care for virtual reality headsets, the completion of the Digital Migration process or even TV White Spaces projects taking off – no, what you want is faster, cheaper internet access. And we can totally get behind that. Internet access has indeed improved in the last six years, to the point where uncapped internet – data without limits – and faster access speeds are commonplace. We’re still behind the rest of the world in terms of speed and costs, though, and clearly you guys are hoping that next year will see speeds go up and prices drop, which they should given the huge fibre rollouts currently underway across the country.

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VIRTUAL REALITY HEADSETS

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Nick, meanwhile, is most looking forward to the arrival of virtual reality headsets, which are expected to hit store shelves sometime in 2016. Three companies are in the running: Valve with their Viive headset, Facebook and its Oculus Rift, and of course PlayStation VR, Sony’s offering. Whether any will be worth spending cash on remains to be seen, as do the games that take advantage of them, but their potential is very exciting nonetheless.

Streaming video has made some good strides in South Africa, but the truly big players haven’t arrived yet. With Charlie having had really good experiences with Netflix overseas, he is the htxt.africa staffer most excited for a local Netflix offering at local pricing – and hopefully some local content.

32 | TECH MADE EASY | DECEMBER 2015

THE YEAR

NETFLIX ARRIVING IN SA

his category was perhaps the most interesting of the bunch, because 2015 has been a very busy year that saw a great deal of innovation make its way into the public space. From free Wifi hotspots cropping up like relatives at a lottery win to Intel’s incredible NUC (essentially a PC on a stick) and the ability to make calls over Wifi, there was plenty to choose from. The eventual winner turned out to be something vaguely South African: a device that could potentially help to alleviate our electricity supply issues, or at the very least help SA consumers to cope with them.

READERS’ CHOICE

TESLA POWERWALL

Elon Musk may not have been back to South Africa for 20 years or so, but we’ll claim him as ours nonetheless. It is his company’s Powerwall that received the most votes in our Best General Innovation category; it’s a home battery that charges via solar panels, and can help reduce reliance on an external power grid and lower electricity costs per household. It acts as a battery backup in case of power outages, and can power an average-sized home for an evening before requiring a recharge. As South Africa has had its fair share of electricity-related issues this year, it’s no surprise our readers voted the Powerwall as their Best General Innovation of 2015.

htxt africas Choices FIBRE TO THE HOME

Charlie loves his internet, and the faster, the better; as such he is anxiously awaiting fibre to reach his neighbourhood. Since existing FFTH speeds surpass almost anything ADSL has to offer, often at the same price, Fibre To The Home is an easy pick for Charlie’s Best General Innovation of 2015.

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PAPERLESS SA SCHOOLS

Lungelo was far more impressed with the push by the Gauteng government to make more schools paperless by forcing the adoption of tablets and other tech solutions. The appeal there is that the technology does away with problems like physical textbook delivery, and ensures the curriculum being taught is always up to date.

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STATS

SA tech

Get to your nearest Incredible Connection Store today

The numbers that sum up the best of the month

in stats

SARS reported that 99.96% of all tax returned were filed via eFiling this year, an improvement of 11.52% over last year’s figures. LOGITECH X100 MOBILE WIRELESS SPEAKER Crystal clear sound. Pump up the volume and enjoy!

LOGITECH WIRELESS TOUCH KEYBOARD K400 Wireless control of your laptop.Bluetooth technology

LOGITECH X300 MOBILE WIRELESS STEREO SPEAKER A powerful wireless speaker designed for performance

LOGITECH WIRELESS PRESENTER R400 The convenient controls of this wireless presenter will help you make your point.

LOGITECH MULTIMEDIA SPEAKERS Z213 Full bass, compact design

LOGITECH MX MASTER WIRELESS MOUSE Optimized for Windows and Mac

Bit.ly/1lUZAKy

Over 17 000 Limpopo Matrics had to rewrite their two Life Sciences exams after the original papers were leaked via WhatsApp by two students. That number is made up of 15 960 full-time and 1 540 part time learners. Bit.ly/1l4j5jT Of the 3 300 000 etoll accounts with outstanding payments, the ones that owe the most belong to private companies; their unpaid bill amounts to R5 900 000 000. The single largest bill is R20 000 000. Bit.ly/1lrusSy

EXTREME 3D PRO JOYSTICK With advanced controls and a twist-handle rudder, this joystick stays stable and precise through a acrobatic dogfight or a long-range strike.

F310 GAMEPAD Designed for the PC gamer looking for an advanced console-style controller.

M&C Saatchi has snapped up Cape Town-based digital agency Creative Spark, in a deal that’s reportedly worth around R50 000 000. Bit.ly/1lUZUsE

The Raspberry Pi Zero is the world’s cheapest computer, costing just R70. The Zero runs Raspbian and has 512MB of RAM and a 1 000MHz processor. Bit.ly/1YEOY0t

Sony announced it has sold more than 30 000 000 PlayStation 4 consoles as of November 2015. The Xbox One, meanwhile, has sold just 15 500 000 units in the same period, and the poor old Nintendo Wii lags in third place with just 11 000 000 sales. Bit.ly/1IljYOR

G105 GAMING KEYBOARD When control is critical.

Enjoy this free copy of htxt.africa’s Tech Made Easy? There’s loads more stories like these, plus in-depth features and news published daily at our website www.htxt.co.za.

NEXT MONTH

And if you want even more, keep your eyes peeled for issue 22 from January 2016 in all good technology retailers.