9
9001 1
SOUND OFF: BEST STREAMING SPEAKERS THE ULTIMATE
SMART HOME Autumn 2019 / $9.95
YOUR BEST YEAR EVER! MAKE 2019
40 upgrades that will save you time, effort and money
TOP 6
Fitness trackers for newbies
• Earn more money, work fewer hours • Make you home a better place • Speed up your boring commute
TESTED » Apple iPad Pro » Cordless vaccuum cleaners » Sony's best-ever headphones » Google Home Max
How to make your own (good) booze
TESTED Four bargain soundbars on test
TESTED THE MOST HIGH-TECH MIRRORLESS CAMERAS Nikon vs Canon vs Fujifilm
WATERPROOF TECH Can that watch, speaker and e really survive a dunking?
SHOWSTOPPER Gadgets that showcase the very best that design and technology have to offer MAKE YOUR MOVE Fancy a round of chess on the go? Square Off’s rechargeable battery should be good for around 30 games. The board even comes with a neat stand for your smartphone, so il keep k you can easily an eye on th the app
S QUA R E OFF The internet has revolutionised how we engage in our favourite board games, enabling us to play Scrabble, Carcassonne and so on with loved ones halfway across the globe, even while sat on the toilet. But online chess has never quite cut it, lacking the thrill that comes from brooding over a real-life chequerboard like Field Marshal Montgomery planning his next battle VWUDWHJ\ 5HFRJQLVLQJ WKLV D FRPSDQ\ FDOOHG ,QĆ9HQWLRQ KDV GHYHORSHG D JDGJHW FDOOHG 6TXDUH 2II 3DLULQJ ZLWK \RXU VPDUW device, it lets you lock horns with absent pals or strangers via the web, but on a physical board. Watching your invisible opponent’s pieces glide autonomously across the handcrafted rosewood surface can be eerie, but you’ll quickly become too HQJURVVHG LQ WKH JDPH WR FDUH ,Q WKH HYHQW WKDW \RX FDQèW ĆQG VRPHRQH WR SOD\ DJDLQVW \RX FDQ FKDOOHQJH 6TXDUH 2IIèV EXLOW LQ $, HQJLQH å WKHUH DUH VNLOO OHYHOV WR FKRRVH IURP 2U LI \RX ZDQW WR OHDUQ IURP WKH EHVW \RX FDQ OLYH VWUHDP D SURIHVVLRQDO PDWFK DQG DV LI E\ PDJLF WKH DFWLRQ ZLOO XQIROG LQ UHDO WLPH RQ \RXU RZQ 6TXDUH 2II ERDUG From US$369, squareoffnow.com
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The team
Future Publishing Australia, PO Box 1077 Mount Street, North Sydney, NSW 2059 Tel: 02 9955 2677 Fax: 02 9955 2688 Email: ben.mansill@futurenet.com Web: www.t3.com | www.techradar.com Editorial Editor: Ben Mansill ben.mansill@futurenet.com Creative Director: Troy Coleman troy.coleman@futurenet.com Designer: Sharnee Swinnerton sharnee.brisbourne@futurenet.com Contributors Matt Bolton, Nick Odantzis, Claire Davies, Paul Dimery, Craig Stewart, Chris Barnes, James Jarvis, Warren Brown, Duncan Bell, Joe Branston, Alex Cox, Olly Curtis, Ian Evenden, Neil Godwin, Steve May, Steve Jarratt, Danny Phillips, Sam Taylor, Chris Barnes, Becca Caddy, Spencer Hart, Russell Lewin, Joby Sessions, Jordan Erica Webber, Michelle McLaren Photography All copyrights and trademarks are recognised and respected Advertising Group Advertising Manager: Cameron Ferris cameron.ferris@futurenet.com Management Managing Director: Neville Daniels Sales Director: Paul Marttila Printed by Bluestar Distributed in Australia and NZ by Gordon and Gotch www.gordongotch.com ISSN 1445-2901 About the magazine T3 is published by Future Publishing Australia. All articles in this magazine are copyright of Future Plc group company, UK 2018. All rights reserved. Distributed in Australia and NZ by Gordon and Gotch www.gordongotch.com.au. Printed by Webstar www.bluestargroup. com.au. All contents copyright Future Publishing (Overseas) Ltd, trading as Future Publishing Australia copyright 2018. We are committed to only using magazine paper which is derived from responsibly managed, certified forestry and chlorine-free manufacture. The paper in this magazine was sourced and produced from sustainable managed forests, conforming to strict environmental and socioeconomic standards. The manufacturing paper mill holds full FSC (Forest Stewardship Council) or PEFC certification and accreditation All contents Š 2018 Future Publishing Australia or published under licence. All rights reserved. No part of this magazine may be used, stored, transmitted or reproduced in any way without the prior written permission of the publisher. Future Publishing Limited (company number 2008885) is registered in England and Wales. Registered office: Quay House, The Ambury, Bath BA1 1UA. All information contained in this publication is for information only and is, as far as we are aware, correct at the time of going to press. Future cannot accept any responsibility for errors or inaccuracies in such information. You are advised to contact manufacturers and retailers directly with regard to the price of products/services referred to in this publication. Apps and websites mentioned in this publication are not under our control. We are not responsible for their contents or any other changes or updates to them. This magazine is fully independent and not affiliated in any way with the companies mentioned herein. If you submit material to us, you warrant that you own the material and/or have the necessary rights/permissions to supply the material and you automatically grant Future and its licensees a licence to publish your submission in whole or in part in any/all issues and/ or editions of publications, in any format published worldwide and on associated websites, social media channels and associated products. Any material you submit is sent at your own risk and, although every care is taken, neither Future nor its employees, agents, subcontractors or licensees shall be liable for loss or damage. We assume all unsolicited material is for publication unless otherwise stated, and reserve the right to edit, amend, adapt all submissions. Privacy statement If you provide information about yourself this will be used to provide you with products or services you have requested. We may supply your information to contractors to enable us to do this. Future Publishing Australia will also use your information to inform you of other publications, products, services and events. Future Publishing Australia may also give your information to organisations that are providing special prizes or offers and are clearly associated with the Reader Offer. Unless you tell us not to, Future Publishing Australia may give your information to other organisations that may use it to inform you of other products, services or events. If you would like to gain access to the information Future Publishing Australia holds about you, please contact us.
Future plc is a public company quoted on the London Stock Exchange (symbol: FUTR) www.futureplc.com
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Chief executive Zillah Byng-Thorne Non-executive chairman Peter Allen Chief financial officer Penny Ladkin-Brand Tel +44 (0)1225 442 244
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Welcome
Editor’s letter My own smart home began with a small Google Home speaker. The little JBL Link 10 punches well above its weight for audio punch, and the first month we were together was quite a treat as the great Google algorithm in the sky learned all about my musical tastes and daily movements. Lil JBL has since been supplanted by a big’n’thumpy Google Home Max and that easily fills the lounge room with neighbour-jangling beats – which are now more precisely aligned with what I like to listen to now that Google has me all figured out. The JBL now sits in the bathroom so it can tell me the news headlines and weather report while I brush my teeth. It’s a noble task and the machine has never complained. It’s surface is also washable... I’m just saying. It takes baby steps to get properly smart. And we have a glorious 13 pages of smart baby steps just for you, in this issue of T3. We are truly well past the singularity when it comes to internet-enabled smart home devices. It’s exploding. There’s a lot of silliness, but, equally, a whole happy heap of practical versatility to be had. So. Plug in. Stop doing stuff yourself and let the machines do their thing.
Ben Mansill, Editor ben.mansill@futurenet.com
T3’S MISSION 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 you buy, with in-depth guides to complex tech areas, tips on making better use of products, and recommendations for add-ons that make your favourite gadgets even better. We’re here to help you find things you’ll really love, and that make your life easier. Because we can all do with that.
OUR AWARDS
PLATINUM AWARD
THE DESIGN AWARD
BEST FOR BATTERY LIFE
BEST ON TEST
Only a five-star review earn a product our prestigious Platinum Award
We give this only to tech that stands out for stunning aesthetics or a clever build
This award, and others like it, are given for exceptional performance in a key feature
The winners of our group tests earn this accolade, showing them to be top tier
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Contents
Contents 021
THE ULTIMATE SMART HOME
Connected home tech has come a long way in a few years. It’s so clever, it can shore up your home’s security, boost the comfort of your family, and lower the cost of your energy bills. We show you which devices do what, and how to get more from them
035
MAKE 2019 YOUR BEST YEAR EVER
We’ve looked earnestly across the things that occupy our daily lives, and suggest things to do and gear to get to make it all as good as it can possibly be
050
HOW TO MAKE YOUR OWN BOOZE
Beer, wine, gin… We’ll drink anything here at T3. This month, we set about learning how to make them. Join us for a pint, or a glass of red, and learn how to brew ’em too
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STATE OF THE ART Mirrorless cameras are now at least as good as DSLRs. We compare three of the best
044
SLAM DUNK Are your favourite waterproof gadgets actually waterproof? We dump ’em in the drink to find out
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Contents
053
064
042
TESTED 064
HORIZON
ASUS ZENBOOK 14
YOUR BEST YEAR
08
Can this premium Windows machine rise to the top of a competitive field?
036
HORIZON TOP In the mood for some quality uprading and acquiring? Well, treat yourself to this month’s hottest new gadgets
009
AUTO This month it’s the incoming Nissan Leaf E+ 3. Zero that has our motors humming
010
GEAR Brew your own beer the easy way with LG’s new machine
014
070
GOOGLE HOME MAX We shook the room with this surprisingly powerful music blaster and smart assistant
071
CORDLESS VACS No one plugs anything in anymore, especially when powerful sucking is concerned. We compare cordless vacuums
072
FITNESS TRACKERS
DIET AND FITNESS Stay in shape without the suffering with our winter fitness guide
038
THE COMMUTE How to make the trip into work a more positive and enjoyable experience
042
TECH FOR SLEEPING Enjoy a better night’s sleep with tech and tips for winning the slumber wars
We set off on a trot with six of the top fitness trackers to find the best for your life
074
BEST OF THE BEST
MOBVOI TICWATCH 2 Does a truly premium smart watch and fitness tracker deliver truly better results?
014
081
BUILD
SONY WH-1000XM3
On your bike, then, with upgrades and gear to make it more satisfying
Sony’s latest noise-cancelling wireless cans are the best we’ve ever heard
017
082
GADGET GURU
SUPER SOUND BARS
Why are robot vacuum cleaners all good but not great?
Six top sound bars all stacked against each other to find the one that booms your TV the best
018
TALKING TECH
090
Duncan Bell tells us how to buy a new TV without feeling suckered into premium models
028
LIVING Burn that belly fat away, while putting better food into your body
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YOUR IN-DEPTH BUYER’S GUIDE
074
Want to know what the best gear for your home and life is? Our giant buyer’s guide helps you find the world’s best and only the best!
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Horizon
The best new tech heading your way Edited by Claire Davies
NISSAN LEAF E+ 3.ZERO From $TBA, nissan.com.au While Tesla gets all the news, Nissan has been refining its Leaf EV for many years now. It’s been relatively popular overseas, and will be coming to Australia soon according to Nissan’s Australian office. While we’ll be getting the 2018 second-gen model initially, Europe is already looking at the new enhanced version, which we hope follows soon to Australia. There are two brand-new editions, the 3.ZERO and the e+ 3.ZERO. Okay, so the cheaper 3.ZERO doesn’t differ too much from last year’s car: the main developments include a larger, eight-inch infotainment screen that offers Tesla-esque door-to-door navigation, plus some new colour choices including two-tone options. The higher-end e+ 3.ZERO represents a sizeable upgrade, primarily because it contains a 62kWh battery, as opposed to the 2018 Leaf’s and the standard 3.ZERO’s 40kWh units. That equates to around 40% more range, giving drivers a claimed 384kms from a single charge. Even more impressive, Nissan has somehow managed to cram in all that extra power without compromising the compact shape that has made the Leaf so popular.
TECH-O-METER
The new and improved Leaf 3.ZERO and the extra sepcial limited-edition e+ 3.ZERO will be released later in 2019.
“With better in-car tech, the Leaf 3.ZERO e+ is destined to stay on top of the EV tree” Matt Bolton
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Top 10
SMART DRIVING Another feature carried over from last year’s Leaf is ProPILOT, a semiautonomous driving system that keeps you from hitting the car in front while travelling on the motorway. It also navigates the car into parking spaces
ALL-IN-ONE Like the 2018 Leaf model, the two 3.ZERO editions come with Nissan’s revolutionary e-Pedal. Depress it and the car will move forward, take your foot off and it’ll slow down. It makes a big difference to the car’s efficiency
VIRTUAL VIEW Four cameras combine to give you a virtual 360-degree bird’s eye view of the car on your dash-mounted display. This enables you to perform tricky manoeuvres with confidence. You’ll also get a warning if something’s about to hit you
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Horizon
LG HOMEBREW $TBC, lg.com DIY brewing has come a long way since your dad infested the garden shed with stinky vats and pipes, and nowadays you can rustle up a perfectly palatable ale on your kitchen worktop. The latest, and sleekest, gadget to offer this service comes from LG. Launching imminently, HomeBrew is like a beery equivalent of a pod-based coffee machine (it just takes longer). Simply choose which beer you want – options include IPA, stout, Czech Pilsner and a few others – insert the relevant capsule of flavouring, hop oil, yeast and malt, and then wait for the machine to work its magic, checking the status of your brew via an app if you so wish. Five weeks later, you’ll have five litres of the good stuff, which you can pour directly from the HomeBrew’s tap. Bottoms up! T3 SAYS: LG’s little machine will give you boozer-quality brew at the touch of a button.
TECH-O-METER
RAZER BLADE STEALTH 13 From $2,299, razer.com While stereotypes would have you believe that gamers spend all day in their bedrooms, there are times when they want to, like, go places. Originally launched in 2017, the Razer Blade Stealth 13 ultrabook has received great acclaim as a portable powerhouse that’s capable of handling both gaming and pro apps with ease. But Razer hasn’t rested on its laurels, and the little diamond has now been upgraded with Nvidia GeForce MX150 4GB graphics and the new Whisky Lake Intel Core i7 processor – which, Razer claims, offers up to four times the performance of its predecessor. With Razer’s latest Chroma keyboard, a 4K display and 13 hours of battery life also on board, this is a truly cutting-edge machine. T3 SAYS: With super-power in a super-compact unit, this is a super machine machine for serious work or serious play.
TECH-O-METER
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Top 10
SONY A6400 $1,399 (body only), sony.com.au What could be more frustrating than missing out on that once-in-a-lifetime photo of a monkey hitching a ride on a rhino, just because your camera couldn’t get into focus quick enough? Thankfully, such mishaps should never happen with the a6400. Sony claims its latest 24MP addition to the E-mount mirrorless camera line-up has the “world’s fastest” autofocus – a high-speed, high-performance tracking system combined with a BIONZ X image-processing engine to deliver sharpness in a ridiculously quick 0.02 seconds. A feature called Real-Time Tracking uses AI-based object recognition to ensure everything in your image is captured with stunning accuracy. The a6400 is a dab hand at shooting 4K video, too. T3 SAYS: Compact and crammed with features, Sony’s latest mirrorless camera looks like one sharp shooter.
TECH-O-METER
PIONEER VSX-534 $TBA, pioneeraudio.com.au Never has the old adage ‘less is more’ been more appropriate than in the case of Pioneer’s new entry-level AV receiver. The VSX-534 may be compact-ish, but it packs some serious capability. There’s support for both Dolby Atmos and DTS:X, but in the event that you don’t have height or surround speakers, you can still enjoy all-consuming 3D audio thanks to the inclusion of Dolby Atmos Height Virtualizer and DTS Virtual:X tech. What’s more, Pioneer’s MCACC (Multi-Channel Acoustic Calibration System), developed in conjunction with professional recording-studio engineers, should ensure you get precision balance from your setup, even if your speakers are unevenly spaced and different sizes. Australian pricing is expected to be announced soon. T3 SAYS: Not only is this feature-packed AV receiver great value for money, it’s pretty much future-proof too.
TECH-O-METER
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Horizon
DOLBY DIMENSION $599, products.dolby.com For years, Dolby has been not-so-discreetly enhancing the movie-watching experience, adding its processing to cinema and television set-ups to create lifelike soundtracks. Now, the British-American company is finally emerging from the shadows to launch its first consumer product – a pair of wireless headphones powered by its legendary audio smarts. Advanced digital signal processing it calls ‘Virtualization’ provides breathtakingly realistic sound, tuned for different 3D effects that match the experience, whether you’re watching the latest blockbuster or your favourite box set. Dolby LifeMix lets you adjust how much ambient noise filters through the cans. And you can even switch between your Bluetooth devices with a single touch. T3 SAYS: Dolby is about to take the moviewatching experience to another Dimension.
TECH-O-METER
LG GRAM 17 $TBA, lg.com When it comes to laptops, there’s a common misconception that a whopping great screen has to come at the expense of portability and battery life. Well, LG has effectively dispelled that myth once and for all with its new Gram 17. As demonstrated by its TVs, the South Korean firm loves large-scale visuals, and this machine comes with a 17-inch 2560x1600 IPS display. Yet somehow, LG has managed to keep the weight down to a little over 1kg, and claims that you’ll get nearly 20 hours of use off a single charge. With a speedy Intel Core i7 processor and stereo 1.5-watt speakers completing the impressive spec, this is one to watch out for when it hits Australian shops if you need a large working space that won’t weigh you down. T3 SAYS: LG proves that big-screen laptops don’t necessarily have to be heavy or a drain
TECH-O-METER
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Top 10
PUMA RS-COMPUTER $1,085 (approx), au.puma.com Back in 1986, Puma predated the fitness tracker concept by over 20 years with its RS-Computer – a trainer that recorded distance travelled and kilojoules burned onto an in-built computer chip, then enabled the owner to view their achievements on their Apple IIe or Commodore 64 (via a 16-bit connector). Well, that trailblazing pump has now been relaunched with up-to-date technology (although, brilliantly, it retains its original 1980s look). So, Bluetooth replaces that crusty old connector, meaning data can be beamed direct to an Android
or iOS device, and the new trainer also stores up to 30 days’ worth of stats. Don’t get too excited, though, as this special edition is limited to just 86 pairs. T3 SAYS: Nothing says 1980s more than a pair of trainers with a computer in them. These things are totally rad.
TECH-O-METER COOLNESS INNOVATION FEATURES
RØDECASTER PRO $819, rode.com Let’s face it, you’re never going to host the Triple J Breakfast Show. However, thanks to the plethora of social platforms available these days, it’s never been easier to broadcast your own podcast. And you can make it sound truly professional with the help of the RØDECaster Pro. Containing four mic channels – and automatic sound levelling – this portable studio enables you and up to three friends to banter away as if you were Steve Wright and his posse. Connect your mobile via Bluetooth and you can bring phone interviewees into the mix,
and you can record your podcasts with one touch to a microSD card. There are even eight programmable sound effects pads, so you can add your own jingles and applause. T3 SAYS: Producing a professionalsounding podcast just got a hell of a lot easier.
TECH-O-METER COOLNESS INNOVATION FEATURES
VPI HW-40 ANNIVERSARY EDITION $21,000, vpiindustries.com/hw40 When you’re in the business of shelling out hundreds of dollars on rare vinyl (often for no other reason than it’s got a misspelt song title on the sleeve), the last thing you want to do is play it on a crappy record player you bought from your local car boot sale. VPI’s eye-wateringly expensive HW-40 is much more the ticket. Launched in celebration of the New Jersey firm’s 40th anniversary, this retro-look, solid aluminium and walnut wood disc-spinner is packed with the latest turntable mechanics, including a super-precise direct drive motor,
VPI’s 3D-printed Fatboy tone-arm, and premium vibration and isolation technology. And here’s something else that’ll appeal to vinyl buffs: with only 400 units available, the HW-40 is rarer than a Beatles promo. T3 SAYS: VPI’s limited-edition anniversary turntable puts the style into stylus. Get one while you can.
TECH-O-METER COOLNESS INNOVATION FEATURES
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Horizon
WE CAN BUILD YOU…
A SMARTER BIKE SETUP Whether you’re commuting, touring or speed riding, this gaggle of cycling gadgets will upgrade your ride
THE READER
THE EXPERT
Olivia Aarens After a long break from cycling, Olivia is dusting off her drophandlebar road bike for commuting and weekend rides, but she needs a little help to make the ride easier.
Nick Odantzis T3’s two wheeled know-it-all, Nick commutes by bike, is a regular club rider and is obsessive about the latest cycling gear. His mindset: there’s no bad ride, just a bad setup.
1
EXPOSURE LIGHTS
The best way to keep yourself seen by other road users at night, and indeed in the day, is a smart set of front and rear lights. Exposure’s party piece in its lighting range is the Blaze Mk3 with ReAKT and Peleton rear light, which automatically adjusts its brightness according to its surroundings, flaring like a brake light when you slow down or dimming when it detects a rider’s front light from behind. Perfect for those club rides. $169 (Blaze Mk3), exposurelights.com
2
CYTRONEX C1
For those needing a little help in the leg department, an ebike conversion kit is a great way to give your existing bike some oomph. This lightweight kit from Cytronex is appealing in that it’s simple to outfit your bike with (just swap your front wheel out, add the battery bottle cage and attach the control unit to your handlebars). The power delivery is smooth and silent, and you can pre-set your own custom power levels to choose from during a ride. $1,800, cytronex.com
4
JABRA ACTIVE 65T
If you must wear headphones while riding (hey, we’re not ones to judge), then these are the best way to do it. They fit snuggly in ear, are sweat resistant (IP56), and compatible with all major voice assistants, giving you voice control as you ride. They also sound splendid, and adjustability for ambient noise means you can still hear traffic when you’re on the road. $251, jabra.com.au
5
SILCA TATTICO BLUETOOTH PUMP
Want to keep tabs on tyre pressures on rides? Then a portable bicycle pump is the ticket, but unless you take along a separate pressure gauge, how do you know how much air you’re pushing into your tubes? Silca’s Tattico Bluetooth pump is the answer, allowing you to check pressures on your phone as you inflate. It’s presta/schrader compatible and is capable of up to 120psi of pressure. $211, silca.cc
6
GORE C7 GORE-TEX SHAKEDRY STRETCH
The idea of a helmet that folds might seem at odds with its intended purpose, but the multiaward-winning Morpher helmet offers just as much protection as a regular lid, but has the added convenience that it can be quickly folded down to a mere 2.5-inches thick, allowing you to place it into a small rucksack or briefcase.
Yes, it might resemble a bin liner, but don’t be fooled by its looks – the C7 has loads of tech packed into its paper-thin material, including a highly waterproof and breathable Gore-Tex Active membrane, with the added benefit of ShakeDry (just shake it to de-bead it), and this ‘Stretch’ version is extra comfy. Best of all is that the C7 packs down to the size of a tennis ball, so you can take it everywhere.
$150, morpherhelmet.com
$402, gorewear.com
3
MORPHER HELMET
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We can build you…
SAYS… “Make your bike commute a lot smarter with a few key upgrades” Claire Davies, Senior Content Editor
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Horizon Fitness & Outdoors
EASY WAYS TO FEEL HEALTHIER NUTRI NINJA BLENDER WITH AUTO-IQ Ensure you eat plenty of fruit and veg by blending them into a nutrienthie. packed smooth This blender fro om Ninja promises to extract all of th he vitamins from your ingredientts. A 1,000-watt motor and patented Pro Extractor Blades promise no more lumps, no more waste. $149, ninjakitchen.com
PHILIPS SOMNEO SLEEP AND WAKE UP LIGHT T For a betterr night’s sleeep, upgrade your lighting. The Philips as Somneo ha a winddown function that uses light, soun and breathing techniquess tto s you sleep. It gradually w you up by bathing your bedroom in warm light. $450, philips.com.au
OZMO ACTIVE SMART BOTTLE Stay hydrated with the Ozmo Smart Bottle, which tracks your water and coffee consumption. LED lights show how hydrated you are, and vibrations remind you to drink up. The bottle also syncs with your fitness tracker and tells you if you need more water after your workout. $50, ozmo.io 1 6 T3 AU T U M N 2 0 1 9
Girl power Boys are weak, chuck ‘em in the creek. The T3 girls feed the blokes dust with this core adventure and trail kit. SALOMON ADVANCED SKIN 8 SET Built specifially for the female form, the Skin 8 boast all new hydration packs, new quick-release chest closure and a softer, more breathable construction material. Add half a dozen pockets and you’ve got everything packed for your next Ultra or weekend wander. $239 9.99, 99 salomon salomon.com com SALOMON SENSE RIDE 2 The classic Salomon single-pull closure, an 8mm heel drop and a flexible, comfortable upper means this 240g ultra-light trail running shoe is bombproof on even the toughest terrain. $239.99 salomon.com/en-au
SUUNTO 9 BARO TITANIUM Lighter and more resistant then previously, this wrist multisport GPS wrist computer boasts over 80 sport modes, weather functions, heart rate and more. Strava compatible for activity analysis, a and it also tells the time. 9 99, arcteryx.com
GOAL ZERO SHERPA S 15 POWER BANK Featuring F a 3870 milliamp hour thin-pack lithium and a seemless, extruded aluminum chasis, this pocket p powerhouse will w keep your gadgets primed. p Also available as 12 2,000mAh capacity. $79.95, $ goalzero.com.au g
BODYGUARDZ Z HARMONY CASE Forged from patented absorbtion and dissipation materials, the Harmony wil keep your iPhone (8, X/ XS, XR or XS MAX) safe from the thrills and spills ofadventure. Available in Amethyst, Rose Quartz or Shade. $55, bodyguardz.com
BACKPACKING ESSENTIALS
THE NORTH FACE VENTURE 2 When weight and pack size matters for keeping out the weather. It also looks bloody noice. The Venture 2 from The North Face ticks all the boxes. This unlined (40D DryVent nylon ripstop) jacket is weatherproof, 100% windproof and packs down to almost nothing inside its own pocket. There’s a helmet compatible hood, pit-venting to keep the steam out and covered secure-zip pockets on the outside as well as stowage on the inside for your delicates. It’s super light at only 330g, but if that’s too much you could always follow the “ultralight hiking” fad and pack a plastic bag instead... which is really dumb. Just get the jacket. $220.00, thenorthface.com.au Discover m ore a t techradar.co m/au
Gadget Guru
ILLUSTRATIONS: STEPHEN KELLY
GADGET GURU
T3’s laser-guided autonomous helper solves your tech queries
OLE BERGMANN, MELBOURNE
Is there a truly no-effort robot vacuum out there? Robot vacuums, it is fair to say, suck. Some of them are also bad, at least on the lower rungs. A cheap robot vacuum will meander over your rug in much the same manner as Guru does with his 3AM kebab after a particularly long night – and it’ll similarly eat socks because it can’t quite see what it’s doing. Avoid the lower end, because you will spend more time dragging things out of its stupid brushes, emptying its dirtbox, and cursing its inefficiency than you will watching your cat take an adorable little ride on it. Mid-range vacs, starting around the $1,000 mark, do a lot better.
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They usually have some kind of internal mapping system built in, so they learn the layout of your room and cover the whole thing rather than careening around idiotically. They’re not completely self-reliant, though; GaGu’s Neato Botvac D5 ($1,195), despite its laser navigation, frequently reverses over the kids’ toys, and you still
ABOVE If you could replace all your chores with nap time you’d… end up awake at 4am, probably
A cheap robot vacuum will meander over your rug in much the same manner as Guru does with his 3AM kebab
need to empty its small dust canister with alarming regularity (Guru Towers is… dirty). For the ultimate in robotic luxury, iRobot has finally cracked the formula by getting a bit meta. The Roomba i7+ (Australian price TBC, but $1,099 in the US) comprises a combination of the Roomba i7 vac and the Clean Base charger, the latter of which basically includes a little vacuum for your vacuum, sucking the dirt out of the roving unit. Nice as that is, Guru will hold onto his wallet until iRobot introduces a third robot which sucks the filth out of the Clean Base directly into his outside
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Horizon
DAVID WHITE, ADELAIDE
My TV isn’t showing the whole picture. Help! Fun fact: GaGu recently learned through experience that a major electronics retailer has licensed the name of a traditionally reputable Japanese electronics manufacturer to plaster on its own-brand televisions. These TVs are very, very bad. But they cost $300, and GaGu Jr can’t yet tell the difference, so we’ll not start naming names. Guru was reminded of this because his offspring’s personal TV (amongst its many foibles) slices a good few pixels from the edges of the screen, and even his team of boffins hasn’t yet worked out how to do anything about it. You, reader, likely have a slightly better TV. If you’re losing part of your picture, there are few things to try. First, make sure you’re feeding the right signal into it; check the settings on your cable box, your games console, your streaming box, or whatever you have plugged in, and make sure
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you match both resolution and frequency with a supported mode on your TV. Dig into your options, and ensure you’re not viewing in a ‘zoom’ or similar picture mode. Even 16:9 might not be the right mode for you; pick the ‘match source’ mode, or whatever your TV labels it. Still not fixed? Sift through your menus and look for options surrounding overscan, and either switch it off or adjust the values until everything fits nicely. If there’s no overscan menu to be seen, you might want to play with GaGu’s favourite: the service menu. It’s a hidden menu found in most TVs, generally reserved for actual technicians to use to diagnose and fix faults: you may break something, so be careful, but googling your TV model number should lead you to the right combination of remote buttons to get you there.
ABOVE Folding phones are just a matter of months away. Maybe even good ones…
GADGET GURU’S MAGIC BOX The fight against the flea menace in Guru Towers continues, and teaches GaGu a little something abou the perils of buying gadgets blind. Buoyed by Amazon reviews including phrases like ‘have caught many hundreds of fleas’ and ‘after 7 days there were a horrifying 135 stuck in there’ (nice counting) Guru picked up the seemingly magical Big Cheese Flea Killer ($20). It’s a super-sticky pad with a little light bulb above that convinces the fleas it’s the warmth of an animal, and it works really well. If only Gagu had read the other comments (‘Be careful an inquisitive cat doesn’t get stuck to it... There will be blood. Probably yours.’) he might have saved himself some wounds. On to Microsoft’s Windows 10 S Mode, then. Your favourite gadget uncle happens to actually quite like the highly restricted Windows Store-only mode, particularly in the context of stopping
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his laptop-toting kids doing something they shouldn’t. Add in Microsoft’s OK-ish family controls, which spy on your youngsters, block troublesome sites and deny them screen time based on the hour, and you’ve got a combo that actually makes sense for junior computing. Speaking of, the Kano Computer Kit Touch ($399) is a cool way to get those developing brains interested in the technical side of computing. You get the components, based on a Raspberry Pi, required to build a tablet, and then the encouragement to use that tablet to cook up cool experimental code. GaGu Jr is a real fan. And when he’s done with it, Guru will pull out the Raspberry Pi and turn it into something otherwise useful – a networkwide ad blocker running PiHole, probably.
SIMON KENDALL, RICHMOND
Foldable, rollable – are my current screens obsolete? Sometimes it feels as if CES (that’s the Consumer Electronics Show, for the uninitiated) is just a tool specifically designed to terrify us into thinking we’re behind the curve. Foldable phones like the Royale Flexpai, LG’s rollable Signature OLED TV R, the transparent Samsung Window TV, 8K everywhere – they’re little glimpses into a future that sometimes makes GaGu want to rip his current screen off the wall and toss it straight in the bin. That’s the thing with curves, though: they’re curvy. GaGu will charitably put you, dear reader, right next to him, driving that curve gracefully, while this brand new tech has come out of the gates so hard it’s careened off it and ended up embedded in the trackside barrier. It’ll catch up with you, but it needs some time to bolt its wheels on first.
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Gadget Guru
NEW MEDIA
NOW PLAYING Guru finds the finest media you need on your various screens
NIGHTFLYERS Netflix science fiction space spooks based on a George RR Martin novella – less Game Of Thrones, more Game Of Oh God What Is That Thing And What Does It Want.
JADE TANNER, PENSHURST
What’s the best Blu-ray setup? The real question is which metadata-rich video format you opt for, be it Dolby Vision or the almost-ready HDR10+. The former works with 12-bit colour (HDR 10+ only does a paltry 10-bit) and the metadata it depends upon is painstakingly created by hand by professional colourists at studio level. HDR10+, on the other hand, has its metadata cooked up by a vice-free robot using an upscaling algorithm, making it much easier to produce. So get yourself a player that supports both, like the superb Panasonic DP-UB9000 ($1,450). This means that even if your TV only supports one now, when you upgrade it, you’re ready for any amount of exciting metadata.
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MIKE DAVIES, ALBANY
How do I get more mileage from my car? DREAM PLAZA Mélonade’s neat album imagines a world where we are all trapped in a mall. Thankfully, it’s a bouncy, glitchy mall with some of the smoothest muzak going.
SLAY THE SPIRE Guru’s daily Steam game of choice: climb a tower, build a deck of deadly cards as you go, and use them to beat up monsters. Properly addictive, and brilliantly balanced.
There are so many mechanical things that could affect your car’s efficiency, but here’s a few things: replace your air filters and spark plugs; pump your tires up to the correct pressure for your load; reduce that load wherever possible; always use the correct oil. In terms of your driving, use the pulse and glide technique, where you accelerate hard to the speed you need to go (which helps your engine work closer to its maximum efficiency) then coast for a while before repeating the process. On the motorway, stick as close to the speed limit as you can, and use cruise control to keep yourself from going gung-ho with your right foot.
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ABOVE Turn your whole house on and off with a smart button; great for arguments with the kids
On the motorway, stick close to the speed limit, and use cruise control to keep yourself from going gung-ho with your right foot
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KAY LAURENCE, PERTH
What can I do with a smart button? With the tiny bluetoothbased Flic button ($50) you can do a whole host of phone related shenanigans through its over-enthusiastic app, while Logitech’s Pop button (from $98) does a little less but is also less likely to get swallowed by a child. Look for HomeKit integration (the version of the Pop sold through Apple’s store, a Hue switch of some kind, or the $99 Fibaro button) if you want to trigger scenes and automations on Apple’s platform – Guru would suggest not relying on a button to fire off IFTTT applets, because it’s very slow.
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Horizon
Duncan Bell has square eyes How the hell are you meant to buy a TV when they’re all really good? Let me guide you…
here’s something e r so satisfying and ye oh-so aggravating when it comes to the – boringly consistently excellent – state of tech today. Nowhere is that more evident than in the world of television. Sweet, swe t 4K (or maybe 8K), HDR, motio onsmoothed, thin-bezelled TV. We’ve just had CES and a f more TV showcases and I think it fair to say that this has been the best year ever for new TVs. This is great news for all of us in many ways, but on the other hand is it, really? If we’ve got $2,000$5,000 to splash on a gogglebox, bountiful riches await… but which of the enticing lovelies do we opt for? This is a fantastic time to buy a TV because all the most important new technologies are now well entrenched. Over the last few years, the early adopters have squandered their cash on experiments, as usual. Consequently TV makers have been able to continue to develop new image and sound-boosting tech, from HDR and OLED to in-home Dolby Atmos. Now, us normal people can reap the benefits.
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Smooooooth The problem with this is it makes it harder than ever to choose which new television to buy. I think I could break it down thus: Samsung is best if you want a bright TV you can see in daylight. Panasonic is best if you want something more ‘cinematic’ – a hard term to define, but I hope you know what I mean. LG and Sony are arguably the best allrounders. Philips, interestingly, is often considered best by ‘AV purists’ and its TVs are generally very good, but the way they insist on turning their motion smoothing
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to 11 n mos does t me off a b . d after that you have the likes o shiba and Hisense, o make similarly amazing s but for less money. at screen you think looks best is pretty subjective, and a lot the time, the customer service ys in shops will recommend t lik ersonally or t brands that pay them the most commission. So that’s tricky, but on the plus side, above about $1,500, all LCD and OLED panels are broadly pretty similar, and all very good. So my advice would be to focus on near-future-proofing yourself as much as possible. Pick a screen you like the look of, but make sure it has support for
Most punters still don’t even really know what 4K is, never mind its upscaled big bro, 8K Dolby Vision, HLG and HDR10+ as well as the bog-standard HDR10. Audio-wise, looking for something that can process Dolby Atmos might be useful, but it’s worth bearing in mind that to take full advantage of Atmos’s ‘vertical’ sound elements you’ll still need an external system in most cases. If you want to use DTS – a home cinema sound system that many people deem superior, and which remains the only surround option
on a irdly large number b of Blu-rays Blu rays – you you’llll most certainly need an external system. Realistically, 8K is all very lovely, but it’s not something you really need. There is next to no ‘native’ 8K content – our broadband services can only just deal with 4K and nobody is going to be broadcasting in it any time soon. Come to that, most punters still don’t even really know what 4K is, never mind its upscaled big bro. Look at the HDMI inputs – mmm, yes, this is all sexy stuff. Ideally you want four of them at least, and you want them all to be able to take 4K HDR sources. That could become useful sooner than you think. Perhaps most importantly when viewing a new, premium TV in the shops, ask to see something on it that you’d actually watch in real life. TV shops are very keen on showing Hollywood FX bonanzas with all the image smoothing and vividification settings dialled up to 11. Or, even worse, specially-shot demo footage, usually involving people dancing somewhere exotic whilst having paint powder blown over then in extremely slow motion. Try watching some broadcast TV on it, or sport, or a movie you love, with the settings on a more ‘normal’ level. You might be surprised at how different it looks.
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The ultimate smart home
The Ultimate
Smart Home
Live in style and comfort the smart way, saving yourself both time and money Words: Becca Caddy, Jamie Middleton Photography: Neil Godwin
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The ultimate smart home
Smart heating 6DYH FDVK ZLWK HIĆFLHQW KHDWLQJ WDLORUHG SHUIHFWO\ WR \RXU KRPH
hen it comes to energy bills in winter, the majority of homeowners spend the most money on heating their homes. During the cold winter months, keeping your home warm and cosy is a priority, but that doesn’t mean it has to cost a small fortune. Smart heating systems are a good long-term solution to reducing home heating costs and using less energy, all while keeping you and your family warm when you need it. There are a range of smart heating systems and thermostats available that give you maximum control over the heating in your home. Because they’re connected to the internet, smart thermostats like the Tado° Thermostat (from $219, tado.com/au), enable you to access and adjust your heating controls remotely. Of course, that also means you can see how much energy you’re using in real-time.
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Smart thermostats also enable you to set specific schedules and create rules for both energy-saving and convenience, including an away mode that automatically turns off the heating when you’re out. There’s also a setting that adjusts the heating inside your home in reaction to the temperature outside. This is handy during a cold snap. Another benefit of smart thermostats is zonal heating. With this you can set different rooms to different temperatures. Tado° is a good system for zonal heating because its Smart Radiator Thermostat (from $129, tado. com) enables you to keep individual radiators at the right temperature for the room they’re in, rather than using one thermostat to blanket heat the entire house. Zonal heating is a good way of saving energy, especially if you have a big home or an unused spare room, because you can pick which rooms need heating regularly and leave out the ones that don’t.
+2: ,7 $// &20(6 72*(7+(5 SMART THERMOSTAT 7KH 6PDUW 7KHUPRVWDW UHSODFHV \RXU ZLUHG URRP WKHUPRVWDW DQG LV FRQWUROOHG YLD D FRPSDQLRQ DSS
WATER HEATER EXTENSION KIT 7KH ([WHQVLRQ .LW FRQQHFWV WR \RXU ZDWHU KHDWHU DQG FRPPXQLFDWHV ZLWK WKH 6PDUW 7KHUPRVWDW YLD UDGLR
SMART RADIATOR THERMOSTAT 7KLV HQDEOHV \RX WR VHW GLIIHUHQW WHPSHUDWXUHV IRU LQGLYLGXDO UDGLDWRUV WKURXJKRXW \RXU KRPH Discover m ore a t techradar.co m/au
Smart heating
SMART ELECTRIC HEATING Looking for a quick and easy smart heating or energy monitoring ďŹ x? Try these‌ Although smart heating systems are growing in popularity, there are plenty of reasons why they might not be the right choice for you. Maybe you need a temporary heating ďŹ x before you move, or maybe your home doesn’t have central heating. Perhaps you rent a room in a shared house and therefore don’t need a whole home system. Whatever the reason, if a complete smart heating system isn’t the ideal option for you right now, electric heating might be your best way to ‘go smart’. The good news is that you don’t have to miss out on all of the beneďŹ ts of a connected, home-wide heating system. By investing in smart electrical heating solutions, you can enjoy precise
Smart electric heating products are ideal for renters temperature control, set bespoke heating schedules for your space, and even track your energy usage in real-time. Many of the latest electrical home heating options are also compatible with Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant. As such, you can easily control smart electric heating tech using your voice. You can also connect these products to other compatible connected home gadgets to create automated routines that make your life easier in the morning and at bedtime.
DYSON PURE HOT + COOL LINK K If you want a device that heats and cools your home, depending on your needs, here you go. The Pure Hot + Cool Link is D VPDUW KHDWHU IDQ DQG DLU SXULĆHU UROOHG G into one. It captures potentially toxic fumes and odours too. It’s much larger than Dyson Hot + Cool units you may be familiar with, in part due to the pair RI ODUJH UHSODFHDEOH ĆOWHUV LQVLGH ZKLFK K '\VRQ FODLP FDSWXUH XS WR RI ĆQH H particles so this unit not only heats and cools but provides cleaner air. A colour display cycles between differen nt bits of information, like the current temperature, level of air purity as well as WKH OLIHVSDQ UHPDLQLQJ RQ \RXU ĆOWHUV 7KH KHDWLQJ DQG FRROLQJ EODVW ĆOOV D ODUJ JH area thanks to the increased size, and itt can switch into reverse mode and blow w out the back of the unit if you desire. It’s Wi-Fi connected, and the app providess more granular info on ambient condition ns as well as remote control. $799, dyson.com.au
TP-LINK HS110 KASA SMART WI-FI PLUG WITH ENERGY MONITORING Turn your trusty little fan heater on before you even get home using the app for this smart plug, which will also tell you the power consumption of anything plugged into it. $49, tp-link.com/au
BESPOKE SHOWERING This clever smart shower will make your morning routine something to really wake up for Give your morning routine a serious upgrade with the SmarTap ($1,400, smartap-tech.com), an app-connected shower. Create a proďŹ le for yourself, stating your ideal water temperature, pressure, ow rate and duration – no more wasting time, energy and water ďŹ ddling with your shower controls to locate the sweet spot between skin-blistering heat and teeth-chattering cold. Individual shower proďŹ les can be created for others members of your household, so you can each experience your ideal shower. The SmarTap boasts Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant voice control integration, and also monitors your water pressure levels, informing you (via app) of any leaks.
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The ultimate smart home
Smart lighting Light up your life with these exceedingly bright bulbs mart lighting has become one of the most popular additions to the home. That’s because a change in lighting can make a big difference to the look and feel of any room. Smart lighting schedules make your routine easier, and the right light can chill you out at night then wake you up with a gentle, cheery light in the morning. There are a host of security benefits to smart lighting, too. Perhaps the best bit about smart lighting is that some systems only need a single bulb to started. LIFX (from $34, lifx.com.au) is one of our favourite brands for a fuss-free set-up, enabling you to add smart bulbs to your home and control them all via one app. These clever bulbs give you access to more than 16 million colours, with Day and Dusk features enabling you to set schedules so that the colour and brightness of your lights changes through the day, mimicking natural
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sunrises and sunsets – this is great news for your circadian rhythm, which in turn has a positive impact on your sleep. If you know you want to add smart lighting to your entire home, Philips Hue (from $79, meethue.com) is our top recommendation. Begin with a Hue Starter Kit and build from there, adding connected atmospheric lamps, spotlights, bulbs and
strip lighting to every corner of your home. As well as setting schedules to turn on and off the lights according to your routine, each light can also connect to other smart products, adding an extra level of safety and convenience to your day. Philips also has Hue Play, a lighting bar that syncs up with music, films and games to amp your home entertainment experience.
PHILIPS HUE VS LIFX PHILIPS HUE
LIFX
Although Hue is expensive to ge et up and running, it does offers grreat value and fantastic product choiice after that. If you’re going big on the smart lighting, go Hue. From $79, meethue.com
LIFX bulbs don’t need a smart bridge to control them, like Hue bulbs do, so buying just one or two is cheaper a good option for dipping your toes in the water. From $34, lifx.com.au Discover m ore a t techradar.co m/au
Smart lighting
LIGHTING PANELS Embrace the growing trend for modular smart lighting
NANOLEAF Why buy smart lighting when you can create smart light art yourself? Arrange these LED panels into a range of shapes, then programme them to respond to touch, or set schedules. From $499, nanoleaf.me
SMART OUTDOOR LIGHTS Transform your garden with stylish, bespoke lighting Smart lighting doesn’t have to be confined to the inside of your home. Weatherproof, automated lights enhance the atmosphere of any garden, but they also have an added security benefit if you programme them to come on at specific times of the day, or connect them to a motion sensor. The Philips Hue smart lighting system is now available to rule your garden as well as your living room, all still controlled through the same app. We like the Hue Lily Outdoor spotlight ($209, meethue.com) for feature lighting as well as security, and the Lightstrip Outdoor ($124) for adding subtle splashes of colour to the patio.
LIFX BEAM Let your creativity run wild with the LIFX Beam. These bright lighting strips work well with the top smart assistants, and ‘wash’ your walls with over 16 million colours. From $299, lifx.com.au
APP-CONTROLLED BLINDS Ensure your privacy with Somfy’s versatile range IKEA FLOALT IKEA brings its Scandi aesthetic to the smart lighting space with this simple LED lighting panel. It works via remote control and enables you to adjust your lighting throughout the day. From $102, ikea.com Discover m ore a t techradar.co m/au
Not only do smart blinds give you control over the amount of daylight entering your home, they can be an effective security measure. Somfy is a leader in smart blinds (from $299, somfy.com.au), and these can be can be programmed to raise in the morning, to help you wake more naturally, and close at night or when you’re out. Somfy also offers smart exterior shutters, which are handy if you’re away for long periods of time and want your home to feel doubly safe and secure. AU T U M N 2 0 1 9 T3 2 5
The ultimate smart home
Smart security
Short of hiring guards, these the best gadgets to keep your home safe mart home tech isn’t just about making your home cosier or improving the lighting. There are plenty of connected devices that add an extra level of security to your house, helping you feel safer, year-round. Motion sensors are perhaps the easiest of these to get started with. They’re simple to install and enhance the security of any exposed windows and doors. Elsewhere, indoor and outdoor cameras keep entrances and gardens safer, enabling you to view what’s going on, day or night. Smart door locks and video doorbells amp security further by keeping tabs on who’s at your door, and who can gain access (and when). You might already own smart devices that could double as security tech. For example, you could program a motion detector to tell your smart lights to switch on if movement is sensed. Just by getting your various devices talking to one another, you can create a tailored smart security system that’s controllable from your phone.
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INTELLIGENT SECURITY CAMERAS These clever home cameras will keep a constant watch for unwanted visitors
ARLO PRO 2
NEST CAM IQ
NEST CAM IQ OUTDOOR
Designed for both indoor and outdoor use, the Arlo Pro 2 security camera enables you to watch and record 1080p HD quality video throughout the day. It has sound and motion detection smarts, and you can set a 100+ decibel alarm capable of being controlled remotely and triggered by either. From $899, arlo.com/au
This small indoor security camera from Nest packs a punch with an 8MP 4K camera sensor and 12x digital zoom. Its Nest Aware technology recognises familiar faces – so there’ll be no false alarms – and it has Google Assistant baked in, as well as a powerful speaker to scare off intruders. From $450, nest.com/au
Both weatherproof and tamper resistant, Nest’s outdoor security cam records video up to 1080p and takes snapshots throughout the day, viewable via the companion app. The Cam IQ can detect people from up to 15 metres away and alerts you with a photo if it doesn’t recognise a face with Nest Aware. $769 (3-pack), nest.com/au
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Smart security
PHILIPS HUE MOTION SENSOR
NEST PROTECT
AUGUST SMART LOCK PRO
Place this small, battery powered and wireless sensor anywhere in your home and it’ll trigger your Hue lights whenever someone passes by. Not only is it convenient for whenever you or your family walk past and want a well lit room, it also acts as a subtle security light. $49, meethue.com
Smart home tech doesn’t just protect you from LQWUXGHUV LW DOVR VDIHJXDUGV IURP VPRNH ĆUH and carbon monoxide. Nest Protect sends instant phone alerts and uses an algorithm that can differentiate steam from smoke, so it won’t set off an alarm just because you’re showering. $189, nest.com/au
One of the best things about smart tech is how secure it can make your home feel. Case in point, the August Smart Lock Pro. Use it to lock your door remotely, and grant access to others via the app. It also works seamlessly with Siri, Alexa and Google Assistant. $349, august.com
A video doorbell enables you to speak to the person at your door, even if you’re out
SMART PLUG The quick and budget friendly security ďŹ x Smart plugs are great for making your older, dumb tech smart. They’re also a relatively cheap and simple option for adding security to your home. For example, you can use a Wi-Fi enabled plug with any lamp in order to fake that someone is home, even if you don’t have any other smart lights and even if you’re still out at work. We like the D-Link DSP-W215 ($49.95, dlink.com.au), a budgetfriendly connected plug that works on any Wi-Fi network.
RING VIDEO DOORBELL 2
HIVE WINDOW AND DOOR SENSOR
Answering the door just got smarter, safer and PRUH FRQYHQLHQW 7KLV YLGHR GRRUEHOO QRWLĆHV you when someone is at your door, then shows you who’s there in detailed 1080p HD video. Along with the two-way audio feature, you can see, hear and speak with the person at your door, whether you’re at home or at work. $319, ring.com
Gain peace of mind while you’re out with this smart sensor from Hive. Fix it to any window or door you wish to monitor, and it’ll notify you if they are opened, or if you’ve left them open by mistake as you leave home. The sensor is easy to set up with the Hue bridge, and can be linked to the rest of the Hive ecosystem. $34, amazon.com
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The ultimate smart home
Clever cleaning
Run a tight ship with tech, putting it to good use doing the chores you loathe itting your home out with smart tech is a great idea for added security, saving energy and making your house feel, well, more homely. But we’re glad to see a rise in the range of connected cleaning products designed to take the stress out of housework, as this gives you time to put your feet up. Robot vacuum cleaners have been around for a while now, but they’ve come on in leaps and bounds in recent years. Many of the major robot vac brands have upgraded their robots with great cleaning skills and suction, plus the navigational smarts to make them effective, hard-working household companions that don’t kill furniture. The Neato D7 Botvac D7 Connected ($1,400, neatorobotics.com) is one of our favourite robot vacuums, thanks to its superb laser technology system used to scan,
980 ($1399, irobot.com.au), which has an easy-to-use app for scheduling cleans. It’s also a great vacuum for giving carpets a deep clean, for sucking up pet hair, and for cleaning hard floors. Speaking of which, iRobot also has the Braava 390t ($549), a floor-mopping robot that’s specially designed to clean hard floors, both dry or damp. It’s capable of tracking where it’s been and where it needs to go. and once cleaning is finished it returns to where it started and powers down automatically. A reservoir refreshes the cloth as it goes.
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map and clean your whole home. Controlled via an app on your phone, you can also tell the Botvac D7 to give certain areas a more thorough clean, or to avoid areas entirely. iRobot creates a great range of smart cleaning robots too, including the Roomba Discover m ore a t techradar.co m/au
Clever cleaning
MAKE YOUR CHORES EASIER Let tech take the pain out of any cleaning jobs you can’t leave solely to the ’bots
DYSON CYCLONE V10 TOTAL CLEAN
UV-C LIGHT PORTABLE WAND
VORWERK VK200 VACUUM
The Cyclone V10 has the suction power of a full size vacuum, wrapped up in a cordless stick design. It comes with interchangeable heads and various accessories to clean all areas of your home, from crevices to mattresses. It transforms into a handheld cleaner in one click. $899, dyson.com.au
If you only have time for a light clean of the work surfaces or the toilet, yet you want to be sure you’ve killed any surface bugs, wave this wand around. It’ll produce a blast of short-wave UV radiation to neutralise 99.9 per cent of nasties. No chemicals, no fuss. $29, amazon.com
This smart vacuum uses ultrasonic sensors WR GHWHFW ćRRU FRQGLWLRQV WKHQ DGMXVWV LWV cleaning style accordingly. You can also add in accessories. Try the SP600 mop for mopping and vacuuming in one, and the PB440 upholstery brush for getting rid of pet hair. $1,999, godfreys.com.au
KÄRCHER PRESSURE WASHER K2 COMPACT
KÄRCHER WV 1 WINDOW VAC
iROBOT LOOJ 330 GUTTER CLEANING ROBOT
It might be small, but this pressure washer takes cleaning seriously. The K2 Compact is capable of gently cleansing delicate surfaces, and blasting stubborn stains with its high pressure trigger gun and Dirt Blaster (jet wash) combo. $299, kaercher.com Discover m ore a t techradar.co m/au
Suck up water from windows, shower screens, PLUURUV WLOHV DQG DQ\ RWKHU ćDW VXUIDFHV 7KH Window Vac leaves panes streak-free, clean and dry, with zero residue. It’s also handy for removing condensation from inside your home or from the windows in your car. $169, kaercher.com
Clearing out the guttering during winter is a dire job, but one that must be done to prevent your gutters from becoming blocked. Make it easier by sending the iRobot Looj 330 in to dislodge GHEULV ćLQJLQJ LW RXW ZLWK LWV URWDWLQJ EUXVKHV $870, amazon.com AU T U M N 2 0 1 9 T3 2 9
The ultimate smart home
LG SIGNATURE TWIN WASH WASHING MACHINE
SAMSUNG FAMILY HUB FRIDGE FREEZER
The LSF100W is big enough to take generous loads of your family’s clothes, and uses built-in smart features to not only wash better, but to make laundry easier. Thanks to LG’s SmartThinQ tech, you can sync this ZDVKHU WR \RXU SKRQH DQG UHFHLYH QRWLĆFDWLRQV WHOOLQJ \RX ZKHWKHU \RX need to add more detergent or empty the drum. Via the app, you can also keep tabs on the amount of water and electricity used during each type of wash, pinpointing which cycle saves you money. $1,599, lg.com
The Wi-Fi-enabled touchscreen on the front of this mammoth fridge freezer from Samsung enables you to manage your food shopping lists, and to draw doodles and notes for members of your household. More importantly, the in-fridge camera helps you keep tabs on expired food, as you can view the contents of your fridge via your phone when you’re stood in the supermarket. Cooking a meal? Watch video recipes on the IXOO FRORXU LQ GRRU GLVSOD\ DQG OLVWHQ YLD ĆYH ZDWW VSHDNHUV $4,499, samsung.com
Smart kitchen
Cooking, laundry and the dishes are about to become a whole lot easier
SIEMENS IQ700 DISHWASHER
BOSCH SERIE 8 SINGLE OVEN
Thanks to cleaning tech called varioSpeed, the iQ700 dishwasher aims to wash and dry your dishes three times faster than the average dishwasher. It works with the Siemens Home Connect app, giving you the means to control it remotely. The app also has an Easy Start feature, which asks questions about cleaning preferences and the types of dishes you want to clean, then selects the best programme. From $1,999, siemens-home.bsh-group.com.au
This smart oven syncs up to the Bosch Home Connect app, where you can browse different recipes. Select one and the app will communicate the ideal heat, temperature and cooking times directly to the oven. You can also use the Home Connect app to access your oven remotely, ZKHWKHU \RX ZDQW WR ĆUH LW XS MXVW EHIRUH \RX DUULYH KRPH RU FKHFN WKDW \RX GHĆQLWHO\ WXUQHG LW RII EHIRUH OHDYLQJ WKH KRXVH $1,299, appliancesonline.com.au
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Smart kitchen
TASTY FOOD AND DRINK GADGETS Can’t cook? With this lot on side, you’ll instantly become a better home chef
MEATER+
ANOVA PRECISION COOKER
TEFAL ACTIFRY SMART XL
Whether you’re cooking meat on a grill, a rotisserie or in an oven or pan, the Meater+ thermometer enables you to measure your food’s internal temperature. You can then see the results on your smartphone for safer, tastier cooking. The Meater+ is designed with an ambient temperature sensor, so you’ll know you’re always cooking at the right heat on the BBQ. Goodbye, super-burnt burgers. $160, meater.com
All you need is a cooking pot, a ziplock bag and your phone to get started with this smart sous vide machine. Once it’s attached to the pot, use the app to set the time and the temperature for whatever you’re cooking. Once you add your food, the Anova Precision Cooker will do the rest, ensuring it’s cooked H[DFWO\ KRZ \RX OLNH LW )UHVK DQG IUR]HQ ĆVK and meat are well cared for here. From $149, anovaculinary.com
Frying at home just got easier and, dare we say it, healthier. The ActiFry Smart XL from Tefal connects to your phone via Bluetooth, enabling you to select from hundreds of recipes, to remotely control your cooking and adjust settings even if you’re sat on the sofa. The ActiFry Smart XL is an air fryer, so it uses hot air rather than oil to fry your food. Trust us, your heart will thank you for it. $505, tefal.com
NESPRESSO BY KRUPS EXPERT AND MILK Start your morning cup of coffee brewing before you leave your bed with this smart coffee machine from Nespresso. Built-in Bluetooth means you can control the machine from your smartphone, so you can schedule in a coffee at any time, keep tabs on your capsule supply, or start a brew instantly. Latte lovers, this beauty comes with a milk frother. $599, nespresso.com Discover m ore a t techradar.co m/au
DROP SCALE
GOOGLE HOME HUB
When you weigh ingredients on the Drop Scale, measurements are sent directly to the Drop app on your phone. You can use the app to give you recipe suggestions. When used in tandem with the scale, it takes precise measurements, substitutes ingredients where necessary, and takes the guesswork out of cooking. Good news for aspiring chefs, or for those of you who are following a strict diet. $119, getdrop.com
Use the Home Hub to control all of your VPDUW NLWFKHQ GHYLFHV IURP RQH XQLĆHG GDVKERDUG +RZ" %\ XVLQJ WKH WRXFKVFUHHQ RU via voice control, thanks to Google Assistant. The stylish (and reasonably priced) Home Hub would look good anywhere in your home, but it’s a particularly handy addition to your kitchen for watching and following along with your favourite cookery videos. $169, store.google.com AU T U M N 2 0 1 9 T3 3 1
The ultimate smart home
Saving energy
The more money you don’t spend on energy, the more you can spend on fun stuff! mart home tech isn’t just about showing off how automated you are, or giving you an excuse to splurge on fancy gadgets you might not need. When done right, it also helps you become more conscious of the water, electricity and energy you’re using in your home. That’s good news for your bank account and for the planet. Indeed, it can help you discover how you and your family use appliances around your home. For example, how often you keep the lights on, or just how much water you use in the shower each morning. Taking action on such areas can help you lower energy bills, and alert you to ‘money pit’ areas of your home that are costing a packet to run. Plenty of smart devices give you enhanced control over your home, as well as helping you to keep a closer eye on your energy usage
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and suggesting changes. The Nest Learning Thermostat has won awards for its ecofriendly credentials. It learns about your habits and your home, and handily turns the heating off when it knows you’re away, so you don’t have to think about doing it. Nest also guides you to use the most energy-efficient temperatures and creates the best heating schedules to suit your lifestyle, reducing your consumption. The key to saving energy is awareness. The majority of us don’t want to spend a fortune or use more than we need to, but we generally don’t know what we’re using on a
daily basis. Many of the smart home devices we’ve mentioned are good for energy saving because most enable you to monitor energy usage, to create bespoke schedules, and to
The key to energy saving is awareness – knowing what you’re using on a daily basis turn appliances off when you’re not using them. These sound like simple adjustments, but every small step helps when it comes to cutting down the energy you consume.
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Saving energy
POWER YOUR HOME THE ECO-SMART WAY %< ,167$//,1* 62/$5 %$77(5,(6 How home battery systems make sense of solar energy production veryone wants to be green, but solar panels don’t seem that reliable an energy source when you’re looking out of the window in dreary winter. Indeed, solar energy in the has always been seen as something of a fair-weather friend. However, this has all changed with the introduction of affordable home battery energy storage systems. These are designed to collect any spare solar power being produced, storing it ready for when it’s needed, such as in winter. Before this, energy generated by solar panel systems could only be used at the time it was created, during sunlight hours, which is the time most households have the least demand for energy. These new home storage batteries can be thought of as basically very large lithium-ion phone batteries, and can help you store up to a whole day’s electricity (roughly 13.5Kw for a two-bedroom home), ready for when you need it most. There are a wide range of home storage battery choices out there from brand-new startups to known industry names like LG, so when it comes to investing in a battery it’s important to do your research. You need a battery that matches your supply needs – there’s no point buying a large capacity
E
Tesla makes solar roof tiles that look like regular tiles, if you don’t want obvious panels on display
Adding storage batteries to solar panels means you can stockpile power for winter battery if you aren’t producing enough to charge it, and there’s no point buying smaller batteries that can’t store the amount of energy being generated. Most batteries are stackable, as in you can add more batteries in series to store extra power, but it’s important to note that, quite often, batteries from different suppliers will not work together. It’s also important to look at the lifetime guarantee of the battery and its electricity retention (how long and how efficiently it can keep recharging and dispensing energy). Leading the field in terms of capacity (and value) is the well-known Tesla Powerwall ($12,350, tesla.com). The Powerwall battery is incredibly heavy, and stands at just over one metre tall, but simple to fit for trained engineers. The solar panels, invertor and battery installation typically takes a day, Discover m ore a t techradar.co m/au
and you’ll be without power for part of that day. The battery itself can be fitted in a g garage, but the Powerwall (and several other op ptions) are weatherproof, so fine to mount outside. Note that most of these batteries are designed to integrate with the grid, so they won’t come to the rescue during a poweer cut – for safety reasons you’ll be cut off, justt like your neighbours. It is possible to converrt the house to be completely off grid, but thiss is a more complicated and expensive proced dure. The flexibility in energy usage enableed by adding storage batteries to solar panels is a no-brainer. The Powerwall we installed d back in March 2018 (the one our neighbours tteased us for because it rained for seven straigh ht days after installation) has made a three-bed droom house containing two adults and two ch hildren 76 per cent self-powered since then. Here comes the sun! AU T U M N 2 0 1 9 T3 3 3
WHAT WON? Did the gear you voted for in the Australian PC Awards get the gong? See the full list of winners as voted for by the readers of PC PowerPlay, APC, TechLife and TechRadar.
www.australianpcawards.com.au It's the ultimate list of the very best in PC and games gear.
Your best year ever
YOUR BEST YEAR EVER Make 2019 work for you with our tech and tips, all of which will give \RX UHDO UHVXOWV *HW Ä&#x2020;W LQ D VXVWDLQDEOH ZD\ PDNH \RXU ZRUN DQG FRPPXWH HDVLHU LPSURYH \RXU KRPH DQG ORDGV PRUH Words: Claire Davies, Paul Dimery
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AU T U M N 2 0 1 9 T3 3 5
Your best year ever
DIET & FITNESS 'RQèW OHW \RXU QHZ \HDU UHVROXWLRQV Ä&#x2021;RXQGHU ĂĽ ZLWK WKH ULJKW WHFK DQG DSSV \RX FDQ JHW \RXU JRDOV RYHU WKH Ä&#x2020;QLVKLQJ OLQH Almost everyone dreams of getting into shape after the Christmas excess. According to a recent study by Sundried, 95% of new year resolutions are ďŹ tness-related. Sadly, nearly half of those people who set themselves a January health target give it up after just one month. Common reasons for this steep decline in motivation include boredom (many people seem to think that the only way of getting into shape is by pounding the treadmill for hours on end) and a lack of guidance. The good news is that there are loads of apps and gadgets out there that are designed to make your workouts fun, give you detailed analysis on your progress â&#x20AC;&#x201C; and ultimately keep your ďŹ tness goals on track. If youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re looking for a workout that doesnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t actually feel like work, youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ll probably ďŹ nd it on the Rabble network â&#x20AC;&#x201C; where high-intensity workouts are shoehorned into fun team games such as dodgeball, British bulldog and rounders. Searchable by geographical area via the Rabble app (Android/iOS), the competitively priced activities are designed to improve your speed, endurance, co-ordination, strength and agility. Thereâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s every chance theyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ll boost your social life, too.
PERSONAL TRAINER Another ďŹ tness app, Sworkit (Android/iOS), aims to keep you motivated by giving you the power to customise your own video workouts. Tell it whether you want to be leaner, ďŹ tter or stronger, and how long youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;d like your session to be (from ďŹ ve to 60 minutes), and youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ll be issued with your own personalised exercise routine, which you can follow in the comfort of your own home. With a VR headset at your disposal, there are myriad ways you can make your workout more entertaining. Sprint Vector ($42.95, Oculus/PSVR/Steam) sees you partaking in thrilling intergalactic parkour races that require you to bend your legs and pump your arms until they ache. Boxing fans can work up a sweat as they spar their way to glory in the arcade-style Knockout League (prices vary, Oculus/PSVR/Steam). Or put on your virtual gloves for a game of GoalkeepVR (prices vary, Steam/Oculus/HTC Vive), a title 3 6 T3 AU T U M N 2 0 1 9
The smart scale will ďŹ&#x201A;ash up a smiley or unhappy face depending on how well the family are keeping to their goals that requires you to squat and lunge in an attempt to keep out a stream of footballs. Keeping track of your progress is another way to maintain your interest levels for the long term, and few pieces of kit do the job better than Athosâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s range of compression garments for men and women (prices vary, liveathos.com). Clip a tiny Athos Core device to the sweatshirts, shorts or leggings, and itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ll communicate with sensors built into the clothing, before feeding back biometric data to your iOS device. Doing a similar job, but in your bathroom, is the QardioBase 2 ($249.99, getqardio.com). This smart scale will recognise whichever member of the family stands on it, and automatically display their current weight, BMI and full body composition. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ll even ďŹ&#x201A;ash up a smiley or unhappy face depending on how well theyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re keeping to their goals.
Tennis is a fun and eďŹ&#x20AC;ective way of keeping in shape, and Zeppâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Tennis 2 gadget ($159.95, zepp.com) will empower you to play better for longer. Attaching to your racket handle, this device will appraise your every shot to help you keep those unforced errors to a minimum. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ll even record highlights of your rallies, so you can relive that Federer-style drop shot again and again. Finally, youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re more likely to keep up your ďŹ tness if you have some decent footwear. Sauconyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Guide ISO trainers ($140, saucony. com) are packed with tech to keep your feet comfy and bring out the athlete in you. A revolutionary IsoďŹ t system moulds to your tootsies for a custom ďŹ t. An 8mm oďŹ&#x20AC;set ensures that your body remains balanced with every foot strike. And Everun cushioning provides stronger take-oďŹ&#x20AC;s and smoother landings. Discover m ore a t techradar.co m/au
Diet & ďŹ tness
EAT BETTER, FEEL BETTER 1
REFINING YOUR DIET CAN GIVE YOUR OVERALL WELLBEING A MASSIVE BOOST, AND THIS LOT WILL HELP YOU DO IT HAPIFORK :ROÄ&#x2020;QJ \RXU IRRG GRZQ LV D VXUHÄ&#x2020;UH ZD\ WR JHW LQGLJHVWLRQ ĂĽ DQG LW KDPSHUV ZHLJKW ORVV 7KLV %OXHWRRWK HQDEOHG IRUN ZLOO YLEUDWH ZKHQ \RX HDW WRR IDVW EHIRUH GHOLYHULQJ D IXOO DQDO\VLV RI \RXU VFRIÄ&#x2020;QJ VSHHG WR DQ RQOLQH GDVKERDUG $99, hapi.com TEFAL ACTIFRY GENIUS XL )ULHG IRRG LV \XPP\ EXW \RXU DUWHULHV ZRQèW WKDQN \RX IRU LW 8QOHVV WKDW LV \RX LQYHVW LQ DQ DLU IU\HU 8VLQJ D XQLTXH VWLUULQJ SDGGOH DQG PLQLPDO RLO 7HIDOèV $FWL)U\ *HQLXV ;/ FDQ FRRN KHDOWKLHU FKLSV VWLU IULHV FXUULHV DQG HYHQ GHVVHUWV DW WKH WRXFK RI D EXWWRQ $350, tefal.com 3 NUTRIBULLET BALANCE (QVXUH WKDW \RX JHW \RXU GDLO\ GRVH RI QXWULHQWV ZLWK WKH %DODQFH ,QVHUW \RXU LQJUHGLHQWV LQWR WKLV VPDUW EOHQGHU DQG LWèOO LQIRUP \RX ĂĽ YLD DQ DSS ĂĽ RI WKH H[DFW DPRXQW RI FDORULHV IDW SURWHLQ DQG VXJDU \RXèOO LQJHVW IURP WKH UHVXOWLQJ VPRRWKLH $200, nutribulletbalance.com 4 CHANGE4LIFE FOOD SCANNER 7KLV DSS ZLOO UHDG WKH EDUFRGHV RI PRUH WKDQ SURGXFWV JLYLQJ \RX D UHDGLQJ RI HDFK LWHPèV VXJDU VDOW DQG VDWXUDWHG IDW FRQWHQW DV ZHOO DV VXJJHVWLQJ DOWHUQDWLYH RSWLRQV Free, Android/ iOS 5 LVL 2QH WKLQJ \RXU ERG\ QHHGV SOHQW\ RI LV ZDWHU 7KH Ä&#x2020;UVW ZHDUDEOH K\GUDWLRQ PRQLWRU /9/ PRQLWRUV \RXU + 2 OHYHOV URXQG WKH FORFN SURPSWLQJ \RX LI \RX QHHG D WRS XS $TBC, onelvl.com 1
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COUCH TO 5K IN 8 WEEKS Meet the app thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ll have you leaving the sofa far behind
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Invented by American running enthusiast Josh Clark as a means to help motivate his 50-something mother into exercising, the Couch to 5K concept is increasingly being adopted by inactive types who want to get into shape. To meet this demand, new apps are
popping up all the time, but youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;d be hard-pushed to Ä&#x2020;QG RQH EHWWHU WKDQ & . (Free, Android/iOS). Simple and intuitive, it guides you through three 30-minute exercises a week, with the objective of having you raceready in just eight weeks. If that sounds daunting, take
LQVSLUDWLRQ IURP & .èV thriving online community, a large percentage of whom have been there, done it and worn the sweaty t-shirt. If you ZDQW D JRRG YDOXH UXQQLQJ watch to help track your SURJUHVV WKH 3RODU 0 ($199, polar.com) is our pick RI WKH ORZ SULFH RSWLRQV AU T U M N 2 0 1 9 T3 3 7
Your best year ever
ENJOY YOUR COMMUTE Travelling to and from work needn’t be miserable – use that time to change your life for the better For a huge number of people, the worst part about work is getting there. Studies have found that the average professional will spend around 400 days of their life commuting, and most of that time is wasted grumbling about late trains, staring through the windscreen at non-moving traffic, or, if you’re feeling really inventive, calculating how many minutes it’ll be before you’re back in bed again. Rather than dismissing commuting as a worthless hour or two, how about taking it as the perfect opportunity to do something useful; something creative; something life-changing? There’s loads of great tech out there that’s specially designed to help travellers while away journeys constructively. Always dreamed of escaping your dead-end job by publishing a bestselling book? Set the ball rolling on your commute with the Royole RoWrite Smart Writing Pad ($215, royole.com). Some of the best pieces of art started life as notes scribbled on a piece of paper (John Lennon is said to have jotted down the lyrics to A Hard Day’s Night on the back of his son Julian’s birthday card), and
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the RoWrite brings that concept into the digital age. Bound in a luxury texturedcloth folio, it contains a physical paper pad on which you can capture ideas using a pressure-sensing ballpoint pen. As if by magic, your doodles are automatically digitised and stored on the device – and if you hook up to the accompanying app, you can view the digital document, edit it in real time and share it with friends. Another gadget that’s guaranteed to get your artistic juices flowing on the train or bus is the iPad Pro (from $1,229, apple.com). With a glorious edge-toedge Liquid Retina display, and a new, touch-responsive Apple Pencil – you can now change brushes with a simple double-tap – this digital palette will give you the freedom to draw, sketch or watercolour. There are numerous free apps to help you channel your inner Van Gogh – Adobe Illustrator Draw and Autodesk
SketchBook (both free from the App Store) are a good place to start. With an easy-to-hold ergonomic shape and convenient page-turning buttons (you can also swipe), the Kobo Forma ereader ($420, kobobooks.com) is just right for bookworms in transit. Via the OverDrive
There are numerous apps designed to help you speak French, German, or even Klingon, while you move from A to B platform, you can connect to your library from wherever you are and borrow ebooks. Learning a new language has come a long way from the days of sitting in a classroom and asking the way to La Rochelle in a loud voice. Nowadays, there are numerous apps designed to help you speak French, German, or even Klingon, while you move from A to B. The brilliantly named Memrise (from free, Android/iOS) uses memes to help you remember words and phrases. Mindsnacks (from free, iOS) enables you to master foreign lingo in minutes via fun, bitesize games. Or, if you have an Oculus Go or Gear VR, Mondly ($7.49) will transport you to various virtual reality locations (a Spanish restaurant, a train to Berlin), so you can practice your vocab. Your commute is also a great opportunity to revitalise your health. The Headspace app (from free, Android/iOS) offers hundreds of short, guided meditations to help improve sleep, manage stress, resolve anger issues and even revive relationships. Of course, if your journey to work isn’t too far, you could even ditch big transport and use some pedal power. With six gears, Brompton’s new M6L electric folding bike ($2,219, brompton.com) will enable you to tone those leg muscles over flat or hilly terrain; or, if you’re worried about getting too sweaty for the office, activate the battery and enjoy an effortless ride. Discover m ore a t techradar.co m/au
Enjoy your commute
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1 TOP COMMUTER TECH
EMBER TRAVEL MUG This clever receptacle’s digital display enables you to choose exactly how warm you want you ur coffee. Using its built-in heater, the mug wililll then keep your drink that temperature for up to two hours. $213, ember.com 2 BLAZEWEAR EXPLORER Spend a lot of time waiting on train platforms? With battery powered heat technology, wind and splash resistance, deep pockets and even phone charging capabilities, this jacket will keep y r spirits up. From $367, blazewear.co 3 MICRO FALCON X3 Light, comfortab e and easy to use, this 15mph electric scooter is handy for short commutes (you’ll get six mililes off a single charge). There’s an integrated brake lightt fo for or added adde ad ded d sa ssafety fety ty.. $1,499, micro-mobi ity.. com c 4 CHRIS Look g at your phone while driving is a bad idea. Ac ated by voice or gesture this AI assis nt ililll make calls, navigate and control yo music, so you can focus on the road. $5 , chri ris.com 5 B ERS & W LKINS PX As well ass soun ing great, these noise-cancelling head ones con in ensors that respond to your actions:: putt t cans on and they’ll powerr up;; lilift an earcup t talk and they’ll pause yourr owers-wilkins.com musi mu s c.. $5 $549 49, bo 1
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Your best year ever
83*5$'( <285 +20( $GG YDOXH WR \RXU KRPH ZLWK FRVPHWLF Ä&#x2020;[HV UHYDPSV DQG WHFK WKDW PDNHV \RXU KRXVH DSSHDOLQJ WR EX\HUV Regardless of whether youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re looking to turn a proďŹ t when you sell, or youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re planning to live in your home forever, itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s worth learning the diďŹ&#x20AC;erent types of improvements that can add value to your property. These range from cosmetic changes like converting the attic or redesigning your kitchen, through to structural repairs such as ďŹ xing rising damp. According to some property developers, one of the easiest ways to add value without draining your bank account is to ensure the central heating is in good working order. Updating your heating adds more value to your home than it costs, helping to improve the energy eďŹ&#x192;ciency rating of your property. This type of work could include installing a new boiler, sealing drafts around doors and windows, insulating the attic, and replacing â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;blownâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; double-glazing. New windows alone can add considerable value to your home, as long as they meet building regulations. If your boiler is new and not in need of replacing, consider adding radiators to rooms that donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t currently have them, or perhaps underďŹ&#x201A;oor heating in the kitchen or bathroom, or even a heated towel rail. Tackling superďŹ cial ďŹ&#x201A;aws are an easy win too, and by that we mean repainting walls, oiling squeaky doors and cabinets, and replacing broken tiles. You could also add value by changing your homeâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s ďŹ&#x201A;ooring from
soft to hard (ie, to wood, slate or tile) and introducing statement light ďŹ ttings. These things may seem small at the time, but together they help create the sense of a polished space, and that boosts your homeâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s perceived value on multiple levels.
RETHINKING YOUR SPACE The kitchen is a prime room for reinvention and adding further value to your home â&#x20AC;&#x201C; a stylish, well-ďŹ tted kitchen is attractive to surveyors as well as to potential buyers. Your existing kitchen could add more value if you move some cupboards around, or add in a breakfast bar or kitchen island. The bathroom and garden are other areas to focus on. By making these as inviting as possible, you can boost your homeâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s appeal and subsequently its value. For example, a conservatory, powered outhouse or a fully-ďŹ&#x201A;edged garden pod that doubles as a creative studio space or home oďŹ&#x192;ce adds extra living dimensions to your home, and therefore increases its value. If your home doesnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t currently beneďŹ t from oďŹ&#x20AC;-street parking, and you own land to convert at the front of your property, â&#x20AC;&#x201C; and youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re willing to sacriďŹ ce that potential garden space â&#x20AC;&#x201C; look into installing a driveway (youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ll have to adhere to local authority highway regulations when
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5 STEPS TO $b+($/7+,(5 +20( ,1 Enhance the wellbeing of your home and itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ll help you have a healthier year too
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Improve mprove indoor air qualit quality
Reduce damp and mould
The air inside our homes is up to four times more polluted than outside. Monitor then FOHDQVH LW ZLWK WKH &ODLU\ 1DWXUDO $LU 3XULÄ&#x2020;HU $325, clairy.com
8VH D GHKXPLGLÄ&#x2020;HU WR UHGXFH PRXOG VSRUHV DQG condensation. The compact and quiet Meaco DD8L extracts eight litres of moisture daily. $366, meaco.com Discover m ore a t techradar.co m/au
Upgrade your home
building a drop kerb). This will undoubtedly add value to your home.
ADDING VALUE WITH TECH While the majority of smart home tech might not increase the monetary value of your home per se, it could increase its perceived value to buyers... And therefore help your home stand out. How so? Smart home tech aims to make living easier, so with the right gadgets installed youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re actually selling an elegantly automated home vibe; one that gives you more time to chill (via tech that can be scheduled to do chores), enjoy lower energy bills (smart heating), and feel secure (smart security). According to some estate agents, the trick is sticking to big-name smart home brands
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HOME UPGRADE KIT BOSCH PSB-1800 COMBI DRILL A nifty cordless power tool to help you nail those Ä&#x2020;[HU XSSHU MREV DURXQG WKH KRXVH $159, bosch-do-it.com 2 GROHE SENSE GU UARD +DYH LW Ä&#x2020;WWHG WR \RXU PDLQ ZDWHU SLSH DQG G LW ZLOO DXWRPDWLFDOO\ VKXW RII WKH ZDWHU VXSSO\ LQ WKH HYHQW RI OHDNV RU EXUVW SLSHV $710, ama azon. com 3 WONDRWALL 7XUQ \RXU HQWLUH KRPH in an intelligent living space, with everytthing IURP KHDWLQJ WR VHFXULW\ KDQGOHG $92 20, amazon.com 4 RING VIDEO DOORB BELL L PRO $ OX[XU\ H[SHULHQFH IURP D ELJ QD EUDQG WKDW SURVSHFWLYH KRXVH EX\HUV ZLOO NQR $398, ring.com 5 PHILIPS HUE Use the :KLWH DQG &RORXU $PELHQFH EXOE WR FUHDWLQJ EHVSRNH OLJKWLQJ VFKHGXOHV IRU GD\ QLJKW DQ DQG G VRFLDOLVLQJ From $79, meethue.com m
Sticking to bigname smart home tech adds value as buyers know the beneďŹ ts at a glance b
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tthat prospective buyers know at a glance. That said, there are some ace smart home Th gadgets from smaller brands. Whatever tech g you install with a view to adding value to y your home, explain the beneďŹ ts of that tech y tto the agent selling your house, as they can pass this on to prospective buyers. p Installing gadgets that ensure your homeâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s health for the long-haul are another h good investment. The Grohe Sense Guard, a g device that sits on your main water pipe to d monitor for leaks, is great. Easy to use m whole-home systems, like the Wondrwall w (($710, amazon.com) for cultivating iintelligent living spaces, are also worth exploring for adding value to your home. e
Keep it cool (or warm)
Protect against carbon dioxide
Convert waste into energy
Heating affects your wellbeing, comfort and energy levels. Maintain the ideal temperature at home with Tadoâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Smart Thermostat Kit. $219, tado.com/au
Carbon monoxide poisoning is no joke. Use the Nest Protect to keep watch for CO levels, as well as acting as a smoke alarm. From $189, nest.com/au
Turn food waste into clean energy with the HomeBiogas 2.0. Shovel in leftovers and itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ll convert them into gas to power your cooking. $650, homebiogas.com
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AU T U M N 2 0 1 9 T3 41
Your best year ever
LOOK AND FEEL GREAT Learn why quality sleep should be your main wellness goal, and how you can improve it tonight Poor quality sleep wreaks havoc on your mind and body. Sure, you can survive periods of broken sleep and insomnia, but the long-term effects on your physical health, mental performance, productivity and happiness are considerable. So if there’s one thing you should work on in 2019, it’s your quality of sleep. Why is good sleep important? When we’re asleep, our bodies get the chance to reboot and repair. Our brains are also at work consolidating memories and any new information we’ve learned that day. Poor sleep has been linked to weaker immune systems, depression, anxiety and weight gain – sleep deprivation is thought to cause higher levels of ghrelin, the hormone that stimulates appetite, and lower levels of leptin, your natural appetite suppressant. Sleep well and you’ll enjoy serious mind-body perks including elevated levels of concentration and productivity. Your energy levels also rise, so you’ll get more from your workouts.
WHAT CAUSES POOR SLEEP? Your diet choices from break of day to the end can affect how quickly you fall asleep, how long you stay asleep, and what quality of sleep you achieve. Sugar-laden breakfasts often lead to afternoon burnout, which
creates a need for more sugar-loading to get you through the slump, leading to you being far too sugar-stimulated at bedtime. A balanced breakfast of protein, good fats and complex carbs is better for sleep – think porridge with nuts, or an avocado and banana smoothie. Blenders can help, including the NutriBullet Balance ($200, nutribullet.com), which measures, in real-time, each ingredient you place into the cup, toting up the sugar, calorie alorie, fat and protein content of your smooth hie. Anxiety, depression and oth her mental health illnesses disrupt sleep to oo. It’s worth discussing with your GP wheth her a meditation app could be suitab ble for you. Apps like Headspace and Calm m promote mindful ways of being, and can n relax your breathing and your mindspacee before bed. When you’re relaxed, you fall aasleep p fasteer. Now, look around your bedrroom. Is it too light? How does it feel? Is it too cold or too warm? Either one can prevent you fro om falling asleep, or wake you up in n th he night. A smart thermostat, such as the Nest Learning Thermostat (from$380, nest.com om), is yo your ally here. Set it to a sleep-friend y 1 18 degrees for the two hours befo ed dt . A blindfold and earplugs can bl k li ht and noise from the street, or yo cou d mask the latter with the Bose Sleepb ($3 $379 79,,
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5-STEP PLAN TO FINESSE YOUR STYLE With sleep nailed, it’s time to look as good as you feel
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Nourish your skin
Learn to shave properly
Cleanse, tone and moisturise day and night, and exfoliate twice-weekly. Face masks are good too, and can work in minutes with Foreo’s UFO smart mask system ($395, foreo.com).
Unless you’re growing your facial hair, shaving is an easy way to keep looking sharp. Let the Philips Series 7000 ($149, philips.com.au) coach you on how to shave for your skin type. Discover m ore a t techradar.co m/au
Look and feel great
bose.com.au). These non-slip, sleep-focused wireless eearplugs ďŹ ll your ears with relaxing sounds, and wake you up with an in-ear alarm to aavoid disturbing your partner.
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CREA E TIN NG A SLEEP ROUTINE As the word suggests, your sleep routine be consistent. That means carrying needs to b out the same pre-sleep ritual at the same y night. Okay, so there might be time every times wh heen thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s unachievable, but sticking outine pays dividends in the form of to your ro consistentt, high-quality sleep. Some things you might want to consider drafting n i nto your sleep routine include not drinking ďŹ&#x201A;uids after 8pm (so you avoid m trips in the small hours), and bathroom orange lens glasses at least two wearing o
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DREAM SLEEP KIT SOUNDASLEEP PILLOW Canâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t sleep? Play soothing white noise through this pillow, without d sturbing your partner. $35, zavvi.com.au 2 DREEM A wearable sleep coach, Dreem works to help you overcome insomnia and other sleep issues. $760, dreem.com/en 3 THE OUTLAST UVET Youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ll never be too hot or too cold with this moisture- and temperature-control duvet. om $125, cottonbox.com.au 4 OURA RING .HHQ WR Ä&#x2020;QG RXW KRZ \RXèUH VOHHSLQJ DQG KRZ y u can improve it? Slip on an Oura Ring and let it track your deep, REM and light sleep cycles, plus your wake time. From US$299, ouraring.com 5 DSOMNOX SLEEP ROBOT Cuddle your WR EHWWHU VOHHS ZLWK WKH ZRUOGèV Ä&#x2020;UVW JXLGHG EUHDWKLQJ VOHHS çURERWè $899, meetsomnox.com 1
Poorr sleep has been P liinke ed to weaker immune systems, depression, anxiety and weight gain hours before bedtime. Why? Orange lenses diďŹ&#x20AC;use the sleep-disrupting blue light emitted by your smartphoneâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s screen, your TV, your ereader (unless it has a dedicated nighttime reading light) and other displays. Exyra makes eďŹ&#x20AC;ective blue light-blocking glasses (From $98, exyraeyewear.com) are ideal for ensuring the use of tech at night doesnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t disturb your circadian rhythm (your internal clock). Great sleep isnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t unobtainable. With small changes to your diet, exercising earlier in the day (instead of close to bedtime), and establishing a sleep routine, itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s entirely possible to turn the tide on poor sleep and achieve the rest you need to be your best self.
Perfect your smile
Stand up straight
Find your scent
A whiter smile makes your skin look healthier. Brush for two minutes, twice-daily, with the Tao Clean Whitening Toothbrush ($88, amazon.com) and a whitening toothpaste.
Want to look instantly slimmer? Stand up straight. The Upright Go ($199, uprightpose. com.au) smart posture tracker sits on your back and vibrates gently when you slouch.
The right scent can make you feel a million quid. Create a unique fragrance with the app-controlled Nota Nota ($1,280, nota-nota. com FKRRVLQJ SDUWV WR UHÄ&#x2021;HFW \RXU PRRG
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AU T U M N 2 0 1 9 T3 4 3
Slam dunk
4 4 T3 AU T U M N 2 0 1 9
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Waterproof gadgets
Slam dunk! Are waterproof gadgets as impervious to liquid as they claim? T3 hits the drink to find out Words: Chris Barnes Photography: Neil Godwin
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AU T U M N 2 0 1 9 T3 4 5
Slam dunk
nly a few years back, an accidentally submerged gadget meant a race to the kitchen to find a bag of rice, before burying the device in a bowl of potentially tech-saving grains. What came next was a prayer to the grain gods, followed by an anxious wait to power up and see if you’d saved your gadget from watery doom. If you were unlucky, you’d be looking at a pricey replacement. Thankfully times have changed, and many of the latest gadgets now come with a degree of waterproofing as standard. The question is, just how waterproof are they? Can we really WhatsApp safely from a banana boat, or read an ebook in the bath, turning the page with foamy fingers?
O
DEEP IMPACT To find out how waterproof your tech is, look for the IP rating (found in the spec). This dictates how deep the gadget can be submerged and for how long. I want to send a selection of everyday, IP-rated gadgets to the bottom of the T3 testing pool to see if they really are waterproof. Sadly the pool is closed for maintenance, so instead I fill a fish tank with icy water. My hands will love this. One of the most common tech casualties is the phone down the toilet, so I’m pulling out the big guns for test number one (or should that be number two? Sorry). The Google Pixel 3 XL – designed with 6.3-inch QHD+ OLED display and robust Corning Gorilla Glass 5 protection – is a sizeable beast in the hand. With a price tag starting from $1,100 it’s not something you’d want to lose to water damage. An IP68
waterproof rating means the Pixel 3 XL should withstand submersion to a depth of 1.5m for up to 30 minutes. Let’s see if can withstand our tank… In order to ensure the handset is fully functioning before hitting the water, I load a few apps and take some snaps on the Pixel’s 12.2MP dual-pixel rear camera. The HDR+ images are bright and vibrant, the performance slick and fast. Will it be the same story after half an hour sat in water, though? I let the phone sink to the bottom of the tank and set a timer. After 30 minutes my alarm sounds, so I retrieve the Pixel 3 from the icy deep. Thankfully no mouth to mouth is needed: the phone unlocks instantly (after wiping the drops off) using face
again on a rainy run, then in the pool. It takes everything in its stride, and at less than 48g (for the 44mm model) I barely notice I’m wearing it. SLIPPERY WHEN WET If music boosts your rhythm in the pool, the i360 Waterproof Sport MP3 player is worth exploring. Drag and drop up to 2,400 songs onto the built-in 8GB drive to soundtrack your next front crawl, leaving your phone safe in your locker. The MP3 player is waterproof to three metres, making it ideal for most pool-based antics. Although the music helped me stay on pace, the fit was problematic. Swimming is supposed to be mindful, but constantly adjusting
AFTER A REPEATED DUNKING IN THE TANK, I WEAR THE APPLE WATCH ON A RAINY RUN AND IT TAKES EVERYTHING IN ITS STRIDE recognition, and gets straight back to business. Impressive. DUNKING FOR APPLES Next for the big dip is the fourthgeneration Apple Watch. It’s packed with tech, including a new electrical heart sensor, auto workout detection and hard fall detection. The latest Apple Watch is water-resistant to 50 metres, so you’ll have no worries tracking activity in the pool or sea. After a thorough and repeated dunking in the fish tank, with the Apple Watch on my wrist, I wear it
the shifting earbuds was distracting. Being a music and tech journalist with a love of outdoors pursuits, I’m always keen to find a speaker that can hold its own in the audio stakes, yet won’t wimp out if it falls into a river or pool. Ultimate Ears has positioned itself as leader of the waterproof speaker pack, and on paper the Wi-Fi/ Bluetooth-equipped Megablast is the ultimate pool party starter. It pumps out up to 93dBC of bass-rich sound, and can be controlled with voice commands via Amazon Alexa. An IP67 waterproof and dust-proof
LEFT What? Our Kindle was in need of a bath RIGHT The Thinkpad gets watered like a plant
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Waterproof gadgets
BATH AND BEYOND: ESSENTIAL WATERPROOF GEAR Get better acquainted with th our subaquatic gadgets and a what they can do for you
ULTIMATE EARS MEGABLAST
APPLE WATCH SERIES 4
GOOGLE PIXEL 3 XL
*HW WKH SDUW\ VWDUWHG DW KRPH DW WKH EHDFK LQ WKH SRRO RU HYHQ ZKHQ ZLOG VZLPPLQJ ZLWK WKH XQEHDWDEOH 0HJDEODVW D SRUWDEOH :L )L %OXHWRRWK VSHDNHU WKDW GHOLYHUV EDVV ULFK WUXH r VRXQG 7KHUHèV LQWHJUDWHG $OH[D 9RLFH 6HUYLFH VR \RX FDQ FRQWURO SOD\EDFN KDQGV IUHH VKRXWLQJ RUGHUV IURP WKH SRRO RU EDWK 1DWXUDOO\ \RX FDQ DOVR DVN $OH[D WR JLYH \RX D QHZV RU ZHDWKHU XSGDWH $V ZHOO DV EHLQJ ZDWHUSURRI LWèV GXVW DQG GURS SURRI VR SHUIHFWO\ FDSDEOH RI OLYLQJ OLIH RXWGRRUV $299, ultimateears.com
7KH EHVW VPDUWZDWFK RQ WKH SODQHW LV QRZ PRUH FRPIRUWDEOH WR ZHDU DQG URFNV D ELJJHU VFUHHQ IRU HDV\ UHDGLQJ RI GDWD DQG QRWLÄ&#x2020;FDWLRQV $V ZH WHVWHG LWèV IXOO\ ZDWHUSURRI DQG Ä&#x2020;QH IRU XVH LQ D UDQJH RI Ä&#x2020;WQHVV VFHQDULRV LQ DQG RXW RI ZDWHU $V ZHOO DV KHOSLQJ \RX VWD\ RQ WRS RI \RXU GLDU\ DQG QRWLÄ&#x2020;FDWLRQV WKH :DWFK 6HULHV LV IRFXVHG RQ ERRVWLQJ \RXU ZHOOEHLQJ DXWR ZRUNRXW GHWHFWLRQ LV D ERRQ ZLWK QHZ \RJD DQG KLNLQJ ZRUNRXW WUDFNLQJ )DOO 'HWHFWLRQ DQG (PHUJHQF\ 626 DUH SRWHQWLDOO\ OLIH VDYLQJ From $599, apple.com/au
,I RQO\ ELJ VFUHHQHG SKRQHV DSSHDO FKHFN RXW WKH 3L[HO ;/ *RRJOHèV ODWHVW VPDUWSKRQH ZLWK D JHQHURXV LQFK 2/(' GLVSOD\ WR ZRUN DQG SOD\ RQ ,W KDV D ELJ EDWWHU\ OLIH WR PDWFK RIIHULQJ D IXOO GD\èV XVH IRU WKH KHDYLHVW RI XVHUV ZLWK QLIW\ SRZHU VDYLQJ PRGHV ERRVWLQJ EDWWHU\ OLIH HYHQ IXUWKHU $V SURYHG LQ RXU WHVW WKH 3L[HO ;/ ZLOO VXUYLYH DQ DFFLGHQWDO GXQN LQ WKH WRLOHW RU EDWK RU EHLQJ H[SRVHG WR EDG ZHDWKHU LI \RX GHFLGH WR EUHDN LW RXW LQ WKH UDLQ DQG XVH LWV VHQVDWLRQDO FDPHUD V\VWHP From around $1,100, store.google.com
I 60 W PR PROOF SPORT PO MP3 PLAYER
AMAZON KINDLE PAPERWHITE
LENOVO THINKPAD T480
1RZ VOLPPHU DQG OLJKWHU ZLWK D VL[ LQFK 3DSHUZKLWH &DUWD ( ,QN SSL GLVSOD\ WKDWèV D ELJ VWHS XS IURP WKH SUHYLRXV PRGHO 7H[W ORRNV FULVSHU DOPRVW OLNH UHDO SULQW RQ SDSHU ZKLFK LV KXJHO\ ZHOFRPH LI \RX HQMR\ UHDGLQJ SDSHUEDFNV 7KH DOO QHZ .LQGOH 3DSHUZKLWH LV DOVR OLJKWZHLJKW DW J DQG GLQN\ VR \RX FDQ WKURZ LW LQWR \RXU EDFNSDFN RU FRDW SRFNHW IRU UHDGLQJ RQ WKH JR 7KH ,3; ZDWHUSURRI UDWLQJ PHDQV LWèV VDIH IRU XVH LQ WKH EDWK SRRO DQG KRW WXE DQG WKH VFUHHQ FDQ EH URWDWHG WR DQ RULHQWDWLRQ WKDW DSSHDOV WR \RX $199, amazon.com.au
,Q WHUPV RI ZDWHUSURRÄ&#x2020;QJ WKH EHVW WKLQJ DERXW WKH DOUHDG\ VZLVK /HQRYR 7KLQN3DG 7 LV WKH VSLOO SURRI NH\SDG ,W VWRRG XS WR RXU ZDWHU VSULQNOH WHVW VR LW VKRXOG EH JRRG ZLWK UDQGRP GULQNV VSLOODJHV QRW WKDW ZH UHFRPPHQG \RX WKURZ WHD RQ LW MXVW IRU WKH VDNH RI LW 7KHUHèV SOHQW\ RI RWKHU IHDWXUHV WR ORYH WRR LQFOXGLQJ WKH 7KLQN6KXWWHU D ZHEFDP FRYHU WKDW \RX RSHQ DQG FORVH WR HQKDQFH \RXU SULYDF\ $Q LQWHJUDWHG JOREDO /7( $ IHDWXUH NHHSV \RX FRQQHFWHG ZKHWKHU \RXèUH QHDU :L )L RU QRW IRU ZRUNLQJ RQ WKH JR From $1,595, lenovo.com
6RXQGWUDFN \RXU VZLP ZLWK WKLV OLJKWZHLJKW 03 3OD\HU ,WèV ZDWHUSURRI WR WKUHH PHWUHV DQG UXQV IRU XS WR KRXUV RQ D IXOO FKDUJH $OWKRXJK ZH IRXQG LW D OLWWOH Ä&#x2020;GGO\ WR ZHDU DW WLPHV LI WXQHV DUH D PRWLYDWLQJ IDFWRU GXULQJ \RXU DTXDWLF ZRUNRXWV WKLV 03 3OD\HU LV DIIRUGDEOH HQRXJK WR EH ZRUWK WDNLQJ D SXQW RQ 7KH *% PRGHO ZH WHVWHG RIIHUV HQRXJK URRP WR VWRUH XS WR VRQJV DQG WKHUHèV D VOLJKWO\ FKHDSHU *% PRGHO WKDW KROGV XS WR VRQJV $95, amazon.com
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AU T U M N 2 0 1 9 T3 47
Slam dunk
SEAL OF APPROVAL Exactly how dunk-proof is your
tech? Here’s how to understand those waterproof ratings If you’ve bought a smartphone or e-reader lately, in its spec you may have spotted an IP rating for waterproofing and debris protection. IP stands for ‘immersion’ or ‘ingress’ protection, and the higher the numbers the better the internals are sealed and protected from the elements. IP is usually followed by two digits: the first refers to the level of protection from foreign bodies like dust and dirt, and the second digit relates to waterproofing. Most modern gadgets carry a rating of 6 for dust protection, which means they are completely dust tight. A water rating of 7 equates to submersion survival down to one metre for 30 minutes, while an 8-rated gadget can handle 1.5 metres for 30 minutes. You may also see IPX ratings doing the rounds (for example, as found on the IPX8-rated Amazon Kindle Paperwhite). This means the gadget can withstand full submersion. For the exact depth and duration, always check the manufacturer’s spec.
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Waterproof gadgets
ABOVE The i360 player is perfect for our watery megamix: Seven Seas of Rhye, Purple Rain, Cry Me a River, Waterfalls…
FAR LEFT The Megablast has more fun underwater than SpongeBob and his crew LEFT The Apple Watch can take another 50 metres of this. Our writer’s hand can’t
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rating means the Megablast is capable of surviving a 30-minute dunking at a depth of one metre. I crank out a pool party mix and sink the Megablast to the bottom of the tank, just as the chorus of Young Blood by Naked & Famous kicks in. Alexa is unable to hear my barked commands at the bottom, but I wasn’t really expecting it to pick me up anyway. I pull it out after 30 minutes to hear the dulcet tones of Rupert Holmes’ Escape (you know, the ‘Pina Colada song’). Result! 20,000 LEAGUES That’s the holiday playlist sorted, but what about poolside reading? It used to be that your summer page turner would arrive on holiday in perfect condition, but return dog-eared, with pages wrinkled by pool water and sun cream. Swap in Amazon’s newest Kindle Paperwhite ereader and not only do you bag yourself up to 32GB of storage for ebooks and audiobooks, but an IPX8 rating means it can withstand 60 minutes of freshwater immersion to a depth of two metres. While lowering the device into the tank, I imagine doing the same to a paperback and laugh aloud, raising looks of concern from the nearby T3 photography team (maybe they think all this ice water has somehow addled my brain?). One hour later and the Paperwhite is out of the water. It fires
up without issue, so I wait for the numbness of my frozen arm to subside by reading a chapter of Moby Dick. SPLASH HIT If you rely on a laptop to work on the go, the biggest threats to your tech are a drink spillage on a busy commute, or being caught in a downpour when working al fresco. To avoid fried circuit boards I’ve enlisted Lenovo’s 14-inch ThinkPad T480 laptop, complete with spill-resistant keyboard. A hearty splash of water across the keys does nothing at all to derail its performance, with the liquid flowing out of the built-in drainage holes just as Jack Ryan takes out some baddies on the lush 14-inch FHD screen. You’d be foolish to take this laptop for a swim, but it’ll keep on trucking should your lunchtime latte take a tumble. In our controlled testing environment these waterproof gadgets lived up to their claims, but there are bigger threats, and deeper waters, out there in the real world – salt water also tends to be more damaging than fresh water, so the sea would be riskier to long-time dunking. Keeping a tight grip on your tech is still the best form of protection, but who knows, as technology advances, in ten years time we might be taking calls from the bottom of the sea.
AU T U M N 2 0 1 9 T3 4 9
MAKE YOUR OWN BOOZE
Sick of shelling out on store-bought beer, wine and gin? Then make your own, to your exact tastes, with our simple guide to brewing and infusing at home Words: Claire Davies
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Make your own wine
HOW TO MAKE WINE
Rustle up your own house merlot or pinot grigio, DQGbGLVFRYHU WKH JDGJHWV WR KHOS \RX VDYRXU LW We’ve been making wine for thousands of years. Well, not us personally, but humankind. And it isn’t as complicated as you might think. A bit messy, perhaps, but not difficult if you plan your wine-making experience properly and gather up all the supplies you need before you start. On that note, there are specific tools you’ll need to arm yourself with before you crush a single grape. The first of these is a two-gallon crock pot or glass jar fitted with a lid that enables air flow to enter and escape the wine mix, but without providing an open home to opportunistic bugs. You’ll also need a one-gallon carboy (essentially a glass container with slender neck), an airlock, some thin plastic tubing for siphoning wine, a thermometer and a hydrometer, plus wine bottles with corks or screw caps (roughly five bottles to every gallon of wine). Oh, and Campden tablets, which are used to sanitise wine ‘must’. Also stock up on a sanitising agent. Although wine can be made from pretty much any fruit, grapes are still the most popular choice. Where possible, choose organic grapes, as you don’t want any added chemicals seeping into your wine. You could head to your local farmer’s market to buy wine grapes. If there isn’t one near your home town, purchase grapes from a specialist online retailer, such as the Shiraz Replublic (shirazrepublic.com.au) and you will usually find a very good range on Gumtree (gumtree.com.au). There are definite pros to buying from a specialist wine grape retailer. Namely, you can drill down into specific grape varieties – think Malbec, Cabernet Sauvignon, Pinot Grigio and Muscat – and better predict the end flavour of the wine you want to make.
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LUXE WINE GADGETS 4
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KEEP IT CLEAN It’s important to sterilise any equipment that may come into contact with your wine before you use it, taking care to thoroughly rinse off the sanitising solution (in line with h the instructions) with warm water after leaving it on for the allotted time, which is usually anywhere from five to 30 minutes. Also wash your grapes, removing any dirt, stems and leaves. Once the grapes are washed clean, place them into the crock pot for crushing. Either use a potato masher to crush them to release the juice, or do it the old-fashioned way by crushing grapes with your hands. Keep adding and crushing new Discover m ore a t techradar.co m/au
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Ullo Wine Purifier
Coravin Model Eleven
Master Vintner Small Batch Kit
Fisher & Paykel RF106RDWX1
7KH 8OOR 3XULĆHU removes sulphites (a known allergen) from bottled wine before you drink. $105, ullowine.com
Help your bottles last longer with Coravin’s Bluetooth wine preservation system. $1,495, coravin. com.au
Make a tasting menu with this gallon wine-making kit, which includes grape concentrate. Around $350, amazon.com
House up to 50 bottles of vino, keeping them at a stable temperature and humidity. $1,928, ĆVKHUSD\NHO FRP AU T U M N 2 0 1 9 T3 5 1
How to make wine
grapes until the crock pot is almost full of juice; top up the juice with filtered (never tap) water if needed. Grapes are naturally covered in wild yeast and bacteria, but if you allow these to remain in your mix, they can produce a foul-tasting wine. The best way to get rid of them is by dropping a Campden tablet into the juice, which releases sulphur dioxide to kill off anything we don’t want. Now is also the time to add in honey or sugar (white or brown, according to the type of wine you’re making), which feeds the yeast and sweetens the wine, in amounts according to the recipe you’re following. Grab your sachet of yeast – there are many yeast varieties available for different wines – and stir it into the mixture. At this stage, we can now call your mixture wine ‘must’. Let your wine ferment by placing the crock pot in a warm area with a temperature of around 21°C overnight. If you think you’ll struggle to maintain this temperature, look into purchasing a brew belt, heat tray or
Let your wine age for at least a month, allowing both the flavour and aroma to deepen further
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Eto Decanter
Decant, then serve your homemade wine with this versatile vessel, which also preserves it. $TBA, etowine.com
immersion heater. Why is temperature so important? Too cool and the yeast won’t grow. Too warm and the yeast will die.
PATIENCE IS A VIRTUE After letting your wine ferment overnight, uncover and stir it, before recovering. Repeat this process every few hours for the first day, then a few times a day for the next three to four days. Once the bubbling (caused by the yeast in action) stops, fermentation is over and you can strain out the solids, before siphoning wine into your carboy. Once the wine is in there, affix the airlock to enable gas to escape without allowing oxygen in. It’s important to let your wine age for at least a full month. Nine months is best for full-bodied reds, with white wines coming out best at around six months. Once you’ve waited as long as you can, add another Campden tablet to your wine to prevent it from being infected with bacteria, then pour it into sterilised bottles. Fill them pretty much to the top, then cork or seal. The only thing left to do is host a dinner party so that you can show off your sweet wine-making skills to your buddies.
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How to make beer
HOW TO MAKE BEER PART I: BASIC EQUIPMENT 1 2 Sanitising liquid, brush
6
Stock pot, mixing spoon, strainer and measuring jug
7 Air lock
Hydrometer
5
4 Wide funnel
Thermometer
8
â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;Uâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; tube and siphon
9
Fermenter
Brown glass bottles
10
Bottle capping tool
PART II: BASIC INGREDIENTS
Water
Malt
Yeast
PART III: BASIC PROCESS 1 2 ILLUSTRATION: STEPHEN KELLY
Sanitise your beer-making kit, work space and glass bottles
5
Steep grains in hot water to produce sugar-rich â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;wortâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;
6
Keep the beer from sunlight for 7-14 days, according to the recipe
Add priming sugar to the beer to kick-start carbonisation
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Hops
3 %RLO WKH ZRUW DQG DGG DQ\ Ä&#x2020;QLQJV plus your choice of hops
7 Pour beer into bottles, cap them, then wait another two weeks
Beer
4 Chill the wort before pouring it into the fermenter, then add yeast
8 -RE GRQH 7LPH WR HQMR\ \RXU Ä&#x2020;UVW batch of homebrewed beer AU T U M N 2 0 1 9 T3 5 3
How to make beer
HOMEBREWING FOR BEGINNERS
*HW VWDUWHG ZLWK RXU TXLFN Ä&#x2020;UH JXLGH WR WKH EDVLFV RI PDNLQJ EHHU DW KRPH Successful homebrewing begins with sanitised gear, and, for newcomers, a beer-making kit. The majority of these come with a full recipe and ingredients, including malt extract. Start by boiling this in water to create â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;wortâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; (basically, unfermented beer), then add hops. These add ďŹ&#x201A;avouring and can be thrown in at various points in the boil. Hops used at the start add bitterness, while hops added later enhance aroma. The end of the boil is also a good time to add Irish Moss ($5, onestopbarshop.com.au), a â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;ďŹ ningâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; used to help proteins and tannins coagulate into small lumps for sieving out, resulting in clearer beer. After boiling the wort, cool it quickly by sitting the pot in ice water. Once it has cooled to around 27°C, transfer it to a fermenting vessel. Use a sieve to remove the hops, then add cool water according to the recipe. Mix in the yeast, then place the lid on the fermenter. Let it all ferment for the time stated in your recipe. After 24 hours or so the airlock on your fermenter should bubble, which means fermentation is taking place.
KNOW WHEN TO BOTTLE IT Use a hydrometer (Home Brewing Hydrometer $15 brewsmith.com.au) to ensure sugar is being converted into alcohol, and to measure the â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;gravityâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; of your beer. This will give you a guide to the beerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s ABV (alcohol by volume). When the bubbling stops, fermentation is over. Add priming sugar (included in most kits) to your mix to ensure carbonation takes
place once the beer is siphoned into bottles. Cap them (Two-Lever Crown Seal Bottle Capper, $35, brewsmith.com.au), then store your bottled beer at room temperature for two weeks.
After that time has passed, move the bottles to a colder room to boost the clearing process, which should take one to ďŹ ve weeks depending on the speciďŹ c beer youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re making. After that, itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s beer oâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;clock!
CRAFT BEER GEAR
Ultimate Brewing Kit
Brewie+
GrowlerWerks uKeg
An excellent starter kit for beginner brewers IURP HVWDEOLVKHG RXWÄ&#x2020;W 6PDOO %DWFK LW LQFOXGHV everything you need. $129, smallbatchbrew.com.au
Making beer takes time and patience. If you KDYH QHLWKHU OHW WKLV DXWRPDWHG PDFKLQH handle most of your homebrewing duties. $2,499, brewie.shop
,I \RX GRQèW ZDQW WKH IDII RI ERWWOLQJ SRXU LWbLQWR WKH EHHU FDSDFLW\ X.HJ ZKHUH LW ZLOObVWD\ FROG DQG IUHVK IRU ZHHNV $365, huckberry.com
5 4 T3 AU T U M N 2 0 1 9
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How to make gin
HOW TO MAKE FLAVOURED GIN
Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s still one of the trendiest drinks in town, so hereâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s how to put your stamp on itâ&#x20AC;Ś
Making craft gin is easy and fun to do. In fact, for such a nuanced spirit, in its basic form gin is pretty, well, basic: a neutral base spirit, usually made from grain, such as vodka, which is ďŹ&#x201A;avoured with botanicals (especially juniper berries). It must be at least 37.5% ABV. Traditional gin-makers extract ďŹ&#x201A;avours from botanicals through distillation, and at home you can steep botanicals in a base spirit like vodka to make â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;bathtub ginâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; (known as compound gin). Gin pros recommend choosing a clean, unfussy vodka for the base spirit. Youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ll also need at least four tablespoons of juniper berries (ginâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s main botanical). After that, choose botanicals to match the ďŹ&#x201A;avour proďŹ le you want to create. Damson, rhubarb and sloe gin are tasty recipes for winter. Cardamom pods and star anise are popular spicy choices, with chamomile and lavender loved for their delicate ďŹ&#x201A;oral proďŹ les. Other common botanicals include angelica, cassia bark, cinnamon, coriander, lemon and orange. For your ďŹ rst batch, it might be easier to buy a speciďŹ c botanical blends kit, rather than heaps of individual ingredients that may not go well together.
POUR, INFUSE, ENJOY First, thoroughly sterilise an airtight, one-litre mason jar with boiling water, adding in botanicals â&#x20AC;&#x201C; juniper berries are your base botanicalâ&#x20AC;&#x201C; but excluding any fresh citrus peel at this stage. Next, pour in 700mL of vodka, seal the jar and gently shake it to mix up the botanicals. Now leave your
mixture to infuse in a cool, dark place for 24 hours. Once that time has passed, add fresh citrus peel (if desired) to the jar, plus extra amounts of any particular botanical you want to be the dominant ďŹ&#x201A;avourâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;taste it ďŹ rst to make sure your chosen dominant
botanical actually needs enhancing. Leave the mix to infuse for a further 12-24 hours. Shake the jar to mix up the botanicals one last time, then take a sip. Once youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re happy with the ďŹ&#x201A;avour, sieve out the botanicals. If your gin has a yellow or orange tint, pass it through a water ďŹ lter jug to boost the clarity.
ARTISAN GIN ESSENTIALS
12 Tins of Botanicals and Spices
Bespoke Blend Gin Kit
Hayworth Copa Gin Balloon Glass
Cinnamon, coriander seeds and rose petals are among the included blends, so have fun H[SHULPHQWLQJ WR Ä&#x2020;QG \RXU LGHDO LQIXVLRQ $40, amazon.com
Turn an unwanted bottle of vodka into gin with this custom kit, which includes a glass ERWWOH MXQLSHU EHUULHV IXQQHO DQG PHVK VLHYH From $60, amazon.com
Serve a refreshing, homemade gin and tonic in *LQVDQLW\èV JHQHURXV EDOORRQ JODVV JDUQLVKLQJ LW ZLWK IUHVK RUDQJH VOLFHV RU D VSULJ RI PLQW $25, amazon.com
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AU T U M N 2 0 1 9 T3 5 5
State of the Art
Big picture Fancy shooting with the most advanced mirrorless camera money can buy? We look at the crème de la cam Words: Ben Andrews Photography: Neil Godwin
1
WHATâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;S ON TESTâ&#x20AC;¦
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Big picture
3
2
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he past few months have been exciting ones for premium digital cameras, with Canon and Nikon both entering the professional mirrorless camera market with superb snappers. Usually first attempts tend to be half-baked disappointments, but Nikon’s debut full-frame mirrorless camera - the Z 7 - has received acclaim by packing nocompromise components such as a 45.7MP full-frame sensor into a svelte, go-anywhere body that can be attached to some stellar lenses, including the vast back catalogue of Nikon’s DSLR optics. Just weeks later, Canon countered with its first mirrorless camera built around a full-frame sensor, the EOS R. Though
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outwardly similar to its Nikon rival, the R recycles many of its internals from Canon’s 5D Mark IV DSLR camera to keep costs down. While headline specs like 30.3MP trail the Z 7, and you don’t get sensor-shift image stabilisation - usually a standard feature in mirrorless cameras - you can have an EOS R in your hand for around 30% less cash than the Nikon. Most recently Fujifilm has joined the party with its GFX-50R. Rather than simply matching the full-frame competition, Fujifilm has gone even bigger and crammed a colossal ‘medium format’-sized sensor into the 50R for maximum bragging rights. This trick has been done before with Fujifilm’s GFX-50S, but the the 50R is more compact. AU T U M N 2 0 1 9 T3 5 7
State of the Art TEST 01:
FUJIFILM GFX-50R
HANDLING These cameras are all about excellent ergonomics and manual control he EOS R may be the least expensive camera in our trio, but it certainly doesnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t feel it. The gun-metal-grey magnesium alloy body is reassuringly solid, and Canonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s deeply sculpted hand grip makes the EOS R feel the most comfortable camera here, especially if youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve got larger paws. Canonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s intuitive DSLR control layout has been carried over, which, combined with the EOS Râ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s clear touchscreen interface, makes quick setting adjustments a breeze. There are also new tricks, like the touch-sensitive M-Fn Bar just right of the electronic viewďŹ nder. This can be set to adjust things like ISO sensitivity or white balance and can be tapped or swiped. In addition to the usual zoom and focus rings, each RF-mount lens has a third customisable control ring around the lens barrel that can be set to adjust aperture, shutter speed, white balance or ISO sensitivity. While the Z 7 boasts a much higher sensor resolution than the EOS R, externally itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s almost exactly the same size. Build quality feels suitably professional and rugged, with the rubberised hand grip coating extending all the way round the side of the camera to the
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Nikonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s 3.69-million-dot electronic viewďŹ nder is as crisp as they come
)RU D PHGLXP IRUPDW FDPHUD WKH )XMLÄ&#x2020;OP *); 5 LV DFWXDOO\ TXLWH compact â&#x20AC;&#x201C; but itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s still a fair bit heftier than the competition here
SPECS rear. This conceals the Z 7â&#x20AC;&#x2122;s sole memory card slot, which is of the XQD format. This is designed as a professional card standard and is faster than SD, but XQD cards are physically larger and require a dedicated card reader. Nikonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s 3.69-million-dot electronic viewďŹ nder is as crisp as they come, and paired with the responsive 2.1MP touchscreen monitor makes image composition and review a joy. The only downside is that the monitor can only be tilted up or down, whereas the EOS Râ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s screen will ďŹ&#x201A;ip completely forward for selďŹ e shooting. Cameras with a medium-format sensor are traditionally big beasts, and while the GFX 50R is one of the most compact mediumformat cameras ever, itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s still signiďŹ cantly bulkier than the EOS R or Z 7. But if you can handle that, the 50R is no harder to use than FujiďŹ lmâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s more modest mirrorless cameras. 5 8 T3 AU T U M N 2 0 1 9
SENSOR SIZE & RESOLUTION Medium format (43.8x32.9mm), 51.4MP VIDEO Full HD (1920x1080) at 30fps RECOMMENDED LENS )XMLÄ&#x2020;OP )8-,121 *) PP I 5 :5 COMBINED SIZE & WEIGHT 161x97x155mm, 1.27kg
TEST 01: WINNER
CANON EOS R Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s a close call, but the EOS R manages to feel every bit as classy as the Nikon or FujiďŹ lm cameras for much less.
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Big picture
NIKON Z 7
CANON EOS R
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SPECS
SPECS
SENSOR SIZE & RESOLUTION Full-frame (35.9x23.9 mm), 45.7MP VIDEO 4K (3840x2160) at 30fps RECOMMENDED LENS Nikon NIKKOR Z 24-70mm F4 S COMBINED SIZE & WEIGHT 134x101x148 mm, 1.18kg
SENSOR SIZE & RESOLUTION Full-frame (36x24mm), 30.3MP VIDEO 4K (3840 x 2160) at 30fps RECOMMENDED LENS Canon RF 24-105mm f/4L IS USM COMBINED SIZE & WEIGHT 136x98x172mm, 1.36kg
SEEING THE BIGGER PICTURE SENSOR SIZE IS A BIG DEAL WITH THE WORLD OF DIGITAL CAMERAS â&#x20AC;&#x201C; HEREâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;S WHY
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A larger digital image sensor means extra light-sensitive photosites (corresponding to SL[HOV LQ \RXU Ä&#x2020;QDO LPDJH FDQ EH FUDPPHG in to capture more detail. A greater sensor area also frees up space for each photosite WR EH ELJJHU DQG PRUH OLJKW VHQVLWLYH LQ turn reducing the amount of unsightly LPDJH QRLVH YLVLEOH LQ ORZ OLJKW SKRWRV $QRWKHU DGYDQWDJH ZLWK D ELJ VHQVRU LV
at any given lens aperture youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ll get a VKDOORZHU GHSWK RI Ä&#x2020;HOG PDNLQJ LW HDVLHU WR WKURZ EDFNJURXQGV RXW RI IRFXV IRU distinctive portrait shots. Full-frame VHQVRUV VR FDOOHG EHFDXVH WKH\ PDWFK WKH VL]H RI D PP Ä&#x2020;OP IUDPH Ã¥ DUH XVXDOO\ DV ELJ DV GLJLWDO LPDJH VHQVRUV JHW 0HGLXP IRUPDW VHQVRUV DUH ODUJHU VWLOO EXW DUH traditionally only found in niche cameras.
AU T U M N 2 0 1 9 T3 5 9
State of the Art TEST 02:
FEATURES
FUJIFILM GFX-50R
There’s so much more to these cameras than just big sensors hese may be serious cameras, but you don’t need a degree in photography to operate them. Both the Canon and Nikon have fully automatic shooting modes, and though the Fuji requires you to individually set lens aperture, shutter speed and ISO sensitivity to automatic, it’s then just as easy to use. The Z 7 separates itself by incorporating IBIS (in-body image stabilisation) which moves the image sensor to counteract camera shake. Image stabilisation is usually optical, meaning an element in the lens moves instead, but that requires a suitable lens, whereas IBIS gives you a stabilised image with any optic. Sadly you don’t get this feature with the EOS R, but the Canon RF-mount 24-105mm lens is at least optically stabilised. The GFX 50R also lacks IBIS, but given the huge sensor and pared-down body size, its absence is more understandable. However, this isn’t the only compromise you have to make for medium format. Where the Canon and Nikon are capable of shooting 4K video, the 50R maxes out at good old Full HD, and even that is only at 30fps. The EOS R isn’t without fault though, as its 4K video
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NIKON Z 7
CANON EOS R
IBIS moves the image sensor to counteract camera shake comes with a 1.7x crop factor, meaning you get a much tighter field of view shooting video than when capturing stills. Only the Z 7 uses the full sensor width to shoot 4K video, with no nasty cropping surprises. If you’d prefer to record a series of stills to capture a fleeting moment, the Z 7 is your best bet of the options here. It can manage an impressive 9fps continuous burst rate, where the Canon fires at 8fps, and the Fuji lags behind at just 3fps. Effective autofocus is critical for making the most of a pixel-packed sensor, and here all three cameras are well featured. The EOS R boasts an incredible 5,655 focus points that cover 88 per cent of the image frame, while the Z 7 can ‘only’ offer 493 AF points, but they expand over 90 per cent of the frame. The 50R’s 425 points spread right into the corners of frame. 6 0 T3 AU T U M N 2 0 1 9
TEST 02: WINNER
NIKON Z 7 When it comes to features, the Z 7 is almost without compromise. Whether you shoot stills or video, you’re treated to top-class specs.
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Big picture FUJIFILM GFX-50R
TEST 03:
PERFORMANCE Time to ditch the spec sheets, as we put each camera through its paces hooting with both the EOS R and Z 7 is a real pleasure, as their advanced autofocus systems are as good as instantaneous in virtually any lighting environment. The GFX 50R uses a slightly slower AF system that requires a brief moment of hesitation before it locks on, but it takes less than a second and focussing accuracy is still top notch. Though the EOS R lags behind the Nikon and Fujifilm cameras in terms of outright resolution, all three cameras manage almost identical dynamic range up to ISO6400, with the Canon only performing marginally worse at higher sensitivities. You can capture a wide range of highlight and shadow detail with any camera here, even in low light. Shoot a scene containing very fine detail and the Nikon and Fujifilm cameras really flex their muscles, resolving miniscule details that are simply not visible in the Canon’s images. However, the Fuji requires more skill, as only two of its seven compatible lenses sport image stabilisation. It just takes a tiny camera shake to introduce enough motion blur to cancel out the sensor resolution advantage over the other two cameras.
S
NIKON Z 7
CANON EOS R
Both the Nikon and Fujifilm devour memory cards scarily quickly
TEST 03: WINNER
NIKON Z 7 All three cameras are capable of generating superb quality images, but it’s the Z 7’s shots that are the most consistently stunning.
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Low light sees the Z 7 edge ahead again. The EOS R’s images show slightly less noise at higher ISO sensitivities, but the Nikon records more detail. The GFX 50R’s low-light shots contain similar detail levels to the Nikon and grain appears less prominent, but this is largely due to the 50R’s tendency to slightly underexpose, effectively hiding noise. Dial in exposure compensation to boost brightness and grain soon becomes visible. With the Nikon and Fujifilm generating huge images of 8256x5504 and 8256x6192 pixels respectively, both devour memory cards scarily quickly. You’ll also need a very powerful computer to edit their raw files, which in the 50R can top 110MB each. The EOS R’s shots are more manageable at around 40MB per raw. The Canon manages 370 shots per battery charge and the Nikon and Fujifilm around 400, so all three have staying power. AU T U M N 2 0 1 9 T3 6 1
State of the Art VERDICT:
1st
THE OVERALL WINNER ISâ&#x20AC;¦
BEST ON TEST
1,.21 = $4,900, nikon.com.au WEâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;RE IMPRESSED Nikonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Ä&#x2020;UVW IXOO IUDPH PLUURUOHVV FDPHUD RIIHUV QHDU Ä&#x2021;DZOHVV performance, but itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s still compact enough for any occasion and easy to use. Uncropped 4K video, great autofocus and excellent new compatible lenses add appeal. WEâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;D IMPROVE The single XQD card slot with no SD
alternative can be a pain, as can dealing with such large image Ä&#x2020;OHV EXW WKH ODWWHU LV WKH SULFH you pay for being at the cutting edge of image quality. THE FINAL WORD Nikonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Ä&#x2021;DJVKLS PLUURUOHVV FDPHUD LV WKH new benchmark for camera image quality.
CANON EOS R
FUJIFILM GFX-50R
$3,000, canon.com.au
IXMLÄ&#x2020;OP FRP DX
2nd
WEâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;RE IMPRESSED Autofocus is class-leading, while build quality and ergonomics are just as impressive. WEâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;D IMPROVE The heavily cropped 4K video mode is the PRVW VLJQLÄ&#x2020;FDQW EXJEHDU THE FINAL WORD Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s easy to pass off the EOS R as a reskin of old DSLR components, but it turns out to be very likeable.
3rd
WEâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;RE IMPRESSED Stunning detail and an extra sense of spatial depth are the medium format advantages. WEâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;D IMPROVE This is a big beast, and no image stabilisation demands a very steady hand. THE FINAL WORD A very special camera, but overkill for most photography and demands more compromises.
OPULENT OPTICS TO MAKE YOUR CAMERA REALLY SHINE 01 CANON RF LENSES The EOS R uses a completely new lens mount, not seen on DQ\bSUHYLRXV &DQRQ FDPHUD &XUUHQWO\ WKHUH DUH IRXU 5) PRXQW OHQVHV DYDLODEOH FRQVLVWLQJ RI D PP I ,6 0DFUR OHQV IRU FORVH XS SKRWRJUDSK\ D PP I IRU JHQHUDO SXUSRVH DQG ORZ OLJKW VKRWV D PP I ]RRP OHQV WKDW FDQ EH SXUFKDVHG DV D NLW ZLWK WKH (26 5 ERG\ DQG Ä&#x2020;QDOO\ WKHUHèV WKH 5) PP I OHQV WKDW VDFULÄ&#x2020;FHV LPDJH VWDELOLVDWLRQ 6 2 T3 AU T U M N 2 0 1 9
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04 ADAPTERS
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TESTED Expert reviews and recommendations to help you buy with confidence
Edited by Matt Bolton
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ASUS ZENBOOK 14
HONOR V20
GOOGLE HOME MAX
SIX OF THE BEST FITNESS TRACKERS
GOOGLE PIXEL SLATE
SONY WH1000 MK.3
HOW WE TEST 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 onto a good thing.
THE SCORES EXPLAINED Forget it Below average Good for the price Very good all round An exceptional, best-in-class product
OUR AWARDS Only the best products – those that score five PLATINUM stars – receive our AWARD Platinum Award
This is given to winners BEST ON of our group tests, so TEST you can see which is the best at a glance
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BEST FOR BATTERY LIFE
This accolade, and others like it, show you which gear is best for specific features
THE DESIGN AWARD
For kit with exceptional industrial design and refinement, in addition to being a great buy
AU T U M N 2 0 1 9 T3 6 3
Tested
Processor 1.8GHz Intel Core i78565U quad-core Graphics Nvidia GeForce GTX 1050 2GB Memory 16GB Storage 256GB SSD Screen 14-inch LCD, 1920x1080 Connections 1x USB-C 3.1, 1x USB-A 3.1, 1x USB-A 2.0, 1x HDMI, 1x audio jack Dimensions
$1,799 asus.com/au
THE ART OF ZEN
Asus ZenBook Pro 14 The era of the two-display laptop is here. So, does having a screen in your trackpad change the game? 6 4 T3 AU T U M N 2 0 1 9
aptops have been around for a long time, and it’s not so much that they’re in danger of being boring, it’s more that it’s kind of hard to keep them interesting. The next wave of innovation seems to be around more screens – Apple has the Touch Bar on MacBook Pros, and Asus is swapping out its trackpad for a touchscreen. It’s not the first time this has been tried, but Asus does good stuff with its hardware, so we figured it has a chance of actually working here…
L
Premium touch Asus knows how to make a goodlooking laptop, and the ZenBook Pro isn’t a disappointment in that regard. This laptop doesn’t just look good though, it feels good too. There’s a
premium vibe to the materials, and just the right balance between heft and portability. Deep Dive Blue is your one and only colour choice but we like it, along with the subtle gold accents around the edges and on the keys, which are a pleasure to type on, feeling both solid and responsive. Near the keys you will find one of the laptop’s main selling points: the touchpad, which doubles as a second screen. Asus is proudly calling this a ScreenPad, and it might well appeal, if you can find a use for it. Alas, we couldn’t. App support is limited (Microsoft Office and Spotify are the two standouts), and even when programs do make use of it, the ScreenPad still feels a bit gimmicky. One of its modes emulates a second display, so it’s like having another monitor plugged in. You can, for example, run a YouTube video full screen on the trackpad, or a Twitter timeline. The problem then is that you can’t use it as a trackpad, so in those
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Asus ZenBook Pro 14
situations you had better have a mouse handy. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s kind of cool, for a bit, but we couldnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t really get much use out of it. You can switch oďŹ&#x20AC; the ScreenPad and use it just like a normal trackpad, so itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s hard to count this as a point in the negative column. In fact, itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s more like a bonus for those who can work out what it might be good for. The main screen features a middling 1920x1080 resolution (a 15-inch version with a 4K screen is also available), but we didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t have any complaints about the sharpness or the richness of the display. Weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re also big fans of the minimal bezels on show here: the laptop has an 86 per cent screen-to-body ratio, and looks really impressive in use. Our unit has a quad-core Intel Core i7 processor, 16GB of RAM, and 256GB of SSD storage. You can up the to 1TB. The Nvidia GeForce GTX 1050 Max-Q chipset and 2GB of graphics memory make it a serviceable gaming laptop, though not top-tier. In short, itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s a powerful machine that ate up day-to-day tasks and performed very well with high-end stuďŹ&#x20AC;, too. We didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t notice any real
lag when image editing or crowding the screen with browser tabs. When gaming, itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ll run just about anything, but donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t expect new high-end games to look mind-blowing. Strategy games run smooth enough. It does run hot on occasion, but thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s alright if it isnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t literally sat in your lap.
Despite its portability, youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re not lacking in useful ports here
The price is right We found ourselves getting a little over seven hours of use between charges of the battery, which is ďŹ ne for long journeys and trips out of the oďŹ&#x192;ce, but if youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re out the whole day you might be hunting for a mains socket by the end of it. We found that a little light word processing and emailing would knock the battery life down by about 10 per cent an hour on the default settings; an hour of NetďŹ&#x201A;ix streaming with the volume at a reasonable level would see around a 20 per cent decrease. As with every laptop, there are ways to extend battery life (dim the screen, etc). Asus quotes 12.5 hours between charges, which seems very optimistic to us, but those ďŹ gures we mentioned earlier were what we saw during our testing.
THE OTHER OPTIONS HUAWEI MATEBOOK ;b352 A 13.9-inch 3000x2080 screen is paired with a superthin frame and up to quad-core power, plus great battery life. You donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t get as strong graphics options, but this is brilliantly ultra-portable. $2,600, huawei.com Discover m ore a t techradar.co m/au
'(// ;36 Again, this is lighter on graphics power than the ZenBook Pro 14, but itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s H[WUHPHO\ SRUWDEOH Ä&#x2020;WWLQJ a super-sharp 4K 13-inch screen and a quad-core processor into a body closer to an 11-inch laptop. ,WèV D UHDO ORRNHU WRR GHOO FRP
Audio, built with Harman Kardon, is better than average but not likely to make you choose this over a diďŹ&#x20AC;erent laptop for the sound quality alone. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s just ďŹ ne for watching movies or shows in a hotel room or something, but itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s not like youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;d ever choose it over your soundbar for audio quality. We like the ZenBook Pro 14 a lot, and would gladly use it as our main computer, but it didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t bring the revolution we were hoping for with its ScreenPad. Yes there are more stylish and powerful laptops around but they tend to be more expensive, so for a machine thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s pricey but not too pricey, this Asus is a great choice.
VERDICT WEâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;RE IMPRESSED Mostly powerful specs; attractive overall design; bright and vibrant screen. WEâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;D IMPROVE Battery life is average; gaming power also middling; ScreenPad can be more of a distraction than a help. THE LAST WORD The ZenBook Pro 14 isnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t perfect, but it gets a lot of things right. Donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t buy it for WKHb6FUHHQ3DG JLPPLFN ,QVWHDG EX\ LWbWR HQMR\ D JRRG EDODQFH RI SRZHU DQGbSRUWDELOLW\
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Tested
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ith its visually arresting and gorgeously bold Aurora nanotexture backplate, the big focus on gaming and consuming media, and an AI-packing camera system that seems geared towards recording and interacting with real-world experiences in an immediate way, the Honor View 20 feels like its pitching hard to the younger audience.
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Most impressive!
HOLE-Y MOLY
Honor View 20 Say goodbye to the notch and hello to the SLQKROH DQG DOVR WR Ä&#x2021;DJVKLS OHYHO VSHHG LQ DbVXSHU VOLFN PLG UDQJH KDQGVHW
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The phone lacks some of the high-end features and reďŹ nements of the most expensive handsets, but it sheds these as superďŹ&#x201A;uous for its intended user, instead focusing on what the younger generations want, and doing so while maintaining a ďŹ&#x201A;agship core spec at a far from ďŹ&#x201A;agship price. As such, whether or not the View 20 is the right phone for you depends on who you are and what you value in a handset. We think anyone could love it, as long as you know from the start what youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re getting. Take the Aurora nanotexture design, for example. Not only is it Discover m ore a t techradar.co m/au
Honor View 20
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PLASTIC NOT FANTASTIC The View 20 feels generally well-made, but thereâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s GHÄ&#x2020;QLWHO\ D SODVWLFN\ IHHO WR WKH Ä&#x2020;QLVK WKDW PRUH H[SHQVLYH SKRQHV GRQèW KDYH
vibrant in terms of base colour, it cleverly generates a series of V-shaped gradients that catch the light at pretty much any angle. The result is ďŹ&#x201A;ashy, for sure, and deďŹ nitely helps the phone to stand out. The T3 oďŹ&#x192;ce was split on whether we liked this design or not. A lot of people might prefer the subtler hyper optical pattern used on the Huawei Mate 20 Pro, but beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and some of us loved having something so punchy. Beyond the backplate, the other thing that immediately strikes you when using the View 20 is how large the screen is. Yes, this is not a small phone. A 6.4-inch LCD screen with a 1080x2310 resolution only tells half the story, because the 91.8 per cent body-to-screen ratio and embedded 4.5mm punchhole camera cut-out mean that while this screen is very large, it doesnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t feel oversized and is still usable with one hand (for people with larger hands). The panel looks really sharp to the naked eye, though is lower-resolution than higher-end phones, but thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s to
be expected. And it doesnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t feel like youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re massively missing out on detail. The screen is good for colour vibrancy and brightness, too, and we love that you can use the Colour mode and temperature options in the settings to tinker with the vividness and warmth of the display. Again, compared to the likes of the iPhone XS OLED display or the Sony Bravia phone screens, itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s not quite as rich, but they cost loads more. What you get here wonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t leave you wanting. That statement is even more true inside the View 20. At the heart is the rapid Kirin 980, the same processor as seen in our favourite Android phone, the Huawei Mate 20 Pro. It means you get ďŹ&#x201A;agship-level real-world performance. Rattling though the Android 9.0-based Magic UI was buttery smooth, in-app performance incredibly responsive, game and media loading rapid. The combination of the Kirin 980 CPU, 8GB of RAM and 256GB of storage space add up to a bulletproof experience. (A 128GB version with 6GB of RAM is also available.)
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The resolution and screen shape mean you can watch Full HD movies without the camera getting in the way
One notable area of performance is how well graphically intensive mobile games ran on the View 20. The phone felt as good to play these games on as last yearâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s dedicated Honor gaming phone, the Honor Play; the same GPU Turbo 2.0 tech adds serious underthe-hood power for keeping frame rates totally smooth.
Clear screen The headline camera feature on the Honor View 20 is its front pinhole camera, which hides a 25MP sensor with hardware-based HDR and Portrait mode. This means that the phoneâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s large 6.4-inch screen remains completely uninterrupted aside from a circle in the top-left corner. The whole notch thing has always been a compromise â&#x20AC;&#x201C; we were never appalled by their introduction, but they were clearly necessary rather than desired â&#x20AC;&#x201C; and this is a small but welcome step forward towards the ideal of having all front-facing sensors and camera hidden in-screen. On the rear, the View 20 comes with a 48MP main camera, supported AU T U M N 2 0 1 9 T3 6 7
Tested
AR WE GOOD? The cameras are all geared up for AR VKHQDQLJDQV VXFK DV Ä&#x2020;OWHUV ' DYDWDUV and games. What more could the Snapchat generation need?
V FOR VERY NICE That bold, v-shaped pattern shifts depending on the light, causing highlights to appear along different parts of the back
with a secondary sensor for depth data, eďŹ&#x20AC;ects and AR gaming. The big sell with this single camera lens is its ability to shoot superdetailed images, which can then be taken to an even more detailed level with Honorâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s AI Ultra Clarity mode. This is designed for landscapes in good lighting conditions, and means the system shoots a series of images before stitching them together to produce photos with phenomenal levels of zoomable detail. Colour capture and detail is good and, unlike some devices, excessive noise at the periphery isnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t a problem.
This is Phantom Blue. The View 20 also comes in black, red and a different (Sapphire) blueâ&#x20AC;Ś
Thereâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s also a Night mode, which takes smaller images but uses the data from four pixels on the sensor to inform each ďŹ nal pixel in the photo, and so can show images from levels of darkness where even the naked eye canâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t manage to see anything. Naturally, the View 20 has an advanced Portrait photography mode, which works through both the front and rear cameras. Aside from leaning a little too much towards artiďŹ cial smoothing for our liking, the mode enables both beautiďŹ cation and shaping, as well as various types of lighting to be applied. The addition
of fake bokeh is not best in class, but still managed to impress us. While those 48MP images are brilliant, and the amount of shooting modes on oďŹ&#x20AC;er are equally so, the camera system on the View 20 doesnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t match the full quality (and ďŹ&#x201A;exibility) of the Google Pixel 3 or the iPhone XS.
Power pack The View 20 comes with a capacious 4,000mAh battery, which, while falling short of the titanic 4,200mAh unit powering the Huawei Mate 20 Pro, is still way up there compared to most phones on the market.
THE ALTERNATIVES
ONEPLUS 6T
XIAOMI MI 8 PRO
SAMSUNG GALAXY S9
The latest OnePlus has a smaller notch thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s almost as cool as the View 20â&#x20AC;&#x2122;s pinhole. The phone is stuffed with great tech, including a LQFK 2/(' VFUHHQ LQ VFUHHQ Ä&#x2020;QJHUSULQW reader and zippy Snapdragon 845 processor. $827, oneplus.com
This is another tech powerhouse, with a 6.4inch OLED screen again, plus an in-screen Ä&#x2020;QJHUSULQW UHDGHU DV ZHOO DV LQIUDUHG IDFH scanning similar to the iPhoneâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s. The rear even looks as though you can see inside the phone. $759, mi.com
A year on from its introduction, the S9 can now be had for half its original price (in the 5.8-inch 64GB version). Okay, itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s not brandnew parts, but itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s still fast and slick, feels polished and premium, and has a top camera. $809, samsung.com
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Honor View 20
LIFE IN STEREO The twin-lens stereo camera sits alongside the main 48MP sensor, but is used only to augment that snapper, unlike the Mate 20 Pro, which offers different lens angles
The main real-world diďŹ&#x20AC;erence this number increase delivers is the ability for the phone to be used for two days on just a single charge. Numerous times during testing, we took the View 20 out with 100 per cent charge one morning, only to then not charge it for the entirety of that day and then through the next, only plugging it back in to charge on the second dayâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s evening. Sure, this only works with light to medium usage, so you can forget playing Football Manager 2019 Mobile for three hours before watching the extended version of The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring and then expecting the same level of multi-day battery performance. But providing you use everything in moderation, one and a half to two days is deďŹ nitely possible. The View 20 comes with Android 9 Pie â&#x20AC;&#x201C; the slickest and fastest Android ever â&#x20AC;&#x201C; as well as Honorâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s own light skinning of it, Magic UI 2.0.1. Fans of vanilla Android will not ďŹ nd it hard to get on with Magic because it comes with minimal extras (just core apps such as AppGallery, HiCare and Honorâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s store) and is intuitive to use. Security unlock options include Fingerprint ID via the View 20â&#x20AC;&#x2122;s
rear-mounted ďŹ ngerprint reader, which we found to be fast and generally ďŹ rst-time reliable, as well as face recognition, which isnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t as secure as the biometric wizardry used on the iPhone XS, but it is easy to set up and reliably fast to use.
Personal choice Ultimately, the raw power oďŹ&#x20AC;ered by the View 20 successfully burns oďŹ&#x20AC; any small issues we had with the phone. The rear design may or may not ďŹ&#x201A;oat your boat, and thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s fair enough â&#x20AC;&#x201C; itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s a personal thing. The absence of an in-display ďŹ ngerprint reader when the View 20â&#x20AC;&#x2122;s direct rival, the OnePlus 6T, does have one is disappointing for tech enthusiasts. Thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s alongside the lack of a few other features such as wireless charging or waterprooďŹ ng. However, for its intended market, which wonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t always care too much about these sorts of esoteric features, this is a bold and brash powerhouse ďŹ&#x201A;agship thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s sure to appeal to young professionals the world over. To work out whether itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s the best choice for you, ask yourself exactly what you want from a handset and how much youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re willing to spend to get what you desire. But thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s the beauty of the mid-range
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7KH Ä&#x2020;QJHUSULQW reader is easy to hit, and thereâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s no risk of smudging the camera lenses
Android ecosystem right now. If you want an in-display ďŹ ngerprint reader and OLED screen on your $800 phone, you can plump for the OnePlus 6T or the Xiaomi Mi 8 Pro. Or if you want your $800 phone to carry a super-fast mobile processor, have a standout design, and deliver detailed 48MP images, opt for the View 20. Or pay more for the Huawei Mate 20 Pro and get all of the above. Either way, youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ll bag a winner.
VERDICT WEâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;RE IMPRESSED Flagship power and speed; super-cool design; strong 48MP camera system; vibrant and large screen. WEâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;D IMPROVE 1R LQ GLVSOD\ Ä&#x2020;QJHUSULQW UHDGHU ZLUHOHVV FKDUJLQJ RU ZDWHUSURRÄ&#x2020;QJ looks might not be for everyone. THE LAST WORD This is our favourite midrange phone on the market by a hair. Brilliant.
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Tested Google Home Max
PLATINUM AWARD
MAX VOLUME
Google Home Max
Google pumps up the volume with its new supersized smart speaker $445 store.google.com he world of Google Assistant speakers has yet to explode in the way that Alexa-powered audio has, when it comes to big and high-end sound powered by Google, but that changes with the Home Max.
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A touch of class Sticking with the fabric cover and soft-touch plastic styling of the Home Mini, the Max comes in one finish with a white body and light grey fabric, and one where both are charcoal. We like the design, and though it’s among the biggest smart speakers so far, it doesn’t feel too imposing. The Max is built to a really high quality, and has some serious heft to it. At this size and price, the sound quality has to stand up to dedicated audio gear, as well as the might of Apple’s HomePod (the bestsounding individual) smart speaker… and it nails it. The Max might be expensive, but it feels as though every dollar is pouring out of the grille when you blast your favourite songs. Like the HomePod, the Max uses internal 70 T3 AU T U M N 2 0 1 9
mics to listen to the sound it’s putting out, and to adjust processing on the fly to make music sound the way it should in your specific space. As a result, it sounds perfectly balanced, mixing detailed highs with rich, smooth bass from its twin woofers. It fills the room well, though doesn’t offer 360-degree sound or a notable sense of stereo separation on its own (but you can pair two into stereo). Playing on it is easy: you can ask Google Assistant, of course (it hears very well over loud music, and four subtle lights on the front show you when it’s listening); use Google Cast from streaming apps, which also means it works as part of a multi-room setup; you can stream to it over Bluetooth; and you can plug an audio source in manually. That flexibility is welcome, especially compared to the HomePod’s severe lack of it. The only minor technical issue is that the Home app can be slow to respond at times, but you don’t have to use it very much. There are other thoughtful touches, too: the Max comes with a pad to rest it on to help avoid vibration interference, and it can be stood upright or landscape, with the lights and controls shifting with the orientation. If you’re looking for an Assistant speaker with a real kick to it, Google has ticked all the boxes here.
VERDICT WE’RE IMPRESSED Gloriously full and detailed sound; Google Cast multi-room; lots of ways to play to it. WE’D IMPROVE Google’s Home app isn’t always responsive. THE LAST WORD This does the ‘speaker’ part of smart speaker better than the rest, thanks to top sound as well as versatile inputs. The only downside is that it’s less useful if you’re tied to Alexa.
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Cordless vacs
CORDLESS VACS
Shark DuoClean Cordless
Vax Blade 2 Max
$749, thegoodguys.com.au
$499, vax.com.au
FEATURES The headline here is the bending tube – press a button and the solid tube gets an elbow, making it easy to clean under furniture. The head also has headlights on to see what you’re doing down there. It comes with a pack of extra attachments, too.
FEATURES Just like the Shark, you’ve got a headlight on the main cleaning head it comes with here. Vax also throws in a tool kit with a load of useful accessories when you buy direct. It comes with a wall mount, but just charges from a simple plug.
HANDLING The Flexology tube works really smoothly, and is genuinely super-useful. However, the body is harder to lift than the Vax, it’s more prone to falling when left, and it emits a piercing whine. The small bin needs emptying a lot, but is easy to get to.
HANDLING The Vax is, we have to say, pretty noisy. It’s not unbearable, and it comes with great suction, but the fact remains. It’s more ergonomically friendly than the Shark, though less so than equivalent Dysons. The bin is simple to pop out and empty.
SUCTION To be fair, part of the reason the bin needs emptying a lot is because this is a really great cleaner. Partly because it can get to weird areas, and partly because the DuoClean roller tech in the head just does a great job of lifting dirt up and out.
SUCTION On both hard and carpeted floors, the Blade 2 Max outperforms any other cordless vac. Its spinning brush bar is effective, and the 40V of suction is very good. You can boost the power easily with a push of a button, which is good for dense carpets.
BATTERY LIFE The Shark’s battery life is pretty middling at just over 20 mins, but it’s swappable, and you can buy it in a pack with two batteries, which makes it stand up to the Vax here for longevity (although you’ll pay more than the listed price up there for that).
BATTERY LIFE The Blade 2 impresses here as well, lasting longer than one Shark battery, or even the more expensive Dysons we’ve tried, at both higher power levels as well as standard. It can go from empty to charged in around three hours.
VERDICT
2nd
WE’RE IMPRESSED Excellent vacuum performance; brilliant under-furniture cleaning. WE’D IMPROVE Whiny noise; small bin, even by cordless standards; odd balance and rather weighty.
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VERDICT WE’RE IMPRESSED Excellent floor cleaning; easyto-empty bin; solid battery life; great price. WE’D IMPROVE Not very quiet in use; not as easy to handle as a Dyson for things other than floors.
1st
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Tested
First-time fitness trackers Looking to start keeping an eye on your fitness? These are great first buys, from simple trackers to sporty watches that give you features to grow into Words: Duncan Bell, Luke Edwards Photography: Neil Godwin
COMPLETE FITNESS MADE EASY
PERFECT PLACE TO START
ROOM TO GROW
FITBIT IONIC
FITBIT CHARGE 3
GARMIN FORERUNNER 645
$298, fitbit.com
$178, fitbit.com
$489, garmin.com
With the ability to store music, detect crunches and other gym workouts, as well as having built-in GPS and pulse tracking, this is the most complete tracker Fitbit has made, yet retains the company’s easy-touse approach for beginners. Tracking of steps, distance covered, calories burned and so on is here, with lots of extra options including coaching, for going up a notch. It’s also something of a smartwatch, but only in a very basic way. Annoyingly, the heart rate monitor is inaccurate at lower rates (it’s fine when higher). The battery lasts four days.
This is the best simple fitness band (rather than watch), no question. It tracks deep and light sleep, steps, distance, calories and heart rate, and auto-detects when you’re doing serious exercise, so you don’t have to remember to tell it you’re going for a jog or getting on an elliptical. Fitbit’s excellently presented app and sprawling ecosystem mean you can use it as the basis of a total fitness and diet programme. No GPS will hold it back for runners over time, but with features such as VO2 Max hidden away, it’s still very capable.
This is quite a serious running watch, but with a feature set that ranges from simple fitness tracking to marathon-level advice, so it’s perfect if you think you’ll get more into running or cycling over time. There’s step and stair tracking, and wrist-based heart rate monitoring. The Forerunner 645 also offers a range of running-specific metrics, and measures fitness so that it can advise you on optimal recovery times. It’s well made, easy to use, lightweight, has a bright screen and looks good. And it has a sevenday battery life even with all that going on.
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First-time fitness trackers
s Autumn hits, we see a lot more people try to get (back) into fitness, whether that’s to lose weight, feel healthier, or even just to prove that they really can do a half marathon if they want.
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If you’re going to get off your sofa and work towards a 5k run, you’ll need a bit of guidance to make sure you’re doing the right things. The fitness wearables below range from basic trackers that can tell you whether you’re walking a decent amount per
day, right up to running watches with the capability of coaching you like a pro. The key thing is that they’re all great options for those of you who are starting out – some just offer more headroom for the future than others. Let’s see which one is ideal for you…
MORE THAN FITNESS
BIG TECH, LOW PRICE
ENTRY-LEVEL, RUNNING FOCUS
APPLE WATCH SERIES 3
GARMIN VIVOSPORT
POLAR M200
From $399, apple.com/au
$299, garmin.com
$159, polar.com
The older Apple Watch is just about all the tracking most people keeping an eye on their health need: it measures calories, steps, exercise time, heart rate, GPS and more, plus workout tracking for loads of activities. The Fitbit range beats it for easy analysis and coaching, and the Garmins beat it for metric tracking, but it wins out for non-fitness features (calls, notifications, texts, emergency alerts), and it’s the bestlooking option. The battery lasts around four days if you don’t use GPS much, and it only works with iPhones.
A lesson in how usability is as important as features: the Vivosport directly rivals the Fitbit Charge, but adds great extras such as GPS, a mode for counting reps at the gym, and a tool for monitoring your stress levels. But while it’s a solid performer, it’s less pleasant to wear than the Charge, the screen is less clear, and the app is more fiddly than Fitbit’s. The same metrics are there, and more beside, but they’re harder to find and use. Syncing is painful at times. For tech specs, this is excellent, but we would always reach for the Fitbit.
If you want a serious running watch at a newbie-friendly price, this is ideal. The basic run workout tracking shows your route, distance, speed and pace, your heart rate through the optical sensor, calories burned and HR zones – simple and effective. If you’re training for an event, the M200 will create a program for you to follow that builds you up over time. It also tells you how many steps you’ve walked, how many hours of sleep you’ve had, and how well you actually slept. It’s not pretty, but it does its job really well.
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Tested
Screen 1.3-inch AMOLED 360x360 Processor Qualcomm Snapdragon 2100 Operating system Wear OS Colours Onyx, Platinum, Rose Gold Dimensions 42.8x42.8x13.1mm (Onyx, Platinum), 42.8x42.8x12.8mm (Rose Gold) Strap size 20mm (Onyx, Platinum), 18mm (Rose Gold)
MOB RULE
Mobvoi TicWatch C2
Can you get a stylish smartwatch for under three hundred without compromising quality? You can now $299 mobvoi.com
but the new watch from Mobvoi makes it more tempting to dive in.
Cheap and chipful hough your friendly neighbourhood T3 team loves smartwatches as much as the next person who owns a smartwatch, they’re still in the ‘nice to have’ category rather than ‘essential’. That means a lot of people are sceptical of dropping several hundred pounds on one,
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The C2 is a full smartwatch, featuring Google’s Wear OS and a Snapdragon Wear chip for its brains, but it starts at just $299. That’s about $100 less than the Samsung Galaxy Watch or Apple Watch Series 3, and a full $200 cheaper than the Series 4. The Huawei Watch GT is around the same price, but it has stripped-back software with no support for installing new
apps. Here, you get the full experience for the price. Of course, corners have to be cut to get things to a lower bracket, but Mobvoi has done a solid job of keeping that non-obvious. It definitely doesn’t look cheap, for example: the case is stainless steel, and comes in black, silver and rose gold finishes, with leather straps. The rose gold actually has a slightly different shape (the case curves towards the sides, while the others are more squared off), which makes it Discover m ore a t techradar.co m/au
Mobvoi TicWatch C2
a tad thinner at 12.8mm, while the black and silver clock in at 13.2mm. The back, which includes an optical heart-rate sensor, is plastic â&#x20AC;&#x201C; the stainless steels continues right to the point where you canâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t see it, and then Mobvoi swaps in the lower-price materials. Smart. The plastic feels ďŹ ne on the skin, but thereâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s no denying the ceramic of the Apple Watch Series 4 is nicer, and feels more premium to you. Thereâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s a 1.3-inch circular AMOLED display that, again, looks perfectly premium, and at 360x360 pixels matches the Samsung Galaxy Watch for sharpness. Down the side, youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve got a couple of buttons that help you to navigate Wear OS. The C2 is waterproofed to IP68 standard, which means itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s designed to survive an accidental dunk or a walk in the rain, but not swimming. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s another cut corner, but we imagine it wonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t bother many, because this isnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t really a hardcore sports device. For a start, it only comes with leather straps, which you wonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t want to be sweating up too often. Other materials are coming from Mobvoi,
but itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s an early indicator that this is more for light ďŹ tness tracking (steps, heart rate on a run, and so on). Thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s partly because itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s just not really set up for it, and partly because of the performance. The heart-rate monitor takes a while to pick up the beat, though seems accurate enough once it does. GPS similarly takes longer to lock on than weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;d like, though weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re fairly impressed itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s included at all at this price.
7KH Ä&#x2020;QLVK RQ WKH C2 is impressive â&#x20AC;&#x201C; it looks like a much more expensive smartwatch
Wear it well We were worried that the ageing Snapdragon 2100 chip that powers the C2 would leave it feeling sluggish, but it has the latest version of Wear OS, and it feels pretty smooth. Not super-zippy, but perfectly ďŹ ne. The software itself is easier to navigate than previous versions, and you can expand what itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s capable of with apps, though it doesnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t have the range that the Apple Watch does. It works well with Android and iPhone (slightly better with Android, but the diďŹ&#x20AC;erence is minimal overall), and Google Pay is supported. When it comes to battery life, youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ll feel that itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s budget again, but
THE OTHER OPTIONS HUAWEI WATCH GT
APPLE WATCH SERIES 3
Cutting back on the smarts LW KDV EDVLF DSSV Ä&#x2020;WQHVV WUDFNLQJ DQG QRWLÄ&#x2020;FDWLRQV only) means you get around 30 days of battery life per charge. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s also got a lovely screen and premium design that make it worth the price. $285, consumer.huawei.com
Last yearâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Apple Watch can be found for around $399 for the aluminium version. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s fast, slick, has great KHDOWK DQG Ä&#x2020;WQHVV IHDWXUHV ZDWHUSURRÄ&#x2020;QJ DQG DURXQG three days of battery. iPhone-only, though. $399, apple.com/au
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once more, itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s not so bad as to be a problem. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ll deďŹ nitely last a day, and can get through two if youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re not doing a lot of ďŹ tness tracking or treating it like your main email client. With costlier smartwatches now hitting more like four days from a charge, the C2 isnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t blowing us away here, but itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s ďŹ ne. Thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s the story really: if you like the idea of a full smartwatch rather than a hybrid, want something that hits the mark for fashion, and still comes in under $300, youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve now got a good choice. It wonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t bother the Galaxy Watch and Apple Watch at the top of our list overall, but for the price, weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve got to hand it to Mobvoi.
VERDICT WEâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;RE IMPRESSED Lots of features for the money; good, fashionable design; solid smartwatch performance. WEâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;D IMPROVE Middling battery life; processor not very IXWXUH SURRI QRW JUHDW IRU Ä&#x2020;WQHVV THE LAST WORD As a way to dip a toe in the smartwatch water, this is a really good choice. The experience is here, thereâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s just a few cut corners, but it doesnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t feel especially cheap to use.
AU T U M N 2 0 1 9 T3 7 5
Tested
Screen 12.3-inch 3000x2000 LCD Processor Intel Core i5 Memory 8GB Storage 128GB Operating system ChromeOS Cameras 8MP front-facing wide-angle, 8MP rear Dimensions 291x202x7mm Weight 731g
From $1,499 google.com
he Pixel Slate makes us feel all existential. What is this? Who is it for? It’s not a tool to revive the messy Android tablet market – it supports Android apps, but it’s a ChromeOS device, running an upgraded but very similar operating system to the Pixelbook which came before it, and toting Intel hardware inside. It’s not, at least as a whole, a hardware showcase – its screen is spectacular, and it carries a premium feel, but a glance at the internal specs raises eyebrows when they’re compared to the asking price at each level.
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SHINY & CHROME
Google Pixel Slate A tablet that wants to be a laptop, and has the hardware to match, but that raises more questions than it answers 76 T3 F E B R U A R Y 2 019
Surface gloss What it is, or at least what it appears to be, is Google’s stab at joining the market niche that Microsoft has been busy carving out with the tablet branch of its Surface line, translated via the company’s own heavily online computing lens. It’s a Chromebook in a tablet form factor, turbocharged and spiced up, something for work and for play, but not necessarily something which is going to replace either a Discover m ore a t techradar.co m/au
Google Pixel Slate
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dedicated tablet or a full-blown PC. And Google really has got a lot of things right â&#x20AC;&#x201C; but thereâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s just a lot lacking, too. Our review model is the $1,799 Intel Core i5 edition, sporting a not-unreasonable 128GB of storage and 8GB RAM; you can go as low as the $1,499 model, which implements a wholly-inadequate Intel Celeron and a paltry 4GB RAM, or splash out on the extravagant Core i7, 16GB RAM edition, though at the time of writing that model isnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t directly available in Australia. The Celeron and i5 models are being imported by Kogan and Dick Smith. So what do you get for your money? Most prominently, and arguably most essentially for a quality tablet, thereâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s the screen. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s been branded the Molecular Display, and when a standard component is given a grandiose name of its own, you know youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re in for something special. You are: the Surface Book-matching 3000x2000 panel, squashing 293 pixels per inch into its 12.3-inch area, does not disappoint even slightly. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s
vibrant without being over saturated, and absolutely razor-sharp when static. The panel also won us over when run through our suite of monitor tests, with a fairly impressive response rate that leads to smooth scrolling (though, spoiler, thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s not always the case) and some highly impressive colour separation and consistency. There screen is impressive even up against the impeccable Retina display of the iPad Pro. But itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s also the reason we called the Celeron processor in the lower editions inadequate â&#x20AC;&#x201C; asking a low-end processor to deal with shifting six million pixels every frame, as well as everything else it has to do, is quite the request. Next to the screen, a pair of immensely capable front-ďŹ ring speakers provide stereo sound when the Slate is used in its usual landscape conďŹ guration. These are loud, and they are supremely staged, with an output range that reaches impressively high and low without the hollow sound that mobile devices usually suďŹ&#x20AC;er from. Another tick in
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Bigger bezels than the iPad Pro make this feel a tad clunkier to use
the win column, and moving further to the very edges of the case, we mark a few more. There is a pair of USB-C ports, one on each end, meaning you can charge the Slate and expand it at the same time. Unlike the iPad Pro, you can extend the Slate with external mice (and keyboards) as well as additional storage, which is a handy feature. The power button, recessed into the top edge of the aluminium shell, doubles as a ďŹ ngerprint reader. Thereâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s an 8MP rear camera, and a same-res front-facing camera with a wide FOV, which is actually pretty great. Notable by its absence is a headphone jack, though Google does supply a USB-C adapter in the box. Battery life, in our testing, was strong, easily lasting a day of heavy use.
Tap it For the main hardware, thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s about the end of the visual list, but if youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re going to get the most out of the Pixel Slate youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ll absolutely want to pick up its keyboard add-on (or one like it) to make the tablet/laptop hybrid package complete. This is AU T U M N 2 0 1 9 T3 7 7
Tested
THIN REASONING The 7mm thickness compares well to the Samsung Tab S4 or Surface Go, but the iPad Proâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s 5.9mm has it beat. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s hardly chunky, though.
CAM ON The wide-angle front camera is surprisingly good, and has a useful wide-angle view. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s not bad at all IRU YLGHR FRQIHUHQFLQJ
frustratingly important since, without it, thereâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s no built-in prop to stand the Slate up on a desk. The Pixel Slate Keyboard is, and letâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s not skirt around it, a huge disappointment. Let us count the ways: its circular keys are cute but feel horrible under the ďŹ ngers; its plastic base ďŹ&#x201A;exes if you so much as look at it, and ďŹ&#x201A;exing it too much causes errant clicks on the trackpad; it is clad in a concoction of rubbery silicon that shouldnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t be anywhere near a premium device; and, worst of all, its magnets arenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t quite up to the task.
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Flopping around While the back cover does bend into a viable folding prop, holding the screen ďŹ rmly enough at whatever precise angle you need it, the whole arrangement ďŹ&#x201A;ops about disconcertingly when itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s closed over the Slate. We wouldnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t trust it in a bag, and an ill-ďŹ tting cover is just bad in the hand, particularly when Apple and Microsoft donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t seem to have had any problems securing their own magnetic protectors. And so to the software. ChromeOS is a darn sight better than it once was. It has grown from a feature-thin way
of running a web browser into a slick operating system in its own right, and itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s a solid base for the Pixel Slate. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s compatible with the entire Android retinue, Googleâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s extensive web app selection and, naturally, you can use everyone elseâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s web apps too. If thereâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s something you need to get done, you can do it. If youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re brave, you can even exploit the Linux base of ChromeOS to extend it even further, but weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;d imagine nobody is buying a Pixel Slate for that feature alone. The interface works as well in tablet and desktop conďŹ gurations, which is to say it doesnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t entirely
ESSENTIAL ADD-ONS
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REBOON PIXEL SLATE COVER
KNOMO BARBICAN SLEEVE
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Google Pixel Slate
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impress in either. As a user interface, itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s ďŹ ne. Even without the physical buttons of the keyboard itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s easy to ďŹ nd your way around, and hooking up external peripherals triggers a seamless transition into a perfectly useable desktop mode. Our Core i5 model wakes in an instant from standby, and it handles multitasking, tons of open tasks and split-screen applications with ease. Thereâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s none of the ďŹ ddly complexity of Windowsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; not-quite-properly-formed Tablet Mode, and none of the almost cartoonish simplicity sometimes displayed by iOS. Once again, this straddles the two pillars of the tablet world, and does so with aplomb. But thereâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s a problem: lag. Even on the Core i5 model we tested, thereâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s a signiďŹ cant amount of jitter when scrolling, and a slightly syrupy laziness when drawing with the Pixelbook Pen or dragging with a ďŹ nger. In a world where Appleâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s iPad Pro exists â&#x20AC;&#x201C; and, for that matter, in a world where many devices way below that on the ladder can manage a slick interface â&#x20AC;&#x201C; this small delay translates into a big let down. Perhaps itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s something that can be ďŹ xed in future iterations of the software; the screenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s touch tech is, in theory, perfectly up
to scratch, and it interacts perfectly with tilt and pressure placed on the Pixelbook Pen, at least beyond that slight lag. Weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re honestly not sure what went wrong. Whatever it was, itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s a shame itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s happened.
Rough and ready It might seem like weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re down on the Pixel Slate. Really, as a piece of hardware, weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re not: it is a mostly brilliant tablet, beautifully built and impressive to look at, but one whose rough edges are directly opposed to its premium price. Even after weeks with it we havenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t been able to conclusively answer those questions we asked at the start. We donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t know who itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s for - it lands, as we suspect was intended, in a middle ground between work and play, but it doesnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t necessarily have the right level of ďŹ t and ďŹ nish to appeal to the business market or the right price point to make it an essential sofa companion. There are better options in the form factor either side: the peerless iPad Pro and Surface Pro 6 on one, the far cheaper 9.7-inch iPad and Surface Go on the other. The Pixel Slate only really makes sense as an evolution of Googleâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s own-brand high-end Chromebook
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Unlike the iPad Pro, thereâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s no sticking out camera lump here â&#x20AC;&#x201C; itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s all smooth on the back
line. In that context, itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s a ďŹ ne successor to the convertible Pixelbook, although that too nestles in a confusing niche given that virtually every other Chrome OS device is both lower power and lower cost. The dream of a joint Android tablet and serious laptop is worthy, but not fully realised here.
VERDICT WEâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;RE IMPRESSED Superb screen; solid build TXDOLW\ H[FHOOHQW H[SDQGDELOLW\ PRUH Ä&#x2021;H[LELOLW\ than a standard Android tablet. WEâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;D IMPROVE Performance issues let our review model down; too expensive; itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s lost in a middle ground than neednâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t even exist. THE LAST WORD The Pixel Slate is solid, but fails to shine over any of its direct competition.
AU T U M N 2 0 1 9 T3 7 9
Tested KEF LSX
PLATINUM AWARD
BETTER THAN LSX
KEF LSX The best-sounding new way to listen to your streamed and digital music files for under a grand, with minimal setup hassles – LSX is a stroke of genius $1,695 kef.com n recent years there’s only really been one game in town if you wanted to pay about a grand for a wireless speaker. Naim’s Mu-so delivers great sound from a single, large, handsome box, with excellent integration of Spotify, Tidal and more digital systems, plus a selection of inputs to add wired audio kit.
I
Stereo star Well, now there’s a second game, and this one is radically different. KEF’s LSX delivers great sound from a stereo pair of small, handsome boxes with integration of Spotify, Tidal and more digital systems, plus a selection of inputs to add wired audio kit. Being a stereo pair, LSX sounds more like ‘proper’ hi-fi, where the Mu-so is more like a tightly focused, exciting audio assault, with a 8 0 T3 AU T U M N 2 0 1 9
narrower soundstage. However, because the speakers are so small, it’s even easier to position than the rather long Mu-so. At present, LSX’s streaming element is not as great as Naim’s. The apps – you use one for setup and one to play music, bizarrely – are less polished. In particular, Tidal support is bare bones, with no recommendations, many of the more sophisticated track-queuing features removed, and even occasional drop-outs and crashes (Spotify is via Spotify Connect, and so much better). There is the option of aptX Bluetooth as well, but spending $1,700 to listen to Bluetooth audio seems a bit mad. However, quibbles over the software melt away when you hear the music. Lovers of dance music may miss a truly deep bottom end, but the amount of bass these speakers muster is hugely impressive for their size (and there’s a subwoofer output option). In terms of clarity, dynamics and sound stage, they’re really superb. That’s why KEF LSX is worth every cent of its asking price.
VERDICT WE’RE IMPRESSED Fantastic audio; a genuine stereo wall of sound; wireless convenience with Tidal, Spotify and Bluetooth integration. WE’D IMPROVE Only a 3.5mm analogue input; the app needs work; lacks real low-end thump. THE LAST WORD If you want a wireless, proper ‘hi-fi’ system, this handsome pair of speakers is the best rival to the champ, the Naim Mu-so.
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Sony WH-1000XM3
SOUND OFF
Sony WH-1000XM3 Live in your own world the right way with the best noise-cancelling cans we’ve ever heard $399 sony.com.au
ne of the best investments you can make for true peace of mind is seriously good noise-cancelling headphones… And Sony’s are more serious than a visit from a police offer who’s taken their hat off. In fact, we think these are the best headphones of their kind on the planet. Available in black or a grey putty colour, they’re not the prettiest headphones, and are certainly no style statement in the way the Bowers & Wilkins PX or the Beats Studio 3 are, but they don’t look bad either. They keep a profile fairly close to the head, so if you don’t like anything ostentatious, these will suit. More importantly, these Sony headphones are supremely comfortable. At 255g, they’re around 25 per cent lighter than the B&W PX (our other favourite set), and that lightness is noticeable. This means there’s less pressure on the super-soft headband and earcup padding, so they feel pleasant for a long time. Your ears will get warm, though, as with most over-ears. Someone who finds a lot of headphones too uncomfortable to wear for long periods might actually be able to live with these. They also fold up, and come with a fabric case for travelling. Even better than all that, not only do they sound excellent, they also kill sound brilliantly. The noise cancellation is easily best in class. Even with no music playing, the moment you
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put these on it’s like entering another world. For example, we walked past a road cleaning crew with a loud pump, spray going, and traffic everywhere around us – we couldn’t even have a conversation – but the headphones totally cut out all that noise. It was sheer wizardry. They also automatically adapt noise cancellation to match your current activity: the headphones let in a little nearby traffic noise when you’re walking in town, or chatter that’s directed at you when you’re in an office. You can tweak each one for preference (or turn it off). We love their audio skills, too. They’re rich, thanks to full bass performance (though not overwhelming), and offer meticulous detail. The B&W PX’s bass is thinner, in particular, though it does have a punchier top-end. The Sony WH-1000XM3 feature touch and gesture controls, which work really well – you can be quite clumsy with them. Being able to place a hand on an earcup to let in some outside sounds is genuinely handy, though you do look like a bit of a lemon doing it.
VERDICT WE’RE IMPRESSED Astounding noise cancellation, with clever and useful adaptive features; fantastic, rich audio performance; easy-touse gesture controls; lightweight and super-comfortable. WE’D IMPROVE Aestheticswise, they’re a bit ‘politician’. THE LAST WORD Top sound meets the best noise-cancelling tech in the world. These are absolutely brilliant.
AU T U M N 2 0 1 9 T3 8 1
Tested
Sumptuous soundbars Add some depth to your thin-screen TVs audio with these speakers, but which deserves its place nestled under your tv? Words: Duncan Bell, Jamie Carter
VIRTUALLY STUNNING
TOP SOUND AND TOP SMARTS
YAMAHA YAS-306
SONOS BEAM
$578, au.yamaha.com
$599, sonos.com
The Air Surround Xtreme virtual surround mode in this 2.1-speaker system comes eerily close to high-end virtual tech that costs three times as much. The unit also looks designer friendly, with silver or black fabric finishes, and has Yahama’s MusicCast multi-room wireless system built in. It’s quite light on bass – despite dual 7.5cm integrated subwoofers, it offers very little below 100Hz, which strips slam from action movies and neuters drum and bass. It also only connects to your TV over optical digital; there’s no HDMI ARC.
Well worth the price even if it was just a soundbar, Sonos Beam adds so many useful additional features on top that it becomes almost a no-brainer to buy. It offers great sound despite being the most compact option here at just 67cm wide, and with Alexa and AirPlay 2 built-in, it’s easy to play music on as well as TV audio, and can be your main smart speaker in the living room. It’s also easy to set up, and you can add wireless Sonos surround speakers later. One day, all wireless home cinema speakers will be this versatile, this good…
8 2 T3 AU T U M N 2 0 1 9
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Sumptuous soundbars
ig audio upgrades are one of the best changes you can make to your living room, especially from the weedy speakers most TVs have built in. Not every room can take a surround-sound setup, though,
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which is why soundbars have been such a big hit – they offer much more rich speaker power without taking over. Here, we’re looking at mid-range bars that offer stereo or virtual surround at the more expensive end, but not Dolby
Atmos. These are all about bang for your buck when it comes to meaty sound, but also offer extra smarts in a few cases that make them better for music or even smart home use, and not just good for adding thump to your action movies.
BEST FOR VALUE
BARGAIN BOOMER
VIRTUAL SOUND WITH ROOM TO GROW
Q ACOUSTICS M3
BOSE SOUNDTOUCH 300
$698, qacoustics.co.uk
$549, bose.com
There are bigger-sounding soundbars, sexier ones and fullerfeatured ones, but the M3 offers absolute simplicity and great sound with both music and movies, over plugged connection or its built-in Bluetooth option. It nails the three things you want a soundbar to do: it provides a volume and clarity boost to TV; gives an exciting and powerful leg-up to movies, with effects and music widescreened, without losing dialogue; and it also delivers exceptional clout with musical sources. Subtle it isn’t, but we like that.
The SoundTouch 300 is a good-looking machine that’s easy to set up via HDMI ARC, and is fully featured, with Wi-Fi and Bluetooth audio streaming. Most importantly, the sonic performance is seldom less than impressive. We’d still take the other bars here, but you have the option to add a Bose subwoofer and a pair of tiny satellite speakers for a very easy, true 5.1 surround system that really sparkles. Basically, it’s really good on its own, but even better as a starter for a bigger future down the line.
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AU T U M N 2 0 1 9 T3 8 3
Tested
Screen 12.9-inch 2732x2048 LCD Processor Apple A12X Bionic Storage 64GB, 256GB, 512GB, 1TB Operating system iOS 12 Camera 12MP rear with 4K video, 7MP front with 1080p video Dimensions 280.6x214.9x5.9mm Weight 631g
From $1,529 apple.com/au
he question of whether tablets are real computers or not is long dead. Even before companies started putting ‘pro’ on the end of product names, people were using tablets for business, creativity, gaming, personal admin… You know, things you would normally use computers for. The follow-up question is whether you might buy the new Apple iPad Pro instead of your next laptop, and that’s where it gets complicated. The new iPad Pro is the best tablet ever made, and is a marvel of engineering… but still might not be right for you.
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PENCIL IT IN
Apple iPad Pro 12.9-inch There are big changes with the latest tablet from Apple, but are they all for the good? 8 4 T3 AU T U M N 2 0 1 9
Cutting corners This year’s iPads feature the biggest change in Apple’s tablet design since their creation, dropping the Home button and pinching the curved corners from the iPhone X. This is a much bigger deal than it seems at first, because it’s made the footprint of the 12.9-inch model dramatically smaller, cutting the chunky area at the top and bottom (when held portrait). The old version felt massive Discover m ore a t techradar.co m/au
Apple iPad Pro
PLUG AND PLAY The USB-C port allows the iPad to charge other devices now plug in an iPhone for a top up! It makes us wish it had two USB-C ports though, for charging both it and the phone
HOLD TIGHT The Apple Pencil is easy to remove when you need it, but hard to knock off. It’s a great magnetic system
and kinda ridiculous in the hand. This just feels like a good, usable size. It’s still on the big side, sure, but there’s also an 11-inch model (starting at $1,229), which is essentially identical other than screen size and resolution. The 6mm thickness and 631g weight also help make it easy to handle. Compared to a 13-inch laptop, it’s so breezy to carry, or pull out and use – it doesn’t feel like a hassle to just grab it and swipe to unlock. One part about the design that surprised us was the flat sides, which are more reminiscent of the iPhone 5 than the front’s mimicking of the X. It’s not a bad thing, and it’s almost certainly been done to accommodate the far superior way the Apple Pencil now works, but it’s a weird mix of Apple design past and present. The second-generation Pencil now magnetically attaches to one side of the iPad, and wirelessly charges while it’s there. It’s impossible to overstate how much of an improvement this is, for so many reasons. For a start, the magnets are strong enough that this is the best way to store the Pencil in
general, so it’s always to hand with your iPad. It also means it’s always charged and ready to go, whereas with the last Pencil you might’ve had to plug it into the iPad to get some juice, which left it sticking out the end, prime for accidental snapping.
The write stuff As a result of all this, we’re using the Pencil so much more than we did on the last Pro, grabbing it to annotate maps, for example, or to sketch out notes we wouldn’t have bothered to before. You can also tap the Pencil to the screen of a locked iPad to jump straight into a new note. The actual Pencil works pretty much the same, with pressure and tilt sensing. There’s now a flat edge to avoid any stray rolling, and you can double-tap this flat edge to trigger certain tools. A new matt finish makes it much easier to grip and use for long periods. Of course, the Pencil is still an optional extra at $199, so isn’t exactly a cheap add-on, though it’s similar in price to the Microsoft Surface Pen.
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The iPad Pro comes in silver or Space Grey. We’d love an all-black one
Alas, the older Pencil doesn’t work on newer iPads, and vice versa. One of the strengths of using the Pencil compared to the (still great) styluses on the Microsoft Surface Go or Samsung Galaxy Tab S4 is the iPad’s ProMotion screen. It can shift how often it refreshes, up to 120fps, so you see instant response to your movement, which aids precision. This isn’t new to this iPad. In fact, the screen is largely identical to the last model. Its 2732x2048 resolution looks pin-sharp, the brightness and wide colour display make everything vivid and gorgeous, and the True Tone colour adjustment, which matches the lighting temperature of the room you’re in, is kind on the eyes. It’s a bit of a shame it doesn’t have the contrast depth of the Samsung Tab S4’s OLED display, but it has its own advantages.
About face To unlock the screen, Apple has replaced the Home button with Face ID. There’s just the one face-scanning camera, so it’s easy to accidentally cover it, but the iPad points an arrow AU T U M N 2 0 1 9 T3 8 5
Tested
NIGHT AND DAY Just like the iPhone, the iPadâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Face ID scanner uses infrared dots to 3D-scan your face, which means it works in the dark as well as when fully lit
STAYING SMART This is the iPadâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Smart Connector, which now sits on the back accessories that use it will need to attach magnetically
at where your hand is in the way, subtly conveying your idiocy. It works pretty much as well as on the iPhone, but using it in your lap and positions like that, you deďŹ nitely get more failed attempts. Using it propped up with a keyboard, itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s perfect â&#x20AC;&#x201C; and mostly reminds us that we want Apple to start putting it in its laptops, like how most PCs have Windows Hello now. Hidden behind the screen are four speakers, with a woofer and tweeter in every corner, giving impressively full sound thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s properly stereo, whichever way round you hold it.
Like previous iPads, this one comes in :L )L RQO\ RU * versions â&#x20AC;&#x201C; you can see the antenna EDQGV DERYH
Speaking of sound, Apple has dropped the 3.5mm jack here, along with swapping Lightning for USB-C as the only port. Dropping the headphone jack is a really weird decision â&#x20AC;&#x201C; it kept it on the MacBook Pros, saying that it recognised that audio professionals need a lowlatency wired connection, yet this is a pro machine too. The USB-C headphone market isnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t exactly bustling, but you can get a USB-C to 3.5mm adapter for $15. Having a USB-C port is great in general, though. It means SD card readers or docks can work directly
with the iPad Pro, and it can even output to 4K and 5K displays â&#x20AC;&#x201C; apps such as video or photo editors can show the results on the big screen, and the editing interface on the iPad. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s still limited, though â&#x20AC;&#x201C; you canâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t just plug in a storage drive to get at ďŹ les, like you can on a Surface Pro.
Pushing the limits When it actually comes to pro use, the phrase â&#x20AC;&#x153;itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s still limitedâ&#x20AC;? is kind of a recurring theme with the iPad. The Apple A12X processor is deďŹ nitely pro-levels of powerful, that much is certain. It outperforms all but Intelâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s
EXCELLENT ADD-ONS
APPLE SMART FOLIO
BRYDGE KEYBOARD
ONEPLUS TYPE-C BULLETS
Attaches magnetically, with the front folding DURXQG WR SURS XS WKH L3DG $ PLFURÄ&#x2020;EUH OLQLQJ gets rid of screen smudges when you close it. $YDLODEOH LQ &KDUFRDO *UH\ RU ZKLWH ZLWK D pink colourway for the 11-inch version ($119). $149, apple.com/au
$SSOHèV NH\ERDUG IRU WKH L3DG 3UR LVð RND\ 7KH W\SLQJ LV JUHDW EXW LWèV VR XJO\ DQG WKH SULFH LV PDGQHVV 7KLV NH\ERDUG ORRNV more the part, and lets you choose any angle IRU WKH L3DG $YDLODEOH LQ HDUO\ $229.99, brydge.com
If you want wireless headphones, check out SDJHV ,I \RX ZDQW VRPH FKHDS 86% & wired headphones for your iPad Pro that VRXQG VXUSULVLQJO\ JRRG JUDE WKHVH IURP 2QH3OXV 7KH\èUH FRPIRUWDEOH DQG KDYH D PLF $38, oneplus.com
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THROUGH A LENS The 12MP camera is perfectly good, though not cutting edge. That said, it still has Apple’s new Smart HDR feature for better handling light and dark scenes, which is a big boost
latest six-core laptop processors in benchmarks (the kind you find in $3k+ machines), and has handled absolutely anything we’ve thrown at it without skipping a beat. But there’s more to speed than just power. Last year, we said the iPad Pro was the best tablet. This year, we’re still saying that, but we might recommend the Surface Go or Surface Pro instead for some people, when it comes to pro use. The iPad Pro is the better device overall, but even the cheaper Surface Go can do all the things Windows does. The interface may not be very touch friendly, the performance may be less slick, but it’s supports any obscure thing you need. iOS hasn’t developed at the speed we expected. Take working with files: the fact that you can’t access external storage to transfer, back up, or find existing files is going to hold some people back. Even if you could access these files, though, you’re limited in how you can work with them. For example, there’s no way to open two instances of the same app, so you can’t have two Word or Photoshop documents open side-by-side. Supposedly, iOS 13 will have a huge amount of new features like this, but that will make it two years between
updates that actually add usability to the iPad. That pace is too slow. Most of what we’re talking about are things that only a tiny percentage of people want to do, which is why we’ve still given it five stars, but if it has just ten missing features that affect one per cent of users each, that’s ten per cent of people who it’s not right for. It adds up.
Smooth operator Assuming you don’t hit a wall with working on iOS, the iPad Pro is just fantastic. Running apps in splitscreen on a screen this size keeps everything really usable, and there are so many powerful, pro-level apps that are designed for touch-based use – it’s a huge advantage over its Android or Windows competition. Intensive stuff like photo editing with tons of layers is smooth and fast. Keyboard shortcut support is growing in apps too, which is useful since this will be used in a laptop-style mode a lot, though we wish Apple’s official keyboard had a trackpad, if only for moving the text cursor. And it still has huge battery life, though laptops are starting to match tablets these days. We’ve found that our unit has been losing more power
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The edges of the ćDW VLGHV DUH rounded, so it’s still totally comfortable to hold
on standby than previous iPads Pros, but it’s also faster to charge now, if you have a high-power USB-C brick. It comes down to this: the iPad Pro is the best tablet on the market – it’s slick, the design is class-leading, and it’s insanely powerful, which means it’s only going to get more capable with updates as time goes on. But it’s not a laptop replacement for everyone just yet, even though it costs the same as one.
VERDICT WE’RE IMPRESSED Unbelievably powerful and slick; excellent screen; thin and compact design; great battery life; new Pencil is great. WE’D IMPROVE L26 LVQèW DV ćH[LEOH DV D GHVNWRSb26 QR PP MDFN THE LAST WORD This is a phenomenal tablet that feels fantastic to use. But it’s the same price as laptops that may suit you better.
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The home of technology techradar.com
BEST OF THE BEST The worldâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s best tech, all in one place
If youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re looking for the very best tech available today, you have GHÄ&#x2020;QLWHO\ FRPH WR WKH ULJKW SODFH %HVW RI WKH %HVW LV WKH PRVW useful gadget-buying guide you ZLOO HYHU HQFRXQWHU 7R FUHDWH LW ZHèYH UXWKOHVVO\ Ä&#x2020;OWHUHG GRZQ WR WKH ELJJHVW JURXSV WR EULQJ \RX URFN VROLG UHFRPPHQGDWLRQV IRU \RXU KRPH OLIH GDLO\ FRPPXWH DQG WKH WHFK \RX XVH DOO WKH WLPH :LWKLQ HDFK RI WKRVH JURXSV weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve got a dozen categories for NH\ WHFK EX\V :HèYH SLFNHG RQH SURGXFW IRU HYHU\ FDWHJRU\ WKDW we think is the best you can get on balance, taking into account SULFH TXDOLW\ DQG IHDWXUHV VR LWèV easy to know what you need in \RXU OLIH You should also check out T3.com ZKHUH \RXèOO Ä&#x2020;QG HYHQ PRUH FDWHJRULHV LI \RXèUH ORRNLQJ IRU VRPHWKLQJ WKDW LVQèW KHUH )URP ELJ EXGJHW EX\V WR WKH little (but essential) accessories, ZHèYH JRW \RX FRYHUHG
INSIDE
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Best of the best
TVS UNDER $2,000
TVS SONY AF8
SAMSUNG Q6F
From $3,499, sony.com.au Marrying a perfect OLED 4K screen with Sonyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s picture processing prowess makes for a jawdropping HDR TV at 55 or 65 inches. Motion handling and upscaling of content are both brilliant.
PANASONIC FZ950
SONY XF90 From $1,698, sony.com
LG C8
HISENSE M7000
From $3,299, lg.com LGâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s OLED technology produces beautiful 4K HDR images, and makes HD videos look ace too. LGâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s webOS smart platform is one of the better systems around, and itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s ideal for gaming.
SAMSUNG Q9F From $6,995, samsung.com Samsungâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s QLED LCD tech is not only able to stand up to the quality of OLED, but even surpasses it in areas such as brightness. It means you get the full effect of HDR even in brighter rooms.
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ACER V7850
From $1,450, samsung.com A great bargain. The QLED LCD screen offers glorious colours and HDR performance, including great upscaling of SDR content. Even the sound system is pretty solid.
From $2,100, panasonic.com Panasonic worked with Hollywood to make this OLED 4K TVâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s display match how movies are mastered, so the colours and depth here are unparalleled for cinematic viewing.
PROJECTORS $3,100, acer.com Acer really hit the sweet spot here: VPDOO HQRXJK WR Ä&#x2020;W on a coffee table, whisper-quiet in operation, and yet still produces a bright, crisp HDR 4K picture of 70 to 110 inches (at 3.5m).
OPTOMA UHD40 $1,900, optoma.com This delivers sharp, colourful images, thanks to its Triluminos LCD display, which kills it with HDR 4K movies. Motion handling and upscaling are fantastic, too.
4K resolution and HDR in a projector for this price is hard to beat. It doesnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t quite have the pop and HDR richness of more expensive sets, but itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s way beyond HD projectors at the same price.
OPTOMA UHZ65
$11,100, optoma.com From $1,100, hisense.com Looking for a next-gen TV but donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t want to pay more than $1,500? Then step this way - the M7000 boasts a beautiful 4K HDR picture and comes with the essential 4K streaming DSS 1HWÄ&#x2021;L[
PANASONIC FX750 From $1,600, panasonic.com The â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;Art & Interior Glassâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; design of this TV is a looker, as is its 4K screen. It upscales HD to UHD excellently, and HDR looks glorious. Motion handling is especially good for sports action.
This is very aimed at the proper AV enthusiast, but laser projection at this price makes it worth it for anyone. 4K HDR video is supremely rich, and it can hit 120 inches from just 4m.
EPSON EH-TW6700W $2,330, epson.com.au If youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re happy with Full HD resolution, this is the best option, partly thanks to a super-easy setup process. The image quality is good, you just donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t get the IXWXUH SURRÄ&#x2020;QJ RI HDR and 4K.
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Best of the best
SOUNDBARS SONOS BEAM
STREAMERS ROKU STREAMING STICK+
$599, sonos.com
$99, roku.com If it were just a soundbar, the Beamâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s great audio would still make it top â&#x20AC;&#x201C; but with Amazon Alexa, Apple AirPlay 2 and support for a billion streaming services, itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s IDQWDVWLFDOO\ Ä&#x2021;H[LEOH
Q ACOUSTICS M3 $349, qacoustics.co.uk Want superb sound without a big price and unnecessary extras? Q Acousticsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; M3 combines great simplicity and great sound. Impressive, affordable, and it wasnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t hit with the ugly stick.
SONOS PLAYBASE $845, sonos.com
$649, xbox.com
CHROMECAST ULTRA $59, store.google.com The Chromecast Ultra is a receiver for phones and laptops and depends on them for control and content â&#x20AC;&#x201C; but itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s simple, versatile and compatible with iOS, Android, Windows and Mac.
AMAZON FIRE TV STICK 4K $159, amazon.com 4K HDR for under $200 isnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t to be sniffed at. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s best suited to Prime subscribers and Google apps are absent, but itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s a very capable and affordable streamer IRU 79 DQG PRYLHV
SONY HT-ST5000
APPLE TV 4K
$1,831, sony.com
$249, apple.com/au iTunes has the biggest source of 4K HDR and Dolby Atmos movies, and lots of other services have apps here too. You can also easily stream to it from Macs and L26bGHYLFHV
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MICROSOFT XBOX ONE X
With 4K, Dolby Atmos, Ultra HD Blu-ray and D IDLUO\ FRPSDFW SURÄ&#x2020;OH this is the best Xbox ever. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s even more powerful than the PS4 Pro and also a great home entertainment hub.
The Swiss Army Knife of streaming delivers 4K HDR, isnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t locked to a particular ecosystem, has tons of available apps and is a joy to use. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s the best streamer for many people.
Thereâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s no HDMI and the setupâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s a pain, but this Sonos soundbase is sublime. The sound does detail as well as drama, it looks great and it works brilliantly in a Sonos multi-room environment.
Sonyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s powerful, precise and punchy soundbar is the best way to add Dolby Atmos to your system, and while it doesnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t deliver true overthe-head audio it does a good simulation of it.
GAMES CONSOLES
SONY PLAYSTATION 4 PRO $559, playstation.com Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s still overkill if you GRQèW KDYH D . 79 but with 2160p HDR gaming, the PS4 Pro delivers incredible visuals and is smoother and faster than its nonPro siblings.
NINTENDO SWITCH $399, nintendo.com.au We love the Switch, which brings Nintendoâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s great gaming pedigree to genuinely stylish, premium-grade hardware. Forget the specs: itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s all about the sheer joy of gaming.
MICROSOFT XBOX ONE S $349, xbox.com The S is smaller, whiter and much cheaper than its big brother, and while you donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t get its siblingâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s super-powered specs you still get Ultra HD %OX UD\ $ Ä&#x2020;QH KRPH entertainment hub.
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Best of the best
FITNESS TRACKER FITBIT CHARGE 3 Ä&#x2020;WELW FRP
RUNNING WATCH GARMIN FORERUNNER 645 MUSIC JDUPLQ FRP
Thereâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s no GPS and the capacitive â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;buttonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; is a bit pants but this is otherwise a textbook tracker. Sleep, steps, swims, and serious cardio workouts are all handled with aplomb.
GARMIN VIVOSPORT JDUPLQ FRP
This does everything: GPS for running and cycling, heart rate tracking, VO2 Max, intensity monitoring and even acting as an MP3 player. Expect four days of use between charges.
GARMIN FORERUNNER 630
7KH RIÄ&#x2020;FLDO SULFH LV similar but thanks to discounting this is often much cheaper than the 645. Thereâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s no heartrate or music but you do get GPS, reliable tracking and ace running metrics.
Garminâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s rival to the Charge 2 boasts GPS for a similar price, but it also has a dodgy interface and some pointless extra features. The core functionality is good, and itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s waterproof.
WRPWRP FRP
GARMIN FORERUNNER 235 JDUPLQ FRP
OPTOMA NUFORCE BE SPORT 4 RSWRPD FRP DX Running headphones RIWHQ VDFULÄ&#x2020;FH VRXQG quality. Not here. These VRXQG VWXQQLQJ Ä&#x2020;W OLNH a glove and are great value. The effective sound isolation may be D ELW PXFK IRU VRPH
SOUNDCORE SPIRIT SPORTS BY ANKER DQNHU FRP
MOOV NOW
GARMIN FORERUNNER 935
PRRY FF
JDUPLQ FRP
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These are the bestÄ&#x2020;WWLQJ WUXH ZLUHOHVV EXGV weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve tested. Theyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re particularly good for vigorous workouts and donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t suffer too badly from wind noise when youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re out for a run.
The Forerunner 235 is the best value running DQG JHQHUDO Ä&#x2020;WQHVV ZDWFK around, offering more than enough data for most runners without the expense of slightly more powerful models.
The best tracker for strenuous exercise gives you VO2 Max readings and your Fitness Age, and it does the basics very well. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s hideous, but itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s what itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s like on the inside that matters.
Cheap, waterproof to 30m and good for six months between charges, the Moov is a budget belter that offers coaching as you exercise. Some are better than others, but itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s good.
JABRA ELITE ACTIVE 65T MDEUD FRP DX
JDUPLQ FRP
TOMTOM SPARK 3
RUNNING HEADPHONES
Our favourite budget UXQQLQJ KHDGSKRQHV Ä&#x2020;W brilliantly and are very waterproof and sweatproof. Sound quality is acceptable rather than astonishing, but weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ll forgive that.
RHA TRUECONNECT DPD]RQ FRP
Add Garminâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s extra sensors to this and you get incredible detail for how you run, swim, bike and more, as well as your VO2 Max, lactate thresholdâ&#x20AC;¦ itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s for the very, very serious.
:LWK VZHDW SURRÄ&#x2020;QJ DQG comfortable (and secure) Ä&#x2020;WWLQJ WKDQNV WR WKH huge range of ear tips, these bring high-quality sound to your wireless ZRUNRXW 7KH\ ODVW Ä&#x2020;YH hours per charge, too.
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Best of the best
BLUETOOTH SPEAKERS AUDIO PRO ADDON C3 $449, audiopro.com $ Ä&#x2020;QH EOHQG RI FODVVLF Bluetooth portability, high quality audio and Scandie style. Thanks to Wi-Fi, you can stream higher quality sounds indoors, then revert to Bluetooth in the garden.
ULTIMATE EARS MEGABOOM 3 $248, ultimateears.com The best waterproof VSHDNHU Ã¥ LW HYHQ Ä&#x2021;RDWV â&#x20AC;&#x201C; offers 20 hours of battery life and a hefty sound, perfect for outdoor parties. It works great for kitchen audio duties, too.
CAMBRIDGE AUDIO YOYO M $435, cambridgeaudio.com The best Bluetooth solution for audiophilesâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; DXGLR Ä&#x2020;OHV WKLV LV DV \RX can see, a stereo pair. As such itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s more like a FODVVLF KL Ä&#x2020; V\VWHP EXW with the convenience RI ZLUHOHVVQHVV
BLUETOOTH HEADPHONES AKG Y50BT
JABRA ELITE 65T
$230, au.akg.com
$220, jabra.com.au If you want an onear alternative to the Marshalls, these â&#x20AC;&#x2122;phones from AKG remain a great option. The sound is punchy and the styling is pretty cool without WU\LQJ WRR KDUG
OPTOMA NUFORCE BE LIVE5 $125, optoma.com These slick earphones offer incredible sound for the price, taking everything from pop to classical in their stride. Theyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re made to stay comfortable for their eight-hour battery life.
RHA TRUECONNECT $169, rha-audio.com Even more comfy, though perhaps slightly less secure, than the Jabras, these also offer best-in-class audio. Aside from a slightly odd carry case, these are textbook true wireless buds.
APPLE AIRPODS
$139, optoma.com
$319, apple.com/au Appleâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s wireless â&#x20AC;&#x2122;phones may not sound as good as some of the newer rivals, but they still beat them all for battery life, ease of use and often comfort. They work best with iOS, of course.
The Sport4 are designed for running and gymming â&#x20AC;&#x201C; and very good they are too. By some wicked sorcery, Optoma has managed to make them VRXQG JUHDW Ä&#x2020;W SHUIHFWO\ and come in under $150.
MARSHALL MONITOR BLUETOOTH
$250, bose.com.au
$249, marshallheadphones.com Most Marshall cans sound good, but these ones offer noticeably better comfort. The sound is, as youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;d imagine, well suited to all things rockinâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;, but it can handle subtler sounds.
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Jabra has solved most of the problems that bedevilled earlier true wireless buds. Sound is great, connectivity LV URFN VROLG WKH Ä&#x2020;W LV secure but comfortable, and theyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re discreet.
OPTOMA NUFORCE BE SPORT4
BOSE SOUNDLINK REVOLVE
This excellent value, high quality speaker boasts impressively realised, truly 360-degree sound. Easily portable, although not ruggedised or waterproof, itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s works brilliantly everywhere.
TRUE WIRELESS HEADPHONES
BOSE SOUNDSPORT FREE $269, bose.com.au These protrude quite a way out of the ears (and pick up a lot of wind noise as a result), but they nail it when it comes to comfort, sound quality and reliable wireless connectivity.
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Best of the best
SMART SPEAKERS ECHO PLUS
SMART BULBS PHILIPS HUE
$149, amazon.com.au Thanks to its integrated Zigbeecompliant smart home hub, the Plus is a great smart home starter. Never pay the RRP, though: Amazon discounts Echos every time LW KDV D VDOH
SONOS ONE
TADO SMART THERMOSTAT
From $79, meethue.com Hue dominates the smart lighting sector for good reason: itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s a superb system with the widest range of bulbs and a simple, useful app. Rivals may be cheaper but they canâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t compete with Hueâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s variety.
LIFX
$299, sonos.com
ECHO SPOT
HIVE HEATING CONTROL $459, hivehome.com
From $19, ikea.com
$499, apple.com/au
Imagine: British Gas in â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;excitingâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; shocker. Hive is great: itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s affordable, works well, and is part of a larger smart home system that includes bulbs and security options. This is an ideal way to jump in.
Ikeaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Zigbeecompatible system doesnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t have the range of Hue, but if you prize control over colour options itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s stellar value for money and has some great controllers DQGbGLPPHUV
TP-LINK SMART LIGHT BULB $39, tp-link.com/au
Expensive? Possibly. Apple-centric? Indubitably. But if you donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t mind the focus on Apple Music, the HomePod sounds spectacular. You can also pair it to create a stunning stereo system.
Nest made smart thermostats sexy and this third-gen model looks great. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s simple to use with good Google Home and Amazon Echo integration, but a tad pricey, especially with installation.
If you fancy a Hue system but donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t want to spend so much, LIFX has a strong product range and integrates with your favourite personal digital assistant. Philips still wins, but only just.
If you want a smart speaker with a screen, the Spot is the one to go for. The speaker bit isnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t spectacular but thereâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s an audio out and Bluetooth. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s an excellent smart home device.
APPLE HOMEPOD
Tado is very sociable: it works with 95% of the systems out WKHUH ,WèV Ä&#x2021;H[LEOH clever and supports a wide range of accessories too. Price cuts have made it even PRUH HQWLFLQJ
$376, nest.com
IKEA TRĂ&#x2026;DFRI
$199, amazon.com.au
$219, tado.com
NEST LEARNING THERMOSTAT
From $34, lifx.com The Sonos One is a superb standalone speaker with integrated Alexa, EXW WKH UHDO VHOOLQJ SRLQW LV LWV Ä&#x2021;H[LELOLW\ use it as part of a stereo pair or in a multi-room Sonos audio system.
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SMART THERMOSTATS
With Alexa and Google Home compatibility, hubfree operation and a decent smartphone app the TP-Link range is a limited but effective alternative to the better known names in lighting.
ECOBEE 4 About$320, ecobee.com With wide compatibility, support for multiple temperature sensors and built-in Alexa the Ecobee is great for smart home heating, but itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s currently KDUG WR Ä&#x2020;QG ZLWKRXW high import prices.
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go online or call to subscribe TECHMAGS.COM.AU OR CALL US ON (02) 8227 6486 Offer expires 17th June 2019. While stocks last. Your subscription includes GST and postage, and will start from the next available issue, and only once payment has been received. All subscription offers are subject to availability. Privacy - the subscription offer, and competitions and offers included in this issue may require you to provide information about yourself if you choose to enter, take part, or subscribe. If you provide information about yourself to Future Publishing, we will use this information to provide you with the products or services you have requested, and we will supply your information to contractors to enable Future Publishing to fulfil this obligation. Unless you write to tell us not to, Future Publishing will also use your information to inform you of other Future Publishing publications, products, services and events. Future Publishing may also give your information to organisations that are providing special prizes, offers or events. If you would like to gain access to the information Future Publishing holds about you, please write to the Managing Director, Future Australia, PO Box 1077, Mount Street, North Sydney, 2059.
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AU T U M N 2 0 1 9 T3 9 5
Best of the best
LAPTOPS MICROSOFT SURFACE BOOK 2 $1,599, microsoft.com Available in 13- or 15inch sizes, with a 3:2 screen that gives you more height than other laptops, and plenty of power, this is a light and fast machine that’s also UHDOO\ ćH[LEOH 3HUIHFW
HUAWEI MATEBOOK X PRO $1,899, consumer.huawei.com This marries style and function, delivering incredibly capable internal hardware in a form factor that also matches Apple’s MacBook range in terms of looks and feel.
DELL XPS 13 From $1,519, dell.com The Dell XPS 13 is thinner and more powerful than ever. Up to 1TB of SSD storage, 16GB of RAM, and powerful Intel Core i7 processors help make it a high quality all-rounder.
2-IN-1 LAPTOPS MICROSOFT SURFACE BOOK 2 From $1,499, microsoft.com So good that it tops both our best laptop and best 2-in-1 laptop buying guides, the SB2 delivers an incredibly premium, fantastically portable, and jaw-droppingly versatile system.
MICROSOFT SURFACE PRO 4 Around $850, microsoft.com The Surface Pro 4 is still one of the best 2-in-1 laptops and tablets going, largely thanks to its bright and clear display, slim dimensions and Intel Core-series processor power.
HP ENVY X2
APPLE iPAD PRO 12.9 From $1,529, apple.com/au The Apple iPad Pro 12.9 is unbelievably powerful and slick, with an excellent screen, thin and compact design, great battery life and support for the new Apple Pencil. Pricey, but worth it.
SAMSUNG GALAXY TAB S4 $978, samsung.com 7KH ĆQHVW $QGURLG tablet, this delivers D V\VWHP ZLWK D VKDUS OLED screen, S Pen stylus, excellent audio credentials, powerful internals, and a neat laptop-aping DeX mode.
APPLE iPAD 9.7-INCH
$1,999, hp.com The big sell here is the monstrous battery life, with up to 22 hours on one charge. This is because it makes use of ARM architecture, with a Snapdragon 835 CPU powering everything.
ASUS ZENBOOK FLIP S UX370
LENOVO YOGA 900S
$1,699, asus.com/au A combination of quality internal hardware featuring an Intel Core i7, 16GB of RAM, and 512GB SSD, a super thin and light build, and a super sharp 13.3-inch Full HD touchscreen.
$1,799, lenovo.com Lenovo’s Yoga 900S stands out from the crowd. Weighing in at a svelte 1kg, this 12.5-inch laptop is manageable however you hold it, and is a very comfortable couch companion.
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TABLETS
From $469, apple.com/au The doesn’t have the TrueTone screen and stereo speakers of the iPad Pro, but its fast processor, slick support for Apple Pencil and solid rear 8MP camera make it a quality all-rounder.
MICROSOFT SURFACE GO $499, microsoft.com While Windows 10 in tablet mode remains a ‘mixed’ experience, its versatility is impressive and the ergonomics of Microsoft’s new tablet computer are second WRbQRQH
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Best of the best
SMARTPHONES APPLE iPHONE XS From $1,629, apple.com/au The phenomenal speed, hyperpremium build quality, fantastic camera and gorgeous HDR screen with Dolby Vision support make this the worldâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s most desirable phone.
HUAWEI MATE 20 PRO
CHEAP SMARTPHONES HONOR PLAY
APPLE WATCH SERIES 4
$300, hihonor.com Pitched as a gaming phone, but itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s just an all-round brilliant Android phone thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s a stone-cold bargain. It has a high-end processor, 6.3-inch screen, good rear cameras, and a fantastic design.
ONEPLUS 5T $599, oneplus.com/au
SAMSUNG GALAXY NOTE 9
SONY XPERIA XA1
APPLE iPHONE XR From $1,299, apple.com/ The best Apple phone in terms of bang for your buck. You get the quality and design of the XS, in a range of nice colours, with an excellent camera, and â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;Liquid Retinaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; 6.1-inch LCD display.
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From $599, apple.com/au This truly straddles the line between tech and fashion; itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s not just the bestlooking smartwatch, but its plethora of KHDOWK DQG Ä&#x2020;WQHVV features, plus strong app options, make it the most useful.
SAMSUNG GALAXY WATCH
From $988, huawei.com With a lightningfast processor, a beautiful OLED screen, a knock-out Leica camera system, a next-gen in-display Ä&#x2020;QJHUSULQW UHDGHU D 4,200 mAh battery, and Android 9.0 Pie, this is a marvel.
From $1,799, samsung.com A stunning 6.4-inch screen, fast internals and advanced new S Pen digital stylus elevate this phone. The S Pen and clever split-screen app shortcuts make it a powerhouse for productivity.
SMARTWATCHES
This is a brilliant buy thanks to the price itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s dropped to, SOXV Ä&#x2021;DJVKLS OHYHO specs such as the speedy Snapdragon processor, 6GB of RAM, OLED display and premium DOXPLQLXP Ä&#x2020;QLVK
$299, sonymobile.com
From $345, samsung.com The best smartwatch for Android users brings a circular screen with great rotating bezel, and slick Tizen software thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s easy to use. It looks good too, and the battery life of up to six days is ace.
TAG HEUER CONNECTED MODULAR 45 $1,600, tagheuer.com
A good budget buy with a superb camera sensor (23MP!), and design that looks smarter than the price suggests. You get good performance at all times from it, and an HD screen.
SAMSUNG GALAXY A8 $549, samsung.com The A8â&#x20AC;&#x2122;s camera package, both front and back, is stellar, and the roundedcorner OLED screen, coupled with an eight-core processor and 4GB RAM make it feel high-end. A real bargain.
This beauty, mimicking a traditional mechanical watch, ticks the luxury and heritage boxes. The Modular adds some welcome customisation to the smartwatch mix, too.
SKAGEN FALSTER 2 From $355, skagen.com This is an excellent choice for thinner wrists, thanks to minimal looks and a modern slim strap style. Wear OS EULQJbQRWLÄ&#x2020;FDWLRQV activity tracking, Google Assistant, and more smarts.
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LUXURIES Exclusive gifts to seriously spoil yourself
R ÉM Y M A RT IN LOU I S X III SM A RT DE C A N TE R Un nless you’re over 80, or have appeared on Bullseye, you’ve probably never owned a B ecanter. But you might want to break that de habit for this little gem. Designed for fans of émy Martin’s luxury Louis XIII cognac, it’s Ré WKH ĆUVW VXFK UHFHSWDFOH WR ERDVW VPDUW connectivity. Once you’ve registered with priivate members’ club the Louis XIII Society, mply tap your NFC-enabled phone or tablet sim on tthe mouth-blown, crystal cork stopper and \RXèOO DFWLYDWH D UDQJH RI VZDQN\ EHQHĆWV HVSRNH HQJUDYLQJ VHUYLFHV QRWLĆFDWLRQV RI EH mited-edition releases; access to a private lim advisor for arranging personal tastings; and an invitation to network with Louis XIII lovers all over the world. If ever there was a reason to velop an unhealthy drinking habit, this is it. dev $3.699, louisxiii-cognac.com
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