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BEST WEARABLE EVER APPLE WATCH SERIES 4 REVIEWED GADGETS / GAMES / GEAR

RETRO READY VINTAGE DESIGN, HOT TECH

MOST WANTED THE BEST GOODIES FOR YOUR WISH LIST

E N O H P R E P SU OTOUT O s H e n S est new pho

TESTED

y b u e b h n T a c y e n o m

Holiday video games Sony noise-cancellers DJI Mavic 2 Pro GoPro Hero7 Black

CLASH OF CAMS

December 2018 R39.90 (incl VAT) Other countries R34.65 (excl tax) www.stuff.co.za

consumer.huawei.com/za Product colour, shape, interface and functions are for reference only. The actual product may vary. *40W Super Charge refers to a High-Voltage variant of HUAWEI SuperCharge Technology which only applies to HUAWEI Mate 20 Pro and is only supported by a 40W HUAWEI Charger.

Welcome

Subscriptions hotline 0860 070 700 Email subscriptions@ mdafrica.co.za Advertising Business director Sally Hudson sally@stuff.co.za Senior account manager Thalia Pallotta 083 375 2418 thalia@stuff.co.za

There are perks to globalisation – like being able to buy sushi from a land-locked Pick n Pay with relative confidence of side-stepping botulism – and, there are downsides… like watching international tech launches happen for products we can’t officially get here. Tesla’s cars, Amazon’s Echo speakers and displays, pretty much every piece of hardware Google and Microsoft make, the list goes on. But we know, dear reader, that you’re finding ways to get the items you want. And we know you’re still interested in them. Which is why we’ve collated the highlights of the latest slew of releases from the big names in our opening pages. Hopefully by this time next year many of them will be gracing local store shelves (or online retailers’ catalogues). With that out of the way, we settle into the business of testing myriad items you can readily get, including Apple’s Series 4 Watch (p56), Go Pro’s smooth operating Hero7 Black (p62) and Canon and Nikon’s new mirrorless cameras (p64). In this issue’s big features, we pit the most cutting-edge (and, hence, costly) smartphones of 2018 against one another – including Apple, Google and Huawei’s latest offerings – and we get something in our eye while reminiscing about our misspent youth thanks to the current crop of retro-inspired and revivalist gadgetry (p72). Head to the tail-end of this thicker-than-usual outing for some new top ten categories (p95) and keep paging for our annual festive season wish list (p114). This year the contenders are especially strong, even if our currency isn’t. We apologise in advance for the temptation into which we’re about to lead you.

Account manager (Cape Town) Bernice Blundell 073 618 1882 bernice@stuff.co.za Management Stuff South Africa is published by the Stuff Group (Pty) Ltd. Directors: Toby Shapshak, Sally Hudson PO Box 74, Melrose Arch, 2096 Haymarket UK Stuff UK content is published with the permission of copyright holder Kelsey Publishing Ltd, Cudham Tithe Barn, Berry’s Hill, Cudham, Kent TN16 3AG ... and a word about prices Generally, we show the manufacturer’s recommended price. Occasionally we (or suppliers) can make mistakes. Please remember that prices listed in Stuff are intended as a guide only. We make every effort to confirm that all information is correct (and triple checked) when we go to print.

Craig Wilson, Editor craig@stuff.co.za @craigwilson

MySubs is closing If you’ve subscribed to Stuff via MySubs you’ll be getting a refund for the outstanding issues of the magazine you’ve yet to receive. To renew your subscription at a special, discounted rate, please send your details to stuff@stuff.co.za

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Stuff competition terms and conditions: Apple is not a sponsor, nor is it involved in any way with any Stuff Magazine contests or sweepstakes. Stuff Magazine does not offer Apple products as contest or sweepstake prizes. 1 Promotions, giveaways and competitions are entered through Stuff Group’s website www.stuff.co.za and are opened for Issue 91, 2018 on 26 November 2018 and close on 29 December 2018. 2 The judges’ decision is final and no correspondence can be entered into. 3 Employees of Stuff Group and their families are not allowed to enter. Advertising and public relations representatives may not enter competitions in the issue in which their promotions, giveaways or competitions are carried. 4 Prizes are not exchangeable for cash and/or other products. Prizes are available while stocks last. It is at the discretion of Stuff Group and the custodian of the prizes to ensure that, should there be a problem with the stipulated prize won, a reasonable replacement of the same value will be offered. 5 Stuff Group carries promotions, giveaways and competitions in good faith and cannot be held responsible for any misrepresentation on the part of the custodian of the promotions, giveaways and competitions. 6 Winners will be notified telephonically and by mail. It is the responsibility of the winner to ensure that the correct address and contact details are given. It is the responsibility of the custodian of the promotion, giveaway and competition to ensure that prizes are sent out correctly and within the specified time. 7 Prize delivery will take four to six weeks from the time the winner has been notified. 8 Promotions, giveaways and competitions are open to South African residents only. 9 All prize-winners will be published on www.stuff.co.za the following month, once the competition lines have closed. 10 Readers may not claim for more than one prize at a time, and once announced as a winner in any Stuff promotions, giveaways or competitions, will not be eligible for another prize for three (3) months thereafter. 11 By entering any promotions, giveaways or competitions, or by accepting any prize, entrants agree that their personal details may be retained by the promoter and/or Stuff magazine and used for the purpose of sending them information about future promotions, events and news, as well as for internal administration and analysis. 12 Unclaimed prizes will be kept for three months and will not be resent. 13 Participation in any promotion, giveaway or competition and/or acceptance of any prize implies full knowledge and acceptance of all rules.

© Stuff South Africa. All due care will be taken with material submitted, but the magazine and publishers cannot be held responsible for loss or damage. Stuff South Africa assumes no responsibility to return unsolicited editorial, graphic or other material. All rights in letters and unsolicited editorial and graphic material will be treated as unconditionally assigned for publication and copyright purposes and material will be subject to Stuff South Africa’s unrestricted right to edit and comment editorially. Stuff South Africa is fully protected by copyright and nothing may be reprinted in whole or part without written permission from the publisher. While reasonable precautions have been taken to ensure the accuracy of advice and information given to readers, the editor, publisher and proprietor cannot accept responsibility for any damage or inconvenience that may arise therefrom. Stuff is published in Brazil, China, the Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Germany, Greece, India, Indonesia, Kazakhstan, Korea, Lithuania, Malaysia, the Middle East, Morocco, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Romania, Russia, Singapore, South Africa, Spain, Taiwan, Thailand, Turkey and the United Kingdom.

J HB /E/REV 10028129JB/

The new Toyota Rush is so extra, and styled with the driver in mind and thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s you. Created for the cool, the adventurous and the travel hungry. With a Service Plan of 6 services / 90 000 km* and Warranty of 3 years / 100 000 km the ultimate adventure has never been more affordable! Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s time you start living that Rush Life. *Ts & Cs apply.

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CON S ON THE COVER P29

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HOT STUFF 8

16 20 22 24 26 28 29 30 32 34

The Hot Four O Google Pixel 3 & 3 XL O Google Home Hub O Microsoft Surface Laptop 2 O Razer Phone 2 Vital stats New Amazon Echos The new butlers have arrived, ma’am Icon Devialet Phantom Reactor Sounds like da bomb Forbes list A diabolical disappointment Best of Photokina New snappers on the way Apps Swords, space selfies and scanning Newsfeed Sega’s back and Spotify tweaks Wheels Peugeot e-Legend concept Electrified/electrifying homage to the 504 Games Battlefield V’s powerful WWII stories Stream Heading back to the wild wild west Start menu Spider in your ear? Nothing to worry about!

TESTS

Handy heroes

p80 Big shots

53 First test Apple Watch Series 4 Is it time to join the smartwatch gang? 60 Tested GoPro Hero7 Black Unsettling the gimbal market 62 Tested SoundMagic E11C Your commute has never been so joyful 64 Versus Canon EOS R vs Nikon Z7 With the mirror crack’d, which is best? 68 Tested DJI Mavic 2 Pro Our favourite drone gets fancy optics 76 Tested BMW X4 (2018) Very racy, lots of space(y) 77 Tested Volvo XC60 Safe space with grace 78 Tested Sony WH-1000XM3 Giving you the silent treatment 82 Tested Game reviews special Starring Forza, CoD, Creed, Mario and FIFA

WISH LIST 107 All we ever wanted was... everything Your bonus doesn’t stand a chance

12.18

Help us decide which gadgets, games, apps and accessories deserve to win the 2018 Gadget Awards!

VOTE! p23

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P70

FEATURES 36 Cover feature Smartphone supertest Got 20 grand in your hand? You could buy one of the new iPhones, the Google Pixel 3 XL, the Huawei Mate 20 Pro, the Galaxy Note 9 or the Sony Xperia XZ3. But… which!? 52 Mini meme String fellows If your guitar’s gently weeping, install these 58 Upvoted Kettles Time to blow off some steam 66 Beta yourself Wunderlist Sort out your life, chuck out those Post-Its 70 Retro tech Pining for a banana phone, Polaroids, PDA? 80 Instant upgrades Nikon D5 Get more from your smart new supercam 106 Next big thing? Decide the TV plot Fancy controlling how the story unfolds?

P107

TOP TENS 92 Smartphones What’s the handiest, handsomest handset? 93 Phablets As above, just for bigger hands (or egos) 94 Tablets, mobile games Slick slates and ways to kill your battery 95 TVs All you need for a lazy night/day/year in 96 Laptops Porta-powerhouses to warm your knees 97 Wearables, smartwatches Strapping smart tracking tickers 99 Drones, compact cameras Shoot from the sky or from the hip 100 VR headsets, VR games Escaping from reality, virtually 105 Games Ten ways to avoid adult responsibilities

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I STARTED SEEING IN TRIPLICATE

I GAVE KUDOS WHERE THEY’RE DUE The last time I put a screen protector on my phone it was a disaster. Despite wiping the screen frequently there was still a bubble I couldn’t get rid of and the corners began coming loose pretty soon after application. Worse, the feel of the touchscreen was diminished enough to make it non-functional. But this year, in no small part because I have a one-year-old son who loves playing with my phone, I’ve put a QDOS protector on my iPhone XS. Applying it was painless thanks to the plastic applicator that fitted perfectly over the screen, and there is almost no difference to the feel, or responsiveness, of the touchscreen. Goodbye small scratches, hello cracked-screen protection. Toby Shapshak, Publisher and Editor-in-chief

For as long as I’ve been interested in photography, I’ve loved ultra-wide lenses (and, briefly, their bonkers cousins, fish-eyes). So, I was delighted to see one on the LG G5 when it was unveiled at Mobile World Congress in 2016… but saddened by the low-res, noisy results when I actually got to use it. Recent LG handsets have offered better results while continuing to buck the trend of using second cameras to go long. Now Huawei has shaken things up by offering the best of both (or all three) worlds. The Mate 20 Pro has ultrawide, wide and telephoto rear snappers, and the ultra-wide one can also manage macro-style shots from a distance of as little as 2.5cm… which means an ultra-wide grin on my face. Craig Wilson, Editor

Making Stuff up Publisher and Editor-in-chief Toby Shapshak toby@stuff.co.za Editor Craig Wilson craig@stuff.co.za Digital Publisher Nic Boerma nic@stuff.co.za Digital Editor Brett Venter brett@stuff.co.za Deputy Digital Editor Marcé Bester marce@stuff.co.za Art Director Brandon van Rensburg art@stuff.co.za Selling Stuff Business Director Sally Hudson, sally@stuff.co.za Senior Account Manager Thalia Pallotta 083 375 2418 thalia@stuff.co.za

OUR MONTH What this issue has brought us by way of geekery I SUCKED AT ANOTHER BATTLE ROYALE The launch of Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 had me uncharacteristically excited. Finally, a battle royalestyle game that I maybe had a shot at doing well at. You know, something firmly in my comfort zone, based on a map I’d most likely be able to navigate, with game mechanics with which I’m already incredibly familiar. And best of all, no building (forts are for four-year-olds anyway, right?). Oh, how wrong I was. Sure, I actually get to sometimes kill people before dying, I pick up decent loot, and I work really well in a team. But I also know that CoD nerds are brutally quick and efficient. I’ll get my victory soon though, you watch. Or don’t, please, because an audience actually makes me kind of nervous. Marcé Bester, Deputy Digital Editor

I LEARNED TO CHECK IF LOGS ARE ALLIGATORS Playing Red Dead Redemption 2 is like paying someone to smack you in the face every time you start acting like a horrible person – life’s all good and dandy until reality comes and kicks you in the unmentionables. Which makes RDR2 one of the most realistic experiences I’ve ever had gaming. It’s a joy to play, even as it makes me question my decisions, and the turn-of-the-century setting is fleshed out with little flourishes that turn this western-themed game into more than just a video game. Red Dead 2 is like living another, older life where you’re trying your level best to be the hero… but tend to wind up playing the villain in spite of yourself. Obviously, I can’t stop playing. Brett Venter, Digital Editor

Getting Stuff to you Printing CTP Distribution RNA 011 248 3607 (Caitlin) Contacting Stuff Call us 011 889 0610 Email us stuff@stuff.co.za Subscribe stuff.co.za/buy Find us www.stuff.co.za StuffSA @StuffSA Caxton House, 368 Jan Smuts Ave, Craighall, Johannesburg, 2196

South Africa

SAâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s most loved smartphone *

*Ranked no. 1 in the consumer cellphones category - Sunday Times Top Brands Awards 2018

Pix you out

The Pixel 3â&#x20AC;&#x2122;s rear camera owes more to software than hardware, while the front snappers offer wide and ultra-wide lenses for convincing Instagram followers you have real friends too.

Pix itself up A Pixel Stand charging dock is available for those people who hate it when a handset gets horizontal. Using it enables a custom display and some bonus Google Assistant shortcuts.

25 PAGES OF THE BIGGEST STORIES FROM PLANET TECH

Pix ’em off Google’s AI spam filter is dubbed ‘Call Screen’. It answers the phone and informs the caller they’re being transcribed. Google insists this won’t use up data, and the conversation remains private.

HOT FOUR #1 HOW DEEP IS YOUR NOTCH? GOOGLE PIXEL 3 & PIXEL 3 XL

KEY SPECS O 5.5in Full HD OLED (3), 6.3in QHD OLED (3 XL) O Snapdragon 845 O 4G RAM O Android 9 O 64/128GB storage O 12MP rear, dual 8MP front O 2915mAh (3), 3430 mAh (3 XL)

Last year’s Pixel phones offered a leap in quality, but something was missing: wireless charging. So for Google’s third roll of the superphone dice it’s called in the glaziers. No, not the owners of Manchester United (that’s the Glazers), but a glass backing to facilitate battery boosts sans cable. The shinier Pixel 3 and Pixel 3 XL are mostly identical in terms of features, but the standard Pixel 3 packs a 5.5in Full HD OLED display with a sleeker design than before, while the Pixel 3 XL has a 6.3in QHD OLED screen with a notch – and a deep one at that. Both have a pair of cameras on the front for group selfies, and pack a number of new Android software features designed to dazzle you if the rear pane doesn’t. These include the ability to screen spam calls – Google Assistant answers for you and pops a real-time transcription on your screen. Both devices have had sizeable price bumps over last year’s models and are available now in white, black or pink-ish… and like previous Pixels the only way to get them in SA is to import ‘em. Boo. Hiss. As hot as… a glassblower’s crimson cheeks R12 000 (Pixel 3) R13 200 (Pixel 3 XL) (both import only) / store.google.com 9

Write on

The R2 000 Pixelbook Pen is pressure-sensitive, has tilt support and works with “virtually no lag” (Google’s words, not ours). Press and hold the Pen’s button then circle images or text, and Assistant will help you out.

Hub crawl The list of smart devices this Hub can control includes anything enabled for IFTTT or Chromecast. There’s no need to switch between apps, because everything is controlled via a singleview dashboard.

HOT FOUR #2 ALSO ANNOUNCED… Google Pixel Slate from R8 000 (import) / store.google.com For some, tablets will never be anything more than giant Angry Birds machines. For the rest, they’re viable laptop alternatives, and so the latest super-slab to take on the iPad Pro and Microsoft Surface is Google’s Pixel Slate. It’s a 12.3in 2-in-1 convertible tablet with a detachable magnetic keyboard (sold separately) and a 3000x2000 display, with a battery life of 10 hours. It ships with a new version of Chrome OS, it has Google Assistant built-in, and there’s an 8MP camera on each side. CAST MASTER A new Chromecast has also appeared on the Google Store. Costing just R600, the 2018 model offers Full HD 60fps video output, can stream from Android and iOS devices, and requires USB mains power. BUD WISER Also sneaking their way onto the storefront are new R600 USB-C earbuds. They’re bundled with the Pixel 3 and 3 XL, but might also tempt owners of older Pixels wishing to ditch their Bluetooth buds.

HUB BE GOOD TO ME

GOOGLE HOME HUB Ready, AI-m, fire. Putting Pixels to one side, Google is gunning for Amazon’s recently redesigned Alexa-enabled Echo Show. The Google Home Hub adds a visual element to all of the wide-ranging functionality of Google Assistant, giving you what its maker is calling a “more thoughtful home”. You can check the weather (it’s probably warm), tweak your smart lights (and most likely bright), watch YouTube videos and relive awkward family holidays with Google Photos. There’s Nest integration too, so Nest Hello doorbell owners can shoo the mielie lady while whisking eggs. The Ambient EQ feature fine-tunes the display’s brightness depending on the time of day, and it’ll turn off automatically at night. Interestingly, Google has swerved a potential privacy backlash by opting not to build in a camera – something a certain social network has chosen to include on its screen-enabled Portal smart speaker, to a less than warm reception. So if you don’t fancy an all-seeing eye staring you down, this could be the gadget for you. It’s competitively priced as well, though watch out for import duties. As hot as… Malusi Gigaba’s WhatsApps R2 800 (import) / store.google.com

Hub quiz Saying “Hey Google, good morning” brings up a personalised schedule of events, reminders, commute info and more. At night say “Hey Google, good night” to set alarms, turn off lights and more.

H O

Hub singer You get YouTube Premium free for six months and then pay around R240. Frankly, itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s worth it for Karate Kid-inspired comedy Cobra Kai and Warren Gâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s G Funk documentary alone.

Access all hairiers The original Surface Laptop ran Windows 10 S, Microsoftâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s apps-based version. Now you get Windows 10 proper, so you can reacquaint yourself with Steam.

H O

Splitting hairs

Pencil full of tech The Surface Studio 2 is for creatives, so drawing on it has to be a flawless experience. Good, then, that the Surface Pen can recognise up to 4096 levels of pressure.

The Surface Laptop 2 is still rocking a 13.5in touchscreen with 2256x1504 resolution. A little spec bump would have been nice, but don’t expect to be squinting – it’s a very sharp display.

HOT FOUR #3 BACK IN BLACK (AND BURGUNDY) MICROSOFT SURFACE LAPTOP 2

The tech world was shaken last year when Microsoft produced an actual laptop. Turns out it was pretty good, so it’s no great surprise to see a sequel fly out of the door just as people start drafting up their festive wish lists. What’s changed? On first glance, not a whole lot. We’re glad to see the carpet-like interior finish (or Alcantara, if you’re a fabric nerd) return, and the Surface Laptop 2 is just as remarkably thin and light as its predecessor. The original, however, didn’t have the arresting black colourway on offer here, while the newer laptop apparently has a noticeably quieter keyboard – appreciated by your fellow passengers when you’re thrashing out your future bestselling novel on the Gautrain. Upgraded eighth-gen Intel chips, meanwhile, are said to account for an 85% speed boost. Sadly, the minimalist build still means you have to put up with a fairly poor selection of ports, but when its portability rivals the recently updated MacBook Air, you’ll learn to live with it. If macOS just doesn’t do it for you, this fuzzy clamshell is a genuine alternative. As hot as… the envious glares of MacBook owners with their boring metal laptops from R20 000 (import) / microsoft.com

ALSO ANNOUNCED… Microsoft Surface Studio 2

Rtba / microsoft.com

The original Surface Studio was enough to make arty types retire their paintbrushes for good. That is, if they happened to have R60 000 lying around. The follow-up isn’t coming in any cheaper, but with 50% more graphics power via a new Nvidia chip, you’ll be more tempted to take a break from doodling for a quick game of Sea of Thieves. A 2TB SSD should help speed things up, while that gorgeous 28in display is 38% brighter and packs in 22% more contrast than before. YOU SIXY THING Microsoft’s slick Surface Pro 2-in-1 is largely unchanged from last year’s model (noticing a theme here?), but the Pro 6 packs more processing grunt than before and is available in alluring black. KICKING CANS We don’t yet know if the wireless Surface Headphones are heading to South Africa. They get active noisecancelling you can tweak with an on-ear dial, plus auto-pause and built-in Cortana.

Deeply dippy The Razer Phone 2’s IP67 rating means it can withstand being dunked underwater up to 1m deep for half an hour. Why let a dip in the pool interrupt your team deathmatch?

Freakily speaky

HOT FOUR #4

Forgot your cans? The dual front-firing speakers support Dolby Atmos and Dolby Digital 5.1 surround sound, and are capable of making quite a racket on their own.

PLAYTIME – ALL THE TIME RAZER PHONE 2 Thought a smartphone that puts gaming first was a dumb idea? Tell that to all the people playing buttery-smooth PUBG in the queue while the rest of us endure airport advertising. That’s not to say the Razer Phone 2, the creatively titled successor to the Razer Phone, is rubbish at normal phone stuff. The 5.72in QHD display is still a looker, and this time you’re getting improved cameras and wireless charging. A flagship-standard Snapdragon 845 remains blazingly quick too. Let’s be honest, though: it’s the gamers Razer is out to impress, and its new handset 14

isn’t a tough sell. It’s still the only phone display with a 120Hz refresh rate, giving you amazingly responsive gameplay, and that screen is now 50% brighter. Meanwhile, the vapour cooling chamber ensures you can actually hold the thing for longer than 10 minutes. Rage-quit one too many times? Maybe hop over to Netflix for a bit, where the new season of Daredevil awaits you in HDR. As hot as… your hands while trying to play Fortnite on a smartphone that doesn’t have a cooling chamber Rtba / razer.com

STU FF PRO MOTIO N

Combine your mobile lifestyles with BMW Connected BMW Connected connects you more seamlessly than ever with your BMW and facilitates the daily mobility with clever features. Whether out and about in your car, during those in-between times via smartphone or smart watch, or at home via D VPDUW VSHDNHU %0: &RQQHFWHG R΍ HUV WKH LGHDO LQWHUIDFH WR \RXU %0: IRU HYHU\ situation – so that you always arrive at your destinations relaxed and on time. KNOW WHERE YOU’RE GOING

STATUS UPDATES

KNOWING YOU, KNOWING ME

Destinations from your smartphones apps like Apple Maps, Google Maps or calendar apps can be sent straight to your BMW via Connected, so you’ll get recommended departure times based on current traffic conditions, and let you add stops to your route.

Share you’re live trip status with friends, family, colleagues or anyone else in your contacts. They’ll get a map where they can view your live position, and if your ETA changes dramatically, BMW Connected+ will send them a message automatically.

BMW Connected learns from your driving patterns, adding frequent destinations automatically to your personal mobility agenda, and BMW Connected+ enables you to access all your personal addresses with a tap, making navigation in your BMW even easier.

Like a personal assistant, BMW Connected gets to know you better and helps you to arrive at your destination relaxed and on time. Sometimes life can be so easy. BMWSA

BMW_SA

BMWSouthAfrica

www.bmw.co.za

V I

T A L S T A T S The new Dot and Echo Plus come in Charcoal, Heather Grey or this Sandstone fabric.

AMAZON’S ECHO CHAMBER Here’s the skinny on every bit of Alexa gear from the recent launching frenzy

It’s nothing short of Alexa madness. In a bid to put a smart speaker in not just every home but every single room, cabinet and cupboard in every home, Amazon has unleashed an army of fresh Echo speakers and more upon the (rest of the) world… O Amazon Echo Dot R1 000 The third generation of the cutest, cheapest and best-selling flavour of Echo to date, the new Dot remains a small circular speaker and is the simplest way to get a self-contained Alexa-equipped 16

product in your home. While some things haven’t changed, other parts have undergone a welcome overhaul – namely a new, larger, 1.6in speaker, which Amazon says results in 70% louder sound. It also comes with a much nattier look, thanks to its sharp, smooth edges being replaced by a cuddly, curvy fabric design. O Amazon Echo Plus R2 800 The dependable all-rounder of the Echo family has also been given the update treatment for 2018, with its previous ‘shiny Pringles tube’ styling giving way to a smaller, softer ‘fabric peanut butter jar’ look. Despite the dinkier

dimensions, it now packs a bigger woofer for added audio oomph, as well as a temperature sensor that widens the range of its Zigbee home hub skills. If you want an affordable smart home controller with room-filling sound, this might be your solution. O Amazon Echo Show R4 400 The Show’s screen size has been upped from 7in to 10.1in for almost double the display real estate, the Dolby-enhanced speakers sound far beefier than before, and the new rounder (and yes, fabric-clad) design looks less boxy, less awkward and more deserving of a spot in your lounge.

THE SEQUEL TO THE FIRST-GEN ECHO SHOW LOOKS MORE PROMISING AND FAR MORE PRACTICAL

Let’s play fortnight

HUAWEI WATCH GT

ALEXA, SLOW DOWN! O AmazonBasics Microwave Rtba

Considering an Apple Watch comes over all faint at the idea of lasting past midnight on a single charge, the thought of a smartwatch that can do a fortnight might seem like pure fantasy – but that’s what Huawei claims of its new Watch GT. The company reckons its ‘frequent’ mode will allow for message notifications, 24-hour heart-rate monitoring, sleep-tracking at night, GPS for 90 minutes per week, and the 1.39in 454x454 AMOLED screen to be turned on 200 times per day. Although you can’t add third-party apps, the Watch GT offers multiple sport modes with Huawei Health. Choose between the silicone-banded GT Sport, or the pricier leather/rubber-banded GT Classic. from R5 500 / huawei.com/za

Amazon’s desire to put Alexa inside every electrical item in your house continues apace with this smart microwave, which comes with voiceactivated time and power presets to make sure you nuke that spud to perfection.

O Amazon Echo Auto Rtba Pimp your ride… with Alexa. The Echo Auto hooks up to your car stereo and phone to add the voice assistant’s prowess to road trips. Navigation, reminders, shopping lists – it’s all here.

O Amazon Echo Input R700 (import) Make your dumb old speakers smart with this tiny puck of power, which adds Alexa functionality to any bit of hi-fi gear with an audio input. It’s basically an Echo Dot without the built-in speaker.

Insta gratification

INSTA360 ONE X Last year’s Insta360 One impressed us – it was a tiny action camera with a 360º field of view that gave it a ‘shoot first, crop later’ approach to capturing footage. The company’s new One X improves things in almost every way, upping 360º movie resolution to 5.7K, stills to 18MP, and adding a new FlowState digital image stabilisation system that offers “impossibly smooth” video, whether you’re taking a leisurely beachside stroll or snowboarding down a mountain. Like any selfrespecting action cam, it’s waterproof and is geared up for HDR photos, timelapse and hyperlapse videos. Best of all, you can pair it with the ‘invisible selfie stick’, which is hidden from your shots by algorithms. R8 000 / insta360.com 17

The write stuff

LIVESCRIBE AEGIR SMARTPEN If, unlike us, you handwrite more than just your own name on waybills, Livescribe’s latest smartpen might be for you. Available in the purple Marlin or blue Dolphin variants, the Aegir takes all of Livescribe’s best smartpen tech and crams it into a scribbler that doesn’t look much bigger than any of the nonsmart ones you’d find in an accountant’s breast pocket. You jot things down with it in a Livescribe dot-pattern enabled notebook, it records and digitises everything, recognises and transcribes your handwriting (in up to 22 languages) and can store up to 1 200 pages of notes before you need to offload them to the app. Use the app to record audio while you write and you can later search the text and have the matching bit of audio played back to you. We hear it even works for doctor’s chicken scratchings. Write on. R2 250 / circuitcity.co.za

Schrödinger’s scrubber

PHONESOAP According to PhoneSoap, most mobile phones are home to 18 times more bacteria than a public toilet. We’d like to think ours are home to at least 20 times more, but then, we’ve always aimed high. Plus, we work in an office block where we have to share fingerprint readers with 200 other people to gain access. Oh, and we like a good Alto’s Odyssey sesh in the bathroom. So yeah, the PhoneSoap was designed with us in mind. Resembling a miniature sunbed, once plugged in (via a microUSB cable) it blasts your phone (or keys, makeup brushes, jewellery, or anything else you can fit in it) with bacteria-slaughtering UV-C light, and a USB port on the rear lets you charge your phone while it’s getting its pamper treatment. PhoneSoap recommends a 10-minute tan for optimal disinfection. Our only concern? How to tell whether or not it’s actually worked. Time to dig out the old My First Microscope kit, yeah? R1 200 / phonesoap.co.za

n00bs need not apply

RAZER BLACKWIDOW ELITE So, you think you’re a serious gamer yeah? So serious, in fact, you’ve destroyed multiple keyboards this year alone and you’re perturbed by the lack of clackiness you get from the beige-and-grey 101-keyed monstrosity from the back of the cupboard that’s tiding you over until your next paycheck? You want – nay, need – the Blackwidow Elite. Its Razer Green switch-laden keys are rated for 80 million keystrokes and it’s packing two USB cables and a 3.5mm one. One USB powers the keyboard, the other lets you connect USB devices to the port on the side without fiddling around behind your PC, and the 3.5mm cable means you can plug your gaming headset straight into it. Sure, rapid typing on the Blackwidow makes you sound like Angela Lansbury, but her typewriter didn’t have individually illuminated and colour-customisable keys, now did it? That said, her kill-death ratio was undeniably enviable. R3 000 / apexint.co.za

I C O N CONTROL THE PHANTOM WIRELESSLY OR VIA THE BUTTONS ON THE CHASSIS

DEVIALET PHANTOM REACTOR from R20 000 / devialet.com Er, is that thing nuclear? We haven’t turned it all the way up yet, but based on how loud its elder brother was able to go, it could well be. Devialet’s Phantom Reactor is a smaller version of 2010’s Phantom – an extremely powerful wireless speaker. The Phantom Reactor is a quarter of the size of its predecessor, small enough to be held in one hand, but if you plump for the more expensive 900W model

it packs just 25% less power. If you think that might annoy the neighbours a bit, there’s also a 600W version. Which is half as much power as the old Phantom, right? Good maths. Want some more numbers? Both versions weigh 4.3kg, which is just over a third of the original. They have one fullrange driver and two bass drivers each, all of which are made from

aluminium, and their frequency range is an impressive 18Hz to 21kHz, so you should get nice, deep, rumbly bass and crystalline treble. When it comes to pumping up the volume, the 900W version can manage 98dB SPL, while the 600W model can hit 95 – slightly louder than the engine of a truck from 10 metres away. Bored of numbers yet? It basically means they’ll go nice and loud but have the chops to keep it clean.

But where do I plug in my iPod? The Reactor has analogue and optical connections, and there’s also an Ethernet port – so if you want hi-res audio it works with UPnP streaming devices – but it’s really designed for wireless streaming. With support for regular Bluetooth, AirPlay (not AirPlay 2 yet) and Spotify Connect on board, you’re most likely to control it from your phone or tablet.

Nokia on heaven’s door

WTF IS OCULUS QUEST?

NOKIA 7.1 Things are getting a bit crowded in the mid-range smartphone space, but the Nokia 7.1 should be able to barge its way to a comfortable seat. It looks slick for starters, thanks to the anodised metal finish and alluring accents of the Gloss Steel model. Admittedly, you’ll have to live with a notch and a chin, but this is still a premium handset for the price. The 5.84in 1080p LCD display supports HDR10 and can upscale SDR video content to HDR-like levels, while shutterbugs will appreciate the pro camera mode that makes the most of the dual snappers. Being an Android One phone, it won’t lump you with bloatware, and a Snapdragon 636 should be fine for app-hopping the day away. Rtba / hmdglobal.com

Oculus Quest? Sounds like a cancelled Asian game show. Maybe, but no. Oculus Quest represents Facebook’s biggest shake-up of virtual reality since, well, the Oculus Go. While that headset introduced us to wireless, faff-free VR that doesn’t require a smartphone or crazy-powerful PC in tandem, Oculus Quest has Zuckerberg and co taking the idea a step further. It’s still entirely standalone, but now you have six-degrees-of-freedom movement tracking, so you can stand up and move inside the virtual space.

So it’s better for gaming, then? Much. Oculus Go was a perfectly decent entry-level VR headset, but it was a bit too restrictive to be seen as an on-the-go gaming device. By contrast, Quest is being pitched as a gaming system… and while we can’t promise you won’t look like a tool in the process, the 6DoF means it can offer much more immersive experiences. It even ships with controllers that mirror the Oculus Rift’s Touch controllers in terms of button layout, so you really are getting the full VR experience. Oculus has more than 50 games lined up for launch, including Robo Recall and the excellent Moss. Also confirmed is the co-op shooter Dead and Buried, in which several players – each wearing the Quest – can run around a physical, obstacle-filled arena and see the digital equivalent in their headsets.

Leather forecast

HP SPECTRE FOLIO Dressing your gadgets up in a nice leather jacket is nothing new, but there’ll be no need to do that with HP’s outrageously plush Spectre Folio – it’s made of the stuff. Billed by its maker as the world’s first leather convertible PC, it really does look the part in any of its three positions: laptop, tent and tablet. And innovative design isn’t all the 13.3in Spectre Folio is bringing to the table. HP reckons it houses one of the smallest motherboards out there, and there’s an eighth-gen Intel Core i7 processor, 8GB of RAM and up to 2TB of SSD storage. Bang & Olufsen tuned the four front-firing speakers, and the battery lasts up to 19 hours. The Full HD panel will be joined by a 4K option later in the year. Rtba / store.hp.co.za

Sounds great, but am I going to end up accidentally punching a lampshade? Measures have been taken to prevent it. You won’t need any external sensors in the room, but the Quest headset does employ four built-in, ultra-wide-angle, inside-out sensors to fully track your position in tandem with the controllers. As with Oculus Go, each of your peepers will see a 1600x1440-resolution image, and Oculus says its built-in spatial audio – you don’t need headphones, basically – has been given a bass boost. from R8 000 / due autumn 2019

F O R B E S L

S T

The devil’s in the derails he process of winding up 2018 has begun in earnest and the biggest tech conferences of the year have been and gone. One of the most recent was an Apple event where we got the lowdown on the updated MacBook Air, Mac Mini and the new iPad Pros, which are destined to make it onto plenty of end-ofyear lists, and deservedly so: They all look superb. But I’m not here to talk about conference successes, this month I’m all about the failures… well, one in particular. Conferences and reveal events are a big deal in the tech world. They’re slick, glossy, hypefilled events where manufacturers and developers get to show off the work they’ve done (and which they hope we’ll want to invest in) and tease us with hints about the road ahead. So, when one of them goes wrong, it tends to do so spectacularly. Remember Steve Jobs trying to demo the iPhone 4 and having so many Wi-Fi issues he eventually asked the audience to turn their phones off? Well, we’ve had another mishap, and this one

pains me, because it concerns something so close to my heart. The event in question? BlizzCon 2018. It’s the conference fans of the game developer Blizzard turn to every year with high hopes. This year there was an unprecedented level of excitement surrounding the twoday event. Why? Because Blizzard had slipped a snippet of Diablo out onto the web ahead of the Anaheim California-based event. Diablo! The greatest pointand-click action RPG of all time! Diablo, the Lord of Terror! Oh the hours I’ve spent beating his minions to pulp. It’s a gaming franchise as famous as James Bond is in the world of film, and as important for its category. If the teaser was to be believed, Diablo IV was finally going to be announced, and it was going to be amazing. Imagine our chagrin then when we were told then that the big announcement was a mobile game, Diablo: Immortal. That’s a truly Herculean bait-and-switch. It went down so badly that the team on stage were booed. At their own conference. Boos. For Diablo!

The pressure clearly got to the poor chap on stage, who responded by asking the unhappy audience, “Do you guys not have phones?” This did not appease them. That line may turn out to be the only immortal thing about the game. The market’s response was swift and unforgiving: Activision’s stock sank 7% on the back of the announcement – its lowest level all year. It’s not that mobile games don’t matter. They do. Many millions of people play them all the time. Games like Angry Birds and Candy Crush have become billion-dollar behemoths. And cross-platform titles like Fortnite and PUBG are an undeniable cultural phenomenon. Diablo: Immortal may turn out to be great. But that’s not the point. Don’t tease your fans with what you know they want when you have no plans of actually delivering. And don’t then chirp them when they’re not happy. Yes, we do have phones, and we’re going to use them to let you know exactly how we feel on social media... and Reddit.

SPIN DOCTOR Rob Forbes is a 5FM DJ who tweets about football, sports and music when he’s not presenting, camped out in a casino waiting for people to let go of a car (long story) or raiding Stuff’s storage cupboard. Catch him on 5FM between 13:00 and 16:00 every weekday.

In the next issue of Look out for the Stuff Awards in association with Vumatel in the January-February 2019 issue of Stuff magazine! Weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ll be separating the digital wheat from the silicon-packed chaff, cooing over the best of kit we tested in 2018, and bestowing praise (and prestige) on the gear that had us whimpering softly and reaching for our wallets.

Help us decide which gadgets, games, apps and accessories deserve to win by voting online at stuff.co.za/awards2018 or by scanning the QR code. IN ASSOCIATION WITH:

B E S T O F

PHOTOKINA There was a running theme at this year’s Cologne shutterbug expo: bigger insides and smaller outsides. And all the big names are playing… REEL THUNDER

HAPPY MEDIUM

STREET PERFORMER

Fujifilm GFX 50R

Zeiss ZX1 With motives as transparent as its famed lenses, Zeiss wants in on your Insta feed with its first full-frame camera, sporting a 35mm f/2 fixed lens and offering built-in Lightroom CC. Its 512GB of internal storage and hefty editing suites mean you can shoot, edit, and finally share pictures that’ll detail every paper-thin sheet of filo in your spanakopita. due early 2019 / zx1.zeiss.com

Objectively it’s big… but then for a medium-format camera with the innards of one of those hulking studio models the GFX 50R is positively modest in size. At 775g this is no Chipnik or Cheese Curl, but considering that 51.4MP sensor inside, which is bound to be as stunning as Fujifilm’s usual stellar fare, it’s floaty-light. How it’ll perform is still up in the air. One thing we are sure about, though, is that it’ll cost many Randelas when it goes on sale. due early 2019 / fujifilm.co.za

Ricoh GR III Smarter (camera-wise) than your phone and not much bigger, the Ricoh GR III is something of a rare breed. An Iberian lynx in a jungle full of elephants, this APS-C-wielding slip of a camera has a 24MP sensor and wide-angle f/2.8 lens, plus a touchscreen. Sure to be a hit among street snappers, it’ll undoubtedly outperform that guitarist at the Rosebank Mall. due early 2019 / ricoh-imaging.com

DECIPHER ALLOW US TO EXPLAIN…

Get read-y

KOBO FORMA You can pick up an e-reader for next to nothing these days, but those who want to gobble up Yuval Noah Harari’s latest in the comfort of a gigantic bubble-bath should take a look at Kobo’s Forma. Expected to cost around R5 000, it’s definitely at the premium end of the spectrum, but for that you’re getting an 8in display (that’s an inch larger than that of its obvious rival, Amazon’s Kindle Oasis). You also get an ultra-lightweight design and the option of reading one-handed in either portrait or landscape. There’s also a new page-turn button that gives you a different option to tapping the screen. It’s waterproof for up to an hour in up to 2m of water, while 8GB of memory translates to around 6000 books. Rtba / circuitcity.co.za

PROJECT xCLOUD Forza Horizon 4, as you’ll find out later in this issue, is an astonishingly brilliant racing game. So good, in fact, that you might wish you could take it for a spin wherever you are. Enter Project xCloud, Microsoft’s in-the-works vision for the future that’ll let you stream games not only to your PC or console, but also to your tablet. The idea of streaming games from the cloud, rather than having them installed on a machine, is nothing new. It seems like yonks ago that OnLive introduced us to this idea, and Sony’s PlayStation Now service lets you stream old games to your PS4 or PC, and will hopefully come to SA. But with the ambitious Project xCloud (we’re hoping that’s a working title), Microsoft is promising the freedom to play console-quality games on whatever device you want, with no additional work required from the developers. You’ll be able to connect an Xbox One controller via Bluetooth, while button-haters will

THE GOAL IS TO MAKE LOW-LATENCY GAME STREAMING POSSIBLE ON 4G AND 5G NETWORKS With knobs on

MOOG ONE It’s been over 30 years since Moog unleashed a polyphonic analogue synth, so the new flagship Moog One can hardly be called a rush job. The sound engine claims to be built on the most powerful architecture of any Moog product: each voice circuit (it comes in eight- and 16-voice versions) has an analogue signal path more powerful than that of the Minimoog Voyager, harnessing the clout of three VCOs, two analogue filters, four LFOs, and a barrage of other specs that’ll make synth fans warm in a happy place. It looks the part too, with an ash cabinet and aluminium chassis holding 73 knobs and 144 buttons. Sling one under your arm for that Kraftwerk tribute band audition and you’re in. from R120 000 / moogmusic.com

have the additional option of playing with touch controls. The masterplan involves building on the infrastructure that Microsoft’s Azure cloud computing platform already has in place. The company has Azure data centres in 140 countries, and is currently installing custom-built Xbox One hardware that it will scale worldwide over time. In testing, Microsoft has xCloud running at 10 megabits per second, with the goal being to make low-latency game streaming possible on 4G, and eventually 5G, networks. Whether it can actually outperform competing services should become clearer next year.

A P P S This month’s mobile must-downloads 1

SPOT LIGHT

SHORT CUTS

1 A Way To Slay

2 Firefox Reality Browser

3 Niagara Launcher

Free / Daydream When you think 3D VR excitement, browsing the internet probably isn’t top of your list. Still, if you want to do so with your Daydream on, Mozilla’s app provides access to 3D content.

Free / Android This launcher helps you blaze through hundreds of installed apps by having you navigate them like artists in a music app. It’s fast, turns the letters into a nice wobbly line and has a search facility.

4 Night Sky

5 Evergarden

6 Scanbot

7 NASA Selfies

8 Google Home

9 Tasty

Free / Android, iOS The good news: you’re surrounded by bad guys with swords, but they don’t move until you do, so you can pick them off at will. The bad news: get the order in which you slash them up wrong and you’re dead.

Free / iOS Most astronomy apps let you twiddle the heavens with a finger. Night Sky goes further, allowing you to pluck constellations to walk around in AR, like you’re a god. Or the Silver Surfer.

Free / Android, iOS The closest you’re going to get to space is watching Brian Cox on the TV. But you can fake it with this app that plants your face inside a spacesuit floating before gorgeous pictures of the cosmos. 26

R80 / iOS There’s a lot going on in this garden of geometric flowers. At its most basic it’s a simple match/combine game that even a child can play, but this one has layers like an onion. A flowery onion.

Free / Android, iOS The updated Home app makes managing multiple devices in one room much easier, and lets you broadcast voice messages to multiple smart speakers. Dinner time, fam!

Free / iOS We thought Scanbot had lost its sense of humour on ditching the robot icon. Nope: version 8’s new AR challenge mode has you – at breakneck pace – scanning virtual documents littering your floor.

Free / Android, iOS Ditch old cookbooks with their bland ingredient lists and cryptic steps. With Tasty, recipes come with super-fast videos outlining how a dish is made. If only you could match them for speed.

Free / iOS When Apple bought up Workflow, iOS’s best automation app, people feared the worst… until Apple’s own Shortcuts app appeared at WWDC, bearing more than a passing resemblance. Workflow has basically been consumed,Borglike, by Shortcuts, which sits on the App Store hoping people will still love it. And they really should, because this app finally makes Siri useful. Rather than having the AI gradually learn new tricks, Shortcuts bruteforces its powers. You create workflows via drag-and-drop (or just download them) and define commands to trigger them. Sounds easy? It really is!

Flexible flier

YUNEEC MANTIS Q We suspect packing a drone alongside your sunscreen, shades and undies when you jet off on your travels will one day become as common as packing a camera is now – and Yuneec is keen to bring the future forward with its new Mantis Q quadcopter. Toting a 4K/13MP camera, voice controls, a generous 33 minutes of in-air battery life and a brisk72km/h top speed, this compact, foldable flier comes with a twin-stick remote controller, although most settings are accessed via the companion app on your smartphone. At R5 000 less than the DJI Mavic Air, about the same price as the (4K-less) DJI Spark and around R4k less than the Parrot Anafi, the Mantis Q looks a very tempting entry-level choice for prospective drone pilots. from R8 500 (import) /yuneec.com

Tossed and found

TILE PRO (2018) Bluetooth trackers are a growing market segment, and Tile is the unofficial pack leader. We’ve tested previous Tile products and been impressed – we can use an app on our phone or tablet to prompt the Tile to emit a musical tone, or double press the button in the centre of the Tile to do likewise on our phone or tablet (a feature we’ve used way more often). Lose something further afield and we can rope in the Tile community to help us find it. The problem, however, is that previous Tiles haven’t had replaceable batteries, rendering them disposable. And at R500 for the cheapest, that hurts. Enter the 2018 version of the Tile Pro, which has a little door in the corner that’s home to a standard coin battery. The trade-off is splash-proofness instead of full-on waterproofing, but we’ll take it for longevity. Rtba / myistore.co.za

Just keep slimming

ASUS ROG ZEPHYRUS S GX531 Gaming laptop makers have kicked off a competition to see who can squeeze the most face-meltingly impressive tech into the thinnest possible frame. Measuring between 14.95 and 15.75mm, Asus claims its Zephyrus S GX531 is now the world’s slimmest. Bezels have been crushed down by a 15.6in display with a 144Hz refresh rate and 3ms response time, while an Active Aerodynamic System is on cooling duty. Under the hood are an Intel Core i7-8750H CPU and Nvidia GTX 1060 or 1070 Max-Q graphics card. You get customisable RGB lighting in the keyboard and vents; and as per the previous Zephyrus model, the trackpad is found on the right of the keyboard. Odd at first, but like having parents on Facebook, you’ll acclimatise eventually. Rtba / asus.com/za

NEWSFEED MEGA NEWS The Sega Mega Drive is back. And the Sega Master System. And the Mega CD, Game Gear, Mark III, Sega MyCard, and… well, you get the picture. It’s all thanks to the Analogue Mega Sg, a gorgeous unofficial console that can play nearly all of the classic Sega cartridges you have stashed away somewhere – in shiny 1080p.

ROBOT WARS

Cuppa load of this

EMBER CERAMIC MUG Tech can’t solve all of life’s imperfections, but it sure can eliminate some daily niggles, such as tepid tea. The Ember Ceramic Mug connects to the Ember app and will allow you to control the temperature of your beverage down to the exact degree. A fully charged mug will keep a drink at the desired temperature for about one hour or, if used with the included charging coaster, all day. The best way to make enemies at work is by making temperature demands on the tea they’ve kindly offered to make you – so if you like a green tea at 50°C, prefer English breakfast at 60°C and coffee at 70.3°C with a fifth of a teaspoon of sugar and then blessed by St Paul, you can do all of it here. R1 600 / ember.com

When we first met Anki Vector, the clever little robot that gives you weather reports and throws a tantrum if you beat it at cards, we dubbed it an Amazon Echo rival. As good as that fight would be to watch, it’s probably a better outcome that the two will be merging as the robot gets on-board Alexa powers.

EASIER LISTENING Spotify knows you’re handing over the value of two craft beers for unlimited ad-free music every month, so the least it can do is make said music easy to find. The app’s latest update brings streamlined navigation. Even better is the Endless Artist Radio feature, which creates a never-ending playlist based on anyone you choose. Even Phil Collins.

ADDITION AND DISTRACTION We knew WhatsApp wasn’t going to remain ad-free forever as soon as Facebook bought it, what we didn’t know was when, exactly, the great green garble gatherer was going to implement them… or how. Now we do. Ads are coming to the ‘status’ tab sometime in early 2019. Which means it’s time to move to Telegram or Signal.

Four-legged freaks

MEKAMON BERSERKER V2 If you think player-versus-player gaming is lacking in physicality and you have a thing for creepy robot spiders, you’re going to love MekaMon Berserker V2. Out now, these four-legged critters scoot about the place, partaking in intense real-life multiplayer battles (of up to four players) or single-player AR combat. They’re controlled through your device, but can be physically customised by their owner, whom they totally won’t laser to death while they sleep. As an added bonus, if you know anyone with arachnophobia, you can use the Free Drive mode to allow your robot ‘unlimited exploration’ across their face, presumably shortly before it gets a free flying lesson out of the nearest window. R5 000 (import) / mekamon.com

W H E E L S

Peugeot e-Legend concept

E-LEGEND OF TOMORROW With battery power under the hood instead of a petrol engine,that subtle bonnet scoop is purely for style points

N/A (concept) / peugeot.com Has this car fallen through a wormhole from the 1970s? No time-travelling car designers were involved in the making of the e-Legend concept – well, none that we know of. It’s a modern interpretation of the Peugeot 504 Coupé, and an effort to prove that the autonomous cars of the future don’t have to be boring and boxy. It’s modern, it’s retro and it’s cooler than anything in Peugeot’s current line-up. I’m guessing the engine isn’t as retro as the styling? Not a chance. The e-Legend is as cutting-edge as it gets beneath the bodywork, with twin electric motors sending 456bhp to all four wheels. That’ll get you from 0-100km/h in less than four seconds, quick enough to embarrass most supercars. And the 100kWh battery should manage a roadtrip-friendly 590km on a full charge.

Any tech toys on the inside? Loads – in fact, the interior is more home cinema than car cockpit. A whopping 49in curved screen takes the place of a standard dashboard, and can play movies when the car is driving itself in autonomous mode. A soundbar from French audio experts Focal completes the ‘mobile movie theatre’ experience. Is this just another show-stealer that won’t ever get made? That’s complicated. Peugeot won’t commit until at least 2020, once existing models have been electrified, but after that it’s open season on a production model. However, that’s not good enough for Peugeot fans, so there’s already a petition to get it made: go to change.org and search for peugeot. If it gets 500,000 signatures, boss Jean-Philippe Imparato says he’ll green-light the real thing straight away.

NEWS DASHBOARD

Who needs a chauffeur anyway?

The regeneration game

Topless dancer

Renault might not be the last word in luxury cars, but that might change once autonomous vehicles take over. The EZ Ultimo is a self-driving limo with lay-flat seats for snoozing, a workspace for catching up on emails and decor that wouldn’t look out of place in a five-star hotel.

The mean-looking Infiniti Q60 Black S looks like it’s just stepped out of a Fast and Furious film. It’s got the energy recovery system from a Renault F1 car, which gives the already potent V6 petrol engine a 150bhp electric shove for serious overtaking potential.

It was concept central at this year’s Paris motor show, but some were more practical than others: Smart’s ForEase two-seater roadster would be fine for sunny LA, but with no roof there’s little chance it’ll get much road time in a wet Cape winter.

G A M E S

OUT NOW

FIRST PLAY BATTLEFIELD V: WAR STORIES PS4, Xbox One, PC While many are salivating over the prospect of the multiplayer modes in Battlefield V, there’s a lot to be said for the upcoming single-player campaign, War Stories. The prologue really sets the scene for the stories that follow, as it switches between several perspectives and locations, and establishes that what you’re about to experience is based on real events from WWII. Nordlys, which we were able to play in its entirety, is the first of the three stories in the 30

campaign. It takes you to German-occupied Norway, where you fill the shoes of a woman fighting for the Norwegian resistance. The second story, Under No Flag, has you following a criminal in London who gets recruited by the SBS (Special Boat Service) for a mission in North Africa. Last is Tirailleur, where you play a French colonial soldier fighting to liberate a nation that’s not his own. Throughout these stories, it feels as though the game is

openly encouraging you to discover different ways to approach each conflict – and the contrasting landscapes all look impeccably detailed. They serve to remind that this really was a global war. With a wide variety of weapons to try out, plus plenty of settings to traverse and stories to unravel, Battlefield V includes all the hallmarks of the series, but brings even more emotional depth, intrigue and action to the roster. It makes for one very strong single-player campaign.

FIRST LOOK IT’S ALL YOU

OUT 14 DEC

BORDERLANDS 2 VR PSVR OK, it’s not Borderlands 3, but a VR version of one of the best shooters of the past decade is pretty good news too. Unlike last year’s Doom VFR, which was a standalone experience purpose-built for

the PSVR, Borderlands 2 VR is the same game you poured hours into back in 2012, albeit with a few important tweaks and additions. You still play as one of four Vault Hunters prowling the cel-shaded planet of Pandora and mucking about with 87 bazillion guns (official figure), but the game is now an exclusively single-player experience. Abilities that once

required a co-op partner have been changed to accommodate a solitary campaign. Also new is a mechanic called Bad Ass Mega Fun Time (BAMF Time), which lets you temporarily slow down time so you can unload on bandits with improved accuracy. You can now drive vehicles in first-person, using the headset to aim, and the menus

have been redesigned so they can be navigated using the Move controllers. You can move around the world simply by pointing at a spot and teleporting to it, or via joystick controls. This sounds like the perfect way to spend your Christmas, even if it does risk making you bring up all that turkey and cranberry sauce.

STILLTOCOMEBEFORECHRISTMAS

SUPER SMASH BROS.

JUST CAUSE 4

SPYRO REIGNITED TRILOGY

Nintendo Switch Without Mario or Zelda the Switch’s second year was never going to be as sensational as the first, but they don’t come much bigger than Smash Bros. To keep the fans happy, every character is on the Ultimate roster. Mostly, though, we just want to punch Wario.

PS4, Xbox One, PC Ah, Just Cause, the videogamest video game that ever did videogame. If you’ve played any of the previous entries, it won’t surprise you to learn that JC4 once again entails wingsuiting around a fictional island making things explode. The big addition this time is extreme weather shifts.

PS4, Xbox One It worked for Crash Bandicoot, so we can’t see any reason why Spyro the Dragon’s high-definition makeover won’t prove to be just as much of a chart-hogger. All three games have been fully remastered for the collection, and feature updated controls for stress-free fire-breathing.

INCOMING DECEMBER O KATAMARI DAMACY (SWITCH) 2019 O ORI AND THE WILL OF THE WISPS O CRACKDOWN 3 O THE LAST OF US PART 2 O SKULL AND BONES O ANTHEM O METRO EXODUS O DOOM ETERNAL

S T R E A M

Can’t find anything to watch on the old-fashioned channel-hopping TV? Don’t panic – there’s plenty of great new stuff to stream:

Future Man

Daredevil

Narcos

Remember Josh Hutcherson from The Hunger Games? Well this time around he’s Josh Futturman, a daytime cleaner and night time gamer who finishes a video game everyone else had given up on, and gets visitors from the future and time travelling escapades as his reward. With Seth Rogen executive producing, expect hijinks and hilarity. Season 1 / Showmax

It’s high time to return to Hell’s Kitchen. Yep, after more than two years, the original Marvel/Netflix collaboration Daredevil is back for its third full season, and it’s introducing one of the comic book series’ most iconic villains: Daredevil’s nemesis, Bullseye. Charlie Cox returns as the blind lawyer by day, blindingly quick vigilante by night. Season 3 / Netflix

Pablo Escobar may be long gone, but Netflix’s Narcos shows no signs of taking a similarly premature dirt nap. In fact, its fourth season is a rebirth of sorts, shifting the setting from Colombia to Mexico (a place where, let’s not forget, drug lords still wield great power) and casting new blood in the familiar forms of Diego Luna and Michael Pena. Season 4 / Netflix

House of Cards

Ray Donovan

With Kevin Spacey departed in disgrace and the real-life White House currently exhibiting a chaotic stranger-than-fiction quality, Netflix’s original Original might lack some of its previous allure and satirical bite, but this sixth and final season promises to wrap things up in typically tense, taut and thrilling style. Season 6 / Netflix

Ray Donovan has proven itself a show that can go the distance while remaining involving and entertaining. Now on its sixth season, this drama revolves around Liev Schreiber’s magnetic, rough-around-the-edges fixer: the guy you go to when you’ve got a problem that can’t be solved strictly within the law. Season 6 / Netflix

Making a Murderer: Part 2 Occasionally a documentary series will prove so involving, so intriguing and so infuriating that it will force itself into the zeitgeist. It happened with the Serial podcast, it happened with The Jinx and it happened with Making a Murderer. Three years on, the latter is back for a second series about the same murder case. Season 2 / Netflix

DO M N TH ISS ’T IS

The Ballad of Buster Scruggs film / Netflix

The Ballad of Buster Scruggs is an anthology: six Western stories penned by the Coen brothers over a 25-year period and originally envisioned as a series, but now wrapped into a single movie telling several stories. With a cast including Liam Neeson, James Franco, Zoe Kazan, Brendan Gleeson and Tom Waits, it offers a Coen take on classic Western tropes such as bank robbery, prospecting, wagon trains, travelling shows, lynchings and, er, singing gunfighters. Put it on your watch list, pardner.

S T A R T M E N U ST KIC AR K TE R

The latest startups, crowdfunded projects and plain crazy ideas

Incy wincy speaker

GRAVASTAR Speakers have become a creativity playground for adventurous hardware manufacturers. We’ve seen speakers as tyres, gramophones, and even HAL 9000. But Gravastar is the most arresting design yet, resembling a metal spider robot preparing to laser your face off. Fortunately, this thing is more interested in sending music to your ears than removing them. Its shock-absorbent zinc alloy shell houses a 15W speaker, and two Gravastars can be paired for stereo output. The tweeter/subwoofer separation is claimed to provide “crystal-clear distortion-free sound”. $129 / zoeao.com BACK IT STACK IT

ST KIC AR K TE R

I GONDI GOE-

SACK IT

Bag o’ light

Robobop

Solar flair

Pad locked

PIX

DANCEBOT

SUREKEY

Personalising backpacks with stickers is so pre-millennial. Pix gives you a 16-by-20 matrix of giant pixels instead. It’s all controlled by an app, enabling you to showcase your low-res art skills or play the most gimmicky version of Tetris ever. The downside: you’ll now need to charge your bag as well as the devices it carries. $260 / pix.style

Most modern home robots want to manage smart devices and teach you coding. This boxy bot is instead a tiny John Travolta, interpreting audio into dance moves. Just avoid the makers’ advice on using Dancebot to “bring out the sexy in slow pieces” – unless you want your beloved to smash it to pieces. $56 / dancebot.net

SUNMADE CHEESE This must be the first charger styled as a cheese platter. The plate is a solar panel, there’s a Swiss cheese speaker, ricotta torch, ‘solar milk’ power bank and ‘USBrie’ power outlet. Before you dismiss it as a bit cheesy, the creators are funding power banks in other parts of Africa. Feel bad now? $98 / kickstarter.com

Nobody ever remembers for sure if they locked the door. Did you? But DID YOU? SureKey could be the solution. You just glue the rounded end of your key into the SureKey, which displays a green light when the door is locked. Also, leave keys dangling in your lock and SureKey plays an annoyingly loud noise. $35 / surekey.io

DROP EVERYTHING & DOWNLOAD Fender Play

Free(IAPs)/iOS,Android,desktop

Everyone fancies themselves as the next Albert/Freddie/BB King at some point, but there comes a stage when you feel like you might have left it too late. Well, Fender says you haven’t. Whether you’re a raw-fingered novice or a lapsed maestro scrambling back into the saddle, the Fender Play app is here to hone your strumming skills. Choose your weapon – guitar, bass or ukulele (you’ll have to provide it, mind) – and Fender Play will school you on how to play it using bite-size videos presented by friendly fretboard wizards. This free app works on desktop, iOS and Android, and promises to teach you your first recognisable riff in just 22 minutes.

VS All a bit stompy

LINE 6 HX STOMP Do you play the guitar? Are you really, really old? Then you might remember Line 6 sparking something of a revolution with the original Pod amp-modeller a full 20 years ago. Line 6 is still pushing things forward, and its latest compact gadget is this multi-purpose cutey. Based on the company’s acclaimed Helix processors, it offers 300 virtual pedals, amps and speaker cabinets for guitar and bass. You can use it as a multi-FX stompbox, as an entire live rig plugged directly into the PA, or as a USB direct recording interface. You know what USB is, right gramps? Rtba / mitechdirect.co.za

Gig-a-jig-jig

HEADRUSH GIGBOARD We’ve counted up the models available in this one and it’s less than 300, but we’ve also counted up the footswitches and it’s more than three. Perhaps more importantly, what the HeadRush Gigboard offers is a 7in touchscreen that lets you create and edit rigs by swapping pedals and amps around with your fingertips. It shares the HX Stomp’s supreme flexibility, with USB and headphone ports as well as analogue stereo outs, and the big twist? You can load in your band’s logo to use as the lockscreen. You definitely shouldn’t, but you can. R9 800 (import) / headrushfx.com

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Grand designs Six flagship smartphones, 20 thousand rand to spend. Which one will it be?

What would make you spend R20 000 on a phone? That’s today’s question. Just a couple of years ago it might have been inlaid cut-glass diamonds, or a Porsche logo splashed across the back. All the really tasteful stuff. But today all the big smartphone makers have models pushing 20 grand. Heck, you can pay R32 000 for an iPhone XS Max if you really want to. Which of these top-price models really match up to the price, though? Because unless there’s something special inside, you might as well save R15 000 and buy an Honor. Well, if you want more tech tricks than a sci-fi convention, a ridiculously screen-packed design and a camera that works in every situation, most of these phones can oblige. It turns out you can’t go far wrong when you have this much to spend . But there is a clear winner. One of these phones goes further than the rest in maxing out what you get for your cash… 36

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1 Apple iPhone XS Max This is the maxed-out new iPhone, with perhaps the most beautiful display design seen in a phone. And XS-beating battery life.

2 Google Pixel 3 XL

3 Sony Xperia XZ3

Android 9.0 has features designed to make you use your phone less. Now there’s some out-of-the-box thinking from Google.

The first OLED Sony phone. But can the Xperia XZ3 really compete with the best no-compromise phones in the world?

4 Samsung Galaxy Note9 This phone has something special: the S-Pen. You can scrawl notes and draw masterpieces.

5 Apple iPhone XS Basically the iPhone X with a new camera and a healthy injection of power. It’s by far the smallest here. Casual vibes for miles.

6 Huawei Mate 20 Pro

The Pro can wirelessly charge other mobiles, includes zoom and ultra-wide cameras, and has a next-gen CPU. It’s a beast.

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The classy all-rounder with a wince-inducing price tag iPhones have never come cheap, we knew that. But trick out the XS Max with 512GB storage and it ramps up to R32 000. You could buy a 1991 Citi Golf with that kind of money, and have enough change to snag a pair of fake Ray-Bans for the ride. Use the iPhone XS Max and it starts making sense, though. The way the screen surround sticks at

3mm all the way around, bar the notch, makes it look like a work of art. Get this thing a spot in the Zeitz Mocaa already. Its face-unlocking feature is ultra-quick. You don’t even miss the lack of a finger scanner. And even if you’re a paid-up member of Team Android, you have to admit it’s probably the best phone for gaming in this

class. The iPhone XS Max has the most dynamic speakers, more graphics juice, and iOS tends to get games before Android. And what about the camera? As ever, Apple has the experience nailed down. The app is clean, shooting is fast and what you see in the preview is pretty much what you get. HDR performance has improved this year too.

The best of Android claws ahead in a few areas, though. Huawei’s AI night mode deals with dark scenes better and the Galaxy Note9 has the edge for ultra-zoomed sharpness. If the iPhone XS Max were the same price as its rivals, though, this would be an easy one to pick. So does the idea of a R24k phone make you feel a little sick or not?

O APPLE iPHONE XS MAX FROM R24 000 +++++

PERFORMANCE

Game of hones The combo of the superpowered Apple A12 Bionic CPU and that giant screen just can’t be beaten. Even the most demanding games run like an Olympian. The iPhone XS Max also earns extra cred for its fantastic speakers.

iPhones still have the best facial unlocking feature, the original excuse for the notch. It uses IR dots to map your face so it’ll work in almost pitch black (aka your bed).

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The Max’s speakers look conventional: one on the bottom, one in the earpiece. But their dynamic range beats the rest: deeper bass and clearer, crisper treble.

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Image all the people Apple nails the experience of using a smartphone camera. The preview image you see when shooting looks fantastic, a real estimation of what you’ll actually get when you go back to review your photos (many rivals tend to give you less). The snapper’s a top performer too, with better HDR and low-light performance than the old iPhone X. Yes, if you’re shooting in ultra-zoom or capturing a very low-light scene the Samsung and Huawei will beat it, just, but the iPhone XS Max is up there with the very best.

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Beast for the eyes

The Max’s front is its strongest side. You just can’t fault those curves. Elsewhere it’s glass on the back, metal on the sides and three colours to choose from. It’s tasteful, it’s clean. It’s an iPhone. Mind you, this is also quite a big-feeling phone.

Bloomin’ gorgeous. That’s the best way to describe the iPhone XS Max’s screen. Aside from the notch (cunningly hidden by Apple’s stock wallpaper), there’s just a sliver of border around the display, and it tracks the screen’s curves as if painted on. Apple’s colour calibration looks flawless out of the box too: there’s none of the sense that reds are too red, greens too green. It all just looks, well, right. This is a brilliant display for gaming and video, which is what you’ll be using it for, won’t you?

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DESIGN

Arise again, Sir Jony

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Apple iPhone XR from R16 000 / myistore.co.za The middle child (size-wise) in the iPhone X lineup is no awkward kid. It’s thousands cheaper but is just as powerful. You miss out on the 2x zoom camera on the back, though, and the biggest drawback is the screen: it’s a lower-contrast LCD with far fewer pixels packed into each inch. We’ll be reviewing it soon.

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SUPERTEST GOOGLE PIXEL 3 XL

Selfie specialist proves the camera’s still king for Google The Pixel 3 XL is an ambassador from Android HQ, here to show us what the little green guy is into this year. At first, the hardware seems quite a lot like last year’s 2 XL: it’s the classic Pixel look, with more ‘cute factor’ than any other high-end phone. Some parts are totally different, though. The back is now all glass, with a fingerprint-hiding soft

touch finish across the parts you hold. And glass isn’t just there for fashion’s sake: you can wirelessly charge the Pixel 3 XL, and Google offers its own Pixel Stand dock. There’s a notch too, and you can’t miss it – this thing is a double-decker. However, it does allow some of the finest selfies you’ll see in a phone, and brilliant background-blurred portraits.

The Pixel 3 XL doesn’t have a genius face-unlock like an iPhone, though, and you can’t hide the notch like you can with Huawei’s. But this phone will get Android updates earlier than any other. And the camera? Many called the Pixel 2’s the best in the world. This year we get boosted contrast in daylight shots and smarter AI when using the digital zoom. Its

colour is often the most truthful, although some eyes may prefer the brightened mid-tones of the competition. And when using zoom or in low light, the Pixel 3 XL drops behind the best. Serious Instagram addicts and ‘influencers’ may still naturally gravitate towards an iPhone. But if you want selfies you won’t have to edit to death, the Pixel 3 XL is king.

O GOOGLE PIXEL 3 XL FROM R13 200 (IMPORT) ++++,

PERFORMANCE

Slice of Pie?

The notch is the big black elephant in the room. Hate all you want, but its 8MP cameras are responsible for the best selfies you can take with a phone right now.

A Snapdragon 845 processor and very loud stereo speakers mean the Pixel is great for games. The pure version of Android 9.0 you get here is even more gesture-heavy, so get your thumb ready for a good flicking. OOOOOOOOOOY

Squeeze its sides and the Pixel 3 XL opens Google Assistant, letting you ask who the prime minister of Liechtenstein is without pressing a button. Adrian Hasler, by the way.

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Google Pixel 3 from R12 000 (import) / store.google.com Downgrade to the Pixel 3 and you can save a tidy R1 200. It has the same camera setup, the same CPU, even the same mostly-matt glassy back. There’s no notch but the screen is smaller. This phone comes across as less of an entertainment monster than its big sibling.

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Selfie-centred Bold move, Google. This phone has only one camera on the back, and tries to fill the rest in with smart software. Does it work? To an extent. Day photos are stunning but crank that zoom and it can’t touch the iPhones or Note9 for detail. The HDR approach is different too, maxing out contrast for bolder-looking images. However, the Pixel easily has the best selfie cameras, treating each hair like a precious family heirloom. Guess what? That result comes from two sensors, not just software.

DISPLAY

Top notch

Every phone seems to be made of metal and glass these days. The Pixel 3 XL is one of the few that feels genuinely different. Google slapped a soft-touch finish on the back that stops it becoming a fingerprint wasteland.

You may have heard about the Pixel 3 XL’s 6.3in screen. It has the Big Mac fat stack of notches. You can’t hide the thing by dipping into the settings to create a ‘forehead’ bezel either, so make sure can get used to it before you splash the cash. Display quality has improved a lot since last year, with much less of a blue tint when you tilt the phone. However, great as the display is, it can’t make the same impact as the iPhone XS’s or the Mate 20 Pro’s, which fill the front as if the screen had been poured in as a liquid.

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DESIGN

Dust for prints

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Sony finally pulls its finger out with a low-price lovely Put the Xperia XZ3 next to these other kings and it won’t come out on top. The camera is great, but worse in most areas. Its battery life is fine, but doesn’t match the Note9’s. You can’t ignore that price, though. The Sony Xperia XZ3 is expected to come in at around R14 000, which is cheap compared to the XS or Note9. This is also the

first time Sony has crammed an OLED screen into a phone. And we’d rather that than the mostly pointless 4K displays Sony packed in to show off in the past. It’s a stunner, although this six-incher fills out the front less than any other screen here. Sony has embraced curved glass like no-one else, mind. The XZ3 is smooth as anything and,

yes, does have a habit of slipping down surfaces you swore were flat. Get bored and you could use it as a spirit level. Old Sony quirks, such as ugly camera processing, have been fixed, and the 960fps slow-mo shooting is fun to play with. But the XZ3’s cameras do start to struggle earlier than others with zooming and low light, and the

speakers are less beefy than on the competition here. And who thought putting the finger scanner that low was a good idea? Reach out for it and you’ll find the camera lens – and you’ll be waiting a long time if you expect that to get the Xperia XZ3 unlocked. Funny as it sounds at around R14k, saving a bit of money is the best reason to buy this phone.

O SONY XPERIA XZ3 Rtba +++++

PERFORMANCE

Hoarse whisperer A Snapdragon 845 guarantees smooth sailing in games and day-to-day use. It’s outpaced in a few other areas, though. The stereo speakers are the weakest on test and battery life is worse than that of the other Androids here.

A hidden sensor on the phone’s right-hand side brings up a smart shortcut bar when you give it a double tap. A killer feature for your killer apps.

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Almost no phones have a dedicated camera shutter button any more. This one does, and it has a half-depress action to focus, just like a dedicated compact.

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Shoot to thrill Sony has wised up, ditching its old strategy of using the highest-resolution sensor it could get its hands on: this 19MP camera has the best performance in an Xperia to date. Beautiful HDR images and improved processing get a thumbs-up. The other phones here outperform the XZ3 in bad lighting and it can take a moment to focus, while the picture degrades quickly when you start using the zoom – the curse of the single lens. Still, step outside (when the sun’s up) and you’ll capture some impressive shots.

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The new normal

The XZ3 is a slick and smooth player, with curvy glass around the back and a front face with Samsung-a-like curves at the sides. There are some annoying bits, mind. It’s slippy as heck and the finger scanner on the back is far too low.

This is the first Xperia to use an OLED screen, which took Sony quite a while to achieve. With a notch-free display and just a slight curve at the edges, the XZ3 feels comfortably conventional in this class of renegades. And aside from the iPhone XS, at 6in it’s the smallest display here, which may be all you need. It’s still a stunner, with the perfect contrast of OLED and eyepopping colour if you want it. Speaking of which, with tones maxed, red can look bright rather than deep. Not the best for showing off those pics.

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DESIGN

Finger-slickin’ good

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Sony XA2 R7 000 / sony.com/za An affordable alternative, the XA2 doesn’t have the XZ3’s fancy bits. The screen’s aspect is old-style 16:9, the camera has more megapixels but lower image quality, and you lose the OLED punch. However, nowadays it’s a decent deal if you don’t want to spend a packet. +++++

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SUPERTEST SAMSUNG GALAXY NOTE9

Pen’s a gem, but is Samsung losing ground to the upstarts? Samsung is so good at making high-end phones, it’s starting to get boring. No wonder LG, HTC and Sony have started to fade into the background. Notes are the most interesting phones Samsung makes, though. They have an S-Pen – a stylus that slots into the bottom of the phone. Give it a poke to make it pop out and you can start

scrawling notes directly onto the touchscreen, no unlock needed. This time the S-Pen also has Bluetooth, letting it work as a music controller or remote shutter button. As such it needs a battery, but it lasts around 200 clicks and recharges when put back in the phone. Genius. Add better battery life than the Pixel or XZ3, and a camera that

holds up in every single situation, and you have a special combo on your hands. Samsung is also the only company here not to have chucked the headphone jack like a carton of off milk. We’re thankful for that every day. There is a question of the look, though. Front-on it’s great, with plenty of curved glass and OLED pop from the notch-free 6.4in

screen…but the boxy elements on the back make it look the phone equivalent of a pencil case full of protractors. The Exynos processor seen in the SA version also doesn’t fare quite as well as the competition in some games. Only a handful of titles apply, mind you, and those outside the gamer elite are unlikely to notice.

O SAMSUNG GALAXY NOTE9 FROM R19 000 ++++,

PERFORMANCE

Reality bites

Conclusive proof that the world is coming to an end: this is the only smartphone here with a headphone jack. Samsung alone clings to sanity.

The Samsung Exynos chipset just pulls past the other Androids here in benchmarks. But in real life? Feed it the chip-melting Ark: Survival Evolved and you’ll see more frame judder than the Snapdragon 845 phones here. OOOOOOOOOO

The S-Pen slots into the bottom of the handset and clicks into place. You can take notes on the lock screen or control the entire phone with this stylus.

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Samsung Galaxy A9 Rtba / samsung.com/za It seems weird that a cheaper Samsung has some more advanced features, but that’s just what’s happened. The A9 has four cameras on the back, to fit in zoom and ultra-wide sensors as well as a normal one and a depth cam. There’s no S-Pen, mind. That remains the Note models’ USP.

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Dark motives Only the Huawei Mate 20 Pro can touch the Note9 for sheer flexibility when it comes to taking photos. It snaps brighter, cleaner ultra-dark night images than the rest, the Auto HDR is superb and sharpness is terrific – well judged and never overdone. At 10x zoom the Note9 pips the iPhone XS Max’s camera for detail, and trashes the Pixel and XZ3. Zoom lenses really do work. Even the Samsung’s background blur effect is a touch more reliable than Apple’s – which works well most of the time.

DESIGN

Working 9 to S

Samsung is the king of phone OLEDs. But it has shared the wealth, and all the phones here bar the Pixel have a Samsung display. At 6.4in this is one of the biggest, though, and there’s no notch to eat into games and movies.

In this crowd, you can’t get away from quite how utilitarian the Note9’s camera rig looks. It’s a toolbox, not a design statement. However, no other phone manages to pack the front with quite as much screen without using a notch. Haters, roll up. Samsung also earns extra points for fitting in a slot for the S-Pen. Those Samsung engineers really earn their salaries. You can just pull out the S-Pen and start note-taking on the screen when it’s off. Where else can you get that? (Hint: nowhere.)

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DISPLAY

Meet thy maker

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An iPhone for iOS fans who still prefer smaller handsets As Apple never released the budget iPhone some were hoping for in 2018, and ditched the SE, the XS is the smallest of its new models. But it’s the same size and shape as last year’s iPhone X. It looks the same too, and Apple’s ultra-quick Face ID unlocking remains a top feature. So, what’s different? Only two major areas have been upgraded.

You get the Apple A12 Bionic processor, the same as in the XS Max – that’s currently the most powerful processor you can get in a phone. And Apple has upgraded the rear cameras too. HDR performance is better this time around, giving you richer photos that get closer to that of a well-edited shot taken with a good dedicated camera.

In this crowd, the iPhone XS’s screen may not blow you away. Its 5.8in diagonal makes it practical, not a pocket cinema. However, you still get the top-grade image quality of an OLED screen and Apple’s classy calibration. Battery life is the one thing that could put you off: the XS Max and Huawei Mate 20 Pro are designed to withstand a full day of solid

hammering, but we find that this iPhone begs for its charger a bit too early in the evening if you stream a lot of audio or kill time with a few YouTube videos. The smaller size and a battery that turns its nose up at the hardcore crowd mean the iPhone XS is best for the lighter users out there. Still, take the charger with you and that won’t be an issue.

O APPLE iPHONE XS FROM R22 000 +++++

PERFORMANCE

Chip with everything The iPhone XS is the ultimate pocket rocket phone, with the same power on tap as the XS Max. Its A12 Bionic CPU is still a class-leader. Don’t buy this iPhone if you want it to last through a day of major punishment, though.

At 71mm wide, the iPhone XS is the easiest-to-handle handset here. If you’re buying it as a gift for someone who isn’t a tech hound, that may be enough for the win.

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The glass back enables wireless charging – and while Apple probably wants you to wait for its own AirPower pad, a normal Qi pad will also work.

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Big Brother’s watching It might be smaller overall, but the iPhone XS has the same cameras as the XS Max: dual 12MP sensors on the back with a 2x zoom option. As with the bigger phone, it offers a great user experience, with superb HDR and impressive image quality in limited light. And it really does make a massive difference that your photos come out looking pretty much identical to their previews. All of this adds up to a fine photographic arsenal, but the Huawei and Samsung perform slightly better at extreme zoom and in very low light.

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Crispy goodness

Is this an iPhone X? The XS looks just like its predecessor, with just a few little tweaks. There are a couple of extra antenna cut-outs and it’s 3g heavier – no-one’s going to notice that. The XS comes in gold, grey and silver.

In this crowd the smaller 5.8in screen is likely to get lost. But don’t forget all the tech sitting in that panel. There’s HDR 10 support, near-perfect sharpness, brilliant TrueTone colour that adapts to lighting and a 120Hz touchscreen for an even more responsive feel. 3D Touch adds pressuresensitivity too – not found in the Android brigade. It’s just a shame the 2658mAh battery doesn’t really have the stamina to match, even if it does still outlast most Android handsets in a videoplaying face-off.

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DESIGN

Nothing to declare

FOR A LITTLE LESS

Apple iPhone 8 from R12 000 / myistore.co.za Stick with the older iPhone and you can save a few thousand rand. Sure, it doesn’t have the zoom camera or the latest CPU. But unlike an Android that’s no longer new, you’re still guaranteed software updates for years to come. The A11 Bionic processor should stay the course too. +++++

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S U P E R T E S T H U AW E I M AT E 2 0 P R O

So, how can you improve on perfection? Ask Huawei… If the Huawei Mate 20 Pro were a meal, it would come with every single item on the menu. The list of features just keeps going. Not only does it have wireless charging, but you can charge other phones with its 4200mAh battery just by holding them together (rubber band recommended). There’s an in-screen fingerprint scanner that’s only a hair less

quick than Huawei’s famed rear fingerprint pads. And, not content with a normal camera, the Mate 20 Pro has a 3x zoom and an ultra-wide lens… plus a new version of the brilliant AI-assisted night mode that made the Huawei P20 Pro so special. Huawei’s ahead of the Android pack with the Kirin 980 CPU too, which is a generation ahead of the

arch rival Snapdragon 845. This is the most tech-packed phone in the world. But is it good? Oh, it sure is. The glass and metal design is as sleek as any out there, as long as you can stomach that ‘Lego brick’ camera housing. Night and zoomed images are the best on test and the battery outlasts every other Android here.

Alright, many people may not be willing to spend this much on a Huawei. And parts of the software, such as the camera app, aren’t as tasteful as Apple’s or Samsung’s. But this is what a crazy-pricey Android phone should be about: cutting-edge features. If they’re not at the top of your list, you can always save R10k and buy something more sensible.

O HUAWEI MATE 20 PRO R19 000 +++++

PERFORMANCE

Kirin carpenter

Hover a finger over the screen in standby, and the area you need to use for the in-display fingerprint scanner starts glowing like ET’s finger. Without the “Ouch”.

The mighty Kirin 980 beats all Android rivals by at least 10% in benchmarks, and the 4200mAh battery outlasts them all. It’s not as good as the iPhone XS Max for gaming, though, with ultra-demanding titles chugging a bit. OOOOOOOOOO

Gotta love Huawei. This is the only phone on test with an IR blaster, letting it work as a universal remote. We all wanted one of those 10 years ago. Now? Meh.

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Honor 7X R5 500 / hihonor.com Sister company Honor smashed it out of the park with the 7X. This phone is only R5 500 but looks completely at home next to these phones of four times the price. It’s metal and glass too. Performance isn’t as hot and the cameras are a league or two below, but it’s a hot deal. +++++

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Pick of the pics In total there’s 76MP worth of camera here: so much it’s about to bubble over like hot chocolate in a microwave. It gives the Pro the best chops for extreme environments. Ultra-dark shooting? It wins. 10x? Another Huawei victory. Shoot a pretty landscape on a sunny day and you may prefer the iPhone or Pixel photos, but this phone lets you push at the limits of phone camera capability more than any other. Sure, that giant camera array is a bit much, but it really doesn’t take long to get used to.

DISPLAY

Invisible touch

Huawei plays the same game as Samsung here: curve the screen and you can fit in a little bit more without straining anyone’s fingers. Despite the 6.3in screen, this is the most compact Android here by some stretch.

If you’re after the biggest screen around, that’s not the Mate 20 Pro’s game. It wants to fit as much display into a phone that doesn’t actually seem huge at all. A 6.3in OLED with curved edges and the teeniest borders of all the phones here (once you’ve ignored the notch) means it beats all comers on that front. It’s also the only one with an in-screen fingerprint scanner, for extra tech bragging rights. This is a fantastic-looking handset with the same breed of all-screen front as the iPhone XS Max.

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DESIGN

Tardis trickery

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The winner is…

Huawei Mate 20 Pro If you want a phone that will make people jealous, sure, buy an iPhone XS Max. But the Mate 20 Pro frankly makes the rest look a bit lazy. It has the most advanced features, the slimmest screen borders, the best real-world battery life, the most versatile camera… and it’s still R5 000 less than the cheapest XS Max. Is it the best at absolutely everything? Nope. The big iPhone is better for gaming. Google’s Pixel 3 XL often takes more natural pics during the day. And, well, the Sony Xperia XZ3 is a lot cheaper. Let’s not forget the Note’s stylus either. But the Mate 20 Pro wins at a canter. Just how on earth did they fit it all in a handset barely wider than an iPhone XS?

+ Now add these GameSir M2 This Bluetooth game lets you treat your p like a proper old-sch gaming handheld. It’s perfect for long journeys, or trips back into the ’90s with an emulator app. R1200 / amazon.com

Huawei Smart View Flip Cover A magnet inside engages a special display mode that shows essentials (such as the time, weather and your notifications) through the case’s transparent window. Rtba / huawei.com/za

Sony WH-1000MX3 Yes, we wish the Mate could be a better friend to wired headphones, but these Bluetooth cans offer fantastic customisable sound quality… and noise-cancellation that beats Bose. R6 000 / takealot.com

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THE SUMMARY

O Apple iPhone XS Max O Google Pixel 3 XL O Sony Xperia XZ3 O Samsung Galaxy Note9 O Apple iPhone XS O Huawei Mate 20 Pro

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Ask us what’s the best phone in three months and we may well have another answer. By the time you read this OnePlus’s latest, the 6T, will be out, though like the Pixel, you’ll still have to import it, sadly. And Samsung is already preparing its 2019 phones to knock the smug smile off the Mate 20 Pro’s wallpaper. You can expect screens that fill up even more of the front, leaving almost no blank space at all. All we need is to make them translucent and we’ll have a real-life version of the props from a 2000s sci-fi movie. We’ll also hear a lot more about 5G mobile internet with the next generation of phones. This could make your downloads more than 10x as fast. There’s one snag: our mobile networks have to upgrade their services to 5G, and that’ll take much longer than Samsung needs to drop a 5G chip in its next phones. One day, though…

PERFORMANCE 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

TECH RATER

DESIGN

DISPLAY

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Display

CPU/memory

Battery

Cameras

Dimensions

1st

Huawei Mate 20 Pro What it lacks in kudos it more than makes up for with great cameras, an immense battery and a slick design. Our flagship smartphone champ. R19000 / huawei.com/za

6.3in 3120x1440 OLED

Kirin 980, 6GB RAM, 128GB

4200mAh

40MP+ 20MP+8MP rear, 24MP front

158x72x 8.6mm, 180g

2nd

Apple iPhone XS Yes, the battery disappoints if you’re a power user, but a slick OS and supreme processing power are all that most Apple fans want out of life. from R22000 / myistore.co.za

5.8in 2436x1125 OLED

Apple A12 Bionic, 4GB RAM, 64/ 256/512GB

2658mAh

12MP+12MP rear, 7MP front

144x71x 7.7mm, 177g

3rd

Apple iPhone XS Max Who said money can’t buy happiness? A gorgeous screen, stunning cameras and gaming nirvana can be yours if you have the cash. from R24000 / myistore.co.za

6.5in 2688x1242 OLED

Apple A12 Bionic, 4GB RAM, 64/ 256/512GB

3174mAh

12MP+12MP rear, 7MP front

158x77x 7.7mm, 208g

4th

Sony Xperia XZ3 Its camera struggles in low light and the speakers and battery life are poor, but this Sony by no means disgraces itself – in relative terms it’s a bargain. Rtba / sony.com/za

6in 2880x1440 OLED

Snapdragon 845, 4GB RAM, 64GB

3300mAh

19MP rear, 13MP front

158x73x 9.9mm, 193g

5th

Samsung Galaxy Note9 The S-Pen is great for creative types, and the camera is up there with the best, but the chipset isn’t the best and the styling is starting to feel dated. from R19000 / samsung.com/za

6.2in 2960x1440 OLED

Exynos 9810, 6GB RAM, 128/512GB

4000mAh

12MP+12MP rear, 8MP front

162x76x 8.8mm, 201g

6th

Google Pixel 3 XL Notch-gate looks like it’s switched from Apple to Google. But if you can get past that and want a slice of Android Pie before anyone else, get the 3 XL. from R13 200 (import) / store.google.com

6.3in 2960x1440 OLED

Snapdragon 845, 4GB RAM, 64/128GB

3430mAh

12MP rear, 8MP+8MP front

158x77x 7.9mm, 184g

TESTED APPS

Mini meme

O Yousician Learning a new instrument can be a right old trudge, which is why Yousician wisely reimagines plucking and strumming as a game. Its exercises are like Guitar Hero turned on its side, as you time your efforts to match coloured blocks and dots scrolling across the screen. If you fancy something a mite more conventional, try Fender Play (see p26) instead. Stuff says ++++, Free / Android, iOS

BE A REAL GUITAR HERO

From tentative strummers to professional Hendrix impersonators, we can all improve our plank-spanking with judicious use of these rocking apps

O Capo Touch Can’t quite get the hang of that fiddly riff? Trying to figure out the chords in an obscure indie B-side that you want to cover? Load the tracks into Capo Touch and use its tools to slow down audio and isolate frequencies; it’ll even, mostly accurately, figure out the chords being played. Just about all it can’t do is put your fingers on the right frets for you. Stuff says ++++, R150/year / iOS

O AmpliTube

O Fender Tune

O GarageBand

O Audio Evolution

You’re not a proper guitarist until you’ve got a rig of mindblowing amps and stompboxes to plug into. But they cost a fortune, weigh an absolute ton, and result in cable-spaghetti. So just use this app instead, with handy presets, custom setups, a built-in looper, and a live mode for those real, sweaty gigs. Just don’t forget yourself and stomp on your smartphone. Stuff says +++++ Free / Android, iOS

Unless you fancy going really avant-garde (in the sense of ‘unlistenable’), you need to tune your strings. Fender’s app gives you standard, alternative and custom options, and has an interface bold enough to see from across the street. Fling IAP at it and you can add a snazzy ‘pro’ tuner, a rhythm box, and a bunch of chords and scales for honing your skills. Stuff says ++++, Free / Android, iOS

Apple’s freebie recording app covers the full gamut. Beginners can strum smart guitars, and old hands can plug in a real one before smashing their eardrums with a range of superb-sounding amps and pedals. When it’s time to record that hit single, a simple tuner stops you sounding too inept, while in-app synths and drum machines let you pretend you’re in an actual band. Stuff says +++++ Free / iOS

There’s no GarageBand on Android, but this virtual studio does the business for laying down tracks. An IAP gets you USB audio support, there are loads of effects packs, and you can mix audio and MIDI. Editing is non-destructive – handy in case an ill-advised edit suddenly creates a musical disaster worse than Agadoo. Stuff says ++++, R100 / Android O R130 / iOS

Mobile Studio

RIES 4

from R8 000 / myistore.co.za

An irresistible fourth It might look familiar, but Apple’s been working hard to boost the Watch’s wrist-appeal. The question is, will the Series 4 find its way onto yours? e’ve always liked Apple Watches, but the comparatively high price, restrictive screen size and general lack of functionality made them feel less than essential. With Series 4, Apple has made many improvements to the design, while adding a few features that set it apart from

the competition. As a result, the latest Watch changes everything: it is, by quite some distance, the best wearable on the market. The physical redesign extends to a larger display, a thinner form factor and new faces that display much more information than before. We’d still love to see better battery

life, but the Watch now feels much more useful as you navigate your day with more detailed weather, health and calendar information. There are some serious feature improvements as well, including a bigger internal speaker for calls, fall detection and emergency SOS, and an upcoming electrocardiogram

feature. And the improved processor speed results in the best, easiest implementation of Siri yet. The result is the first wearable that actually feels essential if you’re an iPhone user, mixing fantastic design and great features that aren’t available on other smartwatches. Let’s strap in for a closer look…

F I R S T T E S T A P P L E WAT C H S E R I E S 4

1 2

Save your love

Health features are what really set the Watch Series 4 apart. Fall detection means if you take a tumble and don’t get up, the Watch can notify emergency services and your next of kin. The electrocardiogram isn’t working just yet... it needs local approval.

2 Siri-ously powerful Unless you’re Inspector Gadget, it probably still feels a little weird holding a conversation through your wrist. But the speaker in the Series 4 is fine for holding phone calls – and this has become our preferred way of using Siri. Just raise your wrist and talk.

4 Closer to the edge The new larger display can be filled up with more widgets, or ‘complications’. So on the new default watch screen, information fills every corner… and yet we still found it to be responsive even when touching the very edge of the face.

3 Don’t cell out

Until local mobile operators start offering eSIMs we won’t be seeing the cellular versions of the Watch in SA. You can still make Watch calls if your phone is in range with the non-cellular ones, though, but do beware the extra strain that’ll put on the battery.

5 I see shapes One thing that puts some people off the Apple Watch is that it’s square, not round. With the Series 4, Apple has rounded off the corners of the display, which makes it more aesthetically pleasing. But the 44mm model looks big on skinny wrists.

Good Meh Evil

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48 hours with the AppleWatch Series 4

1min 54

3mins

15mins 20mins 25mins 30mins

35mins

1hr

3hr

F I R S T T E S T A P P L E WAT C H S E R I E S 4

Techspecs Screen 1.78in or 1.6in LTPO OLED with Force Touch Processor Apple S4 Storage 16GB OS watchOS 5 Battery life 18 hours Sensors Accelerometer, gyrometer, altimeter, fall detection, heart-rate (optical/electrical), ambient light Dimensions 44x38x10.7mm, 48g; 40x34x10.7mm, 40g

Let it run wild

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The S4’s innovative innards make getting fit fun… or at least, make it easier to get through a session

6hrs

14hrs 20hrs

38hrs

Q Pod only knows

Q I’m in great shape

Some of the best features of the Series 4 are also available on earlier models thanks to watchOS 5; the new Podcasts app allows you to download episodes to your Watch to take on a run round the park.

This Apple Watch is truly obsessed with getting you fitter. If it thinks you’re on a walk, it’ll ask you if you want to record it as a workout. Your friends can also invite you to fitness challenges.

Q Help me ponder

Q Do talk

Given this new Watch’s bigger screen, you might want to use it to view photos – because we all know how nice it is to see what’s for dinner while you’re still slogging it out on the treadmill.

The Walkie Talkie app allows you to send short audio messages to your friends – say, your gym buddy who’s out of sight. Note that this overrides any silent settings you may have enabled.

Series 4 feels like the moment where Apple got the Watch right. That big, gorgeous display holds much more information, there are plenty of unique health features and there’s an improved processor and speaker. Yes, it’s still expensive, but if you were holding off on buying an Apple Watch until now, this is definitely the time to jump.

STUFF SAYS +++++ So well designed, so packed full of features and such a joy to use: it’s easily the best wearable yet

48hrs 55

F I R S T T E S T S A M S U N G G A L A X Y WAT C H

The watch-finder general Follow our sophisticated colour-coded infographic to discover your perfect wearable I HATE SMART WATCHES

I’M RUGGED (GRRR!)

HELLO, TAX REBATE!

I KNOW WHAT I WANT

I REALLY LOVE E-READERS

I’M VERY SPORTY

LIFE IS LIKE AN ACTION MOVIE

I LOVE SANPARKS

CYBORG TENDENCIES

CUSTOM IS COOL

LIFE IS BLACK AND WHITE

ACCURACY IS ALL

DO I NOT LIKE ORANGE

DIGITAL LIFE, ANALOGUE STYLE

CHARGING IS FOR CHUMPS

FASHION CHAMELEON

I BUY MINE IN DUTY-FREE

MARATHON RUNNER

TOO BUSY TO CHARGE

FOREVER GETTING LOST

WATCH COLLECTOR

CREATIVELY MINDED

DATA-DRIVEN

WATCH ON FOR WORKOUTS

STAY COOL, EVERYONE

I LOVE EVERYTHING JAPANESE

YOKO ONO IS MY STYLE ICON

HISTORY GEEK

PENS ARE GANGSTER

NORDIC FANBOY

Sony FES Watch U

Casio WSD-F30

Montblanc Summit 2

Why settle for one watch when you can have hundreds in a single device? Sony has fitted the face and strap of its fashion-focused 43mm wearable with E Ink. Press a button and it cycles through an assortment of chic designs. Rtba / sony.com

Casio’s latest Pro Trek is for people dangling off cliffs and diving into seas. Waterproof to 50m, it runs Google Wear OS and downloads its own colour maps. Extend Mode boosts the 36-hour battery life to three days. R8420 / casio.co.za

The first luxury timepiece to use the Snapdragron Wear 3100 chipset runs on time-only mode for an entire week, according to Montblanc. The 42mm case houses an AMOLED display and comes in a choice of finishes. R16 000 / montblanc.com

LG W7 The hybrid W7 isn’t quite living tissue over a metal endoskeleton, but this 45mm watch does combine a Swiss-made quartz movement with Google Wear OS. Beneath the hands it has an LCD screen, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and 4GB of storage. Rtba / lg.com/za 56

Marloe Coniston Don’t want smarts… or even a battery? This hand-wound offering from the Marloe Watch Company has a polished case and exposed Japanese movement on the rear, evoking an era when chargers didn’t exist. R5 650 / marloe watchcompany.com

Suunto 9 This is a 50mm GPS watch for sports nuts craving pure performance. That means ludicrously accurate tracking, and brilliant battery life so you’re likely to burn out before it does. It’s packed with features, like a heart-rate sensor and altimeter. R12 000 / suunto.co.za

DIGITAL EDITION DIGIT SUBS CRIPAL TION

ONLY PER Y R180 FOR 10 ISEAR SUES

Available from the App Store or Google Play

SUBSCRIBE AT MYSUBS.CO.ZA

FUNCTIONAL FINDS

TEATIME TECHIES

BEAUTEOUS BOILERS

UPVOTED

The quirky cuppa

The pastel protector

The ﬂashy ﬂask

De’Longhi Avvolta Who says you can’t have a transcendental moment of art appreciation while you wait for the kettle to boil? With its dramatic ‘vortex’ design, this is one eye-catching piece to add some design ﬂair to your crumb-strewn kitchen. The shell is made of transparent resin rings with chrome accents. R1 650 / yuppiechef.com

Dualit 1.5L Lite Jug One of the hazards of handling a kettle is of course the risk of scalding yourself in your feather-spitting urgency to get pouring. Dualit’s Lite Jug kettle has a ﬁnger-guard on its lid to keep your hands safe, plus a rapid-boil concealed element and a contoured, non-drip spout. R2 300 / loot.co.za

Russell Hobbs Diamond Aﬀordable doesn’t always translate to good – ask anyone who’s ever paid less than R500 for a Bluetooth speaker – but Russell Hobbs has managed to deliver an eﬃcient kettle with a sleek design that will serve you perfectly well if you’re on a budget but still want a bit of the old aesthetics. R850 / hirschs.co.za

KETTLES The smart(ish) steamer Xiaomi Mi Electric Kettle Looking to splash out on something a bit diﬀerent? Here you go: it’s a kettle with an app. Once the water has boiled you can use the app to keep it at a precise temperature for up to 12 hours… it’s probably a blessing the kettle only holds 1.5 litres of water, otherwise we’d be in a pour-over coma. R800 / mia.africa.com

The hands-on hottie Bosch Kettle Cordless TWK7809 If you suddenly ﬁnd your entire family has decided to come over, and they just don’t know how to say no to a cuppa, you’re gonna need a bigger kettle. Bosch’s bronze wonder can hold 1.7 litres, while a lime scale ﬁlter in the spout means no slurped surprises. R650 / takealot.com

The warming wonder

The temperature tamer

The breezy brewer

Bosch Styline Cordless Kettle Four temperature settings, the option to keep the freshly boiled contents warm for up to 30 minutes and subtle styling make this 1.5-litre boiler perfect for hot drink addicts and busy families alike. The only thing it’s missing is an internet connection, but perhaps in generation two, yeah? R1 600 / yuppiechef.com

Severin Variable Temperature Cordless Naturally we want our kettles to get our water hot, but it’s even better if we can decide exactly how hot. This polished steel job lets you set temperatures of 85, 95 and 100°C, so your delicate green tea doesn’t have to be blasted senseless but your morning Ceylon can get a serious sweat on. R1 550 / yuppiechef.com

Kitchen Aid Artisan Tea Kettle If teabags are a drag and ‘real’ tea is your bag, this versatile option will make all your loose-leaf dreams come true: it has a removable infuser under the lid, so you can brew your tea right inside the kettle. It also serves as a standard water-boiler, with temperature controls on the base. R3 700 / hirschs.co.za

HOW TO DECIDE 58

Would anyone like a nice cup of tea? Stuff channels the spirit of Mrs Doyle from Father Ted and invites you to water-boiling wonderland…

1 Meter the litres If you have a large family or plenty of guests over on a regular basis, having a kettle that can boil more than the standard 1.5 litres could prove a lifesaver.

2 Turn up the heat If you’re an avid slurper, having a rapid-boil element will save you a lot time in the long run, while a ‘keep warm’ feature could save you from pushing the boil button quite so often.

UPVOTED The retro revivalist Smeg KLF04 If you’re a fan of the post-war retro aesthetic, Smeg’s latest ’50s-inspired kettle will be a brew-tiful edition to your kitchen. With seven temperature settings, an LED display and a ‘keep warm’ feature, it blends the nostalgic appeal of Back to the Future with the futuristic smarts of, um, Back to the Future. And if the look of this kettle is enough to bring your heart to boiling point, just wait till you see the array of tasty colour options. R2 700 / takealot.com

3 Free the herb Having different temperature settings may sound silly, but if you like delicate infusions as well as tangy gloop you’ll be glad of the versatility. Some leaves are more delicate than others.

4 Don’t be dazzled It’s easy to fall for ‘designer’ looks, especially if you’re fitting out a new kitchen, but you could be using this appliance more than any other – so make sure the features match the slinky style.

TESTED GOPRO HERO7 BLACK

Not shakin’ all over GoPro’s latest take-it-anywhere action cam looks like a chip off the old Black… but inside there’s a revolution in digital stabilisation

R8 000 / takealot.com The Hero7 Black feels like GoPro’s most exciting new action cam in a long time. Yes, last year’s Hero6 Black was fantastic – we would have given it six out of five if the laws of mathematics allowed it – but this feels like a giant leap forward from that camera, and it’s starting price is the same. Much of the tech inside is as before: there’s the same (or a very similar) 12MP sensor and GP1 chip, with the same resolution and frame rate options, up to 4K at 60fps. But the big innovation for the 2018 model is HyperSmooth, GoPro’s new image stabilisation system. This is billed as a revolution in stabilisation, with GoPro’s founder describing it as “the gimbal killer”. But is that enough to make the Hero7 Black a must-have companion for would-be extreme sportspeople and vloggers, as well as regular Joes and Joannes who just want to record themselves strolling down to Spar for some cheese?

1 Gnarly the same The Hero7 Black looks almost identical to the Hero6 Black it replaces. We’re not complaining, given that it’s a tiny rugged block with a pleasingly rubberised finish, and the shared design means it’ll work with all your old GoPro mounts and accessories.

GOOD MEH EVIL

A super easy action cam to use

2 Button it! Controls will be familiar to users of the previous couple of Heroes: a one-touch button up top stops and starts videos and timelapses, or takes still photos, while a button on the side powers the camera up or down and flips between the shooting modes.

Compact, waterproof and tough

Amazing new stabilisation trickery

Battery drains quickly with 4K

Good all-round image quality Video coding won’t work with older hardware

TESTED GOPRO HERO7 BLACK

Tech specs Video 4K @ 60fps, 2.7K @ 120fps, 1080p @ 240fps (8x slow-mo) Camera 12MP Displays 2in touchscreen, LCD panel Connectivity GPS, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, voice controls; USB-C, microHDMI, microSD storage Battery 1220mAh (removable) Waterproofing 10m Dimensions 62x45x33mm, 116g

HyperSmooth operator 5

4 Porty hard The Hero7 Black keeps its microSD card slot and battery under a flap on its bottom edge, while a side door covers USB-C (used for charging and image transfer) and microHDMI ports. Buy the right cable and you’ll be able to play your videos on a TV. 3 (Dis)playing rough An LCD panel on the front gives you info on battery life, SD card space and the current shooting mode, while the usual 2in touchscreen is at the rear. Its dinky dimensions mean it occasionally needs a second tap or swipe, but it’s easy to use.

5 Power-crazed A quick word about battery life: the Hero7 Black really chews through it. We would go out for an hour or so of filming at a time, and it would generally end up with about 50% of the battery left. So you may want to invest in a spare or two.

The Hero6 Black was a great action cam… and the footage from the Hero7 Black is every bit as good

Q Have-a-go Hero

Q Stable hand

With rich colours, a wide dynamic range, responsive auto exposure, smooth slow-mo and decent low-light performance, this is a camera you can use without having to put much forethought into it.

HyperSmooth is a genuine game-changer. Purely electronic, this image stabilisation tech does an incredible job of removing signs of motion. Footage is stable and judder-free, even when cycling over rough terrain.

Q Out with the old…

Q …and in with the ooh!

The camera supports RAW stills and Protune video. But be aware that some resolutions and frame rates require the HEVC/H.265 codec, so they won’t be playable on a lot of devices unless they’re fairly recent.

Other new tricks include TimeWarp (an especially stable timelapse mode), SuperPhoto (a stills mode with HDR, tone mapping and noise reduction) and the ability to livestream your gnarly lifestyle to Facebook Live.

This is basically the excellent Hero6 Black with a bunch of improvements added – the most useful being that HyperSmooth image stabilisation. This makes such an impact that we’d even suggest owners of the Hero6 Black consider upgrading. It’s great to see GoPro innovate in ways that are genuinely valuable to users.

STUFF SAYS +++++ It might look familiar but this is GoPro’s smoothest model yet, and a brilliant new flagship for the action cam specialists 61

TESTED SOUNDMAGIC E11C

Greyed balls of fire SoundMagic’s latest bargain in-ears sound more colourful than they look – your new best buds? Rtba / sound-magic.co.za Q Headphone sockets might be a rare sight on phones in 2018, but if yours has one it’s begging you to introduce it to some decent headphones. SoundMagic’s E10, E10C and wireless E10BT in-ears have been close to the top of our list of affordable in-ears for years, and now come the E11Cs. Q These have a more premium look than their predecessors, opting for a single silver/grey finish rather than the assorted colours of the E10 range. The aluminium buds look and feel better-made as well. Q They’re super-light and incredibly comfortable, forming a nice tight seal to ensure your tunes sound exactly as they should while not letting too much exterior racket creep in. Q Just down the cable from the left bud is a three-button remote and microphone. This is the only difference between these and the standard E11s. Press once in the middle to start or stop, double-tap to skip, and hold it down to activate your phone’s voice assistant. The buttons either side of it increase and decrease volume.

Q People get thready

Q Pull up to the bump

The 1.2-metre cable is clearly built to be functional, not feel luxurious. It’s plenty long enough to thread up inside your T-shirt, but not so long that you end up with spools of spare wire crammed into your pocket.

The remote housing is metal but all three buttons sit underneath a single piece of rubber, with a tiny raised bump to indicate where the middle is. They’re pretty close together, though, so it can be fiddly to skip tracks.

Q Pretty much everything you chuck at these sounds great… and not just ‘for the price’, which we expect to be around R1 000. Bass is hefty and authoritative, while instruments sound authentic and pretty spacious considering the size of the drivers. If you’re looking for criticisms, vocals can occasionally lack a little freshness, but you’d be mad to make that a deal-breaker.

Tech specs Connectivity 3.5mm jack Cable length 1.2m Weight 11g

STUFF SAYS Capable, durable and affordable – SoundMagic does it again +++++

These should be the default buds for any phone with a jack socket 62

There’s a sweet spot when it comes to in-ear headphones where price and sound quality meet. Most people are willing to spend enough to get something they’ll be happy listening to every day, but not so much that they’ll constantly be worried about leaving them on a plane. The E11Cs absolutely nail that balance, and it’s hard to see what you could possibly find to be unhappy with. Well, unless you lose them, of course.

VERSUS SPORT TRACKERS

TEST WINNER

High noon for the high-energy hybrids Withings Steel HR Sport Smarter than a fitness band but not as life-controlling as a ‘proper’ smartwatch, a hybrid watch can be an elegant sporty solution. This Withings number looks fresh and minimal, with analogue numbers and a little OLED screen for notifications. This thing looks like a pretty ordinary ticker, but it has a 25-day battery life, excellent heart-rate monitoring, smart notifications, GPS (paired with a smartphone), a plethora of activity-tracking skills and an excellent health data app. In the morning the sleep app syncs effortlessly and then gives you a score for your snoozing. The GPS requires you to have your phone nearby, but the HR Sport will automatically detect activity – and the battery is really quick to charge.

Screen Analogue dials, OLED screen Processor Exynos 9110 1.15GHz Storage 4GB OS N/A Battery life Up to 25 days Sensors Heart rate, GPS via smartphone Dimensions 40x13mm, 49g

1. DESIGN

It’s not going to turn heads, but the Stratos is relatively minimalistic and won’t look out of place in the office or at the gym. It is just a touch too chunky for small wrists and that 320x300 display is too dark for most situations.

2. FEATURES

The Stratos can track a range of sports and activities, including running, swimming and cycling. It also has built-in GPS, a heart-rate monitor and good battery life for what is closer to a full-on smartwatch than a mere tracker.

3. EASE OF USE

Huami’s proprietary OS isn’t up to scratch. Sometimes parts of texts will be sliced off at the end; and while the buttons are responsive enough, their functions change depending on what you’re doing and this gets frustrating.

1 2 3

TECH RATER

O Price R6 100 / pclinkshop.com

++++,

Huami Amazfit Stratos

Screen 1.3in 320x300 LCD Processor 1.2GHz Storage 4GB OS Huami Battery life Up to 5 days Sensors Heart rate, GPS Dimensions 30x10mm, 68g

O Price R5 350 / pclinkshop.com

STUFF SAYS

+++,,

Don’t be fooled by the Withings’ old-school appearance – it’s a proper little powerhouse 63

VERSUS MIRRORLESS CAMERAS

It’s a mirror cull Canon EOS R

Nikon Z7

What’s the story?

Canon’s entry to the full-frame mirrorless market has been met with a slightly mixed reaction from the internet’s chattering classes. Probably aimed more towards mid-range shooters than either beginners or experienced pros, the EOS R looks a lot like one of Canon’s smaller DSLRs, with a superb electronic viewfinder and a fully articulating touchscreen.

The launch of Nikon’s Z7 has gone down a lot better with the comment-spewing general public than the Canon EOS R… except for one design weakness it shares with the cheaper camera. Packing a single memory card slot (XQD in this case) is enough to send a bunch of pros with pitchforks to Nikon HQ crying out: “But what about wedding photographers!?”

Is it any good?

Shooting in extremely low light is a cinch thanks to a hyper-sensitive focusing system, while image quality is just as good as you’d expect from the king of cameras – think super-sharp details and gorgeous colours. The bad news is that there’s only a single SD card slot, while battery life is officially rated at an unimpressive 370 shots. There are some great features that are new to those coming from a DSLR – silent shooting, for example – but that stuff’s old news for anybody who’s been shooting mirrorless for several years already (hello, Sony users). For now there’s not a huge number of proprietary R lenses to choose from, but you can help yourself to existing Canon EF and EF-S optics by fitting the included mount adaptor.

If you can put that fault aside, the Z7 acts and feels every inch a Nikon DSLR – just in a much smaller body. In other words, if you’re used to shooting with something like the D850, you can pick up the Z7 and crack right on. Again there are some features here that are not new to the mirrorless world but are likely to be welcomed by Nikon users who have waited so long for the company to come up with the goods – silent shooting and image preview being the biggies. And as with the Canon, a lens adaptor (FTZ) is included in the price. Image quality is again superb, with a super-high-resolution sensor giving you lots of cropping options. Focusing may not be quite as speedy as with the EOS R, but it’s still pretty damned swift. And this is another superb electronic viewfinder.

Price R38800 (body only) / canon.co.za Tech 30.3MP full-frame CMOS sensor O 8fps shooting O ISO 100-40,000 O 136x98x84mm, 580g

Price R64 000 (body only) / nikon.co.za Tech 45.7MP full-frame CMOS sensor O 9fps shooting O ISO 64-25,600 O 134x101x68mm, 675g

Stuff says ++++,

Stuff says +++++

A great first attempt, but we can’t help being a little underwhelmed by this Canon

This beats the Canon at every level… but it’ll cost you over R25 000 more

TIPS TO MAKE YOU A CUTER SHOOTER O You can carry on using the EOS R’s touchscreen while shooting through the viewfinder with ‘Touch and Drag’. If you find your nose is making unwanted AF point changes, you can choose a specific screen area that your snozz doesn’t get near, and hey presto. Sort of makes up for not having a joystick… well, nearly. O One of the main benefits of mirrorless cameras over DSLRs is being able to use the viewfinder for all kinds of helpful functions. For example, you can zoom in to 100% and make sure your subject is pin-sharp before hitting the shutter release button. On the Z7 there’s a dedicated button to get you up close and personal.

1 Touchy feely The Canon’s touch bar can give you quick access to a key setting such as ISO – just be sure to engage the lock to avoid thumb-knocks.

2 Totes awks Having the on/off dial on the left is really quite annoying for quick switching – placing it around the shutter release would surely have made much more sense.

TES WI T NN ER

3 Eyes wide shutter Nikon’s new Z mount can facilitate wide-aperture lenses that the F mount couldn’t even dream of – look out for an f/0.95 lens coming soon.

4 Batt’s your lot With battery life rated at just 330 shots, a second battery is a smart investment for pros. But charging via USB is also possible for quick blasts of power on the go.

BETA YOURSELF

WUNDERLIST Relying on sticky notes attached to your face for important tasks? You’d best get this to-do app before the festive season hits. It’ll even let you fob a few items off on others… THE BASICS

tap-holding and dragging. There’s a notes field for arbitrary scribbles on a task, and you can also add files, such as images, PDFs and MP3s of you yelling “I AM A TO-DO GOD!” stored in Dropbox.

Q Make some lists If you only want a bare-bones to-do manager – or if you burn through tasks at a pace that makes normal people hate you – you can probably stick with Wunderlist’s Inbox. But if you want to organise your tasks, create some lists. You can refine your setup further by dragging one list onto another to group them in a folder. Wunderlist will also make smart lists based on due dates and starred items.

Q Add tasks Tap the blue ‘+’ button and Wunderlist creates a new task. The app understands natural language input for schedules and notifications, such as ‘Buy Stuff tomorrow at 8am’. To manually assign dates and reminders, use the calendar

Q Repeat yourself Although primarily intended for one-off tasks, Wunderlist can be used to track repeating events. Create your task, tap to edit it, and tap ‘Repeat’ then select your interval. button (and clock on iOS). By default, new items head to the inbox, but you can select an alternative list before tapping ‘Done’. Or you can add items when already viewing a list.

Q Get stuck in So you’ve got the bug but now you want more. Wunderlist lets you have it. Tap a task and you can add subtasks, which can be rearranged by

Q Make it your own Peruse the ‘General’ section of settings, where you can adjust app behaviour – such as audio feedback, smart lists and whether new items are placed at the top of lists. Also check out ‘Background’ to adjust Wunderlist’s visual style; options range from stark minimalism to a photo of a snoozing cat.

SORT IT OUT Q Adjust your lists

Welcome site Should your smartphone conk out and your tablet follow suit, you can still get at all of your Wunderlist content by logging in at wunderlist.com on a PC.

A sign of a good task manager is how flexible it is in reordering lists, and Wunderlist’s ‘Sort’ button has plenty of options: alphabetical, due or creation date, assignee and priority. Note that starred stuff is by default placed at the top.

Q Work with tags You can use tagging (in standard #hashtag style) to group arbitrary items stored across multiple folders. But tagging can also be used as a means to create custom priority levels. Place #1, #2, #3 and so on at the start of your to-dos, then sort alphabetically.

OR TRY ONE OF THESE

MICROSOFT TO-DO You might get a sense of deja vu using To-Do, and that’s because Microsoft intended it to replace Wunderlist. Right now, though, it’s a rather minimal app, lacking key features. Still, not a bad choice if you want something simple. Free / Android, iOS, web

HABITCA EASY ACCESS Q Add emoji

SUNNY & SHARE

You may hate emoji with the blazing fury of a thousand suns, but stick one in front of a list’s name. It replaces the generic icon and makes picking out lists much easier.

WUNDER OFF

Q Assign tasks

Q Use stars

Q Email lists

Some tasks are just too good to keep to yourself – such as, erm, grocery shopping. So in a list, tap ‘Share’ to inflict it on another person. You can then use the handy ‘Assign to’ option, and blame someone else when they forget things.

Tap the star icon next to any individual task and it’ll show up in the automatically created ‘Starred’ folder. Don’t go nuts with this. Use that folder for each day’s most important tasks and only replenish the list when they’re all completed.

Need to get a list to someone but not keen on full-on sharing? Tap ‘More’, and then ‘Email List’. (Avoid doing this with your Starred list – that can do weird things.) Want to pretend you’re living in the 1980s? Try printing the list.

Q Get chatty

Q Make a calendar

Q Export your data

Every task within Wunderlist enables you to add a comment (although doing so on solo tasks might mark you out as a little bit strange). In shared lists this can be a great way to clarify collaborations, or entertain others with ASCII art. Either’s good.

Wunderlist can sort lists by date, but that’s not useful if time-sensitive to-dos live in multiple folders. So head to the web app, click ‘Account Settings’ and subscribe to the calendar feed. In your calendar, you’ll see all your to-dos that have a due date.

If the day ever comes when owner Microsoft shuts down Wunderlist, you can grab your data at export.wunderlist.com. The zip file you get includes everything from lists you own, such as tasks, notes and files. Neatly, everything even works as a little offline website.

Although you always get that satisfying little buzz in your brain when you check a task off a list, that might not be enough. Should you need extra encouragement to actually get things done, Habitca turns your to-dos into a tiny role-playing game. Free / Android, iOS, web

THINGS 3 One for the serious Get Things Done crowd – at least if armed with Apple kit. This task manager has a ton of great features for organising your life, and a lickable interface – just as well, since at this price you’ll have to do without food. R300 / iOS, macOS

T E S T E D D J I M AV I C 2 P R O

’Blad influence Take one of our very favourite drones, improve it in all sorts of ways, then stick a Hasselblad camera on the front – how can DJI’s Mavic 2 Pro not be a classic? R31 000 / myistore.co.za Drone-maker DJI is on a roll. If you’d asked us a few weeks ago to name our favourite flying camera, we’d have blurted out “Mavic Air” before you’d finished the question – but things have changed now, and it’s all down to this handsome aerial devil: the Mavic 2 Pro. Back in 2016, the Mavic Pro ushered in an entirely new folding design. Many drones since have copied that, but the Mavic 2 Pro is the true successor, keeping all the good bits of the original while making real improvements in almost every area. Perhaps most significantly of all, it comes with a brand new camera developed in association with the legendary Swedish company Hasselblad. It’s not a huge surprise that this has happened, given that DJI bought a majority stake in the firm last year, but this is the first camera to arise out of the partnership… and it’s fantastic. This is an undeniably pricey drone, but we think enthusiasts will find it’s worth every cent.

1 Steerway to heaven The Mavic 2 Pro is a fantastic flier that feels far more responsive in the air than we were expecting. It can zip along at 72km/h in Sport mode, but just knowing it’ll respond near-instantly to the controller, even at long range, is really reassuring.

GOOD MEH EVIL

Couldn’t be easier to control

3 2

3 Hook, line and sync’er The new OcuSync 2.0 video transmission system will beam a stable 1080p live feed to a controller-connected phone around 600m away. The only time we lost the signal altogether was when there was 30m of cliff face between us and the drone.

2 Young, free and gimbal It’s stable too, with gusty weather causing few problems and the gimbal keeping the camera rock-steady. The sleeker body and blades mean it makes a little less noise in flight. At 30m high, any passers-by will hardly know it’s there.

Stable in high winds, and quiet

Impressive streaming range

Clever collision avoidance

Top-quality video and stills

There are fine drones that cost a lot less

T E S T E D D J I M AV I C 2 P R O

Tech specs Camera 20MP 1in CMOS Video 4K @ 30fps, 1080p @ 120fps Maximum speed 20m/s Max flight time 31 minutes Range 8km Connectivity USB-C, microSD storage Dimensions 283x277x110mm, 907g

Alternatively…

DJIMavic2Zoom R26 000 / myistore.co.za

4 Dodge charger In every mode bar Sport, the Mavic 2 Pro is nearly impossible to crash. With obstacle sensors on all sides (a DJI first), the drone will detect potential disasters and stop automatically. If flying on a course you’ve preset, it’ll even skirt around obstacles

5 It’s worth the Hassel With a 20MP 1in sensor and adjustable aperture, the Hasselblad camera performs well in a much greater range of lighting conditions than most. As a result, the footage and stills that come directly out of the camera look stunningly detailed.

With the same folding design as the Pro and many of the same flight features, the Zoom differs in only one significant way: its camera. No Hasselblads here, just a 2/3in sensor with 12MP. This model does, however, come with a world first for drones: a 2x optical zoom lens. That might sound a bit gimmicky, but it affords this Mavic a couple of special tricks. OK, yes, the Pro’s camera is much better. But in good lighting conditions the Zoom is more than capable of delivering impressively sharp 4K footage as well

r affordable as the Mavic Air, he battery life, safety features more than make up for that. rket for a compact drone that a dream, and you’re willing to r it, the Mavic 2 Pro should be your wishlist.

as reasonably clear and clean 12MP stills. And then we come to the fun part. The Zoom’s lens lets you perform a dramatic Hitchcock-style dolly zoom, where the drone flies backwards while zooming in on a subject. It also allows you to fill the frame with subjects that you’d rather not get too close to. If your budget doesn’t stretch to the Pro, this is a very attractive alternative that offers the same battery life, safety features and quiet, agile flying. Stuff says +++++ No match for the Pro, but a top drone in its own right

STUFF SAYS +++++ A drone without any real weaknesses: if you can afford it, this is the new gold standard in portable flyers 69

RETRO TECH

GAMING Clock NES monster The beating heart of the Pyua consists of circuitry taken from an Nt Mini NES console made by Analogue. Light NES of touch ‘Load’ the cartridge, replace the dome, press the ‘on’ switch and your beloved game is illuminated, trophy cabinet style.

RETRO TECH

Hello retro

Classic on the outside, cutting-edge on the inside – vive la renaissance of gadgets, games and gear given a 21st-century reawakening

Atari VCS This stylish tiny system elevates Atari into the modern world. There are more than 100 classic games to sink your teeth into, such as Missile Command, Asteroids and the obligatory appearance of Pong, mixed with a dash of new titles. Internet access, Twitch streaming, voice controls and ports galore, and it uses Linux OS for a customisable setup. Choose to play with an original joystick or a PC-compatible controller instead. from R3 350 / atarivcs.com

SNK Neo Geo Mini SNK’s Neo Geo Mini is a miniture tribute to the classic arcade machine. Decked out with 40 original titles, including the likes of The King of Fighters series, the Metal Slug trilogy and Fatal Fury Special, there are plenty of memories to jog – so we suggest multipacks of Ghost Pops and Smarties to see you through the night. There’s a built-in LCD screen, joystick controls, an HDMI port for TV connectivity and support for official Neo Geo controllers. R2 600 / snk-corp.co.jp

NES is more The controllers are now wireless thanks to 8bitdo. They’re stored, with up to 20 cartridges, in a wooden carry case.

Retro Freak

Love Hulten Pyua Gamers are bathing in the glory of a retro revival at present. One Stuff staffer’s dad is a veteran gamer and has hurled himself head-first through this window of opportunity to replenish his cherished haul with kit that fraternises with HDMI. Enter nostalgic Swedish design house Love Hulten and its glass-domed shrine to Nintendo – or more specifically, to the NES system. The Pyua console comes complete with original NES controllers, and gives your 8-bit collection some upscaling TLC with Full HD resolution. Rtba / lovehulten.com

This machine supports original games from 12 different systems, including the Sega Genesis and Mega Drive, Nintendo Game Boy, Game Boy Color and Gameboy Advance, SNES, NES and more. It has cartridge slots, controller ports plus SD card and HDMI support. It upscales to HD, or you can enable a scanline overlay. Go premium and get an adaptor for TurboGrafx, Famicom, Super Famicom and Genesis controllers. R2 800 / cybergadget.co.jp

Numskull Pac-Man Waka waka waka waka. Do you hear that? It can mean only one thing: Pac-Man’s got the munchies. Numskull’s adorable cabinet is the result of a passion project to create replicas of iconic arcade machines, but crucially at a quarter of the size so you can store them on a shelf. The first in a series of three machines, the Pac-Man unit runs a ROM of the original game on a 5in display and even includes a coin slot. R2 800 / numskull.com

RETRO TECH

PHOTOGRAPHY For your eyes only Depending on the scene and subject, choose between 30 and 60 full frames per second for video recording in MP4.

Fujifilm X-T100 What do you do when you’re lusting after Leica-esque design and image quality, but don’t really fancy selling everything to get it? The X-T100 comes with a 24.2MP APS-C sensor and a newly developed rapid autofocus system, all for a relatively modest price. All of you smartphone snapping hounds should be happy too, because it’ll be quicker than ever to transfer files via Bluetooth. R10 000 / fujifilm.co.za

A view to a kill There’s a Summilux 28mm f/1.7 ASPH lens and an integrated viewfinder with 3.68MP resolution.

Hasselblad X1D

Polaroid OneStep+

Step into a pro-level photographer’s studio and you’ll likely spot a medium format cam. They pack in pixels perfect for portraits, but aren’t so handy on the move. Hasselblad changed all that with the X1D. This was the first time we’d seen a medium format sensor squeezed into a compact system camera body – it looks great, has top build quality, is easy to use and produces outstanding pictures. R120 000 / hasselblad.com

We love the Polaroid OneStep 2 for its retro quirks, its fun factor and the sheer fact that it’s built using a decades-old process. The OneStep+ adds a Bluetooth-connected smartphone app with double exposure, light painting, self-timer, remote trigger, noise trigger, scanner and manual mode for finetuning your shutter and flash. There’s also a new portrait lens for taking headshots (or other photos) from just over 30cm away. R3 450 / takealot.com

Leica Q Khaki Special Edition Leica’s limited-edition Q compact camera is wrapped in a ‘khaki’ leather trim. This is a 24.2MP luxury snapper in its purest form with a full-frame sensor, fast prime lens, Full HD video recording and Wi-Fi connectivity for transferring content to a smartphone, tablet or laptop. It’s also ludicrously expensive and just 495 are being produced. Given it’s called Q, we suggest pairing it with a Roger Moore safari suit and heading off to exotic climes – just remember the Empire no longer exists. R77 000 / en.leica-camera.com

Reflex SLR Feast your eyes upon the first update of a manual 35mm SLR camera in more than 25 years. Modular in design, it has an interchangeable lens mount and film back, so it’s easy to use with lenses you already own and change film on the fly. It’ll also play nicely with third-party accessories. Originally a Kickstarter campaign, another R400k will reach its stretch funding goal and add Bluetooth LE tech. R6 500 / reflex-s.com

RETRO TECH

MOBILES

Punkt MP02

Nokia 8110 Back in 1999, when Limp Bizkit and Eminem were still cool, there was nothing cooler than Nokia’s 8110 slider phone. Sure, it was like making calls on a banana, but Keanu Reeves had one in the The Matrix so we all wanted one. Nokia’s rebooted version has a colour display and 4G connectivity for app downloads and mobile web browsing – ideas considered witchcraft at the turn of the century. There’s a new version of Snake to tackle, and if yellow isn’t your colour it also comes in a more sedate black finish. R1 250 / hmdglobal.com

Launched at the London Design Festival, the second iteration of the Punkt mindful mobile is a minimalist’s dream, with leanings towards Braun’s iconic designs of the 1980s. What do we mean by mindful? Well it’s 4G, can tether to other devices, and is the first third-party handset to have Blackberry Secure Software; but it also aims to offer a digital life balance, so no web browsing or app downloads on the device itself. R5 500 / punkt.ch

Samsung W2018 The flip-phone flame burns brightly in Japan, where such handsets are dubbed ‘garakei’ and are packed with features for a nation working crazy-long hours. This flipper is for the Far East, but can be found online and imported. It has a 4.2in Super AMOLED touchscreen, variable aperture camera, dual SIMs and USB-C charging. A W2019 should arrive soon for an equally hefty price tag. R30 000 / samsung.com

Slide away The 8110 has a curved cover. Slide it down to answer calls and back up to end them. You’ll look really important.

G unit Although the 8110 is powered by a Linux-based OS, it syncs with Gmail to import contacts and your calendar.

Gemini PDA

Nokia 3310

The Psion 5 PDA was heralded as a yuppie gamechanger in the late ’90s, when city workers were doing so many drugs they required a palm-sized keyboard to cater for their skewed vision. Finally emerging from that haze is Planet Computers, which has reinvented the PDA with the Gemini, a 4G Android phone with 5.7in ultra-wide touchscreen. If you’re keen on control, there’s also a dualboot Linux option. R11 200 / planetcom.co.uk

If a fruit-based Nokia doesn’t float your retro boat, the 3310 is a reimagining of the noughties classic responsible for disturbing fellow shoppers with monophonic garage rock ringtones. The 2.4in curved display has been treated to Technicolor, and while the 2MP camera takes photos akin to a farcical e-fit and connectivity is only 3G, the battery lasts up to a month on standby, so it’s ideal for festivals. R850 / hmdglobal.com

RETRO TECH

AUDIO

Toshiba Aurex TYKA1 Toshiba is taking a different route back into the world of tapes with a cassette deck purporting to deliver the same quality as high-resolution audio. Aurex was a subsidiary of Toshiba back in the 1970s, and this new player of the same name is said to contain a mechanism that improves the music data quality on a tape. It’ll also play CDs and files from SD cards and USB sticks, all for R4 000-ish. ¥29k / toshiba.co.uk

Master & Dynamic MW50+

GPO Brooklyn Go all Beastie Boys and fight for your right to party with GPO’s Brooklyn ghetto blaster. It’ll sit on your shoulder and pump out old cassette recordings of the top 40, but also has the nous to cover you for CD, DAB, FM radio or Bluetooth streaming. There’s a backlight and analogue VU meters, so pair it with a tracksuit, Adidas shell toes and a breakdancing mat, and fool people into wondering what year it is. R4 700 / gporetro.com

Komozophone Love vinyl, but feel you’ve not gone retro enough? Reckon you’d happily stick a gramophone in your living room if only it weren’t century-old tech? You’re in luck. Kozmophone hurls Edison’s invention into the present, and then drop-kicks it into the future. The main unit resembles the classic gramophone, but incorporates a headphone stand including a holographic display. There’s Bluetooth in and RCA line out, while the horn can be detached for 12 hours of portable playback… and presumably quite a few funny looks from anyone nearby. R4 300 / kozmophone.com

Gloriously Mad Men in style but with a wealth of cutting-edge tech, M&D’s hybrid headphones have a neat trick up their sleeve: you can swap between on-ear and over-ear modes. A warm sound emanates from the 40mm beryllium drivers, and there’s Bluetooth 4.1 with AptX, a 16-hour battery life and a choice of three understated finishes. R6 800 / master dynamic.co.uk

Ballfinger M063H5 Reel-to-reel tape is the chosen format for a wealth of serious recording artists, and Lady Gaga. For those seeking true, unadulterated audiophile sound, Ballfinger’s M063H5 deck is the one to have. It’s housed in a precision aluminium chassis and sports threespeed playback, a headphone amp, its own editing system and Uncle Buck passion-wagon-style wooden side panels. R445k / ballfinger.de

Weight your turn Featuring a fully adjustable tonearm and counterweight, the turntable uses an Audio-Technica AT91 cartridge.

Hatful of holo The holographic display won’t bring Tupac back from the dead, but does offer impressive Princess Leia-like visuals.

RETRO TECH

ART

Mike Wrobel 8090s Thrones Mike Wrobel is a Japan-based artist with a penchant for slipping Game of Thrones characters into ’80 and ’90s clothing. White Walkers, Missandei, Jon Snow, Littlefinger and Olenna Tyrell are among those given the treatment, the latter depicted in a shellsuit sporting a dookie gold chain. Other incarnations include Conan the Barbarian, Axel Foley and Mulder & Scully. from R360 / mikewrobel.shop

Blade Runner Whiskey Glasses

Sonic by Robert Oxley It’s a testament to artist Robert Oxley’s skill that he can let paint dribble down a canvas and give off this incredible ‘melted waxwork’ reimagining of Sonic the Hedgehog. Created in collaboration with Sega to celebrate the character’s 25th anniversary, an original limited-edition boxed canvas of ‘Sonic’ or ‘Speed of Sound’ (left) can be bought direct from the artist. from R15 800 / oxleyart.co.uk

Relax after a stressful day spent ‘retiring’ replicants by supping sweet single malt – or ginger beer, Fanta grape etc – from the same tumblers used by Rick Deckard in the seminal 1982 sci-fi movie Blade Runner. Each one is formed from handmade crystal glass, mouth-blown at boutique Italian firm Arnolfo di Cambio, and goes perfectly with flickering neon signs reflecting off puddles. R2 220 / firebox.com

Replaceface Home furnishings: boring. Not these, though. Replaceface takes the works of English portrait artist George Dawe, who painted 329 Russian generals during Napoleon’s invasion, and Photoshops iconic characters on their shoulders instead. Bedspreads, pillowcases, cushions, rugs, tapestries – they’re all available, and included are the likes of Bill Murray, Sir Patrick Stewart and Neil Armstrong. from R215 / society6. com/replaceface

Star Wars Wampa Rug There’s something gloriously tacky about this fireplace-worthy white Wampa rug. Somehow this is officially licensed, and features four limbs with softsculpted vinyl claws, embroidered eyes and printed teeth – so just like the real thing, then. Naturally, if you’re planning on entertaining friends or have designs on someone special coming over for dinner, we suggest you store this in a cupboard. R2 280 / fun.co.uk

TESTED BMW X4 (2018)

Four on the floor BMW pioneered the sport coupe segment, and with the updated X4, they’re reminding us they also want to lead the category from R843000 / bmw.co.za

Q Harder, better, faster… Previously if you wanted variable sports steering – softer at low speed, firmer at high – you had to spring for an M performance X4, but now it’s standard.

Q Cord and clutter cutter

Q The X4 is a divisive vehicle. Some people love its aggressive, swooping roof, wide stance and athletic styling. Others think it looks like someone sat on an X5… or took a coupe and mistakenly stuck it on an SUV chassis. We fall somewhere in the middle. From some angles the X4 is gorgeous, from others it’s got a hint of the gangly teen about it. But hop in and none of that matters. Q Longer, wider and lower slung than the first gen X4, the update embraces its sporty chops with great results. There’s surprisingly little body roll for an SUV, and the all-wheel-drive xDrive system has a pleasing predilection for pushing power to the rear. The result is you find yourself hoping for windy roads just for the thrill of flinging the X4 into the corners, and that

flinging is also more comfortable thanks to increased support from the bucket-style seats. Q When it comes to tech there’s plenty standard… but also heaps more you can add. GPS with traffic info, wireless charging and Apple CarPlay (both wired or via Bluetooth) all come bundled now, as does an automatic tailgate. There’s also a 6.5in touchscreen in the centre of the dash, but boosting that to the 10.2in version, adding the 12.3in digital instrument cluster, and including the superb head-up display will all cost you. Q The curvature of the roof means you lose a little headroom in the back, but unless you’re a family of giants (or, you know, Danes, Norwegians or Swedes) this probably won’t be a problem.

The centre console of the X4 includes something we really want to see from more manufacturers: a non-slip pad that supports Qi wireless charging.

Tech specs (xDrive 20d) Engine 2-litre 4-cylinder diesel Transmission 8-Speed Steptronic Power 140kW Torque 400Nm 0-100kmh 8 seconds Top speed 213km/h Fuel economy 5.6l/100km CO2 Emissions 148g/km Tank 68 litres

STUFF SAYS The X4 sees BMW successfully wedding practicality to performance +++++

If you like the look, you’ll love the drive 76

BMW’s X range is pretty crowded, but the X4 is instantly recognisable thanks to its combo of SUV dimensions and coupe lines. Aesthetics aside, it’s awfully fun to drive, and more energetic than its heft would suggest, even at the bottom of the range. If you’re a pragmatist, you’re better off getting an X3. But if you prize performance, enjoy a touch of petulance, and want passers-by to notice you passing by, get an X4.

T E S T E D V O LV O X C 6 0 ( 2 0 1 8 )

Safe sexy The multi-award winning XC60 is one of the safest cars you can drive, but don’t let that fool you, it’s no slouch in the dynamism or design departments either from R673 700 / volvocars.com/za Q The last Volvo we drove was the enormous and remarkable XC90, and we loved it. So it’s little wonder the XC60 pleased us from the get-go, because it offers the same engine options as its larger stablemate, but is both easier to park and a whole lot gentler on the pocket. Q Speaking of price, Volvo sent us the full-fat D5. It’s the most expensive of the diesel options, and the price starts just shy of R800 000. That meant all of the mod cons on offer, both standard and optional, from the electric tailgate and (optional) dynamic suspension – that lowers when you turn off the ignition for easier disembarking and boot-loading – to lane-keep assistance, stopand-go cruise control, live traffic navigation and a panoramic roof.

Q Everything about the XC60 feels lush. Doors close quietly but with reassuring heft. The interior is luxurious and understated. The jumbo touch display in the centre of the dashboard feels like an iPad with its stacking of menus and its home button, and while there’s a little, understandable, lag in eco and comfort modes when you put your foot down, the (again, optional) gear-shift paddles can be used to mitigate that. Q On tar or dirt the Volvo’s driving characteristic match its styling: it is quietly confident, capable, and regal. The exterior styling is sporty – particularly the updated rear and tail lights – and it’ll leap when you ask it to, but that’s not really its selling point. The XC60 is elegant, reliable and safe, and that’s exactly what we expected from it.

Q Take the wheel If the lines on the road are good, Volvo’s semi-autonomous Pilot Assist can manage accelerating, braking and steering at speeds of up to 130 km/h.

Q Breath of fresh air Arguably the most Scandanavian aspect of the XC60 is Volvo’s new CleanZone air-quality climate system that keeps airborne nasties out of the cabin.

Tech specs (D5 AWD) Engine 2-litre 4-cylinder diesel Transmission 8-Speed automatic, AWD Power 173kW Torque 480Nm 0-100kmh 7.2 seconds Top speed 220km/h Fuel economy 5.5l/100km CO2 Emissions 144g/km Tank 71 litres

STUFF SAYS A great SUV and the perfect embodiment of Volvo’s best attributes +++++

A compelling update to a winning formula

The XC60 is a fierce contender in the ever-more competitive luxury SUV sector, and what it lacks in aggression or race-track ambitions it more than makes up for with an impressive feature set, flexibility and functionality… and of course there’s that impeccable safety record that makes it even more appealing given many South Africans’ tenuous relationship with the rules of the road. 77

TESTED SONY WH-1000XM3

Silent but deadly Sony’s latest noise-cancelling Bluetooth headphones are gunning for Bose with some smart tech and even smarter sound R6 000 / takealot.com

Think of noise-cancelling headphones and one name probably comes to mind. It’s Bose, right? Maybe that should change, though, because the Sony WH-1000XM3s are some of the best noise-killing cans ever made. Like their WH-1000XM2 predecessors, the XM3s have Bluetooth wireless and active noise-cancellation (ANC), the perfect combo for listening on public transport. You can optimise the cancellation with a calibration procedure that tweaks the effect for fit and atmospheric pressure, so it won’t feel like they’re trying to suck out your eardrums, and there’s NFC for easy pairing. Oh, and they sound good too. You get great dynamics, a wide stereo image, powerful bass and nicely textured mids. You can give all that a tweak with Sony’s in-app EQ if you need a bit more bite – when dealing with the roar of train and plane engines isn’t the only aim, you’ll soon find a setting you love.

1 Soft machine The foam inside is thick and extremely soft; and while the covering is synthetic leather, it feels very comfy. These Sony cans have a more positive grip on your head than Bose’s QC 35 IIs, which makes for better passive isolation from outside noise.

GOOD MEH EVIL

2 Beige against the machine Right now you can get the Sony WH-1000XM3s in either black or what’s variously described as ‘silver’ or ‘gold’ depending on where you shop. It’s actually closer to a light beige, like the walls of a house from a ’90s home improvement show.

Really comfortable to wear

NFC connectivity is useful

Plastic doesn’t feel premium

Impressive battery life, even with ANC on…

…but they sound better with it turned off

Companion app is a tweaker’s dream

TESTED SONY WH-1000XM3

Tech specs

Battery life 30hrs with ANC, 38hrs without Charge time 3 hours Connectivity Bluetooth, NFC, USB-C, jack Colour options Black, silver Weight 255g

Specs tech What’s under the skin? Quite a lot of advanced codec kit, for starters. Does that make these Bose-beaters?

3 Non-metal machine music The ’phones are mostly made of plastic – not the metal you might expect from this luxury price point. The cups have a soft-touch finish, the stems a metallic sheen. Real metal would have been nice, of course, but not if it meant jacking up the price even more. 4 Time machine Sony says you’ll get 30 hours of use between charges with active noise-cancellation on, or 38 just using wireless. We seemed to get slightly less out of a charge, but battery life is still great, and fast charging nets you hours of playing time in just 10 minutes.

5 Welcome to the machine The XM3s offer slightly higher fidelity without the magic of ANC turned on. Pour yourself a glass of wine, find a quiet room, switch off ANC and set the ClearBass low-end booster somewhere between -10 and -5, and you’re in for a serious treat.

Q Tech it to the bridge

Q All hands on tech

Codec support is fantastic. For smartphones well below the XM3’s pay grade you can use standard SBC; but if your handset supports it, the Sony WH-1000XM3 can deliver aptX, aptX HD, AAC and LDAC.

LDAC only used to work with Sony phones, but it became a standard part of Android in version 8.0 Oreo so is finally useful. And it can stream in hi-res. You can see which codec the XM3s are using in the Headphones Connect app.

Q Neck and tech?

Q Tech it all in

Sony says its new QN1 processor is to thank for the XM3’s noise-cancelling performance. Well, it’s good alright… but listening to a Bose pair afterwards, it does seem the QCs still have the edge with higher frequencies.

There’s an unusually good noise-monitoring mode, which uses the mics to play through outside noise so you can hear what’s going on without taking the cans off. It’s very useful and doesn’t make cars sound like a cloud of angry wasps.

The Sony WH-1000 series was already a top performer, and these new WH-1000XM3s improve the active noise-cancellation for an even more compelling package. Sound purists may want to fiddle with things and leave ANC off, but with a tweak or two you’ll be in your own particular version of audio heaven.

STUFF SAYS +++++ These are absolutely killer noise-cancelling headphones that get just about everything spot-on 79

FI R TH ST ES AD E… D

NIKON D5

ONE AF-S NIKKOR 70-200MM F/2.8E FL ED VR LENS Nikon’s ultra-fast and super-sharp telephoto zoom lens has been tweaked for better AF and vibration reduction, while new lens elements make it lighter and tougher than ever. It might still be a big hunk of glass to lug around, but it captures the action like a true pro. R42 200 / nikon.co.za

TWO METZ 64 AF-1 FLASHGUN

THREE MANFROTTO BEFREE GT TRIPOD

Photography really comes to life when you master the art of light – and because of the professional nature of the D5, there’s no built-in ﬂash (well, they tend to be a bit useless anyway). So it pays to invest in a mighty digital ﬂashgun… and the Metz 64 AF-1 is one of the most powerful and versatile on the market. R6500 (import) / amazon.com

This exceptionally light carbonﬁbre tripod can handle a mammoth 10kg equipment load and folds down to just 43cm long, making it the perfect travel companion for the discerning snapper. The included aluminium centre ball head also allows for buttery-smooth movement and precise framing. R9 200 / ormsdirect.co.za

NO TH W T IS RY …

AN I N BY S D G TH PIR ET ES ED E…

INS STANT UPGRADES

50 YEARS OF ROLLING STONE 1 FIND PICTURES FAST

2 KILL THE BAD VIBES

3 LIGHTEN UP

Forget relentlessly tapping a button or scrolling via a jog-wheel, because Nikon’s ﬂagship D5 features an intuitive touchscreen display that makes locating pictures much easier. Simply swipe left or right to quickly scan through snaps, and double-tap the screen to zoom and check the focus point. There’s even a simple pinch-to-zoom function so you can zone in on the ﬁner details.

Vibration reduction (VR) has historicallyhelpedphotographers achieve ultra-sharp imagery even when the camera is handheld. Unfortunately, VR can also play havoc with fast-moving objects, which is where Sport mode comes in handy. Only available on certain lenses, it makes subjects easier to track during panning and enables high-speed burst shooting mounted to the D5.

Dive into the menus and explore the various Overlay modes, which allow you to get creative with multiple-exposure imagery. In Lighten and Darken modes, the camera cleverly compares pixels in each exposure and chooses only the lightest or only the darkest. This is perfect for capturing high-contrast subjects and, if you get it right, can do away with the need for ﬁddly Photoshop jobs later.

From vivid live shots to elaborate Annie Leibowitz portraits, this chunky book includes some of the finest rock photography ever. R1 490 / takealot.com

HIGH TIDE: A SURF ODYSSEY Stoke your wanderlust (and surf urges) with this compendium of stunning coastal photography from modern maestro Chris Burkard. R850 / loot.co.za

4 LET THERE BE LIGHT(ROOM) The Instagram glitterati would be lost without Adobe’s powerful Lightroom software because it’s key to making those impressively creative visuals you so often double-tap in appreciation. Shoot in RAW, import to Lightroom and harness this powerful software to create moody looks and turn mundane photographs into eye-poppingly dazzling images.

5 SHUT UP THE SHUTTER

6 GO TO THE DARK SIDE

You’ve invested in a top-spec camera, so it’s quite possible someone will demand you shoot a wedding at some point. A silent shutter will be invaluable here, as it won’t punctuate proceedings with the clicking of a mirrored camera. The D5 features both Quiet and Silent modes, with the former allowing for burst photography and support for all image size and quality options.

One of the most outstanding features of Nikon’s mammoth D5 is its ability to produce crisp images in extremely low light. This is down to its epic ISO capabilities, letting you pump things up to a max ISO setting of 3,280,000. Obviously shooting at this end will result in grainy shots, but you can travel much further up the ISO scale than usual with very little eﬀect on overall quality.

MOTHER Enlightening and poignant, Matthew Finn’s beautiful portraits follow his mother’s life from middle age to the onset of dementia. Proof of the power of the photograph. R520 / loot.co.za

TESTED GAMES

Xbox One, PC / forzamotorsport.net

Forza Horizon 4

Whether you’re a hardcore auto-nerd or just someone who’s wondered what it’s like to tear through the Lake District in a pimped-out supercar, you won’t find a better racing game than this

rossing the finish line in a racing game has never felt as inconsequential as it does in Forza Horizon 4. That’s by no means knocking the latest entry in Playground Games’ rubber-burning series: the simple act of driving, while soaking up some of the most gorgeous sights ever to grace a game, is so satisfying that competing hardly seems to matter. Whether tackling one of over two dozen career paths or simply pootling around the game’s

sprawling, shared open world, Forza Horizon 4 always feels fresh. All of the vehicles handle differently – more so if you dive into the customisation options (see panel opposite) – while the sheer number of varied activities and objectives ensures you’re never doing the same thing for very long. It doesn’t hurt that every system, mechanic, menu and user interface element sports a level of polish to rival the sheen coming off the beautifully realised

cars. Playground Games has been doing this a long time, and every detail – from the intuitiveness of the controls to the tiniest of HUD icons – reflects that impressive lineage. Toss in the postcard-perfect British setting, season-specific wildlife, dynamic weather and day/night cycles, and how the calendar affects each event in its own way, and you get more than a pretty backdrop. In short, the seasons – which change weekly – feel like an organic inclusion

seamlessly woven into the open world’s immersive fabric. There’s nothing Forza Horizon 4 doesn’t nail – and it can be enjoyed solo, with friends, or with the larger racing game community. The online element promises to host hourly, daily and weekly events indefinitely. It’s an exceptional sandbox experience that’s set a new standard for the implementation of shared open worlds. It’s also the prettiest Xbox game to date. Drive it like you stole it, yeah?

STUFF SAYS Buckle up – this is simply the best racing game ever created +++++ 82

TESTED GAMES

Garage band

You can play solo, with friends or online via a series of events.

The scenery and the changing seasons are the icing on this delicious cake.

Forza Horizon 4 is absolutely brimming with options for intermediate and expert players. More seasoned speedsters will want to dive into the settings menu, where a dizzying array of difficulty, assist and control tweaks can be tailored to specific preferences, play styles and skill levels. Similar depth can be found in the game’s customisation options, where vehicles can be tuned and tweaked to your heart’s content. Whether tinkering under the hood or applying cosmetic touches to the body of the 450-plus rides, fans will find the upgrade system surpasses that of previous entries’ already robust offerings. New features, such as the ability to acquire perk-granting properties and personalise your avatar, also bring some customisation out of the garage. You can’t dig into all this depth right out of the gate, because Forza Horizon 4’s various progression paths are fuelled by a number of levelling loops and currency categories. Thankfully, the game is bubbling over with opportunities to earn and progress by inviting players to take part in challenges, career objectives and other tyre-screeching tasks across a broad range of disciplines.

TESTED GAMES

PS4, Xbox One, PC / callofduty.com

Call of Duty gets undeadly serious Let’s be blunt about this: you’ll either love or hate the Zombies mode, and nothing about Black Ops 4 will change that. But the inclusion of a deeper story and multiple maps to start with makes it very clear that Zombies is a big deal here, and the number of trophies on offer for the mode hammers that home. Elixirs add more depth if you somehow needed it, with in-game currency put into them in a random, almost loot-box-like mechanic offering either one-time or repeat-use special skills. There are potions that can spawn a nuke power-up, or the more passive ‘headshots have a chance to instakill’ – which, if we’re honest, we thought was the whole point of a headshot anyway… especially when facing everyone’s favourite undead monster. But there’s just so much in this year’s Zombies mode. Elixirs and perks (quick revive, berserking when in last stand etc), classes, unlockables – it feels as though a good team can go further now. There’s also a new Rush mode, offering an arcade experience that removes the need to unlock your path with points earned from kills, and instead focuses more on scoring against your pals.

Weapons feel immense, from pistols and shotguns to grenade launchers.

Teamwork can be frustrating – as ever, playing with friends is best.

TESTED GAMES

Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 Single-player mode has taken a bullet for this version of the all-action FPS, but will its new multiplayer modes (and extra zombies) satisfy trigger-happy gamers of all ability levels? lack Ops 4 has brought big changes to Activision’s annual blockbuster – and yet, despite the controversial lack of single-player, it’s somehow still got something for everyone. There’s definitely an element of the ‘hero shooter’ genre creeping into certain modes, especially one of the new additions: Control. Here, assorted specialists work together to control the points of the map. Perhaps you’ll pick Ruin when attacking a point, because of his grapple gun; defending, Firebreak’s

reactor core will cause damage to anyone who comes near it. That these specialists are unlocked from the start is excellent, giving a far more level playing field than usual. Elsewhere, the multiplayer feels less brutal than before. It’s not exactly welcoming, but it’s less aggressive towards new players because it’s not always a case of ‘first to spot the enemy wins’. Of course, it was always just a matter of time before the big boys got involved with Battle Royale,

and CoD has nailed it with Blackout mode. There’s no way around it: this is just a damned good time… even if it is massively derivative of PUBG, right down to how the map looks. Special pickups (heal faster, move quicker…) make for a highly tactical affair, but one that is still very CoD. You can last for ages and get into the top ten, but you can also be gunned down seconds after landing. That’s just Battle Royale for you. This is a glorious-looking game, and one that lets you feel every

cent of the no doubt enormous budget. It’s fast but not too fast, and the only major negative is in the tutorial, as the narrator barks manly banter at you while smoking an infinitely burning cigarette. It’s off-puttingly bad. This is a shooter that can (and likely will) bring back people who dabble but never usually stick with it. Crucially, it nails the gun-feel like CoD hasn’t in some time. Who knew that dropping single-player would help deliver the best game the series has offered in ages?

STUFF SAYS As long as you don’t mind dying a lot, this is the best CoD in years ++++, 85

TESTED GAMES

PS4, Xbox One, Switch, PC / assassinscreed.ubisoft.com

Assassin’s Creed Odyssey With insanely satisfying combat, a rewarding progression system and a stunning world to explore, the latest instalment in the action adventure series is a cracker ou don’t play an assassin in Assassin’s Creed Odyssey. Instead, you assume the role of Kassandra or her little bruv Alexios, both mercenaries born long before the Brotherhood sharpened its first wrist-blade. Not to worry, though: you’ll still spend most of your time slitting throats and spilling innards with cinematic style to spare. Dealing death for cash is endlessly satisfying, primarily because of this game’s highly

rewarding progression system. Topping off that experience bar and reaching a new tier not only makes you more powerful, but also brings weapons and gear, ability points and enchantments. Combined, these items fuel the game’s addictive levelling loop, allowing you to shape and mould your mercenary. Your items can be further personalised with enchantments – for example, increasing a weapon’s ability to deliver poison damage. Swapping these in and

out to support a character build adds some welcome depth without the tedium that often comes with poring over stats. The highlight, however, is Odyssey’s skill trees, featuring a trio of beefy progression paths. Players can focus on Hunter, Warrior or Assassin skills, or mix and match. Right off the bat, you have access to table-turning skills such as the empowering Spartan Kick. Satisfying as it is to customise your character, it’s even more fun

to unleash your mercenary on the battlefield. Deep yet accessible, responsive and fluid, the combat relies on the expected light and heavy attacks, as well as dodges and parries. The scenery is stunning and the combat thumb-blistering. And while the story could have done with a few more twists, it’s generally an involving yarn. If you haven’t played an Assassin’s Creed game for a while… well, you’re in for a few surprises. If you have, there’s oodles to love.

STUFF SAYS One of the biggest, best and most ambitious entries in the series yet ++++, 86

TESTED GAMES

Life (plus death) on the ocean wave

You can infuse your armour with defences against a specific enemy type.

Practise your chat-up lines (this one obviously needs some work).

Assassin’s Creed Odyssey’s addictive levelling loop and engaging combat carry over nicely to its excellent naval elements. The game’s sprawling ancient Greek setting is dotted with dozens of islands, ensuring you’ll spend plenty of time barking orders at your archers and rowers from behind the helm. Navigating your ship is incredibly simple and satisfying… as is crashing it into enemy craft and watching them sink while you escape unscathed. Of course, if you want to play pirate, you can also choose to board and loot your target vessels before compromising their hulls. Or you can avoid enemy contact entirely, simply take in the stunning sights surrounding you, and occasionally break cover to score some sunken treasure and maybe gut a shark… and why not? Regardless of how you spend your time at sea, you’ll be continuously tweaking your ship with upgrades, from stronger defences to spears that inflict more fire damage. You can even recruit more crew members – typically foes you’ve allowed to live in return for their seafaring services – that add additional perks to your craft.

TESTED GAMES

Switch / nintendo.co.za

The latest brilliant addition to the Switch’s burgeoning game library is a festival of silliness, best enjoyed in a large merry-making group he Switch is hardly lacking crowd-pleasing multiplayer games. Fancy a bit of racing? Mario Kart 8 Deluxe is a classic. Irrepressible urge to punch someone in the nose? Avoid the consequences by doing it in Arms instead. Unwavering confidence in your digital sushi-plating prowess? Apron up for Overcooked 2. But, come Christmas, there’s only one game to rescue you and your loved ones from mince-pie malaise: Super Mario Party. With a whopping 80 new mini-games that are easily grasped by gamers and baffled grandmothers alike, as well as online play for the first time, this marks a refreshing return to form for the series. And Toad’s Rec Room, a new mode that lets you play tabletop games by joining two Switches together, is Nintendo at its creative best. When you start the game you’ll choose one of the 20 characters and form a party of four before selecting from a variety of game modes. The meatiest of them, as ever, is the Mario Party board game, which sees players roll the

dice to move around a board full of prizes and hazards. The aim is to nab more stars than everyone else, but every couple of minutes you’ll be hurled into one of the many mini-games to fight for coins. If you’ve played a Mario Party game before, you’ll know they’re always stuffed with mini-games of varying quality. Some here only require button presses and the stick, while others use motion controls and the often ignored HD Rumble feature. In one you have to fry a steak, flipping the pan each time the Joy-Cons’ rumbling lets you know you’ve cooked a side; in another you need to wait for the strongest feedback from the controller before yanking up your fishing rod. The star of the show, though, has to be Shell Shocked Deluxe: a two-on-two tank shooter that’s truly innovative in how it lets you use two consoles to create the battlefield. It’ll be fascinating to see how Nintendo builds on this tech in future titles. For now, just enjoy multiple servings of this genuine Christmas cracker.

Mini-games are always hectic, and never stay around long enough to get boring.

River Survival sees you working with your friends to pop balloons with your oars.

STUFF SAYS Mario Party finds the perfect home on Switch in time for Christmas ++++, 88

TESTED GAMES

FIFA 19

Does having the Champions League licence make this the best game of footie you’ll play with your hands?

PS4, Xbox One, Switch, PC / easports.com

ot all winning teams are truly great. Zidane’s Real Madrid might have won three Champions League titles in a row, but did they change the way people think about how football should be played? No. FIFA 19 finds itself in a similar position. EA Sports has assembled another game full of winning features, but does that in itself make it a classic? The game’s biggest signing is its Champions League licence, which pops up everywhere from standalone tournaments to The Journey, so it throws you in at the deep end with a prediction of this year’s final: Juventus versus PSG at the Wanda Metropolitano in Madrid, with a huge Ronaldo banner overlooking the pitch. Considering he’s on the front of the box, it’s no surprise that you take control of the Italian champions and must score the required CR7 goal(s) to win the cup, lest he come over all Gianluigi Buffon and accuse the game of having a dustbin where its heart should be. Assuming you’re a FIFA

It’s a game with more tactical variation than before, thanks to the new Dynamic Tactics.

Alex Hunter, star of the ‘scripted reality’ mode The Journey, is back for a third chapter.

n00b, the Trainer is turned on by default, but even if you’ve been playing for years it makes sense to leave it turned on for this first game, because it’s the perfect opportunity to start practising with one of FIFA 19’s biggest gameplay additions: Timed Finishing. This is a new way to shoot that increases your chances of scoring – as long as you get it right. Get it wrong and you’re more likely to scuff the ball pathetically wide. It’s fairly simple to grasp but very difficult to master. The other headline gameplay changes are Active Touch and an overhauled approach to 50/50 balls, and both have a noticeable effect on the way the game feels to play – usually for the better. With that Champions League licence to add to all the others, FIFA 19’s presentation is more realistic than ever. Crowds still look a bit too regimented and player movement can still sometimes be slightly wonky; but in terms of translating the sights and sounds of real soccer matches and attendant stresses, it’s unbeatable.

STUFF SAYS For authenticity, no other game comes close – FIFA’s done it again ++++, 89

GADGET DOCTOR

ALWAYS ON CALL

facebook.com/stuffsa ● @StuffSA stuff@stuff.co.za

MAIL OF THE MONTH Q

TRY NOT TO MAKE A NOTE[7] OF IT

I recently picked up a Samsung S9 on contract. After using it for a couple of months I realise that it gets very warm on occasion. Considering Samsung’s past devices, have you received or observed similar behavior? Jason

We've only found the Samsung S9 getting

warm when we're putting it under strain - like playing intensive games on it, or using it to provide navigation while also streaming music in a car. Of course, in the latter example, the Joburg heat probably had a role to play. All smartphones will get warm when made to work hard, but if yours is doing it when you're not demanding much of it, we'd recommend taking it into a Samsung store for a checkup.

Speak your brains to Stuff and you could win! This letter wins an Amazon Fire 7 tablet worth R1 400.

TRAVELLING DOWN DIFFERENT STREAMS

So my family and I have recently migrated from DStv to Netflix. We were wondering if it was worth it to have both of these as well as Showmax, as there is quite an overlap in content. We were also wondering if Amazon Video is a must- have in SA or not? Mikhail Showmax is great if you're after Hulu or HBO content. Netflix has a better movie selection and, of course, all the Netflix originals. Amazon Video is only a must have if you're fond of The Grand Tour, or want to see the upcoming

Good Omens series. When in doubt, each offers a free trial, so take it for a spin for a week or three and see if you can't live without it thereafter.

the camera is really good… but not the best. I know that it is not better than the Galaxy S9 or the iPhone XS camera, but is it at least better than the camera on my current device? Thabang Given that your Xperia was in the mid-range when it launched, the OnePlus 6 is definitely toting a better camera than your Sony. There is a problem with it, though – getting your hands on a OnePlus phone isn’t as easy as it briefly was. We can only find the OnePlus 6 on specialty importer websites locally, and the price is… not far off from the S9 at all. You’re looking at around R12 000 here in SA – not exactly a budget proposition any more, though it remains a great phone.

INFLUENCER-INTRAINING?

I've had my Sony Xperia M4 Aqua for about three years now and I feel like it's time for an upgrade. Right now I'm looking at the OnePlus 6 (mabye even the 6T) as I've heard that it is really good. My budget is around the OnePlus 6 – not much more. Which is fine because I've heard that it's a really great phone and that it's worth every cent. One thing I’m very aware of is that

INFLUENCER-INTRAINING?

I bought the Bowers & Wilkins PX Bluetooth noise cancelling headphones six months ago, and have not noticed mention of it in the top 10 Headphones or one of your feature reviews. Following great online reviews, I decided to splash out on a pair, and holy crumbs – the detail! The most subtle details suddenly popped out in a way that even some of my old wired cans could not deliver. The treble is uber crisp

and mids and bass are deeply satisfying. The sound quality alone brought a huge childlike grin to my ears (which when in public may have looked somewhat geeky, but hey it's worth-it). A feature I absolutely love is the auto-pause and play when you lift or drop an ear-cup – that feature I came to love over time and I think it's something more headphones could use. The drivers are specially angled to improve audibility even at low volume and the magnetic earcups removable for easycleaning. I highly recommend giving these cans a go, it would be great to see a review of the PX and a mention in the top 10 in another great edition of Stuff! Damien We've long been fans of B&W kit, but unfortunately, we don't get any of it to try... hence its omission from the Top Tens. We'll keep scouting about for a local distributor who may be willing to let us test them, but for now, we're just pleased to hear you've found something so, err, pleasing to hear.

Congratulations to our Canon M50 winner: Diana van Wyk and Samsung Note 9 winner: Mbali Msomi

Next month’s mail of the month wins an Amazon Fire 7 tablet and cover worth R1 400 courtesy of Circuit City 90

This gadget leapt straig outta testin and into ou rankings.

OF EVERYTHING

NEW

Time changes everything, including Stuf Top Ten placings.

HOT BUY BARGAIN BUY UPDATE Searing with techy genius, a product that’s set our hearts aﬂame.

A solid gold bargain. Worth owning, regardless of cashﬂow.

Smartphones Phablets Tablets, mobile games TVs Laptops Wearables Budget buys

92 93 94 95 96 97 98

Drones, compact cameras VR headsets & games System cameras Headphones Wireless speakers Consoles Games

99 100 101 102 103 104 105

HOW TO USE THEM

TOP TENS SMARTPHONES

92 HOT BUY

While Samsung and Apple’s war for smartphone supremacy rages on, Huawei has sauntered up and knocked both companies off their feet with the P20 Pro. Serious snappers will love this flagship phone thanks to the triple-lens camera, with 5x zoom and a 40MP main sensor. Add to that a quite awesome AMOLED display, lightning-fast internals and a top-notch design, and you’ve got yourself a recipe for one of the best new smartphones of 2018.

TIPS & TRICKS Activating ‘Natural Tone’ in settings will adjust the screen’s brightness according to your environment.

Stuff says +++++ That triple-lens cam gives the P20 Pro the edge in the smartphone wars

To capture a screenshot, simply double-tap the front of the P20 Pro with your knuckle.

O NOW ADD THIS Tuff-Luv P20 Pro Back Case With its fragile back, you’ll want a case for your P20 Pro – one that accommodates the three sensors. R200 / takealot.com

Turn on ‘Face unlock’ in ‘Security & privacy’ and you can wake up the P20 Pro with just a glance.

NEW

UPDATE

5 UPDATE

6 HOT BUY

Apple iPhone XS

Samsung Galaxy S9

from R22 000 / myistore.co.za

R13 500 / samsung.com/za

This is the iPhone X with some new bits crammed in. But there’s enough going on here to make the XS a significantly better phone. Namely, it can take better pictures and there’s more power on tap. It’s fast, smart and full of fun features… and a better deal than the XS Max.

Small tweaks such as better placement of the fingerprint sensor, more power and a new dual-aperture camera combine to make the latest Samsung flagship a smart upgrade on the S8. And of course, you’ve still got that luscious near-bezelless screen.

Stuff says +++++ Familiar on the outside, hiding treats on the inside: this is the X but better

Stuff says +++++ Not a huge upgrade on the Galaxy S8, but it’s still a very welcome one

7 8 9

HOT BUY

Samsung Galaxy S8 +++++ R11 300 / samsung.com/za Still a great phone, with a much better price now that the S9 is getting all the love and attention.

LG G7 ThinQ +++++ R13 000 / lg.com/za We’re still waiting for another V to drop but LG’s latest has some competition on the camera front.

Apple iPhone SE +++++ from R4 800 / myistore.co.za If you absolutely must have an old-style iPhone, this is (still) your only port of call.

Huawei P20 Lite ++++, from R6 000 / huawei.com/za Huawei’s Lite range balances pricing and features to a fine degree and the P20 Lite is no different.

Apple iPhone 8 ++++, from R12 000 / myistore.co.za The iPhone 8’s days are numbered on this list. The menacing XS is here and the XR is incoming.

Sony Xperia XZ2 ++++, R13 500 / sonymobile.com/za Sony’s flagship is hanging in there and we’ve got high hopes for the incoming Xperia XZ3

Nokia 6.1 ++++, R4 000 / hmdglobal.com All-new innards, Android One pedigree, and nary a price bump? Is it our birthday, Nokia?

FOR UP-TO-DATE NEWS VISIT STUFF.CO.ZA OR STUFFSA ON FACEBOOK, TWITTER AND INSTAGRAM

O Prices quoted are for handset only unless otherwise stated

Huawei P20 Pro R15 500 / huawei.com/za

1 The phone itself doubles as a wireless charger, so you can share juice with any Qi-enabled device.

Huawei Mate 20 Pro R19 000 / huawei.com/za

Stuff says +++++ A stunning smartphone that makes the competition look lazy in comparison

An AI-assisted video trick lets you create colour portraits with black and white backgrounds.

O NOW ADD THIS Huawei Smart View Flip Cover This case has a transparent window that will display your Mate 20 Pro’s notifications, time and weather. R550 / za.mobilefun.com

The 3D Face Unlock security feature lets you wake up the Mate 20 Pro with just a glance.

UPDATE

4 5 6 7

Samsung Galaxy Note 9

Samsung Galaxy S9+

from R19 000 / samsung.com/za

R17 600 / samsung.com/za

Big, powered by an Exynos 9810 processor, and toting either 6GB or 8GB of RAM, the Note 9 is a beast. It’s also the best choice if you want some stylus action. The mighty fine dual camera doesn’t hurt either. Its only flaw? It’s standing in the Mate 20 Pro’s shadow.

It may’ve lost ground in recent months, but the S9+ is still a mighty fine device, matching the Note 9 almost spec-for-spec. The variable aperture camera and CPU are identical, the screen size is nigh-on the same and there’s stylus you’re probably going to lose anyway.

Stuff says +++++ Need to get things done and like to doodle? This is your phone.

HOT NEW BUY

Huawei’s finally done it, managing to top both our phone and phablet lists with a pair of potent handsets that have rivals Apple and Samsung scrabbling to catch up. The Mate 20 Pro brings back the triple-lens camera of the P20 Pro, only now it’s got a 20MP ultra-wide-angle camera with a new version of its predecessor’s superb AI-assisted night mode. It’s the most techpacked phone in the world, yet battery life is a match for any of its rivals. No contest.

TIPS & TRICKS

UPDATE

PHABLETS TOP TENS

8 HOT BUY

BARGAIN BUY

Stuff says +++++ Don’t feel the need for a stylus? This phone’s for you.

Samsung Galaxy Note 8 +++++ R14 000 / samsung.com/za Off the podium but still a solid choice if you’re on a budget but insist on having a stylus.

Huawei Mate 10 Pro +++++ R13 600 / huawei.com/za Huawei’s most ambitious effort packs in AI smarts, a huge battery and heaps of power.

Apple iPhone 8 Plus +++++ from R15 000 / myistore.co.za Short stay on the podium notwithstanding, the Phone 8 Plus is looking cheap vs the XS Max.

Apple iPhone 7 Plus +++++ from R11 000 / myistore.co.za The 7 Plus is an even better deal than the 8 Plus, and still a capable pocket movie machine.

LG V30+ +++++ from R13 300 / lg.com/za The LG V30+ takes everything good about the G6 and improves on it – a little late, but still.

Huawei Mate 20 Lite ++++, R9 000 / huawei.com/za Four camera sensors, a notch, slim bezels, and a sub-R10k price? Must be Huawei’s new Mate Lite.

Xiaomi Redmi S2 ++++, R3 100 / mia.africa.com A 6in screen and a 12+5MP dual rear cam are joined by a 16MP selfie shooter at a bargain price.

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TOP TENS TABLETS & MOBILE GAMES

HOT BUY

Apple iPad Pro 10.5in from R11 000 / myistore.co.za

Data Wing Free / Android, iOS

The 9.7in iPad Pro was already sitting comfortably as our favourite tablet, but that wasn’t good enough for Apple. Rather than giving its flagship tablet a few minor tweaks, Apple has introduced a bigger screen and an immensely potent processor. In fact, this device is so powerful and flashy that it’s even blurring the lines between tablet and laptop. If you only want to browse social media and watch Netflix, the 10.5in iPad Pro is overkill; this is for those more interested in creation than consumption.

This game starts off as if Asteroids had a baby with a top-down racer: your triangular craft blasts around circuits, gaining speed when its bum scrapes neon track edges. Soon you discover you’re part of an OS ruled by a deranged AI. Story and game quickly expand, as you glimpse the world beyond the screen and battle gravity in cavern-based sections that recall 8-bit classic Thrust. Rarely do mobile titles pack in so many hours of clever, thoughtful narrative. Pretty much never are such games free.

Stuff says +++++ The iPad Pro puts all other tablets to shame – it’s unbeatable as a multimedia machine or creative tool

Stuff says +++++ A mobile game we’d happily recommend if it cost R100 – for free, it’s an absurdly generous bargain

UPDATE

4 5

Samsung Galaxy Tab S3

from R10 000 / samsung.com/za The Tab S3 is powerful and has a gorgeous screen, while the bundled stylus is a welcome extra that you don’t have to be an artist to appreciate. It doesn’t do half-measures, which is rare in an Android tablet. Stuff says +++++ The first genuine rival to Apple’s iPad Pro

Apple iPad (2018)

from R6 000 / myistore.co.za There might not be a lot different here compared to the previous iteration of the standard iPad, but subtle improvements, Apple Pencil support and a decent price make this the best tablet for most people. Stuff says +++++ A versatile tablet for both work and play

Microsoft Surface Go +++++ from R15 300 / pclinkshop.com Like carrying a mini-PC everywhere, with the added benefit of actually being available in SA.

Apple iPad Pro 12.9in +++++ from R13 500 / myistore.co.za The other Pro, this one is fuller featured and larger. But... still not quite a laptop surrogate.

HOT BUY

4 5

Euclidean Lands R70 / iOS This one smashes Monument Valley’s minimal isometric views into Hitman Go’s turn-based puzzling, and wraps the lot around a Rubik’s Cube. Your aim: figure out how to stab everyone to death. Stuff says +++++ A tactile joy with dazzling visuals

Oddmar R80 / iOS Oddmar looks like it could have breezed in from a PS4. It’s packed full of superb level design, arresting set-pieces and lush animated visuals, as a beardy Viking oaf sets out to save his tribe. Stuff says +++++ Touchscreen platformers can be great after all

The Room: Old Sins +++++ R70 / Android, R80 / iOS Get sucked into an impossible doll’s house for Myst-like exploration and tactile puzzling.

Super Cat Tales 2 +++++ Free / Android, iOS A pawsome slice of touchscreen-optimised platforming magic, with multiple moggies.

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TVs TOP TENS

HOT BUY

LG OLED 65C8 R50 000 / lg.com/za LG’s new 65C8 is all screen from the front. From the side, though, it’s barely there. LG’s intuitive webOS er… OS guides you through a very simple setup. After that you just have to bask in the reverse-glow of inky OLED blacks, crisp picture reproduction and upscaling (for when you don’t have anything 4K on hand), and a refresh rate that’ll make your PS4 Pro or Xbox One X transform into a Disney princess and start singing. Cue harmonious woodland critters.

Stuff says +++++ It’s a choice between this one and LG’s wallet-busting E8. We picked this one TIPS & TRICKS

LG’s TV is smarter than ever so if it offers you a settings change, take it. The interface is simple enough that you can revert whenever you like but… you won’t.

O NOW ADD THIS Sony PlayStation 4 Pro You’re going to want to use your 4K screen to display 4K bits and the PS4 Pro is going to help you to do that. Best when paired with Sony’s PlayStation VR headset (R7 300). R7 000 / playstation.com/za

Difficult neighbours? Swap between eight different audio output options in the Settings menu, including alwaysconnected headphones or a Bluetooth device.

4 5 6 7

Samsung 65Q8C

Samsung Frame TV

R55 000 / samsung.com/za

R22 000 / hirschs.co.za

Okay, it’s still curved and we’re kind of past that but Samsung’s big screen hits your eyes with a 4K panel toting their neato Quantum Dot tech. It also looks the part, with no bezels and minimalist styling, making sure that this one fades into the background… until you turn it on, that is. Samsung’s Q HDR 1500 also helps in that regard.

Say you want a TV but don’t want people to know you have one. Samsung’s designer Frame TV mounts on your wall and pretends to be artwork when not in use, disguising the fact that you’ve got a 55in UHD 4K TV on the wall. Pity that folks can see the Xbox One X is plugged into the side of that abstract painting.

Stuff says +++++ The price-is-no-object screen of your dreams

Stuff says +++++ If your house looks like a magazine ad, this TV will fit right in

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LG 65UH950 +++++ from R35 000 / lg.com/za It’s not OLED, but it’s still 4K, and that omission keeps the price down, but webOS 3.0 intact.

Hisense 65M7000UWG +++++ R20 000 / hisense.co.za Hisense doesn’t have LG or Samsung’s tech but they do have a 65in 4K smart TV for R20000.

Samsung 55Q7F +++++ R25 000 / samsung.com/za Samsung’s 4K TV supports HDR and has a price that means you’ll still able to eat at month end.

LG OLED 65E8 ++++, R105 000 / lg.com/za LG’s heavy hitter is amazeballs, but the price hits your wallet harder than the pixels pummel pupils.

Hisense 75N9700UWG ++++, R56 000 / hisense.co.za Hisense lobs Quantum Dot colour tech and a humongous 75in 4K ULED screen at you.

Skyworth 55G7200 ++++, R13 700 / iskyworth.com A 55in 4K display for under R15k? For that combo, we’ll forgive the user interface missteps.

LG 43UJ620V ++++, R6 600 / lg.com/za Want 4K for less than R10k? LG’s budget 43-incher offers 4K and HDR10 for a song.

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TOP TENS LAPTOPS TIPS & TRICKS

It may be small and tough but a sleeve will assure you that there’s thing scuffing your new ur backpack.

Uninstall. Not all of it, just the selection of pre-installed apps that you’re never going to use. Your eyes (and your data connection) will thank you.

HOT BUY

Dell XPS 13 from R26 300 / dell.co.za The original XPS was already a great, lightweight laptop, then Dell gave it a welcome Windows 10 refresh. With improved battery life and performance, it’s the thinking person’s Ultrabook and a whole lot more. We’ve tried the 2-in-1 hybrid version, and while it’s good, this Apple MacBook destroyer will more than suffice for most users. The price is awfully close to a Mac equivalent, meaning that you’re going to be tempted to join the Apple army.

Stuff says +++++ An excellent Windows 10 Ultrabook, small in size and great in stature O NOW ADD THIS Dell Power Companion If the terrific battery life isn’t enough, grab this 12 000mAh external battery. R1 700 / dell.laptopdirect.co.za

UPDATE

MSI GT75 Titan 8RG

+++++ from R46 500 / evetech.co.za MSI’s desktop replacement is a beast off the bat. Throw in Intel’s new Core i9 chip and it roars. UPDATE

Apple MacBook +++++ from R22 000 / myistore.co.za The new Kaby Lake processor keeps the standard MacBook competitively brilliant.

Huawei MateBook X Pro +++++ from R24 000 / huawei.com/za A stylish Windows laptop with some clever ideas to get the maximum display for your rand.

HP Spectre 13 +++++ R30 000 / hp.com/za Still super-thin, still elegant, now with i7-8550U chips, 8GB of RAM and a 512GB SSD.

Apple MacBook Pro (2018)

Asus Zenbook UX331UA

from R32 500 / myistore.co.za

from R17 000 / asus.com/za

Updated processors, more RAM and a quieter (and less prone to crumb-damage) keyboard mean the MBP feels like it deserves the P again, but the asking price for the entry-level model is dear, and you’re probably going to want one of the fancier ones.

Asus’ new 1.12kg Zenbook 13 might look less like a MacBook than its predecessors did but that’s okay. It’s not like a Mac inside either, with a Core i7-8550U, 8GB of RAM, 256GB SSD and other metrics that make Apple’s machines look slow.

Stuff says +++++ Beautiful, reliable and potent, this is the best MacTop right now

Stuff says +++++ Something this fast shouldn’t be this light

Lenovo Legion Y530 +++++ fom R15 500 / evetech.co.za Starting at Core i5 and climbing to Core i7, this budget portable gamer suits most pockets.

HP Omen 17 ++++, from R35 000 / hpshop.co.za HP’s gaming lineup looks better than ever, with the beefy Omen 17 being the crown jewel.

Apple MacBook Air 13in ++++, from R15 000 / myistore.co.za If a portable road warrior is what you’re after, this slinky MacBook remains a great choice.

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SMARTWATCHES, FITNESS TRACKERS TOP TENS HOT NEW BUY

Apple Watch Series 4 (GPS) from R8 000 / myistore.co.za

Garmin Fenix 5 from R9 500 / garmin.co.za

The Apple Watch Series 4 has everything going for it – the larger screen, improved processor and louder speaker mean it’s easier to actually do stuff on it than any previous Watch, and it has a load of health features that just aren’t on other wearables. Whether you’re navigating somewhere using Maps, going for a run without your phone, or just wanting to keep track of your activity during the day, this Apple Watch does a great job of handling all these things and more.

The king is dead! But that’s okay, because we’ve got a newer, better one to replace him, and he’s kin. This is the smartest of the smartfitness watches you can buy right now. Track everything from swimming to sprinting to… wait, does that say skydiving? Yes, yes it does. Which is an awfully specific function. The Fenix 5 is the ultimate sportswatch, so much so that you’ll feel you need a degree in sports fitness to understand all the stats, but that’s why we love this one. Anything we can do it can help us do better.

Stuff says +++++ Best wearable ever: a sleek, sophisticated redesign of the previous generation with some hearty upgrades

Stuff says +++++ If you’re going to be the sportiest of your pentathlonbeating mates, you’re going to want the Fenix 5

NEW

4 5

Samsung Galaxy Watch

Garmin Fenix 3

from R5 500 / samsung.com/za A sturdy and stylish smartwatch with plenty of power and a truly lovely user interface. Those with an iPhone are still likely to get a better experience and more functionality om an Apple Watch, though. uff says +++++ The best smartwatch for Android users

R7 000 / garmin.co.za Just because the number 5 has taken over doesn’t mean that you have to kick the Fenix 3 out of bed. It’s going to beat most of the competition for a long time to come – just like you do, right? Stuff says +++++ One case where second place still wins

Fitbit Ionic

Garmin Vivoactive HR

R5 000 / fitbit.co.za Once more fitness tracker than smartwatch, the Ionic now includes Fitbit Pay with support from FNB and Deezer offline playlists while still delivering heart-rate tracking, multisport modes and up to four-day battery life. Stuff says +++++ The best go at a Fitbit smartwatch so far

R3 500 / garmin.co.za Garmin has a frankly bewildering array of fitness trackers and outdoorsy GPS watches, but the Vivoactive HR is the one you really want. It’s packed with long-lasting, easy-to-use, rewarding, fitness cleverness. Stuff says +++++ An all-round tracker with sensors and stamina

Fitbit Versa

Fitbit Alta HR

++++, R3 500 / fitbit.co.za Decent battery life and a smattering of smarts make this an attractive watch.

Huawei Watch 2 ++++, from R4 600 / huawei.com/za A SIM slot and slick interface make this a surprisingly capable Android wristable.

4 5

+++++ R2 000 / fitbit.co.za The slim design, HR monitor, and notifications make this the best discreet wristable.

Garmin Vivosmart HR+ ++++, R3 000 / garmin.co.za A superb tracker packed with features; it’s just a little bulky for wearing 24/7.

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TOP TENS BUDGET BUYS

HOT BUY

SNES Classic Mini R1 250 / nintendo.co.za TIPS & TRICKS Why bother splashing out over R7 000 on a games console when you can get the SNES Classic Mini for a fraction of that? Especially when you get 21 classic titles pre-installed on this nostalgia-inducing machine, including the likes of Super Metroid, A Link to the Past, Super Mario World and the never-before-released Star Fox 2. And with two controllers bundled in the box, you’ll be able to start the Super Mario Kart action right away.

Chickens killed you in Zelda again? You can rewind up to five minutes and pretend it never happened. For full-fat nostalgia you can read the instruction manual for each of the SNES games online.

Stuff says +++++ Better games than the NES Classic Mini send this to the top of our wish list

Stop trying to raid Bowser’s castle in one sitting, and use one of the four save slots to take a break.

O NOW ADD THIS 8Bitdo Bluetooth Retro Receiver Fed up of those short cables? Use this clever device to connect most modern controllers wirelessly. R500 / 8bitdo.com

4 5 6 7

Raspberry Pi Zero W

UE Wonderboom

R185 / pishop.co.za

from R949 / takealot.com

It might be nearly twice the price of the original Pi Zero, but when you’re still getting change from a R200 the wireless Pi is fantastic value. Simplicity is key, with no need to mess about with dongles or hubs. This also means your Pi projects can be squeezed into smaller places.

If you want a cheap portable Bluetooth speaker, you can’t go wrong with either the UE Roll 2 or the UE Wonderboom. But the latter makes this list for offering bigger sound, its nifty design and waterproofing. It’s also Stuff’s reigning hi-fi gadget of the year.

Stuff says +++++ The Pi Zero was already brilliant; wireless add-ons make it better

Stuff says +++++ Our absolute favourite hi-fi gadget is a steal at only R1 000

HOT UPDATE BUY

HOT BUY

Moov Now +++++ R1 050 / mantality.co.za The best budget tracker you can buy – gives most Fitbits a run for their money.

Amazon Kindle +++++ from R1 600 / circuitcity.co.za Top of our holiday packing list, the basic Kindle is thinner and lighter than its predecessor.

SoundMagic E10C +++++ R690 /sound-magic.co.za SoundMagic is royalty when it comes to budget buds. For under R700, these are stupendous.

Fujifilm Instax Mini 9 +++++ R1 100 / fujifilm.co.za The new Mini 9 keeps the point-and-print charm of its predecessors... and the same film.

Ryze Tello ++++, R2 000 / myistore.co.za Rule the skies without breaking the bank with this affordable toy drone.

Amazon Echo Dot ++++, R1 000 / geewhiz.co.za This smart home assistant is a lot smaller than the full-size Echo, but it’s a much bigger bargain.

Xiaomi Mi Power Bank 10400 ++++, R300 / mia.africa.com Everyone could use extra power but having to fork out for it sucks. Thankfully, you don’t.

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DRONES & COMPACT CAMERAS TOP TENS HOT

DJI Mavic 2 Pro R31 000 / myistore.co.za

Sony DSC-RX100 V R20 000 / premiumbrands.co.za

The Mavic 2 Pro keeps all the good bits of the old Mavic Pro while making genuine improvements in almost every area. Aimed at the enthusiast willing to spend a little more to fly and film a little further, it’s undeniably pricey – but we think said enthusiasts will find it’s worth every cent. It’s a fantastic flier that feels superbly responsive in the air. It’s not as small or affordable as the Mavic Air, but the battery life, safety features and Hasselblad image quality more than make up for it.

We wouldn’t recommend buying this camera if you already own the old IV model, but a few improvements have ensured Sony remains the top dog in our compacts list – and we’re keeping this model above the new RX100 VI simply because of the huge price difference. It remains one of the finest point-and-shoots we’ve ever seen, with a flexibility that few pocket cameras can muster. While it’s still not exactly cheap, we reckon this is the cam to buy if you want fantastic-looking snaps from your holidays.

Stuff says +++++ A drone with no real weaknessess, this is the new gold standard in portable drones

Stuff says +++++ A small improvement over the RX100 IV, but this Sony is close to premium point-and-shoot perfection

4 5

DJI Mavic Air from R14 000 / myistore.co.za By combining the best bits from the Spark and Mavic Pro, DJI has made a cracking gadget for both beginners who want stunning aerial travel videos and those who just want to fly a nimble drone at full pelt around the park. Stuff says +++++ The best non-professional drone you can buy

DJI Spark R12 000 (Fly more combo) / myistore.co.za The Spark is the most user-friendly drone on this list. You control it via hand gestures or a smartphone, while it’s so small it will easily fit in your bag for a day out in the park. The 15-minute fly time is short, though. Stuff says +++++ The perfect drone for beginners

Parrot Anafi +++++ R13 000 / takealot.com The Anafi is a compact, (relatively) affordable and 4K-capable high-flyer.

Ryze Tello ++++, R2 000 / myistore.co.za Not without its technical shortcomings, but there’s no better R2 000 toy drone.

NEW

Panasonic Lumix TZ220 R16 700 / panasonic.com/za This Panasonic compact is a significant upgrade from the TZ110, offering extra reach with the zoom lens, better colour reproduction, and an improved experience when using the electronic viewfinder. Stuff says +++++ Small, neat and not dramatically overpriced

Sony DSC-RX100 VI R23 700 / premiumbrands.co.za A true all-rounder that shoots 24fps at full resolution and has stunningly fast autofocus, topped off with a whopping 8x zoom lens that’s quite spectacular for such a tiny camera. Stuff says +++++ A dinky yet luxurious point-and-shoot

Panasonic Lumix LX1010 +++++ R12 500 / panasonic.com/za One of the most capable compacts on the market, with superb stills and HD video.

Fujifilm X100F +++++ R17 800 / fujifilm.co.za The best street shooter around if you don’t need the flexibility of interchangeable lenses.

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TOP TENS VR HEADSETS & VR GAMES

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HOT BUY

Superhot VR

Oculus Rift from R12 000 / takealot.com

R400 / Oculus Rift, Vive, PSVR

The Oculus Rift has been playing catch-up for a while; but now that it’s got the fantastic Touch Controllers, has boosted its room-tracking capabilities to match the Vive and has had a price drop to undercut HTC’s standard headset by R3000, it deserves to top our VR headset rankings. Its library of exclusive games has grown considerably since launch too, with the likes of Robo Recall, Lucky’s Tale and Lone Echo all added. This is now the best VR headset available that doesn’t cost the world.

Superhot has found its home in VR – just watch those slow-mo bullets skim the tip of your nose. The enemy will only move when you do, so time your attacks to perfection and dodge, duck and dive to survive. There’s something really cool about hiding behind a desk before blitzing your opponents with streams of bullets as if you were starring in your very own Matrix movie. And with Superhot soon arriving on PSVR, more players will be able to experience this wonderfully action-packed title.

Stuff says ++++, Thanks to the price cut and much-needed updates, the Rift is now the best reasonably-priced VR headset

Stuff says +++++ If you have a VR headset, this 2-in-1 puzzler and shooter should be right at the top of your shopping list

HTC Vive

Farpoint

R15 000 / evetech.co.za Barring a R3 000 price difference, there isn’t much difference between the HTC Vice and Oculus Rift in all honesty. But if you’re thinking of upgrading to the Vive Pro in the future, this is a great gateway headset. Stuff says ++++, A solid choice for immersive virtual reality

R470 (R1 000 with Aim Controller) / PSVR If it weren’t in VR, Farpoint would be a distinctly average space-based FPS. But the PSVR headset and Aim Controller lift it above the pack and make it a must-play, not just for VR fans but also for FPS addicts. Stuff says +++++ Simply a thrilling VR experience

HTC Vive Pro

Moss

R18 000 (headset only) / evetech.co.za This high-end headset offers the best virtual reality experience by a long way, but its sky-high price means you should only really buy it if you’re a VR obsessive with a super-powerful gaming PC. Stuff says ++++, This hardcore headset is overkill for most

R470 / PSVR This platform puzzler has a storybook charm to it, as you guide an adorable little mouse through all sorts of obstacles. It’s one of the best titles to really utilise VR’s unique controls. Stuff says ++++, A one-of-a-kind fable that’s perfect for VR

Google Daydream View ++++, R1 500 / thegadgetshop.co.za This budget-friendly option is the best way of bringing VR to the masses.

BARGAIN BUY

Thumper ++++, R320 / Oculus Rift, Vive, PSVR This mesmerising rhythm game is best played in VR, despite the lack of tracking.

PlayStation VR

Doom VFR

+++,, from R4 800 / playstation.com/za It can deliver incredible experiences, but the PSVR is held back by teething issues.

++++, R400 / Vive, PSVR Movement can be awkward at times, but this shooter is still bloody good fun.

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101

SYSTEM CAMERAS TOP TENS

TIPS & TRICKS You can adjust apeture with one of the command dials or turn the lens ring to the desired f-number.

HOT BUY

Fujifilm X-H1 R27 000 (body only) / fujifilm.co.za The Fujifilm X-T2 was our favourite camera for a long time. So it’s little wonder its successor, the X-H1, takes our top spot. The key new features? The 3in LCD is now touch sensitive, there’s a monochrome LCD on top of the (slightly larger) grip for instantly checking settings, and the already excellent sensor now includes 5-axis stabilisation, which should mean up to 5.5 extra stops handheld. And video fans get new film simulation modes for 4K video shooting. The best mirrorless camera just got even better.

Pressing the Q button will open a custom menu, giving you quick access to loads of settings. Tapping an area on the 3in touchscreen will let you set the focus point or take an instant shot.

Stuff says +++++ A hardy body, outstanding ergonomics and brilliant image quality in a compact package O NOW ADD THIS Manfrotto 190 Go! Carbon Fibre Tripod You no longer have an excuse for wobbly photos with this carbon-fibre tripod. It weighs just 1.65kg. R4 350 / ormsdirect.co.za

HOT BUY

4 5 6 BARGAIN BUY

Sony A7 III

Panasonic Lumix G9

R56 400 / premiumbrands.co.za

R43 000 / panasonic.com/za

The A7 III manages to pack in a lot of technology and desirability for less than R60k. It’s a fantastic all-rounder that’s well suited to a bunch of shooting scenarios, coping well with landscapes, portraits, and even a little bit of high-speed sport shooting. As a camera design it’s admitedly not the prettiest thing we’ve ever seen, but it handles well for its compact size.

The G9 is the best Lumix camera to date and a cracking choice for wildlife or action photography. This diminutive cam’s images aren’t up with the best, particularly in low light, but the plus sides are lightning shooting speeds and a great system of small, light lenses. With 4K video and handy shooting modes also on board, it’s one of most versatile high-end mirrorless cameras you can buy.

Stuff says +++++ A fantastic all-rounder that excels in low-light conditions

Stuff says +++++ The perfect companion for the travelling wildlife photographer

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Sony A6500 +++++ R20 700 (body) / premiumbrands.co.za A cracking system cam for action photography, but stick with the A6300 if your budget is tight.

Fujifilm X-T20 +++++ R18 400 / fujifilm.co.za You get the X-T2’s sensor in a cheaper body and there’s a touchscreen and auto modes to boot.

Panasonic GH5S +++++ R46 000 (body) / panasonic.com/za A compact system camera that’s a pro at video, if slightly disappointing for stills.

Canon EOS 80D +++++ R18 000 / canon.co.za The 80D is so easy to use that even a toddler would get some great shots with it.

Nikon D500 +++++ R34 300 (body) / nikon.co.za The best APS-C camera you can buy, and well worth its slightly painful price tag.

Nikon D850 +++++ R56 900 (body) / nikon.co.za This super-cam has enough fantastic features to excel in pretty much any situation.

Fujifilm GFX 50S +++++ R94 000 / fujifilm.co.za It’s not cheap, but no camera we’ve tested takes better photos than this.

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TOP TENS HEADPHONES

102

OT NEW

Sony WH-1000XM3 R6 000 / takealot.com

SoundMagic E10BT R890 / sound-magic.co.za

Sony’s WH-1000 series was already a top performer, and the WH-1000XM3s make for an even more compelling package. With Bluetooth wireless and great noise-cancellation, they’re the ultimate public transport stress killer… well, aside from a chauffeur or a lottery win that lets you retire. The leather pads make them incredibly easy to wear, not unlike sitting in one of those ultra-comfy leather chairs, and most importantly of all the sound quality is fantastic.

How do you kick our long-standing earbuds champ off the top of the list? By taking the same headphones and making them wireless, obvs. The SoundMagic E10BT in-ears are the same as the E10Cs, just sporting a lovely new Bluetooth finish which means they’ll play nice with those smartphones that have ditched the 3.5mm. Expect a spot of bass, as well as some very clean treble and detailed mids in a package that keeps the most important thing of all intact: The sub-R1 000 price tag.

Stuff says +++++ Great wireless headphones with effective ANC and a sound that nails just about everything

Stuff says +++++ We didn’t think that SoundMagic could provide more value than they did with the E10Cs but they’ve done it

3 HOT BUY

HOT BUY

Sennheiser PXC 550 R5 800 / mitechdirect.co.za To choose between these and the Bose below, you could jflip a coin – both are wireless headphones with active noise cancelling, though Sennheiser’s touch controls, 30 hour up-time and cool factor are the decider here. Stuff says +++++ Superb build, comfortable and stonking audio

Bose QuietComfort 35 II R8 500 / makro.co.za They’re the same QC35s you’ve come to know and love, so expect active noise cancellation and blissful silence, whether you’re on a plane or in a crowded office. The big change? Just the addition of Google Assistant, really. Stuff says +++++ So effective, you won’t know you’ve landed

Sennheiser HD 4.50BTNC +++++ R3 200 / mitechdirect.co.za Priced right, wireless, and with noise cancelling. The catch? The noise cancellation is permanent.

AKG Y50BT +++++ R2 500 / audicoonline.co.za Proof that good wireless sound needn’t bankrupt you. 20 Hours of life and rock-solid.

4 5

Jabra Elite Sport R3 300 / circuitcity.co.za For serious in-ear fitness tech, you have to get Jabra’s Elite Sport wireless buds. In-ear heart monitoring, up to nine hours of battery life, and a gnarly (and detailed) fitness-focussed app are the highlights here. Stuff says +++++ The smartest fitness partner you’ll ever have

Apple AirPods R2 500 / myistore.co.za Yes, you’ll look silly, but their range is astounding, as is call quality and ease of use. Worth looking like you’ve rammed a white pipe in one ear and out the other before bending down the protruding bits. Stuff says +++++ We hope the others are taking notes

Sennheister CX 3.00 ++++, R690 / mitechdirect.co.za Sennies are always a win. These have their faults but they’re worth the price on the box.

SoundMagic E10C ++++, R690 / sound-magic.co.za Dethroned, but we’re not upset. These are still greatvalue, ifyour device has space for a 3.5mm.

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WIRELESS SPEAKERS TOP TENS

HOT BUY

BARGAIN BUY

UE Wonderboom from R949 / takealot.com It might resemble a can of baked beans wearing a colourful jersey with a cross on the front, but don’t let that put you off: the UE Wonderboom is the best compact Bluetooth speaker you can buy. It’s waterproof, the rechargeable battery beneath its mesh exterior is good for eight plus hours, and the sound it produces is staggering given how compact it is. If that wasn’t enough – and it ought to be – it’s also one of the most affordable portable speakers out there. Boom.

Stuff says +++++ The Wonderboom shouldn’t be as good as it is for the price, but it is O NOW ADD THIS Joox Want to get the proverbial party started? But where to start? Joox’s numerous curated playlists can help. from R29/week / joox.co.za

HOT BUY

4 5 BARGAIN BUY

JBL Xtreme +++++ R4 300 / dionwired.co.za A killer speaker that’s also become a far more affordable one in recent months.

JBL Pulse 3 +++++ R4 000 / myistore.co.za Pretty pricey, but potent for its size, and the LED light show is utterly mesmerising.

Braven 705 +++++ R1 300 / itoys.co.za A massive price drop makes the 705 such a bargain it’s worth getting two to pair up.

JBL Flip 4 +++++ R1 700 / incredible.co.za Like a Pulse without the lights, the new Flip adds Siri and Google Voice to its skillset.

DreamWave Tremor

UE Boom 2

R4 000 / takealot.com

R1 700 / ultimateears.com

With 50W of thumping audio output, a humongous 20800mAh rechargeable battery that provides up to 18 hours at medium volume (or eight at full tilt), and the most rugged body we’ve ever seen in a speaker, the Tremor is a real beast of a portable noise maker.

Years making in-ear monitors for musos means UItimate Ears knows its bass from its mids. Water-, dust- and drop-proofing along with 360º sound, 15-hour battery life and a slick app so friends can play DJ makes the Boom 2 our pick of the mid-sized pack.

Stuff says +++++ It’ll last all day: come rain, snow, sand or being rolled down a hill

Stuff says +++++ If you were going to take one of these surfing, this is the one

8 9 1

JBL Clip 2 +++++ R800 / incredible.co.za A pocket-sized party package that delivers pounding performance while being pound-proof.

Fender Newport +++++ R4 000 / musica.co.za Great battery life, incredible sound and good looks make this amp imitator utterly irresistible.

Marshall Kilburn II ++++, R4 500 / macnificent.co.za The Kilburn II is a speaker with rock-god cred and a 20-hour battery. Weighs 3kg, though.

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TOP TENS CONSOLES

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HOT BUY

GOT EARS? THEN CHECK OUT…

PlayStation 4 Pro from R7 000 / playstation.com/za As a gaming platform, PlayStation 4 is the best around – which makes the PS4 Pro the best of the best. Games optimised for the new console look stunning on a 4K HDR TV, and are substantially improved by the extra grunt inside this slightly bigger machine. If you’ve already splashed out for a 4K HDR screen and you enjoy video games at all, it’s well worth the upgrade. The missing 4K Blu-ray drive means it isn’t a perfect entertainment system, but streaming converts won’t care.

Stuff says +++++ The system for console gamers who have a 4K TV and want the best gaming experience possible

Microsoft Xbox One X from R9 000 / xbox.com/za There’s no doubt the Xbox One X is the most powerful console here, capable of producing stunning 4K visuals… but it simply doesn’t have the line-up of games to usurp the PS4 Pro from top spot. Stuff says +++++ A 4K monster held back by its game catalogue

Nintendo Switch from R5 900 / nintendo.co.za Nintendo is on the block with this one and we’re pleased to say that the Switch delivers, hard. The platform will still rise and fall on its library of games but as it stands now, the Switch is a bloody marvel. Stuff says ++++, Whether stationary or mobile, it’s excellent

PlayStation 4 Slim ++++, from R5 200 / playstation.com/za Haven’t got a 4K TV? This is the best way to enjoy PlayStation’s brilliant exclusives.

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Microsoft Xbox One S ++++, from R5 000 / xbox.com/za No longer our Xbox of choice, but the One S remains a seriously affordable option.

www.stuff.co.za/hubs/podcasts-videos/

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GAMES TOP TENS

HOT BUY

God of War R1 000 / PS4 A lot has changed for PlayStation’s god-slaying champion. Not only has Kratos gained some wrinkles and grown a chin-full of hair, but he’s also ditched his iconic Blades of Chaos for a magic axe and angered a whole new bunch of gods. But while the action is as breathtaking as ever, it’s the surprisingly mature storyline that’s the draw here, with the short-tempered Kratos learning the ropes of parenting. Don’t expect him to start telling dad jokes just yet.

TIPS & TRICKS Collect Frozen Flames by defeating various enemies to upgrade your trusty Leviathan axe.

Stuff says +++++ The epic return of Kratos is yet another phenomenal PS4 offering

Throw your axe at enemies and it will freeze them in place, leaving you to fight others with your fists.

NEW

O OR PLAY THIS Bayonetta 2 If you’re upset that God of War has binned its hack-and-slash roots, this eccentric Switch title is the perfect replacement. R800 / Switch

5 6 NEW

Forza Horizon 4

Monster Hunter: World

R1 000 / Xbox One, PC

R975 / PS4, Xbox One, PC

Whether you’re a thrill-seeking fan of fast cars, or just somone who’s wondered what it’s like to tear a pimped-out supercar through the Lake District, this is one bar-raising sandbox-racing game experience that’s worth buckling up for. There’s nothing it doesn’t nail.

From a flame-spitting dinosaur to a poison-puking bird, there are plenty of hulking monsters to slay in this Japanese RPG. But it’s the addictive weapon-upgrade tree, beautiful open-worlds and online cooperative multiplayer that will dig their claws into you.

NEW

Stuff says +++++ Fun for veterans and newcomers, World is one monster of a game

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NEW

Stuff says +++++ Simply the best racing game ever created

Dragon Ball FighterZ +++++ from R975 / PS4, Xbox One, Switch, PC Now available on the Switch, this Super Saiyan fighter is a blast to play and looks great too.

Marvel’s Spider-Man ++++, R1 000 / PS4 One of the Marvel icon’s absolute best interactive adventures to date.

Shadow of the Tomb Raider ++++, R1 000 / PS4, Xbox One, PC A thrill ride of a finale for one of the finest action/adventure series in recent memory.

Assassin’s Creed Odyssey ++++, R1 000 / PS4, Xbox One, PC Expect to dive into one of the series’ biggest, best and most ambitious entries yet.

FIFA 19 ++++, from R1 100 / PS4, Xbox One, Switch, PC Defensively suspect but full of moments that’ll get you out of your seat. Just like real football.

Mario Tennis Aces ++++, R900 / Switch A superb and eccentric tennis game that needs a few more online features to come out swinging.

Super Mario Party ++++, R1 000 / Switch With a whopping 80 new mini-games, it’s a refreshingly back-to-basics return for the series.

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NEXT BIG THING?

What should Nanette do now? Run and hide Go back to her post Throw a shoe at Captain Daly’s head

controllable tv shows inally! A chance to change what happens in Titanic... About time, eh? As if that glorified ice cube could sink a ship as magnificent as the Titanic. It’s just so unrealistic. But this is an idea that goes back way further than James Cameron’s capsizey classic. Ever since Tom Hanks came up with electronic choose-your-own-adventure comic books in ’80s favourite Big, geeks of a certain age have dreamed of having more control over how the stories they read and watch unfold. And now, Netflix is set to make it a reality.

So we can save Jack from his watery grave? You may have to wait for that – although knowing Cameron’s penchant for post-release tinkering, we wouldn’t put it past him. Before the end of the year, though, you’ll be able to choose what happens in an upcoming episode of Black Mirror by selecting one of various options – a bit like a branching dialogue tree in an RPG game. Charlie Brooker’s sci-fi series is a perfect guinea pig for this new kind of entertainment… and Netflix actually has history with this kind of thing already, although unless you’re under 10 it probably passed you by.

I like Octonauts, actually… Good for you, but that isn’t involved. Puss in Book: Trapped in an Epic Tale and Buddy Thunderstruck: The Maybe Pile both have interactive elements, which means narrative decisions are occasionally handed over to the nipper watching, who must choose from the available options. As you can imagine, they’re not earth-shaking choices, but more mature shows should see more mature dilemmas being presented – and with the rise of voice control tech, you might eventually be quite literally calling the shots. And… action!

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WISH LIST 2018 SAMSUNG GALAXY S9 ou’ll need to spring for the S9 Plus or Note 9 to get Samsung’s dual rear cameras, but even the single snapper on the S9 is capable of astounding results for a smartphone. That’s thanks, at least in part, to its variable aperture that can shift from f/1.5 to f/2.4, something no other smartphone can manage. The curved edges of the Infinity Display and Samsung’s decision to sidestep the notch by opting for super narrow top and bottom bezels only make what was already a great phone even more desirable. The recent price drop doesn’t hurt, either.

from R13 500 / samsung.com/za

HUAWEI MATE 20 PRO ike the P20 Pro, the Mate 20 Pro packs three cameras into its posterior. But this time one of them can go wide. Really, really wide. You also get a regular wide angle, 3x optical zoom, and 5x ‘hybrid’ zoom, which stacks multiple images and uses software smarts to mash them together and get closer to the action. A brilliant selfie cam, in-display fingerprint sensor, facial recognition for security, and the option to turn the handset – with its whopping 4000mAh battery – into a wireless charging pad, round out 2018’s best smartphone.

R19000 / huawei.com/za

SAMSUNG GALAXY NOTE 9 here’s a reason the Note series attracts the most rabid fans in smartphone land: It’s a feature-laden, productivity powerhouse. Available in 128GB or 512GB variants with support for microSD cards up to 512GB, the Note 9 is the device to get if you want to store heaps of media or want to capture 4K video and edit it on the fly. The S Pen stylus now includes Bluetooth and charges in its slot, ensuring it’s ready for doodling when inspiration strikes, or assuming remote control duty when it’s time for a corporate presentation… or a group pic.

from R19 000 / samsung.com/za

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APPLE IPHONE XS f you’re coming from an iPhone X, the S isn’t going to wow you, but if you’re coming from an 8 or older prepare to be, well, wowed. Apple’s seamless integration of its hardware with its iOS software means the XS can handle anything you choose to throw at it, its noncurved screen (combined with OLED and HDR tech) is one of the best in the biz, and its dual 12MP rear shooters offer true-to-life image capture, along with an updated portrait mode that lets you adjust the bokeh effect while shooting, putting DSLR-like capture capabilities in your pocket.

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from R22 000 / myistore.co.za

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WISH LIST 2018

NOKIA 6.1 okia’s range of devices have been consistently great of late. If you want an Android One phone without importing a Pixel or paying the earth, give Nokia’s Oreo-installed 6.1 a go. The 5.5in display is bright and clear, the 32GB storage and 3GB RAM are ample and there’s even room for aggressive expansion via microSD. The cameras are good too. The Nokia 6.1 is an improvement over every area of the Nokia 6, except one. The price. They kept that the same.

R4 000 / hmdglobal.com

SAMSUNG GALAXY A7 o you want fancy phone camera tech but don’t have R20k drop on a phone that does it. Samsung’s got you covered with the Galaxy A7, its very first three-rear-camera smartphone. Yup, even the headliner S-range doesn’t have these options yet. A 24MP f/1.7, wide-angle 8MP f/2.4 and 5MP f/2.2 depth sensor live on the back of the A7 and make for some truly arresting shots. The 6in Super AMOLED display, octa-core chip and 64GB of storage are pretty darned great too.

R8 500 / samsung.com/za

HONOR 7X arrying Huawei’s in-house chipset, the Honor 7X is a budget device that doesn’t skimp on the bits that you need in a phone – screen, storage, and sss-camera. Okay, just camera. Expect a 5.93in display, 4GB of RAM and a huge 64GB of storage. The Honor 7X is also one of the cheapest phones you can grab with a (functional) dual-sensor rear camera. There’s a 16MP f/2.2 and 2MP f/2.4 combo on the back and an 8MP front-facer for when you’re out razzling and dazzling.

LG Q7 f the LG Q7 doesn’t make you hungry for Oreo, nothing will. There’s 32GB of space and a MediaTek octa-core behind a bright 5.5in IPS display, 3GB of RAM to prevent slowdown while multitasking, and the whole lot is powered by a 3000mAh battery. LG’s cameras are still solid, with the 8MP front-facer being the highlight. Its 13MP f/2.2 rear sensor is no slouch either, offering some dandy shots of your lunch, or partner. Plus, the LG Q7 is IP68 rated to boot, so it’ll survive a splash or three.

R5 000 / hihonor.com/za

R6 000 / lg.com/za

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WISH LIST 2018

HUAWEI WATCH GT f battery life is the key metric you use when choosing a wearable, the Watch GT is going to be tough to top. With heart-rate tracking on and 90 minutes of exercise a week you should still get a fortnight from it, or 22 hours with GPS on full-time. And speaking of GPS, the GT supports Glonass and Galileo, too, so it locks on fast and ensures you aren’t cheating yourself on those 5k times. Swim tracking and a barometer mean it’s also great for hitting the pool or the trails, and the AMOLED display is as legible underwater as it is in bright sunlight.

R5 500 / huawei.com/za

FITBIT CHARGE 3 here are two editions of the Charge 3, the classic and the special edition. You’ll need the latter – and R500 pricier – one if you want to use Fitbit Pay, but as that’s limited to FNB for now, many might opt to forgo the extra expense… and perhaps spend it on another band instead (another perk of the fancier iteration). Sleep tracking, all-day heart-rate monitoring, step-counting and basic notifications are all present and accounted for, along with up to a week between visits to the wall plug. You’re going to need new excuses to stay on the couch.

from R3 000 / ﬁtbit.co.za

APPLE WATCH SERIES 4 he best-selling smartwatch in the world looks set to hang onto its crown with its fourth outing. Despite bolstering the display size and changing the dimensions of both the smaller 40mm and larger 44mm models, Apple’s done something uncharacteristic and ensured that any Watch straps you already own will work with the new versions. A new accelerometer and electrical heart sensor mean a wider selection of health-related features and 16GB of onboard storage make it ideal for storing Apple Music tracks or podcasts offline.

SAMSUNG GALAXY WATCH vailable in two sizes (42mm and 46mm) and promising as much as four days on a charge, Samsung’s latest wrist-worn computer accepts traditional watch straps, making it the most customisable device here. Despite running Samsung’s own Tizen OS, there are apps aplenty, from Spotify to BMW Connected, and the rotating dial for navigation is one of the slickest smartwatch interfaces out there. Samsung Pay support and 4GB of storage make the Galaxy Watch even more appealing, whether you live in Apple Land or Androidville.

from R6 000 / samsung.com/za

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from R8 000 / myistore.co.za

www.stuff.co.za

WISH LIST 2018

HP SPECTRE X360 ant to make an impression everywhere you go, from the boardroom to that coffee place where you pretend to be a starving writer working on your magnum opus? The Spectre x360 sticks a whole lot of performance inside a very stylish chassis. The latest Intel silicon, 8GB of RAM and a 512GB SSD will get you booted up and running very quickly indeed, but everyone is going to be checking out this convertible’s tasteful design rather than its blistering speed.

APPLE IPAD PRO 11in e’d be remiss if we didn’t add Apple’s new 11in iPad Pro to the list of desirable festive season tech. Seriously, you’re going to want one of these. There’s Face ID, slim bezels, a gigantic speed increase over the previous models, additional gaming grunt thanks to Apple’s new A12X Bionic chip, an improved magnetically-charging Pencil and up to 1TB of storage... if your wallet can handle it (the largest capacity 11in model will set you back R27 800). The best iPad yet? Defos.

from R14 000 / myistore.co.za

from R30 000 / hpshop.co.za

MSI GP73 LEOPARD 8RE e love MSI’s monster gaming laptops and pretty much any of their GT or GS range lap warmers are a must-buy if you’re a gamer with limited space and are hungry for raw power. The GP73 is a nice middle-ground for the budget-conscious(ish). An 8th-gen Intel 8750H processor, 16GB of RAM, and a GeForce GTX 1060 are the main numbers you’re concerned with, but there are many other notable features and extras you won’t find elsewhere. Except in another MSI notebook, of course.

R30 000 / evetech.co.za

APPLE MACBOOK AIR (2018) t’s about time we had a new edition MacBook Air. Criticism aside (and there has been some), we were dying for a beefed-up ultralight notebook from Apple and they’ve answered the call in fine form. There’s an all-new security chip, more power under the hood, greater RAM and storage options and Apple’s even gone and shaved off a little weight. And for the enviro-conscious, the chassis is now made from a completely recycled aluminium alloy of Apple’s own creation.

from R21 500 / myistore.co.za

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WISH LIST 2018

GOPRO HERO 7 BLACK es, the GoPro Hero 7 Black looks unmistakably like its predecessor, but that’s a good thing as it’ll work with every accessory the Hero 6 range supports. The best bits from the 6 – voice controls, multiple microphones, GPS, a touch display and 4K video capture– are all carried over, but now there’s HyperSmooth, GoPro’s utterly remarkable, built-in video processing software that takes even the shakiest footage and turns it into buttery-smooth, non-vomit-inducing, 4K fare. Do be sure to invest in an extra battery or three, though, as the new features are thirsty.

R8 000 / capeunionmart.co.za

FUJIFILM X-T3 ou could opt for one of the recently announced full-frame mirrorless cameras from Canon or Nikon, or you could save a fortune (to then spend on far cheaper lenses) – and wind up with a less back-breaking backpack – by investing in Fujifilm’s X-T3 instead. The new 26MP X-trans CMOS 4 sensor and updated image processor translate to incredibly detailed shots, ISO up to 51200, 4K and 10-bit video recording at 60 frames per second, all in a body that’s compact, waterproof and equipped with one of the most intuitive button layouts out there.

R24 000 (body only) / fujiﬁlm.co.za

INSTAX SQ6 hat’s better than a dinky, cutesy, rectangular Instax picture of you and your pooch/sibling/best mate/person you just met at a gig? A square one that’s twice the size, of course. The SQ6 has all of simplicity and charm you’d expect from an Instax camera, the requisite retro-yetfresh styling, and some welcome shooting modes, like lighten, darken, and double exposure. Coloured, translucent, snap on flash covers only sweeten the already delectable deal. We can’t imagine anyone would be sad to find one of these beneath the tree.

DJI MAVIC 2 PRO he household name in drones, DJI, bought Hasselblad a while back, and now we’re seeing the fruits of its, er, acquisition. The Mavic 2 Pro might be more expensive than its sibling, the Mavic 2 Zoom, but that’s because it’s packing the finest optics seen on a consumer drone to date. The 1in CMOS sensor combined with omnidirectional object avoidance sensors, half an hour of flight time, and a slew of new automatic modes make the Mavic 2 Pro the drone we all want. Pop it in sport mode for 72km/h fun, but beware… that turns the sensors off.

R31 000 / myistore.co.za

R2 000 / instaxsa.co.za

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WISH LIST 2018

JABRA ELITE ACTIVE 65T ruly wireless earphones are right up there with electric vehicles, smart watches and Bitmoji when it comes to great technological developments of the decade. Jabra’s Elite Active 65t buds (the sportier version of the similarly impressive and slightly cheaper Elite 65t) offer everything you could want, from outstanding audio and call quality to a snug fit, sweat-proofing, and understated looks. The on-bud controls are mighty handy, and the storage case provides a couple of full charges to the earphones before it needs charging itself.

t may resemble the noggin of Johnny 5 from Short Circuit, but the Xboom Go is no decapitated 80s robot head, oh no. Instead, it’s a potent portable speaker that’s also got a bit of the disco spirit embedded in it thanks to a pair of illuminated woofers and two LED strips on its face. Wait, we’re not calling it that, are we? Rated for up to 22 hours of playback, splash proof, and designed to be carried, the Go is compact enough to take just about anywhere while also being powerful enough to be the life of the impromptu party.

R3 350 /circuitcity.co.za

R3 600 / lg.com/za

SONY WH-1000XM3

UE WONDERBOOM FREESTYLE COLLECTION

ntil recently, if you wanted active noise cancelling headphones in South Africa, your options were largely limited to Bose or Sennheiser. But Sony’s back in town, and with the Mark III version of its WH-1000X over-ear cans, it’s raised the bar (and the roof). Aside from the best and most customisable implementation of active noise cancelling we’ve ever encountered, there’s rapid charging via USB-C (10 minutes gets you five hours, a full three-hour charge will get you 30 hours of playback), and rock solid, intuitive touch controls.

ur favourite speaker of last year was the barrel-like Wonderboom from Ultimate Ears, so what’s it doing here? Well, this year the company’s only gone and made our favourite barrel of audio delights even radder with the addition of new, colourful exteriors, collectively dubbed the ‘freestyle collection’. Our favourite among them is the Patches edition, which looks like someone with an Asia-inspired Pinterest account and a bag of Coptic markers was let loose on it. The 10-hour battery life and unbelievable sound quality make us swoon, too.

R6 000 / takealot.com

R1 300 / takealot.com

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LG XBOOM GO PK7

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WISH LIST 2018 in association with

OR TRY THESE…

LABO TOY-CON VEHICLE KIT

LABO VARIETY KIT

LABO ROBOT KIT

The original Labo pack is still one of the best. The Toy-Con piano’s meowing kitty keyboard option is inspired, the motorbike can be used with Mario Kart and the fishing game is a brilliant example of both Nintendo’s design chops and the company’s innovative ideas about what modern gaming can be.

One of the toughest Labo kits to build, the Robot Kit is also one of the most satisfying. When you’re done you’ll have a backpack, visor and cords to your ankles and hands that let you control a massive on-screen robot, take to the skies, turn into a tank, or just smash a virtual city like a metal Godzilla.

his, the third and most recent addition to Nintendo’s cardboard add-on kits for its Switch console, contains the necessary bits to build a variety of vehicular Toy-Cons (Nintendo’s name for its cardboard creations). On offer there’s a car, a submarine, a plane, a pedal, and a pair of keys. Popping one of the keys into any of the aforementioned unlocks various vehicle-specific games and activities, and switching the keys between vehicles lets you change things up mid game. This should keep even the fastest builders busy until NYE, and beyond.

R1 200 / store.nintendo.co.za

R1 400 / store.nintendo.co.za

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WISH LIST 2018

LOGITECH MX SOUND raditionally, desktop computer speakers have had a 3.5mm plug on a cable for connectivity… and that’s about it. The MX Sound adds Bluetooth and the option to connect two wireless devices at once (though you’ll only be able to play from one at a time, obvs). Adjust the volume or enter Bluetooth pairing mode by lightly touching the motion-activated illuminated controls on the right speaker. Sound is punchy and well balanced, and the slight tilt to the speakers means you’ll be right in the sonic sweet spot.

R1 600 / loot.co.za

THULE SUBTERRA POWERSHUTTLE TARGUS WORK + PLAY e all know that we should exercise regularly, but lugging fitness kit around with our laptop and work paraphernalia is a pain… and if we don’t pack it, going home for it means we’re likely to end up on the couch, rather than head out again to get our sweat on. Targus’s new backpack is aimed at mitigating the lure of leisure. Dedicated compartments for shoes, sports gear and tech mean you can separate your sweaty sweats from your work stuff, so your laptop won’t smell like an armpit, and you’ll really deserve that next Netflix binge session.

f you want to see entropy at work throw a handful of loose cables, earphones and other tech accessories into a backpack. Come back mere minutes later and you’ll have a tangled mess of electronic spaghetti, guaranteed. Thule’s compact tech bag has a liberal helping of stretchy straps in its lid to help tame the chaos, and a small slit in the rear lets you run a cable from a battery pack to a device in need. And because it’s a Thule, you can bet it’ll outlast plenty of the things you put in it. Heck, it might last long enough we won’t need cables at all anymore.

R500 / thule.com

R850 / targus.com/za

DJI OSMO MOBILE 2 nless you’re making your own version of The Blair Witch Project or trying to test the rigidity of air-sick bags, you’re going to want to avoid shaky video footage. Flagship smartphones might be capable of 4K video capture, but they haven’t gotten on-device stabilisation right. Which means if you want footage that’s smoother than an Apple keynote you need a gimbal. Cheaper and longer lasting than the original, DJI’s Osmo Mobile 2 packs the best of the drone maker’s stable tech into a handheld device that will help take you from amateur to auteur.

R2 300 / myistore.co.za

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WISH LIST 2018

MARVEL’S SPIDER-MAN here are great Spider-Man games in gaming’s history and there are a few not so great ones. This Sony exclusive stands on top of them all, as the best Spider-Man title ever. Webslinging is a joy, the open world transitions to interior missions with no degredation in gameplay and the combat makes us proud to be wall-crawlers. Also, the fact that Sony and developers Insomniac are releasing new content means you’ll be singing for a while. “Spider-Man, Spider-Man, does whatever a spider can…”

R950 / btgames.co.za

SUPER SMASH BROS. ULTIMATE any Nintendo games can end friendships (we’re looking at you, Mario Kart) but Smash Bros. is how you work out your differences onscreen. Smash Ultimate is no different, except that it’s on the Switch. Expect bonkers action layered over a tightly-engineered combat system that somehow suits both casual and fiercely competitive players. Pick a Nintendo superstar – or one of the guests from Sega, Konami or Namco – and do battle with friends. On the go, which means you never, ever need to stop smashing.

R1 120 / nexushub.co.za

GOD OF WAR ho knew that Kratos, god and killer of gods, had a heart beating inside that chest of his? God of War, the shining reboot-slash sequel to the original violent trilogy, retains all the bone-breaking, stomach-ripping gore of the series but infuses it with emotion in a story about a man haunted by his past trying to connect with his son. They do this by roaming a semi-open Norse mythology-themed world killing everything in sight. And occasionally helping people. Boy.

R1 000 / takealot.com

RED DEAD REDEMPTION 2 he game that finally dethroned God of War’s amazing effort, RDR2 is a stunning sequel to an already stunning game. Follow along with gang leader Dutch van der Linde as he and his followers attempt to carve out a place in a world that increasingly seems to want them gone. Robbery and murder make folks a little edgy, it seems. Nobody needs to make a western-themed video game after this, because Rockstar are never going to be beaten here.

R1 000 / raru.co.za

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WISH LIST 2018

SONY PS4 PRO SPIDER-MAN BUNDLE t may be too late to grab one of those limited edition bright red Spider-Man themed PS4 Pro consoles but you can still get the console in its original livery, bundled with the best Marvel game released in years – Marvel’s Spider-Man. Ideal for those folks who are dithering about replacing a first-gen PS4 or who have yet to realise that nobody’s making games for the PS3 any more. You want the best games library available right now? This is the console for you.

SEAGATE STGD4000400 4TB GAME DRIVE

R7 500 / btgames.co.za

onsole games are getting large. Very large. The 1TB standard console storage sizes are no longer enough, nor is adding an additional terabyte hard drive. Sony’s not massively picky about the storage you add, but the PlayStation will play nicer with something made specifically for it. Seagate’s 4TB solution means you’ll be able to keep most games installed till the end of 2019 (we hope), but if you’re on a budget the lineup also includes 1TB and 2TB models as well.

from R2 470 / nexushub.co.za

NINTENDO SWITCH LET’S GO PIKACHU EDITION dmit it, you heard the Pokémon theme tune the moment you laid eyes on this special edition Switch. If you haven’t made the jump to Nintendo’s miraculous mobile games console, or are buying for a more casual player (who probably owned a 3DS XL), the Let’s Go Pikachu Edition is the way to go. Let’s Go Pikachu (there’s also a Let’s Go Evee bundle) is preinstalled, the console has limited-edition Joy-Cons and comes with a Poké Ball peripheral as well.

XBOX ONE X FORZA HORIZON 4 BUNDLE icrosoft has the most powerful console around and while they can’t swing Sony’s library and exclusives, they’ve got a few drawcards of their own. Own the Xbox One X with one of the best-looking games you’ll see on a console this year. Forza Horizon 4, an Xbox One X and a 4K TV are a perfect storm of gorgeous entertainment. The only way anyone’s going to be disappointed unwrapping this bundle is if the previous two presents contained the exact same thing.

R9 000 / btgames.co.za

R8 000 / store.nintendo.co.za

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WISH LIST 2018

DJI RYZE TELLO o you want a taste of the DJI ecosystem but you don’t want to put down half the price of an iPhone to get it? The DJI Ryze Tello is a dinky little flying machine that nonetheless packs in a 5MP 720p camera, 100-metre range and 13 minutes in the air. Footage has been stabilised, even without a gimbal, and some pre-set shots have been programmed in for the budding auteurs. The Tello is designed for stunts and indoor use but it’ll manage fine outside on a calm day.

R2 000 / myistore.co.za

SONY PLAYSTATION CLASSIC f you’re old enough to remember the original PSOne (which was just the PlayStation way back when), you’re old enough to want to own one of Sony’s Classic reissues. Boasting twenty titles, including Tekken 3, Ridge Racer Type 4, Metal Gear Solid, Twisted Metal and Grand Theft Auto, and a pair of super old-school PlayStation controllers (sans analogue sticks), the PlayStation Classic is one way for you to beat your kids at a set of games. Until they learn how to navigate a classic PlayStation title without a dedicated camera control, that is.

R1 800 / nexushub.co.za

SOUNDMAGIC E10BT e’ve long been fans of SoundMagic’s combination of low prices and high quality, with the E10C riding high on Stuff’s top ten list for ages. It’s been supplanted by the one thing SoundMagic could have improved – they’ve gone and given their budget buds Bluetooth capabilities. The price for going wireless is still under a grand, cheap enough that you could snag a replacement pair and just stash them in a cupboard for when these go “missing”. We know you took them, Sharon.

uying a gift for an aspiring Gyro Gearloose or Nikola Tesla? You can do a whole lot worse than the Raspberry Pi 3 B+, which packs a Broadcom 1.4GHz quad-core chip, 1GB of integrated RAM, enough ports to build a working PC (with wired peripherals) and the sort of footprint you’d see in a very small dinosaur. Whether it’s the inevitable teeny media PC you’re looking to build, or something more ambitious like a robot or a satellite, a Pi always makes for a very good start.

R900 / sound-magic.co.za

from R615 / pishop.co.za

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RASPBERRY PI 3 B+

www.stuff.co.za

WISH LIST 2018

THE BEST XMAS GIFT YOU CAN GIVE ANYONE (INCLUDING YOURSELF)

THE GIFT OF READING Kindle E-readers store 1 100 books in one place. www.circuitcity.co.za

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WISH LIST 2018

Connectivity? That’s just a technicality. They stay in place. So you don’t have to.

’Connectunity’ is the about the power of unity, through connectivity to create equality, possibilities and opportunities for all communities.

Jabra Elite Active 65t

Engineered for true wireless music, calls and sport. No strings attached.

www.circuitcity.co.za

Catch our new music video, featuring Mikhale Jones and Big Dreamz, on social media.

#connectunity

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WISH LIST 2018

ROMOSS JUMP STARTER 12000mAh e get that flat car batteries don’t happen that often but all it takes is one cold snap or a slight crack in a casing and you’re not going anywhere. This compact yellow rectangle could be the difference between sitting on the side of the road for hours… or motoring on your way to the nearest battery centre. The 12 volt, 12000mAh battery pack has been designed to jump-start cars but it also doubles neatly as a device charger – perfect for camping or power outages.

R1 700 / syntech.co.za

GOOGLE HOME ant to make your house a little smarter? You just need to get your home a Home – a Google Home, that is. They’re not officially on-sale here but there are several outlets bringing them in because nevertheless there’s demand for Google’s smart speaker/virtual assistant. Add a Google Home Mini or two and you can cover your entire dwelling with voice-activated smarts. Now you won’t need to look out of windows to know what the weather it like, like some kind of normal person. “Hey, Google?”

R2 050 / geewiz.co.za

LEGO TECHNIC BUGATTI CHIRON he closest most of us will get to owning a Bugatti Chiron is the Lego version, and it’s quite an advanced build. There are 3 599 pieces to this sports-car replica, a piece-count that should keep whoever opens this box busy for a very long time indeed. There’s also an easier-to-build Chiron around that has under 200 pieces, but its considerably lower price means it is also much harder to find. This Technic Chiron is much larger and features a lot more articulation. We think that’s a good thing. And we want it.

R6 250 /greatyellowbrick.co.za

KINDLE OASIS he price for Amazon’s first waterproof Kindle isn’t as high as it was at launch, putting it within range of far more buyers. Handle one, though, and you’ll know understand where your money went. The device has a satisfying heft and its 7in display is the best you’ll find on an e-reader. 8GB of storage, Audible integration and support for Bluetooth headphones feel like a bonus after that. If you’re still feeling wallet-conscious, there’s also a waterproof Paperwhite landing any day now.

R5 500 / circuitcity.co.za

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