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iPHONE 12: START YOUR 5G JOURNEY

HOT HOME UPGRADES 45 uplifting gadgets for a top winter at home Superb soundbars Great office gear Cracking kitchen kit

PS5 XBOX ACE ADD-ONS

Best 120Hz TVs, 3D audio headphones and pro pads

AMAZING MULTI-ROOM SPEAKERS Build your dream

wireless audio setup

REVIEWED

APPLE WATCH 6 VS SE

Which smartwatch is best for your needs?

TESTED

AWESOME ANDROID PHONES

Discover the perfect ’droid devices for creators, photographers and gamers

OCULUS QUEST 2

Breathtaking VR on a budget

SHOWSTOPPER Gadgets that showcase the very best that design and technology have to offer

A WHEEL WINNER Thanks to its maximum tyre clearance of 700c x 2-inches, the eTreviso offers excellent grip and comfort on slippery, uneven city streets

PINA R E LLO ETR E V I S O If 2020 has made one thing abundantly clear, it’s that our commute has changed forever. Most of us are working closer to home and even those who have a distance to travel are eager to avoid stepping into places like tube carriages. Fortunately, 3LQDUHOOR KDV SHGDOOHG LQ WR VDYH WKH GD\ ZLWK LWV ĆUVW HYHU XUEDQ HELNH 7KH VKDUS VLOKRXHWWH RI LWV K\GURIRUPLQJ DOOR\ IUDPH is perfect for slicing down city streets, while its pannier and mudguards help carry your laptop bag and protect your smart togs from splashed grime on rainy days. Meanwhile, its Fazua evation power system is one of the best in the business: discreetly concealed in the downtube, weighing just 4.6kg and topping out at 250 watts, it provides a natural feeling ride even when zipping up hills. Finally, its Shimano Deore 1x drivetrain allows for fuss-free maintenance, while its front and rear lights come as standard, drawing energy direct from its battery and keeping its rider safe as the winter nights draw in. £4,000, pinarellostore.co.uk

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Meet the team

Meet the team

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VISIT T3.COM We’ve overhauled T3.com – the best site for gadget news and reviews now has a great new look and is fully responsive, enabling you to enjoy it on any device.

Welcome

Editor’s letter It’s the moooost wonderful time of the yeeear. No, not &KULVWPDV $UH \RX NLGGLQJ" 0\ KRPH RIĆFH LV VWLOO bedecked with mouldering pumpkins and spider webs – although that’s largely because it’s become a selfsustaining ecosystem I can’t bring myself to obliterate. No, of course, the real season to be jolly ’tis discount gadget season. As I write this, Amazon Prime Day is in full throw: up and down the land excitable tech fans are tearing open boxes of bargain-priced smart speakers and espresso machines. Not only that but Black Friday is imminent, offering the half of the economy that isn’t owned by Amazon the chance to entice consumers with marked-down tech. It’s a great time to stock up on new gear. Which is why we’ve put together a guide on all of the areas of your abode worthy of an upgrade, whether that’s bringing new home cinema kit to your living room, distraction-reducing gadgets IRU \RXU RIĆFH RU ODERXU VDYLQJ GHYLFHV IRU \RXU NLWFKHQ And while we’re talking about festive bargains, you can nab T3 from just £2.70 an issue this Christmas when you subscribe. Head on over to page 42 now to check it out!

Josh Russell, Editor josh.russell@futurenet.com Tweet me @joshlrussell

Correction: In our Complete Guide to Mid-Range Phones piece in T3 313, we failed to credit Vodafone for supplying us with an iPhone SE for our shoot. Our apologies for this oversight and our sincere thanks to the brand for its help.

T3’S MISSION Our mission is to bring you the clearest recommendations ZHbFDQ Ã¥ DQG WKDW PHDQV D JUHDW GHDO RI KDUG ZRUN KDSSHQV before a product even reaches our pages! Because we only feature products the T3 team would KDSSLO\ XVH RXUVHOYHV ZH HQG XS GLVFDUGLQJ D VLJQLĆFDQW QXPEHU RI RSWLRQV LQ HDFK FDWHJRU\ EHIRUH VHWWOLQJ RQ D ĆQDO shortlist to review. We select only the best of the best for RXUb7HVWHG VHFWLRQ WKHbJHDU ZH NQRZ \RXèOO ZDQW WR VHULRXVO\ consider purchasing. And that should mean an end to you

having to undertake hours of painstaking research and product comparisons. You won’t see any duff products, but you will come away with clarity on which one is the best in its category or for DbVSHFLĆF WDVN RXU DZDUGV EDGJHV VHH EHORZ HQVXUH WKDW everything T3 recommends is clearly highlighted on the page. It goes without saying that every product in our review VHFWLRQ KDVbEHHQ WKRURXJKO\ WHVWHG E\ RXU WHDP RI H[SHUWV HQDEOLQJ \RXbWR EX\ ZLWK WRWDO FRQĆGHQFH

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N O V E M B ER 2 0 2 0 T3 5

Contents

Contents 030

HOT HOME UPGRADES

Make the most of your winter at home with these great gadgets, whether it’s top tellies for your lounge, awesome appliances for your kitchen or stress-busting devices for getting away from it all

049

AMAZING PS5 AND XBOX ADD-ONS

Discover the screens, pads and speakers you need to get next-gen ready

056

TOP ANDROID PHONES FOR EVERYBODY Not an iPhone fan? Well we’ve got a range of Android handsets to suit every kind of person

6 T3 N O V E M B ER 2 0 2 0

044

COMPLETE GUIDE

Master multi-room speakers with our latest guide and choose the best system for your needs

Contents BEST OF THE BEST

HORIZON 010

HORIZON TOP 10

Have a gander at the long-awaited iPhone 12 and the bank-balancefriendly Google Pixel 5

018

STYLE

These boots are made for walking. And they’re damn stylish too

020

TESTED 064

APPLE WATCH SE

Sans a few sensors, this wallet-friendly Watch offers a premium experience

068

APPLE WATCH 6

With a brighter display and blood O2 VHQVRU WKLV ćDJVKLS LV EHWWHU WKDQ HYHU

FITNESS & OUTDOORS

Hit the performance sweet spot with Libre Sense’s glucose level sensor

079

072

OCULUS QUEST 2

Is this the dawn of a whole new reality for consumer VR?

022

YOUR IN-DEPTH BUYER’S GUIDE 2XU JLDQW EX\HUèV JXLGH KHOSV \RX ĆQG the world’s best gadgets in over 50 categories, from top tellies to DSLRs to car tech to shavers – all tested by T3’s team of tech experts!

TRAVEL 7KH ĆUVW DOO HOHFWULF 0HUFHGHV %HQ] the EQC, is perfect for thrill seekers and chill seekers alike

SUBSCRIBE

024

LIVING

Boast the best bread and the toast with the most with these gadgets

074

GOOGLE NEST AUDIO

026

Will its new focus on audio quality help it challenge the Echo for the throne?

Own the best drone for roaming, calm your homebound canine and pick the slickest non-stick lining

CANON EOS R6

GADGET GURU

029

TALKING TECH

After the release of cheaper iPhones and Pixels, Duncan Bell ponders whether premium pricing’s had its day

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076

This full-frame mirrorless cam is perfect for the experienced amateur

077

ROLI LUMI

Want to learn piano? This rainbowkeyed beauty should light your way

FOR £2.69 AN ISSUE! Get our special Xmas offer

042

Horizon

The best new tech heading your way

iPHONE 12 From £699 (iPhone 12 mini)/£799 (iPhone 12), apple.com Leave it to Apple to go big. Where Google’s Pixel 5 elicited, if we’re honest, a bit of a shrug, Apple’s announcement of the iPhone 12 – and its attendant mini, Pro and Pro Max variants – caused a stir for all the right reasons. Reasons like the company bringing the ludicrously fast A14 Bionic processor from the iPad Air 4 into a phone form factor, or finally (finally!) giving the iPhone 5G capabilities with, suggests Apple, cover for more 5G bands than any other phone. Reasons like the sevenelement rear camera, and the return of Apple’s MagSafe branding in the iPhone 12’s autoaligning, extra-efficient Qi charging setup. The flat-edged design more than hints at the classic metal frame of the iPhone 4, bringing with it vastly reduced bezels on the upgraded 6.1-inch Super Retina XDR (ie OLED) display for a 15% smaller, 11% thinner, and 16% tougher phone, too. The IP68 water and dust resistance we’ve seen on other recent models is topped off with what Apple calls Ceramic Shield, giving the display an extra level of resilience. What’s coolest (for us, at least) is that all of these key upgrades are also crammed into the smaller and cheaper iPhone 12 mini, which cuts the display size down to 5.4 inches in a phone smaller than the iPhone SE – if you’ve been clamouring for a pocket-sized phone in a world increasingly dominated by trouser-busting phablets, this is the one to get.

TECH-O-METER

WHAT’S NOT IN THE BOX Apple is on a journey of environmental innovation. Noble, but it does also mean that there’s no power adapter or EarPods in the box and no notable price drop over previous models, which did include them.

“Let’s hope the 12’s exciting 5G capabilities can be fully realised” Josh Russell, Editor

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Top 10

OH, TO GO PRO Spend a bit more on Apple’s higher-end Pro (from £999) and Pro Max (from £1,099) and you get a camera upgrade very akin to that of the iPhone 11 Pro, and more storage for your precious shots. This time the twin lenses get an improved Night mode, the option of shooting in Apple’s ProRAW format, and (on the gigantic 6.7-inch Pro Max) a wider camera sensor with improved sensitivity in the dark and LiDAR depth sensing.

IMAGE SOURCE: APPLE

SNAPPY SNAPS The iPhone 12’s new camera array, with faster sensors than ever before, purportedly picks up 27% more light than previous models. It’s backed up by some heavyweight computational photography tools, like Smart HDR 3 (which uses machine learning to ensure photos look realistic even after they’ve been enhanced to within an inch of their lives) and end-to-end video shooting in HDR and Dolby Vision.

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Horizon

BMW 128TI From £33,460, bmw.co.uk After 20 years in the shadows, BMW is finally ready to bring back the Turizmo Internazionale designation for the M Sport specified 128ti. It weighs in at 80kg less than the M135i from which it draws a lot of its tech, it gets an eight-speed Steptronic Sport automatic gearbox, and packs in a 2.0-litre 265hp engine with a turbo to boot. Some of the new tech from the 128ti even looks to be making its way back to the M135i, like torque-averse power steering, which adds smart counter-rotation when the power to the tyres would otherwise try to force it out of your hands. Sporty on the outside (natch) but comfortable and clever inside with a fully digital dash, early drives suggest this is a traction-heavy and entirely pointy drive that’s ultra-quick off the mark.

IMAGE SOURCE: BMW

T3 SAYS: This Golf-GTI-baiting front-wheeldrive hot hatch is exciting stuff.

TECH-O-METER

ACER SPIN 7 £TBC, acer.com

T3 SAYS: Great for working on the move, if that ever becomes a thing we do again.

TECH-O-METER

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IMAGE SOURCE: ACER

The world’s first go around with the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8cx Gen 2 processor sees Acer dropping x86 from the Spin line altogether and taking the Windows-on-ARM path instead. Not such a bone-headed move: it nets the new Spin 7 full 5G connectivity and what looks set to be a tremendous battery life, with Acer claiming it’ll last for multiple days on a single charge. The flip-over screen also gains a newly revamped Wacom digitiser with 4096 levels of sensitivity, great for sketching and designing. A lot of the new Spin 7’s success will depend on how well the ARM version of Windows actually performs, and how many people are willing to develop applications for it. We’re sure this is going to be a fab little two-in-one as long as we don’t have another Windows RT on our hands.

Top 10

Q ACOUSTICS Q ACTIVE 200 £1,499, qacoustics.co.uk

IMAGE SOURCE: Q ACOUSTICS

Uniquely designed – to the point we struggled at first to work out which side of the speaker was the front – the Q Active range marks the company’s first dip in the active speaker world. And these are some significant speakers. Each is equipped with three discrete amplifiers pushing 140W to an offset pair of Balanced Mode Radiator drivers, which apparently create a wall of sound with a wide sweet spot, and a rear-firing waveguided subwoofer rounding out the meat of the sound. The smarts are solid, too. Whatever the source you’ll be able to play it, from turntables to network services, with the main control hardware and physical connections pulled out into a central unit. There’s also Google Assistant support, with an Alexa version set to join it soon. T3 SAYS: Looks good, will surely sound good.

TECH-O-METER

GOOGLE PIXEL 5 £599, store.google.com

T3 SAYS: There are so many cool features here.

TECH-O-METER

N O V E M B ER 2 0 2 0 T3 13

IMAGE SOURCE: GOOGLE

The Pixel range tends to set the tone for the next generation of Android phones. As midrange becomes the new normal, so the specs (and price) of the Pixel 5 have fallen right in line. This is, for a Pixel, a phone of quite restrained power, one with 8GB RAM, 128GB storage, and the 5G-compatible Snapdragon 765G chipset, a decent processor that’s a half-step behind the top end today. Google has employed a cheaty workaround to give it both-ways wireless charging despite the Pixel 5’s recycled aluminium shell, and there’s a very solid camera package with an ultra-wide lens replacing the previous telephoto. There’s even an in-screen top speaker, which enables the Pixel 5 to do away with the top bezel – but that does mean a fingerprint scanner in place of the Pixel 4’s 3D Face Unlock tech.

Horizon

BOSE SLEEPBUDS II £229.95, bose.co.uk The concept of ear buds worn specifically to help you sleep is sound, but it’s fair to say that Bose’s last try at the Sleepbuds didn’t go so well: battery inconsistencies meant they were discontinued far too early. Second time’s the charm here, then, and Bose hasn’t just fixed the power station with a new 10-hour NiMH battery and been done with it. It has refined the noise masking tech, which specifically aims to cover outside sound rather than cancelling it, something the company says is far better for sleep, and matched that with a proprietary ear tip which should stay secure through the night. There’s also a selection of pre-bedtime relaxation sounds to help you wind down. Note, though, that these buds work only with the Bose Sleep app – if you’d prefer to drift off with a podcast, look for something else.

IMAGE SOURCE: BOSE

T3 SAYS: Restless nights begone!

TECH-O-METER

MUZEN WILD MINI $99 (around £77), muzenaudio.com

T3 SAYS: It’s yet another Bluetooth speaker, sure, but somehow it’s got us listening.

TECH-O-METER

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IMAGE SOURCE: MUZEN

There’s something about the Muzen Wild Mini’s palm-sized design that just does it for us, whether it’s that gloriously tactile knurled volume knob, the deliberately exposed bolts holding its speaker firmly in place, or the military-style green case. This thing might not be sleek, but it’s certainly got that outdoors cool factor. IPX5 water resistant, with Bluetooth 5 streaming tech built in, it’s a great addition to a noisy hike, and it features a three-mode torch built in for emergencies. It’ll last, too, barking out six hours of audio through its customdesigned neodymium magnet speaker. There’s even a paracord lanyard included, both to keep this safely dangled from your bag as you trudge the trail, and giving you something with which to whip up a raft should that trail end.

Top 10

AMAZON ECHO DOT (4TH GENERATION) £49.99, amazon.co.uk price point is decent, particularly if you’re not worried about an extra tenner for the clock-containing version. As ever, though, keep an eye out for bargains: as the Ancient Ones decreed, never pay full price for an Echo Dot. IMAGE SOURCE: AMAZON

While the main line Echo understandably draws the biggest headlines, Amazon has not forgotten the Dot. It’s been given the same spherical refresh as its big brother, and slots into the exact same niche as its third-gen predecessor, though it carves out a little headroom with its more bulbous form. If anything, we see the Dot as a more attractive option for most, as many won’t use the smart hub or Dolby Audio functions of the more expensive Echo. Although this sticks to a single speaker, it’s more than capable of belting out a tune or two. And that

T3 SAYS: It’s not the grown-up Echo but it is a lovely little orb,

TECH-O-METER COOLNESS INNOVATION FEATURES

ECHELON STRIDE £TBC, echelonfit.uk full-on boot camp, or you can just opt for one of eight pre-programmed workouts if you’d rather not be barked at by a suspiciously fit instructor. Echelon has been generous with the layout, too, and offered up space for your phone, a tablet and a pair of water bottles. T3 SAYS: A home run.

TECH-O-METER COOLNESS INNOVATION FEATURES

IMAGE SOURCE: ECHELON

If you’re not lucky enough to have a dedicated space in which to work out, home fitness gear can be a real drain on your square footage. Not so with the Echelon Stride, which marks Echelon’s first foot into the treadmill market after finding great success with its rower and bike thus far. Three simple steps is all it takes to convince the Stride to automatically fold up, at which point it stores vertically with a minimal 25 centimetre depth. When it’s unfurled, you get a whole lot of smart coaching options, with customcreated classes taking you on everything from a brisk walk to a

AMAZON FIRE TV STICK LITE £29.99, amazon.co.uk slightly inferior to models further up the line. But its lost digits don’t affect the Fire TV Stick Lite’s balance one bit. For the cash, this is probably the best 1080p streamer you can get, perfect for converting any old TV into a smart one. IMAGE SOURCE: AMAZON

Though our fingers are always on the pulse of tech, we were pretty surprised when the Fire TV Stick Lite was announced. Not because there’s not a place for it in the market – it fits right in next to the likes of the Roku Express, and knocks the non-Android TV version of the Chromecast for a loop – but because it’s so close to the already-cheap non-Lite edition. Sure, Amazon has been forced to chop off a couple of the Fire TV Stick’s more missable toes to hit that magic money mark: there are no TV controls on its Fire remote, and its audio capabilities are

T3 SAYS: A smart TV without a smart TV – now that’s smart.

TECH-O-METER COOLNESS INNOVATION FEATURES N O V E M B ER 2 0 2 0 T3 1 5

Horizon

BEST FOOT FORWARD

Step out in style with some tough yet stylish boots. We have smarter laceups for date night, plus waterproof stompers for wet-weather wandering

DR MARTENS 101 ARCHIVE LEATHER BOOTS A vintage version of the classic Docs, the 101s have air-cushioned soles for all-day comfort, and an anti-slip outsole held in place by the durable Goodyear Welt. £149, drmartens.com

IMAGE SOURCE: DR MARTENS, COMMON PROJECTS, TIMBERLAND, GRENSON, MR PORTER

COMMON PROJECTS FULLGRAIN LEATHER CHELSEA BOOTS You’ll never tire of wearing these boots. They’re crafted from fullgrain leather, with low-key golden serial numbers at the back. £495, stoy.com TIMBERLAND PREMIUM WATERPROOF BOOTS Laugh in the face of winter with Timberland’s classic waterproof nubuck leather boots, lined with 400g PrimaLoft insulation. £180, timberland.co.uk GRENSON FRED BURNISHEDLEATHER BROGUE BOOTS Super-glossy and comfortable too, Grenson’s new season winter boots are perfect for all-weather date nights. £245, grenson.com MR P SPLIT-TOE SUEDE CHUKKA BOOTS Available in grey and black, these ’50s-style chukkas look ace with chinos and dark wash jeans. Vibram soles will keep you upright. £295, mrporter.com

MONEY NO OBJECT There’s no better way to approach winter than with the softest scarf wrapped around your neck. And when it comes to luxury accessories of the knitwear kind, Loro Piana is the brand to look to. Founded in 1924, the Italian brand has built a reputation for only using the finest materials to make its indoor and outerwear. This year, it has a huge line of knitted accessories to choose from, including this scarf, woven on a handloom in Italy from rare baby cashmere. You will never in your

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life feel anything as soft as this Loro Piana scarf against your skin, though you can up the ante by opting for the cashmere and silk blend version (£885) instead. The Loro Piana Baby Cashmere Scarf has short fringing at the bottom, with a subtle tonal border adding further interest. At 180cm long, it’s the ideal size and weight for keeping the cold at bay, whether you’re exploring the city or rambling through the countryside. From £820, mrporter.com

IMAGE SOURCE: LORO PIANA

Loro Piana Baby Cashmere Scarf

Style

WHICH WATCH

THE HOTTEST TIMEPIECES RIGHT NOW

ROLEX, SUBMARINER 8SGDWHG IRU WKH ĆUVW WLPH VLQFH QRZ D VLQJOH PLOOLPHWUH ODUJHU WKDQ LWV SUHGHFHVVRU DQG SRZHUHG E\ 5ROH[èV QHZ FDOLEUH ZKLFK KDV D 70-hour power reserve and a proprietary Chronergy escapement.

IMAGE SOURCES: ROLEX, TUDOR, BAMFORD, BELL & ROSS

£6,450, rolex.com

BAMFORD X G-SHOCK, 5610 A stylish nod to the original G – this watch features incredibly accurate radio-controlled timekeeping, a slim, shock resistant, resin case, and a few stylish embellishments from Bamford. £149, bamfordlondon.com

TUDOR, BLACK BAY 58 NAVY BLUE The hottest watch of the year? It could be! The insanely popular BB58 KDVbEHHQ JLYHQ WKH QDY\ EOXH WUHDWPHQW ,WèV UREXVW UHOLDEOH DQG LV LQFUHGLEOHbYDOXH IRU PRQH\ £2,520, tudorwatch.com

BELL & ROSS, BR 03-92 DIVER ORANGE Limited to 250 pieces, this new version of the BR 03-92 will certainly not go unnoticed. The orange dial is inspired by professional diving gear. Grab your snorkel and get exploring! £2,990, bellross.com N O V E M B ER 2 0 2 0 T3

Horizon

BEST WATERPROOF CYCLING JACKETS

Designed for temperatures from 5 to 15 degrees, this lightweight jacket is windproof and features three-compartment sprayresistant back pockets, a big tonal logo on the sleeve and a fleece-lined backer for warmth protection. £129.99, gorewear.com

THE SWEET SPOT

BLOOD SUGAR TECH MAGIC The game-changing Libre Sense Biosensor monitors glucose levels in real time to improve athletic performance

IMAGE SOURCE: CHROME INDUSTRIES

CHROME INDUSTRIES STORM SALUTE COMMUTE JACKET Fully seamtaped and waterproof, the Storm Commute Jacket is lightweight but tough enough to keep you dry, no matter the weather. The two-way zip, air vents and zippered chest pockets make this jacket comfortable and versatile while reflectives will keep you visible at night. £170, chromeindustries.com

There is no shortage of fitness wearables designed to make you a more efficient athlete: there are insoles that can track pronation and cadence as you run, running watches that track heart rate and respiration, as well as swimming and cycling sensors that track everything else you can think of as you exercise. Even in a fairly saturated market like fitness wearables, Abbott’s Libre Sense Glucose Sport Biosensor (from ¤130, supersapiens.com) manages to offer something unique and new. This biosensor was designed for athletes to continuously measure glucose to “better understand the

HOT DAMN!

£250, rapha.cc/gb/en 2 0 T3 N O V E M B ER 2 0 2 0

PROTEIN POWER Huel introduces Hot & Savoury, a ‘nutritionally complete’ hot meal range packed with protein

IMAGE SOURCE: HUEL

IMAGE SOURCE: RAPHA

RAPHA EXPLORE HOODED GORE-TEX PULLOVER With a new, more relaxed fit and soft next-toskin feel, the Rapha Explore Hooded Gore-Tex Pullover jacket is comfortable both on and off the bike. The jacket packs down into an integrated stuff sack when not in use, which can be used as a pillow if needed.

correlation between their glucose levels and their athletic performance”, as Abbot puts it. The Libre Sense is the first personal-use product that allows glucose monitoring for all athletes. Created in collaboration with Supersapiens, this small round biosensor (about the size of a £2 coin) can be worn by athletes on the back of their upper arm to obtain glucose readings. The biosensor will provide real-time glucose values and can be worn for up to 14 days. The user will automatically receive streaming glucose data, every minute via Bluetooth wireless technology, designed to work with compatible mobile apps and wrist readers.

Gone are the days when Huel only made earthy-tasting meal-replacement powders. With the new Hot & Savoury range (£49.50 for three bags, uk.huel.com), Huel has created a high-brow version of your average supermarket couscous packets, way more healthy and delicious and packed with protein. They come in two flavours (Tomato & Herb and Thai Green Curry) and contain a balance of carbs, protein, fats, fibre and all 26 essential vitamins and minerals. Just mix with hot water and leave to stand for five minutes. Bon appetit!

IMAGE SOURCE: ABBOTT

IMAGE SOURCE: GORE WEAR

GORE WEAR C3 GORE-TEX INFINIUM THERMO JACKET

Horizon Travel

IMAGE SOURCE: SONY

SONY XAV-AX100 This Sony number has stylish looks and a physical volume dial. Many others resort to separate plus and minus keys or commit volume functionality to the touchscreen, which can be very annoying. The dial on this is a joy to use, as is the rest of the system. £425, sony.co.uk

IMAGE SOURCE: MERCEDES-BENZ

UPGRADE WITH ANDROID CAR PLAY

CALMING TRAFFIC

CAR MEETS SPA Soothing, quiet and comfortable – Spencer Hart drives the first all-electric Mercedes, the EQC

IMAGE SOURCE: JVC

JVC KW-M745DBT This JVC is great for those with a cramped dash area. The lack of heft means it can sit where other existing wires also reside. Once set up, it is quick and slick to operate, with lots of control over menu functions, sound quality and much more. £399, halfords.com

IMAGE SOURCE: PIONEER

PIONEER SPH-10BT Who needs a big touchscreen when you have a smartphone? Of course, fiddling with your device on the move is massively illegal, so Pioneer offers four dedicated hard key buttons for your favourite app access. Voice commands are arguably still the best way to interact with the unit. £109, pioneer-car.eu/uk 2 2 T3 N O V E M B ER 2 0 2 0

The Mercedes-Benz EQC (from £65,720, mercedes-benz.co.uk) is the German marque’s first all-electric vehicle. With a modern design, quality interior and dynamic performance, Mercedes claims the EQC symbolises the start of a new mobility era at Daimler, but what really struck us was how calming driving this electric SUV is. The exterior is striking. The extended roofline and low waistline make it appear incredibly sleek, while the standout feature, the large black-panel surface enclosing the headlamps and grille, is bordered at the top by an ultra-modern light beam. Step inside the car and you’re surrounded by a high-quality interior. The driver-oriented cockpit is designed to resemble a high-end hi-fi amplifier, with a ribbed edge instrument panel and high-gloss air vents with keyshaped, rose-gold-coloured louvres. The real highlight of the interior is the innovative ‘MBUX’ multimedia system. Not only does it look stunning, it’s also incredibly easy to use, with numerous EQ-specific functions such as the display of range, charge status and energy flow. Our fully specced model came complete with the ‘Energizing’ and ‘Air Balance’ packages, which essentially turn the EQC into a spa on wheels. For example, Air Balance allows you to choose from a range of high-quality interior fragrances and then select the desired intensity and length of program. Another benefit of this package is that it ionises the air, helping to reduce certain viruses, bacteria and spores.

The Energizing package is a softwarebased service that uses the car’s interior lighting and air conditioning system to keep you alert behind the wheel. The system can offer you individual programme recommendations and will analyse your current journey and vehicle data (including aspects such as traffic conditions, weather and journey time). It can also assess your current physical and mental state (if you’re wearing a compatible Garmin smartwatch). The Energizing Coach then selects a perfectly suited fitness or wellness experience that you can start directly from the car’s touch screen. Underneath the high-tech cabin, the EQC features an all-new drive system with compact electric drivetrains at each axle. The front electric motor is optimised for the best possible efficiency in the low to medium load range, while the rear one determines dynamism. Together, they generate an output of 300kW and a maximum torque of 765Nm. The motors are powered by an 80kWh lithium-ion battery, which has an official range of 259 miles (though that will depend very much on your driving style). In the more economical driving modes, the haptic accelerator pedal prompts you to conserve power by reminding you to lift off and coast. Overall the Mercedes-Benz EQC is very impressive. It’s quiet, calming, and packed to the headliner with technology. If you’re not already considering switching to an electric vehicle, you will be after driving one of these.

Horizon

RAISE A TOAST!

IMAGE SOURCE: SUB-ZERO & WOLF

IMAGE SOURCE: MORPHY RICHARDS

What’s better than bread? Hot bread! Or, as the pros like to call it ‘toast’. This Dualit classic is a staple of hotel breakfast rooms and every part can be serviced, for a lifetime of toasting. £200, dualit.co.uk

DOUGH! MORPHY RICHARDS VERVE If you feel like £200 is a bit much for a toaster, you can’t go wrong with this. The Verve serves up even browning and a ‘high lift’ action, in an affordable yet stylish toaster. £40, morphyrichards.co.uk

SUB-ZERO & WOLF 2-SLOT TOASTER But what of those who feel £200 is simply not expensive enough? They can take solace in this beauty. Made with enough metal to melt down and reuse as a battleship, this features extra-wide slots and ‘unique self-centering bread guides’, no less. £299.95, subzero-wolf.co.uk 24 T3 N O V E M B ER 2 0 2 0

BREAD MAKING: THE MOST UNLIKELY ‘NEW’ TREND OF 2020 If you missed out during lockdown, the good news is that bread makers are now on sale, and you don’t even need yeast! People took up all sorts of new hobbies during lockdown, from sewing to stockpiling vast quantities of toilet roll. However, arguably the most popular of all was bread making. Sadly, the boom in home-based baguette wrangling led to some entirely unforeseen consequences. Chief among these was that bread makers all sold out, yeast all sold out and, in many places, even flour all sold out. The good news if you missed out at that time is that all those things are now back on sale. Bread makers are one of those classic gadgets that are not ‘essential’ as such – you can make bread in the oven, in a loaf-shaped tin – but they are very hard to stop using once you start. The extreme convenience of being able to literally toss all the ingredients of bread in, press a button, and receive a loaf a few hours later makes bread makers irresistible, in fact. We’re a fan of Sage appliances – formerly Sage by Heston Blumenthal – and its Custom Loaf Pro (£199, sageappliances.com) makes

a typically stylish addition to the inveterate loafer’s arsenal. It features over 60 settings, and a timer delay means you can prepare your ingredients before bed, and awake to freshly baked bread. A nifty little pop-up mixing paddle does all the hard work, then pops back down again. This means the bread is easy to remove, and doesn’t end up with the characteristic hole in the base that bread makers with fixed mixing paddles have. Although there’s not much you can do if flour runs out – short of milling your own from wheat – if a yeast shortage hits you could try using a sourdough ‘starter’ instead. This is essentially some flour and water mixed together and left to rot. No, that doesn’t sound terribly pleasant, but everyone loves sourdough bread, and it’s the best way to get bread to rise without using yeast. Making the starter takes a few weeks and some trial and error, but if you top it up with more flour after each use it will, in theory, provide you and your heirs with delicious sourdough loaves for all eternity.

IMAGE SOURCE: GETTY

IMAGE SOURCE: DUALIT

DUALIT NEWGEN

Living

THE PERFECT TABLESCAPE Tablescaping is ‘the art of setting the table’, so here are some versatile pieces to consider building your Christmas holiday tablescape around RIVIERA GLOSSY GOLD LEAF PLATE Up your starter game with this decorative plate designed by French floral designer Christian Tortu. To create a stark contrast, sit it on top of a darker hue dinner plate, or for a very decadent finish pair it with gold cutlery. As the plate measures 18cm diameter, it could also be served as a serving dish for canapes or mini desserts. £28, rockettstgeorge.co.uk

IMAGE SOURCE: ROCKETT ST GEORGE, OKA, CULTURE OF ART, DIBOR

RYDAL LEAF HURRICANE CANDLE HOLDER Mixing and matching candle holders is a great way to play with different styles of tablescaping, though if you want to keep things elegant and fuss-free, choose one that’s a little more imposing to dominate more of the space. The Rydal Leaf Hurricane Candle Holder stands 45cm tall without a pillar candle on top. £70, oka.com INCALMI BOTTLE YELLOW MURANO DECANTER You’ll need at least one showstopper piece for your tablescape. It could be a candle holder (see above), an oversized serving bowl, or, if wine is your tipple, you may prefer this Incalmi Bottle Yellow Murano Decanter, handblown in Murano by Fornace Mian. It has a wide base tapering up into a narrow spout for precision pouring, and is finished with a matching glass stopper. £220, cultureofart.com BOTANIC GREEN LEAF GOBLETS Dibor’s tinted green glass goblets lend themselves just as well to a holiday tablescape as they would an ordinary weeknight dinner. You could even dress them up with clip-on accessories for the big day. You get two goblets for the price, with each having a 310ml capacity for your favourite wine. £18, dibor.co.uk

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Horizon

T3’s high-flying tech dude soars to ever greater levels of helpfulness

CHRIS HENSON, GLASGOW

What’s the best drone for a hike? Ho ho ho: drones don’t walk, silly! They fly! Once Guru has served his full life sentence in dad joke jail, he will recommend you something that does automated person-stalking, because presumably you want a device that’s going to film you huffing and puffing your way along a trail for some kind of ill-advised posterity, you narcissist you. You actually have a choice between person-recognition tech or drones that latch on to a GPS signal. There’s a vaster selection in the former bracket, with DJI’s latest Mavic Air 2 (£769) leading the pack. It’ll fly for around 30 minutes,

ILLUSTRATIONS: STEPHEN KELLY

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and can transmit video from up to six miles away if you’re just looking to check the trail ahead for bears or unruly youths. For GPS following, try the significantly cheaper Holy Stone HS700D (£210), which is enough of a bargain that you won’t even care too much if it spangs itself into a tree. You’ll get about half the flight

ABOVE It’s important to get the proof that you hugged the beast on the mountain top

The Holy Stone HS700D is enough of a bargain that you won’t even care too much if it spangs itself into a tree

time of the Mavic, though; the £270 Holy Stone HS720, a foldable drone which looks copyright-infringingly close to the Mavic Air in design, ups the life to more like 26 minutes, so it might be a better choice. “But Guru,” you whinge, as usual. “What if I want both GPS and person recognition?” Well, reader, either you empty your bank account buying two drones, or you empty your bank account buying one drone. Import the Skydio 2 ($999, around £785 before fees), and you’ll have the option of using either function, as well as the ability to send it up to a Civil-AviationAuthority-worrying 15,000 feet.

SEND YOUR QUESTIONS TO: INBOX@T3.COM OR FACEBOOK.COM/T3MAG 26 T3 N O V E M B ER 2 0 2 0

Gadget guru

OLIVER GROUSE, CAMDEN

My dog hates it when I go out. What can I do? The first trick is to stop caring about any other living thing, something Guru mastered some years ago. A nice box of chocolates or a bottle of wine now and then goes some way to bribing neighbours to put up with the racket. Barkers gonna bark, right? Sadly Guru’s editor reminds him, via pointy stick, that not every question can be answered with a sociopathic soliloquy. So let’s think about this logically. Your dog wants two things: it wants company, because you are not there, and it wants food, because it is a dog and that is basically the only thing dogs want ever. A treat-dispensing pet camera can provide both those things, and Guru recommends the Furbo over all others for a variety of reasons. First, the camera itself: it’s a 1080p number with a 160-degree lens and night vision, so you can watch your dog chew through the

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arm of the sofa when it thinks it can’t be seen. Second, the treat dispenser, which doesn’t just pathetically dribble treats onto the carpet (looking at you, Pawbo) but pings them across the room with a Pavlovian click instead. There’s two-way talk (or, y’know, one-way talk, one-way yelp) and a very decent app to go along with it. It even does bark alerts, so you can log on when you know your dog is hollering and tell them, in no uncertain terms, to button it or else. The only problem, really, is the price. If you can do without the treat dispenser and just want to see what your dog is up to, close to £200 is probably a bit too much to pay. You can cover the camera and two-way talk function with any number of budget smart cameras, so try the £30 Neos SmartCam. It’s better than it has any right to be at that price, and you can configure it to send you alerts when things get loud at home.

ABOVE To stop howling, either get some helpful tech, stop going out or shoot the dog

GADGET GURU’S MAGIC BOX GaGu Jr has, through some financial miracle, managed to save up enough pocket money to buy himself the Lego Super Mario starter set (£50). There’s very little building involved, and what ‘game’ there is to it feels entirely arbitrary. But what it has really proven is that GaGu has completely lost touch with his imagination, because the kids love rearranging stages and taking Mario on wacky adventures. It’s so nice to see them play together without any throttling or scratching involved, although the fact that powering Mario up means taking his trousers off is the teensiest bit uncomfortable. Mario might be able to upgrade himself, but can he predict the future? Guru’s recent upgrade adventures have been oddly prescient. Your favourite uncle bought an Echo Plus, reduced to an absolute steal at

£60, and Amazon went and released a whole new line of Echoes. He picked up a really very expensive Geforce 2080 (around £750) to give his PC a kick in the rear, and Nvidia immediately went and made the bottom-end next-gen card perform far better for far fewer sheckels. So if there’s anything in the tech world you think might need an upgrade, let Guru know and he’ll crack out the credit card while having a little cry. Back to toys now, and Christmas plastic tat. Yes, it’s been a weird old year, but there seems to be no sell-out-in-seconds fad toy dominating the market – probably because every kid wants a new console? Well, GaGu has seen one thing, the Gotta Go Flamingo (£26). You shovel dust into its mouth, and it poops into a little toilet. Brilliant. Even better: scoop its leavings out of the bog and you can feed them to the flamingo again and again, because that’s totally normal.

H KERFOOT, WARMINSTER

How do I make my old VHS tapes usable? What do you mean? They are perfectly usable already: never again will you want for a length of shiny ribbon covered in rust. If you really must unearth the contents of those precious cassettes rather than just running up and down the street attempting to discover the true length of a 240-minute tape, Ion’s aged USB-connectable VCR 2 PC player seems like the least stupid option. If you can find it – last Guru heard it had been discontinued, so you’ll need to do a bit of searching and potentially spending too. Chuck £25 in eBay’s direction, though, and you’ll likely be able to get a half-decent, non-USB VHS player; all you’ll need then is some way to capture its output on your PC, Mac or iPad. That would be the Elgato Video Capture (£90), an entirely serviceable snake of wires that connects everything simply – don’t expect a huge amount of fidelity, though, because you’re capturing a 0.16 MP analog source invented almost 45 years ago.

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Horizon

NEW MEDIA

NOW PLAYING Guru finds the finest media you need on your various devices

KURT BROWN, POOLE

Which nonstick: ceramic or Teflon? Ceramic is more environmentally friendly, and it can come in fancy colours. Teflon has been around longer and is so badass they put it on spaceships. Some say ceramic has a shorter lifespan, but that depends on how you treat it and the thickness of the ceramic layer. Guru isn’t going to choose for you, because the fact is that they’re very close in just about every metric. The key, beyond soft tools, is care with oil use. Either don’t use it, or be sure to strip it all off (carefully) after every use, lest a layer build up and destroy the non-stick properties of your pan.

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OVER THE TOP Canadian rockers TWRP make electronic funk so palatable that even Guru’s father-inlaw approves; as we all know, Nigel’s opinion is the one that matters when it comes to music.

KATE, VIA EMAIL

Can tech help me with my nails? TECHNOLOGY CONNECTIONS While GaGu knows all things tech, even he has learned things from host Alec’s YouTube deep dives into niche subjects. He also appreciates the snark.

BILL & TED FACE THE MUSIC Has this taken Guru back to a childhood of shouting “Sixty nine, dude!” without actually understanding what it meant? No. But this return to the Bill & Ted canon is brilliant fun.

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ABOVE Tech can help you with your nails but not that awful case of sunburn

Guru frequently checks on the progress of Coral (trycoral.com) which is ‘the world’s first smart home manicure’, because the thought of letting a robot loose on his fingernails is as delicious as it is terrifying. The company has been through a crowdfunding phase and seems to have a prototype ready, so we’ll see what comes of it. For now, that sort of thing seems to be reserved mainly for salons. You could buy a nail art printer yourself – the O2 Nails V11 seems to be the main culprit – though you’re looking at an outlay close to £1,500 if you really want that image of RoboCop on your middle finger. Your move, creep.

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A smart home manicure? The thought of letting a robot loose on his fingernails is as delicious to Guru as it is terrifying

LUCY CROWDER, BATH

How do I get started with Eurorack synths? As Mrs Guru’s Facebook relationship status so frequently reads, it’s complicated. You’ll need a 3U-height rack, you’ll need power rails, and you’ll need some kind of adapter. Expect to pay between £70 and £100 for a very basic kit. Now you’ll want something which can generate sound, perhaps a basic VCO, or something fancier like the Doepfer A-111-6 Miniature Synthesiser Voice (£160). Next, something which can process that sound, like the Dreadbox Eudemonia Filter (£79) or an FX unit. Plus an envelope to shape the sound, like the ALM Pip Slope MK2 (£95).

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Don’t miss another instalment of the legendary Gadget Guru!

SUBSCRIBE TODAY! See p42

Opinion

Duncan Bell is scaling down Economic realities may mean less innovative and beautiful products. And that’s fine! his month something quite significant happened in the world of tech. It wasn’t a big leap forward. In fact, it was a step backwards, as both Google and, to a lesser extent, Apple released brand new, flagship phones that were less expensive and less desirable than their predecessors. Admittedly, Apple persisted with the Pro line of iPhones at eyewatering prices, but there was also the iPhone 12 mini. This is a literally scaled down version of the iPhone 12 that costs as little as £699. Google, meanwhile, focused even more explicitly on keeping the price down and doing the basics well with its latest Pixel phone. This phone does not have whizz-bang specs or jaw-dropping features, but it seems highly competent. Now, I don’t want to overstate this as some kind of return to techno-primitivism. For a start, the iPhone 12 Pro features LiDAR, as used on self-driving cars, and costs a small fortune. However I would welcome a move towards more affordable gadgets, on the whole. And not just because of the rather harsh economic realities we are all likely to face in the next few years/ decades/eternity. The recent boom years for tech have seen a move towards innovation for the sake of innovation that I think is starting to wear a bit thin. As you’ve probably guessed, this feeling has been driven by something going wrong for me this month. There’s nothing like a bit of equipment failure to make me reach for my keyboard and start typing in anger. So, a few years ago, Apple introduced fingerprint unlocking for its phones and other products.

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After some teething problems I found this worked very well. But then Apple decided that a machine that could recognise your fingerprints was not secure enough or clever enough. So it brought in facial unlocking. Now clearly, a phone that can be unlocked with your face is much cleverer than one that uses boring old fingerprints. However, it also works less consistently and is certainly not well suited to a world where we’re all supposed to cover our faces in shops, In my particular case, facial unlocking has stopped working entirely. That’s due to my phone getting very wet during a bracing walk through horizontal rain, in the Welsh hills – we were supposed to

“I used a toothbrush that cost £600. How do you make a toothbrush cost that much?” be going to Gran Canaria but shit happens. The front camera still works but, like an elderly relative, my phone no longer recognises me. I suppose it’s possible that a fingerprint reader would also have failed due to the Welsh weather, but I still find myself cursing Apple for using such a complicated security measure; one that relies on a high-precision array of cameras and sensors, all waiting to go wrong just because they get a bit moist.

Similarly this month, I used a toothbrush that cost £600. How do you make a toothbrush cost that much? By packing it with superfluous features, of course. This one attempts to scan your teeth as you brush, so it can be sure you have brushed everywhere. The only issue with this is that the technology doesn’t really work – you get real-time feedback on your progress via an app, and half the time it will show that you are brushing your right molars, when in fact you are on your left incisors, or scratching your ear with the tip of the brush. Oh and there’s also a touchscreen on the brush itself. That, of course, you cannot see when the brush is in your gob. Now don’t get me wrong; there’s absolutely nothing wrong with the actual cleaning-your-teeth element of this brush. My problem with it is that they seem to have started with the question, ‘How can we justify charging £600 for a brush?’ and worked backwards from there. That’s an approach that’s become commonplace in tech, and it would be good to see a move away from it. More brands should consider a back to basics approach that puts value for money and functionality over pure ‘innovation’ for the sake of it. N O V E M B ER 2 0 2 0 T3 2 9

Uplifting home upgrades

UPLIFTING HOME UPGRADES Get your home in better shape for entertaining guests, treating yourself and surviving the holidays Words: David Nield Photography: Neil Godwin

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Uplifting home upgrades

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Uplifting home upgrades

LIVING ROOM Put the ‘living’ back into your most used room

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LIFX Z LED STRIP

PHILIPS HUE IRIS

GOOGLE NEST AUDIO

SPHERO SPRK+

The Z LED Strip from smart OLJKWLQJ H[SHUWV /LI[ FDQ EH ĆWWHG MXVW DERXW DQ\ZKHUH DQG JLYHV \RX DQ HQGOHVV DUUD\ RI FRORXU RSWLRQV through its app. There are actually HLJKW GLIIHUHQW ]RQHV LQ HDFK two-metre strip, so you can get \RXU OLYLQJ URRP ORRNLQJ H[DFWO\ the way you want. As always with Lifx bulbs, they connect straight to \RXU :L )L QR KXE UHTXLUHG £79.99, lifx.com

New from Philips Hue is the UHGHVLJQHG ,ULV SHUIHFW IRU DGGLQJ PRRG WR D URRP E\ ERXQFLQJ light off a wall, for example). The PDLQV SRZHUHG ODPS JLYHV \RX an almost limitless combination RI EULJKWQHVV DQG FRORXU VHWWLQJV DQGbDV XVXDO ZLWK WKLV UDQJH RI VPDUW OLJKWV HYHU\WKLQJ FDQ EH UHPRWH FRQWUROOHG YHU\ HDVLO\ YLD the Hue mobile app. £89.99, philips-hue.com

7KH QHZHVW VPDUW VSHDNHU WR join the Google Nest line of SURGXFWV \RX FDQ WKLQN RI WKLV DV D ELJJHU PRUH SRZHUIXO YHUVLRQ of the Google Nest Mini. All of WKH VDPH *RRJOH $VVLVWDQW WULFNV are here, so you can use it for weather forecasts, alarms, timers, SRGFDVWV bPXVLF QHZV DQG VR RQ EXW WKHUHèV PRUH RI DQ DXGLR oomph from this larger unit. £89, store.google.com

<RXèUH JXDUDQWHHG KRXUV RI HQWHUWDLQPHQW HGXFDWLRQ DQG fun with the Sphero SPRK+, the programmable robot ball that will ZKL]] DURXQG \RXU ćRRU WDNLQJ RQ PD]HV REVWDFOH FRXUVHV DQG anything else you want to put it up DJDLQVW <RXèOO ĆQG WKDW WKH GHYLFHV last longer than most toys though Ã¥ DQG LWèV WKH SHUIHFW ZD\ WR JHW \RXQJVWHUV LQWR FRGLQJ £109.99, sphero.com

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Living room 5

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PANASONIC HZ2000

SAMSUNG S60T

,I \RXèUH WKLQNLQJ DERXW D 79 XSJUDGH WU\ WKH Panasonic HZ2000 – a JRUJHRXV ORRNLQJ LQFK OLED TV that offers a fantastic 4K picture, 'ROE\ $WPRV VRXQG +'5 VXSSRUW DQG IRXU +'0, SRUWV IRU DOO \RXU GHYLFHV ,WèV HVVHQWLDOO\ WKH ćDJVKLS 4K OLED TV right now. £2,999, panasonic.co.uk

*LYH \RXU 79 VRXQG DQ XSJUDGH ZLWK WKH 6DPVXQJ 6 7 VRXQGEDU Ã¥ VXSHU OHYHO DXGLR GHYHORSHG E\ WKH 6DPVXQJ $XGLR /DE DQG PDGH IURP .YDGUDW DFRXVWLF material. You get stylish aesthetics, support for $PD]RQ $OH[D DQG 6SRWLI\ DQG RI FRXUVH URRP ĆOOLQJ KLJK ĆGHOLW\ DXGLR £1,199, samsung.com

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AUDIO TECHNICA AT-LP60XBT Get the tunes on at any WLPH ZLWK WKH $XGLR Technica AT-LP60XBT, ZKLFK PL[HV WKH WUDGLWLRQDO YLQ\O PXVLF IRUPDW ZLWK WKH QHZHU %OXHWRRWK FRGHF 7KH HQG UHVXOW LV VRXQG WKDW ZLOO DOZD\V PDNH \RXU HDUV SULFN XS DQG D GHYLFH anyone can enjoy. £179, audio-technica.com

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RUARK MR1 *HW D SDLU RI 5XDUN 05 %OXHWRRWK ERRNVKHOI VSHDNHUV LQVWDOOHG DQG entertainment is pretty PXFK JXDUDQWHHG Ã¥ ZKHWKHU LWèV NDUDRNH PRYLHV RU D PLQL OLYLQJ URRP GLVFR WKH 5XDUN 05 VSHDNHU V\VWHP ZLOO GHOLYHU LPSUHVVLYH DXGLR ĆGHOLW\ HYHU\ WLPH £329.99, ruarkaudio.com

SAMSUNG TAB S7 PLUS The Tab S7 Plus from Samsung is equally happy browsing the web, VWUHDPLQJ YLGHR SOD\LQJ \RXU PXVLF RU NHHSLQJ WKH NLGV HQWHUWDLQHG å DQG LI \RX DWWDFK D NH\ERDUG FRYHU WR LW WKHQ \RX FDQ actually use it for some VHULRXV ZRUN WRR From £799, samsung.com

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Uplifting home upgrades

HOME OFFICE Great distraction-free gear for working from home – even with a full house

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CREATIVE LIVE CAM SYNC 1080P Many laptops and desktops come with a webcam built in, but don’t settle for what you have – the Creative Live Cam Sync 1080p will almost certainly boost the video and audio quality of your calls. The clip-on webcam can point in any direction, and it also comes with an integrated lens cover. £44.99, creative.com 3 4 T3 1 2 9 ( 0 % (5

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VARIDESK PRO PLUS 30

SURFACE PRO 7

A full standing desk can cost a lot, but the VariDesk series lets you convert your current desk instead – you can split your time between sitting and standing as you feel comfortable. The adjustable contraption is straightforward to set up, and comes with plenty of room for a monitor as well as a mouse and keyboard. £275, vari.com

Part of the appeal of the Surface Pro 7 is that it can switch between a laptop (with the keyboard attachment) and a tablet – equally good for writing up reports or watching movies. It’s fantastically portable and lightweight, as well as coming in a choice of FRQĆJXUDWLRQV DV IDU DV LQWHUQDO power and performance goes. From £799, microsoft.com

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POWERPORT SPEED 5 PORTS Make sure everyone in your household can get their gadgets charged up around the clock with this PowerPort Speed 5 Ports hub from Anker. It supports quick FKDUJLQJ DQG KDV ĆYH 86% VORWV IRU multiple devices, so you don’t need WR ZRUU\ DERXW HYHU\RQH ĆJKWLQJ over the same charger. £34.99, anker.com

Home oďŹƒce

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PHILIPS 346B1C Not all monitors are created equal, as the 3KLOLSV % & SURYHV ,W offers 34 inches of curved, ultrawide goodness, plus WKH DELOLW\ WR DFW DV D 86% & hub. It also provides plenty of connectivity options, making it an excellent upgrade for your computer or gaming display. ÂŁ459.99, philips.co.uk

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COMHOMA CONFERENCE EXECUTIVE WORK CHAIR For reliable support for your back and arms, this Comhoma model is a dream. The mesh fabric looks good but is also hardwearing and durable, and there are plenty of built-in adjustment options. ÂŁ85.99, amazon.co.uk

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GOOGLE NEST WI-FI

DELL XPS 15

SONY WH-1000XM4

Make sure you get precious Wi-Fi all the way around your house, and guarantee that everyone can get connected, with a Nest Wi-Fi package from Google. It uses one or more satellite nodes as well as the main router to keep coverage strong across a wider area DQG PXOWLSOH ćRRUV £239, store.google.com

The Dell XPS series gets even better, and the LQFK PRGHO IRU gives you more screen space than the 13-inch, while adding slightly more EXON %HDXWLIXOO\ FUDIWHG packed with power, and capable of handling all your KRPH RIĆFH QHHGV LWèV D polished package. From ÂŁ1,419, dell.com

The WH-1000XM4 from Sony are the latest in a series that have set the standard for noisecancelling cans. They’re perfect for blocking out the outside world, whether you’re listening to music, movies, podcasts or audiobooks – and they can work without wires too. £350, sony.co.uk 1 2 9 ( 0 % (5 T3 3 5

Uplifting home upgrades

KITCHEN

Effortlessly conjure up food and drink with this kit 1

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LG INSTAVIEW DOOR-INDOOR REFRIGERATOR If you didn’t think your fridge could be smarter, think again: the LG InstaView Door-in-Door model has a built-in ultraviolet OLJKW SXULĆFDWLRQ V\VWHP IRU \RXU chilled water and an intelligent temperature control system to minimise internal temperature ćXFWXDWLRQV DQG NHHS \RXU IRRG fresh for as long as possible. £1,899, lg.com 3 6 T3 1 2 9 ( 0 % (5

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MEATER PLUS Avoid disasters in the kitchen ZLWKbWKH VYHOWH DQG VPDUW 0HDWHU Plus, a wireless thermometer that can tell you how well done something is from 50 metres away thanks to the magic of Bluetooth. It’s simple to set up and operate, and the accompanying mobile app comes with cooking and temperature guides for all kinds RIbFRPPRQ GLVKHV £99, meater.com

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KLARSTEIN CLEARCUBE ICE CUBE MACHINE

JOSEPH JOSEPH CUPBOARDSTORE

From the kids’ soft drinks to more serious drinks for the grownups, it always pays to have an ice machine on hand when there are parties happening. The Clearcube ,FH &XEH 0DFKLQH IURP .ODUVWHLQ LV pricey but it certainly won’t let you down when it comes to churning out ice – it can produce up to 13kg of the stuff every day. £319.99, klarstein.co.uk

You can always rely on Joseph Joseph for some smart kitchen storage ideas, and the under-shelf storage container set creates extra room out of nowhere. If you’re planning on hosting extra guests in your home over the festive period, then you’re going to need ample storage space – and this is a simple and cheap option. From £25, josephjoseph.com

Kitchen 5

SALTER COOK BLUETOOTH KITCHEN SCALES Over the festive period, you’re going to need all the help in the kitchen that you can get. These scales from Salter have built-in Bluetooth, so the device is able to log weights through a mobile app or its display. £29.99, salterhousewares.co.uk

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DE’LONGHI PRIMADONNA SOUL

LAKELAND ELECTRIC POPCORN MAKER

What we like about the PrimaDonna Soul is how easy it makes everything, which surely has to appeal: this is a bean to cup coffee machine that’s fully automatic, so you just choose what you want from the display panel and away you go. £1,199, delonghi.com

Get that authentic movie night feeling at home with the Lakeland (OHFWULF 3RSFRUQ 0DNHU it’ll produce crisp, tasty popcorn in minutes, and because it uses hot air rather than oil, the snack is much healthier for you too. £29.99, lakeland.co.uk

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KITCHENAID MINI STAND MIXER Holiday season means lots and lots of preparation time in the kitchen, but JHW WKH .LWFKHQ$LG 0LQL 6WDQG 0L[HU VHW XS DQG \RX might be surprised at how many people want to lend a hand: the device does kneading, mixing, beating and whisking with aplomb. £349, kitchenaid.co.uk

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THE GREATER GOOD FRESH BREWING CO PINTER There’s nothing quite so satisfying as pouring beer you’ve made. The Pinter makes that a reality, with fermentation and brewing technology built in, so all you need to do is add the supplied raw ingredients, wait, then start pulling. £75, thegreatergood.co.uk

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Uplifting home upgrades

GARDEN It may be nippier outside but that’s no reason to stay inside

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IKEA SOLLERĂ–N OUTDOOR ARMCHAIRS Ikea makes some solid furniture, and its outdoor SollerĂśn range is no exception. These armchairs come in either grey or brown, and you can use them on their own or combine them to form a modular sofa. The matted plastic surface will stand up to the weather, and is easy to maintain. From ÂŁ60, ikea.com 3 8 T3 N O V E M B ER 2 0 2 0

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JBL XTREME 3

ECOFLOW RIVER 370

New from portable speaker experts JBL is the Xtreme 3. The Bluetooth speaker enables you to take your tunes just about anywhere, and they’ll sound fantastic too. The speaker is waterproof, so it’ll survive a rain shower, and it can even charge up your other gadgets. The maximum battery life is “around 15 hoursâ€?. ÂŁ280, jbl.com

This portable power station is useful for two reasons: one, it keeps your gadgets going into the night while you’re out partying in the garden, and two, it can prove handy in a power cut. The unit will supply you with 370 Wh of battery capacity, and it comes with six different USB sockets as well as two standard plug sockets. e HFRćRZ FRP

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FARMER’S COTTAGE OVAL GARDEN SUMMERHOUSE POD Make the most of the outdoor space with the Summerhouse Pod, (available to use all year round!). You get an extra outdoor room with panoramic views of your garden, and the luxurious indoor seating means that this will be a popular space for kids and guests. e MRKQOHZLV FRP

Garden

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HERSCHEL CALIFORNIA HEATER

BLOOMA LOMA TABLE LAMP

If your family and guests are spilling out into the back garden you might want a bit of warmth. The 2000W California heater from Herschel is a simple and relatively affordable solution, guaranteed to keep you all toasty. )URP e KHUVFKHO infrared.co.uk

Add some extra mood to your evenings in the garden – or just make sure you can see where you’re going – with the Blooma Loma table lamp. It’s compact, subtle and battery powered, so you don’t have to worry about wires or plugs. £28, diy.com

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NIGHTHAWK AX8 675($0 :,), MESH EXTENDER Maybe you want to get into the garden to escape the family, or perhaps you want to stream some music out into the yard – if so, the Nighthawk 8-Stream will make sure that the Wi-Fi signal from your router gets boosted outside. £279.99, netgear.co.uk

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EMBER SMART MUG 2

HOEFATS TRIPLE FIREBOWL

The key to keeping warm outdoors is a hot drink – and the Ember Smart Mug 2 will make sure it stays that way as long as possible. The mug can be set at a range of different temperatures, and can last for up to an hour and a half away from its charging coaster. £129.95, ember.com

Get the Hoefats Triple Firebowl installed in an outdoor space and not only will it help keep you warm, it’ll add a touch of rustic class to the setting too – all you need to do is add the wood. Pick up its optional extras and you can also WXUQ LW LQWR DbJULOO RU D KRE e KRHIDWV FRP N O V E M B ER 2 0 2 0 T3 3 9

Uplifting home upgrades

CHILL OUT

Escape from the ghastliness of 2020 in your special space

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CHROMECAST

BEURER ST100

NEOM WELLBEING POD

KOBO NIA

The advantage of plugging a Chromecast into the television in your chill out room is that anyone connected to your Wi-Fi can then beam just about anything to it – photos, music, movies and more. Most Android and iOS apps support the Chromecast standard, so this inexpensive dongle is perfect for adding smarts to any TV with a spare HDMI input. £30, store.google.com

The Beurer ST100 is a stress releaser that you can make available in your home for anyone to use as needed: it’ll actually teach you a variety of relaxation techniques, with low-frequency vibrations and heat effects to help you realise that maybe the world isn’t such a bad place after all. There’s a companion app to help get you in the right headspace. £119.99, beurer.com

Make the Neom Wellbeing Pod part of your chill out room experience and you’ll be able to treat yourself to a variety of smells and scents – which will helpfully ease some of the stresses of seeing so many of your family and friends at once. You can buy the compact, easy-to-operate diffuser with some oils to begin with, and then add more as needed. From £90, neomorganics.com

You don’t necessarily have to think Kindle when it comes to ebooks, and the Kobo Nia is an affordable alternative ereader that comes with plenty to recommend it – not OHDVW WKH FRPSDFW WH[WXUHG ĆQLVK and the bright and sharp screen. You get access to millions of ebooks in the Kobo Store, which means your holiday season reading is all sorted. £89.99, kobobooks.com

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Chill out 5

SIMBA ORBIT BLANKET You really ought to try a weighted blanket, and the Simba Orbit is one of the best around. It’s like being kept in a permanent hug – sort of – and this particular one comes packed with custom nano-beads to KHOSb\RX UHOD[ PRUH TXLFNO\ and for longer. £149, simbasleep.com

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DODOW

MUSE 2

OCULUS QUEST 2

If there’s going to be some actual sleeping going on in your chill out room, then the Dodow will facilitate it: it uses a light metronome cast on your ceiling to slow down and manage your breathing, and it promises ZLWK VRPH VFLHQWLĆF backing) to have you asleep in minutes. £49.90, mydodow.com

The Muse audio headband is a meditation aid that monitors your brain and body and gives you realtime feedback – alongside selected soundscapes – to get you rested mentally and physically. Its built-in technology can help improve your sleep, boost your mood and lower your stress. £239.99, choosemuse.com

Facebook has upgraded its hugely popular Oculus Quest headset with the Oculus Quest 2 – it’s perhaps the best way for you and your family to dip into the world of virtual reality. Everything works independently with the Quest 2, so there are no computers to connect to. From £299, oculus.com

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SEGA MEGA DRIVE RETRO CONSOLE What better way to chill out than to blast through some classic 1990s video games, which this mini retro console allows you to do with ease. It comes preloaded with 40 great games and just needs connecting to your TV. £59.99, megadrivemini. sega.com

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N O V E M B ER 2 0 2 0 T3 41

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www.magazinesdirect.com/ttt-xmas « ! nn 0330 333 1113 z( ªÈ Á0 ! ‫א‬ *Terms and conditions: Offer closes 31 January 2021. Offer open to new subscribers only. Direct Debit offer is available to UK subscribers only. £34.99 payable by 12 monthly Direct Debit plus free gift worth £69.95. Orders ȵɖȸƬǝƏɀƺƳ Əɀ Ə ǕǣǔɎ ƫƺǔȒȸƺ ‫( ׏א‬ƺƬƺȅƫƺȸ ‫ ׎א׎א‬ɯǣǼǼ ɀɎƏȸɎ ɯǣɎǝ Ɏǝƺ ˡȸɀɎ ǣɀɀɖƺ ȵɖƫǼǣɀǝƺƳ ǣȇ hƏȇɖƏȸɵِ ǼǼ ǕǣǔɎ ȒȸƳƺȸɀ ȵɖȸƬǝƏɀƺƳ ƏǔɎƺȸ Ɏǝǣɀ ƳƏɎƺ ɯǣǼǼ ƫƺǕǣȇ ɯǣɎǝ Ɏǝƺ ˡȸɀɎ ƏɮƏǣǼƏƫǼƺ ǣɀɀɖƺِ Xǔ ɵȒɖ ɯȒɖǼƳ ǼǣǸƺ ɵȒɖȸ ǕǣǔɎ ɀɖƫɀƬȸǣȵɎǣȒȇ ɎȒ ɀɎƏȸɎ ɯǣɎǝ Əȇ ƺƏȸǼǣƺȸ ǣɀɀɖƺ ȵǼƺƏɀƺ ƬȒȇɎƏƬɎ ƬɖɀɎȒȅƺȸ ɀƺȸɮǣƬƺɀِ ȸƳƺȸɀ ȵɖȸƬǝƏɀƺƳ ǔȒȸ ɵȒɖȸɀƺǼǔ ɯǣǼǼ ɀɎƏȸɎ ɯǣɎǝ Ɏǝƺ ȇƺɴɎ ƏɮƏǣǼƏƫǼƺ ǣɀɀɖƺ ٫ ȵǼƺƏɀƺ ƏǼǼȒɯ ɖȵ ɎȒ ɀǣɴ ɯƺƺǸɀ ǔȒȸ ƳƺǼǣɮƺȸɵ ٢ɖȵ ɎȒ ƺǣǕǝɎ ɯƺƺǸɀ ȒɮƺȸɀƺƏɀ٣ِ çȒɖȸ ǕǣǔɎ ɯǣǼǼ ƫƺ ƳƺǼǣɮƺȸƺƳ ɀƺȵƏȸƏɎƺǼɵ ɯǣɎǝǣȇ ‫ ׎ה‬ƳƏɵɀ ƏǔɎƺȸ ɵȒɖȸ ˡȸɀɎ ȵƏɵȅƺȇɎ ǝƏɀ ƬǼƺƏȸƺƳِ JǣǔɎɀ ȒȇǼɵ ƏɮƏǣǼƏƫǼƺ ɎȒ ɀɖƫɀƬȸǣƫƺȸɀ Ȓȇ Ɏǝƺ Èk ȅƏǣȇǼƏȇƳِ Xȇ Ɏǝƺ ɖȇǼǣǸƺǼɵ ƺɮƺȇɎ ɎǝƏɎ ɯƺ ȸɖȇ ȒɖɎ Ȓǔ Ɏǝǣɀ ǕǣǔɎً ɯƺ ȵȸȒȅǣɀƺ ɎȒ Ȓǔǔƺȸ ɵȒɖ Əȇ ƏǼɎƺȸȇƏɎǣɮƺ ǕǣǔɎ Ȓǔ Ɏǝƺ ɀƏȅƺ ɮƏǼɖƺِ ¨ƏɵȅƺȇɎ ǣɀ ȇȒȇ‫ٮ‬ȸƺǔɖȇƳƏƫǼƺ ƏǔɎƺȸ Ɏǝƺ ‫ ג׏‬ƳƏɵ ƬƏȇƬƺǼǼƏɎǣȒȇ ȵƺȸǣȒƳ ɖȇǼƺɀɀ ƺɴƬƺȵɎǣȒȇƏǼ ƬǣȸƬɖȅɀɎƏȇƬƺɀ ƏȵȵǼɵِ IȒȸ ǔɖǼǼ Ɏƺȸȅɀ ƏȇƳ ƬȒȇƳǣɎǣȒȇɀً ɮǣɀǣɎ ɯɯɯِȅƏǕƏɿǣȇƺɀƳǣȸƺƬɎِƬȒȅٖɎƺȸȅɀِ IȒȸ ƺȇȷɖǣȸǣƺɀ ȵǼƺƏɀƺ ƬƏǼǼ‫ גגڷ ي‬٢‫׎‬٣ ‫ ِב׏׏׏ בבב ׎בב‬nǣȇƺɀ Əȸƺ Ȓȵƺȇ xȒȇƳƏɵ‫ٮ‬IȸǣƳƏɵ ‫ח‬Əȅ‫דٮ‬ȵȅ Èk Ɏǣȅƺ Ȓȸ ƺȅƏǣǼ‫ ي‬ǝƺǼȵ۬ȅƏǕƏɿǣȇƺɀƳǣȸƺƬɎِƬȒȅِ !ƏǼǼɀ ɎȒ ‫ ׎בב׎‬ȇɖȅƫƺȸɀ ɯǣǼǼ ƫƺ ƬǝƏȸǕƺƳ ƏɎ ȇȒ ȅȒȸƺ ɎǝƏȇ Ə ȇƏɎǣȒȇƏǼ ǼƏȇƳǼǣȇƺ ƬƏǼǼً ƏȇƳ ȅƏɵ ƫƺ ǣȇƬǼɖƳƺƳ ǣȇ ɵȒɖȸ ȵǝȒȇƺ ȵȸȒɮǣƳƺȸ‫ټ‬ɀ ƬƏǼǼ ƫɖȇƳǼƺِ

N O V E M B ER 2 0 2 0 T3 4 3

The complete guide to‌

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Multi-room speakers

THE COMPLETE GUIDE TO…

Multi-room speakers The rise of the smart speaker means it’s never been easier WR FUHDWH D PXOWL URRP DXGLR V\VWHP åbDQG ZLWK KLJK TXDOLW\ VWUHDPLQJ LWèV QHYHU VRXQGHG EHWWHU HLWKHU Words: Carrie Marshall Photography: Neil Godwin

wo decades ago, sending high-quality music to more than one room meant doing a lot of planning, running a lot of cables and doing a lot of drilling. Now you can set up a multi-room system in a matter of minutes without running a single wire and control it all from your phone, tablet or PC. And a multi-room system can encompass all kinds of speakers: not just traditional hi-fi ones but bookshelf speakers, portable speakers, soundbars, smart speakers and subs. Sonos deserves a lot of credit for today’s multi-room market. It was quick to recognise the potential of streaming over Wi-Fi and launched its first product, the ZonePlayer ZP100, back in 2005: it was a £500 wireless music player with a built-in amp that could stream from the internet, from networked storage or from a computer. It would be followed by a version that connected to your current hi-fi and then a range of stand-alone wireless speakers with their own built-in amps. The Sonos app enabled you to

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send music to specific groups of speakers, and to send different audio to different groups. One of the reasons Sonos is such a big player in multi-room audio is that it is a multi-room audio company first and a hi-fi company second; its current range includes impressive home cinema kit but they’re intended to join the same system as the multi-room speakers. Many hi-fi firms have gone in the opposite direction, adding multiroom to their existing product ranges with varying degrees of success. Sonos’s core business is, and always has been, multi-room audio. There have been several key changes in the market for multiroom audio. The first was the arrival of apps that you could use to control your system; previously that required dedicated hardware or a walk to whichever room had the audio source. Secondly, Wi-Fi got good. Early Wi-Fi wasn’t good enough for serious music streaming. It didn’t have very good range, it was very prone to interference and it wasn’t

very fast even when you only had one thing connecting to it; the more devices you connected the worse things got. Modern Wi-Fi routers don’t suffer from the same problems and can easily deliver the speeds necessary to stream even lossless hi-res audio to multiple devices simultaneously. That opened the floodgates for multi-room systems. Most wireless smart speakers can be used for multi-room audio and the biggest names in audiophile technology have embraced the power of wire-free connections too. The multi-room market has exploded in the last few years and you can now choose from a dizzying range of products that includes budget bangers and masterpieces of musical technology. But there are a few traps for the unwary and a few important things to consider.

WHAT CAN MULTI-ROOM AUDIO DO FOR YOU? Multi-room systems typically do two things. One, they enable you to play the same music in several places

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The complete guide to‌ The top three‌

MAKE MULTI-ROOM BETTER From voice control to hi-ďŹ connections, these accessories can improve your audio experience 01

SONOS PORT ,I \RX KDYH D 6RQRV V\VWHP WKH 3RUW HQDEOHV \RXU H[LVWLQJ KL Ć WR MRLQ LQ WKH PXOWL URRP SDUW\ ,WèV D PLGGOHPDQ EHWZHHQ \RXU 6RQRV V\VWHP DQG \RXU H[LVWLQJ KL Ć HQDEOLQJ \RX WR VWUHDP PXVLF WR DQG IURP \RXU H[LVWLQJ KL Ć KDUGZDUH ÂŁ399, sonos.com

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AMAZON ECHO Many multi-room systems can be controlled YLD *RRJOH $VVLVWDQW $SSOHèV 6LUL RU $PD]RQèV $OH[D DQG WKH (FKR LV D JRRG ZD\ WR EULQJ $OH[D WR V\VWHPV WKDW GRQèW DOUHDG\ have voice control. Never pay the full price. £75, amazon.co.uk

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SONOS BOOST 6RQRV FUHDWHV D PHVK QHWZRUN IRU VWDELOLW\ DQG VLJQDO TXDOLW\ EXW LI LW LVQèW TXLWH UHDFKLQJ the furthest parts of your home then the %RRVW GRHV ZKDW WKH QDPH VXJJHVWV LW ERRVWV WKH VLJQDO WR KHOS LW UHDFK IDU ćXQJ FRUQHUV RU SDVV WKURXJK WKLFN VWRQH ZDOOV ÂŁ84, richersounds.com 4 6 T3 N O V E M B ER 2 0 2 0

at once: the living room, the kitchen, the bedroom, even the garden if you have a portable speaker. And two, they often enable you to play dierent things in dierent rooms, so you might be listening to hi-res audio from TIDAL or Qobuz while the kids stream Spotify somewhere else. Previous multi-room systems were based on sharing local music either to speakers or over a network – so you might play your cherished vinyl on your high-end turntable and listen to it in another room, or you might have a networked music server that audio devices in other rooms could connect to and stream music from. Many multi-room systems still do that, but many of them also add another musical source: the internet. Most multi-room systems work with multiple online streaming providers. For example, if you plump for a Sonos system you can stream from Apple Music, Spotify, Amazon music, Audible, Deezer, YouTube Music and many others. As often happens with technology, there are multiple competing ecosystems to choose from. It’s crucial to choose your ecosystem before you spend any money, or you might ďŹ nd that when you want to add more devices you’re locked to a speciďŹ c manufacturer. There are two kinds of ecosystem. There are manufacturer-speciďŹ c ones, where manufacturers create a range of products designed to work with one another, and there are platforms such as Amazon’s Alexa and Apple’s AirPlay 2. If you choose a technology ďŹ rm’s platform rather than a speciďŹ c hi-ďŹ manufacturer, you can mix and match dierent ďŹ rms’ compatible hardware and control it via the Amazon Alexa or Apple Home app. The Alexa app isn’t as nice as, say, Sonos’s one, but it works.

There’s another platform, which is the DTS Play-Fi app. It enables you to stream and control music using products from the likes of Pioneer, Onkyo, Arcam, Audiolab, Klipsch, Polk Audio and others; Wharfedale, Mission and Sharp are joining soon.

HOW TO CHOOSE A MULTI-ROOM SYSTEM First of all, you need to decide what you want to do. If you want to add multi-room and streaming audio to your existing hi-ďŹ setup, you’ll need to choose a system or platform that enables you to use a connecting device such as the Sonos Port, which can stream your existing music around a Sonos multi-room setup as well as add streaming services to your existing amp and speakers. If you have an existing music library you want to play throughout your home then you’ll need a system that either connects to your existing library storage – for example, a networked storage drive you’ve connected to your router – or that works with one of the online music services that you can upload your collection to, such as Apple Music, YouTube Music or Spotify. Do you want to stream from online music services? The choice varies from manufacturer to manufacturer. Apple’s HomePod only natively supports Apple Music, although you can stream others via

It’s crucial to choose your ecosystem before you spend any money

Multi-room speakers T3 recommends...

It doesn’t matter how big your space or budget

Every home is dierent and so is every multi-room audio setup. But we think there are four main kinds of system, and we’ve identiďŹ ed good options for each one of them here. We’ll start with one of the simplest and most aordable options, which may not deliver audiophile sound quality but is very convenient, very exible and excellent value for money – especially if you buy everything when Amazon has it on special oer. Next, we’ve put together a good all-rounder that encompasses high quality home cinema as well as streaming. And ďŹ nally we’ve featured two audiophile friendly systems, one oering exceptional sound and the other absurdly luxe.

BUDGET BARGAIN

ALL-ROUND EXCELLENCE

MULTI-ROOM 0$*,&b)25 (9(5< .,1'b2) +20(

AMAZON ECHO, STUDIO AND DOT $PD]RQèV (FKR UDQJH LV JUHDW YDOXH IRU PRQH\ DQG D JUHDW FKRLFH IRU DQ\RQH RQ D PRGHVW EXGJHW (FKRV DUH JRRG VWDQG DORQH VSHDNHUV IRU EHGURRPV DQG WKH (FKR 6WXGLR LV JRRG IRU ODUJHU URRPV RU IRU JLYLQJ D SDLU RI (FKRV VRPH H[WUD

ORZ HQG WKXPS 7KH (FKR 'RW $PD]RQèV FKHDSHVW VPDUW VSHDNHU doesn’t sound brilliant – but it has D PP MDFN VR \RX FDQ XVH LW WR add a non-smart speaker to your multi-room setup. ÂŁ329.97, amazon.co.uk

SONOS ARC, SUB, MOVE AND ONE )RU PDQ\ D 6RQRV V\VWHP ZLOO be the ideal multi-room solution WKDQNV WR LWV ĆQH DSS DQG ZLGH SURGXFW UDQJH 7KH 2QH DQG 2QH 6/ VSHDNHUV DUH JUHDW VWDQG DORQH VPDUW VSHDNHUV WKH 0RYH HQDEOHV \RX WR WDNH \RXU PXVLF RXWGRRUV

WKH $UF VRXQGEDU VRXQGV OLNH D FLQHPD WKDQNV WR DPSV HLJKW ZRRIHUV DQG WKUHH WZHHWHUV DQG WKH 6XE GHOLYHUV H[FHSWLRQDO EDVV ZLWKRXW GLVWRUWLRQ FDELQHW EX]] vibration or rattles. ÂŁ2,096, sonos.com

SMOOTH OPERATORS

GREAT EXPECTATIONS

NAIM MU-SO AND MU-SO QB 2ND GENERATION

BOWERS & WILKINS FORMATION SUITE

Naim’s Mu-sos are superb music VWUHDPHUV ZLWK ORWV RI ZD\V WR EULQJ KLJK HQG DXGLR WR XS WR ĆYH URRPV 7KH\ ZRUN ZLWK SUHWW\ PXFK HYHU\ VWUHDPLQJ VHUYLFH LQFOXGLQJ KL UHV DXGLR SURYLGHUV VXSSRUW XS WR N+] ELW

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<HV LWèV H[SHQVLYH %XW LWèV PRQH\ ZHOO VSHQW 1RW RQO\ GRHV WKH Formation family include the iconic Duo speakers but also the %DU %DVV :HGJH $XGLR DQG )OH[ ZKLFK ZHèYH XSSHG WR D SDLU 7KH %DU LV D VRXQGEDU WKDW VSHFLĆFDOO\

GHOLYHUV ELW N+] DXGLR WKH Bass adds accurate and distortionIUHH EDVV WKH )OH[HV EHOLH WKHLU VPDOO VL]H ZLWK ELJ VRXQG DQG WKH $XGLR FRQQHFWV \RXU H[LVWLQJ KL Ć WR \RXU QHZ KLJK UHV V\VWHP £7,694, bowerswilkins.com N O V E M B ER 2 0 2 0 T3 47

The complete guide to‌

We’ve mentioned high-quality audio a few times now. Most multi-room systems will play music up to CD quality (16 bit audio at 44.1kHz). Many high-end systems oer even better quality, so for example B&W’s Formation delivers music at up to 24-bit, 96kHz while Naim’s digital streamers deliver up to 32-bit, 384kHz resolution. And ďŹ nally, there’s longevity. Will your chosen system be supported for many years to come? In March 2020, Sonos dropped support and stopped oering software updates for many of its older speakers on the grounds that some older products “have been stretched to their technical limits in terms of memory and processing

AirPlay 2. Sonos never met a streaming service it didn’t like. And high-end ďŹ rms such as Linn tend to focus on hi-res services such as TIDAL Masters or Qobuz but can also do everyday stu such as Spotify. Where will you be listening? Amazon’s Echos are vastly improved over previous generations but there’s only so much power you can get from a small speaker, so they’re best suited to casual listening. A pair of Ikea Symphonisk bookshelf speakers (which are essentially Sonos speakers) will be great in a small oďŹƒce or smallish living room but will struggle in larger spaces. At the other end, a pair of B&W Formation Duo speakers is probably a bit much for a box bedroom. You need to take your internet connection and your home Wi-Fi into consideration too, especially if you’re intending to stream

high-quality music such as hi-res audio. Quobuz recommends a download speed of 10Mbps for its hi-res music; while your router may be much faster than that, it may also have lots of dierent devices connecting to it: Smart TVs, consoles, iPads and so on. If your current Wi-Fi is shared with lots of devices, that can impact the strength and stability of your connections. Some ďŹ rms, such as B&W and Sonos, create their own mesh networks instead. With mesh networking each device becomes a link in a chain: device one connects to speaker one, which connects to speaker two, which connects to speaker three and so on. By having your audio on its own dedicated network, it’s rather like having your own private lane on the motorway, free from roadworks and slow coaches.

Even with cheap speakers, the costs of going multi-room soon add up power.� Eventually those older products will stop working. That isn’t unique to multi-room audio – obsolescence is an issue with most tech, particularly smart home tech – but audio can be uniquely expensive. Even with cheap speakers, such as refurbished Amazon Echos at around £50 a pop, the costs of going multi-room soon add up; if you like your hardware to be high-end, speakers such as a pair of B&W’s superb Foundation Duo speakers will set you back £3,500. When you’re spending that kind of money you expect your investment to last.

0$.( (9(5< 5220 6281' %(77(5 How to get the most stunning sound from your multi-room system :KHQ LW FRPHV WR VRXQG TXDOLW\ WKHUH DUH WKUHH FUXFLDO IDFWRUV 7KH ĆUVW LV WKH VSHDNHUV WKHPVHOYHV WKH VHFRQG LV ZKHUH \RX SXW WKHP DQG WKH WKLUG LV ZKDW \RX VHQG WR WKHP LQ WKH ĆUVW SODFH 6SHDNHUV ĆUVW <RX FDQèW GR PXFK DERXW WKH ODZV RI SK\VLFV VR WKH OLWWOH VSHDNHU LQ DQ $PD]RQ (FKR LV QRW JRLQJ WR GLVSODFH DV PXFK air or displace it as beautifully as the much PHDWLHU GULYHU \RXèOO ĆQG LQ D KLJK HQG SURGXFW VXFK DV 1DLPèV 0X VR 4% DQG WKHLU VRXQG ZLOO VWDUW WR EHFRPH KDUVK DV \RX WXUQ XS WKH YROXPH <HV \RX JHW ZKDW \RX SD\ IRU EXW \RX FDQ VWLOO JHW VXUSULVLQJO\ QLFH VRXQG IURP D FRXSOH RI VPDOO VSHDNHUV DQG D VXEZRRIHU 4 8 T3 N O V E M B ER 2 0 2 0

6SHDNHU SODFHPHQW PDNHV D GLIIHUHQFH WRR 2EMHFWV EHWZHHQ \RX DQG WKH VSHDNHU FDQ EORFN KLJKHU IUHTXHQFLHV DQG ODUJHU VSHDNHUV DQG VXEV VKRXOG EH SODFHG DZD\ IURP ZDOOV DQG FRUQHUV WR SUHYHQW ERRP\ UHćHFWLRQV :LWK WKH DXGLR VRXUFH LWVHOI WKHUHèV KXJH YDULDWLRQV LQ DPSOLĆHUV GLJLWDO DXGLR converters and other key components but HYHQ WKH JUHDWHVW KL Ć KDUGZDUH FDQ EH XQGRQH E\ D SRRU TXDOLW\ DXGLR VWUHDP Most multi-room systems can deliver at OHDVW &' TXDOLW\ EXW PRVW VWUHDPLQJ VHUYLFHVè GHIDXOW YHUVLRQV GRQèW HVSHFLDOO\ LQ WKHLU IUHH LQFDUQDWLRQV 6SRWLI\ )UHH LV .ESV ZKLOH SDLG VXEVFULEHUV JHW .ESV

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Amazing PS5 and Xbox add-ons

AMAZING PS5 AND XBOX ADD-ONS Holiday 2020 is almost upon us. Prepare your room for the next generation with the ultimate TVs, headsets and other accessories for PS5 and Xbox Series X/S Words: Louise Blain

N O V E M B ER 2 0 2 0 T3 49

Amazing PS5 and Xbox add-ons

PLAYSTATION 5

The UK is getting Sony’s console a whole week later than the US but this next-gen behemoth looks worth the wait

Finally. after months of teasing, Sony revealed a 19 November release date and price for the PlayStation 5 and hopefully you’ve already got your pre-order in. At £459.99 for the full fat version and £359.99 for the disc-free Digital Edition, the new generation is surprisingly affordable. It’s unclear quite how much Microsoft’s competitive pricing reveals the week before Sony’s announcement made a difference but, regardless, the result is a level nextgeneration playing field. Well, other than the Series S but we’ll get onto that in a bit. If you’ve moved your PlayStation library into the binary realm over the past few years then the Digital Edition is an especially enticing prospect at under £400. The only difference is the absence of that 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray drive. In short, if you’re not fussed about all that dust-gathering physical media, there’s no sacrifice in performance.

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Sony’s Jim Ryan has confirmed that both consoles share the same custom processor, ultra-fast SSD, 4K visuals and ray-tracing support. It’ll just have a slightly slimmer form factor under your television. And we finally have a launch line up too. While third-party games like Assassin’s Creed Valhalla and Cyberpunk 2077 will be playable on PS5 on day one, there’s also a slate of PlayStation exclusives. The Demon’s Souls remake, shown off in crunchily beautiful form at the latest PS5 event, will be a day one title, as will Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales. This follow up to Peter Parker’s 2018 adventures is, according to game director Brian Horton, “an important, heartfelt, emotional and essential experience”. Destruction All Stars is also a launch day release, as well as a fresh adventure for everyone’s favourite hessian hero with Sumo Digital’s Sackboy: A Big Adventure. Plus,

fellow lovers of Sony’s adorable robot pals can rejoice as Astro’s Playroom comes installed on PS5. While this exclusive line up initially seems thin on the ground, it’s important to remember that PS5 is backwards compatible with PS4 games and will also now include what Sony is calling the PlayStation Plus Collection. In a clear move to compete with Xbox Game Pass, all PlayStation Plus subscribers will be able to digitally download 18 triple A titles from PS5 launch day. These include Sony first party heavy hitters such as Uncharted 4, Bloodborne and Days Gone, as well as Resident Evil 7 and Fallout 4. It’s not quite up to Xbox Game Pass’ lofty heights but is an exceptionally solid free add-on for a day one release. There will be no shortage of games to play but remember you’ll want to load up Demon’s Souls or Spidey to truly test the PS5’s beefy mettle.

PlayStation 5

PS5 ACCESSORIES Soup things up for the ultimate experience

2 1

PULSE 3D WIRELESS HEADSET 7KH RQO\ RIĆFLDO SODFH WR KHDU 6RQ\èV QHZ Tempest Engine in all its 3D audio glory, the Pulse headset is ready for all those long-promised 360-degree soundscapes. $QG EHFDXVH RQH PLFURSKRQH FOHDUO\ LVQèW HQRXJKbIRU WKH QHZ JHQHUDWLRQ WZR EXLOW in noise-cancelling mics are ready to make VXUH \RXU IULHQGV QHYHU PLVV \RXU çLQVSLULQJè WarzonebUDQWV £89.99, game.co.uk

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SONOS ARC 36 èV ' DXGLR DELOLWLHV ZLOO DSSDUHQWO\ EH available on other devices than just the Pulse KHDGVHW EXW ZH GRQèW KDYH DOO WKH GHWDLOV MXVW yet. The Sonos Arc soundbar with Dolby Atmos is still a worthwhile investment regardless. Without the need for additional speakers, this impressive solution delivers multi-layered sound perfect for basking in the audio of those 4K Ultra HD Blu-Ray releases. £799, sonos.com

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NANOLEAF 9 PANEL KIT :LWK QR RIĆFLDO QH[W JHQ SDVVWKURXJK VXSSRUWbMXVW \HW IRU WKH 3KLOLSV +XH 3OD\ Sync HDMI box, a set of Nanoleaf panels can brighten your gaming space without worrying about HDMI 2.1 features. Customise your RZQbGHVLJQ ZLWK WKH RIĆFLDO DSS DQG WKHQ FUHDWHb\RXU RZQ SHUIHFW FRPSDQLRQ FRORXU SURĆOHV IRU \RXU IDYRXULWH JDPHV 2UDQJH LV IRUbCrash Bandicoot…? £179.99, nanoleaf.me

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DUALSENSE CHARGING STATION 1RWKLQJ VFUHDPV NLGèV EHGURRP TXLWH DV ORXGO\ DV ZLUHV WUDLOLQJ DFURVV WKH ćRRU IURP your sofa to your console. This charging station has space for two DualSense controllers and FDQ ĆW QHDWO\ RQ D VLGH WDEOH RU RXW RI VLJKW -XVW remember to pop them on charge when you go WR EHG VWLOO FDQèW UHPLQG \RX WR GR WKDW £24.99, argos.co.uk

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Amazing PS5 and Xbox add-ons

XBOX SERIES X

The surprise reveal of a second digital next-generation console and a competitive pricing plan make Microsoft’s boxes an enticing prospect

In a long-rumoured but nonetheless surprising move, Microsoft effortlessly turned the new generation console battle into a three-horse race with the announcement of the Xbox Series S. Yes, on 10 November, two Xboxes will be unleashed on the world. The Xbox Series X with its much-anticipated 12 teraflops of power is priced at £449.99, while the speaker-like Xbox Series S is an eyebrow-raising £249.99. The big difference between these two consoles other than how much cash you’ll be handing over is the power under the hood. While the Xbox Series X will be outputting happily at 4K resolutions, the S is limited to 1440p. But the S is still a next-gen console, even with a third of the teraflops. It still has a custom Zen 2 eight-core processor running at 3.6Ghz and an SSD, although this is 512GB compared to the X’s 1TB. Both

52 T3 N O V E M B ER 2 0 2 0

consoles will run at 60fps natively and are both capable of up to 120fps. The Series S then is a less powerful machine but for those without a 4K TV or the relentless desire for more pixels in their eyes, the price point is a perfect sweet spot for a new machine without spending the earth. What’s also important to note is that Microsoft has potentially transformed the console purchase landscape with its Xbox All Access Scheme. Instead of shelling out for either the X or the S outright, this lets you pay in instalments over a 24-month period. This will include the console and Xbox Game Pass Ultimate in one price, so for £28.99 you’ll get an Xbox Series X with Game Pass and for £21.99 you’ll nab a Series S with the same set of games. Given the pricing structure of new generation games, and Microsoft’s intimidating collection of titles

that now includes the entirety of EA Play, this prospect might be enough to push the unsure into Microsoft’s camp. And, while Microsoft has no day one exclusive games, it has one not exactly small ace up its sleeve. In a purely coincidental reveal the day before Xbox pre-orders started, it was announced that Microsoft bought Bethesda’s parent company ZeniMax Media for $7.5bn. This doesn’t necessarily mean that all future Elder Scrolls and Fallout games are going to be console exclusives – Minecraft is a prime example of a multi-platform Microsoft title – but it does mean that Xbox Game Pass is now an even more tantalising prospect with the inclusion of Bethesda titles. With two very different machines and a mouthwatering array of included games in Microsoft Game Pass, Xbox’s console offerings are very tempting.

Xbox Series X

XBOX SERIES X/S ACCESSORIES You know you’ll not be able to resist some of these…

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TURTLE BEACH STEALTH 700 GEN 2

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While cooling gel-infused memory foam ear cushions should always be top of any wishlist, 7XUWOH %HDFKèV ODWHVW ćDJVKLS ZLUHOHVV KHDGVHW is an impressive audio powerhouse with virtual surround sound. Even better is the fact that the promised 20 hours of battery life is no lie DQG WKHUHèV QR QHHG IRU DQ HDVLO\ ORVHDEOH 86% dongle as it connects directly to the Series X. £129.99, uk.turtlebeach.com

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SEAGATE STORAGE EXPANSION CARD FOR XBOX SERIES X/S Unlike Sony, Microsoft has opted for a proprietary solution for upgrades to that SUHFLRXV 7% RI 66' VWRUDJH 6HDJDWHèV 7% SOXJ LQ FDUG IXOO\ VXSSRUWV WKH 6HULHV ; DQG 6èV 9HORFLW\ $UFKLWHFWXUH PHDQLQJ WKHUHèOO EH QR recognisable difference between games you load up from internal or the additional storage option. You can even hot swap between cards if \RXèUH SDUWLFXODUO\ ćXVK ZLWK JDPHV DQG FDVK £219.99, microsoft.com

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YAMAHA V4A AV RECEIVER Even AV receivers are having to up their OLWHUDO JDPH IRU WKH QHZ JHQHUDWLRQ <DPDKDèV latest 5.1 offering comes with four HDMI 2.1 connections for multiple next-gen consoles and supports 4K at 120Hz, as well as that oh-so-vital Auto Low Latency Mode or ALLM. The V4A also boasts Dolby Vision DQGb+'5 SDVVWKURXJK DV ZHOO VWDQGDUG HDR functionality. You needed an upgrade anyway, right? £449, richersounds.com

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XBOX ELITE WIRELESS CONTROLLER SERIES 2

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There are no extra bells and whistles on the ;ER[ 6HULHV ; FRQWUROOHU VR LI \RXèYH JRW YHU\ VSHFLĆF WKXPEVWLFN GHVLUHV \RXèOO ZDQW WKH VHTXHO WR 0LFURVRIWèV (OLWH SDG :KHWKHU \RX want to switch up paddles or twiddle with analogue tension, this is a perfect, if expensive, DFFHVVRU\ 7KHUHèV HYHQ ZLUHOHVV FKDUJLQJ YLD WKH LQFOXGHG GRFN EHFDXVH OHWèV IDFH LW ZLUHV are so last generation. £159.99, xbox.com

N O V E M B ER 2 0 2 0 T3 5 3

Amazing PS5 and Xbox add-ons

TVs

The perfect way to top off your next-gen gaming setup

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SAMSUNG QLED Q80T :KDW LI \RX FRXOG JR ELJ DQG JR KRPH" 6DPVXQJèV 4 7 UDQJH JRHV DOO WKH ZD\ XS WR LQFKHV DQG FRPHV ZLWK HYHU\WKLQJ you need to make the most of PS5 and Xbox Series X. With impressive ALLM, variable refresh rate (VRR) and 120Hz VXSSRUW WKLV FRORXUIXO 4/(' VFUHHQ LV UHDG\ IRU DV PXFK ODJ free Spider-Man as your thumbs will allow. From £999, samsung.com

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SONY XH90 8QOLNH WKH RWKHU WZR 79V KHUH 6RQ\èV /(' ;+ GRHVQèW come with HDMI 2.1 features out of the box but these ZLOO DUULYH YLD DQ XSGDWH 7KH ĆUVW UHYHDOHG ê5HDG\ IRU 3OD\6WDWLRQb ë 79 WKH ;+ ZLOO KDYH VXSSRUW IRU +] DW 4K, dependent on the PS5 title, and BRAVIA Game Mode to fully support low latency gaming. From £1,199, sony.co.uk

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LG CX 1RZ DYDLODEOH LQ DQ H[FHSWLRQDOO\ DWWUDFWLYH LQFK SDFNDJH /*èV &; UDQJH LV WKH SHUIHFW JR WR QH[W JHQ 79 7LFNLQJ RII PS5 demands like a to-do list, it includes ALLM, HDMI 2.1 support, and eats 4K at 120 frames per second for breakfast. Plus, AMD FreeSync support is coming later this year to deliver even smoother Xbox One X performance. £1,499, currys.co.uk

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Awesome Android phones for everybody

Awesome Android phones for everybody Phone a friend, then snap a shot, play a game or make an epic video. More than just a way to stay connected, smartphones are a lifestyle choice. Whether for kids or creatives, these are top Android picks Words: Michelle Rae Uy Photography: Phil Barker 5 6 T3 N O V E M B ER 2 0 2 0

Samsung Galaxy S20 Ultra

PERFECT FOR PHOTOGRAPHERS

Samsung Galaxy S20 Ultra Beyond its laptop-level specs, the Galaxy S20 Ultra astounds with its photography-focused features, starting with that impressive five-camera setup. Shutterbugs can zoom up to 100x, record 8K videos, take super-sharp selfies and crop to their heart’s desire with that whopping 108MP resolution. This is practically the entire contents of a photographer’s camera bag in one svelte package. From £1,199, samsung.com N O V E M B ER 2 0 2 0 T3 5 7

Awesome Android phones for everybody

CRACKING PIECE OF KIT FOR KIDS

Nokia 5.3 Kids these days won’t shy away from high-tech gadgets, but they also need them in robust and preferably cheap packages. Enter the Nokia 5.3, whose quad camera, smart AI photo-editing tools, massive screen and AI-assisted adaptive battery are just the ticket for tech-savvy minors. Plus, that durable scratch-resistant back and bargain-basement price will let parents breathe easier. £149.99, nokia.com 5 8 T3 N O V E M B ER 2 0 2 0

Samsung Galaxy Note 20 Ultra

CREAM OF THE CROP FOR CREATIVES

Samsung Galaxy Note 20 Ultra Its included S Pen strengthens the Galaxy Note 20 Ultra’s bid for the ultimate mobile tool for creatives. It offers access to shortcuts for a seamless creative workflow while allowing you to draw your designs the moment inspiration strikes. Of course, that 6.9-inch 120Hz screen, impressive camera set and all-day battery life are a boon for content creators and designers as well. From £1,179, samsung.com N O V E M B ER 2 0 2 0 T3 59

Awesome Android phones for everybody

GREATEST GADGET FOR GAMERS

Xiaomi Black Shark 3 The Black Shark 3 certainly talks the talk, touting itself as a mobile gamer’s playground. But this smartphone walks the walk as well, with staggering specs, a breathtaking 6.67-inch 90Hz 2K display and a nifty Shark Space app all designed to make titles like Call of Duty Mobile and Fortnite look and play as smooth as butter. From £539, blackshark.com 6 0 T3 N O V E M B ER 2 0 2 0

OnePlus Nord

CHEAPER CHOICE FOR SAVERS

OnePlus Nord One doesn’t have to break the bank for a great smartphone. Sitting comfortably in the mid-range arena is the OnePlus Nord, offering a terrific feature set, lots of power and a stunning screen in a premium package sans the hefty price of entry. It is, as OnePlus puts it, all you could ever ask for in a phone, especially if you’re unwilling to splurge. From £379, oneplus.com N O V E M B ER 2 0 2 0 T3 61

Future Publishing, Quay House, The Ambury, Bath, BA1 1UA EDITORIAL +44 (0)1225 442244 SUBSCRIPTIONS & CUSTOMER SERVICES +44(0)844 848 2852

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ISSUE 315 ON SALE WEDNESDAY 25 NOVEMBER

BRAND DIRECTOR PAUL NEWMAN paul.newman@futurenet.com GROUP ART DIRECTOR JO GULLIVER jo.gulliver@futurenet.com EDITORIAL & ART CONTRIBUTORS Duncan Bell, Louise Blain, Matthew Bolton, Alex Cox, Claire Davies, Amy Davies, Erlingur Einarsson, Ian Evenden, Spencer Hart, Stephen Kelly, Matt Kollat, Carrie Marshall, David Nield, Michelle Rae Uy ADVERTISING Media packs are available on request UK COMMERCIAL DIRECTOR CLARE DOVE clare.dove@futurenet.com ACCOUNT DIRECTOR ANDREW TILBURY andrew.tilbury@futurenet.com ADVERTISING DIRECTOR, TECHNOLOGY RICHARD HEMMINGS richard.hemmings@futurenet.com HEAD OF STRATEGIC PARTNERSHIPS CLARE JONIK clare.jonik@futurenet.com MEDIA SALES EXECUTIVE CONOR LOCKLEY conor.lockley@futurenet.com SENIOR AD MANAGER SASHA McGREGOR sasha.mcgregor@futurenet.com BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT DIRECTOR MARK FERMOR mark.fermor@futurenet.com INTERNATIONAL T3 is available for licensing. Contact the International department WRbGLVFXVV SDUWQHUVKLS RSSRUWXQLWLHV HEAD OF PRINT LICENSING RACHEL SHAW licensing@futurenet.com PRINT SUBSCRIPTIONS & BACK ISSUES Email enquiries t3@myfavouritemagazines.co.uk UK orderline & enquiries 0844 848 2852 Overseas order line and enquiries +44 (0) 344 848 2852 Online orders & enquiries www.myfavouritemagazines.co.uk CIRCULATION HEAD OF NEWSTRADE TIM MATHERS PRODUCTION HEAD OF PRODUCTION UK & US MARK CONSTANCE PRODUCTION PROJECT MANAGER CLARE SCOTT ADVERTISING PRODUCTION MANAGER JOANNE CROSBY DIGITAL EDITIONS CONTROLLER JASON HUDSON PRODUCTION CO-ORDINATOR NOLA COKELY MANAGEMENT CHIEF CONTENT OFFICER AARON ASADI CHIEF FINANCIAL OFFICER RACHEL ADDISON HEAD OF ART & DESIGN RODNEY DIVE PRINTED IN THE UK BY William Gibbons on behalf of Future. DISTRIBUTED IN THE UK BY Marketforce (UK), 2nd Floor, 5 Churchill Place, Canary Wharf, London, E14 5HU www.marketforce.co.uk Tel: 020 3787 9060 ISSN 1364-2641

XMAS GADGET GIFT GUIDE! Whether you’re looking for top TVs, awesome audio equipment, next-gen gaming, grooming gadgets or affordable stocking ĆOOHUV GLVFRYHU WKLV \HDUèV FDQèW PLVV SUHVVLHV

:H DUH FRPPLWWHG WR RQO\ XVLQJ PDJD]LQH SDSHU ZKLFK LV GHULYHG IURP UHVSRQVLEO\ PDQDJHG FHUWLĆHG IRUHVWU\ and chlorine-free manufacture. The paper in this magazine was sourced and produced from sustainable managed forests, conforming to strict environmental and socioeconomic standards. The manufacturing paper PLOO KROGV IXOO )6& )RUHVW 6WHZDUGVKLS &RXQFLO FHUWLĆFDWLRQ DQG DFFUHGLWDWLRQ All contents © 2020 Future Publishing Limited or published under licence. All rights reserved. No part of this magazine may be used, stored, transmitted or reproduced in any way without the prior written permission of the publisher. Future Publishing Limited (company number 2008885) is registered in England and Wales. Registered RIĆFH 4XD\ +RXVH 7KH $PEXU\ %DWK %$ 8$ $OO LQIRUPDWLRQ FRQWDLQHG LQ WKLV SXEOLFDWLRQ LV IRU LQIRUPDWLRQ only and is, as far as we are aware, correct at the time of going to press. Future cannot accept any responsibility for errors or inaccuracies in such information. You are advised to contact manufacturers and retailers directly with regard to the price of products/services referred to in this publication. Apps and websites mentioned in this publication are not under our control. We are not responsible for their contents or any other changes or updates WR WKHP 7KLV PDJD]LQH LV IXOO\ LQGHSHQGHQW DQG QRW DIĆOLDWHG LQ DQ\ ZD\ ZLWK WKH FRPSDQLHV PHQWLRQHG KHUHLQ If you submit material to us, you warrant that you own the material and/or have the necessary rights/permissions to supply the material and you automatically grant Future and its licensees a licence to publish your submission in whole or in part in any/all issues and/or editions of publications, in any format published worldwide and on associated websites, social media channels and associated products. Any material you submit is sent at your own risk and, although every care is taken, neither Future nor its employees, agents, subcontractors or licensees shall be liable for loss or damage. We assume all unsolicited material is for publication unless otherwise stated, and reserve the right to edit, amend, adapt all submissions.

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* ALL CONTENTS SUBJECT TO CHANGE

TESTED Expert reviews and recommendations WR KHOS \RX EX\ ZLWK FRQĆGHQFH Edited by Josh Russell

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APPLE WATCH SE

APPLE WATCH 6

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GOOGLE NEST AUDIO

CANON EOS R6

ROLI LUMI

HOW WE TEST In T3, we feature only the ďŹ nest gadgets out there, and we believe that you – our loyal reader – deserve only the best tech in your life. We don’t want you to waste time, and money, on inferior products, and that’s exactly why our Tested section exists. In here you’ll ďŹ nd only the latest and hottest tech. Each product has been handpicked and tested by T3’s experts.

We only choose people with specialist knowledge for each test, so you know you’re going to get an outcome based on many years of experience in their respective ďŹ eld. As well as our traditional ďŹ ve-star rating system (right), we also give out awards to particularly exceptional gadgets, using the line-up below - so when you spot one of these, you’ll know you’re onto a good thing.

THE SCORES EXPLAINED Forget it Below average Good for the price Very good all round An exceptional, best-in-class product

OUR AWARDS Only the best products ü WKRVH WKDW VFRUH ĆYH PLATINUM stars – receive our AWARD Platinum Award

This is given to winners BEST ON of our group tests, so TEST you can see which is the best at a glance

BEST FOR BATTERY LIFE

This accolade, and others like it, show you which gear is best for VSHFLĆF IHDWXUHV

THE DESIGN AWARD

For kit with exceptional industrial design and UHĆQHPHQW LQ DGGLWLRQ to being a great buy

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Tested

Processor 6 6L3 ZLWK ELW GXDO core processor Screen 324x394 pixel / 368x448 pixel Retina OLED Storage 32GB Battery up to 18 hours OS WatchOS Connectivity GPS / GPS + 4G, Wi-Fi 4, Bluetooth 5 Dimensions 40x34x10.4mm / 44x38x10.4mm Weight 30.7g / 36.4g

THE LITE WATCH

Apple Watch SE $ SUHPLXP VPDUWZDWFK IRU OHVV EULQJLQJ VRPH JUHDW ĆWQHVV DQG KHDOWK IHDWXUHV From ÂŁ269 apple.com he Apple Watch SE is the ďŹ rst time Apple has introduced an Apple Watch model speciďŹ cally to be lower-priced – normally, older models stay around and get price cuts. But in this case, Apple has cherry-picked features from previous

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Watch models to create a mid-range Watch option, at a price half-way between the ultra-low price of the Watch Series 3 and the more premium Apple Watch Series 6. The idea is to create something with the latest and greatest design, and all the most commonly used headline features, with a few more ‘premium’ options reserved for the Apple Watch Series 6. However, that includes some major health features, and we’ll talk about that omission later.

But overall, we think the Apple Watch SE nails its brief of bringing the convenience and gentle ďŹ tness features of the Apple Watch to more people, and right at a time when being able to keep a low-key eye on your health is more valuable than ever.

Deluxe design The Watch SE has the same new-style design that all Watches since the Series 4 have included, with a nearly edge-to-edge screen with rounded

Apple Watch SE

BRIGHT SPARK Barring the always-on functionality, the Watch SE comes with as good a screen as the 6: both have Retina OLED displays capable of 1,000 nits of brightness.

ON THE CASE While there’s no stainless steel or titanium case (nor red or blue ďŹ nishes) as there is with the Watch 6, the SE does offer the basic aluminium case in Gold, Silver and Space Grey.

corners that’s very much of a piece with current iPhone design. The screen is about 30% larger than the display on equivalent Watch Series 3 models, despite the body of the watch not really being noticeably larger. The 40mm model has a 324x394-resolution display, while the 44mm model has a 368x448resolution screen. The screen is OLED, rated for the same 1000 nits of brightness as the Apple Watch Series 6 – in fact, in most cases, the screen seems to be the same as the more premium model. That means it’s lovely and clear, and easily visible in sunlight. However, while they’re mostly the same, the Apple Watch SE lacks the always-on display that the Apple Watch Series 5 and Series 6 have featured. With other smartwatches, such as the Fitbit Versa 3, including the option of an always-on display at a lower price than the Watch SE, we can understand if some ďŹ nd this a frustrating omission, but we don’t mind, ultimately; it’s deďŹ nitely nice to have, not essential to have.

The Apple Watch SE comes with an aluminium case only (there’s no stainless steel or titanium case option), in Gold, Silver or Space Grey ďŹ nishes. The glass is toughened Ion-X glass, and though not as indestructible as the sapphire used on more expensive models, we’ve found it tough enough for the job of surviving scrapes and bashes. The back, where it touches your wrist, is sapphire and ceramic, meaning it’s as comfortable and hypoallergenic as you can get, really. Other than the always-on display, there’s really nothing to tell the Watch SE apart from the aluminium Series 6 visually, or in feel. As Apple does with its phones, it really feels like you’re getting the premium treatment.

All well and good Apple has put health and ďŹ tness right at the heart of the Apple Watch, but it’s never tried to pitch it as a full rival to the likes of Garmin’s higher-end Forerunners when it comes to being elite-level running watches.

,RQ ; JODVV LV XVHG which isn’t as strong as sapphire but is still pretty GDUQHG WRXJK

It’s aimed at a more basic level, starting with just giving you some activity tracking to help you hit core baselines, but also with the ability to easily activate tracking of a particular kind of workout. The Watch SE knows what kind of motion to look for in each type of exercise, analysing your movements and tracking your heart rate while you exercise, and putting some limited key information on-screen. In these, it keeps things as simple as possible – great for people who don’t know much about their workout data. But when you dig into the Fitness and the Health apps on iPhone, you quickly ďŹ nd that there’s much more information available if you want to get into it, from VO2 Max to average walking and climbing speeds, to resting heart rate, and more. And the app freedom of the Watch, as well as some recent sensor improvements, make it much more impressive as an outdoor/adventure watch these days: the always-on altimeter can track your height live, and even includes an indicator of your N O V E M B ER 2 0 2 0 T3 6 5

Tested

CROWNING GLORY When stripping features out for a cut-price Watch, it would have been easy for Apple to remove the Digital Crown. Fortunately, the smartwatch’s most userfriendly control remains.

SMOOTH OPERATOR Powered by the same processor as last year’s Watch 5, the SE is always smooth to use, no matter the task.

angle of ascent (or descent), which is a fun touch. A solid and accurate compass and GPS, plus the ability to load maps to the Watch with a compatible app, make it a great hiking watch too. The fall detection feature is the one thing we really hoped Apple would include, and it’s here. If you take a hard fall, the Watch SE’s sensors can detect this, and a message will pop up asking if you’re okay. You can tell it that you are, or you can choose an option for it to call the emergency services. If you don’t respond at all, it will call the

If you take a tumble, the Watch will ask you if you’re okay!

emergency services automatically after a set amount of time. Particularly for anyone who’s physically vulnerable, this could be a literal life-saver. One new feature of watchOS 7 is the Sleep app, and sleep monitoring, which is well overdue on Apple Watch, to be blunt. But it’s here now, and it’s… okay. Given how much information the Apple Watch can obtain, it’s surprising how un-smart the sleep tracking is. In the morning, you can see a simple, easy-to-understand chart showing when you slept and

when you woke up during the night, and how much sleep you got. But we were surprised not to see more depth here. Other trackers will aim to track the quality of your sleep, including how much time you spend in deep REM sleep, which can make a big difference to how good you feel in the morning. Now let’s talk about the two missing health features of the Apple Watch SE, though: the ECG, and the blood oxygen sensor. The Apple Watch Series 6 has both of these, with the ECG able to take a highly accurate heartbeat reading and the blood

PRO ADD-ONS

APPLE LEATHER LINK STRAP

JABRA ELITE ACTIVE 75T

:DQW WR DGG VRPH SUHPLXP VW\OH WR \RXU DIIRUGDEOH :DWFK" 2QH RI WKHVH QHZ /HDWKHU /LQN VWUDSV LV D JRRG VWDUW 0DGH IURP 5RX[ *UDQDGD OHDWKHU KDQGFUDIWHG LQ )UDQFH WKH\ cost just £50 if bought with a Watch SE. £99, apple.com

7KHVH DSSHDU LQ DOO RI RXU URXQGXSV IRU WKH EHVW ĆWQHVV IRFXVHG WUXH ZLUHOHVV KHDGSKRQHV IRU D UHDVRQ 1RW RQO\ DUH WKH\ LQFUHGLEOH YDOXH IRU DFWLYH QRLVH FDQFHOOHUV WKH\èUH VZHDW SURRI DQG ĆW DQG VRXQG OLNH D GUHDP £189.99, jabra.co.uk

6 6 T3 N O V E M B ER 2 0 2 0

APPLE WATCH MAGNETIC CHARGING DOCK If you like to be able to easily see your Watch DW QLJKW Ã¥ RU MXVW OLNH GLVSOD\LQJ \RXU ODWHVW purchase at its best – this is the perfect wireless charger for topping up your Watch SE. £75, apple.com

Apple Watch SE

SENSORY DEPRIVATION The SE has an optical heartsensor and fall detection. But if you want the fancier ECG and blood oxygen sensor, you’ll need to opt for a 6.

oxygen sensor able to detect how well saturated your blood is with oxygen. Each of these requires an additional set of sensors that the Apple Watch SE doesn’t have. Now, we don’t consider this a dealbreaker for the Watch SE. However, the Fitbit Versa 3 is signiďŹ cantly cheaper than the Watch SE and includes a blood oxygen sensor. And the Fitbit Sense includes both blood oxygen and ECG.

Performance art The Watch SE is powered by the same processor as the Apple Watch Series 5 from last year, which is a dual-core chip that’s more than fast enough for anything you might do on the Watch – opening and scrolling within apps is smooth, and we’ve never had anything resembling a major slow-down or crash. The Apple Watch’s software, watchOS, continues to be a big part of its success. It’s friendly, and designed well for the small screen of a Watch – everything is clear and easy to tap no matter which screen size you get. We also like that Apple has kept the Digital Crown control on the side of the Watch ever since the very ďŹ rst version – it’s much nicer to use. You might worry Apple would drop it when it wants to

streamline the design, but we’d really miss it. It’s a great part of making the Watch user-friendly. In terms of battery life, the Watch SE really impresses. In fact, when compared to the Apple Watch Series 6 with the always-on feature of the screen activated, it has the best battery life we’ve seen on an Apple Watch so far! In a typical day of use (using it from morning to bed, and with an hour-long workout tracked in the middle of the day), we had 57% battery remaining at bed time. So for similar use, it looks reasonable to actually get two days of use out of the Watch SE if you were to turn it o over night. All things considered, the Apple Watch SE is truly excellent, and where Apple has cut back for the more budget price, you won’t really notice it in general use. It feels like a full Apple Watch experience, with all the advantages that brings in convenience, ďŹ tness tracking and health and safety features‌ for iPhone users. As ever, Android users need not apply. We’ve mentioned our disappointment that it doesn’t include the advanced health sensors that rivals do at similar (or cheaper)

It’s cheaper than SRVKHU PRGHOV EXW it still feels like a full Apple Watch experience

prices, but what Apple has included will still cover the needs of most people. More than that, Apple has made it so easy to use what’s here – including for people who have no idea what they’re doing – that maybe it’s better to have the extent of sensors that the Watch SE oers with excellent software, rather than even more sensors and more information that you do less with. If you’re looking at your ďŹ rst Apple Watch, the SE gets a really strong recommendation from us.

VERDICT WE’RE IMPRESSED )DVW DQG VPRRWK EULJKW VFUHHQ IDE ĆWQHVV DQG FRUH KHDOWK WUDFNLQJ WE’D IMPROVE 1R DOZD\V RQ VFUHHQ EDVLF VOHHS WUDFNLQJ QR EORRG R[\JHQ RU (&* VHQVRUV THE LAST WORD 2IIHUV WKH NH\ IHDWXUHV DQG then some. But rivals have more health sensors.

Find the best deals for the Apple Watch SE at: bit.ly/t3wchse

N O V E M B ER 2 0 2 0 T3 67

Tested Apple Watch 6

QUALITY TIME

Apple Watch 6 0RUH HYROXWLRQ WKDQ UHYROXWLRQ QHZ VHQVRUV and better health tracking still make this the best yet From ÂŁ379 apple.com iven you’ve already read our Apple Watch SE review (p64), here we’re focusing on what makes the Watch 6 unique. And there’s plenty to justify its price, with a boosted screen and more health sensors than you can shake a stick at. Starting with the screen, the main development is that the always-on display is now 2.5 times brighter than on the Series 5, which is a pretty damn signiďŹ cant increase. When you turn the Watch to face you, the always-on OLED display pushes itself to full brightness, which, as with the SE, is around 1,000 nits. In terms of design, this new watch is marginally thinner and is in four new colours. You can now get the aluminium case in both blue and red, and both are pretty fetching. The stainless steel version comes in a new gold ďŹ nish that replaces the old one, and a new ‘Graphite’ ďŹ nish that replaces the old ‘Space Black’. When it comes to new health and ďŹ tness features, only the pulse oxygen sensor is a major addition in the Series 6. Additional LED lights on the back of the Watch can sense how

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well-fuelled with oxygen your blood is. This can be of interest to those especially into ďŹ tness training, for tracking how quickly your body regains its oxygen. For the non-hardcore, it’s potentially useful as a way to check your health. As we’ve already mentioned in our Watch SE review, watchOS 7’s sleep tracking works reasonably well but is rather basic. The oxygen sensor again does take a couple of readings overnight, which could theoretically be beneďŹ cial for helping to spot sleep apnea, but this seems like too few to tell you much. The health support in the Watch isn’t just limited to this, of course. The regular heartbeat sensor runs throughout the day, and can warn you if your heart rate is especially high or low, and can spot an irregular heartbeat, which you can more accurately check with the ECG. The type of stats the heartbeat sensor records is enough for most people, but won’t be deep enough for those looking to really hone their triathlon time. This means that the Apple Watch is a do-anything ďŹ tness watch, but not a highly specialised one, and we’re good with that. Ultimately, the Apple Watch Series 6 feels like more of a premium price than its predecessors, but the overall quality of its design, plus its screen quality and smooth operation, all leave it feeling worth the cost.

VERDICT WE’RE IMPRESSED Great health tracking, like new blood oxygen sensor; brighter always-on screen; great new colour options. WE’D IMPROVE New sleep tracking is basic; won’t satisfy KDUGFRUH ĆWQHVV IDQV THE LAST WORD The Watch 6 is light on new features, but UHĆQHV ZKDW FDPH EHIRUH JLYLQJ \RX D EHWWHU SDFNDJH RYHUDOO WKDQ SUHYLRXV PRGHOV DQG SURGXFLQJ DQ DPD]LQJ H[SHULHQFH RYHUDOO

Find great deals for the Apple Watch 6 at: bit.ly/t3wch6

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Tested

Processor Snapdragon XR2 Screen 72Hz (90Hz with update), 1832 x 1920 per eye Memory 6GB Storage 64GB / 256GB Battery 2-3 hours Tracking internal cameras Weight 503g

SIMPLY THE QUEST

Oculus Quest 2

Powerful, fun, versatile, and cheaper than its predecessor, this might be VR’s breakout hit 7 2 T3 N O V E M B ER 2 0 2 0

From £299 oculus.com here’s no doubt that standalone headsets were always the future of VR – it was just a question of the components and the technology reaching a good enough standard to work without a PC. So has the Oculus Quest 2 – the sequel to 2019’s Oculus Quest – got what it takes to bring virtual reality to the mainstream? The Oculus Quest 2 is a well-built, solid-feeling piece of gadgetry,

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though with plenty of plastic it doesn’t quite feel luxury level – so just about what you would expect for the asking price, then. At 503 grams it’s nice and lightweight: you’ll know it’s there of course, but it won’t weigh your head down in the slightest. With simple but strong elasticated straps, getting it strapped tightly and securely to your head isn’t difficult at all, and going from opening the box to stepping into VR only takes a few minutes. Clips inside the headset let you choose one of three options for the interpupillary distance (IPD) setting, and we were able to find a position where everything was sharp

Oculus Quest 2

and focused without too much trouble. There’s also a spacer you can put in if you wear glasses. Marking out a playing space is actually quite fun and works really well – once the Quest 2 detects you’re near the edge of it, you’ll see boundary lines appear. Oculus recommends a playing space of around two square metres for games that require movement, though you can get by with a little less.

Power play Playing games and running apps on the Oculus Quest 2 is, by and large, a treat: graphics are sharp and bright, the integrated audio is impressive in its richness and range, and everything runs without a stutter. The newly updated Touch controllers are comfortable and responsive, and there’s even hand tracking in an experimental form for controlling games and navigating around menus – it works pretty well already, but you can tell it isn’t quite finished yet. As for the game and app selection, it’s both stronger than ever (there are now hundreds of titles available) and still some way short of where Oculus

would want it to be. There are some really good titles here, and more on the way, but nothing that would make you think you absolutely have to get a Quest 2 – games such as Vader: Immortal and Beat Saber are immersive and enjoyable, but they might not be enough to tempt you to buy one if you weren’t already. In terms of tracking you through space (done entirely without external trackers), the headset does an admirable job: we found our movements were instantly and accurately represented inside the games that we played. Glitches and bugs were practically non-existent and working out how to control everything quickly becomes second nature. Getting into VR has never been easier or quite so much fun. We’ve been very impressed with the Oculus Quest 2 during our time with it, and the company has even managed to get the price down from its predecessor, despite all of the improvements to the internals. We’re talking about Nintendo Switch levels of affordability, and that’s going to make this device appealing to a broader range of people than ever.

With the Quest 2, getting into VR KDVbQHYHU EHHQ easier – and it’s great fun, too

THE ALTERNATIVES VALVE INDEX

HTC VIVE COSMOS

If you want premium VR, go for the Index: it has an 144Hz screen, better FOV and better tracking. But it’s still wired, needs base stations and a PC and is over three times the price. £919, store.steampowered.com

For those without cash to burn or a desire to hand over data, this is a fair compromise. Still PC-tethered but beacon-free, it offers an ersatz Index experience for less. £699, vive.com

There are only a few negatives here: VR can still make some people (including us) feel queasy, the app and game selection still has plenty of room for improvement, and Facebook has made a Facebook account mandatory for using the Quest 2. That’s not something that’s going to endear it to users, but you may consider giving up even more data to the social network a worthwhile trade-off. The headset is good enough and affordable enough to find its way into a lot more homes over the next few months, though we think another hardware revision and some really jaw-dropping games will be required before an Oculus device becomes a must-have for gamers.

VERDICT WE’RE IMPRESSED Lightweight and comfortable; crisp, vibrant graphics; easy to set up and use. WE’D IMPROVE Needs more games and apps; few lens settings; Facebook account is mandatory. THE LAST WORD The Oculus Quest 2 provides a standalone experience that really impresses in terms of performance and price. It’s not quite a perfect VR headset, but it’s clearly one of the best ones yet.

Find great deals for the Oculus Quest 2 at: bit.ly/t3ocqst2

N O V E M B ER 2 0 2 0 T3 73

Tested

Drivers 75mm woofer and 19mm tweeter Processor Quad Core A53 1.8GHz Connectivity Chromecast, Wi-Fi 5, Bluetooth 5 Voice assistant Google Assistant Dimensions 175x124x78mm Weight 1.2kg

SIMPLY THE NEST

Google Nest Audio Is Google’s new mid-price smart speaker overshadowed by the new Amazon Echo? £89.99 store.google.com

inally upgrading its Google Home smart speaker, Google has released its direct replacement: the Nest Audio. This fabric-covered speaker has Google Assistant built in, and an improved speaker setup, aiming to find its way further up our list of the best smart speakers than its predecessor. The Nest Audio is quite small – it’s under 5 inches wide, under 7 inches tall and is just about 3 inches deep. Between this and its subtle, fabriccoated design, it can blend into your home pretty easily. And its enclosure is made from 70% recycled plastic. Our one issue with the design is the control buttons. You might have missed them on the pictures because… well, they’re totally invisible. You can tap the left side of the unit to reduce volume, or the right side to raise it, and the top centre to pause/play. Obviously, you get instructions that explain this, but we’re really not

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Google Nest Audio

fans of controls with absolutely zero indications that they’re there. Also, while it’s available in five colours in the US – chalk (off-white), charcoal, sage (pastel green), sky (pastel blue) and sand (pastel pink) – only chalk and charcoal are available in the UK and Australia.

Sound bites Recently, audio quality has become the big factor for smart speakers and the Nest Audio has increased its speaker power, focusing on this element so much that it’s right in the name. Treble can be quite detailed and stands clearly out of the rest of the mix, but it can get a bit peaky and harsh. While this won’t come up strongly in every song you listen to, when it does occur the Nest Audio is audibly struggling. Bass is sufficient – it’s full enough to feel like it’s anchoring the songs the way it should, but it’s not especially precise or driven. But that’s fine for a fairly small unit – physics isn’t on the its side, yet it does its job. The mid-range is where we’re frustrated – it’s just too thin, leaving songs feeling punchy at the high-end

and on solid bass foundation, but deflated in the middle. It robs songs of a portion of their energy and liveliness. A piano chord should resonate across the treble and mid, but here it lacks the full-bodied hit it would get from a stronger mid-range. Google says the audio adjusts itself based on the room it’s in and also tweaks the EQ depending on whether you’re listening to music or podcasts/ audiobooks and so on. We can’t say this is a feature that stood out to us – switching from music to a podcast all played from Spotify, for example, resulted in a perceived reduction in volume, and we didn’t find the clarity of the voices especially impressive. We’re being fairly picky here though, because the audio quality is still definitely good overall, particularly for the size and price. Features are fairly simple. It has an array of mics to pick up your voice for Google Assistant, as well as a switch on the back to physically disconnect the mics, if you prefer. You can ask it your questions, or to play music and so on. You can also Cast to it from your phone/tablet/PC

THE ALTERNATIVES AMAZON ECHO

SONOS ONE

Having had a big design shake-up, the Echo’s retro-futurist orb should offer more *ahem* well-rounded sound and Amazon KDVbVRXSHG XS LWV speech recognition. £89.99, amazon.co.uk

For those who care more about sound quality than low prices, the One is still the obvious choice. It offers voice control, great connectivity and superb sound quality. £199, sonos.com

Many might prefer this discreet rounded lozenge to the space-helmet look of the new Amazon Echo

– this worked as well as you’d hope for us. Google Assistant works excellently here, with the mics picking up the ‘Hey Google’ trigger reliably even over plenty of music noise, and responding rapidly. The Nest Audio is a really solid smart speaker – much better audio quality than its predecessor makes it a clear upgrade, and we love the design. As a music speaker, it’s merely good rather than great. Most people will get on well with it, but more discerning music fans will find it lacking in just a few key areas. Considering its small size, we can forgive this. For those in the Google ecosystem who really benefit from using Assistant over Alexa, it’s a great little device.

VERDICT WE’RE IMPRESSED Improved audio quality; small, good-looking fabric design; Google Assistant is great for answers. WE’D IMPROVE Mid-range DXGLR LV WKLQ DQG ćDW KLGGHQ buttons; UK only has two colours. THE LAST WORD The Nest Audio looks good and sounds good, though with some caveats for music lovers. For those deep in Google’s ecosystem, it’s a great smart speaker.

Discover more great smart speakers at: bit.ly/t3smtspk

N O V E M B ER 2 0 2 0 T3 75

Tested Canon EOS R6

CAM DUNK

Canon EOS R6 Canon’s full-frame PLUURUOHVV OLQH ĆQDOO\ packs a strong punch £2,499 (body only) canon.co.uk nnounced at the same time as its more-expensive sibling, the Canon EOS R6 is aimed squarely at the advanced enthusiast. In essence, what we have here is an R5 light, giving you much of the benefits of the more expensive system, but in a more affordable, easier to obtain body. Of course, to get that, there are some sacrifices to be made. The R6 promises a lot with its impressive range of specifications. It mostly delivers. Let’s start with image quality – the camera is capable of producing lovely, warm and well-saturated colours that stay on the right side of accuracy without losing vibrance in most situations. The Canon R6’s full-frame sensor has 20.1 megapixels, which although plenty for most ordinary situations, perhaps feels a little on the ‘low’ side. It gives you less scope for cropping after-the-fact, but it does help with keeping file sizes manageable. Of course, it also helps to keep the price lower than the R5. Perhaps what impresses us the most about the R6 is its performance in other areas. If you

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shoot moving subjects, then the R6 has some very enticing specifications. There’s up to 20fps shooting, or 12fps if you need to use the mechanical shutter. Another useful spec is inbuilt image stabilisation, which offers up to 8 stops advantage – making it best in class. And autofocusing is nothing short of fantastic, with special mention going to its tracking prowess when photographing animals. It locks on to the target and follows it around the frame, shooting at fast frame rates and producing hit after hit. For that reason, it’s ideal for wildlife and action shooters. In terms of video, the R6 really is a pared back version of the R5. You get 4K video, but it’s UHD, with no DCI support. On the plus side, you can use the whole of the sensor, unlike some other Canon models, so you get uncropped footage. You may have heard about the overheating issues the camera has: this seems to happen if you shoot 4K for longer than 30 minutes – problematic for some videographers, but less so for users capturing short clips. There’s a lot to like about the Canon EOS R6. It is more expensive than some other models on the market but generally you get what you pay for. And overall, the EOS R6 is an ace camera: it’s well worth a look, particularly if you’re after something perfect for fast shooting.

VERDICT WE’RE IMPRESSED Superb autofocusing; great all-rounder; fast shooting. WE’D IMPROVE 4K video overheating issues; fairly low resolution; pricey. THE LAST WORD This represents a coming-of-age for the EOS R system and shows what Canon is capable of. It offers a lot of best-in-class capabilities, but has some 4K video issues and it’s quite pricey right now.

Find great deals on mirrorless cameras at: bit.ly/t3mrrlss

Tested Roli LUMI

LIGHT TOUCH

Roli LUMI

Sleek, portable and intuitive, this light-up keyboard is a great way to learn piano £299 playlumi.com icking up a new instrument is never easy. Which is why Roli’s LUMI created such a buzz when it hit Kickstarter last year. Now on sale at last, it makes learning piano light work. First thing you’ll likely notice is what a looker LUMI is. Power it up and a rainbow of lights glissandos its way up the keys. While playing songs and taking lessons each natural note is coded with the colour of the spectrum, lighting up to indicate which should be played when. Aside from this riot of colour, it’s a very streamlined, lightweight device: barring a power button and USB-C port, the only real adornment are plug-and-play connectors on either end allowing you to hook it up to Roli Blocks devices or connect multiple LUMIs together. And to get the full experience, you’re definitely going to want to stretch to two – each two-octave device is only really suitable for one hand at a time. When you fire up the associated app on your phone or tablet, pairing a single or even several LUMIs over Bluetooth is a dream. We did have some issues on a subsequent session though,

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forcing us to plug them in to a laptop and check for firmware upgrades. Both sections of the app offer a beautifully modular approach to learning. Broken down into individual lessons and challenges, the Learn section comprises interactive videos and scrolling Guitar-Hero-esque sections for picking up technique. Meanwhile, the Play section not only offers songs for all skill levels but allows you to change the speed of playback and switch between playing with the right hand, the left or both, helping you slowly build up the challenge. Playing the LUMI is a joy – it’s very responsive, with no perceptible delay between pressing keys and hearing the notes. The only slight niggle is that, as the keys don’t travel all that far, it’s easy to accidentally trigger notes twice. The app also still has some slight teething problems. Occasionally we completed a chapter of lessons, only to return later to find our progress had been forgotten. There are also a few oversights: while you can slow things down and easily skip backwards and forwards in the Play section of the app, you’re unable to do either in individual lessons, forcing you to sit through introductory videos again. Ultimately, these minor issues still don’t take the shine off LUMI. It’s by far the most effective music-learning system we’ve seen so far.

VERDICT WE’RE IMPRESSED Beautifully designed; very responsive; offers great range of songs and lessons. WE’D IMPROVE Easy to trigger notes twice; some issues with pairing; few bugs in the app. THE LAST WORD Despite the odd niggles here and there, the LUMI is every bit as brilliant as its rainbow-hued keys would suggest. All in all, it’s a great way to top up your technique and become a piano pro.

Find more top kit for learning an instrument at: bit.ly/t3lrnmsc

N O V E M B ER 2 0 2 0 T3 7 7

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86

Wired in-ear headphones

86

Wired over-ear headphones

86

Laptops

87

2-in-1 laptops

87

Tablets

87

Gaming laptops

88

Gaming headsets

88

4K monitors

88

Drones

89

Action cameras

89

Cheap action cameras

89

DSLR cameras

90

Mirrorless cameras

90

Compact cameras

90

Sat-navs

91

Dash cams

91

Electric bikes

91

Smart speakers

92

Smart bulbs

92

Smart thermostats

92

Smart plugs

93

Security cameras

93

Robot vacuums

93

Cordless vacuums

94

Washing machines

94

Dishwashers

94

Coffee machines

95

Fridges

95

Ovens

95

Electric shavers

96

Electric toothbrushes

96

Beard trimmers

96

Fitness trackers

97

Running watches

97

Running headphones

97

N O V E M B E R 2 0 2 0 T3 79

Best of the best

SMARTPHONES

Find the lowest prices at: t3.com/bestphone APPLE iPHONE 11

CHEAP SMARTPHONES

Find the lowest prices at: t3.com/bestcheapphone iPHONE SE (2020)

From £729, apple.com

From £420, apple.com A 6.1-inch HDR Liquid Retina display, Apple’s A13 Bionic chipset, 3GB of RAM, a 3,110 mAh battery, and upwards of 64GB. Apple has really surpassed its rivals with the iPhone 11.

ONEPLUS 8 PRO

SMARTWATCHES

Find the lowest prices at: t3.com/bestsmartwatch

APPLE WATCH SERIES 5 From £399, apple.com This truly straddles the line between tech and fashion; it’s not just the bestlooking smartwatch, but its health and ĆWQHVV IHDWXUHV always-on screen and good apps PDNHbLW HVVHQWLDO

$ QHDU ćDJVKLS iPhone experience for a fraction of the cost. The SE is under half the cost of the iPhone 11 Pro, and for that reason it demands attention from any prospective phone upgrader.

ONEPLUS NORD

SAMSUNG GALAXY WATCH ACTIVE2

From £800, oneplus.com A simply jawdropping handset that delivers across the board. It is, simply put, WKHbEHVWbSKRQH on the market for those shopping IRUbDbSUHPLXP Android handset.

From £379, oneplus.com A fantastic midranger, with a Snapdragon 765G processor, at least 8GB of RAM and 128GB of storage, and 5G. That’s not to mention the sharp, bright 6.44-inch AMOLED display.

From £269, samsung.com Sleek and powerful, this is the best smartwatch for Android users. The screen and design are on par with the Apple Watch, while a collection of new watch faces give it DbPRGHUQ HGJH

iPHONE SE (2020)

SAMSUNG GALAXY S10E

SAMSUNG GALAXY WATCH 3

From £420, apple.com Apple’s iPhone SE (2020) handset has taken this year by storm, the hot new handset winning acclaim worldwide with its balance of features, quality and performance for a very attractive price.

SAMSUNG GALAXY S20 ULTRA From £1,199, samsung.com Samsung has really gone to town here, from the 100x digital zoom on the rear camera to the huge 6.9-inch AMOLED display around the front. It’s the priciest of the S20 models, and it shows.

8 0 T3 N O V E M B ER 2 0 2 0

From £669, samsung.com The modestly sized and pocket-friendly 5.8-inch screen on the S10e is a breath of fresh air. With Samsung’s impeccable levels of ĆW DQG ĆQLVK JUHDW software and top specs, it’s a deal.

MOTO G8 POWER From £239, motorola.com If you’re looking for a phone that gives you a lot of bang for your buck then you simply can’t go wrong with the Moto G8 Power. The big selling point here is that huge 5,000mAh (threeday!) battery.

From £399, samsung.com The Galaxy Watch 3 comes in two sizes, and with a very good battery life. It’s the innovative rotating bezel that is the star here, though, as it is, without doubt, the best way to control DbVPDUWZDWFK

FOSSIL SPORT From £186, fossil.com/uk Fossil’s fourth generation of smartwatches serves up what’s probably the best Wear OS smartwatch available to buy today. Capable and wearable, with good app support.

Best of the best

HYBRID SMARTWATCHES

Find the lowest prices at: t3.com/besthybrid

WITHINGS STEEL HR SPORT £190, withings.com Featuring a heart-rate monitor and the ability to track 30 different exercises, this is ideal for ĆWQHVV IDQDWLFV ,WèV ZDWHU resistant to 50 metres, and the battery lasts around 25 days.

WITHINGS MOVE ECG £129, withings.com Think a pricey Apple Watch is needed to take an ECG reading of your heart? This can do that, plus activity tracking and sleep monitoring, with a 12-month battery life, for a really low price.

MONDAINE HELVETICA 1 £195, mondaine.com Mondaine is most famous for producing watches which resemble its classic Swiss Railways clock, but the Helvetica range is different. It includes activity and sleep tracking.

WATCHES

Find the lowest prices at: t3.com/bestwatch HUBLOT BIG BANG INTEGRAL £17,300, hublot.com 7KH ĆUVW %LJ %DQJ WR feature an integrated bracelet – this watch has EHHQ GHVLJQHG WR ćRZ seamlessly from the case to the clasp. Available in black ceramic, King Gold or titanium.

TUDOR BLACK BAY FIFTY-EIGHT £2,760, tudorwatch.com Named after the year in which Tudor released its ĆUVW GLYHUèV ZDWFK WKLV comes in a new vintage colour combination and smaller 39mm sized case. It’s powered by the Calibre MT5402.

OMEGA SEAMASTER DIVER 300M 007 EDITION £7,390, omegawatches.com This stylish Seamaster made from Grade 2 Titanium will be strapped to the wrist of 007 in 1Rb7LPH WR 'LH. It’s strong, lightweight, and perfect for an undercover agent.

KRONABY SEKEL

JAEGER-LECOULTRE MASTER CONTROL DATE

£445, kronaby.com

£6,000, jaeger-lecoultre.com Featuring a calibre with a 70-hour power reserve, a new 40mm double-polished case, and a clear, eligible GLDO bWKLV LV SXUH DQG simple watchmaking at LWV ĆQHVW

Looking for more than a pedometer? The Sekel vibrates to alert you to QRWLĆFDWLRQV RQ \RXU phone, and there’s a button which can be programmed with IFTTT to do loads.

WATCHES UNDER £500

Find the lowest prices at: t3.com/bestwatch500 VICTORINOX I.N.O.X V

£459, victorinox.com Having undergone 130 durability tests, this watch will stand up to anything you throw at it. The paracord strap hints at its adventurous heritage, and it’s great for all wrist sizes.

HAMILTON KHAKI FIELD £375, hamiltonwatch.com This is a faithful recreation of its original 1960s forebear and is true to Hamilton’s military heritage. The 38mm stainless steel case is paired with a durable NATO strap.

TISSOT QUICKSTER CHRONOGRAPH £295, tissotwatches.com This packs a Swiss quartz movement with 1/10 of a second counters, central 60-seconds chronograph hand, and add/split functionality. The case LVbĆQLVKHG ZLWK D VOHHN PVD coating.

CHRISTOPHER WARD C5 MALVERN MK III £495, christopherward.co.uk This sleek dress watch UHWDLQV LWV FODVVLF %ULWLVK design cues from older models, but features a new 39mm stainless steel case with Fluid ‘light-catcher’ lines and 38 hours power reserve.

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Best of the best

TVs

Find the lowest prices at: t3.com/besttv SAMSUNG 75Q950TS £7,999, samsung.com

TVs UNDER £1,000

Find the lowest prices at: t3.com/besttv1000 PHILIPS 55OLED754 £799, philips.com

Samsung’s 2020 ćDJVKLS 79 LV RXU QHZ SLFN IRU WKH EHVW 79 \RX FDQ EX\ HYHQ WKRXJK . FRQWHQW LV UDUH WKDQNV WR WKH ZD\ LW WDNHV . YLGHR DQG ERRVWV LW WR PDNH XVH RI LWV .bUHVROXWLRQ

PANASONIC TX-55HZ2000 £2,999, panasonic.com

SONY KD-49XH9505

£999, samsung.com

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OPTOMA UHZ65 £3,499, optoma.co.uk

7KH 4 7 VLWV LQ D UHDO VZHHW VSRW LQ 6DPVXQJèV 79 UDQJH 3LFWXUHV IURP . VRXUFHV DUH RXWVWDQGLQJ YLYLG \HW QDWXUDO FRORXUV VWURQJ FRQWUDVWV ODYLVK GHWDLO OHYHOV DQG VPRRWK PRWLRQ

PANASONIC TX-58HX800 £999, panasonic.com

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OPTOMA UHD40

6RQ\èV ćDJVKLS /(' . 79 IRU SDFNV LQ DOO NLQGV RI DGYDQFHG WHFKQRORJ\ DQG SURFHVVLQJ IRU VXSUHPH SLFWXUH TXDOLW\ 6RPHKRZ WKH LQFK PRGHO LV DYDLODEOH IRU OHVV WKDQ D JUDQG

7KH EORFNEXVWHU RI /*èV UDQJH LWèV JRW WKH VDPH LPDJH TXDOLW\ DV 79V GRXEOH LWV SULFH EXW GHOLYHUV WKHP DW D SULFH PRUH SHRSOH FDQ DIIRUG HVSHFLDOO\ QRZ WKDW WKHUHèV D QHZ LQFK WKDW FRVWV HYHQ OHVV

£2,499, samsung.com

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£999, optoma.co.uk

SAMSUNG QE55Q70T

SAMSUNG QE65Q95T/Q90T

ACER V7850

$ KDQGVRPH VXSHU VNLQQ\ 79 ZLWK D VWDFN RI FRQQHFWLYLW\ DQG WKH GHHS EODFNV IRU ZKLFK 2/(' LV FHOHEUDWHG :LWK VXSSRUW IRU HYHU\ +'5 IRUPDW LW PDNHV . FRQWHQW ORRN LWV EHVW

3DQDVRQLF KDV PDGH WKLV 79 VOLJKWO\ WKLFNHU IRU ORWV RI H[WUD KHDW GLVSHUVLRQ VR LW FDQ RYHUGULYH WKH SDQHO WR EH EULJKWHU WKDQ RWKHU 2/(' 79V ZKLOH VWLOO KDYLQJ DOO WKH GHHS EODFNV

£2,799, lg.com

Find the lowest prices at: t3.com/bestprojector

£1,699, acer.com

£999, sony.com

LG OLED65CX

PROJECTORS

7KLV LV YHU\ DLPHG DW WKH SURSHU $9 HQWKXVLDVW EXW ODVHU SURMHFWLRQ DW WKLV SULFH PDNHV LW ZRUWK LW IRU DQ\RQH . +'5 YLGHR LV VXSUHPHO\ ULFK DQG LW FDQ KLW LQFKHV IURP MXVW P

EPSON EH-TW6700W £999, epson.co.uk

7KLV PD\ RQO\ EH DQ HGJH OLW GHVLJQ UDWKHU WKDQ IHDWXUH WKH ORFDO GLPPLQJ RI LWV SULFLHU VWDEOH PDWHV EXW LW KROGV D IXOO KDQG RI +'5 FRPSDWLELOLW\ LQFOXGLQJ +'5 DQG 'ROE\ 9LVLRQ

,I \RXèUH KDSS\ ZLWK )XOO +' UHVROXWLRQ WKLV LV WKH EHVW RSWLRQ SDUWO\ WKDQNV WR D VXSHU HDV\ VHWXS SURFHVV 7KH LPDJH TXDOLW\ LV JRRG \RX MXVW GRQèW JHW WKH IXWXUH SURRĆQJ RI +'5 DQG .

Best of the best

SOUNDBARS

Find the lowest prices at: t3.com/bestsoundbar

B&O BEOSOUND STAGE £1,250, bang-olufsen.com % 2èV ĆUVW VRXQGEDU DQG LWèV EHHQ ZRUWK WKH ZDLW There are 11 drivers hidden behind its stylish FORWK ĆQLVK SURGXFLQJ D ZDOO RI VRXQG ,W FDQ get incredibly boomy ZLWKRXW D VXEZRRIHU WRR

SONY HT-G700

GAMES CONSOLES

STREAMERS

Find the lowest prices at: t3.com/beststreamer

Find the lowest prices at: t3.com/bestconsole

ROKU STREAMING STICK+

MICROSOFT XBOX ONE X

£59, roku.com

£449, xbox.com The Swiss Army Knife of streaming delivers 4K HDR, isn’t locked to a particular ecosystem, has tons of available apps DQG LV D MR\ WR XVH ,WèV the best streamer for PDQ\ SHRSOH

AMAZON FIRE TV STICK 4K

£450, sony.com

SONY PLAYSTATION 4 PRO

£49, amazon.co.uk This soundbar and wireless subwoofer include Sony’s fanciest processing, to make the three drivers seem like they’re giving you sound coming from the sides DQG DERYH

SONOS BEAM

4K HDR for under £50 LVQèW WR EH VQLIIHG DW ,WèV best suited to Prime subscribers and Google apps are absent, but it’s a very capable and affordable streamer IRUb79 DQG PRYLHV

CHROMECAST ULTRA

£349, sonos.com If it were just a soundbar, the Beam’s great audio would still make it top – but with Amazon Alexa, Apple AirPlay 2 and support for a billion streaming services, it’s IDQWDVWLFDOO\ ćH[LEOH

With 4K, Dolby Atmos, Ultra HD Blu-ray and D IDLUO\ FRPSDFW SURĆOH WKLV LV WKH EHVW ;ER[ HYHU It’s even more powerful than the PS4 Pro and also a great home HQWHUWDLQPHQW KXE

£349, playstation.com It’s still overkill if you GRQèW KDYH D . 79 but with 2160p HDR gaming, the PS4 Pro delivers incredible visuals and is smoother and faster than its non3UR VLEOLQJV

NINTENDO SWITCH

£69, store.google.com The Chromecast Ultra is a receiver for phones and laptops and depends on them for control and content – but it’s simple, versatile and compatible with iOS, Android, :LQGRZV DQG 0DF

SAMSUNG HW-Q90R

NVIDIA SHIELD TV

£1,100, samsung.com Described as a HTXLYDOHQW FRQĆJXUDWLRQ WKH UHVXOW really is stunningly close to the effect of having seven speakers around you, but without all the KDVVOH DQG H[SHQVH

£149.99, nvidia.com Offers an AI-powered upscaler, which converts HD footage to sharp 4K incredibly well, and support for Dolby 9LVLRQ 'ROE\ $WPRV DQG *H)RUFH 1RZ 1YLGLDèV FORXG JDPLQJ V\VWHP

£279, nintendo.co.uk We love the Switch, which brings Nintendo’s great gaming pedigree to genuinely stylish, premium-grade KDUGZDUH )RUJHW WKH specs: it’s all about the VKHHU MR\ RI JDPLQJ

MICROSOFT XBOX ONE S £207, xbox.com

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The S is smaller, whiter and much cheaper than its big brother, and while you don’t get its sibling’s super-powered specs you still get Ultra HD %OX UD\ $ ĆQH KRPH HQWHUWDLQPHQW KXE

Best of the best

TURNTABLES

Find the lowest prices at: t3.com/bestturntable

PRO-JECT ESSENTIAL III £250, project-audio.com Really sounds great for the money, with an expansive and enjoyable sound across a range of genres and volume levels. It also looks very pleasing, in a variety of high JORVVbĆQLVKHV

AUDIO-TECHNICA AT-LP5X

STREAMING DACs

Find the lowest prices at: t3.com/bestdac SONOS PORT

YAMAHA WXAD-10

ELIPSON CHROMA CARBON RIAA BT

IFI XDSD

TECHNICS SL-1210GR ÂŁ1,000, technics.com

Mu-So 2 crushes its competition. An awesome, thumping wall of sound and reliable, versatile software platform and streaming support make for the perfect 21st-century music experience.

SONOS ONE ÂŁ199, sonos.co.uk

This Yamaha lets you stream everything from Bluetooth to hi-res audio, with support for AirPlay, most of your favourite streaming services and, of course Yamaha’s own MusicCast.

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Sonos One is compatible with every music service ever, multi-room connectivity is fab, and Alexa comes built in as an added bonus. Many pricier Sonos speakers then await you‌

RUARK R5 This dinky little combined Bluetooth receiver, DAC and headphone amp supports AAC and aptX and sounds really superb. It has a battery, and can be used with earphones as well as speakers.

AUDIOLAB 6000N ÂŁ449, audiolab.co.uk

The iconic DJ turntable reimagined as a lustworthy slab RI KRPH KL Ć :KLOH we wouldn’t take this out clubbing, it’s the ultimate deck for gently maturing ravers, and sounds excellent too.

8 4 T3 N O V E M B ER 2 0 2 0

ÂŁ1,300 naimaudio.com A great streamer, especially if you already own a Sonos speaker. It has an analogue input and output, as well as streaming to any Sonos speaker, so you can plug in \RXUbWXUQWDEOH

ÂŁ120, yamaha.co.uk

Elipson’s top-line turntable pulls down a lot of features from the truly high end. You get a super-stiff FDUERQ ĆEUH WRQH arm and new digital belt drive motor, plus AptX Bluetooth and USB.

Find the lowest prices at: t3.com/bestmultiroom

NAIM MU-SO 2ND GENERATION

ÂŁ399, sonos.com

£330, audio-technica.com This direct-drive turntable comes with the AT-VM95E FDUWULGJH ĆWWHG WR D J-shaped tonearm that sounds great. Build is very solid, there are phono and USB outputs, and it can play 78s too.

ÂŁ699, elipson.com

MULTI-ROOM SPEAKERS

Probably impractical if you don’t have a KL Ć VWDFN EXW ZLWK support for audio up to 192Khz/24-bit, its sound quality is noticeably better than the Sonos and Yamaha streamers further up the list.

£1,000, ruarkaudio.com Like a mini system for the 21st century, Ruark’s R5 chucks in a CD player, DAB and FM radios and two extra inputs, including one preamped for use with a turntable. There’s even Bluetooth too.

BOWERS & WILKINS FORMATION DUO ÂŁ3,500, bowerswilkins.com These may look like Bender from Futurama but sound like God yodelling in your ear. The only wireless choice for any real audiophiles out there: highly specced, but not exactly affordable.

Best of the best

BLUETOOTH SPEAKERS

Find the lowest prices at: t3.com/bestbluetooth KANTO TUK

BLUETOOTH HEADPHONES

Find the lowest prices at: t3.com/bestwireless

AUDIO-TECHNICA ATH-M50XBT

£749, kantoaudio.com A stereo pair of attractive, compact bookshelf speakers. The left-hand one contains the connections and DACs and Class D DPSOLĆHUV DQG WKH ULJKW one is a wired slave.

SONOS MOVE

£179, audio-technica.com Long battery life and sound that’s closer to the more neutral tones of hiĆ FDQV WKRXJK VWLOO ZLWK D slight extra kick of bass), plus great comfort levels, make these ideal for losing yourself in music.

AKG Y50BT

£399, sonos.com

ULTIMATE EARS MEGABOOM 3 £169, ultimateears.com The best waterproof VSHDNHU Ã¥ LW HYHQ ćRDWV – offers 20 hours of battery life and a hefty sound, perfect for outdoor parties. It works great for kitchen audio duties, too.

Find the lowest prices at: t3.com/besttruewireless BEATS BY DR. DRE POWERBEATS PRO

£220, beatsbydre.com Marketed as workout buds, their audio quality is on par with any other true wireless headphones out there, with the exception of the much less comfortable Sony WF-1000XM3s.

JABRA ELITE 75T

£120, uk.akg.com A Sonos speaker that’s been ruggedised, and had a battery and Bluetooth added, so you can use it anywhere. Clever software automatically optimises the sound to its location.

TRUE WIRELESS HEADPHONES

£169, jabra.co.uk If you want an onear alternative to the Marshalls, these ’phones from AKG remain a great option. The sound is punchy and the styling is pretty cool without WU\LQJbWRR KDUG

OPTOMA NUFORCE BE SPORT 4 £100, optoma.co.uk Designed for the gym, you might think these wouldn’t sound very good. But you would be incorrect. They’re very musical with well-weighted bass and excellent noise isolation.

BLUESOUND PULSE FLEX 2I

SOUNDMAGIC E11BT

£299, bluesound.com More than a Bluetooth speaker, with Wi-Fi and Ethernet included this is more like a portable Sonos. It’s AirPlay 2 compatible, and works with streaming services and internet radio.

£69, soundmagicheadphones.com These are as good as buds that cost twice as much. Audio is brilliant, connectivity is rock solid, the necklace-style band VWD\V VWDEOH DQG WKH ĆW LV comfortable and secure enough for exercise.

If the Beats are just too bulbous for your tastes, \RX FDQèW ĆQG ĆQHU than these Jabra buds. Sound quality could be described as a little DUWLĆFLDO EXW LWèV DOVR pleasingly pumping.

CAMBRIDGE AUDIO MELOMANIA 1 £100, cambridgeaudio.com Less comfortable and more prone to falling out than their pricier rivals, these combine the sound quality of the Beats buds with the portability of the Jabras while costing less than either.

GOOGLE PIXEL BUDS £199, store.google.com Finally available in the UK, these have boomy but good sound quality DQG D YHU\ QLFH VHFXUH ĆW Pair with a Pixel phone for the best experience, but they’ll work with iPhones and others too.

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Best of the best

NOISE CANCELLING HEADPHONES

Find the lowest prices at: t3.com/bestnoisecancelling SONY WH-1000XM3 £329, sony.co.uk

With a 30-hour battery life, very quick charging, Google Assistant, amazing bass response and an incredibly clever noise cancellation processor, these are superb headphones.

BOWERS & WILKINS PX7 £275, bowers-wilkins.co.uk A bit dull-looking, but the audio quality and noise cancelling are extremely close to that of the Sonys. B&W’s usual H[FLWLQJ EXW ZHOO balanced, sound meets excellent noise cancelling.

SHURE AONIC 50

Find the lowest prices at: t3.com/bestinear

FLARE AUDIO FLARE PRO 2HD e ćDUHDXGLR FRP

These are both ZLUHG DQG ZLUHOHVV – the in-ear bit has a cable to a DAC box, ZKLFK \RX FDQ WKHQ play music through over Bluetooth or by plugging in. The sound is fantastic – huge and nuanced.

KLIPSCH T5M WIRED e NOLSVFK FRP 7KH ĆWWLQJ LV XQXVXDO but nonetheless immediately felt comfortable and solid. The audio is boosted, primped and pop-friendly, ZLWK SOHQW\ RI EDVV and a very lively and engaging sound.

FLARE AUDIO FLARES JET 3

£359, shure.co.uk The sound quality of the Aonic 50 should have purists purring. There isn’t an excess of bass and it delivers all WKHbVSDUNOLQJ GHWDLO and painstaking accuracy you FRXOGbZDQW

BOSE NOISE CANCELLING HEADPHONES 700 £299, bose.com Close rivals to the Sony and B&W options above, they’re less exciting, but also very easy to listen to for hours on end. If you are easy like Sunday morning, maybe these are your babies.

8 6 T3 N O V E M B ER 2 0 2 0

WIRED IN-EAR HEADPHONES

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Maintaining the quality of the Flares Pro (see Bluetooth headphones), removing the DAC element and thereby slashing the price, these audiophile inear headphones are a tremendous option.

SOUNDMAGIC E11C e VRXQGPDJLFKHDGSKRQHV FRP &DQ ZH UHDOO\ EH recommending a pair of headphones for XQGHU e " <HV ZH FDQ 7KH JURZQ XS sound quality and exemplary comfort RIbWKH F PDNH them the sonic bargain of the year.

WIRED OVER-EAR HEADPHONES

Find the lowest prices at: t3.com/bestoverear GRADO SR325E e JUDGRODEV FRP

When you factor MXVW KRZ JRRG WKHVH sound, they’re a bargain. In a quiet room, they sound as good as headphones WKDW FRVW ĆYH WLPHV more. They’re among WKH OHDNLHVW ZHèYH WULHG KRZHYHU

AUDIO TECHNICA ATH-A1000Z e DXGLRWHFKQLFD FRP Forget about MP3s or EDM: these headphones don’t ćDWWHU RU VDFULĆFH sound quality for bass. But if you give them a good amp and a good sound source they do incredible things.

AKG K52 e DNJ FRP

These have absolutely no right to sound half as good as they do. For at-home listening they offer a massive soundstage, impressive balance and a frankly ludicrous amount of detail for the dosh.

FOCAL STELLIA e IRFDO FRP

Carefully engineered to give you the kind of big soundscape expected of highend headphones, the audio quality is stunning. Detail and expansiveness at the high end is really impressive too.

Best of the best

LAPTOPS

Find the lowest prices at: t3.com/bestlaptop ASUS VIVOBOOK S15 £539, asus.com

2-IN-1 LAPTOPS

Find the lowest prices at: t3.com/best2in1 ASUS ZENBOOK FLIP 13 £800, asus.com

This slim and super light laptop hits a wonderful sweet spot. With an Intel Core i5, 4GB of RAM, a 256GB SSD and a touchscreen ScreenPad, it represents wonderful mid-range value.

DELL XPS 13 (2019)

The Zenbook Flip 13 might be the best laptop Asus has ever released. Tooled up with an eighthgen Intel Core processor, the tablet mode feels great to use, thanks to a responsive touchscreen.

MICROSOFT SURFACE BOOK 3

£1,194, dell.com The Dell XPS 13 is thinner and more powerful than ever. Up to 1TB of SSD storage, 16GB of RAM, a 4K screen and fast Intel chips help make it a top quality all-rounder.

HP STREAM 14

£1,439, microsoft.com Pull the screen away from the keyboard and it’s a tablet. Connect them for more graphics power and battery life. A premium, fantastically portable, and supremely versatile system.

MICROSOFT SURFACE GO

£200, HP.com Not the most powerful laptop money can buy, but truly astonishing value, the HP Stream 14 shows that you don’t have to spend a lot of money to get a strong computing experience.

£350, microsoft.com Microsoft’s 2-in-1 forays have been a huge success, revitalising the company’s image as a serious hardware maker. For a capable and portable laptop, it’s hard to do better.

APPLE MACBOOK AIR (2020)

ASUS FLIP 2-IN-1 CHROMEBOOK

£999, apple.com

£450, asus.com Updated for 2020 (including the keyboard) and no slouch in terms of power, this is a laptop built for everyday tasks. But it’ll look gorgeous on your desk or your lap while you’re doing them.

If you are shopping for a 2-in-1, hybrid laptop with anything but a premium budget we recommend ORRNLQJ DW WKH )OLS ĆUVW For the price it can’t be beaten as a 2-in-1 running ChromeOS.

TABLETS

Find the lowest prices at: t3.com/besttablet APPLE iPAD AIR (2019) From £479, apple.com With a sharp, vibrant 10.5-inch screen, Apple Pencil support, powerful A12 Bionic processor and thin, light body, this is a Pro in all but name, for a bargain price. The best all-rounder tablet.

APPLE iPAD PRO 12.9 (2018) From £969, apple.com The biggest iPad Pro is unbelievably powerful and slick, with an excellent screen, thin and compact design, great battery life and support for the Apple Pencil. Pricey, but worth it.

APPLE IPAD 10.2 (2019) From £349, apple.com A whole lot of Apple tablet for not much money, it offers Apple Pencil support and the latest iPadOS software. Perfect if you want top tablet performance on DbEXGJHW

SAMSUNG GALAXY TAB S6 £619, samsung.com 7KH ĆQHVW $QGURLG tablet, this delivers DbV\VWHP ZLWK D VKDUS OLED screen, S Pen stylus, excellent audio credentials, powerful internals, and a neat laptop-aping DeX mode.

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Best of the best

GAMING LAPTOPS

Find the lowest prices at: t3.com/bestgaming ASUS ROG ZEPHYRUS G14 £1,099, asus.com

GAMING HEADSETS

Find the lowest prices at: t3.com/bestheadset STEELSERIES ARCTIS PRO WIRELESS £299, steelseries.com

A game-changer that delivers buckets of performance despite being compact and light. It does this thanks to its use of AMD’s hot new Ryzen CPUs and Nvidia’s RTX b*38

ASUS ZEPHYRUS S GX701 £2,500, asus.com

LUCIDSOUND LS50X

GIGABYTE AORUS 17X £3,000, gigabyte.com

8 8 T3 N O V E M B ER 2 0 2 0

EIZO COLOREDGE CG319X

A hugely impressive new entry as we enter the era of the next-gen consoles, with an all-round package – style, setup, audio – that’s YHU\ GLIĆFXOW WR EHDW %XLOG TXDOLW\ LV ĆUVW rate too.

Equipped with a raft of high-end features, this screen is ideal for high-end photo and video work, as well as general usage DQG JDPLQJ 6HULRXV hardware commands a serious premium price, however.

SAMSUNG U28E590D

£129.99, turtlebeach.com Partners an understated and mature aesthetic with high-end build quality and top-rate audio reproduction. Allows audiophilelevel customisation through the Control 6WXGLR DSS

£279, samsung.com/uk

LOGITECH G635 7.1 LIGHTSYNC

BENQ EW3280U

£90, logitech.com It’s hard to imagine any more powerful components getting packed into a gaming laptop, which is why WKH *LJDE\WH $RUXV 17x is so big and heavy, and needs two power cables to run.

A plucky display sporting an LPSUHVVLYH +'5 rating and a 3,840 x 2,160 resolution. It’s also shockingly affordable, when you consider it’s a 31.5inch display with 4K DQG +'5 VXSSRUW

£3,989, ezioglobal.com

TURTLE BEACH ELITE ATLAS AERO A lower spec is UHćHFWHG LQ WKH lower price. With D &RUH *% RI 5$0 *% 66' plus a 1TB hard drive and a Nvidia *H)RUFH *7; 7L *% LWèV VWLOO D potent performer.

PHILIPS BRILLIANCE 328P

7KH 6WHHO6HULHV Arctis Pro Wireless is simply awesome. The dual-wireless audio system that allows for ERWK *+] and Bluetooth simultaneously is especially fantastic.

Crammed with powerful components, this really looks the part, and will play any game out there without breaking a sweat. If you’ve got the cash, then it’s worth it.

£750, acer.com

Find the lowest prices at: t3.com/best4kmonitor

£420, philips.co.uk

£249, lucidsound.com

ACER NITRO 5

4K MONITORS

Delivers a super-fast 1ms response time, 170-degree viewing angles and a 1000:1 contrast ratio. You don’t get quite as much size as other models, but it cuts very few corners hitting its low price.

£699, benq.com 6XUURXQG VRXQG audio, Lightsync for illuminating your play space, plenty of features and buttons and compatibility ZLWK 3& 36 ;ER[ One, and Nintendo 6ZLWFKð ZKDW PRUH could you want?

Offering something for creatives, gamers, casual users and professionals for a very reasonable price, this is perfect if you want your 4K display to wear a lot of different hats through the week.

Best of the best

DRONES

Find the lowest prices at: t3.com/bestdrone DJI MAVIC MINI

ACTION CAMERAS

Find the lowest prices at: t3.com/bestactioncam

Find the lowest prices at: t3.com/bestcheapaction

GOPRO HERO8 BLACK

GOPRO HERO7 WHITE

£379, gopro.com

£369, dji.com

£179, gopro.com GoPro’s latest sees XSGDWHV HYHU\ZKHUH Four virtual lenses get \RX WKH LGHDO ĆHOG RI YLHZ for what you’re shooting, and next-gen video VWDELOLVDWLRQ NHHSVbLW VWDEOH DQG FULVS

$UJXDEO\ WKH ĆUVW KLJK quality camera-carrying drone for the masses, the Mini is surprisingly fast, nimble and stable LQ ćLJKW DQG ZHLJKV J shy of the CAA’s 250g UHJLVWUDWLRQ UHJXODWLRQ

DJI MAVIC AIR 2

GOPRO HERO7 BLACK

£769, dji.com

£319, gopro.com Everything about this GURQH VKRXWV %8< 0( The camera is a cracker capable of shooting 4K footage at 60fps, while a completely redesigned controller is another PDMRU LPSURYHPHQW

RYZE TELLO

The waterproof Hero7 Black makes capturing pro-looking shots easier, thanks to HyperSmooth HOHFWURQLF VWDELOLVDWLRQ 4K image quality is excellent, and there’s VOLFN ISV UHFRUGLQJ

DJI OSMO ACTION

£89, ryzerobotics.com This is a bargain – it uses '-, WHFK LQVLGH IRU ćLJKW stability, has a camera that takes HD video or 5MP snaps, and hovers VWLOO IRU VHOĆHV ,W FDQ ć\ indoors or out, though is WRR OLJKW IRU ZLQG\ GD\V

£329, dji.com/uk With a cool front display but missing SuperView mode and live streaming, DJI’s cam is ideal for extreme sports types DQG YORJJHUV ,PDJH stabilisation is excellent, DQG LWèV HDV\ WR XVH

DJI MAVIC 2 PRO

GOPRO MAX

£1,120, dji.com

£479, gopro.com This pro-spec drone is almost impossible to crash, and has a stunning three-axis gimbalmounted Hasselblad FDPHUD $V URFN VROLG DQG FRQĆGHQFH LQVSLULQJ DV ZHèYH FRPH WR H[SHFW

CHEAP ACTION CAMERAS The wallet-friendly Hero7 White borrows premium features from WKH +HUR %ODFN ,GHDO for part-time adrenaline junkies needing a simple HD camera that shoots <RX7XEH UHDG\ IRRWDJH

AKASKO BRAVE 7 LE £140, akasotech.com 7KH %UDYH /( ĆWV QLFHO\bLQ WKH SDOP RI \RXUbKDQG :KLOH LWV headline feature is a front-facing screen, it also sports a number of features only usually IRXQG RQ IDQFLHU PRGHOV

AKASO V50 X £99, akasotech.com 4K at 30fps for under £100, plus two-inch touchscreen and image stabilisation? This is SURSHU EDQJ IRU EXFN ,W comes with accessories, including waterproof KRXVLQJ DQG UHPRWH

YI 4K Addresses the issues that marred GoPro’s original 360-camera – the Fusion – and boasts some of the Hero8 Black’s excellent video capture facilities and LQWXLWLYH XVHU LQWHUIDFH

£119, yitechnology.com Captures high-quality footage even in low light, thanks to an LCE sevenlayer all-glass lens and Sony Exmor-R IMX377 VHQVRU ,W VKRRWV . DW 30fps; buy a separate FDVH IRU ZDWHUSURRĆQJ

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Best of the best

DSLR CAMERAS

Find the lowest prices at: t3.com/bestdslr NIKON D850

MIRRORLESS CAMERAS

Find the lowest prices at: t3.com/bestmirrorless NIKON Z50

ÂŁ3,299, nikon.co.uk

Find the lowest prices at: t3.com/bestcompact SONY RX100 VII

£849, nikon.co.uk With a highresolution 45.4 megapixel sensor, 4K video capture, a 153-point AF system, and a sturdy body, you’ll never be disappointed with what the D850 can create for you.

COMPACT CAMERAS

ÂŁ1,099, sony.co.uk All the best bits from the Z range shrunk into a more affordable package. A smaller (APS-C) 20.9MP sensor means a smaller overall body, ideal for travel and everyday shots.

For the best image quality in a pocketfriendly body, look here. The RX100 VII continues to build on Sony’s reputation for high-quality premium compacts, and does so without breaking the bank.

NIKON D780

FUJIFILM X-T3

FUJIFILM X100V

ÂŁ2,199, nikon.com

e IXMLĆOP FR XN

e IXMLĆOP FR XN

The D780 is, in many ways, a Nikon Z6 (mirrorless) camera inside a larger DSLR body. Thanks to this, we’ve got room for dual memory card slots and a lot more direct control dials and buttons.

NIKON D500

CANON EOS RP

ÂŁ1,699, nikon.co.uk

SONY A6600

ÂŁ799, nikon.co.uk

ÂŁ1,399, sony.com A chunky and nicely textured body makes the D7500 a good camera to hold and use, with some modern touches like a fully articulating touchscreen to satisfy those used WRbVPDUWSKRQHV

£629, panasonic.com Excellent full-frame image quality, but with a few drawbacks, such as a low frame rate (5fps). There’s also the annoying problem of there still being scant native RF lenses available.

NIKON D7500

A beautifully retro design mixed with a host of advanced features, this, like its predecessors, sports a DSLR-sized (APS-C) sensor, which is paired with D PP I Ć[HG length lens.

PANASONIC TZ200

ÂŁ1,299, canon.co.uk This solidly built camera is the SHUIHFWbFKRLFH IRU those who like to shoot a little bit of everything, thanks to a brilliant autofocus system and glorious image quality from its 20MP sensor.

9 0 T3 N O V E M B ER 2 0 2 0

An APS-C sensor means you don’t have to lug around heavy lenses and accessories but still leaves you with cracking image quality. The X-T3 has impressive 4K video capabilities too.

This might be the ideal travel companion, with a versatile zoom lens up to 15x, and a fantastic one-inch sensor that captures bright, sharp images. It’s also stylish and pocket-friendly.

CANON G5X MARK II ÂŁ849, canon.co.uk 6RQ\èV ODWHVW ćDJVKLS APS-C model delivers a lot of JUHDW VSHFLĆFDWLRQV on paper, such as 11fps shooting, 4K video recording and speedy focusing. Shame the handling LV ĆGGO\ WKRXJK

This full-blown overhaul of the G5 line brings a oneinch 20MP sensor and a 5x optical zoom, plus 4K video recording, USB-C battery charging and burst shooting up to 30fps. Versatile.

Best of the best

SAT-NAVS

DASH CAMS

Find the lowest prices at: t3.com/bestsatnav

Find the lowest prices at: t3.com/bestdashcam

TOMTOM GO PREMIUM

NEXTBASE 622GW

£290, tomtom.com This state-of-the-art sat QDY OLQNV ZLWK ,)777 VR \RX FDQ FRQQHFW WR KRPH GHYLFHV LQWHUDFW ZLWK SHUVRQDO GLJLWDO DVVLVWDQWV JHW QRWLĆFDWLRQV DQG VKDUH ORFDWLRQ DQG DUULYDO GDWD

GARMIN DRIVESMART 61 LMT-S £209, garmin.com

£250, nextbase.com 7KH ODWHVW GDVK FDP from Nextbase boasts much-improved video TXDOLW\ LPSURYHG VWDELOLVDWLRQ DQG WKH LQFOXVLRQ RI VRPH UDWKHU FOHYHU :KDW :RUGV JHRORFDWLRQ VHUYLFHV

GARMIN DASH CAM 66W £169, garmin.com

7KLV VOHHN VDW QDY KDV substance to match its VW\OH ZLWK D ELJ GLVSOD\ OLIHWLPH WUDIĆF DQG maps (for Europe) and XVHIXO SRLQWV RI LQWHUHVW LQIRUPDWLRQ FRXUWHV\ RIb7ULS$GYLVRU

TOMTOM GO 6200 Packed with features EXW QHYHU ĆGGO\ DQG ZLWK *RRJOH DQG 6LUL VXSSRUW WKLV LV D UHDOO\ JRRG PRELOH FRPSDQLRQ WRR 7KH SULFH LQFOXGHV OLIHWLPH XSGDWHV YLD Wi-Fi for most features.

VANMOOF S3 £1,789, vanmoof.com This Dutch hipster brand KDV WDNHQ WKH 6 ZKLFK ZDV H[FHOOHQW DQG PDGH LW EHWWHU 2K DQG LWèV NQRFNHG RYHU e RIIbLWV SULFH +RZ FRXOG we not make it our best HOHFWULF ELNH"

GTECH EBIKE CITY

7KLV IDQWDVWLF OLWWOH FDP HDUQV LWV SODFH RQ WKLV OLVW ZLWK JRRG LPDJH TXDOLW\ H[WUD IHDWXUHV LQFOXGLQJ *36 DQG VSHHG FDPHUD ZDUQLQJV DQG D TXLWH attractive design. Video LV S LQ D r DQJOH

£249, thinkware.com :LWK DQ DOPRVW LQYLVLEOH GHVLJQ WLPH ODSVH recording and a great QLJKW PRGH WKLV LV D JRRG VWHDOWK\ RSWLRQ LI \RXèUH worried more about YDQGDOLVP RU WKHIW WKDQ \RXU IHOORZ GULYHUV

GARMIN DRIVELUXE 51 LMT-D

NEXTBASE 522GW

£329, garmin.com

£149, nextbase.com $ PDVVLYHO\ LPSUHVVLYH GDVK FDP WKDW QRW RQO\ QDLOV WKH EDVLFV VXFK DV recording outstanding LPDJH TXDOLW\ EXW RIIHUV features not seen before LQ D GDVK FDP OLNH $OH[D DQG (PHUJHQF\ 626

$ SHWLWH FP VFUHHQ LV JRRG IRU VPDOOHU FDUV EXW WKLV QDY LV VWLOO SDFNHG ZLWK IHDWXUHV LQFOXGLQJ %OXHWRRWK :L )L VSHHG DOHUWV WUDIĆF EDWWHU\ EDFNXS and European maps.

Find the lowest prices at: t3.com/bestebike

£995, gtech.co.uk

THINKWARE F800 PRO

£299, tomtom.com

ELECTRIC BIKES

:D\ FKHDSHU DQG VLPSOHU WKDQ PRVW RI WKH ELNHV KHUH DQG GHVSLWH EHLQJ \HDUV ROG QRZ LWèV VWLOO WKH EHVW FKHDS HELNH \RXbFDQ EX\ DQG LGHDO for beginners or those on a budget.

BROMPTON ELECTRIC £2,595, brompton.com (ELNHV DUHQèW MXVW DERXW WHFK 7KH\ VKRXOG EH fun too. The Brompton LV D KRRW DQG LI \RXèUH D FRPPXWHU WKHUHèV QR EHWWHU LW PXQFKHV PLOHV DQG WKHQ IROGV WR DQ LQFUHGLEO\ WLQ\ VL]H

ORBEA GAIN F40 £1,799, orbea.com Designed to act as \RXUbGDLO\ ULGH ZLWK LWV UDF\ DOXPLQLXP IUDPH FDUERQ IRUNV DQG SRZHUIXO GLVF EUDNHV PDNLQJ D VROLG FDVH IRU UDFNLQJ XS WKH PLOHV GXULQJ \RXU GRZQWLPH

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Best of the best

SMART SPEAKERS

Find the lowest prices at: t3.com/bestsmart GOOGLE NEST HUB MAX £219, store.google.com Wins our 2020 T3 award as the best smart speaker for doing absolutely everything. You get a crisp 10in screen, a VSHDNHU WKDW FDQ ĆOO D room, a front camera and of course *RRJOHb$VVLVWDQW

AMAZON ECHO PLUS £139, amazon.co.uk

SMART BULBS

Find the lowest prices at: t3.com/bestbulb PHILIPS HUE

LIFX If you fancy a Hue V\VWHP EXW GRQèW want to spend so much, LIFX has a strong product range and integrates with your favourite personal digital assistant. Philips still wins, but only just.

£50, amazon.co.uk The latest refresh of the Dot ups the audio quality and adds options like a clock-packing bedroom version DQGbD VQD]]\ NLGVè HGLWLRQ WRR $Q excellent entry point to smart speakers.

9 2 T3 N O V E M B ER 2 0 2 0

7DGR LV YHU\ VRFLDEOH it works with 95% of the systems out WKHUH ,WèV ćH[LEOH clever and supports a wide range of accessories too. Price cuts have made it even PRUHbHQWLFLQJ

NEST LEARNING THERMOSTAT

From £13, ikea.com The Sonos One is a superb standalone speaker with LQWHJUDWHG $OH[D EXWbWKH UHDO VHOOLQJ SRLQW LV LWV ćH[LELOLW\ use it as part of a stereo pair or in a multi-room Sonos audio system.

AMAZON ECHO DOT

This cheaper Nest PRGHO GRHVQèW ĆW DV much information on its screen and GRHVQèW IHHO DV SUHPLXP EXW WKDWèV it. Same algorithm, VDPH $OH[D DQG Google Home compatibility.

£99, tado.com

IKEA TRÃ…DFRI

£199, sonos.com

£180, nest.com/uk

TADO SMART THERMOSTAT

From £19, lifx.com

SONOS ONE

Find the lowest prices at: t3.com/bestthermostat NEST THERMOSTAT E

From £59, philips.co.uk Hue dominates the smart lighting sector IRU JRRG UHDVRQ LWèV a superb system with the widest range of bulbs and a simple, useful app. Rivals may be cheaper but WKH\ FDQèW FRPSHWH ZLWK +XHèV YDULHW\

Thanks to its integrated Zigbeecompliant smart home hub, the Plus is a great smart home starter. Never pay WKH 553 WKRXJK $PD]RQ GLVFRXQWV Echos every time LWbKDV D VDOH

SMART THERMOSTATS

£220, nest.com/uk Nest made smart thermostats sexy and this third-gen model ORRNV JUHDW ,WèV simple to use with good Google Home DQG $PD]RQ (FKR integration, but a tad pricey, especially with installation.

,NHDèV =LJEHH compatible system GRHVQèW KDYH WKH range of Hue, but LI \RX SUL]H FRQWURO over colour options LWèV VWHOODU YDOXH IRU money and has some great controllers DQGbGLPPHUV

TP-LINK KASA From £14, kasasmart.com TP-Link has a limited range of products, DQG \RX FDQèW GR quite as much with WKHP EXW ZHèYH taken a shine to them (pun intended) DV WKH\èUH FKHDS DQG you can get them working very easily.

HIVE HEATING CONTROL £179, hivehome.com ,PDJLQH %ULWLVK *DV LQ çH[FLWLQJè VKRFNHU +LYH LV JUHDW LWèV affordable, works well, and is part of a larger smart home system that includes bulbs and security options. This is an ideal way to jump in.

Best of the best

SMART PLUGS

Find the lowest prices at: t3.com/bestplug

TP-LINK KASA MINI KP105 £19, kasasmart.com $ UHOLDEOH VPDUW SOXJ WKDWbGRHVQèW LQFOXGH HQHUJ\ PRQLWRULQJ EXW it’s happy to work with smart assistants, the TP-Link Kasa app is also much improved on recent generations.

HIVE ACTIVE PLUG

SECURITY CAMERAS

Find the lowest prices at: t3.com/bestsecurity ARLO PRO 3

TP-LINK KASA SMART WI-FI POWER STRIP KP303 £30, kasasmart.com With three smart outlets, each with independent control, as well as a pair of USB ports for charging and power, the Kasa Smart Wi-Fi Power Strip KP303 delivers SOHQW\ RI ćH[LELOLW\.

£550 (two cameras), arlo.com If you can live without the 4K resolution of the Arlo Ultra, then the $UOR 3UR LV MXVW DERXW WKH EHVW KRPH VHFXULW\ FDPHUD \RX FDQ EX\ ULJKW QRZ DQG LWèV DYDLODEOH DW D YHU\ UHDVRQDEOH SULFH

£180, en-uk.ring.com Pretty much any feature you could ask for is included, such as night vision, motion detection alerts, two-way audio, and 1080p video you can YLHZ RQ $OH[D GHYLFHV with screens.

NEOS SMARTCAM £29.99, neos.co.uk Offers 90% of what you need from an indoor VHFXULW\ FDPHUD EXW DW less than a quarter of the price of others. If you’re RQ WKH IHQFH DERXW getting a smart camera, WU\LQJ WKLV LV D QR EUDLQHU

PHILIPS HUE SMART PLUG

ARLO ULTRA

£30, philips.com

From £450 (one camera), arlo.com While it may look similar to its competitors, it’s when you open the Arlo app that the quality really shows. It’s the sharpest security camera we’ve seen in action, and LV KLJKO\ FRQĆJXUDEOH

If you’re already all-in on Hue, hooking one of these up to a Hue Bridge JHWV \RX $OH[D *RRJOH Assistant and HomeKit support, making it MXVW DERXW WKH PRVW FRPSDWLEOH SOXJ JRLQJ

Find the lowest prices at: t3.com/bestrobotvac iROBOT ROOMBA I7+

RING STICK UP CAM

£39, hivehome.com Similar to Belkin, Hive can turn sockets on/ off via your phone, and create schedules. It DOVR ZRUNV ZLWK $OH[D <RX QHHG D +LYH +XE (£80) to use the Active 3OXJ bWKRXJK

ROBOT VACUUMS

£1,199, irobot.co.uk The i7+ is the i7 with an DGGLWLRQDO GLUW ELQ LQ WKH EDVH DQG DQ H[WUD e on the price. It’s worth it if you hate emptying WKH ELQ EXW DQ\ L LV D JUHDW FOHDQLQJ URERW WKDW learns its way around.

ROBOROCK S5 £459, en.roborock.com At less than £500, this LV H[FHSWLRQDO YDOXH especially for a cleaner with navigation that’s DUJXDEO\ EHWWHU WKDQ the i7. It gets regular updates, and a new S6 version, is coming soon.

NEATO BOTVAC D7 CONNECTED £799, neatorobotics.com $Q H[FHOOHQW URER cleaner, with a range of smart vacuuming and mapping features. 5REXVW VXFWLRQ WXUER mode and an improved EUXVK V\VWHP KHOS deliver a powerful clean.

EUFY BOOSTIQ ROBOVAC 30C £270, eufylife.com You’ll need to fence RII REVWDFOHV IURP WKH 30C, as it doesn’t use DQ LQWHUQDO PDS EXW IRU the price this is a solid, if slightly inelegant, FOHDQLQJ ERW Ã¥ HVSHFLDOO\ LI \RXèYH JRW KDUG ćRRUV

T3 DIGITAL: THE CHEAPEST WAY TO READ

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Best of the best

CORDLESS VACUUMS

Find the lowest prices at: t3.com/bestcordlessvac DYSON V11 ABSOLUTE £599, dyson.co.uk

WASHING MACHINES

Find the lowest prices at: t3.com/bestwashing AEG 9000 SERIES L9FEC966R £899, aeg.co.uk

The high-torque head, well-sized bin and powerful suction make this the top sucker to get, and worth the ‘Dyson tax’. The Auto power mode works well, balancing battery and suction nicely.

SAMSUNG JET 90 PRO £600, samsung.com Matches the Dyson in practically every way, and will almost certainly end up being cheaper. It comes with a proper stand to hold and recharge it, and has attachments for IRXUbWRROV

VAX ONEPWR BLADE 4 £220, vax.co.uk

AEG delivers superb ćH[LEOH FOHDQLQJ effective water softening and a steam-cleaning feature to reduce your ironing pile. ,WèV TXLHW HIĆFLHQW and environmentally friendly, too.

BOSCH SERIE 6 i-DOS WAT286H0GB £599, bosch-home.co.uk Smooth, near-silent when running, and designed with appconnected features to make laundry easy. The i-Dos function holds detergent and softener for up to 20 washes – one less thing to worry about!

BEKO WTK104121W £279, beko.co.uk

This new cordless Blade from Vax is a lot cheaper than the Dyson V11, but there’s remarkably little to tell between them in terms of cleaning power. The Vax makes a bigger noise though.

SHARK ANTI HAIR WRAP IZ251UKT £449, sharkvacuum.co.uk Comes with tech that prevents long hair and threads wrapping around the cleaning roller. It has excellent suction and folds in half for easy storage. Make a beeline for this SURĆFLHQW FRQWHQGHU

94 T3 N O V E M B ER 2 0 2 0

DISHWASHERS

Find the lowest prices at: t3.com/bestdishwasher

BOSCH SMS67MW00G PERFECTDRY £629, bosch-home.co.uk A top-notch dishwasher that uses zeolite, a magical mineral that turns moisture into heat, in this case to dry dishes without using extra electricity. And by dry we mean bone dry.

BEKO DEN59420D £400, beko.com There have been ‘smart’ dishwashers before, but Beko KDVbQRZ DGGHG Wi-Fi to the DEN59420DX freestanding dishwasher without charging a big premium for WKHbSULYLOHJH

MIELE G7150 SCVI £1,249, miele.co.uk

A safe bet for a tight budget, this boasts a huge 10kg drum capacity replete with large 34cm portal, 1,400rpm spin, an HQHUJ\ HIĆFLHQW motor, quick wash programs and an A+++ energy rating.

LG F4V910WTS

If you manage to accumulate dirty dishes at an alarming rate then this speedy GLVKZDVKHU ĆWV WKH bill. The design is also perfect if you want a machine that’ll keep D ORZ SURĆOH DQG MXVW get on with it.

BOSCH SERIE 6 SMV68MD02G

£750, lg.com This 10kg drum runs like a dream thanks to the direct drive motor, which means it’s quiet too. There’s an app, Alexa and Google Assistant connectivity, and TurboWash tech that cuts water usage.

A classic Bosch dishwasher, essentially the #1 entry without PerfectDry. It projects the remaining time for each programme on WKH ćRRU DQG LW VXUH does wash dishes.

Best of the best

COFFEE MACHINES

FRIDGES

Find the lowest prices at: t3.com/bestcoffee

Find the lowest prices at: t3.com/bestfridge

SAGE BY HESTON BLUMENTHAL THE ORACLE TOUCH £1,999, sageappliances.com The Oracle Touch looks like a barista-operated machine, it produces FRIIHH OLNH RQH \HW DOO the clever stuff – dosing, tamping, extraction, milk WH[WXULQJ LV GRQH IRU \RX 1RW FKHDS Ã¥ EXW DPD]LQJ

DELONGHI LA SPECIALISTA EC9335.M

MIELE K 28202 D WS £875, miele.co.uk

SAGE BY HESTON BLUMENTHAL BARISTA TOUCH £999, sageappliances.com Cheaper, faster and with better frothed milk than WKH 2UDFOH bWKLV PD\ EH WKH EHWWHU EX\ IRU PRVW unless being unable to make coffee and steam milk at the same time is DbGHDO EUHDNHU

Find the lowest prices at: t3.com/bestoven NEFF N 70 B57CR22N0B £789, neff.co.uk The unique Slide and Hide door is brilliant, the WRXFKVFUHHQ LV KDQG\ and the oven’s no slouch: LW HQDEOHV \RX WR FRRN multiple dishes without cross-contamination IURP VWURQJ ćDYRXUV

,I \RX KDYH WKH FDVK DQG 60cm of space with no cupboards above, this cooler should be top RI \RXU OLVW ,WV FOHYHU cooling keeps foodstuffs IUHVK ZLWKRXW KXPLGLW\ DQG LWèV FDYHUQRXV

LIEBHERR TP 1760 PREMIUM

£720, delonghi.com 6ROLGO\ EXLOW XVLQJ swathes of brushed stainless steel and good TXDOLW\ SODVWLFV WKLV looks just like a small version of a professional FDI« HVSUHVVR PDFKLQH '\QDPLWH FRIIHH WRR

OVENS

£489, home.leibherr.com $UJXDEO\ WKH RQO\ $ rated under-counter PRGHO RQ WKH 8. PDUNHW Despite its diminutive exterior, inside it’s like the Albert Hall, a chilled Tardis with two separate VDODG YHJ GUDZHUV

BOSCH SERIE 2 CLASSIXX KSV29NW3PG £643, bosch-home.co.uk Looking for a mid-sized larder fridge that doesn’t cost the Earth, provides SOHQW\ RI IRRG VWRUDJH VSDFH FRROV TXLFNO\ DQG is cheap to run? Consider WKLV HIĆFLHQW DQG ZHOO PDGH %RVFK

GAGGIA VELASCA

SIEMENS IQ500 KU15RAFF0G

£466, gaggiadirect.com The espresso and lungo that the Velasca make are as good as DQ\WKLQJ \RX FDQ EX\ LQ PRVW FRIIHH VKRSV ,W SURGXFHV D UHDVVXULQJO\ old-fashioned, intense ćDYRXU IRU \RXU EUHZ

£499, siemens.com 7KH KXJHO\ LPSUHVVLYH Siemens iQ500, with 137L of storage, is a JUHDW RSWLRQ LI \RXèUH looking to have a built-in IULGJH WKDW FDQ ĆW HLWKHU under a worktop or in an H\H OHYHO FRPSDUWPHQW

AEG STEAMBAKE BPS355020M £450, aeg.com Not just for baking, this is a great oven for just DERXW HYHU\WKLQJ ,W KDV a massive temperature range of 40ºC to 300ºC, with the option of using grill and oven VLPXOWDQHRXVO\

ZANUSSI ZOB31471XK £260, zanussi.com A stonking performer IRUbWKH SULFH 7KLV RYHQ KHDWV XS UDSLGO\ DERXW nine minutes to reach 180ºC, topping out at 275ºC) and its grill is RQH RI WKH YHU\ EHVW RXWbWKHUH

AEG DCE731110M £800, aeg.com The bottom oven has 61 litres of room for large VWXII OLNH WXUNH\V DQG DQ\WKLQJ HOVH \RX ZDQW while the top 43 litre oven also doubles as a grill big enough to brown VL[ VOLFHV RI :DUEXUWRQV

NEVER MISS YOUR NEXT LIFE-CHANGING GADGET! THE BEST TECH YOU NEED TO KNOW, DELIVERED RIGHT TO YOUR DOOR bit.ly/t3xmssub

Best of the best

ELECTRIC SHAVERS

Find the lowest prices at: t3.com/bestshaver BRAUN SERIES 9 9390CC £250, braun.com

ELECTRIC TOOTHBRUSHES

Find the lowest prices at: t3.com/besttoothbrush

PHILIPS SONICARE DIAMONDCLEAN SONIC £145, philips.co.uk

Given that the trend is to shave less nowadays, we recommend the Braun Series 9 foil shaver over Philips’ almost equally impressive efforts. It is slightly better on longer stubble.

PHILIPS SERIES 9000 PRESTIGE £300, philips.co.uk

ORAL-B PRO 2 2500 This only has two cleaning modes and no ‘smart’ functionality to speak of, but ask yourself… do you really care? It has a timer, pressure VHQVRU DQG H[FHOOHQW rotary cleaning.

PHILIPS SONICARE DIAMONDCLEAN 9000 £170, philips.co.uk

This new offering from Braun, with three foil heads, is an absolute cracker in every respect. It shaves as close as a wet razor, only in half the time. And that’s QRbH[DJJHUDWLRQ

PHILIPS SERIES 9000 S9211/26 £149, philips.co.uk

96 T3 N O V E M B ER 2 0 2 0

The best trimmer for general beard maintenance, this has a largely VXSHUćXRXV ODVHU (for ultra-straight edging, supposedly) but also boasts WKHbYHU\ EHVW EODGHV LQ WKH EXVLQHVV b

PANASONIC ER-GD60 e bSDQDVRQLF FR XN

For slightly longer beards, this is the one to go for. Its unusual, ‘side-on’ cutting action, where you pull the shaver through your hirsute tresses more like a comb, soon becomes second nature.

PHILIPS ONEBLADE PRO £50, philips.co.uk The best trimmer for those with sensitive skin, this uses innovative OneBlade technology. It’s good for both your face and your downstairs, although you may wish to change heads in between.

$ UHĆQHPHQW even over the DiamondClean Sonic, the 9000 adds an app that will let you know if you’re not brushing frequently enough, and when the head needs changing.

ORAL-B GENIUS 9000 £85, oralb.co.uk

Much cheaper than the Prestige, but with similar superb shaving performance. It doesn’t have the anti-friction coating, and is less adept at longer stubble, but LVbVWLOO EULOOLDQW

PHILIPS SERIES 9000 BT9297/13

This is a great toothbrush with H[FHOOHQW FOHDQLQJ power, and an attractive but easily smashed glass charger. It also comes with a handy travel case with 86%bSRZHU

The second best shaver has a silly RRP (£430!) but is available for around £300. It’s good for sensitive skin, mows long stubble and is really close to the shave you get from traditional razors.

£165, braun.com

Find the lowest prices at: t3.com/besttrimmer

£80, philips.co.uk

£35, oralb.co.uk

BRAUN SERIES 7 70-N7200CC

BEARD TRIMMERS

BRAUN BT3040 £26, braun.com

7KLV LV DQ H[WUHPHO\ good electric toothbrush with a rather pointless smartphone app, but it does a great job of cleaning and comes ZLWK IRXU åbIRXU å brush heads, so it’s a bit of a bargain.

This is a bargain all-rounder, offering 39 precision length options with its combs, plus you get a Gillette razor included for edging. The battery life isn’t great, but otherwise this is a top deal.

Best of the best

FITNESS TRACKERS

Find the lowest prices at: t3.com/bestďŹ tness FITBIT CHARGE 4 e ĆWELW FRP

RUNNING WATCHES

Find the lowest prices at: t3.com/bestrunningwatch GARMIN FORERUNNER 245 MUSIC

A big step forward for Fitbit, adding features such as GPS and a QHZ H[HUFLVH WUDFNHU DORQJVLGH WKH VWHS counting. There are SOHQWLIXO VOHHS WUDFNLQJ features too.

FITBIT VERSA 2

e JDUPLQ FRP 7KH XOWLPDWH SKRQH free GPS running watch IRU WKH SULFH FRQVFLRXV runner. The battery can last up to seven days in smartwatch mode and VL[bKRXUV LQ *36 PRGH with music.

GARMIN FORERUNNER 945

e ĆWELW FRP

e JDUPLQ FRP 7KH EHVW ĆWQHVV WUDFNHU FXP VPDUWZDWFK \RX FDQ buy. It has Alexa built in, its heartbeat and step counting are reasonably accurate, and it’s been well designed in terms of ORRNV DQG XVDELOLW\

GARMIN VIVOSPORT e JDUPLQ FRP

Garmin’s rival to the Charge 2 boasts GPS for a similar price, but it also has a dodgy interface and some pointless extra features. The core functionality is good, and it’s waterproof.

The Forerunner 945 KDV UHWDLQHG WKH ORRN and feel of the 935, but inside it has been completely revamped. There are new GPS chips DQG KHDUW UDWH VHQVRUV SOXV RQ ERDUG PDSV

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Find the lowest prices at: t3.com/bestrunningphones BEATS BY DRE POWERBEATS e EHDWVE\GUH FRP XN Powerbeats (without the ‘Pro’ bit) are almost ÂŁ100/$100 cheaper and they sound identical – which is to say superb IRU ZRUNRXW PXVLF $QG come to that, superb for QRQ ZRUNRXW PXVLF

BEATS POWERBEATS PRO e EHDWVE\GUH FRP XN These true wireless powerhouses absolutely crush their predecessors when it comes to quality of sound and security RI ĆW $OO EXW LPSRVVLEOH to accidentally dislodge from your ears.

SOUNDCORE SPIRIT SPORTS BY ANKER e DQNHU FRP

$ SHFXOLDU ćDJVKLS smartwatch, this has some unique features that might arouse the runners out there, especially the running power metric, measured on the wrist.

POLAR IGNITE

GARMIN FORERUNNER 45

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Though mainly aimed at runners, the Ignite can WUDFN RWKHU DFWLYLWLHV and monitor your sleep and heart rate too. You get instant stats after exercise, with deeper analysis in the app.

RUNNING HEADPHONES

Our favourite budget UXQQLQJ KHDGSKRQHV ĆW brilliantly and are very ZDWHUSURRI DQG VZHDW proof. Sound quality is acceptable rather than astonishing, but we’ll forgive that.

JABRA ELITE ACTIVE 65T e MDEUD FR XN

7KLV ORZHU PLG UDQJH watch from Garmin gets the basics right: it has an optical heart rate sensor, EXLOW LQ *36 VXSSRUWV VPDUW QRWLĆFDWLRQV and the Garmin Coach feature too.

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7KHVH DUH WKH EHVW ĆWWLQJ WUXH ZLUHOHVV EXGV we’ve tested. They’re particularly good for YLJRURXV ZRUNRXWV DQG don’t suffer too badly from wind noise when you’re out for a run.

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LUXURIES Exclusive gifts to seriously spoil yourself

BA NG & OLU F S EN B EO GR A M 4000C R E C R E ATE D LI M I TE D E DI TION The Venn diagram of turntable owners and fans of classic audio equipment is essentially a perfect circle. Which means Bang & Olufsen is likely on to a winner with the Beogram 4000c Recreated Limited Edition, its UHMXYHQDWLRQ RI LWV LFRQLF V WXUQWDEOH )RU WKH ĆUVW H[DPSOH RI LWV &ODVVLFV LQLWLDWLYH % 2 KDV WUDFNHG GRZQ 95 pre-owned Beogram 4000s and upgraded them with the latest technology. First off, it’s added a highSHUIRUPDQFH VW\OXV WR WKH RULJLQDOèV WDQJHQWLDO WRQH DUP EULQJLQJ VW FHQWXU\ DXGLR TXDOLW\ WR WKH ĆUVW WRQH DUP RI LWV W\SH 2Q WRS RI WKLV WKH DXGLR EUDQG KDV LQVHUWHG DQ 5,$$ SKRQR SUH DPSOLĆHU LQWR WKH WXUQWDEOH allowing it to work in perfect harmony with any modern B&O speaker. Finally, the 4000c has been given an DHVWKHWLF XSJUDGH LWV DOXPLQLXP VXUIDFH KDV EHHQ EXUQLVKHG DQG DQRGLVHG WR JLYH LW OXVFLRXV FKDPSDJQH ĆQLVK while its new hand-crafted oak frame will put it right at home in modern living rooms. £9,000, bang-olufsen.com

NEXT ISSUE IS ON SALE WEDNESDAY 25 NOVEMBER The ultimate Christmas gadget gift guide! 9 8 T3 N O V E M B ER 2 0 2 0

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