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GADGETS / GAMES / GEAR Kick some balls Form a fantasy team

Catch the Euros in 4K

Don’t miss a moment with our action-packed tech guide to every major tournament 25 BEST FOOTBALL GAMES

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HTC’s new VR headset DJI’s dinky drown flown Apple’s M1 machines tested & a glasses-free 3D laptop KELSEYmedia

£4.99 July 2021 www.stuff.tv

Score on your slate Upscale the action

Stay match fit

Smack some sixes

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Ease your aches Keep up with the race

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Ball ball ball, footie footie footie, ball ball ball, football!

Plus cricket, golf, cycling, tennis and, well, anything goes in the Olympics these days – although the IOC did refuse to acknowledge our art editor’s calls for PCR testing to be included in Tokyo, opting for skateboarding instead.

Yes, if you hadn’t guessed it by the headline slapped across the front of this issue, we’ve gone sports-mad at Stuff HQ, with a summer packed full of major tournaments to keep you glued to the shiny new TV our cover story is going to convince you to buy. Fancy twatting some balls yourself? We’ve matched every event with a selection of top training equipment, and some sports sim games, to give you your own shot at glory – virtual or otherwise – plus ace sporting apps and podcasts to fill the gaps between games.

Away from the field of play we focus on the field of view, with a glasses-free 3D laptop and HTC’s latest pro VR headset. There’s the verdict on the new iMac and iPad Pro, and why Apple’s AirTags might be a good shout for attaching to your pet’s collar.

Speaking of hairy animals, we also test Dyson’s latest vacuum cleaner, complete with lasers and acoustic sensors; and if you’d rather clean up in another way, may I suggest you enter our Marshall multiroom speaker competition on page 25. Get stuck in.

James Day, Editor-in-Chief / @James_A_Day

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Advertising Head of Commercial Neil Til ott (01959 543719, x7003) neil.til ott@kelsey.co.uk Account Manager Nick Davis (01959 543611, x7004) nick.davis@kelsey.co.uk Production Ad Operations Manager Martin Wil iams martin.wil iams@ kelsey.co.uk Ad Production Manager Andy Welch (01233 220245) stuff@ tandemmedia.co.uk Management Chief Executive Steve Wright Chief Operating Officer Phil Weeden Managing Director Kevin McCormick Publisher Liz Reid Head of Digital Steve Jones Retail Director Steve Brown Subscription Marketing Director Gill Lambert Subscription Marketing Manager Rochelle Gyer-Smith Print Production Manager Georgina Harris • Volume 25 issue 7 • ISSN: 1364-963 • On sale 10 June 2021

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HOT STUFF

06 The Hot Five

Wild One Max This Tamiya isn’t RC but it is arsey (in the sense that you sit in it) Acer ConceptD SpatialLabs Do you remember 3D? Neither do we. But this time, just maybe…

Cowboy 4 Including possibly the lamest pun in Stuff headline history Syng Cell Alpha Looks like an airport ashtray, probably doesn’t sound like one Evercade VS Pop this gaming console next to your Knight Rider VHS collection 14 Vital stats HTC Vive Pro 2 VR without the wooziness?

16 Stream Loki, being not very low-key 18 Icon Mansory BSTN GT XI The world’s sexiest lawnmower 20 Games New Genesis: is it phantastic?

22 Wheels Mercedes Concept EQT A longboard with a car attached 24 Stuff meets Amy Corbett She’s the Le Corbusier of Lego

TESTS

29 First test Apple iMac 24in It comes in purple – nuff said 53Tested Sony A1 Exciting camera, boring name 54 Tested Bowers & Wilkins PI7 They make your ears look scruffy 59 Tested OnePlus Watch Wearable, maybe not bearable 60 Versus Mid-range Androids Asus ZenFone 8 or Moto G100?

63 Tested Dyson V15 Detect Well, it’s actually the Dyson V15 Detect Absolute, but we couldn’t fit that all on one line. You have to be very economical with space in this bit, you know – otherwise one item might end up taking up more space than it deserves, and that wouldn’t be right at all.

64 Tested Apple iPad Pro (M1) Plus those dinky new AirTags 67 Tested Huawei Vision S 65in When is a telly not a telly?

70 Tested Garmin Catalyst A strangely tiny racing coach 72 Long-term test DJI Air 2S Yep, we’re droning on yet again…

78 Games Resident Evil Vil age, Returnal

FEATURES

33 Mini meme

Cycling apps These downloads wil make your thighs ache less (not really) 34 Upvoted Hats These uploads will make your head burn less (really) 37 Cover feature Summer of sport Everything you need to prepare for weeks of excitement, elation and despair… and not all of it necessarily in front of the TV 56Beta yourself Digital magazines Yep, read Stuff and find out how to read Stuff 68Instant upgrades Echo Show 10 No need to be afraid of Amazon’s spookily swivelling smart hub 77 25 best footie games ever So… this is basically the 25 best footie games ever 98Random access memories Macs get Intel inside (2006) Apple’s M1 chip is the end of an era; here’s how it started

THE LEGENDARY STUFF TOP TENS P82 4

MAKING STUFF UP

Editor-in-Chief James Day Head of News Matt Tate Head of Stuff Digital Natalya Paul Contributors Tom Wiggins, Craig Grannell, Leon Poultney, Michael Sawh, Andrew Wil iams, Chris Barraclough, Tom Morgan, Simon Lucas, Basil Kronfli, Alan Wen, Chris Kerr, Marc McLaren, Mark Wilson, Richard Purvis, Ross Presly Contact us stuff.ed@kelsey.co.uk

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Lanky doodle

While you’d need to be toy-sized to getbehind the wheel of Tamiya’s original, the Wild One Max has an adjustable seat that can accommodatedrivers between 5ft 3in and 6ft 5in tall.

HOT FIVE #1

TOY STEERY Wild One Max

Since long before Woody, Buzz and cofirst appeared on cinema screens in 1995, kids havedreamed of their toys coming tolife… and the Little Car Companyhas finally made that dream a reality. Its new Wild One Max is a fully driveable version of Tamiya’s much-loved off-road RC car from 1985, with a 5.5bhp electric motor that’ll propel it at speeds of 30mph with a range of around 25 miles.

Measuring 3.5m long and weighing around 250kg, it’s 8/10th scale comparedtothe original’s 1/10th, but it doesn’t come with a massive RC controller – you’ll need to be sitting behind the steering wheel. There are three different driving modes – Novice, Eco and Race –and forfull authenticity you can choose to build yours at home, with the option to add the necessary bits and bobs to make it road-legal. It can even be specced as a two-seater, so you might be able to blowa few young minds by doing the school run in it.

The Wild One Max is due on sale next year, but you can pre-order with a refundable £100 deposit now – so there’s plenty of time to save up your pocket money.

As hot as… a flying lap round the garden from£6000/ wildonemax.com 6

Shaker street

Want totame the Wild One Max slightly and turn it into your daily driver? The Road Legal Pack adds brake lights, indicators, reflectors and mirrors to meet European ‘quadricycle’ regulations.

ALL E BIGGE T STORIES ROM PLANET ECH

I’m so tyred

It’s rear-wheel-drive, with hydraulic disc brakes, coiloversuspension and 15in off-road tyres – although these can be swapped for more high-street-friendly ones by fitting the Tarmac Pack.

7

The head raster ritual

Acer’s eye-tracking camera also generates information about head position. Move slightly to the left or right and it will rotate 3D models accordingly, all in real time.

HOT FIVE #2

REASONS TO BE CHEERFUL, PART 3D Acer ConceptD SpatialLabs

Ah, the dream of glasses-free 3D that came and went with Nintendo handhelds and Toshiba TVs. Well, the flame hasn’t been completely extinguished if Acer’s 3D laptop is anything to go by.

Part of the company’s ConceptD line for designers and arty types, the SpatialLabs laptop uses a 15.6in 4K 2D displaywith a liquid crystal lenticular lens on top to form a screen that can be switched between 2D and 3D views. This is combined with a stereoscopic camera to track your head and eyes, allowing creators to examine their work in real time and 360° without the need for twatty specs.

Why ‘creators’? Well, this laptop’s target market is niche at best (animators, CAD designers and game designers), which is whyAcer has announced a developer programme for Unreal Engine – considered the most powerful real-time 3D creation platform, behind games like Fortniteand shows like The Mandalorian.

The laptop is a prototype for now, but the idea of an oversized Nintendo 3DS to make spreadsheets pop has got us all a-quiver.

As hot as…a 3D furnace £tba/acer.com 8

HANDS-ON JAMES DAY EDITOR IN CHIEF

Acer’s UK HQ is locatedin the unsexiest place possible, close to Heathrow’s permanently grey ring road, but behind closed doors there’s a feast for the eyes.

In a demo room, I’m placed in front of what looks like a pretty standard white laptop… but with a couple of mouse clicks, everything changes.

It’s Nintendo 3DS smarts, but the displayis bigger, the resolution is on a different level and I’m using my head torotate game characters. It’s pretty mesmerising to see what’s on the screen floating in front of you as if you could touch it.

Then we switch to sport, and I find myself trying to catch balls jumping out at me.

I know 3D has had more false starts than the Grand National, and you’d probably be a fool to back this particular horse too, but sod it – I never wanted TV makers to drop 3D anyways,so I’m sold.

A message to you,2D

The display is set to 2D mode by default until you launch the SpatialLabs Experience Center, where 3D mode allows it todisplay a different imageto each eye.

9

Bunsheight at the OK corral

Cowboyhas also unveiled the C4 ST, which stands for step-through. That means there’s no crossbar, a lower saddle and a lowergear ratio, for a more relaxed ride.

HOT FIVE #3

COW, SWEET IT ISTO BE SHOVED

BY YOU Cowboy 4

Always fantasised about the cowboylife but hail from Weston-Super-Mare rather than Wyoming? Instead of riding a horse down the seafront and trying to lasso passing seagulls with your belt, consider Cowboy’s latest electric bike – it’s a far more suitable steed for life in England’s very own wild west.

The C4’s 250W motor and 360Wh battery combine to propel you at up to 15mph, while that battery also provides powerfor the built-in lights and a handlebar phone dock that doubles as a 15W wireless 10

charger (although you’ll need to supply your own Quad Lock case).

There are no gears or throttle control here – the C4 automatically adjusts the assistance provided by the motor based on how hard you’re pedalling – but a range of 70km should get you toBristol and back with a bit to spare. Charging from flat to full takes3.5 hours, leaving youfreetopractise tipping your Stetson. Just don’t forget to wear a helmet underneath.

As hot as… a bike-shaped branding iron £2290 / uk.cowboy.com

The phone ranger

The app has been upgraded too, with enhancements to mapping, weather forecasts and predictive battery range.

It can also be set to unlock the bike when you’re nearby.

HOT FIVE #4

IMMERSEY MERCY ME Syng Cell Alpha

Strew grit

The aluminium frame and forks come in a choice of three colours: black, khaki and sand. Pre-fitted mudguards mean you shouldn’t have toworry much about getting dirty slacks.

Having‘former Apple designer’ on your CV isn’t a guarantee that you’ve got the magic touch, but it can be a pretty good sign. First there was Tony Fadell, who invented the iPod and then went on to create Nest, and nowanother Cupertino alumnus has decided to go it alone.

The Syng Cell Alpha is a 360°spherical speaker from Christopher Stringer – one of the brains behind everything from the PowerBook tothe HomePod. It’s billed as the world’s first ‘triphonic speaker’, with three mid-range drivers, two subwoofers and a trio of mics inside that combine to perform neat spatial audio tricks, including the ability to mimic a full 7.1 setup if you stick threeof them together. You can hook it up to your TV (via the SyngLink cable, which costs an extra $49) or play music overWi-Fi,with support forboth AirPlay2 and Spotify Connect.

If you think it looks familiar, that might be because you’veseen something similar destroy Alderaan in Star Wars– and if the Cell Alpha sounds as good as Syng says it does, it should inspire just as much awe.

As hot as… the Death Star’s thermal exhaust port $1799/syngspace.com 11

Fasteroids

The VS features two cartridge slots. With each one containing up to 20 games, you don’t have to keep getting up to switchthem around. OK, some things about modern gaming are better.

Star lustre

Withits 1.5Ghz quad-coreprocessor, Evercade reckons the VSis the first retro games console to output native 1080p resolutions. Earthworm Jimnever looked so realistic.

HOT FIVE #5

BIG DUG

Evercade VS

While modern consoles have all the design flair of a wireless router, the glory days of gaming were quite different. Cartridge slots and controller ports gave early consoles that bit more personality – and while from the wrong angle Evercade’s VSdoes look a bit like a printer, its plug-in carts and wired controllers will be a welcome hit of nostalgia in most living rooms.

Compatible with all existing Evercade games – which means you get access to classics like Worms, California Games and Speedball 2– the VScomes with a new telly-optimised interface that lets youquickly browseplugged-in games 12

and choose from a selection of screen filters (including, presumably, one for those fiends who insist on stretching classic games to fill a widescreen display).

Progress is savedtothe carts, so youcan start a game on your VS and continue on the bus later with your Evercade Handheld (£60), plus there are four front-mounted USB ports that also support third-party controllers – perfect for taking on a friend at Sensible Soccerbeforesmacking them overthe head when theyscore a last-gasp winner. Try doing that over Xbox Live.

As hot as… a new high score on Galaga £90/ evercade.co.uk

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V I T A L S T A T S

IT’S NOTAS QUEASY AS IT LOOKS HTC Vive Pro2

The built-in headphones have 3D spatial sound and are certified for Hi-Res Audio.

£719 /vive.com

Could this beefed-up VR headset eliminate motion blur and tummy troubles?

Maybe, provided you’ve got the PC to run it…

●Real gone grid Performancegains are important all across the gadget-sphere, but with VR headsets you can really see them with your eyes… and sometimes feel them in your stomach. Luckily, HTC’s latest Viveheadset claims to bring an improvement in every department.

Witha 5K screen and a dual-lens design that ups the fieldof viewto 120°, the PC-powered Vive Pro 2 aims to all but eliminate the screen 14

door effect (where you can see the gaps between pixels) and let you see more of your virtual world of choiceup close. ●Motional rescue The Vive Pro 2’s panel has a 120Hz refresh rate,resulting in less motion blur and a more immersive and (we’repromised) more comfortable experience. On top of that, it’s the first VR headset to use lossless Display Stream Compression (DSC),which ensuresmaximum visual quality while maintaining backwards compatibility with DisplayPort1.2, meaning even older graphics cards will benefit fromthe newtech.

●Snuggerbabylove If you’repaying this much fora VR headset, you’ll want to know that sticking it on your head isn’t going to be a chore. Good thing, then, that the Vivo Pro 2 has fine-adjustable interpupillary distance,evenly distributed weight and quick-adjust sizing dials. ●Vivetalkin’ HTC mercifully doesn’t demand that you replace all your old VR gear to accommodatethe VivePro2.

The newheadset is compatible with older Vive trackers, as well as older SteamVR base stations, controllersand other accessories.

Moreon those to your right…

THE PANEL’S 120HZ REFRESH RATE MEANS LESS MOTION BLUR, MORE COMFORT

NOW ADD THESE… ● Vive Facial Tracker

What’s the pointof throwing a rock at someone in VR if you can’t wink at them afterwards?

The new Facial Tracker captures face movements from all angles, fromscowls to smiles. £129 /vive.com

Groove is in the chart

LEGO ART WORLD MAP

Move over, Colosseum – there’s an evenbigger Lego set in town. The World Map features a whopping 11,695 (!) elements, most of which are round tiles that you plug into 40 interconnecting baseplates. The land is white, with a subtle shadow, providing contrast with ocean floors whose colours are inspired by bathymetric mapping. Naturally, putting all this together takes time – a lot of time – and so Lego has provided a soundtrack while you work, where travel experts tell tales of far-flung places they’ve visited. You can mark off those you’ve experienced for real too, with cone pieces that transform your plastic masterpiece into a kind of offline brick-built Google Maps. £230 /lego.com

● ViveTracker3.0

Vive likes to ensure movements are accurately replicated on screen so the virtual world feels real; this latest tracker is 15% lighter and 75%longer-lasting than its predecessor. £129 /vive.com

● ViveWireless Adapter

The Oculus Quest 2 has proved that wireless VR is the way forward… so this adapter untethersyou fromyour PC while maintaining a low-latency VR experience. £359 /vive.com

Ambilighter

PHILIPS OLED705

Along with the eye-popping coloursand amazingcontrast, when you buy an OLED TV you usually also get one other thing: a pretty hefty bill.

While the OLED705 is hardly spare change, the 55in version will set you back a relatively affordable £979, despite offering loads of top-end telly tech. Its P5 chip uses AI to bolster the picture-processing, with support forDolby Vision and HDR10+, while the 50W sound system works with Dolby Atmos and DTS Play-Fi. It runs Android TV, meaning you get Google Assistant and Chromecast built in plus access to all the streaming apps you might want. The Ambilight only shines from three sides rather than four, but that’s still three more than most tellies. from£979 /philips.co.uk 15

In a dramatic twist, this month’s selection of new arrivals to TV streaming includes quite a few things with short names

Lupin

Wolfgang

Bosch

Monsters at Work

Fatherhood

Rick and Morty

The best French TV show since ever (and the most popular non-English series on Netflix) returns, with Omar Sy’s thief extraordinaire Assane once more channelling the spirit of gentleman burglar Arsene Lupin.

With the stakes higher than ever and his family’s safety on the line, Assane is forced to concoct some of his most cunning plans yet.

S2 /Netflix, 11 June

This Monsters, Inc.sequel/spin-off series follows the adventuresof the ambitious Tylor Tuskmon, a new employee at the Monsters factory – which now processes children’s laughter, rather than their screams of fear, into energy. Tylor dreams of working alongside his idols Mike and Sulley, but must first prove himself as a mere mechanic.

S1 /Disney+, 2 July

Rising from obscurity in Austria to become a TV fixtureand glitzy restaurateur in the USA, Wolfgang Puck all but invented the concept of the celebrity chef… but let’s not hold that against him. His life gets the full documentary treatment in this film from the creators of Chef’s Table; just make sure you don’t watch it on an empty stomach.

Film /Disney+, 25 June

Kevin Hartplays awidowerchucked in at the deep end of parenthood in this Netflix original comedy drama fromAbout a Boyand American Pie co-director Paul Weitz. Based on a true story, it looks the very essence of a tearjerking heartwarmer (or possibly a heartwarming tearjerker), which is somethingof a departure for outspoken comic Hart.

Film /Netflix, 18 June

Loki S1 / Disney+, 9 June

Boschis Amazon’s longest-running original show, and for our money itsbest. In this final season, our Hollywood detective is tracking down another killer (there’s a shock)… but it’s the subplots and supporting characters that makes Boschsuch a compelling cop yarn.

Tearful fans take heart: a spin-off series is reportedly in the works.

S7 /Amazon Prime Video,25June

A box-fresh season of the cartoon sci-fisitcomdrops onto E4 and All 4 fromthis month, with one instalment appearing eachweek.

You probably know the drill by now: an alcoholic, foul-mouthed mad scientist and his nervyteenage grandson embark on adventures through space and time with (yes, we’re going there) hilarious results.

S5 /All 4,20 June

S SIH ’TNOSIM T D

Everyone’s favourite MarvelCinematic Universe antihero gets his ownTV series, with Tom Hiddleston clearly enjoying being back in Loki’s mischievous shoes. Reports of the god-level trickster’s death appear to have been premature, with Loki finding himself the captiveof a mysterious organisation dedicatedtorealigning the universe with its ‘correct’ timeline – and demanding his help in doing so. OwenWilson, Gugu Mbatha-Raw and Richard E Grant also star in this one-new-episode-a-week six-parter.

16

17

I C O N

MANSORY BSTN GT XI

£poa / mansory.com

That’s an interesting go-kart…

This, my friend, is no go-kart. It’s a Nike Air Jordan ride-on lawnmower, courtesy of an absurd collaboration with a very leftfield connection to the sport of basketball. But to hell with it – it looks absolutely mega and we’re wondering whether it can be used as a glorified mobility scooter for popping to the shops.

You know, like in the Goldie Lookin’ Chain video for Guns Don’t Kill People, Rappers Do.

Seriously, though – why?

The designer of the Air Jordan XI, Tinker Hatfield, was inspired by a ride-on lawnmower. So German car-modding company Mansory has got together with sporting goods seller BSTN to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the iconic shoe that Michael Jordan wore to win the 1995-96 NBA Championship. Oh, and he also wore them in the movie Space Jam, released that year.

Does Mike mow his lawn with this?

No idea. But Mansory does make ripped golf caddies like the Currus and Off-X too, and we know MJ loves a high-stakes round or two…

Anyway, the BSTN GT XI is very much a lawnmower, and one that’s a cut above the rest thanks to carbon body parts plus a lavish leather-carbon seat and steering wheel. Silver touches are there to denote the traditional colour of a 25th anniversary.

Go on then, what’s the damage?

Well, given Mansory is usually associated with making Porsches, Ferraris and Bentleys even more luxurious, you can expect it to run into the tens of thousands – and that’s if they’ll actually sell you one, as it’s supposedly a one-off (though everything has its price).

Alternatively, we suggest you buy a robo-mower and a pair of Air Jordan sneakers, and sit back to watch The Last Dance instead.

THIS RIDE-ON LAWNMOWER MARKS THE 25TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE NIKE AIR JORDAN XI

18

More tech for the Euros p37

IN CASE YOU MISSED...

GOOGLE I/O

Five announcements from Google’s annual Android shindig

1

Hublot your mind

HUBLOT BIG BANG E UEFA EURO 2020

As the official watch provider of this summer’s European kickabout, Hublot has unveiled the Big Bang E UEFA Euro 2020. It features a 42mm polished black ceramic case and a 390x390 AMOLED touch-display, with a Snapdragon Wear 3100 makingeverything tick while sucking away at a 300mAh battery.Flags of the host nations adorn the bezel, and the watch alerts you when games kick off and reach half time, extra time and full time, as well as pinging you notification for cards, substitutions, penalties… oh, and goals. Restricted to just 1000 units, it’s mighty expensive, but if you’re one of the first 200 buyers you’ll receive an NFT – yes, an NFT, how exciting! – tied to Hublot’s Fusion Podcasts. £4800 /hublot.com

4

#1ANDROID REDESIGNED12

Google’s mobile OS has a new design language and philosophy called Material You. The idea is to give you more control over the look and feel of your apps and interfaces.

#2MORE PRIVACY

Google is also bolstering Android’s security. A new Privacy Dashboard will offer an all-over look at your anti-snoop settings, while a small indicator will pop up any time an app is using your camera or microphone.

#3 SHARE WEAR

Google’s Wear OS has been merged with Samsung’s Tizen software. Now simply called Wear, the new platform should produce a larger selection of faster, more reliable apps for wearables, plus more watch faces and improved battery life.

#4MORE INCLUSIVE CAMERA TECH

Disciple of roar

FENDER FINAL FANTASY XIV STRATOCASTER

Fender’s limited-edition Final Fantasy XIV Stratocastercelebrates the company’s 75th anniversary with an unexpected gaming tie-in. This black Strat has been accented with blue and purple to represent the “crystals of darkness and light”, a key component in FFXIVlore, while the playability and sound are said to “mirror the world” of the game (somehow). The guitar features a slim maple neck with rosewood fingerboard,while a trio of V-Mod pickups bring the fantastical tones.

Sadly there’s no online multiplayer mode on a guitar, but you could always team up with a bassist and a drummer. £3200 /fender.com

Google confirmed it’s building a phone camera that more accurately captures skin tones. Tweaks to automatic white balance and exposure should “bring out natural brown tones” rather than over-brightening people of colour.

#5GOOGLE AI’S NEW HEALTH FEATURES

While you should obviously never ditch your doctor for your phone, a new Google AI tool currently in development will be able to identify different skin, hair and nail conditions based on photos you upload.

19

G A M E S

FIRST PLAY PHANTASY STAR ONLINE 2: NEW GENESIS PC, XSX, XB1

] neW nalA sdroW [

Long beforeMMORPGs became mainstream, Sega introduced console players to Phantasy StarOnlineand the magic of connectingwith randoms on the internet to fight epic bosses together. It’s a shame its sequel took so longtoreach Western shores… but here to set things right is a new version, Phantasy StarOnline 2: NewGenesis.

It’s PSO2for a new generation, set on the planet of Halpha, where you’re part of an elite band of operatives called ARKS. A newgraphics engine does wonders for both the more 20

detailed character models and the lush new open-world environments, which you’ll be sharing with other players as you roam beyond the city hub and gofightingmonsters.

Most importantly, the core combat of PSO2remains – so that, evenwhen playing with a controller, New Genesisfeels like a proper fast-paced action game as you time your attacks or target individual enemies’ weak points.

But the real game-changer is the open-world design, especially with greater traversal

abilities – such as beingable to wall-kick up to higher areas or glide across great distances.

There’ll also be huge incoming threatsshowing up fromtime to time: gigantic aliens knownas Dolls, requiring everyone to join forcestotake down.

The best part is that, rather than making us wait another eight years, New Genesisis out this month worldwide. And foranyone playing the original PSO2, the two games will actually co-exist – you’ll evenbe able to transfer your old character over.

FIRST LOOK HIGH SCHOOL VERY CONFIDENTIAL

LOST JUDGMENT PS5, PS4, XSX, XB1

After his successful spin-off from the world of hot-blooded yakuza into legal suspense, Sega has handed a new case to lawyer-turned-detective Takayuki Yagami with Lost Judgment. While the mainline games have now transformed into turn-based RPGs (as with

last year’s Like a Dragon), action remains a core element as Yagami hits the streets in bottom-kicking mode with a new stance for parrying and countering.

Yagami’s investigation will take him beyond the streets of Kamurocho, and one key location is a high school where he’ll be going undercover.

Besides detailed recreations

BEST OF SWITCH GAMES FOR THE SUMMER

MARIO GOLF: SUPER RUSH

Switch Feeling confident with seeing people again? Then a fun-silly sporty multiplayer is just what you need – and Mario Golf: Super Rush tees off this month. The headline mode is Speed Golf, where you’ll be frantically racing against your mates in real time to finish each course.

of classrooms and hallways, we’re expecting some lighter moments as he tries to get down with the kids through a variety of side-quests.

Sega’s own school-themed Persona games will no doubt provide inspiration here.

More exciting, however, is that for the first time in the franchise’s history this game is out worldwide on the same

TONY HAWK’S PRO SKATER 1 + 2

Switch This excellent remake came out last summer, but the Switch port out on 25 June is just the ticket for doing gnarly tricks while also having a chance to head outdoors yourself. You can even play it while on an actual skateboard, if you’re feeling daring…

day – 24 September – so no more having to wait months (or even years) after Japan while spoilers crop up online… which you really don’t want for a story that’s bound to have many twists and turns.

And of course, Sega’s dedicated localisation work means you’ll be able to enjoy the story with either Japanese or English voice-acting.

NEO: THE WORLD ENDS WITH YOU Switch, PS4, PC If long-distance travel is still off the table, you could try the next best thing with the sequel to cult DS JRPG The World Ends With You, out in July. The detailed and faithfully recreated streets of Tokyo’s hip Shibuya district should make for fine virtual tourism.

INCOMING

JULY ●MONSTER HUNTER STORIES 2: WINGS OF RUIN ●THE LEGEND OF ZELDA: SKYWARD SWORD HD ●THE GREAT ACE ATTORNEY CHRONICLES AUGUST ●HUMANKIND ●NO MORE HEROES III ●KENA: BRIDGE OF SPIRITS 21

W H E E L S Mercedes-Benz ConceptEQT Weather too grim to open the gigantic sunroof and admire the night sky? No matter: there’s a starscape laser-etched into the roof itself.

FREIGHTER BOI

£tbc /mercedes-benz.co.uk Looks like a happy chappy.

This smiley little fella is a result of designers at Mercedes-Benz getting a bit creative. Based on the existing V-Class van, the ConceptEQTis a look at what an electrified small van from the German brand might look like in the not-so-distant future; but it’s actually more likely to form a design base forthe upcoming petroland diesel T-Class.

Are those little starsall overthe front grille?

Yep, the grille itself is made up of 3D-effect back-illuminated stars, while the narrowLED headlights savethat big grin fromlooking downright goofy byaddinga bit of menacethat leads into some neatly puffed-up wheel-arches.

This is a concept – so, come on, where’s the wacky feature?

In the boot! Open up that sucker and you’ll be greeted by – wait 22

for it – an electric longboard. It’s stored in an aluminium-framed boxbeneath a plexiglass lid.

The longboard is also made of aluminium and features a star pattern, just in case you needed more of an excuse to be pushed into a canal as you ride to work.

Serious question – is it practical?

The car, not the longboard.

Yeah, massively, seeing as there’s room for up to seven people, who can access their sumptuous leathery pews via large sliding doors on both sides. Three child seats can be fittedin the second row, and to entertain the kiddies there’s a huge panoramic roof.

Is this making vans… cool?

Maybe! So many families fall for the SUV marketing guff, but the humble MPV is brilliant for ferrying kids, prams, dogs and bikes. This concept could be just what the people-carrier marketneeds.

NEWS DASHBOARD

CYBER PACE

MG has takenthe wraps off a bold new concept:the Cyberster roadster.

It mightsound like a long-forgotten Transformer, but MG says interest in the electric two-door beast rocketed after its unveil at this year’s Shanghai Motor Show,so it only feels rightthat the car is likely to go into production.

CUTE HUSQY

Motorbike maker Husqvarna has committed to an electric future… and itsVektorr Concept is a mega-stylish peak at what battery-powered scootering could look like. It’s expected to have a range of around 60 miles and reach a learner-friendly top speed of 28mph.

The Akiravibes are strong with this one.

LAN OVERBOARD The legendary Lancia 037 of the early ’80s has been given a makeover

by Italian ‘restomod’ specialist Kimera.

The EVO37 uses the same 2.1-litre engine but tweaked to produce 500bhp, with carbon fibre replacing fibreglass.

Just 37 are being made, costing a smidgeover £400,000 each.

Mamma mia!

WTFIS THE ONEXPLAYER? Bear grilles

BANG & OLUFSEN BEOSOUND EXPLORE Summer’s coming, and there’s little point in hiking your way through the Lake District if you can’t soundtrack your adventures with a favourite Supertramp megamix. Enterthe Beosound Explore,a lightweight, portable and rugged Bluetooth speaker to rival the Sonos Roam. ‘Rugged’ is the key word here, with B&O outfitting its speaker in scratch-resistant anodised aluminium, and it’s rated IP67 for keeping out dust and water. Weighing in at a backpack-friendly 631g, the Explore promises big omnidirectional sound and ‘supreme’ bass, with about 27 hours of battery life at typical listening volumes. Well, cranking the thingup toohigh will only frightenthe sheep anyway. £179 /bang-olufsen.com

Well, this isn’t quite how I imagined the new Nintendo Switch looking…

Nah, this is the Onexplayer: a portable games machine that marries AAA PC gaming with handheld convenience. While it’s impossible not to draw comparisons with the current Switch, the Onexplayer politely crushes it in the specs department.

We’re talking up to an 11th-gen Core i7 with integrated Iris Xe graphics and a whopping 8.4in 2560x1600 IPS display.

That’s more than four times as many pixels as the Switch’s 6.2in screen.

Ooh, that won’t go down well in the Mushroom Kingdom…

You get the full complement of controls, including analogue triggers around the back, plus dual vibration motors, stereo speakers, and dual cooling fans to ensure the console doesn’t burst into flames when you’re playing Doom Eternal. It weighs as much as two Switches glued together, but deftly deals with weedy arms by way of a kickstand. A separately available keyboard enables you to occasionally fire up Office and pretend you bought the thing for work, but the Onexplayer has one more trick to tempt your buying finger: twin USB4 ports, so you can plug in an eGPU and a 4K screen at the same time.

So I can play anything on this thing?

Real deal

REALME 8 5G

Next-gen 5G data speeds mightstill be a hit-and-miss revolution, but you can no longer say the tech is prohibitively pricey: 5G blowers are getting cheaper all the time, and Realme’s latest comes in at £100 less than its Pro-badged counterpart. The Realme 8 is the first phone in the UK to feature MediaTek’s Dimensity 700 5G processor. It’s a fairly slimline 8.5mm and sports a 6.5in 90Hz 2400x1080 display backed by a 5000mAh battery with fast charging. The triple-camera setup includes a 48MP main shooter featuring a night mode, a 2MP macro lens and a 2MP monochrome snapper; flip the phone around and you’ll find a 16MP selfie camera. That’s a fair bit of bang for your 179 bucks. £179 /realme.com

Well, it’s a licensed Windows 10 machine, so anything in your Steam or Epic games library, and presumably Xbox Game Pass for PC titles too. Performance depends on what you’re playing, but in theory there’s nothing you shouldn’t be able to throw at the Onexplayer… and if you burn through the built-in 15,300mAh battery in one mammoth sitting, you can rest assured that the 65W charger will juice it up again before you can say “wrist strain”.

Sold! Although that might change when I hear the price…

Even at the lowest possible spec, the Onexplayer is going to leave you £580 out of pocket. Well, nobody said taking your entire PC games library to play on the toilet would be cheap.

23

STUFF MEETS

Amy Corbett THE LEGO MASTERS USAJUDGE

AND ACEKIT DESIGNERREVEALS THE SECRETS OF THE BRICKS

] luaP aylataN weivretnI [

24

Legois still popular after a century because of its simplicity.

You can have a pile of bricks in front of you, you don’t need instructions, it’s very intuitive and that resonateswith people. It’s accessible, but youcan go on to make incredible creations.

There’s lotsof testing.

At Lego wetest things so manytimes and try out so many versions to make sure we getit just right. The Aston MartinDB5 wasa trickybuild, and if you make a little mistake it’s hard to undo with all the grey pieces. The NES was challenging too, and we really struggled with Lego Dots.

We make sure there’s something for everyone.

Everykid and adult should be able to see something they can relate to reflected in the sets. When we’re testing, we see girls and boys in younger age groups gravitatetowards certain play patterns and experiences… but in others all gendersbehave in the same way, and sometimes theysurprise us.

Every product goes through the hands of children.

It’s so they can tell us what we could be doing better. Before Covid we’d have a group of kids come into the office to trythings out. Then we travel to our bigger markets and run research projects.

I love the adult kits, like the modular buildings.

They’re like beautiful pieces of architecture, but with playful stories, so I always want to build those and follow the instructions. I’m thinkingof

setslike the Bookshop and the Police Station – there’s so much detail.

James Bond’s Aston Martin is probably the coolest set of all.

We’re lucky we have a team of incredible builders who do things you wouldn’t believe possible. They often come with a rough prototype and then we have to work back and think how wecan build somethingfor someone to use at home. We have ‘designer play tests’ in the office where all our designers get together and try out different concepts.

Wehavea hugefocus on sustainability.

Many of our pieces are plant-based, and we have a team working on how we can move towardsmore sustainable materials while retaining the same quality

and experience that everyone expects. There’s no easy fix but we’re trying to be as carbon-neutral as possible, and we use wind farms to offset all the power we use.

I’ll neverforget creating a popstarstage in Lego Friends.

It has turning functions and it’s modular so youcan rearrange it. The hard part was making somethingso intricate that a seven-year-old kid has to be able to build. Making complex things simple is always the biggest challenge. You don’t want kids stamping around on Christmas day shouting “I hate Lego!” becausethey can’t do it.

On Lego Masterswelook for creativity, storytelling and technical ability.

The builders in the TV show don’t just turn up and make awesome creations – they train, theyset themselves challenges.The successful teams are made up of two really different profiles: one might be great with colour and story details, the other might be more technical.

Ed Sheeran is a Lego fan.

He’d be good to see in Lego form! Will Arnett, who hosts the show, has already got a Batman version of himself, but I’d like to see him in Lego too.

When I was a child I fell over on a Lego set.

I landed on my bottom on my brother’s castle and it was really painful. I couldn’t sit down for the rest of the day.

So much worse than standing on one Lego brick!

LegoMasters USA is free to watch on E4.

“WE SEE YOUNGER GIRLS AND BOYS GRAVITATE TOWARDS CERTAIN THINGS, BUT SOMETIMES THEY SURPRISE US”

TOTAL PRIZE FUND £1060

WIN A STACK OF MARSHALL KIT WORTH OVER A GRAND!

London’s social life was swinging in the ’60s: you could watch England win the World Cup, see the Rolling Stones live, then back to Austin Powers’ pad for misogyny and cocktails. And in a quiet part of Hanwell, things were about to get very loud indeed as music shop owner Jim Marshall began making guitar amplifiers.

Fast-forward a few decades and Marshall is still rocking amp stacks for the world’s biggest bands, but the company has also become a dab hand at making wireless speakers and headphones. So we’re delighted to be offering one lucky reader a proper haul of Marshall audio kit.

The speakers up for grabs are a Kilburn II (£220), an Uxbridge Voice (£170) and two Embertons (£130 each). Then there’s a pair of classyMonitor II ANC headphones (£280) along with the compact Major IV on-ears (£130). While you’re working out who to share that lot with, visit marshallheadphones.com and you’ll find Iggy Pop in fine fettle.

HOW TO ENTER Ready to disturb the peace with a

monstrous amount of Marshall kit this summer? For a chance to win this month’s competition, go to stuff.tv/win and answer this question:

WHAT WAS THE NAME OF IGGY POP’S BAND? A… The Stooges B… The Who C… The Supremes

HURRY!

COMPETITION CLOSES 16 JULY 2021

Terms & conditions: 1 Open to UK residents aged 18 or over.

2 Entries close 11.59pm, 16 July 2021. 3 Prizes are as stated.

4 Prizes are non-transferable. 5 Only one entry per person.

Full Ts & Cs: kelsey.co.uk/competition-terms-conditions/ Promoter: Kelsey Publishing Ltd, The Granary, Downs Court, Yalding Hill, Yalding, Maidstone, Kent ME18 6AL.

25

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You and hues army

FIRST TEST APPLE iMAC 24IN

Combining the might of Apple’s M1 chip with an array of striking new colour options, is the latest iMac the desktop powerhouse you need?

from £1249 / stuff.tv/iMac24

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T

he original iMac was revolutionary in 1998, but in recent years Apple’s all-in-one desktop has become stale. The innards kept pace with modern demands, but it’s been a decade since they did anything close to daring with the design.

With this latest revamp, Apple is being daring again – and on

multiple fronts. The 2021 model arrives in an explosion of colour that recalls the lineup of the original iMac G3 so memorably soundtracked by the Rolling Stones’ She’s a Rainbow.

And more importantly, the computer has been refreshed… inside and out. A floating screen with a chin on a sturdy hinge might be familiar, but the Apple

logo is gone and – apart from the silver option – plain metal shades have been replaced by subtle yet luminescent hues of blue, green, pink, yellow, orange and purple.

Concerns about the white bezel being a distraction are soon dismissed, although the prominent webcam dot does irritate and you might have to

prop it on a book since the screen height can’t be adjusted.

Side-on, it’s thin. Around the back, the colours are scorchingly vibrant. It echoes the iPad, and looks impressive next to the familiar 27in iMac. This feels like a computer that wants to be in living spaces, not just offices… which is just as well, the way work life is going.

29

FIRST TEST APPLE iMAC 24IN

1 Every breadth you take

Apple calls this a 24in model but the display is 23.5in across the diagonal. Still, it’s superb, packing in more pixels than larger 4K screens: this is a 4.5K display, with 4480x2520 pixels at 218ppi.

It’s bright and colour-accurate, thanks to P3 and True Tone tech.

2 Square way to heaven

In use, it looks wonderful. Even at around half brightness, photos, videos and games look the part; ramp it up to full and the colours get seriously rich. That said, despite Apple’s infatuation with curved corners, these four are ruthlessly square.

1

3 My sweet board

Input devices come in matching colours – the keys on our purple keyboard stood out nicely. It’s a shame Apple hasn’t used an inverted ‘T’ for the arrow keys, but Touch ID works perfectly, with a larger target for your digits than the tiny one on a MacBook.

4 When the chip comes in

2

This is the first iMac since2006 to eschew ‘Intel inside’, instead being driven by Apple’s own M1 chip. In performance terms, our 8-core review unit with 8GB of RAM blew away a 2018 MacBook Pro. Benchmarks put it on the same footing as the M1 MacBook Pro.

5 Appers’ delight

M1-optimised apps range from nippy to stupidly fast. Pixelmator Pro’s machine-learning smarts in particular continue to wow,but we had no issues running Photoshop, Logic, Korg Gadget and a bunch of games. Remember, that’s with only 8GB of RAM.

Good Meh Evil

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24 hours with the Apple iMac 24in

3mins 12mins 14mins 50mins 2hrs 30

3hrs

5hrs

7hrs

8hrs

FIRST TEST APPLE iMAC 24IN

Tech specs

Screen 23.5in 4480x2520 Retina Processor M1 RAM 8/16GB Storage256GB-2TB SSD OS macOS Big Sur Connectivity Wi-Fi 6, Bluetooth 5, 3.5mm headphone, 2x Thunderbolt 3 (USB 4), 2x USB 3 (8-core GPU model only) Dimensions 547x461x 147mm, 4.46kg (8-core 4.48kg)

Return of th’iMac

Once you’ve finished swooning over those flash new finishes, remember it’s what’s inside that counts…

n Blowin’ in the chinned n The giga picture

5

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19hrs 21hrs

23hrs

Apple’s M1 architecture does interesting things with memory usage: 8GB of RAM on an Intel Mac wouldn’t be much, but here it feels mighty. That said, it’s a shame you can’t upgrade the RAM later.

n Cool for chats

n Homeward sound

The 1080p FaceTime HD camera is an improvement, albeit from a low bar. It lacks the Center Stage subject-tracking smarts coming to the iPad Pro (see p64), but makes you look good on web chats.

3

11hrs

Why does the iMac even have a chin? It houses the Mac’s brains, fans and sound system. Maybe Apple could have stuck all that behind the display, but that would have messed up the design.

24hrs

The six-speaker system supports Spatial Audio and Dolby Atmos. We ramped them up to max, fired up ear-monstering tunes in Apple Music and were thrown by the bass and soundstage depth.

The design works, the M1’s oomph is welcome and it’s whisper-quiet.

Should you buy one? If you have an ageing 21.5in iMac, it’s obvious… but even owners of 27in iMacs will often find the M1 kicks their machine’s face off. Some might want to wait for what Apple’s cooking up in the pro space, but if you don’t mind a smaller display this iMac is no slouch. @CraigGrannell

STUFF SAYS HHHHH Never mind the pretty colours, this is a worthy update that marries the best of iMac’s past and present 31

Mini meme ●Komoot

Fed up with ridingthe same old streets? Komoot points you at new pedal-powered adventures by way of collections and routes, each of which outlines highlights you’ll see along the way and how knackered you’ll be when you’re done. Or you can define your own routes using waypoints, and beam when Komoot suggests an especially safe and pleasant shortcut. One region’s free; buy more with IAP. £free (IAP) / Android, iOS

●Bikemap

An alternative to Komoot, Bikemap is geared more towards barrelling about freely than discovering new routes. A bit like Waze for bikes, it’ll give you turn-by-turn directions and 3D maps, entertainingly peppering the latter with information important to cyclists (obstacles, bike-sharing locations, cycle shops, toilets). Pay up for offline routing that you can also optimise for different bikes. £free (IAP) / Android, iOS

THAT’S THE WAY I BIKE IT

(Uh-huh, uh-huh…) If you need to get your thighs a-pumpin’, these apps will help to power up your cycling – whether on the roads or in front of the TV

●Bike Repair

You might want to be the next Chris Froome, but you’ll look more like Christopher Biggins if your steed goes kaput while you’re out and you don’t know how to fix it. Bike Repair gives you the lowdown on sorting busted tyres, chains, pedals and more. It also outlines possible fixes when you’re not feeling too great yourself, suggesting bike adjustments if you have neck, leg or crotch pain. £2.49 / Android ● £3.99 / iOS

●Rouvy AR

Like cycling? Hate rain? You poor dear. Rouvy AR offers a solution, but you’ll need the right hardware.

If you’ve got the requisite combo of display (telly, PC or tablet), bike and trainer, you can zoom along thousands of routes all from the safety of your own home. Even better, you can take on other riders and rudely yell at them to get out of your way, without fear of them lobbing a water bottle at you. £free (IAP) / Android, iOS

APPS

●Brompton Bike Hire This app’s cunning plan is to help you avoid relying on cars and trains by instead having you rock up at a locker, grab a bike and use your legs to get you around.

Fees are reasonable and this service has a presence in more towns than its rivals. But it’s best to sign up online (the app can be finicky) – and be mindful that Lime, Beryl or the Santander bikes might be a better bet depending on your location. £free / Android, iOS

●Pumped BMX Flow

If you want to get your pedal on but don’t fancy exercising any muscles besides the ones in your thumbs, try Pumped BMX Flow. This low-stress game involves your daredevil cyclist scooting along an endless circuit, periodically being flung into the air to perform a death-defying stunt that you definitely should not try to replicate yourself on a real bike – unless you’re very keen on the ‘death’ part. £free / Android, iOS 33

UPVOTED

STEKCUB YOBDAB

e surfy statement

Stussy Stock Bucket Hat Much like the Stuff editorial team, Stussy might be heading into middle age these days, but the kings of Californian casual clothing remain cool as feck – and you’ll not find a more vintage surf vibe than this classic washed cotton bucket, complete with iconic embroidered logo. £54 / stussy.co.uk

SPAC LOOC

e rakish runner

On Running Lightweight Cap When sweat in your eyes is not an option and you can’t do a headband justice, this featherlight cap from On Running is hard to beat. Laser-cut ventilation looks and works great, while the fabric band soaks up sweat and the whole thing dries in minutes once you’re home and panting on the hall floor. £30 / on-running.com

SLANIGIRO POT-EHT-REVO

e peaky performer

Cashmere Newsboy Cap Whether you’re collecting on an unpaid debt, bareknuckle boxing or just visiting your ma on Sunday, you need to look the part. is eight-piece cashmere cap has a slim profile and is available in eight sizes.

Just remember, this is a respectable magazine, so behave accordingly. £225 / lockhatters.com

HOW TO DECIDE 34

e technical topper

Norse Projects Gore-Tex Bucket Hat is is clean, simple Scandi style with robust 50-denier polyester and a waterproof but breathable Gore-Tex membrane in the middle. An excellent practical choice… but please, no matter how bad the weather gets, do not be tempted to use the adjustable chin-strap. £80 / norseprojects.com

HATS

Get your head in the game: Chris Haslam serves up nine ways to save your slap from the sun and upgrade your shabby appearance at the same time

e cinematic stunner

Borsalino Jules Braided Canape Here’s a milliner with some pedigree, having been worn by both Bogart and Bergman in the Casablanca airport scene. You can choose any design and be in safe hands with Borsalino, but for a modern twist this new 100% hemp hat has a small 4.5cm brim and 3cm grosgrain hatband. £245 / borsalino.com

1 Dad or snap?

A dad hat is a baseball cap with (usually) five panels and a slightly curved brim, while a classic snapback has six panels and a larger, flat brim.

Note, you don’t have to be a dad to own a dad hat.

e dashing deckhand

Universal Works Waxed Bucket Hat A direct descendent of hardy 15th-century sailors who waxed sailcloths to protect them from the elements and used the leftover scraps to make smocks that kept them dry on deck, this modern five-panel bucket hat is made using British Millerain TekWax cotton that’s stiff and totally waterproof. £60 / universalworks.co.uk

e waterproof wonder

Mont-Bell Gore-Tex OD Finally, a super-technical 100% waterproof five-panel cap that doesn’t feel like you’re wearing a plastic bag on your head. is is 38g of Japanese outdoor genius: the three layers of Gore-Tex remain impervious to any amount of water and even let your head breathe when the sun comes out. £55 / outsidersstore.com

e sheepy shield

Musto Technical Tweed Cap Harris tweed was invented in the 18th century by Scottish farmers trying to keep warm and dry; and, just like the shellsuit a century or two later, it was adopted by the upper classes as high fashion. No matter which camp you sit in, this classic wool flat cap will do the business. £65 / musto.com

2 Big head or little head?

Use a soft tape measure or length of string and place it around your head, mid-forehead and just above the ears, and keep one finger under the tape to allow for a little wiggle room.

UPVOTED

e caring corker

Picture Organic Narrow Cap From sustainabilityfocused French boardsport specialist Picture, this classic snapback has a unique flat cork brim and comes in a choice of blue, green or black organic cotton. Unlike some ‘greenwashing’ brands, Picture’s eco credentials extend to everything it sells. €29 / picture-organic-clothing.com

3 Bucket or duck it?

It’s a tricky look to pull off, but if Irish fishermen, US troops, Run-DMC and every Mancunian in living memory can manage it we say embrace the bucket hat. Just keep the brim short.

4 Sweaty or settee?

When choosing a hat for sport rather than just looking nice, make sure it’s machine-washable.

Because the world does not need any more faded sweat-stained caps.

35

REWILDING [RIːˈWʌɪLD] VERB Reawakening the wild in you.

ADVENTURE REDEFINED

EXPLORE OUR ADVENTURE-READY RANGE AT WIGGLE.CO.UK

THEY THINK IT’S ALL OVER THE PLACE

SUMMER OF SPORT

After the barren wasteland that was summer 2020, summer 2021 is absolutely awash with tantalising sports tournaments on TV – some with the wrong year in the title, others we had to Google.

Still, if ever there was an excuse to splash out on a new telly, play simulation video games with your mates or pull a hamstring trying to have a go yourself, this is it… [ Words Tom Wiggins and Michael Sawh ]

FOOTBALL THE EUROS

STUFF MEETS…

Euro 2020 is a year out, but Uefa has cobbled together a tournament so we’ve cobbled together some top tech to help you make the most of it. p38

Two of the greatest minds in the modern game, England manager Gareth Southgate and sniper’s dream Peter Crouch, discuss AR, VR and VAR. p40

CYCLING TOUR DE FRANCE

We’ll have you saddle-sore from the settee with the best home entertainment tech to catch the race… plus cycle kit for pretending to be there. p42

TENNIS GOLF WIMBLEDON THE OPEN It’s game, TV set and match with a motion-perfect gogglebox to catch all the action from SW19, plus a phone with a camera sharper than Hawk-Eye. p44

Get into the swing of things as we tee you up for the oldest golf tournament of all with the TV, video game and golfing gadgetsto help you feel part of the club. p46

CRICKET THE HUNDRED

There are no boundaries in sport. Except cricket. Still, The Hundred is a new event deserving of a big screen, plus how about a smart bat? p48

OTHER STUFF THE OLYMPICS It’s the big one… with hideous TV schedule time differences. So we’ve picked out some illuminating tech to stave off sleep and keep Olympic-fit. p50 37

SUMMER OF SPORT

THE EUROS FOOTBALL It’s a year late, but that’s no excuse for your telly being out of date

Crisp finish

22 of the Beeb’s games from the Euros will be shown in 4K HDR on iPlayer.

You’ll need a telly that supports HLG… such as the G1.

LG G1 L

] ekiN egamI [

38

ionel Messi won’t be playing in the Euros this summer, what with being from Argentina and all that. But if the best player on the planet had to pick a similarly skilled TV to watch the tournament on, he’d probably go for LG’s G1.

Not only would Leo like the fact that the G1 is just 2cm deep, and so virtually flush when he hangs it up in one of his mansions, but its bezel is so thin there’s not even room for an LG badge.

Oh, and the 4K HDR OLED panel might also just be the best that he, or anyone else, is ever likely to have

clapped eyes on. Available in 55in, 65in and 77in sizes, this set is captained by a new Alpha 9 Generation 4 processor, which uses a dual AI strikeforce to apply enhancements to specific areas and make upscaling extra-convincing.

It works too, because the G1 easily finds the top corner when it comes to colour, contrast, detail and definition.

Just make sure you choose the right motion setting when you settle down to watch fast-moving sport.

There’s also support for HDMI 2.1, so it’s all set for a quick half-time game of FIFA on your PS5 or Xbox Series X. The

only thing that might make it unsuitable for football? It doesn’t come with any feet (though you can add a pair for an extra £100). from £1999 / lg.com KEY SPECS ● 55/65/77in 3840x2160 OLED ● 4x HDMI, 3x USB, Ethernet, optical, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth ● HDR 10 Pro, Dolby Vision IQ, HLG ● webOS

STUFF SAYS ★★★★★

Super-slim and stunning to watch, the G1 is the GOAT of OLEDs

SUMMER OF SPORT Team talk

LG has given the webOS interface an overhaul, which you can navigate using the Magic Remote’s point-and-click skills or built-in mic.

FEELING INSPIRED?

ADIDAS GMR

When is it?

11 June to 11 July Where’s it on?

BBC, ITV

NOW ADD THIS...

APPLE iPAD PRO (M1)

With 5G and a Liquid Retina display, the new iPad Pro is ideal for football on the go.

The iPlayer and ITV apps support its split-screen viewing mode. from £749 / apple.com

...AND INSTALL THIS

EURO 2020 OFFICIAL

Official apps aren’t usually anything special, and that’s largely the case with UEFA’s Euro 2020 effort, but it does include one crucial feature: fantasy football. £free / iOS, Android

REUSCH ATTRAKT SPEEDBUMP

NIKE MERCURIAL VAPOR 14 ELITE

LG FA4 TONE FREE

CATAPULT PLAYR

ADIDAS UNIFORIA PRO

Looking for a new pair of in-ears to blast your Euros playlist of Three Lions, World In Motion and Neil Morrissey’s little-known 2010 classic England’s On The Way? LG’s FA4 buds make no secret of which team you’re supporting and come in a similarly emblazoned case that charges them while you’re watching a game.

Total battery life is around 18 hours, while Meridian has once again been enlisted to tune the audio. £100 / lg.com

You might’ve noticed footballers wearing funny little bras under their shirts recently. It’s not because they’ve grown moobs – they’re holding the GPS trackers that clubs use to analyse their performances. Catapult’s Playr brings the same data to Sunday league and five-a-side players: it tracks things like sprint speed, intensity and total distance, turns your stats into graphs and uses them to offer you tips. £200 / playr. catapultsports.com

Some tournaments are almost as memorable for the official match ball as for who actually won the thing. There was South Africa’s dodgy Jabulani, France’s rooster-inspired Tricolore, and the absolute top dog, the Tango of Argentina ’78.

Whether this year’s Uniforia is fondly recalled will probably depend on how many goals Harry Kane/Gareth Bale/John McGinn (delete to taste) manages to plunder with it… but it looks the part. £120 / adidas.co.uk

Ever wished you could turn your real-life footie skills into your very own FIFA card? Adidas’s GMR insoles include tracking chips made by Google, which use gyroscopes and accelerometers to measure shot power, distance covered and running speed, and count your touches. They then turn your stats into a player card within the GMR app – a bit like the ones you open in FIFA 21’s Ultimate Team – which you can directly compare with other players. £21 / adidas.co.uk

Your dad might get angry with Neymar for still wearing gloves in March, but there’s one player on the pitch who can get away with it all year round: the goalkeeper.

This hi-tech design has little rubber spikes across the palms and down each finger, which should make it easier for you to keep hold of the ball. Reusch’s roster of famous users includes Tottenham’s Hugo Lloris, but try not to let that put you off. £80 / reusch.com

If your football skills are more Phil ‘The Power’ Taylor than Phil ‘The Stockport Iniesta’ Foden, you’l get laughed off the pitch for wearing these.

If you’ve got the talent to back them up, though, their minimalist make-up is designed to make you more responsive and able to change direction in the blink of an eye, with a soleplate that hugs the foot and ensures you can leave defenders spitting out grass. £220 / nike.com

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SUMMER OF SPORT

SOUTHGATE & CROUCH STUFF MEETS

England boss Gareth and ceiling-bothering pundit Peter on fake crowds, VR training and the unknown ‘Crouchgate’ scandal

What are you both like when it comes to tech?

GS: I run my life on my phone, so without it I’m not quite sure how I would operate. I’m using apps for things like fitness, because I’m not able to get to the gym at the moment, and obviously there’s everything to do with work on there.

Years ago, the only accurate data we had was around how far people ran. Normally it was used in a really basic way: you’d get the fitness coach to bring it to you on a Monday and tell you this player didn’t run far enough and therefore we didn’t win. It was a really misguided wayof assessing these things.

Nowwe’vegot so much accurate performance data around every pass that’s played, you can assess teams much more clearly. We’ve actually got too much – and we have to make sure the data we use is really accurate and specific, so we spend a lot of time sortingout what’s really relevant for the England team – relating to improving our own performance, but also preparing us for the next opponent.

PC: What I love in tech at the moment are the Apple AirPods – absolutely loving them. We’re on series five of That Peter Crouch Podcast and I’m only now looking into getting a mic.

The show has got so big, I’ve got to the stage where I need a proper setup. I never really classed doingthe podcast as a job and now it is, so I need to sort myself out. Chris [Stark] and Tom [Fordyce] are proper broadcasters – they’ve gotthe full setup, the noise isolation boardsand whatever else. I’m literally with a mic in my front room. So yeah, I need a serious upgrade.

40

Howdid you feel about watching games on TV with the fakecrowd noise?

GS:I turned it off. For me it’s more interesting without, because I can hear the way players communicate,which is a really important piece of information when I’m watching players play. You learn a lot about leadership, who’s organising the others in difficult moments, so I prefer the crowdnoise off.

PC:I wanted to hear the fake crowdnoise. A lot of fans I know want to hear the players, but I’ve heard the players for 20 years, I don’t need to hear them! I prefer a little bit of atmosphere when I’m watching matches on TV otherwise it just sounds like a reserve game.

You can’t beat havingthe fans there, though. It’s just spine-tingling when you think about Euro 96 and what that was like. If we can get the same sort of buzz together now, that would be amazing.

There are loads of teams I’m interested in seeing at the Euros but I’m really excited about this group of young English players we’ve got now – and also excited to see how Gareth is going to fit them all in.

Howhas tech changed the way youwork?

PC: Punditry is now more technical. Working with BT covering thegames, you havethe tactics board and the screen to draw the arrows and highlight the players… and you have to be able to use it if you want to show the sort of thinking around the tactics now.

GS:Embracing tech is part of modern management. With England it’s more to do with the wider team of staff: we’ve got seven or eight different

“WE’VE ACTUALLYGOT TOO MUCH DATA NOW, SO WE SPEND A LOT OF TIME SORTING WHAT’S RELEVANT” departments, frommedical to video analysis to the commercial team, and they’re all part of building support for the team.

A lot of those guys are further ahead than I am on where technology is and where data needs to be in certain departments. We’re embracing it. I obviously don’t understand all of the details, but I’ve got people who are better than me in those areas who can bring thattothe table. The world is changing so quickly, you’ve got to be ahead of those advances.

How do you think augmented reality tech could be used in football?

GS: One of the things we’re always looking at is delivery of team meetings and how that can be more interesting.

So in terms of tactical ideas forplayers, forexample, augmented reality could show where they move and let you move people around the pitch. With young players, I think some of the tactical learning could take place with that type of system.

PC:That would be great for sortingtactics. I think it could

SUMMER OF SPORT High achiever

Despite being half giraffe, Peter Crouch scored 22 goals in 42 appearances for England – which is a better ratio than Rooney or Shearer.

certainly help with set-pieces, looking at where players need to be positioned.

And what about making use of virtual reality?

GS:In America I’ve been seeing guys recovering from injuries with VR headsets.

So some of the quarterbacks are able to go into plays, and make the type of movement where people will come in to make tackles. The idea is they’re then able to dodge tackles without actually having the hits.

PC:I’ve seen Jamie Carragher with the VR headset [on Sky Sports]. What’s good about that is you can see the sort of situations that players are in, maybe see things from a different perspective and actually put yourself in the position of a player.

If VAR could chalk out one bad decision from your playing days,what would you pick?

PC:I’d like to see how things would have panned out if Lamps’ goal at the 2010 World Cup[against Germany] had counted. We were beaten fair and square, but would that havechanged it in anyway?

I’m just glad I’m not playing with VAR around – I reckon my scoring recordwould have come down by about 20 or 25 goals. I remember one against Man City where I handballed it twice. It’s in the record books now so it doesn’t matter!

Gareth Southgateand Peter Crouch helped launch the world’s first 5G AR ‘foosball’ tournament, hosted byEE at Wembley Stadium. You can catch all the action on EE’s YouTube channel.

TOP APPS & PODCASTS

EURO 2020 PANINI STICKER ALBUM

THE TOTALLY FOOTBALL SHOW

LIVESCORE

Collecting football stickers is as big a part of a tournament as having unrealistic expectations, but when you reach a certain age you have to pretend they’re for your kids. Save yourself from living a lie by downloading the app version instead. Opening packets doesn’t feel quite the same when you do it digitally, but you get free stickers every day. £free / iOS, Android

Football Italia legend James Richardson leads a squad of high-profile pundits as they debate and dissect all the latest news from the world of football. Previous tournaments have seen the Totally team ramp up their thrice-weekly coverage to almost impossible levels… and with England, Scotland and Wales all having qualified this time, we expect Euro 2020 will be no different.

FOOTBALL CLICHES

SUPERBRU

SET PIECE MENU

Considering how much verbal landfill is created every day in the name of fitba, it’s hardly surprising that a slightly bizarre lexicon has emerged around the game.

Twitter stalwart Adam Hurrey (@FootballCliches) and a rotating lineup of guests get in and around everything in this podcast, from the words we use to describe a goal to what makes a stadium a cauldron or a fortress.

No, not the name of a Scottish cocktail made from Tennent’s Super and Irn Bru, but a chance to put your crystal ball to good use and predict the results of upcoming matches.

Superbru selects the games and you win points depending on how close you get – correctly guessing the winner, getting close to or nailing the exact scoreline – but the best part is you can set up private leagues with friends. £free / iOS, Android

There are tonnes of apps out there for keeping on top of football scores, but LiveScore is the best of the lot. Even if less important things like work, childcare or escaping from an erupting volcano get in the way, LiveScore offers customisable notifications so you’ll never miss a goal, red card or penalty, even a corner, no matter what else is going on around you. It even does more boring sports like horse racing and hockey. £free / iOS, Android

While there’s no shortage of ’casts that pick the bones out of every shot, pass and VAR calamity, few talk about the game with as much thought and insight as Set Piece Menu. Hosted by a journalist, a commentator, a presenter and an ex-player (Andy Hinchcliffe), it tackles issues including tribalism, the role of agents, and why people choose to support crap teams.

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SUMMER OF SPORT

CYCLING TOUR DE FRANCE

Start-up station

At just 7cm at its thickest and only 22.2kg, you’ll have no trouble wall-mounting this baby; otherwise there are metal feet to perch it on.

I

] yawdaorB xelA / OSA egamI [

42

f watching men ride up hills in tight Lycra is your raison d’etre, annual sporting events don’t come any bigger than the Tour… but to do the event justice on TV you need a set like the Sony XH9005.

First, it must be able to cope with fast action, which is where the 120Hz refresh rate and X-Motion Clarity tech come in to keep things reliably smooth – while an Auto Low-Latency Mode on the HDMI ports means the lack of lag also extends to external sources.

Second, it needs to be a consummate upscaler, because ITV’s coverage only

extends to HD broadcasts. The XH9005 relies on the considerable power of its X1 4K HDR picture-processing chip to give 1080p images some polish, with hugely impressive results.

There’s some bonus material to be had here too, because the set is one of Sony’s ‘Ready for PlayStation 5’ TVs, meaning it’s set up to do its stablemate real justice. That means it gets the HDMI 2.1 ports that make it a serious next-gen console proposition.

Add to that the fact that picture quality is dynamic and convincing, input lag is roughly 15ms, and even without

external assistance this Sony sounds quite muscular too, and you’ve got a potential yellow-jersey TV on your hands here. £1099 / stuff.tv/XH9005 KEY SPECS ● 65in 3840x2160 LCD ● 4x HDMI, 2x USB, Ethernet, optical, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth ● HDR 10, Dolby Vision, HLG ● Android TV

STUFF SAYS ★★★★★

An LCD blockbuster for sport if a giant OLED is out of your price range

SUMMER OF SPORT Grenade ears

The built-in 20W sound system has two full-range drivers plus

FEELING INSPIRED?

TACX NEO 2T

When is it?

26 June to 18 July Where’s it on?

ITV4, Eurosport

NOW ADD THIS...

SONY PS5

The peloton might be rolling into Paris in 2022 by the time you manage to get one – but if you want to pair a next-gen console with a Sony TV, it really has to be the PS5. £450 / playstation.com

...AND PLAY THIS

LONELY MOUNTAINS: DOWNHILL

OK, it’s hardly a classic, and it’s the wrong kind of bikes, but you try finding any other cycling games that are actually worth playing… from £15 / all platforms

Already forked out a fortune for a new bike but want to ride it from the comfort of your own garage during ‘summer’ hailstorms? The Tacx Neo 2T has a virtual flywheel, which means you can use it without a power source and makes it feel more like riding a normal bike, while also making it a lot quieter than other turbo trainers.

It’s also compatible with all the major training apps, so none of your stationary miles will go to waste. £1199 / wiggle.co.uk

GARMIN ENDURO If you’re heading out on a multi-day ride and don’t want to have to worry about your watch dying on you halfway up a mountain, the Enduro will keep tracking for up to 80hrs in GPS mode, with a 1.4in Power Glass display that turns sunlight into juice to keep it running that little bit longer. If you’re heading off-road it can calculate trail difficulty ratings, plus its ClimbPro feature warns you just how steep that hill on the horizon is. £700 / garmin.com

HAMMERHEAD KAROO 2

LUMOS KICKSTART

Garmin has been king of the bike computers for ages, but the Karoo 2 is so good it’s caused Stuff’s resident pedalhead to jump, er, saddle. Its 3.2in touchscreen is awesome for maps, while routes are easy to select and sync with Strava, mainly because it works a lot like an Android phone. That also means it frequently gets updated with new features. Oh, and did we mention it’s over £150 cheaper than Garmin’s top Edge model? £359 / hammerhead.io

Geraint Thomas and co might not need to signal where they’re going as they traverse the French countryside, but you will.

Rather than just using your arms like some sort of chump, this helmet comes with built-in turn signals and a remote to trigger them, so your bonce will flash to warn everyone where you’re going. It also has bright white LEDs on the front, and a warning light on the back that gets brighter when you stop sharply. £140 / uk.lumoshelmet.co

PELOTON BIKE+

SMARTHALO 2

Feel like a Tour de Lounge is more your thing?

Get past the irritating instructors and Peloton’s connected exercise bike is by far the best option for those who prefer cycling without moving, plus you can join groups of friends for remote rides. The Auto Follow function means resistance changes automatically, while the swivelling touchscreen is great for seeing real-time stats as you go. You can even sync your Apple Watch for extra metrics. £2295 + £39/m / onepeloton.co.uk

Is it a sat-nav? Is it a light? Is it an alarm?

No, it’s a SmartHalo 2.

Connect your phone using Bluetooth and this handlebar-mounted puck has a touchscreen that’ll show you where to go, display text messages and riding metrics including speed, distance and time… and let out a 100dB SOS if the motion detectors think someone is trying to make off with it while it’s locked up.

It’ll even automatically disarm when it detects your phone is nearby. £175 / smarthalo.bike 43

SUMMER OF SPORT 4K love

The Beeb is taking

FEELING INSPIRED?

BASELINER SLAM For the price of most tennis machines you could probably pay Serena Williams to come over for a few rallies; so while the Baseliner Slam is clearly a bit on the basic side, it’s a much more affordable way to play against yourself without resorting to Swingball. You can easily alter the speed and trajectory at which it launches 12 standard tennis balls, meaning it can be used to practise a whole range of shots. £290 / littlebigsports.co.uk

Grand Slam tournaments might have a steady supply of local kids lining up to retrieve balls for the world’s best players, but you’re unlikely to have the same luxury. If you’re lazy enough, though, you can enlist the help of the Tennibot, which can round up 80 balls in just a few minutes. You can specify which areas of the court it should patrol using the accompanying app, which should minimise the chance of tripping over it while chasing a lob on match point. $950 / tennibot.com

THERAGUN ELITE

ZEPP TENNIS 2

It looks like something you’d have to buy from under the counter in Ann Summers, but this little throbber is designed for a different kind of relief.

It uses percussive therapy to massage away tension and relieve soreness after a hard session out on the court, with an app that lets you choose preset programmes based on your recent activities.

And it has the quietest motor in Theragun’s whole range of powerful anti-ache weapons. £375 / theragun.com 44

TENNIBOT

Like a fitness tracker for your racquet, the Zepp Tennis 2 sensor attaches to the end of the handle and uses its high-speed gyro plus video shot on your phone to collect over 1000 data points per second, tracking everything from stroke type and how accurately you hit the sweet spot to ball speed and spin. Then it breaks them all down in the Zepp app, so you can see exactly where you need to improve in order to cut out those costly unforced errors. £120 / zepplabs.com

WILSON BLADE 98 NAKED You know Wimbledon’s all-white dress code? It doesn’t apply to racquets, which is lucky for Wilson’s zingy swingers. But this Naked version of the popular Blade comes without any paint, dyes or single-use plastics, instead opting for a biodegradable grip, bio-based bumpers and grommets, and a waterbased protective coating.

Its mean, stealthy look might even scare your opponent into a few double faults. £380 / wilson.com

UNDER ARMOUR ISO-CHILL RUN SHORT SLEEVE

No, you’re not playing at Wimbledon, so the blue, green, black, orange and grey of Under Armour’s new Iso-Chill range are all viable options for your next match. The flattened fibres are designed to disperse heat, with a titaniumdioxidetreatment to absorb UV energy and move it away from the body. And the four-way stretch design means it moves better in all directions – something we can all aspire to. £36 / underarmour.co.uk

When is it?

28 June to 11 July Where’s it on?

BBC

NOW ADD THIS...

SONY XPERIA 1 III

If you’re hoping to capture Djokovic mid-leap, Sony’s Xperia 1 III has the fastest shutter speeds and autofocus in the west, plus a 6.5in 4K HDR 120Hz OLED display. £tbc /sony.co.uk

...AND PLAY THIS

TENNIS CHAMPS SEASON 3

This game isn’t new, but with all the playability of old-school 16-bit tennis titles and a fine career mode, it’s an addictive smash-’em-up. from £free / iOS, Android

SUMMER OF SPORT

TENNIS WIMBLEDON

Well, you don’t want to get court with a substandard gogglebox

Squirty all

The KD-48A9 runs Android, so you get Chromecast and Google Assistant built in, but it also supports Apple’s AirPlay and HomeKit plus Alexa.

SONY KD-48A9 W

] notyalC miT / CTLEA egamI [

ith their polite applause, penchant for Pimm’s and unrivalled capacity for queueing, tennis fans probably aren’t likely to go in for something as gauche as a TV the size of a double mattress.

But Sony’s KD-48A9 crams all the stuff you’d expect from a top-end 4K OLED into something more discreet.

The A9 is a fair bit chunkier than the slimmest screens you can buy, but it’s solidly built and has a minimal bezel around the 48in panel. Any concerns about skinniness will be immediately banished when you turn it on anyway,

because this TV aces pretty much every department. Colours have all the impact of a Kyrgios serve, and contrasts really pop from the screen – the players’ bright whites will look like something in a Daz advert. Motion is natural and well controlled too, so it’ll have no bother with even the most intense rallies.

The A9’s relative girth does have its benefits too. It means you get Sony’s Acoustic Surface Audio technology, which turns the whole screen into a speaker (with a small subwoofer built in too). That makes this one of the few TVs where you can genuinely get away

without adding a soundbar – although, much like the umpires on Centre Court, it doesn’t like loud volumes, so you’d still be advised to employ one if you like to turn things up to 11. £1399 / stuff.tv/A9 KEY SPECS ● 48in 3840x2160 OLED ● 4x HDMI, 3x USB, Ethernet, optical, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth ● HDR 10, Dolby Vision, HLG ● Android TV

STUFF SAYS ★★★★★

Don’t be fooled by its slightly smaller size: the KD-48A9 is a real smasher 45

SUMMER OF SPORT

GOLF THE OPEN

It’s the oldest golf tournament in the world, but your TV needn’t match

When is it?

15 July to 18 July Where’s it on?

Sky Sports

Club selection

The CX gives easy access to Netflix and co – and while it launched without UK services like iPlayer, most of those have now been added.

LG CX F

] stropS ykS egamI [

46

ew sports are as obsessed with tradition as golf, but the closest you’ll get to one in the world of TVs is the ‘tradition’ of LG making amazing OLEDs. And while the CX range isn’t the latest (you’ll want the G1 on p38 for that), there are plenty of reasons to tee one up in your lounge ready for this year’s Open Championship.

With all the essential electronics and connections housed in the lower, thicker part of the chassis, the CX doesn’t look totally unlike a golf club when seen from the side; but with screen sizes of 55in, 65in and 77in on offer, even with the

smallest one you’d have a job swinging it around your living room.

Instead, we’d recommended watching TV on it – especially if Sky decides to broadcast the Open in 4K, because that’s where the CX excels. Colours, contrast and motion are particularly well handled, like a Dustin Johnson birdie putt, which means the greens, fairways and dunes that make up Royal St George’s will look particularly natural and lifelike. If not, it’s a very capable upscaler of HD pictures too – not a pixel goes to waste.

As always the audio will benefit from being augmented, but its built-in 40W

speakers are perfectly adequate for any hushed commentary, polite applause and murmurs of discontent when somebody finds a bunker. from £1195 / stuff.tv/OLEDCX KEY SPECS ● 55/65/77in 3840x2160 OLED ● 4x HDMI, 3x USB, Ethernet, optical, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth ● HDR 10, Dolby Vision IQ, HLG ● webOS

STUFF SAYS ★★★★★

Even a year after its release, LG’s CX still scores a hole in one in almost every area

SUMMER OF SPORT Thriving range

The CX needs a little help to reach its potential. Ignore the ‘Filmmaker Mode’ and opt for ‘Cinema Clear’ to be sure of seeing it at its best.

FEELING INSPIRED?

NIKON COOLSHOT PRO STABILIZED

If using GPS to scope out the course feels a bit too much like cheating, how about something a little less computerised?

Nikon’s Coolshot Pro Stabilized allows you to lock onto the pin and use its lasers to measure how far away it is, so you’ll have a much better idea of which club to use, while its vibration reduction system and 6x zoom should help you to find the hole accurately in the first place. £499 / nikon.co.uk

NOW ADD THIS...

...AND PLAY THIS

XBOX SERIES X PGA TOUR 2K21 Stock shortages mean adding the new Xbox to your arsenal is easier said than done but the CX is ready for it, with support for HDMI 2.1, a 120Hz refresh rate and a decent 13ms response time. £450 / xbox.com

Royal St George’s isn’t included on PGA Tour 2K21, but you could use the game’s course designer to create it yourself and upload the result for everyone. from £19 / all platforms

SKYCADDIE LX5 JBL CLIP 3 Everyone could do with a little helping hand out on the course… and they don’t come much helpier than SkyCaddie’s LX5.

Sure, it’s a watch that doesn’t actually have any hands, but the 1.39in touchscreen will tell you everything you need to know about the hole you’re about to play, with maps for over 35,000 courses pre-loaded. You can also use it to keep score, track your steps and monitor your heart rate, with a battery that’ll last a couple of rounds. £300 / web.skygolf.com

Being out on the course for three hours is an easy way to miss what’s going on in the Open, but there’s an easy way around that: JBL’s Clip 3.

Hook up your phone over Bluetooth, fire up the BBC Sounds app and you can tune into the commentary, with the JBL’s titular fastening allowing you to attach it to your bag while you hack your way around 18 holes. It’s also completely waterproof, so you don’t have to worry if the heavens open. £50 / uk.jbl.com

ARCCOS CADDIE FLIGHTSCOPE SMART GRIPS MEVO+

VOICE CADDIE VC300 GPS

How you hold the club can be the difference between glory and despair – and with Arccos’s Caddie Smart Grips wrapped around yours, you might enjoy more of the former. They use GPS, motion sensors and AI to track how you hit each shot, which means the app can offer advice in real time and work out your strengths and weaknesses. You can even pick a grip spec to suit your swing. from £200 / uk.arccosgolf.com

If you’re used to having Alexa tell you what the weather’s going to be like before you set off for your round, and then a sat-nav telling you how to get to the course, you’ll probably be receptive to the idea of having a Voice Caddie VC300 GPS telling you the yardage of each hole. Clip it to your hat (or somewhere else in earshot) and when you click or swipe across it, it’ll announce distances for the hole you’re about to tee off on. £130 / voicecaddie.com

Ever wished your golf coach looked a bit more like a wireless router? The Mevo+ is a launch monitor that uses radar and a built-in camera to record your shots at the range, measuring everything from ball speed and launch angle to smash factor, which sounds like some sort of Saturday night ITV gameshow. It even doubles as a simulator, so you can play a whole virtual round without leaving Wi-Fi range. £1699 / flightscopemevo.co.uk

47

SUMMER OF SPORT Finding the apps in the field

Samsung uses its own Tizen-based interface on its TVs, which is easy to navigate and packed with apps.

FEELING INSPIRED?

FEED BUDDY Feed Buddy might be what you call your local Deliveroo rider, but in the world of garden cricket it’s a way to keep on practising when everyone else has gone indoors to eat boring old pizza.

This automated gizmo spits out a ball every five seconds (with a max capacity of 10); and while the deliveries are hardly at Mitchell Starc speeds, it’s great for youngsters who want to work on their technique until the batteries run out. £80 / cricketfeedbuddy.com

SMARTCRICKET MILLICHAMP BATSENSE & HALL THE ORIGINAL It sounds like something Lucius Fox would supply to Bruce Wayne in one of the Batman films, but SmartCricket’s Batsense is very real. Mount it on the handle of your bat and it’ll record all your shots then create 3D avatars of each one, including stats on things like maximum bat speed, rotation at impact and backlift. If you can’t sort your technique with that kind of insight, you probably deserve your single-figure average. £99 / smartcricket.com

Cricket-bat tech hasn’t exactly come on in leaps and bounds – it’s still just a hunk of wood with a handle – but this one is a proper throwback all the same. Its fuller profile, higher middle and tapered toe make it a bat for the purist, but it still conforms to modern regulations and will set you apart as a true student of the game – particularly when you use it to clip one right over the sight screen. £550 / millichampandhall.co.uk

GUNN & MOORE BACKYARD ZINGS OAKLEY DIAMOND 303 FLASHING BAILS KATO PRIZM Scientists recently made the claim that bamboo can be just as good as willow for making cricket bats, but at the moment the traditional wood is still the way to go – just ask Ben Stokes. GM teamed up with the England all-rounder to create the Diamond 303, giving it a slightly shorter blade than usual with a larger sweet spot, which should help you recreate his 2019 World Cup Final heroics. Well, maybe… £90 / playwiththebest.com 48

Seeing the stumps get skittled is usually enough to let someone know they’ve been bowled… but if you fancy adding a bit of razzle-dazzle and really rubbing it in, sticking these light-up bails on top should hammer home the point that it’s time to begin the long walk back to the pavilion/patio.

Powered by two AAA batteries and compatible with any stumps, they flash red when knocked off – a bit like your latest victim’s temper. £28 / amazon.co.uk

While a pair of wayfarers or aviators are fine for a visit to your local jellied eel shack or the nearest travelling vape festival, there’s only one brand of sunnies you can wear on the cricket field: Oakley.

Its latest Kato Prizm shades have a mask-like fit (something we’re all very used to by now) and a choice of three different nosepads so they fit snugly on your face, with an adjustable rake system that lets you tilt the angle of the lenses. £231 / oakley.com

When is it?

21 July to 21 Au Where’s it on?

BBC, Sky Sports

NOW ADD THIS...

SAMSUNG GALAXY S21 ULTRA 5G

It seems what Samsung knows about making TVs also goes into its phones, because the screen on the S21 Ultra is an absolute stonker. from £1149 / samsung.com

...AND INSTALL THIS

CRICBUZZ

It’s not likely to ask too many questions of the S21 Ultra’s screen, but Cricbuzz is the best place to go for live match updates. There’s also an Apple Watch version. £free / iOS, Android

SUMMER OF SPORT

CRICKET THE HUNDRED

A new match format is the perfect reason to top up your TV tech

Don’t forget your box

All cables plug into the OneConnect box, which has four HDMIs, USB, Ethernet, digital optical, and terrestrial and satellite tuners.

SAMSUNG QN95A I

] derdnuH ehT egamI [

t seems 2021 is the year for trying new things. The Hundred, a 100-ball cricket tournament involving eight regional teams all sponsored by crisps and snacks, debuts towards the end of July… while Samsung has introduced Mini LED tellies, which are backlit by – you guessed it – many thousands of very small LEDs. So does it work? Well, the jury’s still out on The Hundred, but Samsung’s QN95A is an unqualified success. Each one of those lights is a 40th of the size of a conventional LED, meaning the set has a whopping 800 discrete dimming

zones to play with, which gives the Neo Quantum Processor 4K greater control over brightness and contrast. There’s so much detail you’ll probably be able to pick out individual mud specks on the wicket; and while you’ll need to dial things down to stop the grass looking radioactive, it should also cope admirably with the fastest of deliveries.

If you treasure the sound of leather on willow you’ll want to add something to upgrade the audio, because this Samsung’s built-in speakers will not do those evocative thwacks justice, but that pretty much goes without

saying even when you’re spending this much. If The Hundred is even half as good as this TV, cricket fans have plenty to look forward to come July. In the meantime, pass the Hula Hoops… from £1999 / stuff.tv/QN95A KEY SPECS ● 55/65/75/85in 3840x2160 OLED ● 4x HDMI, 3x USB, Ethernet, optical, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth ● HDR 10+, HLG ● Tizen

STUFF SAYS ★★★★★

Pricey but premium, Samsung’s first Mini LED set makes a fine impression 49

SUMMER OF SPORT

OTHER STUFF THE OLYMPICS

Watching TV isn’t an Olympic sport yet, but let’s get in training anyway

Scroll vault

This TV runs Android 9.0, which means you get all the expected streaming apps except Apple TV. It can be a little sluggish, though.

PHILIPS OLED+935 I

t’s hard to think of an event better-suited to an Ambilight TV than the summer Olympics.

Sure, splashing the red of the running track or the blue of the pool all over the surfaces around your telly will distract from the fact that the arenas won’t be full to the brim, but it’s the spectacle of the opening ceremony that will really give the Philips OLED+935 an excuse to show off.

No matter which size you pick – 48in, 55in or 65in – the four-sided Ambilight works a treat in making things feel more immersive, while the integrated B&W 50

soundbar means it sounds better than any other TV on the market: balanced, expansive and dynamic.

When it comes to picture quality, things are equally podium-worthy. It won’t win gold for brightness but there’s so much detail you’ll practically be able to see the long-jump faults before the officials, while the colour palette will make the flags in the medal ceremonies look vibrant but never lurid.

It’s brilliant with skin tones too, so those close-ups of gurning weightlifters will be particularly lifelike, and speedy photo finishes are dealt with just as

admirably. You can find similar-specced TVs for less than this one, but it’s not like there’s an Olympics every other weekend, right? from £1499 / stuff.tv/OLED935 KEY SPECS ● 48/55/65in 3840x2160 OLED ● 4x HDMI, 2x USB, Ethernet, optical, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth ● HDR 10+, Dolby Vision, HLG ● Android TV

STUFF SAYS ★★★★★

Silver for sound and gold for vision, the OLED+935 is an all-round winner

SUMMER OF SPORT Fiddle distance

The OLED+935’s leather-trimmed remote is a joy to use, plus there’s a built-in mic for barking instructions at Google Assistant.

When is it?

23 July to 8 Au Where’s it on?

BBC, Eurosport

NOW ADD THIS...

NINTENDO SWITCH

This isn’t just the only current console you can easily get hold of right now; it also has a Tokyo-related game. Even if it is a rather silly one… £279 / nintendo.co.uk

...AND PLAY THIS

MARIO & SONIC AT THE OLYMPIC GAMES TOKYO 2020

A load of Olympic events get the Switch treatment, mixing old-school button-mashing with more athletic motion controls. £40 / Switch

FEELING INSPIRED?

FINIS DUO

HYDROW

While runners are spoilt for choice when it comes to sweat-resistant buds, those who prefer an aquatic workout are more limited. Rather than standard in-ears, which don’t always fare well in the pool, these use bone-conduction to pump the sound directly into your noggin. Having to fill the 4GB memory feels a bit old, and the sound quality certainly won’t be up to true audiophile standards, but it’s still the best way of adding some music to your lengths. €126 / finisswim.com

Team GB has a decent record when it comes to rowing, but what if your only local waterway is River Island? With a patented drag system that’s much quieter than its rivals, Hydrow is essentially Peloton for rowing. An integrated22in touchscreen and built-in Wi-Fi allow you to join in with live and on-demand classes, so if you’ve got the room (and the wallet) for it, Hydrow will work much more than just your lungs and legs. £2295 + £38/m / hydrow.co.uk

COROS PACE 2

JAXJOX KETTLEBELLCONNECT 2.0

If your best 5K time falls half an hour short of the sub-13-minute Olympic record set in 2008, you probably don’t need to fork out £500 for the Garmin above… but the much cheaper Pace 2 is far from being the pie-scoffing slouch of the running watch world.

With the nylon band attached it takes gold for the lightest GPS watch on the planet, offering a niceclear screen, excellent battery life and more features than you can wave a chest strap at. £180 / coros.com

Dumbbell? Who are you calling a dumbbell? The 6-in-1 KettlebellConnect 2.0 can be adjusted in 3kg increments using the buttons and LCD display on the front, with six-axis motion sensors inside to track your reps, volume, sets, average power and workout duration in real time. Go for a premium account and it’ll even give you workout videos to follow, making this easily the smartest thing you’ll ever drop on your foot. £249 / jaxjox.co.uk

GARMIN FORERUNNER 945

For most runners the Garmin Forerunner 945 is probably overkill – but if tackling a marathon is something you genuinely like the sound of, it’s packed with features that’ll make training for it less painful. As well as GPS and heart rate, it can measure your training load and make rest recommendations, plus it’ll show you how it’s all affected your endurance, speed and power. Watch your back, Mo. £500 / garmin.com

FORM SMART SWIM GOGGLES There are plenty of smartwatches that are capable of tracking your swimming sessions now, but will any of them make you feel like Robocop in Speedos? These goggles have a display built into one of the lenses, so you can monitor your pace, distance and stroke rate as you go, with all your stats saved in the app for analysis when you’ve dried off. They’re what Google Glass would have looked like if it had been invented by mermaids. £149 / formswim.com 51

DIGITAL EDITION

Available from shop.kelsey.co.uk/stuff plus Readly and Pocketmags

Ever A1’s a winner TESTED SONY A1

A1 more night The large sensor makes it a good lowlight performer, though night crawlers might get better mileage out of the cheaper Sony A7S III.

■ A1 moment in time

Filmmakers will love outputting 16-bit RAW to an external recorder, but even internal recording supports 10-bit 4:2:0 footage up to 8K. The choice of framerates allows for some beautiful slo-mo sequences.

This is Sony’s super-speedy mirrorlesss flagship, built to tackle any photographic task… as you’d expect for over six grand

£6499 / stuff.tv/A1 ■In the noughties a flagship DSLR would have been twice the size and weight of the A1… but stick a smallish lens on this mirrorless machine and it could almost be called discreet. That’s despite chunky dials, an OLED viewfinder, and a grip that feels super-secure with your right mitt around it.

■This weather-sealed snapper is pitched at pros, and it feels solid enough foryearsof tough shoots… although the rear LCD – which only tilts about 90° upwards or 45° down – feels like a backward step compared to the full flippability seen on some recent models.

■Considering the sheer amount of data the sensor produces, the A1 feels nimble and rarely sluggish.

The setup allows for 8K video at up to 30fps, or 50.1MP stills with AF tracking and auto exposure engaged at a staggering 30fps.

■Other notable features include five-axis image stabilisation, a battery good for over 500 stills and a heat management system that will let you shoot video clips of almost unlimited length.

■The A1 produces stunning stills. Whether shooting portraits, wildlife or reportage, it rises to any occasion. And the ability to crop down to a tiny section of a photo and still have a sharp, noise-free image is an undeniable benefit when shooting far-off subjects.

■ A1 step beyond

Unless you have a monster of a PC, 8K files can be hard to work with, but detail-wise the value of recording at that resolution then down-sampling to 4K is obvious.

Mind, the 4K output offers bags of crisp detail and colour depth.

Tech specs

Sensor 50.1MP full-frame Exmor RS CMOS AF points 759 phase, 425 contrast ISO range 100-32,000 (exp) Burst speed Up to 30fps Video 8K @ 30fps, 4K @ 120fps, 1080p @ 240fps Displays 3in TFT touchscreen, 16mm OLED EVF Dimensions 1289x97x81mm, 737g

STUFF SAYS The Sony A1 is the ultimate no-compromise all-round camera HHHHH All for one, A1 for all… but Sony has better options for specialists Sam Kieldsen

The A1’s price is high, but professionals wanting a do-it-all camera for video and photo won’t be disappointed. The £3799 A7S III represents a better deal for videographers, while photographers can look to the 61MP A7R IV(£3199); but for someone wanting all bases covered, plus the ability to shoot stills at an incredible speed, there’s nothing quite like the A1 to fill your portfolio with wonders.

53

Lil’ Bow wows TESTED BOWERS & WILKINS PI7

Bowers & Wilkins is hopping onto the miniature bandwagon by squeezing its formidable sound tech into a very expensive pair of wireless buds

] yaD semaJ sdroW [

£349 / stuff.tv/pi7 We’ve seen a glut of audiophile brands launching true wireless earbuds recently. Cambridge Audio, KEF, Grado and Devialet are among those to join Bang & Olufsen in attempting to take a slice of the AirPods Pro pie.

Why? Because the $25bn headphone market is projected to rise to $120bn by 2027, with true wireless and active noise-cancelling the most sought-after features.

A no-brainer, then, for British hi-fi brand Bowers & Wilkins to join the party. But the PI7s are no ordinary ANC buds… with no ordinary price tag. Each one gets dual drivers with dual amps, but it’s the charging case that opens up a new world of listening.

Physically connect it to an in-flight entertainment system, games console or computer and it’ll act as a bridge, retransmitting lovely aptX Low Latency audio through the buds and into your ears. That’s cool… but is it ‘£100 more than the AirPods Pro’ cool?

GOOD MEH EVIL

54

Grand blaster flash With gold accents accompanying a white or charcoal finish (1), the PI7s are flash in the flesh. They’re not the smallest or the lightest, and they only last four hours, but it still feels like there are some Tardis-like qualities at play to pack in dual drivers each with its own dedicated amplifier.

Two-pack shaker That dual sound setup is split between a 9.2mm custom driver for the lower frequencies and a high-frequency ‘balanced armature’ driver (2). You’ll also find six mics around the buds for handling Siri or Google Assistant voice requests and detecting ambient noise for the ANC (3).

Mos deaf For £350 you’d expect them to have supreme noise-cancelling abilities – and for the most part they impressed us, blocking out most of what the creaking London Underground served up. But if you want a complete blackout, they’re edged by Bose’s QuietComfort Earbuds.

Exquisite sound quality

Really quite expensive

ANC is not the greatest

1

Qi-tip We’ve seen slinkier charging cases, and its 16-hour capacity isn’t exactly special either, but then a 15-minute Qi wireless charge did give us two hours of play time, and that super-smart retransmission tech (see panel) realistically has to be accounted for somewhere.

Throb deep Where the PI7s excel is with hi-res audio. There’s so much detail, with the dual drivers working overtime to provide incredible separation. Lows are deep but refined, mids clear and open, and highs inoffensive… which is just as well as there’s no EQ adjustment with the app.

Clever charging case No volume controls or EQ

Mediocre battery life

TESTED BOWERS & WILKINS PI7

Inspectah codec The PI7s are well covered for codecs with AAC, SBC, aptX, aptX HD, aptX Low Latency and aptX Adaptive all on hand.

Tech specs

Audio 9.2mm + balanced armature dual drivers Connectivity Bluetooth 5, USB-C, 3.5mm Battery life 4hrs (buds), 16hrs (case) Waterproof rating IP54 Weight 8g each, 50g case

3

2

Four tothe fore

There’s a quartet of unique features to set the PI7s apart from their audiophile contemporaries…

n Plug in

n Smooth out

n Speak up

n Sail away

Retransmission tech works USB-C to USB-C or USB-C to 3.5mm, with both cables included.

Broadcasting from a non-wireless source works well and you can even share sound with a second Bluetooth device.

Voice assistant support works fantastically well on the PI7s, but so do the capacitive touch controls. Play/pause, skip, answering calls and ANC on/off/auto are all catered for… although volume isn’t.

B&W’s debut true wireless buds are brilliant for some unexpected reasons, like the retransmission tech that solves real-world problems, and some we knew were never in doubt – like how thrillingly good they sound. For the price we’d have liked better ANC and battery life, but we’ll settle for some soothing sounds to assuage the wallet damage. @James_A_Day

The inclusion of aptX Adaptive is a smart move.

It smooths out streaming in situations where there are lots of competing signals – a plane cabin, for instance – and tells you which source the audio is coming from.

Inevitably there’s an app, and it’s the only way you can adjust the levels of ANC transparency. We love the inclusion of six relaxing soundscapes, from ‘beach’ to ‘trees and wind’. Sounds naff but it’s decent bonus content.

STUFF SAYS HHHHH Clever features help you forget certain shortfalls in these mighty expensive but mighty impressive ANC buds 55

BETA YOURSELF

DIGITALMAGAZINES Worried you’ll soon be crushed under teetering towers of Stuff (and other, lesser mags)? Craig Grannell shows how you can keep up with your favourites in digital form instead…

THE BASICS

■Use your library

We’re not suggesting you hotfoot it to your local public library every time a new magazine comes out that you fancy reading. But if you have a library card, head to your local branch’s website and find out if they can hook you up with digital services.

Many of them can, providing instant access to a range of digital magazines.

■Try or buy

Do you want to own digital magazines or just rent access to their back catalogues?

As with music and video, that decision will determine which services to use. You can always subscribe to one or two favourites then widen your available reading matter by way of an ‘unlimited’ service.

■Take a tablet

You can read digital mags on a phone, but doing so can be fiddly. They’ll work on a laptop, but landscape screens aren’t well suited to magazines… unless you have a huge display and can set up your digital mags to display as spreads.

So if you have the means, use a tablet to read your mags – preferably one that’s at least iPad-sized.

■Make mags visible

If you’ve been buying loads of paper magazines, you might have a guilt pile – a stack of mags to read that you’ve not yet got around to. With digital, you’ll have the opposite problem: all those unread issues are invisible. So make your mag apps prominent on your home screen and set up notifications to remind you when new issues arrive.

■Augment with RSS

Magazines are amazing, under-appreciated things, giving people curated content based on subjects they love.

They can surprise and widen what you take in, rather than letting you stagnate in an online bubble. But immediacy can be a boon too, so augment digital mags with RSS feeds, which pipe website headlines and articles to your reader of choice.

PICK POCKETMAGS ■Start your collection

Go phone

If you want to read mags anywhere and are wedded to your phone, Pocketmags is your best bet – Stuff’s digital edition has a mobile version optimised for smaller screens.

56

If you’re new to Pocketmags (pocketmags.com), you can grab an older mag as a freebie just to see how it works.

Beyond that, you can buy single issues, subscribe to publications, or head to Plus for all-you-can-eat access.

■Organise your mags

Your collection will be housed in My Library, organised by title, release date or purchase date. To keep your main library free from clutter, choose Archive from an issue’s ‘three dots’ menu. You can always unarchive it later if you change your mind.

BEYOND MAGAZINES

NEWSPAPERS: READLY

If you fancy a side of news galore with your magazines galore,Readly can cater for that too… well, as long as you don’t fancy the Times, FT or Telegraph. The Guardian and Independent are in there, along with most of the tabloids. £7.99/m / readly.com

BOOKS: KINDLE UNLIMITED

FEED ME, READLY ■Optimise reading

LEARN TO READ ■Browse thumbnails

Readly (readly.com) is Netflix for magazines. When browsing pages, you might see round icons at the bottom of the screen. Tap one and the current page will reflow into a simplified layout with text resizing.

When using Pocketmags in a browser, click the grid icon for an at-a-glance page overview of the entire magazine. On mobile, tapping the screen brings up a scrollable thumbnail view. In either case, selecting a spread will load up the full-size pages.

■Swap layouts

Whichever platform you’re using, Pocketmags optimises the view based on available space, displaying a single page or spread accordingly. This is great on a tablet, where you can switch orientation in an instant.

■Share pages

■Switch orientation

If you prefer traditional layouts, switch between single pages and spreads simply by holding your device in portrait or landscape. Tap the spreads button (top right when in landscape) to instead force full-width single pages, which scroll vertically.

On mobile, tap the screen and then the share button. Choose a page to share and you can email it or post it online, in just about readable fashion, with the issue’s cover art jauntily poking out from behind it.

FIND WHAT YOUWANT

Amazon is unsurprisingly a good bet for digital books. You can of course grab a single title and squirt it to your Kindle, phone or tablet; but Kindle Unlimited gives you over a million books to read and thousands of audiobooks to listen to. £7.99/m / amazon.co.uk

■Use bookmarks

Found an article on Readly that you’ll want to return to later?

Click/tap the bookmark icon (on mobile you must first tap the screen and pick a page) and give it a name. Bookmarks sync across devices and can be perused in My Content.

■Search text

Contents pages are fine, but you can take advantage of digital by using search to quickly find features – or any other terms. You can also perform searches across the entire Readly catalogue, for example to get at all of Stuff’s Mini Meme pages.

COMICS: MARVEL UNLIMITED

Marvel gives you enough comicstochoke Galactus for a smallish monthly fee. Prefer owning rather than renting? Beyond ComiXology, plenty of indies sell direct, and you can get cheap collections from Humble Bundle. $9.99/m / marvel.com 57

CHA O US /joinstuff

/stuffmagazine

LIK US @stuffmag

R

US @stuffTV

Everywhere you are Read it, like it, share it

Wrist of fury TESTED ONEPLUS WATCH

After launching with a bunch of features missing, OnePlus’s debut smartwatch is still maddeningly flaky despite frantic efforts to fix its software

£149 / stuff.tv/OnePlusWatch ■OnePlus’s Watch isn’t ambitious.

It’s an inoffensive mix of glass, stainless steel and plastic, with a proprietary semi-smart OS and widgety screens showing music, sleep data and heart rate. You can add step count, weather and your stress level, while the 1.39in OLED is sharp and alters its brightness to suit ambient conditions.

■There’s no digital assistant, you can’t download extra apps, and even ones like Connect TV only work with a OnePlus telly that’s not available in the UK. Still, it’ll take blood oxygen readings, including at night.

■At the start of every workout, GPS mapping takes a small age to kick in. We’re talking eight minutes to start recording your location, so run 5km and it’ll tell you you’ve only run 3.5km. Triffic.

■Well, it could use its motion sensors to estimate distance then switch to GPS… but no, it spreads the distance over the total time so every kilometre is registered as ultra-slow, not just the first one or two. How the stats end up in this state boggles the mind.

■This has knock-on effects for the watch’s more hardcore fitness measurement, VO2 Max. We usually score a 51; the OnePlus Watch gave us 24, suggesting we spent lockdowns one, two and three eating crisps in a cellar.

I get week Always-on mode reduces battery life from 14 days to roughly a week. This sort of reduction is the norm for always-on OLEDs.

■ Armband van Helden

It’s fair to say OnePlus has gone further than some with its watch features. You can use it to control music played on your phone, and can also store up to 2GB of tunes on the wearable itself to send to a pair of wireless headphones.

■ Squawk to the hand

It has a speaker, but you can’t use it to play music – it’s for alarms, alerts and calls. That’s right, you can make calls using this watch, as there’s a mic that acts like the one in a Bluetooth headset. But why would you?

Tech specs

Screen 1.39in 454x454 OLED Processor OnePlus (undisclosed) Storage 4GB OS OnePlus OS Battery lifeUp to 14 days Sensors Accelerometer, gyro, barometer, compass, heart rate, SpO2 Water/dust-resistance IP68 Dimensions 46x46x10.9mm, 45g

STUFF SAYS It may be a good buy one day, but a few weeks after launch it is not HH✩✩✩ It was awful at launch… now it’s just notAndrew veryWigood lliams

We might have a better opinion of the OnePlus Watch if we waited six months… but we review new tech in Stuff, not gadgets halfway to the retirement village. OnePlus has updated a few features and squashed some bugs, but the problem remains: this watch cannot reliably track outdoor exercise due to dodgy GPS execution and a fumbled handling of data. The Huawei Watch GT 2 and cheaper GT2e are better buys.

59

Monkey magic

VERSUS MID-RANGE ANDROIDS

Asus ZenFone 8

] hguolcarraB sirhC ,nagroM moT sdroW [

HANDSET HISTORIES

The G100 isn’t your typical Moto G: rather than being dirt-cheap, it stretches the G series into proper mid-range territory… and does so with a productivity twist called Ready For. You could buy the G100 on its own, but Moto would prefer you to pick it up with a dock and cable for hooking up to a TV or computer monitor.

Think Samsung DeX and you’re most of the way there… only without paying flagship money for the privilege. Now throw in five cameras (plus a ToF sensor), a Snapdragon 870 and a 90Hz screen, and it threatens to be a compelling option at this price.

● Asus’s ZenFone line arrived in 2014… and despite the ZenFone 8 being promoted as a compact option, handsets in the core range have rarely had a display over 6in. In fact, the original ZenFone 4 sported a 4in display. And to make you feel extra-old, you also got a 5MP camera, a 1200mAh battery and 4GB of internal storage. Ah, simpler times. ● Moto’s G series was launched way back in 2013 when Motorola Mobility was owned by Google, and after just six months the original G became Motorola’s best-selling smartphone ever thanks to its success in emerging markets like Brazil and Mexico. Lenovo bought the firm for $2.91bn in 2014, and has been churning out affordable Moto phones ever since.

What’s the story?

What’s the story?

Is it any good?

Is it any good?

If you’re cursed with stumpy fingers, then modern smartphones probably plunge you into a bottomless pit of woe. Most blowers these days are super-sized monstrosities, so the rise of mini mobiles like the Google Pixel 5 and Apple iPhone 12 Mini is genuine cause for celebration.

Asus has also noticed this trend and come to our rescue with the 5.9in ZenFone 8.

This handset packs some seriously beefy specs, including a Snapdragon 888 chipset and 120Hz AMOLED screen, yet squashes it all down to a form that even wee Jimmy Krankie could comfortably wield.

60

Moto G100

We love the ZenFone 8’s compact build, which makes one-handed use an absolute joy, though the bland back means it’s not exactly a visually thrilling phone.

The display is stunning and ZenUI 8 doesn’t mess with Android 11 too much.

Performance is flawless owing to that 888 chip and the dual-lens camera setup is perfectly adequate at this price.

If not for the battery life – around four hours of screen-on time is sub-par even for a device this size – we’d have no hesitation in recommending the ZenFone 8 to anyone looking for a compact smartphone.

Price from £539 / stuff.tv/ZenFone8 ● 5.9in 2400x1080 120Hz AMOLED ● Snapdragon 888 ● 8GB ● 128/256GB ● Android 11 ● 64+12MP rear, 12MP front ● 4000mAh ● 148x69x8.9mm, 169g Stuff says ★★★★✩ A solid mid-priced Android with powerful performance but disappointing battery life

In contrast to the ZenFone 8, the G100 is a powerful mid-ranger with decent battery life to go alongside a screen that will appeal to gamers. A near-stock Android experience leaves little to grumble about.

Only two of the rear camera sensors are worth writing home about, though, and the second selfie-cam is a needless indulgence.

The Ready For dock and software work well as a laptop alternative, and with DeX limited to high-end Galaxy phones this is a much cheaper path to desktop domination. But if you’ve no use for it, there’s little on offer here that you won’t find elsewhere for less.

Price £450 / stuff.tv/G100

● 6.7in 2520x1080 90Hz LCD ● Snapdragon 870 ● 8GB ● 128GB ● Android 11 ● 64+16+2MP rear, 16+8MP front ● 5000mAh ● 168x74x9.7mm, 207g Stuff says ★★★★✩ Breaks new ground for the Moto G lineup, but only to limited effect

VERSUS MID-RANGE ANDROIDS

1 Squeeze the day

2

Asus’s screen-shrinking feature shunts everything down towards the bottom of the display if you’re still struggling with a single mitt.

2 Baby sharp

The Full HD+ visuals are nicely crisp, while HDR10+ streaming support means you can get impressively lifelike pictures.

TEST WINNER

1 4

3 Hard dock life

In Ready For mode we found app compatibility to be mixed, with some streaming video services refusing to work on the big screen.

4 Will o’ the crisp

The display looks good from a distance and stays sharp even with your nose pressed against the glass, and it supports HDR10 playback.

3

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I should see so mucky TESTED DYSON V15 DETECT ABSOLUTE

Just when you thought Dyson couldn’t suck any more, it’s created a vacuum cleaner that illuminates your dust particles with a laser

Shine line The laser is set at a precise 1.5° downward angle, which Dyson claims provides maximum contrast between dust and floor.

■ A change is gonna comb This vac comes with no less than 10 attachments, including the main ‘high-torque cleaner head with an anti-tangle comb’ (snappy), a stubborn dirt brush and a wand clip. Let’s not dwell on the crevice tool.

■ It only rakes a minute

You can do away with the long wand when you’re not cleaning floors or need to give the car a once-over, and the countdown on the LCD display offers a handy guide to how much dust-busting timeyou’ve got left.

£600 / stuff.tv/V15Absolute ■You’ve surely got to be obsessed with cleaning to consider a vacuum costing four Henrys, but Dyson’s latest features a piezo sensor for measuring microscopic dust, a laser to illuminate dirt, and a clever conical head for picking up hair.

Welcome to the Rolls-Royce of cordless handhelds.

■Design-wise it’s definitely a Dyson. The filter, large bin and cyclone innards are all where you expect them. It comes with more attachments than ever, in more cardboard than ever, and compared to the V11 the sucking time and power have increased.

■The piezo sensor detects the vibrations of dust hitting the cyclones 15,000 times per second and automatically adjusts suction poweraccordingly. It displays this info on a super-bright colour panel, along with remaining battery life and cleaning mode.

■If all of that sounds like a lab assistant’s wet dream, try fitting the Laser Slim Fluffy head. Flick a switch and it’s all systems glow for a spot of techno rave housekeeping on hardwood floors.

It’s a great idea for dimly lit areas… partially let down by the head being too wide to access all of them.

■As impressive as the sensor and laser tech might seem, it’s the much narrower anti-tangle hair-screw tool that, well, cleans up. The conical brush automatically unravels your short and curlies because it’s only attached at one end. Brilliant for pet hair and stray lockson the sofa, it’s a winner.

Tech specs

Max power 240AW Capacity 0.76l Run time 1hr Dimensions 1264x 252x250mm, 3kg

STUFF SAYS Ludicrously expensive, but ludicrously good: Dyson’s done it again HHHHH It’s a demon at finding dust… even without the laserJames tricks Day

We’re not sure whether Dyson was inspired by Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials, but for seeking out mysterious invisible dust the V15 Detect Absolute is no fantasy. Lasers and acoustic sensors will grab the headlines, of course, but for real-world cleaning it’s the longer run time and greater suction power that impress, plus a no-more-tangles hair-care system of a different sort.

63

TESTED APPLE iPAD PRO (M1)

Chip it up and start again Apple’s M1 processor has found its way into the already-streets-ahead iPadPro… but there’s more at play in this flagship tab than raw power

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from £749 / stuff.tv/iPadPro The 2018 iPad Pro made good on Apple’s promise of an all-screen device that ‘becomes’ whatever app is running. The 2020 model improved things further, with a better camera setup, Lidar and the lovely Magic Keyboard. This year’s update looks identical, but represents bigger change than you first realise.

From a design perspective, it remains a premium and sleek (if slightly weighty) slate, but the key is what’s new to tempt existing iPad users to upgrade… like stuffing an M1 chip inside. It smacks of overkill, but Pro users never tire of more oomph, and apps that demand power will excel on this hardware.

During testing, this iPad deftly dealt with everything we threw at it, from video and image edits to sequencers and console-grade games. Performance peaked at M1 MacBook Pro levels and, in some cases, software pushed the iPad ahead. That’s great… but it pays to look past the power.

1

I just diode in your arms Our 12.9in Pro’s display (1) echoes previous models, but everything looks richer. That’s down to over 10,000 Mini LEDs, versus 72 normal LEDs in last year’s model.

Brightness hits 1000 full-screen nits and ruins other iPad displays when handling HDR content. The catch: the 11in model doesn’t get the upgrade.

GOOD MEH EVIL

64

Powerful, fluid and responsive

3

Roles apart The Pro is ready for quick switches between using it on its own, sketching with an Apple Pencil or typing on an Apple Magic Keyboard.

Display is stunningly good

Follow view, follow me The rear dual-camera/Lidar setup remains, but now it’s all about the front-facing 12MP ultrawide TrueDepth camera with its 122° field of view (2). On video calls, a tracking system called Center Stage keeps you in frame. It’s odd at first, watching smooth, regular adjustments while the iPad is motionless… but it works.

Options can rapidly get expensive

Central reservations Center Stage is intelligent enough to adjust itself for extra people and ignore those passing through.

Two minor negatives: the system doesn’t (yet) appear to work when recording, and it might trigger people with vestibular disorders. However, the feature can be disabled in settings on a per-app basis.

Center Stage is fun and useful iPadOS’s flaws do grate

Doesn’t like external displays

TESTED APPLE iPAD PRO (M1)

Tech specs

Screen 11in 2388x1668 / 12.9in 2732x2048 Liquid Retina Processor Apple M1 OS iPadOS 14 RAM 8/16GB Storage Up to 2TB Battery life Up to 10hrs Connectivity USB-C, Wi-Fi 6, Bluetooth 5 Cameras 12+10MP rear, 12MP front Dimensions 248x179x5.9mm, 466g (11in) / 281x215x 6.4mm, 682g (12.9in)

And as puck would have it…

Apple AirTag

from £29 / stuff.tv/AirTag

2

Thunderful life Apple’s penchant for minimalism means the Pro sticks with just one port (3), but this USB-C connector supports Thunderbolt and USB 4. In theory, Thunderbolt unlocks support for large external displays; but in practice, most apps mirror the iPad’s display, leaving black bars left and right. This feels increasingly absurd.

System of mercy The platform remains poor for coding, but other high-end tasks are supported by superb pro apps.

For games, this iPad is strong too.

Where things fall short is iPadOS itself, which lags behind iOS in some areas (widgets, App Library) and macOS in others (Files being like a Fisher-Price Finder, that flawed external display support).

Filed under ‘gadgets you never knew you needed’, smart tags from Samsung, Tile and now Apple help you locate lost items.

Apple’s steel pucks use a U1 ultra-wideband (UWB) chip combined with Bluetooth and NFC to calculate the precise location of whatever item they’re attached to: car keys, wallet, spouse, dog, etc. Setup is as easy as pairing AirPods on iOS, with limited functionality on Android.

On iPhone, the Find My app becomes your personal lost-and-found office – and it’s dead easy to navigate. The pucks are also discreet for tucking away if they’re not hanging

The 2021 iPad Pro offers a more meaningful update than the last one did. The new display is wonderful and the M1 powerful, with only Apple itself holding things back on the OS front. For newcomers and owners of pre-2020 Pros, we’ve no hesitation in recommending it. Got last year’s model?

Maybe hang on for another year. @CraigGrannell

off your keys; they’re rated IP67 against water and dust, and the battery should last a year.

The usage case, then, is clear… but are Apple’s intentions? Gadgets like the AirPods Max and Apple TV remote don’t have AirTag tech built in, but conversely the firm’s implementation of UWB and the U1 chip extends far beyond simply finding things. With AirDrop, Car Keys and tune-transfers to HomePods already using the tech, we can expect to see greater mapping of everything and everyone. AirTags are just the beginning.

Stuff says HHHH✩

STUFF SAYS HHHHH This year’s iPad Pro is absolutely the best tablet around, bar none – you’ll pay for the privilege, but you’ll love what you get 65

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Channel dropper TESTED HUAWEI VISION S 65IN

Adjust a little During setup there are eight picture presets and six EQ sound presets to play with – but the differences are minuscule.

■ Key to the Huawei

Huawei has worked hard on its HarmonyOS, and it’s certainly clean and logical. It seems likely that a UK version is in the offing and will be more extensive– let’s hope it doesn’t lose the simple slickness of the version we tested.

Ooh, Huawei is making affordable tellies… but with no tuners to receive broadcasts, are you ready for the streaming-only life?

■ You make loving phone

The remote is small and nicely shaped, with a bare minimum of buttons. One of them wakes a mic for rapid, reliable voice control, while NFC means Huawei phones can stream content without being on the same network.

£550 approx / stuff.tv/VisionS ■The Vision S looks like every other 65in flatscreen TV. The bezels are slim, as are the metal feet – which are very far apart, so your surface will need to be wide as well. For £550 it’s very plastic, but well put together.

■The key here is what’s missing: there are no tuners, so strictly speaking this isn’t a telly, it’s a gigantic monitor. Well, given how we consume content now, perhaps a smart streaming platform is the way to go?

■This is an edge-lit 4K LED 120Hz screen, with support for HLG and HDR10 HDR, but no HDR10+ or Dolby Vision. A magnetic housing at the top houses a 13MP camera for MeeTime video calls to other Android devices, while four 10W drivers provide the audio.

■Colours are decent, with clean whites and relatively deep blacks.

It controls its backlighting zones well and the detail levels are reasonably high. There’s some shimmering in extremis, but by the standards of big affordable televisions the Huawei does well.

■It’s nothinglike as assured where motion is concerned, working awfully hard with less than confident results. Stepping down from 4K to Full HD, motion difficulties are emphasised and images inevitably softened, but detail and colours remain solid. And as far as sound goes, it completely outperforms its price-point.

Tech specs

Screen 65in 3840x2160 120Hz LED OS Harmony OS 2 Connectivity Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, NFC, 3x HDMI 2.0, USB, 3.5mm audio Dimensions 1449x837x72mm, 19.5kg

STUFF SAYS An impressive opening salvo from Huawei… but it’s not a television HHH✩✩ One small step on the road to a future where all TV is streamed Simon Lucas

We’re still awaiting final UK specs for the Vision S, so obviously a lot depends on how strong they turn out to be… but if you want an actual television, well, this Huawei screen isn’t for you. Still, as the company’s first serious attempt at a big screen at a keen price (which we’re assured is accurate), with a bespoke operating system and an impressive audio system, the Vision S is ominous. But, you know, in a good way.

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ECHO SHOW 10 (2021)

D… D A TESEH T S R IF 68

ONE TWO AMAZON SMART PLUG PHILIPS HUE STARTER KIT ere are loads of smart plugs on the market, many of them cheaper than Amazon’s, but what makes this one so excellent is how easy it is to pair with an Echo Show. Hook it up to the Alexa app and you can set your coffee maker for a 7am percolation, or stoke your electric heater’s embers with a simple voice command. £25 / amazon.co.uk

As with the Amazon plug, there are plenty of more affordable smart lights around… but when it comes to quality, availability and reliability, our experience places the Philips Hue range on top. From Edison screws to GU10s, in mood-making colour or affordable white options, Hue can light up your home like no other. from £50 / philips-hue.com

THREE RING VIDEO DOORBELL PRO 2 Ding-dong! See who’s at your front door on all 10 inches of your Echo Show’s screen with a Ring Video Doorbell Pro 2. It’ll give a tall, wide, clear view anywhere there’s a Show in your home – and as well as making it chime on your Echo, you can also enjoy the smart doorbell action on your phone. £219 / ring.com

INSTANT UPGRADES

TEG…ESE N EHHT T

YRT…SIH W ONT

SPOTIFY 1 STOP THE SPINNING

2 BRING THE BINGE

3 SPIN THE WEB

If you want to prevent your Echo Show 10 from following you around the room and set it still in a corner, all you need to do is swipe down from the top of the screen and tap on the icon that says ‘Motion’. Your Echo will stay put. If you also want to disable the camera, just drag the manual slider on the top right of the unit and a white, opaque material will shield its all-seeing eye.

It’s no surprise that the Echo Show 10 can access Amazon Prime Video, with booming sound to boot, but did you know it’ll support Netflix too? And the Netflix experience is easier to navigate with the touchscreen than Prime Video. Rather than an awkward voice-optimised menu (sort it out, Amazon), Netflix uses a carbon copy of itstouch-optimised smartphone app interface.

Firefox is no longer available on Amazon devices, but you can still access Amazon’s Silk web browser. Just ask your Echo to “open Silk” and a URL bar will pop up on screen. Whether you want to watch iPlayer or scan Twitter, the browser saves your login details, streams video and is responsive to touch. While the Echo Show definitely isn’t a laptop or tablet replacement just yet, this is a welcome tool.

Spotify Connect lets you cast the music service’s tunes directly to your Show. Have multiple Echos?

Group them in the Alexa app formultiroom Spotify streaming. from £free

AMAZON PHOTOS

If you’re after an overqualified digital picture frame, the Echo Show could be the smartest option.

But you’ll have to install Amazon’s Photos app first. £free

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4 SPY ON YOURSELF

5 WALK AND TALK

6 DON’T CONFUSE IT

e Echo Show 10’s rotation means it can moonlight as an object-tracking, sound-sensing security camera. It only rotates left and right, but this means you can check in on your home wherever you are with the Alexa app. Activating it is easy: just jump into the settings and fire up Home Monitoring.

Launch the camera in your Alexa app, accept a couple of permissions and you’re done.

Like all Echo Shows, the 10 can make and receive video calls, but this one will even follow you while you walk and talk so you’re always in frame. In order to make calls, recipients need to be verified contacts. Once set up, video calls can be initiated with a voice command and are super-easy to accept with an on-screen Answer button. is makes the Show 10 an excellent option for families.

Fire up an episode of Dynasty or Schitt’s Creek and, whether it’s Alexis Carrington or Alexis Rose, when someone says their name your Show 10 will tailspin like an excited dog. To change ‘Alexa’ to something different, fire up the Alexa app, find your device, choose Wake Word and pick between ‘Amazon’ and ‘Echo’. You can also switch Wake Words under device options in the unit’s own settings.

SAINSBURY’S

“Alexa, ask Sainsbury’s to add cake to my shopping list.” It’s possible: download the Sainsbury’s app, create an account and link it with the relevant skill through the Alexa app. £free

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Baby co-driver TESTED GARMIN CATALYST

To help you harness your inner speed demon, Garmin has created a driving performance analyser to stick in your car on track days

Map of honour Multi-GNSS uses multiple satellite systems co create a precise picture of how rubbish your last lap was.

£900 / stuff.tv/Catalyst ■Motorsport is expensive, but track days where you turn up in something mechanically sound for a few laps are increasingly affordable. So this is a circuit sat-nav that draws on Garmin’s sensor, accelerometer and camera tech to create a virtual racing coach.

■The 6.95in touchscreen tablet mounts to your windscreen and all interaction is via the large, bright and easy-to-read display – which it needs to be for cursory glances at over 100mph. A separate camera captures 1080p video and offers overlays of performance data.

■Garmin’s 10Hz Multi-GNSS positioning tech allows the Catalyst to build an incredibly accurate picture of your line around a circuit.

This, coupled with racing-line info from circuits around the world, helps determine the most efficient (read fastest) way to get around.

■Plopped inside a Porsche Cayman at Thruxton race circuit, we lapped until the stomach complaints started, then popped into the pits to do a bit of sick as the Garmin analysed our session, mapping an ‘optimal lap’ made up of our slickest sections.

■Tips are presented to improve lap times by refining apex points and braking. Audible coaching is then added to the next session, and the day ends with tonnes of performance data to poreover, complete with annotated video.

Tech specs

Display 6.95in 1024x600 IPS touchscreen Battery life Upto 2hrs (12v lighter socket) Storage 16GB + microSD Connectivity Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, 3.5mm audio Camera 1080p @ 30fps Dimensions 199x122x24mm, 437g

■ Glow, glow, glow!

The Catalyst displays a ‘delta time’ based on your best selected laps; a menacing red glow means you’re losing time, while green means you’re improving. Sadly there’s no virtual racing lineto follow like in Gran Turismo.

■ Turn, turn, turn!

Having a car with a Bluetooth sound system is essential, unless you have a fancy racing helmet with a headphone jack, as voice instruction from the unit’s own little speaker gets lost amid the roaring engine and squealing tyres.

STUFF SAYS Great for finessing your skills but not as good as a human instructor HHH✩✩ An easy way to analyse why you’re not Lewis Hamilton (yet) Leon Poultney 70

Does the Catalyst make you a faster driver? Yes and no. It’s great for teaching consistency and gradually eking out better lap times, but there are limitations.

It doesn’t know what car you’re driving so won’t adjust its recommendations based on vehicle characteristics… and besides, £900 would buy you decent tuition from a private instructor. But the simple visuals offer some really valuable insight.

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ORDER ONLINE AT SHOP.KELSEY.CO.UK/STUAUG21 CALL NOW ON 01959 543747** & QUOTE STUAUG21 Terms and conditions apply. You should receive your copy around 8 July. Front cover is for illustration purposes only and is subject to change. *Delivery is included in the cover price for UK customers only. An additional £1 will be added to any overseas addresses. **Lines are open Mon-Fri 8:30am–5:30pm. Calls are charged at your standard network rate.

TWO WEEKS WITH THE DJI AIR 2S

Don’t stop smoothin’

Fresh from last month’s fly-by-wire thrills with the DJI FPV, Sam Kieldsen swaps to something a little more sedate that’s engineered to capture ultra-stable content £899 / stuff.tv/Air2S

The included charger takes around 80mins to fill up a depleted battery, so maybe pack aspare.

DAY 01

DJI’s status as overlord of the consumer drone world is pretty much unchallenged, but there’s no sign of laurel-resting from the Chinese company.

This is the Air 2S, a souped-up version of the Mavic Air 2 that’s the same shape and size, but drops the ‘Mavic’ while upgrading the camera, obstacle-avoidance systems and transmission range.

At £130 more than the Mavic Air 2, we’ve got two weeks of

capturing videos and snapping photos to decide whether this is a worthwhile upgrade.

At first glance the Air 2S is virtually indistinguishable from the Mavic Air 2: a rectangular block with four fold-out rotor arms and a gimbal-mounted camera on the underside of the nose. But the camera is slightly larger, and a pair of up-facing anti-collision sensors have been added. When folded it’s roughly

The camera is fantastic for a drone this size, turning out super-sharp photos and videos with stunning colour depth

72

the size of a beer can and tucks away in a backpack. It’s light too, but not enough to avoid CAA registration and an annual £9 Operator ID licence.

It’s also reassuringly sturdy in spite of its folding design and preponderance of spindly bits.

The rotor blades fold in so you don’t have to take them off, while the cameraand its delicate gimbal can be protected with a pop-off plastic cover. The battery locks in place securely, while flush flaps cover the microSD card slot and USB-C file-transfer port.

The controller will be familiar to DJI owners. It’s not new, but

neither does it need to be, with physical controls for gimbal tilt, taking photos or video, and automatic return to your take-off point without needing to touch your phone. The thumb-sticks can be removed for transport, with DJI thoughtfully including a place within the controller to stash them. There’s also a spring-loaded grip to hold your phone and connect via USB-C, microUSB or Lightning.

DJI has sent us the ‘Fly More’ package: for £1169 you get two extra batteries, spare rotors and a carry case. That seems like a decent deal.

LONG-TERM TEST

01

Donut of Truth™

06 05

02

03

04

DAY 02

Tech specs

Camera 1in 20MP CMOS Video 5.4K @ 30fps, 4K/2.7K @ 60fps, 1080p @ 120fps Storage 8GB + microSD Max speed 42.5mph Max range 12km Max flight time 31 mins Dimensions 180x97x77mm (folded), 183x253x77mm (unfolded), 595g

Controller and phone hooked up, I tap the touchscreen take-off button. The Air 2S is beautifully easy to fly, zipping around in the default flight mode. It’s limited to 120m altitude to comply with UK law, and those sensors stop it if it detects an obstacle anywhere other than sideways on. Slipping into Cinema mode, flight is slower and smoother, while Sport mode turns off the speed limiters and safety sensors.

DAY 04

It’s breezy today but the Air 2S can handle it despite a warning from the app– flying responsively and stably, picking up some great sample footage. Range and flight time are impressive… but also illegal given you have to be able to see your drone with the naked eye.

It beams a solid 1080p feed to the controller, and on the odd occasion of a lost transmission the ‘return to home’ function kicks in.

The DJI Fly app has been refined so much thatit’s actually enjoyable to use. You can easily access cool flight features like subject-tracking and MasterShots – an automated sequence of dramatic video clips centred around your chosen tracking subject.

01 A smartly compact and portable design…

02 …that plays host to a truly excellent camera 03 This drone is packed with safety features

04 The ‘Fly More’ package is good value 05 Rotors can creep into shot sometimes 06 Slightly less battery life than the Air 2

DAY 06

The 20MP camera is fantastic for a drone this size, turning out super-sharp photos in various file formatsand videos up to 5.7K with stunning colour depth and low-light performance, all brilliantly stabilised by its three-axis gimbal.

One look at sample photos and videos shows how effective the 1in sensor is. Results right from the camera are impressive, but a bit of tweaking in Adobe Lightroom and DaVinci Resolve never hurts.

DAY 08

The richness of colour in conditions where a smaller sensor would struggle is the real killer feature.

That this camera is bolted onto such a stable and easy-to-fly drone just makes it all the better.

OK, it lacks the adjustable aperture of the Mavic 2 Pro, and at certain resolutions the lack of a crop means the rotor blades can occasionally pop into the frame.

Both are minor issues, though.

DAY 14

The Air 2S may be DJI’s best drone yet: an almost perfect balance of portability, performance and price.

It’s ideal for novices but still able to produce nigh-on pro-level results.

STUFF SAYS DJI cranks up the magic once again with the best all-round camera drone on the market HHHHH

73

TESTED GAMES

all platforms / stuff.tv/Village

Resident Evil Village

The great horror series celebrates its 25th anniversary with a typically haunting tale that spends most of its time looking back rather than pushing things forward

A

fter a few awkward years, the Resident Evil series’ seventh main instalment modernised things with a new first-person perspective while returning it to its horror roots.

RE Village retains that same style and feel, putting you back in the shoes of RE7 protagonist Ethan Winters… but as the first RE game of the next-gen console era, could this also be a chance to take a bolder step into the future?

Well, not really. In recent years, Capcom has tended to stay close 74

to its past glories – and that’s also the case with this game, which doesn’t quite represent a great leap forward but prefers to pillage from what’s gone before.

Village takes place three years after RE7, as Ethan and his wife Mia have relocated to Eastern Europe to start a new life with their baby Rose. But that familial bliss doesn’t last, as their home is suddenly attacked by a military team led by… series hero Chris Redfield?! Before you figure out what the hell’s going on, you wind

up in an eerie village where Ethan spends the entirety of the game in search of his daughter.

Village tries hard to make you identify with Ethan, who really gets put through the wringer in some gruesome ways. He’s undergone military training so is more capable with guns now, although combat is still clunkier than your typical first-person shooter.

You won’t get attached to any of the village’s survivors, who all meet their demise pretty quickly; as one character remarks, there is

“nothing but blood and death” here. Making more of a lasting impression are the grotesquely exaggerated villains – and the village itself, which is one of the largest environments seen in an RE game and wildly diverse.

There’s a terrific time to be had overcoming its monstrosities… but while Village does its best to combine RE7’s first-person frights with RE4’s delights, it’s mostly a pastiche rather than a truly new gaming experience.

Alan Wen

STUFF SAYS Learns from the best of the RE canon but stops just short of greatness ★★★★✩

TESTED GAMES

Village of the crammed

“Welcome to Resident Evil Village, regional finalist, Britain in Bloom 1985.”

“Would you like to sign up forthe Resident Evil Village church cleaning roster?”

Although it’s a larger game world, Village’s length matches previous instalments– so expect to wrap things up in about 10 hours. That includes exploring to find all the optional treasures and upgrades.

But as with the recent series remakes, there are plenty of incentives to replay, where completing challenges nets you points to unlock new stuff like weapons, figures and loads of concept art. In one especially ludicrous touch, you can hunt animals and give their meat to the Duke to cook up meals that boost Ethan’s stats.

The real highlight, however, is Mercenaries– first seen in RE4– which is unlockable after beating the main game. This arcade-type mode takes you on a silly but entertaining shooting gallery across the game’s different locations under a time limit. It’s a fun diversion, and the challenge is trying to get a decent score based on enemies killed and a kill-combo bonus, as well as taking into account your leftover resources.

Of course, there was also meant to be a PvP mash-up Resident Evil Re:Verse, where players pick characters from across the franchise history to fight against each other, but that’s been delayed until later this summer.

75

TESTED GAMES

PS5 / stuff.tv/Returnal

Returnal

If you’ve snaffled a PS5 but have been waiting for a genuine next-gen game to play on it, good news:it’s just arrived straight out of leftfield

F

rom the moment your space scout crash-lands on a hostile alien planet, Returnal delivers a full blast of PS5 hardware as you feel the depth of the DualSense’s rumble and engage the immersive 3D audio of the Tempest Engine. Play this game with headphones.

It’s a scene you’ll go through many more times, since the twist is you’re trapped in a purgatorial time loop. And, as desolate as the game’s multiple biomes are, the visuals are incredibly atmospheric, all running at 4K in 60fps with ray-tracing, while accessing each area is as seamless as running through a gate.

At its core, Returnal has you trying to survive against waves of intimidating enemies who shoot colourful projectile patterns. Similar to Stuff’s 2020 game of the year, Hades, it uses its looping structure to tell a story that unfolds with each new run.

What starts like a simple sci-fi jaunt becomes something of a psychodrama: by the time you’ve reached the second biome you’ll 76

wonder whether you have the mental fortitude to continue. The biggest obstacle is that death resets your progress all the way back to your crashed ship: you might unlock new weapons and artefacts, but you always start again, while most resources need to be found from scratch.

With each run also changing up the map layout, you’re often at the mercy of luck. It’s not just whether a better weapon shows up– some items have a chance of causing a suit malfunction, while there are also parasites you can attach that provide both a buff and debuff, letting you weigh up whether you should take the risk.

This is an arthouse blockbuster: a technical marvel showcasing the PS5’s potential that at the same time offers a bold choice of structure embracing the new weird. It’s also uncompromisingly tough, which might scare off a more mainstream audience, but this is a game that doesn’t do half measures – either in its gameplay or as a truly next-gen exclusive.

Alan Wen

TFW you realise you’ve left your last Frusli bar back on the spaceship.

A custom ‘tentacle tech’ was created for the aliens in Returnal. So that’s nice.

STUFF SAYS A must-play for the PS5 – just be prepared to die again and again ★★★★★

25 BEST FOOTIE GAMES EVER With the delayed Euro 2020 just around the corner, get in the mood with Stuff’s rundown of the finest kickyball titles in gaming history

25 ULTIMATE SOCCER MANAGER

] sniggiW moT sdroW [

Nothing immersed you in a mid-’90s football world like the USM series. Transfers and team selection almost became minor distractions as you reclined in your office next to a fax machine to negotiate ad deals, build stadiums and even arrange bungs.

Yes, this was the George Graham era, when managers were emperors, and USM put you on the throne.

1995 / Amiga

23 TRACKSUIT MANAGER

24 FOOTBALLER OF THE YEAR

People weren’t sure what to make of this oddball at the time. Part management game, part board game, it saw you steer a kid from the old Fourth Division to top-flight glory. Success was mostly down to scoring goals in arcade sequences; chances were bought with ‘goal cards’ purchased in-game, and ‘incident cards’ let you delve further into your young player’s life.

1986 / ZX Spectrum

We’re not sure how you manage a tracksuit, but this was an impressive management game with depth. You arrived just as your team (England by default) had a disastrous World Cup (so pretty accurate), and had to figure out a road to success. The format lacked visual impact, but provided plenty of insight into who was turning it on for your team.

1988 / C64

22 INTERNATIONAL SOCCER

This C64 classic was the first truly great football game. Inspired by Intellivision Soccer, it used a side-on viewpoint and had two seven-a-side teams battling it out for a chunky cup. It’s the only game where you can head a ball half the length of the field – a bug that creator Andrew Spencer (not a football fan) noticed but left in because he thought it was funny.

1983 / C64 77

BEST FOOTBALL GAMES

21 MATCH DAY II

Knowing a good thing when they saw it, Jon Ritman and Ocean teamed up again for a sequel to the Spectrum smash hit of 1984. This time the players looked a lot like bodybuilders, and the mechanics had been suitably beefed up: along with a far superior deflection system there were volleys, flicks and jumps. Shot strength was determined by a slightly awkward ‘kickometer’ and the pace was again slow, but this just made for more strategic play.

1987 / ZX Spectrum

19 ACTUA SOCCER

20 BEHOLD THE KICKMEN

The perfect antidote to ultra-realistic sims like FIFA, this is football as seen through the eyes of someone with absolutely zero interest in the laws of the game – and it’s bloody glorious.

Kicking, tackling, passing, shooting, scoring… it’s all here, but dialled up to 11 in the most nonsensical way imaginable. Size Five Games has created one of the most comical and outrageous takes on the sport ever conceived.

2017 / Switch, PC

Its name and tagline may have been a dig at Sega (“There’s nothing virtual about Actua”), but Gremlin’s title was noteworthy for more than just a bit of trolling: it was the very first console football game to offer properly 3D players.

These were motioncapped fromSheffield Wednesday stalwarts Chris Woods, Andy Sinton and Graham Hyde (Gremlin was based in Sheffield), providing a level of clogger realism never before witnessed on consoles.

1995 / PS1

18 PRO EVOLUTION SOCCER 2017

Having spent years in FIFA’s shadow, PES 2017 finally offered a real alternative to EA’s annual juggernaut. It was a slower, more considered version of the game, but when everything fell into place and you unlocked a defence the sense of satisfaction was glorious. Its lack of official licences and a flawed online mode still kept most FIFA fans away, but for one short year PES’s glory days were back.

2016 / PS4, XB1

16 WORLD CUP 98

17 KICK OFF

Dino Dini’s 16-bit classic added a new ingredient to football games: speed. The little players darted about the pitch as if dosed up on something decidedly not allowed under FIFA regulations, and the ball was initially impossible to control. But once mastered, Kick Off made every other game seem dull and dated by comparison… even if it was at times the football equivalent of juggling bars of soap while riding a unicycle down a slide.

1989 / Amiga 78

Back in 1998, EA’s FIFA series was one of several games vying for the hearts of Beckham-fringed teens; but while it always had the official licences, it was far from being the best.

Building on the skills of its predecessors and adding in-game tactical changes, World Cup 98 finally had the gameplay to match its slick presentation – as well as unrivalled commentary. Shame we had to put up with Tubthumping every time it loaded.

1997 / PS1

14 TEHKAN WORLD CUP

15 FOOTBALL MANAGER

Creator Kevin Toms graced Football Manager’s cover, enticing you to buy the game with his charm and beard – and what a game it was.

On your little Spectrum, you could buy and sell players, pick a team, and watch highlights on pitches with comically large goals. Today it all looks a bit primitive (the C64 conversion was at least prettier), yet its simple gameplay remains compelling. See also his Android/iOS remakes.

1982 / ZX Spectrum

This wasn’t the first overhead football game but it was the first to make that viewpoint work.

It was a fast player, in part down to the trackball controls, and decent goalies ensured matches were often frantic end-to-end battles.

The game heavily influenced Sensible Software, and more or less came to the C64 in the form of MicroProse Soccer, but its legacy was really the Sensible Soccer series.

1985 / arcade

BEST FOOTBALL GAMES

13 NEW STAR SOCCER (mobile)

How do you create an in-depth career-long football game for mobile devices? You don’t, said New Star Soccer… and instead served up a selection of mini-games over a framework that wasn’t a million miles fromFootballer Of The Year. Although a touch IAP-hungry, it became a mobile classic, having you balance a kind of hyper-real version of a footballer’s life with exciting exploits on the pitch.

2012 / iOS, Android

12 FIFA 10

Like a footballing version of Rocky Balboa vs Apollo Creed, the FIFA and PES games slugged it out through the ’00s without either landing a final knockout punch.

Both introduced 360° control for the first time in their 2010 editions, but FIFA 10 did it better, allowing you to expertly slide a pass through at just the right angle.

Coupled with its Ultimate Team mode, FIFA finally edged ahead – and it hasn’t been toppled since.

2009 / PS3, Xbox 360

11 10 INTERNATIONAL VIRTUA SUPERSTAR STRIKER SOCCER This SNES classic is a bridge between older side-on fare and more lifelike modern titles. A predecessor to PES, it offered a stunning array of moves using button combos. Visually, it was also leagues beyond the likes of Match Day; yet for all its gloss, what made ISS appeal most was its fun and frantic nature, retaining an arcade sensibility before sports titles became obsessed with TV-style realism.

1994 / SNES

Sega’s legendary AM2 team developed this groundbreaking title in the mid-’90s: the first football game to use 3D player models. Being available in arcades, Virtua Striker was designed for fast action over serious simulation, with set formations and basic three-button controls; but for those of us who crammed countless coins into the cabinet, at the time it was the most realistic digital take on football ever.

1994 / arcade

8 FOOTBALL MANAGER 2011

9 EMLYN HUGHES INTERNATIONAL SOCCER

This was the last great side-on football game of the ’80s. Advanced players could use techniques such as ‘five-direction’ passing, sliding tackles and backheels, all from a joystick with only a single fire button. The result was the first truly fluid football game, where you could string together some breathtaking moves. It was also one of the first to let you play through a season.

1988 / C64

Following its divorce from Eidos, Sports Interactive lost the Championship Manager name but kept on creating the only management games worth playing – and this is one of the greatest, adding a full 3D engine that let you watch every pass, shot, tackle and goalkeeping blunder.

Among the other features were press conferences, adding colour to an already frighteningly real football universe.

2010 / PC 79

BEST FOOTBALL GAMES

7 KICK OFF 2

Kick Off 2 looked a lot like its predecessor… and it was really just a mix of Kick Off and a couple of expansion disks, all carefully refined to transform an enjoyably chaotic knockabout title into one that demanded a lot more skill. With added tournaments and fewer bugs, this sequel dropped the pace and boosted the controls, with copious use of ‘aftertouch’ enabling you to fashion the kind of audacious shots that Matt Le Tissier would have been proud of.

1990 / Amiga

5 ISS PRO EVOLUTION

6 SENSIBLE SOCCER

Sensible Software were fans of Kick Off 2 and football, but were irritated by the former’s failure to do justice to the latter. So Sensible Soccer zoomed the viewpoint out, showing more of the pitch and enabling it to dispense with the radar; players were given the correct hair and skin colours; and passing and shooting were simplified and streamlined, making the game much more responsive.

1992 / Amiga

2 PRO EVOLUTION SOCCER 5

3 FIFA 21

Recent FIFA editions have been about tweaking a winning formula rather than major overhauls… but considering the series has been out in front sinceFIFA 10, that’s no bad thing. While FIFA 21 isn’t without its faults – defending is very much a secondary concern, there’s far too much showboating online and keepers punch so often they must all be wearing buttered gloves – it’s still the best virtual approximation of the game.

2020 / PS4, XB1 80

We could have picked any of the four-game run that started with Pro Evo 2; but with an expanded Master League, proper player names and nicely balanced gameplay, this was the high point. With a skilful enough player you could waltz through five tackles, but you couldn’t just run the ball into the net: goals came in the form of everything from 40-yard screamers to scrambled tap-ins.

2005 / PS2

Ah, the Master League: how many hours have we spent in your comforting embrace, steadily building up a team of honest pros and turning them into champs? Well, it’ll be in the thousands.

That challenge would have meant nothing if the gameplay hadn’t matched it, but ISS Pro Evolutionwas creeping ahead of FIFA by this time – it was more realistic yet also more playable, and that’s a winning combo in any game.

1999 / PS1

4 CHAMPIONSHIP MANAGER: SEASON 97/98

Despite being derided by some as a glorified spreadsheet, Championship Manager’s tactical engine, accurate data (this was the first version allowing you to run more than one league at once) and giant player database created a rich football universe. Grown men would be so proud of taking a lower-league team to the FA Cup final that they’d don a suit for the occasion.

1997 / PC

BEST FOOTBALL GAMES

1 SENSIBLE WORLD OF SOCCER

Most players peak in their late 20s… and at 27, SWOS is top of the league. Why? Because it took everything that was great about Sensible Soccer and improved it. You got the same arcade gameplay but now as part of a much more engaging experience, with management features and player trading boosted by the inclusion of 1500 teams.

It should have been the start of something great – but SWOS was somehow allowed to fall behind FIFA and PES. Still, dedicated fans keep the flame alive with leagues, events, and patched versions that incorporate modern data – the wonderful freaks.

Can it compete with FIFA for realistic gameplay or Football Manager for exhaustive stattery?

No, obviously not. And for many people, the classic mid-’00s era Pro Evo beats it as an all-round football game. But for sheer “THAT WAS LIQUID FOOTBALL!” joy, it will never be bettered.

1994 / Amiga 81

TOP TEN

This gadget has leapt straight outta testing and into our rankings.

NEW

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

OF EVERYTHING

BARGAIN BUY

Time changes everything, including Stuff Top Ten entries.

UPDATE

A solid gold bargain.

Worth owning, regardless of cashflow.

Smartphones Headphones Smartwatches, fitness tech Laptops Speakers TVs Soundbars, streamers

83 84 85 86 87 88 89

Tablets, consoles 90 Games 91 E-bikes etc, electric cars 92 Smart home 93 VR headsets & games 94 Drones & action cams, 95 tech toys Cameras 96 Budget buys 97

HOW TO USE THEM

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83

TIPS & TRICKS

2

Apple iPhone 12

from £799 / stuff.tv/iPhone12 The demise of Samsung’s glorious Galaxy S20 5G left a space on the Stuff smartphone throne (and its replacement didn’t even make the Top Ten)… but don’t go thinking the iPhone 12 is only our No1 phone by default. We loved the iPhone 11, and its successor carries a whole host of improvements. If you can live without the telephoto camera of the flagship 12 Pro (and most can), you should save yourself some cash and get the 12 instead. In many ways it’s the same phone.

Stuff says ★★★★★ A top display and all the power you’ll ever need in an iPhone ● NOW ADD THIS Sandisk iXpand Flash Drive Go Bump your iPhone’s storage capacity by 64, 128 or 256GB with this tiny Lightning flash drive. from £36 / shop.westerndigital.com

3

Oppo Find X3 Pro

Apple iPhone 12 Pro

In almost every respect, the X3 Pro is a killer flagship phone. Oppo’s software has taken a major leap forward and the hardware is easily on a par with Apple and Samsung.

If you want the best you pay the premium… and the Find X3 Pro is very much one of the best.

Stuff says ★★★★★ It’s serious money, but it’s brilliantly capable in just about every way

The achievements of the iPhone 12 Pro are evident everywhere… but who actually needs them?

For some, the camera setup is the selling point, but an extra £100 bags you an even better one on the 12 Pro Max; and for the rest of us, the iPhone 12 will do fine.

Stuff says ★★★★★ Advanced photo skills make this an iPhone for the few and not the many

£1100 / stuff.tv/X3Pro

HOT BUY

from £999 / stuff.tv/12Pro

4 5 6 7 8 9 10

NEW

OnePlus 9 Pro

★★★★★from £829 / stuff.tv/OnePlus9Pro With OnePlus’s best camera yet and a top display, this is high-end hardware at a non-premium price.

Realme X50 Pro 5G

★★★★★£430 / stuff.tv/X50Pro Realme’s high-spec, mid-price marvel makes for a compelling alternative to a OnePlus.

Apple iPhone 12 Pro Max

★★★★★from £1099 / stuff.tv/12ProMax The only choice if you want to fully Max your iPhone experience… but not a big upgrade over the 12 Pro.

Apple iPhone 12 Mini

★★★★★from £699 / stuff.tv/12Mini A 5.4in-screened cutie packing Apple’s lauded A14 Bionic chip and the same cameras as the iPhone 12.

Asus ROG Phone 5

★★★★✩ £800 / stuff.tv/ROG5 Serious about mobile gaming? Top specs and clever tools make this our favourite phone for gamers.

Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra 5G

★★★★✩ from £1149 / stuff.tv/S21Ultra Earns its ‘Ultra’ name owing to an incredible camera array capturing moments other phones will miss.

OnePlus 9

★★★★✩ from £629 / stuff.tv/OnePlus9 A camera upgrade balances out a design downgrade to ensure OnePlus is still easy to recommend.

FOR UP-TO-DATE NEWS AND REVIEWS OF ALL THE BEST NEW PHONES, VISIT STUFF.TVTOP-10SMARTPHONES

detats esiwrehto sselnu ylno tesdnah rof era detouq secirP ●

Enable ‘Start PiP Automatically’ so you can keep watching videos while flipping between apps.

Under ‘Face ID & Passcode’, disable ‘Require Attention for Face ID’. Now you can keep your shades on.

Got AirPods Pro or Max? Under their Bluetooth settings, tap ‘Spatial Audio’ for fancy 3D immersion.

SMARTPHONES TOP TENS

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TOP TENS IN-EARS

ON/OVER-EARS TOP TENS

84 HOT BUY

HOT BUY

£250 / stuff.tv/QCE

Bose QuietComfort Earbuds

Sony WH-1000XM4

They’re bulkier than the average in-ears and come with a ridiculously large case, but otherwise the QC Earbuds are difficult to knock. The noise-cancelling doesn’t do a disservice to the esteemed QC name, it’s hugely customisable, and the buds themselves sound great: bassier than you might expect, but in a nicely rounded way that retains lots of detail. They’re at the upper end where price is concerned – but if silence is what you seek, you currently won’t find better.

Withtheir balanceof wearability,activenoise-cancelling prowess and audio performance, there hasn’t been a better package than the Sony XM3s… until now. The XM4s look and sound almost identical, but a range of new features – including Speak-to-Chat, which stops the music when you start talking – aims to lure you away from your current ’phones. If those are the XM3s (still available at a super-low price, by the way), it’s tough to justify the upgrade; but who’s going to knock Sony off its perch now?

£299 / stuff.tv/XM4

Stuff says ★★★★★ A fun listen with excellent noise-cancelling skills, these are the best buds to stick in your ears

2

BARGAIN BUY

3 4 5

Stuff says ★★★★★ Not surprisingly given their heritage, these are the best all-round noise-cancelling headphones you can buy Bowers & Wilkins PX7

Sony WF-1000XM3

£169  stuff.tvWFXM3 The way Sony’s XM3 wireless buds serve up such spectacular sound while silencing background noise is quite something… and with a replacement rumoured to be on the way, they’ve dropped to a real bargain price.

Stuff says ★★★★★ Great design and stunning performance

£279  stuff.tvPX7 B&W’s second ANC headphones place greater emphasis on comfort and are all the better for it, while the noise-killing is as effective as you’l find anywhere. Oh, and they sound flipping good too.

Stuff says ★★★★★ B&W takes on the best with top-class cans

3

Bose NCH 700

4 5

Bang & Olufsen H95

Cambridge Audio Melomania 1+

£120  stuff.tvMelomania1Plus These buds come with a range of silicone and memory-foam tips – and once you find the right fit you won’t want to take them out.

There’s a lovely balance to the sound, with real depth and a wide soundstage.

Stuff says ★★★★★ Almost impossible to fault at this price

Technics EAH-AZ70W

★★★★★£170  stuff.tvAZ70W The AZ70s score highly for noise-cancelling and even higher for sound quality.

Sennheiser Momentum True Wireless 2 ★★★★★£279  stuff.tvMTW2 A pleasure to listen to, no matter what sort of music you want to hear.

NEW

£305  stuff.tvBoseNCH700 There are superior-sounding headphones, but if call quality and noise-cancelling are just as important to you then Bose’s flagship cans are the new gold standard. The voice-pickup system is the best out there.

Stuff says ★★★★★ As all-rounders, these are hard to beat

★★★★★£700  stuff.tvH95 Prepare to be bankrupted by the most luxurious ANC cans of all.

Marshall Major IV

★★★★★£130  stuff.tvMajorIV Decent on-ears elevated to bargain status by their preposterous 80-hour battery life.

TO READ THE FULL REVIEWS, VISIT STUFF.TV/TOP-10/IN-EAR-HEADPHONES & STUFF.TV/TOP-10/HEADPHONES

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TOP TENS SMARTWATCHES

FITNESS TECH TOP TENS

85

HOT BUY

HOT BUY BUY BARGAIN

from £349 / stuff.tv/GW3

Samsung Galaxy Watch3

Mi Smart Band 5

Sneaking into the top berth courtesy of a slightly underwhelming Apple Watch update, Samsung’s gorgeous Watch3 is an easy wearable to love. It’s superbly made and very attractive, and the spinning bezel makes it a joy to use. Samsung’s Tizen OS is slick too, with lots of customisation and shortcut options to keep things feeling fresh – made all the better by a class-leading screen. It also has all the fitness skills you’re ever likely to need, with handy auto-tracking features.

With no installable apps, Xiaomi’s dinky wearable can’t stack up to smartwatches or reply to notifications, but it can relay alerts and track everything from sleep to workouts. It’s better than the Mi SmartBand 4, thanks to a bigger and brighter screen, smarter software and a charger that’s much less annoying. The slightly reduced battery life really isn’t an issue – and with the addition of activity, stress and menstrual cycle tracking, this is a sub-£30 gift that keeps giving.

£26 / stuff.tv/MiBand5

Stuff says ★★★★★ A beautiful and powerful piece of kit that you’ll be proud to have on your wrist

2 3 4 5

Stuff says ★★★★★ Fantastic value and decent features make this an easy fitness tracker to recommend

2

Myzone MZ-Switch

Apple Watch Series 6

3

Hammerhead Karoo 2

Apple Watch SE

4 5

Peloton Bike+

Garmin Fenix 6

£530  stuff.tvFenix6 Anyone who’s truly into their fitness will appreciate the Fenix 6’s endless feature list. This is the finest fitness watch money can buy – if you’re getting more serious about shaping up, you can’t go wrong here.

Stuff says ★★★★★ The best fitness-orientated smartwatch from £379  stuff.tvWatchS6 The Series 6 is a superb smartwatch with ambitions to be a total wellness deity; but while the new sensors are useful, they’re not vital for most. This is a fine statement gadget, but there are better deals to be had.

Stuff says ★★★★✩ A great all-rounder, especially for iPhone users

★★★★✩from £269  stuff.tvWatchSE The most obvious alternative to the Watch Series 6 – and it looks identical.

Oppo Watch

★★★★✩from £184  stuff.tvOW This Apple Watch lookalike streamlines Wear OS to go ahead of many rivals.

NEW

£140  stuff.tvMZSwitch Myzone’s modular heart-rate tracker can be attached to different parts of the body, while the app gamifies your activity. It’s a versatile wearable that pushes you to roll up your sleeves and go further without intimidation.

Stuff says ★★★★★ An addictive and convenient route to fitness £359  stuff.tvKaroo2 For ages cycling computers have been held back by outdated tech… but Hammerhead’s sharp screen really is a gamechanger, and effectively running a tiny Android phone inside a custom case feels like a no-brainer.

Stuff says ★★★★★ At last, a bike computer for the 21st century

★★★★★ £2295 + £39m  stuff.tvPelPlus The connected bike phenomenon: Peloton owners look smug for a reason.

Wattbike Atom (Next Generation)

★★★★★ £1899  stuff.tvWBAtom With improved sensors, this is the benchmark for serious indoor cyclists.

FOR THE FULL REVIEWS, VISIT STUFF.TV/TOP-10/SMARTWATCHES & STUFF.TV/TOP-10/FITNESS-TRACKERS

TOP TENS LAPTOPS

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86

TIPS & The Sidecar feature Apple charges a TRICKS on macOS Big Sur hefty premium for

lets you use an iPad extra storage, so as a second display consider a cheaper for your MacBook. external SSD.

HOT BUY

Apple MacBook Air

from £999 / stuff.tv/Air

The early-2020 version was already the best MacBook Air ever – and this one brings a real step up in power. Apple’s amazing new M1 processor means that, for once, we aren’t hankering after a Pro for video editing and graphics-heavy gaming. It’s a pity about the rubbish webcam – a real annoyance in the age of video calling – but this is a stunning machine in every other respect, and the best all-round work laptop you can get for under a grand.

Stuff says ★★★★★ Our go-to MacBook just keeps getting even go-to-er ● NOW ADD THIS Anker PowerExpand 7-in-2 Hub Turn the Air’s twin USB-C ports into a media hub with a mix of HDMI, USB, microSD and SD card connections. £40 / uk.anker.com

2

3

Apple MacBook Pro 13in

Microsoft Surface Laptop 3

The new M1 chip has given this business-class performer an injection of jet fuel. The 13in Pro remains a sturdy notebook, but its processing power is incredible.

Our review unit, with just 8GB of RAM, left a higher-specced 2020 Intel MacBook Pro in the dust.

Stuff says ★★★★★ Believe the hype: the Pro with an M1 chip inside kicks big, big bottom

The Surface Laptop 3 seems plain on paper – no second screen, no graphics card, no hybrid hinge, no fingerprint scanner – but Microsoft has put supreme attention to detail into every bit that matters. The keyboard, the speakers and the overall build quality are all superb.

Stuff says ★★★★★ Forget frills and gimmicks: this is everything a laptop should be

from £1299 / stuff.tv/Pro13

from £795 / stuff.tv/SurfaceLap3

4 5 6 7 8 9 10

NEW

Apple MacBook Pro 16in

★★★★★ from £2399 / stuff.tv/MacBookPro16 Not just a bump up in screen size, but a serious upgrade to the already top-class 15in Pro.

LG Gram 16

★★★★★ from £1399 / stuff.tv/Gram16 LG’s latest lightweight machine is slick, light and well made – an impressive, versatile option.

Dell XPS 13

★★★★★ from £1599 / stuff.tv/XPS13 Style, portability, performance… there’s little else out there that’s quite so well rounded.

Razer Blade Pro 17

★★★★★ from £2200 / stuff.tv/BladePro17 Incredible power and quality make for a working and gaming beast.

Huawei MateBook X Pro

★★★★★ from £799 / stuff.tv/MateBookXPro Not massively better than the 2018 model, but this is a real powerhouse of a Windows laptop.

Asus ZenBook Duo 14

★★★★✩ £1329 / stuff.tv/Duo14 The full-width second screen is innovative and useful, but ergonomics are compromised.

Google Pixelbook Go

★★★★✩ from £629 / stuff.tv/PixelbookGo A light and stylish touchscreen laptop built for those who like to live and work in the cloud.

FOR UP-TO-DATE NEWS AND FULL REVIEWS OF ALL THE BEST NEW LAPTOPS, VISIT STUFF.TVTOP-10LAPTOPS

TIPS & You can control your Auto Trueplay adapts TRICKS Move with the touch the Move’s sound controls on top, the Sonos app, Google Assistant or Alexa.

to different rooms, while the app offers additional EQ tweaks.

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SPEAKERS TOP TENS HOT BUY

Sonos Move

£399 / stuff.tv/SonosMove

The Sonos range of wireless speakers had been crying out for a battery-powered portable model for ages – and finally our favourite multiroom audio specialist caved in. Luckily, the Move was worth the wait. Its adaptability and sound quality mean it’s fine value for money, and a no-brainer for anyone who’s already a fan of the brand.

This is the speaker Sonos should have launched years ago– and for even better portability, see the Roam model at No3 on this list.

Stuff says ★★★★★ Sonos finally gets up to speed with the portable speaker craze, and in style

● NOW ADD THIS Primephonic Bringing sexy Bach, this is streaming for classical music. Niche, yes, but its not-on-Spotify film and game scores offer a great way into the genre. from £9.99/month / primephonic.com

2

3

NEW

Sonos One

Sonos Roam

The Sonos One is now a more well-rounded device than it was at launch, supporting Spotify with voice control as well as Amazon Music and TuneIn Radio, while the early Alexa hiccups seem to have been fixed. It’s a class apart from the competition.

Stuff says ★★★★★ A great balance of sound and smarts for forward-thinking audio nerds

The Roam’s portability alone should be enough to see it shift plenty of units, but it’s the bonus features like automatic Trueplay and Sound Swap that set it apart.

Yes, there are better-sounding sub-£200 speakers, but none with the Roam’s skills.

Stuff says ★★★★★ An attractive truly portable speaker with solid sound quality

£199  stuff.tvSonosOne

£159  stuff.tvSonosRoam

4 5 6 7 8 9 10

Naim Mu-so 2nd Generation

★★★★★ £1290  stuff.tvMuso2 More than capable of maintaining Naim’s position at the front of the hi-fi pack.

Devialet Phantom 1 108dB

★★★★★ £2790 each  stuff.tvPhantom1 An insanely powerful lump of hi-fi magic, best enjoyed in a neighbour-terrifying stereo pair.

Audio Pro Drumfire

★★★★★ £650  stuff.tvDrumfire Large, loud and lots of fun, this is one of the most absurd and grin-inducing wireless speakers ever.

B&W Formation Wedge

★★★★★ £900  stuff.tvBWWedge Pricey, weird-looking… and a brilliant illustration of what a wireless speaker is capable of.

Marshall Emberton

★★★★★ £130  stuff.tvEmberton A tiny speaker that packs an unexpected punch without scrimping on refinement.

JBL Flip 5 Eco

★★★★★ £120  stuff.tvFlip5Eco A portable party speaker that does its bit for the green cause while sounding fantastic.

Q Acoustics Q Active 200

★★★★★ £1499 (pair)  stuff.tvQ200 The Q Active 200s marry serious audiophile qualities with oodles of connectivity options.

FOR UP-TO-DATE NEWS AND REVIEWS OF ALL THE BEST NEW HI-FI, VISIT STUFF.TV/TOP-10/HI-FI-STREAMING

TOP TENS TVs TIPS & You can configure TRICKS this TV to work with

the voice assistant of your choice, not just Samsung’s Bixby.

1

88 Samsung’s remote is solarpowered, so don’t lose it down the back of the sofa – it’s dark down there.

AirPlay 2 integration lets you stream or share content from Apple devices to the big screen.

HOT BUY

Samsung QE65QN95A

£2999 / stuff.tv/QN95A

This is Samsung’s single most expensive 4K TV for 2021 (unless you buy a bigger version), but the pictures justify the outlay. The Korean giant’s implementation of the new Mini LED tech is, on this evidence, something to be reckoned with. It’s difficult to imagine how any of the other sets that are incoming this year could be better.

Stuff says ★★★★★ This Mini LED television is a fearsomely accomplished set – and the one to beat ● NOW ADD THIS Samsung Q-Series soundbars Pairing your QLED with one of these is a stress-free way to get 3D object-based sound. from £499 / samsung.com

2

NEW

3

4

Samsung 75Q950TS

★★★★★ £3999 / stuff.tv/Q950TS Extravagant even after a £2k price drop… but no other 75in TV looks quite so elegant.

LG OLED65GX

★★★★★ £2098 / stuff.tv/OLEDGX Expensive, yes, but once you see it on your wall you’ll forget all that.

LG OLED65G1

Philips 65OLED+984

£3k is a lot of money to pay for a television, even one as slim and well-specified as this, especially when you take the humdrum audio into account – not to mention the absence of a stand.

But the OLED specialists have made good on the ‘Evo’ promise by serving up pictures that exceed expectations… so maybe LG is entitled to charge what it thinks it can get away with. Between this and the Samsung at No1, there’s really nothing in it.

Stuff says ★★★★★ Probably LG’s best ever OLED… which is saying something

The OLED+984 is a statement TV that offers outstanding picture performance with universal HDR support, and goes above and beyond what we expect from television sound thanks to a custom-made speaker system from British hi-fi brand Bowers & Wilkins. The price tag is sure to be an issue for most mortals, but it does look gorgeous in any living room, particularly with that four-sided Ambilight in full effect.

Stuff says ★★★★★ A television that goes big on design, performance and sound

£3000 / stuff.tv/65G1

6 7 8 9

£2447/ stuff.tv/OLED984

BARGAIN BUY

NEW

LG OLED55CX

★★★★★ £1195 / stuff.tv/OLEDCX LG knows exactly what it’s doing with OLED and the results here are mighty impressive.

Sony KD65A8

★★★★★ £1898 / stuff.tv/SonyA8 What’s a few gaps in specification when performance is as barnstorming as this?

Philips 55OLED805

★★★★★ £1198 / stuff.tv/OLED805 All the things we love about OLED without the flagship price tag.

Samsung QE65Q65T

★★★★★ £949 / stuff.tv/Q65T Overlook the humdrum sound and this is one of the best pound-for-pound goggleboxes around.

Hisense A7200G

£349 / stuff.tv/A7200G This 50in budget buy is a perfectly good way to get a biggish screen at a little price.

FOR UP-TO-DATE NEWS AND FULL REVIEWS OF ALL THE BEST NEW TELEVISIONS, VISIT STUFF.TVTOP-10TVs

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TOP TENS SOUNDBARS

1

STREAMERS TOP TENS

89

HOT

HOT BUY

Sky TV

£2199 / stuff.tv/AmbeoSoundbar

Sennheiser Ambeo Soundbar

from £27/month + setup / stuff.tv/SkyTV

Utterly convincing Dolby Atmos and DTS:X 3D sound, ample power and lots of inputs mean no other soundbar currently available can perform feats with the solidity and confidence of this Sennheiser. The sheer room-filling scale of this device’s sound is remarkable, and it’s hard to think of any content that wouldn’t benefit from being Ambeo’d. That’s why, as well as being the biggest and the most expensive, it’s the best you can buy.

Already home to the biggest selection of 4K content, from blockbuster films and original dramas to top-flight sport, Sky has adopted a can’t-beat-’em-join-’em approach to streaming by incorporating the likes of Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, Disney+ and BT Sport in its user-friendly interface. It’s also restructured its packages to make them more affordable, while multiroom and mobile options round off the most comprehensive content system money can buy.

2

Sonos Arc

2

Amazon Fire TV Cube

Roku Streambar

3

Amazon Fire TV Stick 4K

Sonos Beam

4 5

Chromecast with Google TV

Stuff says ★★★★★ The Ambeo Soundbar is a big unit but the sound it makes is bigger still

3

BARGAIN BUY

4 5

£799  stuff.tvSonosArc Don’t expect this soundbar to do everything a multi-speaker Dolby Atmos setup can do, but its up-firing and side-firing drivers give a real sense of scale for an immersively cinematic TV-watching experience.

Stuff says ★★★★★ Big-screen sound for your big-screen binges £130  stuff.tvStreambar It’s a compact soundbar and a versatile streaming stick in the same box – and both parts of the deal work brilliantly well. This is the simplest and cheapest way to upgrade your TV’s sound and smarts in one go.

Stuff says ★★★★★ A punchy little bar with built-in streaming skills

★★★★★ £399  stuff.tvSonosBeam Sonos’s great-value Alexa soundbar is affordable and packed with smarts.

Yamaha SR-C20A

★★★★★ £229  stuff.tvSRC20A At 60cm wide, this is a little bit of a soundbar that can do a little bit of everything.

Stuff says ★★★★★ Sky has come out fighting to move with the times and its selection of shows is unrivalled

£110  stuff.tvFireTVCube The Fire TV interface is easy to use and all the big catch-up services are available via this tidy box – and best of all, Alexa voice control works brilliantly. You’ll never have to worry about losing the remote again!

Stuff says ★★★★★ A marvel of voice control for your telly £50  stuff.tvFireStick4K This streaming stick offers 4K plus a faster processor than the original Fire TV Stick, and comes with an Alexa Voice Remote… but look out also for the cheaper non-4K version below, and the bargain Lite model.

Stuff says ★★★★★ Simply a great 4K streaming stick

★★★★★£60  stuff.tvChromecastTV A solid buy if you like Google’s casting tricks but also want all your TV apps in one place.

Amazon Fire TV Stick

★★★★★£40  stuff.tvFireStick A solid little HD streamer for all the best bits of Amazon and more.

FOR FULL REVIEWS OF ALL THE PRODUCTS IN OUR TOP TEN LISTINGS, VISIT STUFF.TV/TOP-10

1

TOP TENS TABLETS

1

CONSOLES TOP TENS

90 HOT BUY

HOT BUY

Apple iPad Air (2020) from £579 / stuff.tv/iPadAir

Sony PlayStation 5

The 4th-generation iPad Air ushers in big changes. It looks the spit of an 11in iPad Pro (at least from the front), and supports Apple’s snazzy Magic Keyboard and second-gen Pencil… and the A14 chip makes it blazingly fast, leaving its predecessor in the dust. Sure, there are compromises, but none are critical. So if you were considering an iPad Pro but don’t care about audio apps in portrait, a 12.9in display or more advanced cameras, save yourself a few quid and buy the new Air instead.

The PS5 is not a modest upgrade. Its hulking design means it’ll make a bad first impression on some, but spend time playing it and it’ll soon win you over – and then some. This is essentially a high-spec gaming PC for the living room: stupendously powerful, with greatly reduced loading times compared to the PS4. Most last-gen titles will run fine, many with a boost, and the line-up of new games is strong; we just hope developers make use of that fascinating DualSense pad and its haptic feedback trickery.

£450 / stuff.tv/PS5

Stuff says ★★★★★ Huge power, clever hardware and a guarantee of great games to come make the PS5 hard to resist

Stuff says ★★★★★ Pointing to the iPad’s future rather than its past, this is a meaningful, impressive, powerful Air update

2

2

Apple iPad Pro (2020)

3

Microsoft Surface Go 2

3

4 5

Samsung Galaxy Tab S7+

4 5

from £600 / stuff.tv/iPadPro2020 With its super-slick screen, speedy internals and double-lens camera, last year’s Pro is a monster of a working device – better grab one at this bargain price before the last stocks make way for the new M1 version on p64.

Stuff says ★★★★★ Apple’s mega-tablet is a performance beast from £399 / stuff.tv/SurfaceGo2 The Surface Go 2 feels less user-friendly and slick than an iPad, but pair it with the optional Type Cover and it turns into a neat mini-laptop. It’s also a surprisingly good way to play games.

Stuff says ★★★★★ Just enough power to be a genuine iPad rival

★★★★I from £799 / stuff.tv/TabS7Plus A true iPad Pro alternative that brilliantly balances productivity and entertainment.

Apple iPad (2020)

★★★★I from £329 / stuff.tv/iPad2020 The A12 Bionic chip turns Apple’s cheapest tab into an absolute powerhouse.

UPDATE

UPDATE

Nintendo Switch

£279 / stuff.tv/NintendoSwitch Now four years old, the Switch is the second-best-selling console in Nintendo’s history thanks to great games and a unique twist on portable play. But you might want to hold out for the imminent new version…

Stuff says ★★★★★ This 2-in-1 console is the real deal

Microsoft Xbox Series X

£450 / stuff.tv/XSX A fully future-proofed machine that doesn’t scrimp on specs or speed, the Series X just wants more exclusive titles to make it sing.

Xbox Game Pass remains pretty much the best streamed offering in gaming.

Stuff says ★★★★I A beast of a console that needs more games

Microsoft Xbox Series S

★★★★I £250 / stuff.tv/XSS Delivers affordability without sacrificing key features, but still falls short on new titles.

Evercade Handheld

★★★★I £60 / stuff.tv/Evercade Scratches the retro itch in all sorts of ways.

See also the TV-bound VS model on p12.

FOR FULL REVIEWS, VISIT STUFF.TVTOP-10HOME-CINEMA & STUFF.TVTOP-10GAMES-MACHINES

1 TIPS & TRICKS Take your time exploring – you’ll find key resources, notes, even some fun Easter eggs.

Not keen on all the violence? A lot of confrontations can be avoided. Just look out for sniffer dogs!

2

GAMES TOP TENS

HOT BUY

The Last of Us Part II

£50 / PS4 Just as The Last of Us proved to be the perfect swansong for the PS3 era, The Last of Us Part II is a masterful triumphto see off the PS4 in style: a rare superior sequel that can be mentioned in the same breath as The Godfather Part II. An unparalleled masterclass in everything it does, with an extensive suite of accessibility options that every game should adopt as the standard, it’s a game with a story that challenges us – and one we’ll be discussing long into the new console generation.

Stuff says ★★★★★ Naughty Dog has done it again with this brutal, bleak and beautiful game

3

Hades

Demon’s Souls

Just when you think you’ve seen all this hellish roguelite has to offer, a new tweak yanks you out of your comfort zone. It quickly becomes very addictive… and even if you’ll have to face numerous setbacks, few games make you feel so godly.

Stuff says ★★★★★ Great even if you don’t like roguelites …and if you do, it’s the best there is

This is a lovingly attentive remake that transforms an old game into a next-gen must-play. It’s going to make you work for it, as beneath that shiny new coat it remains a uniquely foreboding challenge, but overcoming Demon’s Souls is its own reward.

Stuff says ★★★★★ A gorgeous and faithful remake of a hugely influential cult classic

from £28  PC, Switch

91

£58  PS5

4 5 6 7 8 9 10

NEW

● OR PLAY THIS Uncharted: The Lost Legacy A leaner and somewhat less grim action adventure from Naughty Dog, starring a pair of kick-ass women. £10 / PS4

It Takes Two

★★★★★ from £28  PS4, PS5, XBX, XSX, PC A masterful co-op experience that will live long in the memory.

Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales

★★★★★£45  PS5, PS4 A visually stunning superhero romp, ideal for showing off the power of your new PS5.

Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1 + 2

★★★★★from £25  PS4, XB1, PC A superb remake of two of the best sports games ever committed to disc.

Final Fantasy VII Remake

★★★★★ £25  PS4 The greatest remake of one of the all-time greatest video games.

Monster Hunter Rise

★★★★★£40  Switch So many monsters and mechanics to feast on – this is unmissable.

Super Mario 3D World + Bowser’s Fury

★★★★★£40  Switch A sleeper Mario classic + an experimental 3D offshoot = one hell of a package.

Ori and the Will of the Wisps

★★★★✩from £22  Switch, XSX, XB1, PC A sequel to get well and truly lost in, plucking your heartstrings as it tests your gaming mettle.

FOR UP-TO-DATE NEWS AND REVIEWS OF ALL THE BEST NEW GAMES, VISIT STUFF.TV/TOP-10/GAMES

1

TOP TENS E-BIKES ETC

1

ELECTRIC CARS TOP TENS

92

HOT BUY

HOT BUY

VanMoof S3

Porsche Taycan

VanMoof’s second-gen S3 (or X3 if you’re under 5ft 8in) looks like a normal bike, rides like a normal bike and, crucially, doesn’t cost a ridiculous amount of cash. The chunky 50mm tyres, slightly swooped bars and upright riding position all combine to make it super-comfy, and 30 miles with the power assistance set to level three (out of four) left us completely sweat-free with 20% still in the tank. Plus, for such a looker, the S3 has a lot of tech hidden away to make it a less than ideal target for thieves.

It was about time someone took the fight to Tesla, and boy has Porsche delivered with the Taycan. This electric four-door saloon is the EV that petrolheads have been waiting for. In full-fat Turbo S flavour, the Taycan hits 62mph in 2.8 seconds – and adding more drama to proceedings is how it shifts up through its two-speed gearbox. The Taycan has a dynamism that can’t be matched by other electric cars, with a surefootedness that encourages you to press on.

2

Cowboy 3

2

3

Specialized Turbo Vado SL 5.0 EQ

3

4 5

GoCycle GX

4 5

Stuff says ★★★★★ This smart-looking e-bike offers a great ride, great features and some genuinely useful security smarts UPDATE

UPDATE

£1990  stuff.tvCowboy3 The 43-mile range, app-controlled lights, smart tracking and anti-theft tech make this bike a true commuter contender. It’s a handsome steed… but watch out for the new Cowboy 4 on p10.

Stuff says ★★★★★ A light e-bike that’s ideal for commuting £4000  stuff.tvVadoSL With the electrics hidden away in the frame, this hybrid bike looks pretty discreet – but it has a mass of added extras, including an extra boost of assistance for daunting hills and a kickstand for statement propping.

Stuff says ★★★★★ Pricey, but well built and a real easy rider

★★★★★£2899  stuff.tvGoCycleGX This foldaway e-bike is getting hard to find, but the new G4 model is on its way…

Ribble Hybrid AL e

★★★★★£2199  stuff.tvRibbleHybrid A secret e-bike that proves you don’t need fancy extras for an excellent ride.

from £70,690 / stuff.tv/Taycan

Stuff says ★★★★★ Big power, sports-car handling and lots of clever tech make the Taycan the most exciting EV yet Honda E

from £28,215  stuff.tvHondaE Born to be a city commuter (its maximum range is just 137 miles), the E is light, nimble and planted, but also delivers a completely comfortable and saloon-like refined ride for longer journeys.

Stuff says ★★★★★ Pricier than the equivalent Mini… but more fun

Polestar 2

from £39,900  stuff.tvPolestar2 From Volvo’s EV subsidiary, this five-door all-electric fastback blends elements of a futuristic saloon with bits of an SUV and totally gets away with it… thanks in part to a staggering 660Nm of torque.

Stuff says ★★★★★ A speedy five-door EV that’s a joy to drive

Volkswagen ID.3

★★★★★from £30,870  stuff.tvID3 A solid hatchback that looks ice-cold but is equally good at the mundane stuff.

Nissan Leaf

★★★★★from £25,995  stuff.tvNissanLeaf An accomplished family car that packs some serious range, performance and gadgetry.

FOR UP-TO-DATE LISTINGS AND FULL REVIEWS OF ALL KINDS OF GADGETS, VISIT STUFF.TV/TOP-10

)GCiP( tnarg rac ni-gulp tnemnrevog edulcni secirp rac cirtcelE ●

£1798 / stuff.tv/VanMoofS3

1

93

The Echo’s builtin Zigbee hub can hook up hundreds of smart home devices without a bridge.

Pair a compatible thermostat and the Echo’s temperature sensor can activate the heating.

Alexa Flash Briefings deliver bursts of news or trivia; choose from 5000 sources in the app.

Amazon Echo (4th Gen)

Stuff says ★★★★★ An all-round upgrade that makes the Echo a smarter speaker than ever

● NOW ADD THIS Honeywell T6R This Zigbee-enabled thermostat is wireless so you can place it where it’s most convenient. £170 / amazon.co.uk

3

Amazon Echo Dot (4th Gen)

Google Nest Mini

It can’t match a full-size smart speaker for audio, but as a radio and Alexa assistant for the bedside or kitchen, this cutey gets the job done. It’s worth paying £10 more for the ‘with Clock’ version, which adds extra functionality beyond telling the time.

Stuff says ★★★★★ With the optional clock, this is our favourite bedside wondergadget

If you live in Google’s world (and let’s face it, most of us do) then the Nest Mini is the best, cheapest way to get into the smart home game. It’s a better bet than the Echo Dot with Clock if you want close integration with your Google calendar and apps.

Stuff says ★★★★★ Louder and cleverer than ever… and it’ll only improve with updates

from £50  stuff.tvDot

HOT BUY

£80 / stuff.tv/Echo Having morphed from a cylinder to a sphere, the latest Echo is an excellent newsreader, weather forecaster, personal assistant and intercom straight out of the box; but it’s now also a capable speaker and a very accessible smart home hub. It doesn’t sound as good as the Sonos One or Apple HomePod for listening to music, but it’s significantly smarter than both and considerably cheaper too.

TIPS & TRICKS

2

SMART HOME TOP TENS

£49  stuff.tvNestMini

4 5 6 7 8 9 10

Ring Indoor Cam

★★★★★£49  stuff.tvRingIndoor This cute little spy-cam is a bona fide bargain for anyone with security worries.

Nest Learning Thermostat (3rd Gen)

★★★★★ £187  stuff.tvNest3 A simple and mess-free smart thermostat with Alexa compatibility.

Philips Hue Starter Kit

★★★★★from £50 (white)  stuff.tvHue Become an indoor god with the smartest way of lighting up your home remotely.

Brisant-Secure Ultion Smart

★★★★★ from £259  stuff.tvUltionSmart Tradition and tech partner up in a smart lock to please everyone.

Amazon Echo Show 10

★★★★✩£240  stuff.tvShow10 The revolving trick makes this a handy (but not essential) upgrade on the previous Echo Show.

Nanoleaf Essentials A19

★★★★✩from £18  stuff.tvNanoleafA19 Simple, affordable, effective: these lights are a must for any Apple smart home.

Google Nest Hub (2nd Gen)

★★★★✩£90  stuff.tvNestHub2 A small but mighty smart home display with some useful improvements on its predecessor.

FOR FULL REVIEWS OF THE BEST SMART HOME DEVICES, VISIT STUFF.TV/TOP-10/SMART-HOME-DEVICES

1

TOP TENS VR HEADSETS

1

VR GAMES TOP TENS

94

HOT BUY

HOT BUY

from £299 / stuff.tv/Quest2

Oculus Quest 2

Half-Life: Alyx

The original Quest felt almost too good to be true. Its successor lacks the same wow factor, but you can’t argue with a better display and processor – not to mention a lighter, more comfortable build – for less money. Are there more powerful headsets? Is motion sickness still an issue? Yes to both, but superb tracking and a total absence of wires make this the VR package to get… that is, unless you’re boycotting Facebook, because you have to be logged in to use it.

Announcing Alyx as not only a ‘midquel’ but a VR exclusive got some Half-Life diehards riled up… but in classic Valve fashion, the end result is utterly brilliant. Alyx succeeds because its universe just happens to be a perfect fit for the format. It’s also larger and much more robust than most VR games, at a meaty 12-15 hours. And though it unfolds at a different kind of cadence to past Half-Life games, it feels like a fully fledged solo campaign and a key part of the franchise narrative.

2

Valve Index

2

Beat Saber

3

HTC Vive Pro

3

Star Wars: Squadrons

4 5

HTC Vive Cosmos

4 5

Pistol Whip

Stuff says ★★★★★ Not a complete reinvention, but our favourite VR headset is now even better… and cheaper!

UPDATE

£919  stuff.tvValveIndex While not revolutionary, the Index carries enough subtle upgrades to put it atop the PC-based headset pack. Everything looks fabulous and the controllers deliver the most fluid-feeling VR interactions to date.

Stuff says ★★★★✩ The best of the performance-PC VR options £599 (headset only)  stuff.tvHTCVivePro No longer the top dog for high-end VR using a PC, the Vive Pro remains a strong headset thanks to its crisp screens and comfy fit. We can’t wait to try the new and improved Pro 2 on p14…

Stuff says ★★★★✩ Impressive, but not the best around in 2021

★★★✩✩£699  stuff.tvCosmos A simple setup with potential for upgrades, but tough to recommend at this price.

PlayStation VR

★★★✩✩from £260  stuff.tvPSVR Held back by niggling issues… let’s hope the upcoming second-gen PSVR will fix those.

from £41 / Oculus, Vive, Valve Index

Stuff says ★★★★★ Valve’s beloved series returns… and offers one of the strongest arguments to date for VR gaming

from £23  Oculus, Vive, PSVR Gleefully swing your twin lightsabers to chop blocks that are flung your way to the thumping beat of a song. This game has reinvented the rhythm genre for VR and it’s glorious, especially on the cable-free Quest.

Stuff says ★★★★★ A mesmerising musical melee from £16  Oculus, Vive, PSVR Suit up and enter the cockpit in this dazzling dogfighter, a robust Star Wars sim that you can play fully in VR across the entire experience – campaign missions and online shootouts alike.

Stuff says ★★★★✩ Spacey fun… and even better with a joystick

★★★★✩from £20  Oculus, Vive, PSVR Like John Wick meets EDM, this rhythmic blaster makes you feel like a master assassin.

Population: One

★★★★✩from £23  Oculus, Vive Not as polished as Fortnite, but still a ripping battle-royale shooter with chaotic action.

FOR FULL REVIEWS, AND TO EXPLORE MORE OF THE STUFF TOP TEN LISTS, VISIT STUFF.TV/TOP-10

1

TOP TENS DRONES & ACTION CAMS

DJI Mini 2

Just light enough to avoid having to be registered with the CAA, DJI’s latest pocket drone is a little beast that grabs stellar aerial video. It’s also categorically the most intuitive drone Stuff has ever used, with a controller that’s a multi-function marvel: the basic stick controls are all you really need to get started, with everything the camera sees displayed in real time on your phone using the DJI Fly app. Best of all, unlike the old Mavic Mini, it’s capable of shooting in 4K.

Stuff says ★★★★★ Fly, shoot, repeat: DJI’s latest dinky drone soars above the competition

2

3 4 5

NEW

DJI Mavic Air 2

£769  stuff.tvMavicAir2 DJI has built on the platform of a simple entry-level drone and thrown in a heap of pro features. We love it… but whereabouts on this list will the new Air 2S, reviewed on p72, appear in the next issue?

Stuff says ★★★★★ This is DJI’s finest sub-£1K flyer yet

HOT BUY

Lego Mindstorms Robot Inventor £330 / stuff.tv/Mindstorms

It’s clear Lego has prioritised immediacy and fun with its latest build-your-own-bots kit, which lets you and/or your little ones create five different coding-controlled mecha-beings. Yes, the set lacks a proper screen and relies on a separate devicefor programming; but it offers great clarity and scope, plus an attitude that encourages tinkering… whatever your age.

Stuff says ★★★★★ A fun, versatile set for Lego electronics newcomers and old hands alike

2

GoPro Hero9 Black

GoPro Hero8 Black

★★★★★£280  stuff.tvH8B Overtaken by the Hero9 Black… but this is still arguably a better option if you don’t need 5K. ★★★★✩ £295  stuff.tv360Go2 The world’s smallest hands-free action cam will cling to your chest for maximum gnarl.

Sphero RVR

£250  stuff.tvSpheroRVR The RVR pulls off the balance between serious coding and knockabout fun perfectly: it’s an all-terrain vehicle that you can throw around without worrying about it breaking, but also has serious programming chops.

Stuff says ★★★★★ Enough fun to convert any coding-phobe

Lego Vidiyo

£330  stuff.tvH9B It’s bulkier than the Hero8 Black and needs an add-on to match its ultra-wide video… but better image detail, battery life and features make this one of the most versatile bits of filming and photography kit we’ve used.

Stuff says ★★★★★ The pinnacle of action-cam excellence

Insta360 Go 2

TECH TOYS TOP TENS

HOT BUY

£419 / stuff.tv/DJIMini2

UPDATE

95

from £3.99  stuff.tvVidiyo The brick masters’ latest foray into AR sees you shoot video, directing music promos for bands whose members are based on real-world sets – think collectable minifigs crossed with TikTok. Stuff says ★★★★✩ Lego’s best digital/plastic crossover yet

4 5

Mario Kart Live: Home Circuit

★★★★✩£100  stuff.tvMKLive AR software, real-life cars and course markers turn your living room into a Mario Kart track.

Lego Adventures with Mario

★★★★✩from £50  stuff.tvLAMario Basically Mario Maker in brick form; begin with the essential Starter Course.

FOR FULL REVIEWS, AND TO EXPLORE MORE OF THE STUFF TOP TEN LISTS, VISIT STUFF.TV/TOP-10

TOP TENS CAMERAS

96

1

Stuff says ★★★★★ A superbly capable mirrorless camera for shooting pretty much anything in style ● NOW ADD THIS Fujifilm XF 16-80mm f/4 This versatile lens covers a bigger zoom range than most and adapts to pretty much any requirements. £699 / wexphotovideo.com

3

Sony A7C

Sony A7 III

Putting full-frame sensors in small bodies is one of Sony’s greatest strengths, and the A7C minimises things even further – but this is a compact package with a lot of imaging power. For photographers and video makers who want to carry everything with them in a modest bag (or hanging around their neck), the A7C fits the bill better than any other interchangeable-lens camera.

Stuff says ★★★★★ Superb quality and full-frame goodness from a half-pint camera

The A7 III manages to pack in a lot of technology and desirability for less than £2000. It’s a fantastic all-rounder that’s well suited to a bunch of shooting scenarios, coping well with landscapes, portraits, and even a little bit of high-speed sport shooting.

As a camera design it’s admittedly not the prettiest thing we’ve ever seen, but it handles well for its compact size.

Stuff says ★★★★★ An excellent all-rounder that thrives in low-light conditions

£1699  stuff.tvSonyA7iii

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Nikon D780

★★★★★£1990  stuff.tvD780 An all-round DSLR that’s built like a tank and borrows the best tricks of its mirrorless siblings.

Fujifilm X-T30

★★★★★£849  stuff.tvXT30 Does a brilliant job of distilling the X-T3’s appeal into a cheaper, more compact body.

Canon EOS RP

★★★★★£1049  stuff.tvEOSRP A full-frame mirrorless marvel that’s light enough to not be a burden and offers top picture quality.

Fujifilm GFX 50R

★★★★★£3199  stuff.tvGFX50R The ultimate image quality in a medium-format camera that’s not too ridiculously huge to carry.

Nikon Z6

★★★★★£1549  stuff.tvZ6 A top-notch and reasonably sized mirrorless camera from the optical experts.

Sony ZV-1

★★★★★£699  stuff.tvZV1 With ace video and a flippable screen, Sony’s clever compact is a vlogger’s dream.

Nikon Z50

★★★★★£929  stuff.tvZ50 One of the best APS-C cameras out there, offering a multitude of pro-level features.

FOR FULL REVIEWS OF ALL THE BEST NEW CAMERAS, VISIT STUFF.TV/TOP-10/SYSTEM-CAMERAS

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It’s easy to set up the XT4’s customisable Q button: just hold it down for a couple of seconds for options.

Avoid those wonky horizons by turning on the builtin onscreen level in screen settings.

Fujifilm X Acquire is a clever bit of PCMac software that backs up all your XT4’s custom settings.

£1709  stuff.tvA7C

Fujifilm X-T4

£1399 / stuff.tv/XT4

The Fuji X-T4 might be the high-end mirrorless camera of your dreams. Relatively affordable for a flagship, it excels at stills and video thanks to in-body image stabilisation, high-speed shooting and 4K recording at up to 60fps. Rapid shooting is backed up by fancy AF tricks that feel equally fast and reliable, and even the battery life goes above and beyond the usual standards. There’s no doubting this is a worthy successor to the already fabulous X-T3.

TIPS & TRICKS

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HOT BUY

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TIPS & TRICKS

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Amazon Echo Dot (4th Gen)

Stuff says ★★★★★ With the optional clock, this is our favourite bedside wondergadget

● NOW ADD THIS Sportlink Wall Mount This minimalist acrylic mount for the Dot will keep it clear from wet surfaces in the bathroom or kitchen. £13 / amazon.co.uk

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Microsoft Xbox Wireless Headset

Raspberry Pi 400

These black cans are unmistakably Xbox, with chunkyearpads and plenty of padding. And the sound is impressive for the price, with a low-end response so impactful we had to turn down the bass in the Xbox’s EQ app.

Stuff says ★★★★★ Yes, you really can bag a decent gaming headset for under £100

This DIY computer kit isn’t about the work (or homework) it can do, but what you can turn it into.

It’s an affordable standalone programming rig, a hub for electronics and a stashable device that can become any classic home computer in seconds.

Stuff says ★★★★★ A superb gadget for hacking around and exploring computing’s past

£90  stuff.tvXboxHeadset

HOT BUY

from £50 / stuff.tv/Dot This fabric-covered take on Marvin the paranoid android in disguise as a Magic 8-Ball feels playful yet classical. It can’t match a full-size smart speaker for audio, but as a little radio and an Alexa assistant for the bedside table or kitchen worktop, this cutey gets the job done. It’s worth paying £10 more for the ‘with Clock’ version, which adds extra functionality beyond telling the time.

Fed up of yelling?

Alexa’s voice can work like an intercom with connected Echo devices.

Alexa Voice Shopping lets you order from Amazon; add a ‘voice code’ to keep the kids off.

Dot at your bedside?

Saying “Alexa, turn on whisper mode” will stop it waking up sleepyheads.

NEW

BUDGET BUYS TOP TENS

£94  stuff.tvPi400

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Mi Smart Band 5

★★★★★£26  stuff.tvMiBand5 Fantastic value and decent features make this an easy fitness tracker to recommend.

Orange Crest Edition

★★★★★ £95  stuff.tvOrangeCrest Comfortable cans with a sound that’s true to Orange’s hard-rocking heritage.

Ultimate Ears Wonderboom 2

★★★★★ £90  stuff.tvWonderboom2 A rugged little wonder that’ll bring a sonic boost to any occasion.

Chromecast with Google TV

★★★★★£60  stuff.tvChromecastTV A solid buy if you like Google’s casting tricks but also want all your TV apps in one place.

Moto G30

★★★★✩ £160  stuff.tvG30 A phone that packs in plenty on a budget, even if not every feature adds value.

Nanoleaf Essentials A19

★★★★✩from £18  stuff.tvNanoleafA19 Simple, affordable, effective: these lights are a must for any Apple smart home.

Google Nest Hub (2nd Gen)

★★★★✩£90  stuff.tvNestHub2 A small but mighty smart home display with some useful improvements on its predecessor.

FOR FULL REVIEWS OF ALL THESE GADGETS, AND TO EXPLORE MORE TOP TEN LISTS, VISIT STUFF.TV/TOP-10

Call me maybe (not)

There would have been Intel inside the original iPhone had the chip-maker’s then-CEO Paul Otellini fancied it. But his decision set Apple on the path to designing its own silicon.

RANDOM ACCESS MEMORIES 2006

Macs get Intel inside M

Poor Apple. How did it cope with making such a humiliating U-turn?

This is Apple. The company is pragmatic, not sentimental: something is good (or bad) until it isn’t. So during his WWDC 2005 keynote, Steve Jobs made the Intel transition for 2006 seem like the most obvious thing Apple could do. He admitted Apple hadn’t delivered on the promise of 3GHz Power Mac desktops and G5 laptops, then threw PowerPC under a bus by saying its roadmap wouldn’t enable amazing future Apple products because of its poor performance compared to Intel. Soon enough, PowerPC Macs were history.

Still, all’s well that ends well – Intel and Apple, friends forever!

Not quite, because tech history has a habit of repeating itself. Just as Apple once felt held back by 68k and PowerPC, the same happened with Intel – hence the 2020 reveal of Apple’s ownM1 chip. Sceptics scoffed… but were silenced as soon as they used M1 Macs that embarrassed their Intel predecessors.

So, with Apple thrice burned by reliance on others, history surely won’t repeat in the same way again: the next time Macs are due for a brain upgrade, Apple will be in control of its own fortunes.

DON’T MISS THE NEXT ISSUE! ON SALE 8 JULY

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acs get Intel inside? What did they have inside before Intel chips – potato chips?

Oh, you’re so young (and strange).

But no: the first Macs had Motorola 68k processors. In 1994, these were replaced

by PowerPC chips that were much faster; to hammer this message home, Apple ran an ad where a snail crawled slowly across the screen with a Pentium II strapped to its back, before a shot of a snazzy, speedy G3 Mac appeared. This didn’t age well: a few years later, PowerPC had stalled and Macs looked slothful – hence Apple making good with Intel.

OLED+ 935

Breathtaking picture.

Cinematic sound.

Give your sport events the TV they deserve. This stunning Philips OLED+ TV boasts up-firing Bowers & Wilkins speakers, and the latest P5 picture processing with AI. You get a lifelike picture and thrilling sound with crystal-clear dialogue.

philips.com/oled+