GEAR

Pat Pilcher’s monthly round up of all the tech worth knowing about, for work, rest and play.

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Seagate Fast SSD portable storage

Mechanical external USB hard drives might be handy, but they’re slow and fragile - bump a mechanicaldrive when it is spinning, and the odds are good that it’ll break. Seagate’s FAST SSD drives are about thesize of a pack of cards and use solid-state storage which means there are no moving parts, so they’redurable. They’re so much faster than old school mechanical USB hard drives. Seagate’s Fast SSDs areavailable in capacities ranging from 250GB to 2TB.

https://www.seagate.com/au/en/consumer/backup/fast-ssd/$348 (1TB)

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Harman Kardon Allure Portable Smart Speaker

Bluetooth speakers are great for sharing the tunes stored on your phone, but Harman Kardon have taken this to the next level by adding in Alexa, Amazon’s smart AI assistant. Alexa can set alarms, reminders, tell bad dad jokes and also drive smart home widgets such as smart lightbulbs, thermostats or security cameras. Most important of all, the Allure Portable sounds excellent.

https://www.harmankardon.co.nz/ALLURE+PORTABLE. html?dwvar_ALLURE%20PORTABLE_color=Black-USA- Current $329

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2Degrees Amazon Prime Video

As competition heats up in the fibre broadband market, 2Degrees have fired off a competitive salvo by bundling Amazon Prime Video along with their unlimited broadband plans. Amazon Prime Video is a Netflix like service that includes shows such as Jeremy Clarkson’s Grand Tour. Prices start at $75.

https://www.2degreesmobile.co.nz/broadband/ $75-$100 per month

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Huawei GT Watch

Smartwatches may be incredibly handy, but most need quality time with a charger after only a day’s use (looking at you Android Wear and Apple Watch). Huawei’s latest effort, the GT Watch can squeeze an incredible 2 weeks out of a single charge and is water resistant to boot!

https://consumer.huawei.com/nz/wearables/watch-gt/ $348

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Huawei P30 Pro

Huawei’s latest phone does the impossible and manages to cram a 10x optical zoom into an ultra-slim phone body. If that wasn’t impressive enough, it features a night shooting mode which makes taking decent no flash night photos possible. Add in a generous 256GB of storage, IP68 water resistance, fast charging and wireless charging, and there is a lot to like.

https://consumer.huawei.com/nz/phones/p30-pro/ $1,498

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Jaybird X4 headphones

Wired headphones and gym workouts are never a goodmix, which is why Jaybird’s Bluetooth X4headphones make such good workoutbuddies. Sweat and water resistancecombines with in-ear comfort anddecent audio, which makes the ultradurableX4 headphones ideal forsports Billies or Whilliemanas.

https://witchdoctor.co.nz/index.php/2019/04/jaybird-x4-wirelessearphones-review/$228