Innholdsfortegnelse for September 2017 i Stuff UK

Wanna know a secret, reader? Not all adets are born equal. From Bluetooth-enabled rubber bands to phones that chu harder than a ke party, it’s our job at Stuff to wade throuh a whole load of uff and find those diamonds in the rouh. So hats off to 2017 for provin so enerous with its tech bounty so far. There’s been so much awesomeness that we had to make a list just to keep track of it all Yep, our Stuff Awards are still a couple of months off, but in the meantime we wanted to show you the brilliant breadth of this year’s adety oodness. From the widets you can buy on a whim to the ear that’s worth savin another 12 months for, our 100 Greatest Gadets of…

Paralenz Dive Camera €649 / paralenz.com An under-sea snapper for diving sorts: Paralenz goes down, deeper and down with its 4K water baby • Depth perception Taking your GoPro for a snorkelling session? Pah! Oh, sure, your fancy Hero 5 can capture 4K footage down to 10m – but beside this dedicated diving cam that’ll look like a leaky shoe at the bottom of a pond. Clad in military-grade aluminium, the Paralenz Dive Camera can keep shooting 200m deep without a housing. And it’ll do so in 4K at 30fps • Deep blue see While capturing hi-res crabs is a fine achievement for a device as big as a torch, you won’t be squids in on YouTube if your colour palette’s all off. Thankfully, this oceanic snapper comes with in-built…

#25 DOLBY ATMOS Verity Burns Think movie magic is all in the looking? Well, while your eyes are busy ogling, your ears are doing more work filling in the detail. Take that scampering muskrat. You didn’t see it snuffling around behind you – you heard it. But standard surround sound doesn’t really cut it any more, not when you’ve got 4K and HDR handling the big screen images… which is where the Dolby Atmos sound system comes in. A 3D audio format, Atmos is already making big news with its integration into cinemas and nightclubs, and Netflix support now means it’s only getting bigger. Instead of a traditional 5.1 or 7.1 setup, where speakers are placed around your viewing position, Atmos can handle up to a whopping 64 speakers in…

Handsome home hub SENIC COVI If Alexa is to become our AI overlord, she might as well do it in domestic style. So while some may see the Echo’s towering black cylinder as the perfect emblem of our future dystopia, others will prefer this chic lamp. An aluminium base topped with a tapered tube of sand-blasted glass, it includes mics and a speaker for vocal interaction and gets on fine with Alexa – which means it can link up to all kinds of kit in your home. It’s open source, so you can while away the days until the apocalypse by setting it up with IFTTT, Sonos, HomeKit and more. And yes, it is still a lamp, with four LEDs that adjust their light cycles to your daily routine. from…

SONNET Usually when you lose phone signal you’re left alone to fend for yourself in a cold, cruel world… at least until your train scoots away from all that horrid greenery and reaches a proper town. Sonnet is a beacon of hope for the most desolate landscapes, as it creates your very own network via long-range radio so you can text freely from the middle of nowhere. Or Truro. $89 / kickstarter.com YO SPERM Parenting can be an absolute nightmare, and that’s before your sprog even sees the light of day. Yo Sperm promises to ease your fertility concerns by saving you or your partner a hospitalbased hookup with a plastic cup. Instead, your phone does the testing from the comfort of home – with a live video of the…

SUPER HOT VR Superhot is by far the best game you didn’t play last year. An exhilarating shooter where time only moves when you do, its console and VR incarnations were exclusive to Xbox and Oculus respectively. Now both have arrived on PlayStation, you’d be an absolute fool to miss out at the second time of asking. £19 / PSVR, Oculus, Vive STAR WARS BATTLE FRONT II Another Star Wars game, another opportunity to disappoint us fans all over again. But wait! Battlefront II promises to be different, with an all-new single-player campaign, free ongoing DLC and character classes to give online multiplayer a little more depth. From what we’ve played so far, the Force is strong with this one. £55 / PS4, Xbox One, PC WOLFENSTEIN2:THE NEW COLOSSUS Thought…

Musical squares For £170 you can buy the Lightpad Block to link up to your Seaboard Block, or to use as a standalone device. Not since Korg’s Kaoss Pad has the humble human finger been capable of making so much sweet noise. Equipped with a touch-sensitive surface that harbours physical keys, responds to swipe inputs and delivers two octaves of sound, the Seaboard Block is the portable plaything I’ve been dreaming of. With a library of more than 200 sounds to choose from, pair it wirelessly with one of four phone apps to unleash its full potential as you prod, press, tap and swipe across its inviting surface. Once you’ve finished flying solo, hook it up with some of its siblings – such as the Loop, Live, Touch and Lightpad…

FENDER MUSTANG GT Guitar amp design hasn’t really changed since the ’60s – but it’s what’s inside the big black boxes of noise that’s important. Fender’s Mustang GT series comes with Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, so you can connect it to your phone via the Fender Tone app and edit effects, tinker with presets and stream tunes to play along to. from £250 / fender.com PODSPEAKERS MINI POD BLUE TOOTH MKII Can’t afford to kit your house out with a high-end amp and those stylish Bowers & Wilkins Nautilus speakers you’ve been drooling over? Podspeakers emerged from a collaboration with B&W, hence the Nautilus-like form, but the MiniPod is a standalone powered speaker with Bluetooth. €549 / podspeakers.com PRO-JECT ESSENTIAL IIISGT PEPPER’S TURN TABLE It was 50 years ago in May,…

MARVEL’S THE DEFENDERS This is the series that Netflix’s Daredevil, Jessica Jones, Luke Cage and Iron Fist have all been leading up to: the one where they all join forces Avengersstyle to slay a force that threatens to overpower them all. That nefarious villain? Crime lord Sigourney Weaver. Where did it all go wrong, Ripley? from £5.99/month / netflix.com RICK AND MORTY More of a bad acid trip than a cartoon show, Rick and Morty dabbles with rib-aching dark humour, bizarre alien worlds and the age-old question regarding the function of a plumbus. Don’t expect the answer in season 3, but at least there are more killer jokes and interstellar trips. This is one cartoon you should not let your kids watch. from £22/month / sky.com GAME OF THRONES There…

Life is full of mysteries. How did Two and a Half Men last 12 seasons? Who invented the platypus? Why has it taken Microsoft this long to make a laptop? Just like the Surface Pro and Surface Book before it, the Surface Laptop is a brilliant creation. Unlike those previous two, though, it isn’t a tablet with a detachable keyboard and stylus; it is instead an oldfashioned kind of computer with the looks and performance to rival Apple’s MacBook. That MacBook comparison is important here, because it and the Surface Laptop are aimed at the same sort of people: folk who do a lot of typing researching and procrastinating. Basically, students and journalists with a curiously large chunk of cash to spare and lots of deadlines to hit. But the…

Price from £619 / stuff.tv/iPadPro BEST iOS APPS BRUSHES REDUX You don’t have to be David Hockney to paint well with this app. It has one of the best superfast brush creation tools you’re ever likely to see. £free PICSART ANIMATOR Turn your iPad into a virtual flip-book with onion-skinning smarts: you draw each frame and see previous ones beneath in faded form. £free BEAR Sadly not a cuddly ball of fluff, this lovely app for tapping out words is handy when you want to hook up your keyboard and switch to work mode. £free If Tony Stark built tablets instead of mechanised suits, he’d struggle to come up with anything better than Apple’s new iPad. This is a device that’s deserving of that ‘Pro’ moniker, and when iOS 11…

▪ Is there an Echo in here? Alexa has found a new home in this tablet, and she can do everything here that she does in her Echo guise. You have to hold down the home key to wake her up first, though. ▪ Buttoned up On top of the tablet you get power and volume buttons, plus a microUSB port for charging and a headphone socket. There are also front and rear cameras, and a microSD slot for extra storage. £50 / stuff.tv/Fire7 ▪ Amazon’s totally got the right idea with its tablets – don’t bother trying to compete with the iPad, just bash out dirt-cheap devices that get the job done. And the new Amazon Fire 7 is exactly that kind of tab. ▪ This is a tablet…

▪ Turn for the worse Once you’re used to where things live on the touchscreen, you’ll find it a relative cinch to navigate – but its position isn’t ideal for full concentration while driving, and it’s almost entirely out of your line of sight as a satnav. ▪ Hot off the press Taps on the display need to be firm, but it’s responsive enough not to be needlessly distracting. Still, for certain functions – like adjusting the temperature – we occasionally hankered for some traditional buttons to press. from £17,505 / stuff.tv/CitroenC3 ▪ So, you’re looking for a small but spacious hatchback that’s stylish, comfortable and reasonably nippy. Why not throw in a bunch of handy driver aids, a stellar infotainment system and Citroen’s all-new 120° ConnectedCAM dash camera? ▪…

HOT BUY 1 Samsun Galaxy S8 £689 / samsun.com You don’t need us to tell you that the Galaxy S8 is a bezel-less thing of wonder. Just look at it: glorious! And beneath that gorgeous facade lies an equally sumptuous blend of power and performance. With enough oomph to run any app you please, and a point-and-shoot camera to rival both the iPhone 7 Plus and the Google Pixel, this really is an astoundingly good comeback after Samsung’s Note 7 woes. We’d have accepted nothing less. Stuff says It’s beautiful… and it’s hands-down the best phone you can buy riht now ▪ NOW ADD THIS DeX Station Hook up a monitor, keyboard and mouse to this puck-sized device for an almost complete computer experience via your Galaxy S8. £130 /…

I STEPPED INTO A STYROFOAM STARGATE TO TEST SMARTPHONES It might look like some kind of sci-fi matter transporter, but this anechoic chamber is actually just one of a hundred ways the bods at Huawei’s Beijing R&D campus make sure the company’s phones are up to scratch. Walk inside, shut the door, and things are so quiet you can hear your own heart beating – it’s beyond eerie. I’ll stick to drop tests and swimming pool dunkings, thank you very much. Tom Morgan, Reviews Editor I WATCHED THE DEATH OF HYBRIDS AT LE MANS Every year since 1923, a load of racing cars have thundered down the streets surrounding the picturesque town of Le Mans, France. Or whistle, as the case may be – over the last few years it’s…

1 NewBalance 5 Panel Performance Hat Understated. Classy. This is the James Bond of performance hats. And don’t worry if it makes you big-headed: the clip is adjustable. £17.95 / newbalance.co.uk 2 Brooks Glycerin 15 Stretchy ventilation zones mean these comfort-cushioned running shoes will hug your feet affectionately without making disgusted ‘pee-ew!’ noises. £135 / upandrunning.co.uk 3 UA Run Seamless Long Sleeve Running gear that makes you look cool while panting and sweating is hard to come by, but this polyester top might do it. £45 / underarmour.co.uk 4 HydraPak SF250 SoftFlask As you drink from the SoftFlask it collapses until you’re left with just a compact bottle, wobbly legs and the ashes of your ambition. £10.45 / hydrapak.com 5 Salomon Agile 12 Set Backpack Bundle your possessions into this…

I think I’ve seen one of these used in a game of hexagonal hockey. You’re thinking of the pointy puck. While this disc does bear a passing resemblance, it’s more about sticking with you than being hit with a stick. Ever been at a festival with a 4G connection, only to find you can’t do anything online? It’s a common problem and it’s caused by the way traditional mobile networks work – like you and five of your housemates crowding around the tap all trying to get water at the same time. I’ve actually got quite a big sink Bet you don’t have a big aerial mast, though. In any case, Sonnet does things differently. This Kickstarter-funded lump uses a process called crowdconnecting to deliver data and reception, even when…

Of all life’s little pleasures, leaving the house with your smartphone battery on 100% is perhaps one of the greatest. But what if that glowing sense of security lasted longer than half an hour? That’s a future could soon be within reach: electro-boffins at the University of Washington have figured out how to draw power from thin air – and they’ve used it to create a phone that needs no battery power to make a call. How? Well, this magic mobile has gone back in time, employing an old analogue method of communication that requires a lot less energy than modern digital phone calls. Relying on a technique called ambient backscatter, the prototype reflects wireless signals already present in the environment, rather than generating its own. These signals are sent…

MAC BOOK PRO 13 IN ( TOUCH BAR) Now packing Intel’s latest Kaby Lake processors, Apple’s 13in MacBook Pro has enough screen space for most of your editing needs – especially once you’ve learnt its Touch Bar shortcuts for tweaking hues, hitting shortcuts and generally Getting Stuff Done across a whole host of software including Photoshop and Office. from £1749 / apple.com LOGITECH MX ANYWHERE 2S Some poor souls manage to struggle through life using only one or two computers at a time; but for those of us who insist on three, Logitech has created the MX Anywhere 2S. Paired with Logitech’s free Flow software, it can control three PCs at once – with the ability to copy and paste content from one to the other to the other. £80…

C SEED 262 When you’ve more money than wall, there are two options: staple £50 notes to the plasterboard, or shell out your savings on this 262in 4K television. While the former might offer more texture, C Seed’s LED panel offers UHD tech and 800 nits of brightness to sear eyeballs at 50ft. Now to decide what you should cover your other three walls with. €490,000 / cseed.tv ASTELL & KERNA & ULTIMA If you possess the sort of ears that can pick out a suspended fourth at half a mile, it’s only right that you treat your inevitably burgeoning FLAC collection to an appropriately lavish (and expensive) home. Thankfully, A&K has provided the ideal location. Your new address? A&Ultima. £3299 / astellnkern.com SIMAUDIO MOON 888 Why buy a house…

What kind of carpet do you have on your laptop? You don’t? Not even a patch of retrofitted shagpile to rest your wrists on? Me neither – so I’ve loved running my fingers across the Surface Laptop, which is covered in a fuzzy material called Alcantara. You can spec it with Kaby Lake processors and up to 512GB of SSD storage. Some people will be put off by Windows 10 S, which restricts you to downloading apps from Microsoft’s Windows Store, but what are you going to do with it beyond watching Netflix and trawling Giphy.com? If you absolutely must have full-fat Windows you can upgrade it, but the Laptop’s speed and battery life will take a hit as a result. Still, you can always use it as a pillow…

FOR SPACE ACES Steredenn Although Steredenn’s chunky pixel-art style recalls classic side-scrolling shooters, this is a thoroughly modern take on blasting evil space types. Levels are algorithmically generated, so you get a different game every time; but only by mastering how weapon pick-ups affect each type of enemy can you hope to get seriously high scores. Said weapons are often bonkers too. Our favourite: a massive set of gnashing jaws bolted to the front of your ship. CHOMP! Stuff says £3.99 / iOS FOR SPACED FACES Face Swap This app finds Microsoft throwing its hat into the face-swapping ring. Shoot a selfie and slap your virtual mug on any figure Face Swap can find in Bing. Not feeling photogenic? Swap other people’s faces instead. Microsoft says the app includes ‘intelligent…

Huawei MateBook X from £851 / huawei.com What’s the story? Tired of fighting Apple for smartphone superiority, Huawei has entered the laptop boxing ring. And one of the champs in this arena? Apple… Huawei just can’t catch a break. Saying that, it hasn’t helped itself with the MateBook X’s design, which is destined to draw MacBook comparisons. But with a pacy processor, this is no lightweight wimp. Is it any good? The MateBook X can get any desktop job done without a groan of complaint thanks to Intel’s Kaby Lake CPU. The 2160x1440 display is a looker too, but it’s the Dolby Atmos speakers that steal the show. Alas, instead of finishing the MacBook off with a knockout punch, a wobbly screen, flimsy keyboard and unconvincing battery life leave its…

Lindy BNX-60 What’s the story? Ten points for guessing what Lindy is doing here. Actually, it’s pretty obvious, isn’t it? The BNX-60s are a low-cost copycat of the Bose QC35s. And do you know what? They’re very impressive indeed. Packing a serious array of features for the price, including active noise cancellation, these wireless headphones don’t look especially cool but are comfy and easy to wear – more so than even the QC35s. Are they any good? Keep your expectations realistic and you’ll love these Lindys. The noise cancellation isn’t close to Bose levels: it just takes the edge off low frequencies so you’re less likely to have to crank up the volume on the train. But you get a dynamic and engaging sound with punchy bass that’s among the…

Should I up.rade? ONEPLUS 5 Everyone loves an underdog story, whether it’s Leicester City or a ring-bearing hobbit. And that’s why everyone was backing OnePlus to topple the smartphone giants last year, despite its phone costing half the price. But topple them OnePlus did, as the 3T saw the year out as our number one. Unfortunately, underdog stories rarely come in pairs. In Leicester’s next season they sank to 13th place, while the follow-up trilogy to The Lord of the Rings was nowhere near as good as the original. So every universal law suggested that 2017’s OnePlus 5 would fall way short of matching its predecessor’s success. The One to rule them all? To its credit, OnePlus made an almighty push to claim back its top spot. With a significantly…

NETFLIX Death Note We all have a list of people we hate. Corrupt bankers, incompetent drivers, John Terry… but imagine every person you add to that list suddenly ends up dead. That’s exactly what happens in this adaptation of the popular manga. Elysium Ever found yourself staring at billionaire mansions and growing angry at the social class divide? Well, just be glad the rich don’t live up on a fancy space station called Elysium while everyone else starves down on Earth. Disjointed (S1) We’ve all said “They must have been high when making this show” at least once. That certainly seems possible of Kathy Bates and company in this Chuck Lorre comedy about a legalised dope dealership. AMAZON VIDEO John Wick What’s more idiotic than abducting Liam Neeson’s daughter or…

HOT BUY 1 Nest 3.0 £279 with installation / nest.com The Nest 3.0 is not a dramatic reinvention, but it didn’t need to be: this is still the best-looking and most rewarding smart thermostat on the market. Impressively, and slightly scarily, Nest learns your habits – when you’re in the house, when you’re likely to need a lot of hot water and so on – so it can control the boiler to save energy and keep that shower nice and toasty. That, paired with a nicely designed app, is enough to put the third-gen Nest ahead of its competition. Stuff says Our favourite thermostat cranks up the heat up on its smart home rivals with a solid uprade 2 Netatmo Welcome £159 / netatmo.com Netatmo’s smartcam has face recognition capability,…

HOT BUY Sky Q from £20 + £22/month / sky.com Sky Q works flawlessly and could change the way you watch TV – especially now 4K’s arrived. With Sky Movies’ huge range of films and Sky Sports’ frequent doses of football and F1 now all in stunning Ultra HD, there’s something for everyone to treat their eyes with. And 2TB of storage means you can record 350 hours’ worth of entertainment, so you’re unlikely to be sweating over which show needs deleting. Factor in its multiroom skills, and Sky Q is undoubtedly the best TV experience you can get. Stuff says You’ll have to couh up for a subscription, but this is the best box for watchin both live and recorded shows 2 Q Acoustics Media 4 £329 / qacoustics.co.uk…

Headphones full of pencil lead? Sort of. Graphene is a single atomic layer of graphite, but it can do a whole lot more than sketch out molecular doodles. Some clever folk at Ora have managed to cram this much-hyped nanotechnology into a set of headphones (in the form of GrapheneQ), and it seems it’s really rather good at making noises. Cheaper and easier to work with than standard graphene, this nanocomposite version has been tweaked to suit acoustic situations, delivering an expansive sonic experience full of distortion-free detail and precision. What’s so special about it? Well, it’s at once 25 times stronger than steel and four times lighter. Plug those qualities into the right formula and you’ll find GrapheneQ delivers all kinds of audio benefits: louder drivers that use less…

1 RYL £free / Android If Big Brother made a smart dictaphone, over which you had complete control, it’d be a bit like RYL. Always listening, the app only saves the last 15 minutes or hour of audio when you tell it to. 2 Puppr £free (IAPs) / iOS As if your iPhone hadn’t already intruded into enough areas of your private life, now it can help you teach your pooch everything from ‘sit’ to ‘leap on my shoulder like I’m a D-list circus act’. 3 Holo £free / Android, iOS When futurists first thought of augmented reality, we’re pretty sure they were dreaming of the day when – as in Holo – you could overlay a tiny dancing dog (or Spider-Man) on your desk. 4 Firefox Focus £free /…

FIRST PLAY SPLATOON 2 Switch It seems obvious in hindsight. An online shooter where headshotting your mates is totally irrelevant – why wouldn’t it be a smash hit? And so here we are with a second Splatoon just two years after the first game wrapped its inky tentacles around our heartstrings. More of a Call of Duty-style sequel than a proper new game, Splatoon 2 polishes up the frenetic back and forth of its original while adding a few new extras into the luminous mix. Know the difference between an Inkling and a Splat Roller? You’ll feel right at home after leaping into a Turf War again. Splatoon’s greatest calling card, this online mode gives you and your teammates three minutes trying to splash as much paint around the map…

NEXT ISSUE October 100 best ames ever On sale 07/09/17 MADNESS: HOUSE OF COMMON Their house might be in the middle of their street, but Madness have parked firmly on Clapham Common – and they want you to come along. A day-long event of music and entertainment, House of Common is the troupe’s only London date of the year. THE DARK TOWER Will Idris Elba ever be Bond? If his gunslinging prowess in this Stephen King adaptation is anything to go by then he’s surely a shoo-in. A continuation of the acclaimed writer’s eponymous series of novels, The Dark Tower is a reality-bending western sci-fi thriller. THIS IS THE NOISE THAT KEEPS ME AWAKE Grunge wasn’t just made by three greasyhaired Americans. At least that’s what Garbage’s new hardcover tale…

AMAZON FIRE 7 Sure, Apple’s new iPad Pro is nice and all, but it’s also a whopping great 14 times the price of Amazon’s latest Fire 7. So you could shell out on a fancy new tablet, stylus and keyboard, or get this thoroughly serviceable alternative instead and head on a summer holiday with the remaining funds. Meet you past security, yeah? £50 / amazon.co.uk UE WONDERBOOM Neither a turbocharged item of lingerie nor the most expensive bath bomb known to mankind, the UE Wonderboom is a fancy-looking Bluetooth speaker that’s cute, loud, versatile and waterresistant too. Basically, it was built to survive one hell of a party. So what are you waiting for? We’ll get the cans in. £90 / ultimateears.com SNES CLASSIC MINI Nintendo’s best ever console has…

Tanks a lot Lightning McQueen should keep chugging for 40 minutes before he needs another top-up. I know, Pixar’s Cars movies aren’t the best, even if kids do go doolally for them. But do you know what those wideeyed tykes love even more than cartoon automobiles? A real-life toy, one with moving eyes, an animatronic mouth and connectivity to your adult phone so they can race it themselves. Come to think of it, this Sphero-made Ultimate Lightning McQueen is pretty fun for us older folk as well… Actually, it’s far too expensive for kids. You wouldn’t want to trust a juvenile with something quite so bright, fragile and surprisingly speedy, would you? And they’ve got the films to be getting on with anyway. No, you’re best off holding onto this…

Quentin TaraMevo Broadcast your next 4K movie on the likes of Facebook Live and Periscope, or save it to the Mevo’s bundled 16GB SD card. Pic of the bunch The S8 Plus stitches a trio of snaps together, stripping out blur, removing noise and sharpening the final shot. Calling a £6K camera ‘cheap’ means either you’re very serious indeed about photography or you have a warped idea of the value of money. But I think six grand for a 51.4MP camera that serves up pro-grade shots both in and out of the studio is actually quite the steal. OK, so you probably need a very good reason to be shooting in such high quality – but if snaps are your life then it’s tough to argue with medium format quality…

SAGE SMART SCOOP ICE CREAM MAKER Sure, you could chase the ice cream man, shove £2 in his hand and gobble down a chocolate flake – but that takes the strife and palaver out of earning your dairy hit. This home creamer necessitates splitting, heating and stirring. And the reward: it tastes amazing. £350 / sageappliances.co.uk MILLO Smoothie drinkers will be familiar with the less than fruity sound of motorised blades obliterating your kiwis. While a healthy dose of the mushy stuff is no bad thing, must it necessitate sticking carrots in your ears? Not any more: Millo ditches the decibels in favour of a hushed, magnet-driven mechanism that’s four times quieter than your standard blitzer. US$299 / getmillo.com SAMSUNG FAMILY HUB RF56K9540SR Stick a whiteboard on your fridge and…

BMW R NINET RACER Too often, nostalgia means cashing in on existing kit. Not for BMW. No, Beemer believes in crafting a boxer-engined bike inspired by the ’70s but built for 2017 – 110bhp paired with a 220kg loaded weight should make it a real speed machine, worthy of an era when performance dictated build and pipes were stylish. from £10,775 / bmw-motorrad.co.uk GARMIND ASH CAM65W If you’re a crashy sort, it might be a good idea to buy a dash cam. Not because it’ll prove that a goose really did cause you to swerve into the blueberry stand, but because you’ll be able to study where you’re going wrong. Garmin’s Dash Cam 65W detects shunts and saves the footage, while a sensor will tell you when traffic has moved…

One bright stand So what’s Sony’s secret to making this TV so thin? They put most of the internal gubbins in the stand. Ah, clever. Shake it up Sony’s Acoustic Surface tech turns the screen into a speaker, so audio is flung straight in your direction Let’s face it, most TVs are kind of boring. The stuff you can watch on them: amazing. The huge blank slate that leers over your living room: considerably less so. But I could never get bored with Sony’s first ever OLED. With its picture-frame design, vibrating screen and astounding colours, this is a telly I can truly get excited about – especially since it’s put paid to LG’s reign at the hallowed summit of our Top 10 TVs list, where its OLED sets had…

THE BASICS • Stick to 4K Sky’s UHD library is growing by the day, and if it’s one of the broadcaster’s own shows like Riviera, Fortitude or The Trip to Spain it should be available in 4K. Make sure you’re always viewing in the best available quality by going to Settings > Setup > Preferences > ‘On demand default download format’ and setting it to UHD or HD, depending on what your TV can display. If your chosen format isn’t available, the next best format will be downloaded instead. • Go mobile The Sky Q app (£free / Android, iOS) is brilliant, letting you watch live TV and on-demand programmes wherever you have a wireless or 3G connection. If you’re home with the Sky Q box, you can also stream…

Price from £799 / stuff.tv/SurfacePro Microsoft’s Surface range has a past that’s more chequered than your browser history. From some ever so humble beginnings, this new model is a giant leap forwards – and, in some ways, it’s a stronger machine than the new iPad. It does come with a price hike, though. 1 Display for today With that 13.5-hour battery life you’ll have plenty of time to ogle the Pro’s absolute treat of a screen. A refined version of the Pro 4’s 12.3in display, it’s beautifully calibrated, incredibly responsive and generally a joy to work with. Suffering from none of the Pro 4’s light bleed, it’ll go bright enough for outdoor use and dim enough for sneaky bedtime browsing. 2 Love to love you, Kaby The Surface Pro 4…

1 The Gaffer Tapes We all know at least one person who takes fantasy football a little too seriously. The Gaffer Tapes podcast brings some welcome humour into your preparation, while also providing useful tips. thegaffertapes.com 2 Football Weekly It’s mostly about actual football, but this weekly series from The Guardian will keep you up to date with the news you need to follow. Messi breaking another record might not be useful, but Wenger quitting certainly will be. theguardian.com 3 Scoutcast The most analytical show of this trio, Scoutcast is all about getting you points. With over 200 episodes under their belts so far, Mark and Granville are seasoned experts of the game, so it’s worth giving them a listen player.fm SAVE UP TO 53% BY SUBSCRIBING AND GET STUFF…

HOT BUY 1 PlayStation 4 Pro £340 / playstation.com As a gaming platform, PlayStation 4 is the best around – which makes the PS4 Pro the best of the best. Games optimised for the new console look stunning on a 4K HDR TV, and are substantially improved by the extra grunt inside this slightly bigger machine. If you’ve already splashed out for a 4K HDR screen and you enjoy video games at all, it’s well worth the upgrade. The missing 4K Blu-ray drive means it isn’t a perfect entertainment system, but streaming converts won’t care. Stuff says The system for console amers who have a 4K TV and want the best amin experience possible 2 Xbox One S from £201 / xbox.com Microsoft dumps Kinect, the £400+ asking price and…

HOT BUY 1 HTC Vive £759 / vive.com The HTC Vive offers the most complete package of the current virtual reality headsets. While it will whet the appetite of gamers (see right), it offers much more than just blasting zombies. From interactive documentaries to helping you design your kitchen, this headset is a multi-talented piece of tech. The Vive will set you back a lot – for the headset itself, and also for the required supercomputer – but its room-tracking capabilities make this the most immersive VR experience so far. Stuff says It miht be expensive, but the Vive provides the most enain VR experience with its room-trackin maic 2 Oculus Rift £480 / oculus.com The Oculus Rift offers a fun VR experience, but thanks to its lack of room…

HOT BUY 1 Sony DSC-RX100 V £989 / sony.co.uk We wouldn’t recommend buying this update if you already own the Mark IV model, but a few improvements have ensured that Sony remains the top dog in our compact camera list. The RX100 V is one of the best point-and-shoots we’ve ever seen, with a flexibility that few pocket cameras can muster. While you do have to pay a hefty sum for that versatility and all-round performance, we reckon it’s the camera to buy if you want fantastic-looking snaps from your holidays. Stuff says A small improvement over the RX100 IV, but Sony’s ettin closer to premium point-and-shoot perfection 2 Panasonic Lumix TZ100 £528 / panasonic.com The TZ100 isn’t especially cheap, but this stylish Panasonic is one of the best premium…