Innholdsfortegnelse for May 2018 i Stuff UK

Considering how artificial intelligence is supposed to be one the many harbingers of humanity’s doom, it’s a near-on constant source of amusement to me just how rubbish the likes of Alexa, Google Assistant and Siri can be. And if you think they’re a bit on the ditzy side now, it’s worth remembering just how far they’ve come. I still remember a day with the iPhone 4S before its release. In attempting to test out Siri for the very first time I ended up shouting at it in the middle of a crowded London street in a futile attempt to get it to tell me the local cinema times. Thankfully, Apple’s voice assistant and its new rivals have drastically improved – to the point that you’ve got a tough choice when…

Mark Wilson Features Editor Fitness bands are like ice bucket challenges, Oscar selfies and England World Cup failures – starting to feel a bit 2014. Even if the latter is more of a recurring nightmare. Found yourself craving something with more features than a band? You’ll want a smartwatch… and that’s where the Fitbit Versa comes in. Essentially a cheaper version of the Ionic, it won’t blow you away with its build quality, but the Versa’s rounded edges and square face could be a bigger hit than its angular predecessor. Thanks to new features coming in FitbitOS 2.0, the Versa should excel in the software department. On-board music storage is a winner, as is the nifty new dashboard. There’s still a lack of apps, though, and Fitbit still hasn’t announced…

That thing looks… intimidating. Do not be afraid. This is the autonomous Skydio R1, quite possibly the smartest drone ever. Most pro flyers are capable of basic obstacle avoidance, sure, but the R1 employs 13 cameras to build a 3D map of the world around it in real time. This way it’s able to dodge trees, buildings and presumably terrified dog-walkers at high speed, all while capturing your extreme exploits in super-sharp 4K at 30fps. And it does so without any interference from you. Wherever you go, this supercomputer-powered airborne action cam will follow. This sounds useful. I’ve crashed more drones than I’ve eaten biscuits. Exactly. The R1 does have some manual control options, but try as you might, it won’t let you bash it up. Its autonomous instincts are…

#31 ANDROID GO Ryan Jones A new version of Android has dropped, but it’s not Android P. We’re still eagerly anticipating the summer arrival of Android Pez, Peperami, Parmesan or whatever it ends up being called, but in the meantime there’s Android Go – a version that’s optimised to work with low-end smartphones. Officially known as Android Oreo (Go Edition), the stripped-down system is targeted at budget blowers with 1GB of RAM or less – phones that might otherwise collapse like a Tottenham defence under pressure. And as phones running on Go have fewer pre-loaded apps clogging up space, you’ll have more storage to play with too. Even the apps you download will be less processor-intensive than the Android apps you see running on wallet-busting flagships, and Google reckons they’ll…

£379 / stuff.tv/XA2Ultra ▪ Social snappers, rejoice! This Sony takes the twin-cam setup usually found on the backs of phones and shifts it to the front. That means a 16MP selfie camera paired with an 8MP wide-angle sensor for squeezing more of your mates into each shot. ▪ It does a great job when you feed it enough light, with optical image stabilisation keeping facial features looking crisp and detailed. The LED flash can be harsh, but makes all the difference to those late-night club selfies. ▪ On the back, the 23MP snapper has one of the highest pixel counts you’ll find on a phone, but its photos are only really good when there’s loads of light. Focusing can take a while when it’s dark, and it can blur your…

£185 / stuff.tv/Vapor ▪ Misfit used to pump out trackers that looked like jewellery, but now it’s competing with the big players. Looking to try Android Wear 2.0 for under £200? You’ll want to read on. ▪ First, the clever bit: the outer part of the Vapor’s touchscreen acts as a touch-ring. Run a finger around it and you can scroll through notifications, messages or apps. It’s neat… but few apps seem to have added support for it so far. ▪ This is one of the thicker Android Wear watches – nothing like the dainty trinkets we’re used to from Misfit. Still, it’s quite comfortable on the wrist for a biggish watch, and is 5ATM water-resistant. ▪ The 1.3in AMOLED screen is sharp and colourful, and brightness automatically changes to…

1 Moov Now £43 / moov.cc TIPS & TRICKS • Use the gradually increasing exercise intensity levels to keep pushing yourself harder. • Improve your swimming times by monitoring your stroke rate and distance per stroke. • The Moov Now’s motion sensors can give you feedback to improve your running technique. Slow and steady wins the race, and the Now has gone on to prove that with a marathon-like pace helping it finally make it to the top of this list. We’ve long considered this tracker a bargain, but further reductions have helped it enter the realm of ‘downright steal’. OK, so it doesn’t have a screen or smartphone skills, but with guided voice coaching, a six-month battery and solid waterproofing, it has everything you’d ever want in your perfect…

1 Urbanista Seattle Wireless £69 / urbanista.com Urbanista makes affordable headphones that sell in the kind of high-street shops where you won’t usually find hardcore hi-fi nerds – so it’s a real surprise that the Seattles are some of the best-sounding affordable wireless cans around. They have a far more expansive and involving soundstage than most sub-£100 pairs – they’re full and rich-sounding, with the sort of tasteful bass drive that will please the masses without turning off the chin-stroking crowd. Stuff says Bags of style and fantastic sound quality at the right price – these Urbanistas are an absolute steal 2 Sony WH-1000XM2 £330 / sony.co.uk Sony has given its previous over-ears a series of tweaks rather than a substantial upgrade, but that’s still resulted in a premium pair…

Annihilation Th e crocodiles are so huge in this sci-fi horror that even Steve Irwin would’ve been quaking in his Timberlands. Yet Natalie Portman and her crew of badass women have to explore a land full of these mutated beasts. Lost in Space (S1) If you’ve spent less than 50 years on this planet, you may be shocked to learn the original Lost in Space sci-fi series was more popular than Star Trek in its ’60s heyday. Spock must be worried about this Netflix revival, then. The Alienist (S2) We’re starting to think Netflix has an addiction to serial killer thrillers. Sure, this one’s set in 1896 and has Teddy Roosevelt as one of the characters, but it’s still all about murderers. And yet… we just can’t stop getting hooked.…

1 Sky Q from £20 + £20/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 cough up for a subscription, but this is the best box for watching both live and recorded shows 2 Q Acoustics Media 4 £299 / qacoustics.co.uk This…

I HUNG OUT WITH SIR DAVID ATTENBOROUGH IN VR Virtual reality has allowed me to slay zombies, step into the cockpit of an X-wing and become the Batman. However, my experience with the medium peaked this month when I sat down with a 3D hologram of Attenborough to mess around with fossils. He’s the star of a partnership between Sky and the Natural History Museum for a new interactive VR experience, Hold the World, which will be available via the Sky VR app later this year. Matt Tate, Hot Stuff Editor I TRIED SOME IN-EAR OVER-EAR HEADPHONES The Nuraphone concept is all about audio that’s tuned to the individual user’s hearing response. Part of this involves combining in-ear buds with over-ear shells for the bassy stuff, then mixing the two…

The Fitbit Ace wristband (£80) is a new child-friendly tracker with a parent-friendly price tag 1 Alta-native facts The Ace looks a lot like a Fitbit Alta but with a smaller strap, which makes sense as it’s designed with the aim of making youngsters feel like they’re getting the same experience as Mum and Dad. 2 Plan of a track Like the Alta, it’ll track step counts and sleep, displaying the results on the OLED screen, as well as regularly interrupting your nipper’s SpongeBob binge sessions to encourage the lazy tyke to get up and move. 3 Everybody’s appy While kids can scour the stats they need to see on the app, the parents’ version offers a more detailed breakdown, and they’re able to approve friend requests on their offspring’s…

Back in 1999 there was nothing cooler than Nokia’s 8110 slider phone. Sure, it was about as big as a brick, but Keanu Reeves had one while he was dodging bullets in the The Matrix so we all wanted one. Nineteen years on and Nokia is hoping we still do, because it’s bringing the bananaphone back for 2018 – and this time there’s a suitably bright yellow option. Nostalgia is obviously the new 8110’s biggest selling point, but it still had to be a noticeable upgrade on the phone Neo used. The iconic slider returns, but now you get a colour screen, a 2MP rear camera and 4G to speed up app downloads – Twitter, Facebook and Google Maps are all along for the ride. It’s still very much a…

1 BBC Earth: Life in VR £free / Android Daydream Dive into the drink and discover life beneath the waves, from faffing otters to swarms of krill. It’s the best personal Blue Planet around, short of actually hurling yourself into the sea. 2 Typorama £free (IAPs) / iOS If your idea of type design is a strange attraction to Comic Sans, use Typorama to add text to your pics instead. Loads of styles and effects are included, and a £5.99 IAP forever nukes watermarks. 3 Noted 79p/month/iOS Zone out even more during boring lectures and meetings with Noted. Use the app to record everything, tap to add inline ‘TimeTags’, and use them to flesh out notes later when you’re less bleary-eyed. 4 tanz.love 99p / Android Drum machines with traditional…

HOT STUFF 1 Netatmo Rain Gauge This add-on for the Netatmo Weather Station tells you exactly how much it’s bucketed it down, so you know when your plants are adequately drenched. £59 / netatmo.com 2 TruFlame Solar Torch Light No need for a plug here – this light is entirely solar-powered. And its simulated moving flame looks uncannily like the real deal. £25 / thesolarcentre.co.uk 3 Hozelock Cloud Controller Attach this gadget to your hose and partner it with the free app, and you’ll be able to water your thirsty flowers remotely. £135 / hozelock.com 4 Burgon & Ball Dig The Glove – Denim You don’t generally associate men’s fashion with yanking up weeds, but these breathable gardening gloves look great. £14.99 / burgonandball.com 5 PKS Bronze Trowel Green-fingered status…

When we think about Augmented Reality, we tend to think about what we can see. Star ratings hovering next to cafes, virtual Ikea sofas you can move around your living room, Pikachu taking it easy on top of your postbox… AR is about superimposing digital objects onto the real world, right? Well, yeah, but it’s not just that. Bose has unveiled a pair of wireless AR glasses that augment your reality with a dollop of what the company does best: audio. Bose AR reacts to what you’re looking at and plays sound to enhance the experience. Let’s say you’re admiring a historical statue – the glasses might start playing that person’s most famous speech over a triumphant score. More practically, they could also translate the words on a sign in…

6th LORDE, MELODRAMA (VINYL) Melodrama topped many a 2017 best-of list, so you could do a lot worse than adding the long-awaited vinyl release to your collection. The deluxe version is pressed on translucent blue vinyl. 9th STAR WARS: THE LAST JEDI (4K BLU-RAY) The Last Jedi was a divisive movie. A bold extension of the franchise, or a disjointed mess? You owe it to yourself to rewatch it at least eight more times on Blu-ray before you declare your final verdict. 20th GOD OF WAR The first time you slay a ferocious monster of Norse mythology together is a landmark moment in any father-son relationship, and one that the God of War reboot will sensitively explore. Yep, you’re still playing as Kratos, but now he has a son. And a beard. Oh,…

• Nova Launcher Countless Android launchers rattle around Google Play, mostly slowly heading towards oblivion… but Nova Launcher has serious staying power. This capable app is smart, straightforward and hugely configurable. It’s a great bet whether you want to make the odd tweak or overhaul how launching works – and looks – on your Android phone. Stuff says £free (IAPs) / Android • Zedge 200 million people use Zedge, and it seems to have a wallpaper for each one of them. Luckily, you can filter the gargantuan collection by keyword and theme to find something suitable for you, whether you’re into tasteful patterns or pictures of feet. (We’re not judging.) There are lot of ringtones too, including old-school telephone sounds. Stuff says £free / Android • Clarity Pimp Your Screen…

THE BASICS ▪ Speed up start-up On desktop, open Chrome’s settings and select ‘On start-up’. Tend to visit the same sites first thing? Select ‘Open a specific page or set of pages’. If your favourite pages are already open, click ‘Use current pages’; otherwise, click ‘Add a new page’ and enter a URL. Repeat at will. ▪ Make sure you’re you Google encourages you to sign into its apps – and Chrome is no exception, because you can sync stuff like bookmarks and passwords between devices… but that’s not great if someone pilfers your details. Stop that happening by activating 2-Step Verification (google.com/landing/2step/), which requires your phone to confirm new sign-ins. ▪ Sync your tabs Sat down at your PC before realising the page you need is already open on…

Don’t Starve It’s not just the Tim Burton-ish artwork that makes this indie game such a bleak affair. Many things can kill you, including starvation, supernatural beasts or even the slow deterioration of your mental health. It’s tough, but also massively rewarding. ARK: Survival Evolved Waking up on a mysterious island virtually naked would be shocking for anyone, but it’s even worse when that island is inhabited by loads of dinosaurs. At least you can join a tribe of other players online to help hunt down those mountain-sized beasts. This War of Mine While most video games focus on the bullet-blitzing side of war, this one centres on the civilians caught in the middle. This War of Mine has you scavenge for resources, help out other characters and make tough…

1 Samsung Galaxy S9 £739 / samsung.com TIPS & TRICKS • Bixby Vision lets you translate foreign text into English in real time by pointing the S9’s camera at it. • Turn yourself into a cartoon character with AR Emoji and then send gifs of it to your friends. • Get the most out the S9’s display by setting it to WQHD+ in Screen Resolution settings. OK, so there hasn’t been a multitude of changes since the Galaxy S8, but Samsung didn’t need to give its flagship a major shake-up to retain the smartphone crown. Small tweaks such as better placement of the fingerprint sensor, more power and a new dual-aperture camera all combine to give you a smart upgrade on the S8. And of course, you’ve still got that…

1 Apple Watch Series 3 from £329 / apple.com Apple may have been pushing the cellular edition, but it’s the GPS-only Watch Series 3 that’s secured the top position on our list. With subtle upgrades – such as the dual-core S3 chip that allows for super-breezy navigation, and the W2 chip that boosts the efficiency of Wi-Fi and Bluetooth – this is actually a major upgrade from the Series 2. Factor in the unrivalled app support and quality fitness features, and there isn’t another smartwatch that comes close to Apple’s ticker. Stuff says Who needs cellular? Apple’s GPS-only smartwatch has everything you’d want in a wrist companion 2 Garmin Vivoactive 3 £240 / garmin.com It looks good, isn’t a wrist-dominator, outlasts just about all normal smartwatches and gets you the…

1 Fujifilm X-T20 £799 / fujifilm.eu TIPS & TRICKS For aperture-priority shots, set shutter speed to auto and turn the lens ring to the desired f-number. Pressing the Q button will open a custom menu, giving you quick access to loads of settings. Tapping an area on the 3in touchscreen will let you set the focus point or take an instant shot. Coming with the same 24.3MP APS-C sensor and processor as the X-T2, plus a touchscreen (which its sibling lacks), the X-T20 will leave you with a lot more spare cash in your account. And for most people, the model will deliver results that are just as good as its pricier big brother’s. With well laid-out controls, a huge viewfinder, excellent autofocus and access to superb lenses, the X-T20…

1 SNES Classic Mini £70 / nintendo.co.uk TIPS & TRICKS • Chickens killed you in Zelda again? You can rewind up to five minutes and pretend it never happened. • For full-fat nostalgia you can read the instruction manual for each of the SNES games online. • Stop trying to raid Bowser’s castle in one sitting, and use one of the four save slots to take a break. Why bother splashing out over £200 on a games console when you can get the SNES Classic Mini for a fraction of that? Especially when you get 21 classic titles pre-installed on this nostalgia-inducing machine, including the likes of Super Metroid, A Link to the Past, Super Mario World and the never-before-released Star Fox 2. And with two controllers bundled in the…

Hanging a giant, wall-eating telly is great and all, but when it’s turned off you’ve essentially decorated your room with a monolithic black square. With Samsung’s new range of 2018 QLED TVs, however, you can smarten up your lounge with Ambient Mode, turning that space into a virtual art gallery. Or, if you prefer, have your telly mimic your wallpaper so it does a vanishing act. You can pick from a wide range of photos, patterns and colours, all included with the smartphone app. The TV then draws a virtual shadow around the screen’s edge to make it look like a photo frame. Want something more useful? It can also display news, weather and the time. All this uses 40% less juice than when you’re watching TV. Other changes include…

Dyson Cyclone V10 from £400 / dyson.co.uk Will this handheld beast kill off the corded vacuum cleaner for good? • Suck it up Dyson’s back… and there’s no doubt the star of this ultra-light vac is its titular V10 motor. It’s smaller and weighs half as much as the V8 it replaces, but manages to spin at a ridiculous 125,000rpm, so you get 20% more suction power than the outgoing model. This is a streamlined machine that will make quick work of the messiest post-party floors. Oh, and the fact that it looks like a sci-fi alien zapper does nothing to dent its appeal. • Get it on Not tripping on a snake-like pile of cables is an obvious selling point for any cordless vacuum, but most people would rather…

TURN UNDEAD £free / Android, iOS Give the undead a kicking – and then quickly realise that time only moving when you do makes for some seriously tricky slaying. DISC DRIVIN’ 2 £free / iOS ‘Shove ha’penny meets Wipeout’ is about the best way to describe this one. Flick your disc along tracks suspended in mid-air, keeping ahead of rivals. TAKO BUBBLE £free / Android, iOS This retro single-screen arcade effort feels like Bomb Jack infused with chess-like forward planning. Think. Move. Grab bubbles. Don’t die.…

KICK-STARTER Watch ya got there? HUMISM One thing you can say about watches: they all look really, really… watchy. Enter the Humism range, which rethinks the whole wristwear concept by transforming it into kinetic art. These watches are still made from the right stuff: brushed surgical steel cases, sapphire crystal glass, Italian leather straps – but the faces are dominated by overlapping patterns that morph as the day ticks away. Neatly dovetailing into the kinetic theme, the watches are powered by your own movement. Oh, and in case you’re old-fashioned enough to care, the two little outer circles indicate the time. from US$348 / humism.com KICK-STARTER Bop of the pops SOUNDBOPS Stick a piano in front of a kid and, while they’ll probably have fun for a few minutes, they…

£1699 (body only) / stuff.tv/XH1 ▪ The X-H1 is big for a CSC. It’s taller, wider and deeper than the X-T2, with a much larger grip and chunkier prism for the viewfinder. The reason for this sudden growth spurt? It’s had to make room for image-stabilisation tech. ▪ Fuji claims the 5-axis image stabilisation will give you up to 5.5 extra stops of exposure. It certainly makes a massive difference, letting you shoot handheld at shutter speeds of around 1 second without any visible blurring. ▪ The sensor is unchanged from the X-T2. You get 24.3MP and, although it’s ‘only’ APS-C, it outperforms plenty of full-frame cameras on many levels. As always, the Fuji colours are spectacular, with the X-Trans sensor serving up rich greens in particular. Handy if you…

ONETAB It’s easy to slide slowly down into an internet rabbit-hole, opening new background tabs like a maniac, which eventually slow your computer to a crawl. OneTab instantly converts your open tabs to a list, letting your PC breathe again; they can be visited individually or all restored at once. MERCURY READER When a website hurls distractions at your face but you just want to read some words, it’s time for Mercury Reader. One click and a page’s text and images are extracted into a simple, readable layout. Text size and typography can be tweaked, and you can send articles to a Kindle. STAYFOCUSD f you often spend all day arguing with people on Facebook, but haven’t the discipline to avoid the site, StayFocusd can help. Configure a site, and…

£60 / stuff.tv/Bip DAY 01 My first impression of the Amazfit Bip? A shameless Apple Watch lookalike with a suspicious bargain-bin RRP. Like Apple’s market-leading smartwatch, it’s a square design with rounded corners, and at a glance it can be difficult to tell the two tickers apart. Pick up the Bip, though, and you’ll immediately notice the difference. The watch itself is quite a lot thinner than its wallet-busting inspiration, and at 18g the case is 9g lighter than the smallest aluminum Apple Watch. It’s plasticky rather than premium. As someone who has worn both, I can tell you that it feels like less of a presence on your wrist, which is good – although the standard silicone strap feels predictably cheap. You can switch it out for something more…

1 Beyerdynamic Byron £45 / europe.beyerdynamic.com The Byrons aren’t like some of the company’s pro headphones, designed for sound engineers or home studio buffs who need extreme accuracy – they’re for everyday folk – but they do come with a shot of that Beyerdynamic special sauce. These earphones have a sound we defy you not to like, with great mid-range detail that outguns our long-term favourite SoundMagic E10Cs. They’re the kind of in-ears you can happily wear all day. Stuff says Seriously classy in-ear headphones with the detail to out-do the competition 2 Sony WF-1000X £199 / sony.co.uk Think the AirPods look daft? These subtle wireless in-ears are a great alternative. They have noise-cancelling tech and a smart but unfussy look, while being wonderfully comfy. Most importantly, they sound excellent…

1 Tado Smart Thermostat from £199 + installation / tado.com TIPS & TRICKS • Check out the app’s Energy Savings Report to see how well you’re doing each month. • Crank up the nerdery by tinkering with Tado’s IFTTT channel or adding it to your HomeKit setup • Hook up an Amazon Echo or Google Home to change the temperature with your voice. It might not be as pretty as the Nest 3.0, but Tado has quietly evolved into the best all-round smart heating system around. Like autopilot for your boiler, it senses when you’re leaving home or coming back thanks to the app’s geolocation. And Tado’s gadgety goodness is second to none, with the option of zonal control for individual rooms and voice smarts from the likes Alexa and…

Rob Leedham Editor SONY A7R III Should I upgrade? Threequels are tough to master. Introduce too many changes and you lose the magic of the original. Don’t have enough new features, though, and things starts to get repetitive *cough* Call of Duty *cough*. The latest version of Sony’s compact A7R could be accused of doing the latter if you just glanced at its specs. It has the same 42.4MP sensor, OLED viewfinder and 5-axis stabilisation as its predecessor. But get your hands on the A7R III, and you’ll find the subtle tweaks make a big difference. Flash for cash With the maximum burst speed doubling to 10fps and the standard ISO range hitting 100 to 32,000, you’re getting both a speed bump and better low-light performance. It’s got a new…

My faith is a bit like my Wi-Fi: it comes and goes. Is there a way of restoring them both at once? Usually, you’d be asking the wrong magazine for spiritual and home broadband advice in one go… but you’re in luck this month. Praise be indeed! You see, the UK government and the Church of England have formed a partnership to use Church property to “improve broadband, mobile and Wi-Fi connectivity for local communities”. So if you live in the kind of place that inspired The Vicar of Dibley, salvation could be at hand. Brilliant. How many Hail Marys do I need to do to get in on the action? That’s more of a Catholic thing. Anyway, like the CoE itself, this is an all-comers-are-welcome deal – except you…