Innholdsfortegnelse for March 2019 i Stuff UK

My name is Guy and I'm a smart home addict. If there’s an upgrade that will make my home cleaner, safer, more efficient or more fun, I want it. When I recently moved home, I had an electrician installing a Netatmo Thermostat and a Nest Hello doorbell before I even had a bed. And the cups of tea were obviously provided via a Xiaomi smart kettle that I controlled from my phone. The reason I can’t stop buying this stuff is that, after years of competing standards, hubs and apps, it’s finally starting to all play nice together. Whether you’ve tied yourself to Amazon, Google or even Apple’s smart assistants, most smart home kit now works with them. The most complicated part has become remembering the right wake word for…

£270 / nike.com Meet the Adapt BB: Nike’s first mass-market basketball self-lacer • Back to Back to the Future 2 Yes. About that. The film’s tech predictions haven’t really worked out, have they? Hungry couch potatoes can’t instantly magic up a 20-inch deep pan by sliding a tiny dried-out pizza into a hydrator, hoverboards don’t actually hover, and self-lacing Nikes – well, they exist, but they’re 10 times the price of regular Nikes. Not any more, chum: the Adapt BBs are the company’s first semi-affordable, surprisingly practical self-lacers. • Put your best foot forward Refining the formula of Nike’s first self-lacing trainer, the insanely pricey HyperAdapt 1.0 (launched in 2016), the Adapt BB reduces the size of the motor and gears that automatically pull the laces taut when you slip…

BLOOM: 10 WORLDS £7.99 / Android, iOS Finally on Android, this ‘remastered’ interactive instrument/artwork/album includes 10 takes on its tappy goodness. SCAPE £11.99 / iPad Each track on this Eno/Chilvers collab resembles a minimalist landscape. Want to delve in yourself? Create your own ‘scapes’ to share by email. REFLECTION £29.99 / iOS, tvOS No interaction here. Instead, it’s distilled Eno: a combined album/painting that constantly remixes itself, changing with the hours and seasons.…

There are two types of people in this world: those who think Uno is the pinnacle of human achievement, and those who don’t know what they’re talking about. This mobile version of the colourful card-matching game allows you to set up games against friends, or it’ll match you with random opponents around the world if all your friends stopped talking to you because of how competitive you get when you play Uno. Games are limited to three minutes, which rules out any possibility of the epic ebbs and flows you sometimes get in the analogue version, and there’s a bit of badgering to get you to buy stuff, but its various modes mean proper addicts can now get their hit even when they’re on the bus or the lav.…

KICK-STARTER I’ll be bac(terial) CLEANSEBOT Research suggests hotel light switches are bacteria heaven… and you really don’t want to know what’s in the beds. Fortunately, Cleansebot nukes such nasties. This diminutive 220g wheeled device can sanitise and disinfect any surface, blasting germs with its UV-C lamps. It’ll work for three hours on a single charge, using 18 sensors to intelligently trundle around. There’s a handheld mode as well, and during Cleansebot’s downtime its 3700 mAh battery can even give your phone a juice boost. Mostly, though, this one’s raring for a spot of ‘press and go’, whether used under the covers, in the kitchen or with suspiciously off-white children’s toys. $99 / venturstudio.com KICKSTARTER Craft work MODAL CRAFTSYNTH 2.0 Modal has form in synths that are small enough to lose…

ECOSYSTEM STRINGIFY The clue is in the title with this award-winning Android and iOS app that’s designed to string your smart home together. First add a device, called a ‘Thing’, then add some more. Then include them in a ‘Flow’. A Flow is an action (like ‘Leave for work’) and it can trigger more than one Thing – say, switching off the heating and turning on your security camera. Simple, eh? BEST FOR… Adding a pinch of IFTTT personalisation to devices on different platforms. FIREWALL OF SOUND ASUS LYRA VOICE Asus is getting into the Alexa game, squeezing in two stereo speakers and 360° far-field voice detection to its Lyra mesh router. Enjoy enhanced online connectivity at home – and to save you cluttering up the sideboard with multiple gadgets,…

The speedy squasher Sage Nutri Juicer Plus When a juicer has maverick nerd-chef Heston Blumenthal behind it, you just know it’s going to be a bit different. This centrifugal juicer can blast a whole apple in seconds thanks to its powerful 1300W motor and extra-large chute. Sage claims the lack of contact time between the fruit and the machinery means all the nutrients stay packed into the juice. It has an LCD display, and comes with a soft fruit disc for turning bananas and mangoes into purees and dairy-free smoothies. Add bacon and squid tentacles to taste. £200 / johnlewis.com MASTICATING MASHERS The quiet crusher Smeg SJF01CRUK Slow Juicer Smeg’s retro beauty brings plenty of style and substance to the juicing table. While its quiet 150W motor mushes up all…

£749 / stuff.tv/AcerNitro5 ■ The gaming world tends to be populated by expensive machines dominated by Nvidia hardware. But the 2019 version of the Acer Nitro 5 has AMD silicon inside, offering ample power for most games – including eSports titles. ■ Despite its crimson hinge and red-accented keyboard and trackpad, this is not the most eye-catching laptop around. Nor is it the slimmest or lightest: it tips the scales at 2.7kg and is 27mm thick, which means you’ll notice its heft when you’re carrying it around. ■ The 1080p IPS panel provides enough real estate, but it can render only 59% of the sRGB colour gamut – and that’s the smallest gamut that’s used on consumer laptops right now. This leaves the Nitro’s panel looking pallid and a little…

Pay attention at the back, it’s science lesson time. When something vibrates it makes the air wobble. Our ears capture these wobbles and our brain interprets them as sound. Synths copy this, but the vibrations come from electrical signals instead of emanating from traditional musical instruments (like a string being plucked, for example). Synths can manipulate signals to imitate most instruments or create otherworldly, spellbinding sounds. That means they can be as complex as a Kubrick movie… so building one is a great way to get accustomed to their inner workings. Enter Teenage Engineering, which has taken its bite-size Pocket Operator synthesizer range into the modular analogue universe with three new build-it-yourself kits. Essentially the Nintendo Labo of the synth world, these DIY instruments compromise on everything except sound quality…

The last time Stuff met with Sphero, we were told it would be moving away from licensed toys such as BB-8 and Lightning McQueen to return to its roots as an educational toy maker. You could tell there was something in the air that night, but at no stage did we foresee plans to turn everyone into Phil Collins. But against all odds, what you’re looking at is Specdrums, a kit that allows you to make a percussion instrument from just about anything, be it the included roll-up mat or any other object you can find. The twist is that it responds to colour, so reds will make one sound and greens another. It’s all programmed through a phone or tablet, and multiple rings can be worn by one or…

£120 / stuff.tv/PulseHR ■ The Withings Pulse HR is the wearable equivalent of rolling up all your clothes into neat little piles, Marie Kondo style. It’s dull, but there are obvious benefits. This is a waterproof tracker with fairly accurate heart-rate monitoring, GPS (with the help of your phone), a sprinkling of smart notifications, sleep tracking… and a look so subtle that it’ll never catch anyone’s eye. ■ Not taken yet? Neither were we – until we discovered that, while this tracker sounds about as exciting as Teresa May’s misspent youth, it does have one killer feature: it’ll last up to 20 days between charges. ■ Click through the options using the one button or tap the front to navigate the usual screens. A long press opens the exercise options:…

HOT BUY 1 Huawei Mate 20 Pro £899 / stuff.tv/Mate20Pro Huawei bumped its own magnificent P20 Pro off the top spot with another flagship phone that’s left Apple and Samsung scrabbling to catch up. The Mate 20 Pro brings back the triple-lens camera of the P20 Pro, only now it’s got a 20MP ultra-wide-angle camera with a new version of its predecessor’s AI-assisted night mode. It’s the most tech-packed phone in the world, yet battery life is a match for any of its rivals. No contest. Stuff says A stunning smartphone that makes the competition look lazy in comparison ⚫ NOW ADD THIS Huawei Smart View Flip Cover This case has a transparent window that will display your Mate 20 Pro’s notifications, time and weather. £16.95 / amazon.co.uk ⚫ TIPS…

HOT BUY BARGAIN BUY 1 Beyerdynamic Byron £34 / stuff.tv/Byron A strong argument for the idea that you don’t really need to spend more than £50 on earphones, the Byrons have a sound we defy you not to like. They’re not like the company’s studio headphones, designed for sound engineers looking for extreme accuracy – they’re for everyday folk – but these humble-looking buds do come with a shot of that special Beyer sauce. They’re some of the truest-sounding in-ears we’ve heard, with great midrange detail and good punch to the bass. Stuff says Seriously classy in-ear headphones with the detail to outdo the competition 2 Sony WF-1000X £140 / stuff.tv/SonyWF Impressive levels of detail and clarity, a decent amount of bass weight to the mix, and active noise-cancelling that…

HOT BUY 1 Moov Now £57 / stuff.tv/MoovNow 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 fitness tracker. Stuff says A bargain-tastic fitness band that does more than just track your steps 2 Fitbit Alta HR £130 / stuff.tv/AltaHR The Alta HR is one of the most motivational health monitors around. The heart-rate tracking adds some insightful meat to…

HOT BUY 1 Lego Boost Creative Toolbox £150 / stuff.tv/LegoCreativeToolbox Building Lego models is already ridiculously good fun, so think what great a time you’ll have when the completed model turns into a functioning robot. With the accompanying tablet app, you can use simple coding to make the robot move, fire projectiles and play various games. And rather than retiring it to the dusty shelf once you’re bored, you can rebuild him into four other programmable models: a harmonica-playing cat, a driveable rover, a working robot-builder and a playable guitar. Stuff says All hail Vernie and friends – for value and sheer fun, it’s hard to beat this programmable Lego kit 2 Sphero BB-8 with Force Band £120 / stuff.tv/BB8 BB-8 was fun even without the Force Band. Now it…

I CLEANED UP WITH A TINY TOY DYSON It’s kind of funny that lots of toys are just mini home appliances. At the Toy Fair in Kensington Olympia, I somehow ended up playing with Casdon’s Little Helper Dyson cord-free vacuum cleaner. It simulates a cyclone, and little balls whirr around in the cylinder just like dust or dirt. It even has attachments like the grown-up Dyson I have at home. What I can’t get my head around is why it’s way more fun to use than the real thing. Heather Wald, Content Editor I PLAYED MUSIC USING MY TROUSERS Drumming is great fun; finding space for a drum kit less so. So Sphero’s new Specdrums kit uses a colour-sensing ring to turn practically anything into a percussion instrument. You can…

THE POSH EXTERIOR HIDES A 90W STEREO AMP WITH TWO NEODYMIUM DRIVERS PLUS A SUBWOOFER Who knocked the legs off the pretty coffee table? Ruark did… except it didn’t have any legs to begin with, and it’s not a coffee table. The Ruark R5 is essentially a cheaper, shrunken-down version of the veteran British audio brand’s R7 Radiogram (which does have legs) – but that’s not to say it isn’t a comparably high-end piece of hi-fi kit, or absolutely rammed with features. Sorry, I stopped listening when I spotted what looks a lot like a CD drive…? Yup. Rightfully earning its billing as a truly all-in-one music system, the R5 is packing a CD player, a DAB radio, aptX HD Bluetooth and Wi-Fi, plus analogue, digital and optical inputs. Realising…

We’re only a few weeks into 2019, and already phone companies are hurling concept art and press releases about with merry abandon. Their current infatuation: making tech vanish. And it seems they’re going to take this a bit too literally, making your phone almost disappear in two distinct stages. This goes way beyond dumping the headphone jack or shrinking the notch: the idea is to eradicate all buttons and holes. So you’ll no longer have speaker grilles, you’ll only be able to charge wirelessly, eSIMs will be enforced, and you’ll get no physical buttons for on/off or changing the volume. Not excited by this prospect? Neither are we, to be honest. But the second part could be even trickier. Stage two is to make devices truly wafer-thin, so you’ll be…

ECOSYSTEM SAMSUNG SMARTTHINGS Samsung’s virtual assistant Bixby has its own curious platform, SmartThings. You start with a SmartThings Hub, then add devices like locks, lights, cameras, doorbells, thermostats, speakers and sensors. Regardless of Bixby, you can use Google Assistant or Alexa, and the SmartThings app is available for Android, iOS and Apple Watch. BEST FOR… Samsung smartphone, appliance or TV owners seeking a wider circle. TWINKLE, TWINKLE LITTLE STARS LAMETRIC SKY We’ve clearly fallen for LED tiles, giving even the dodgiest bedsit a touch of Blade Runner cool; but with Sky, La Metric has gone one better thanks to the functional smarts added to its geometric panels. Aside from displaying any colours in any sequence via the app, Sky can also tap into social media stats to display metrics –…

Honor View 20 What’s the story? The View 20 is the first phone we’ve used with a punch-hole display: a less intrusive alternative to the notch that has the front cam sitting in a little hole in the corner of the screen. More importantly, this is the first Honor handset that feels like a proper could-take-on-a-flashy-Samsung flagship. You get advanced photo skills, superb battery life and a great screen… plus that rare treat, a headphone port. Is it any good? With no notch, you can make videos fill the View 20’s entire display: put a 2.39:1 movie on there and you’ll get an actual screen area similar to a 7in 16:9 display. That sounds great, but of course you do have to put up with that black hole in the…

The Edge from U2 takes 43 guitars on tour. This means that he can produce pretty much every sound imaginable from the musical instrument… and that he’s highly unlikely to fly Ryanair. If you’re a frustrated musician, odds are you aren’t so lucky. You might own electric and acoustic axes, but dreams of mastering a multitude of different types are stunted by a lack of space and spare cash, let alone a private jet. Don’t get mad, get even, with the Swiss Army knife of guitars. The American Acoustasonic Telecaster is a hybrid six-string that creates the sounds of several different types of acoustic and Fender electric. It’s made in California, and Stuff got the jump on the guitar’s unique functionality at a special unveiling in New York – where…

£799 / stuff.tv/Mate20X There’s big, and then there’s Huawei Mate 20 X big. Here’s a phone that takes the brilliant Mate 20 Pro as a starting point and supersizes it, with a giant screen that makes every other handset out there look like a Tesco Clubcard. Huawei reckons this is just what gamers and multimedia addicts are after, but the optional digital stylus hints at plans to challenge the Samsung Galaxy Note9 as well. The screen really is the star of the show, and at 7.2in there’s no missing it. This panel is absolutely massive, and with ultra-slim bezels on all sides it makes quite an impression. And it’s an OLED, meaning impeccable contrast, deep, inky blacks and vibrant colours. So if you like huge displays, that’s the good news……

£399 / stuff.tv/OneX ■ This is a very different beast to the king of action cams, the GoPro Hero7 Black – and that’s because it shoots in all directions. Its long, rounded-off pill shape allows the two camera modules to function properly while the One X is being handheld. Of course, it can also be stood on a desk or shelf. Or… ■ Screw on a selfie stick and the One X’s unique skills kick into gear: built into its software is the ability to magically remove the stick from videos and photos. You can even screw a special handle into the stick and twirl the One X around your head, creating a Matrix-esque ‘bullet time’ shot with the camera circling you. ■ The iOS and Android companion app acts…

HOT BUY 1 Apple iPad Pro from £769 / stuff.tv/iPadPro2018 The latest iPad Pro isn’t cheap, but it’s a mobile powerhouse like no other, with a diverse and rich app ecosystem, tons of power, a gorgeous screen, and the kind of focus on creativity and productivity that just doesn’t exist on other tablets. If you just want to faff on Facebook or Netflix it’s massive overkill, but then there’s the standard iPad or a slew of other tablets for doing that. Still, even if you don’t actually need the new iPad Pro, you’re going to want one if you have it in your mitts for five minutes. Stuff says Once again Apple blasts ahead of the pack, with a stylish, powerful tablet full of creative potential 2 Microsoft Surface Go…

HOT BUY 1 Sony WH-1000XM3 £330 / stuff.tv/SonyXM3 Sony’s WH-1000 series was already a top performer, and the WH-1000XM3s make for an even more compelling package. With Bluetooth wireless and great noise-cancellation, they’re the ultimate public transport stress killer… well, aside from a chauffeur or a lottery win that lets you retire. The leather pads make them incredibly easy to wear, not unlike sitting in one of those ultra-comfy leather chairs, and most importantly of all the sound quality is fantastic. Stuff says Great wireless headphones with effective ANC and a sound that nails just about everything 2 Urbanista Seattle Wireless from £70 / stuff.tv/SeattleWireless The Seattles are some of the best-sounding affordable wireless cans around. They’re full and rich-sounding, with the sort of tasteful bass drive that will please…

HOT BUY 1 Sonos Beam £399 / stuff.tv/SonosBeam Sonos’s home cinema gear has always been a little expensive, but with the Beam it’s created a great-value soundbar. It sounds ace, comes with loads of features and is compact enough to fit into the average living-room AV setup without taking over. If you want the best-sounding system then the Playbar or Playbase are still the products to go for, but they’re a lot more money, they don’t have Alexa, and they don’t control your TV in the same slick way the Beam does. Stuff says Smaller and cheaper than the already excellent Playbar, and packed full of smarts 2 Q Acoustics Media 4 £199 / stuff.tv/Media4 The justifiably multi-award-winning Media 4 combines subtle detail with precise surround effects to be one…

HOT BUY 1 Sony PlayStation 4 Pro £350 / stuff.tv/PS4Pro 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. Sure, it can’t match the Xbox One X for sheer power or resolution, but it makes up for that with an impressive line-up of games – including Uncharted 4, Horizon Zero Dawn and Bloodborne – and virtual reality support. Stuff says The system for console gamers who have a 4K TV and want the best catalogue of games on offer 2 Nintendo Switch £280 / stuff.tv/NintendoSwitch Nintendo’s console earned a promotion in our…

HOT BUY 1 Jaguar I-Pace from £60,995 (with PiCG) / stuff.tv/ipace Not content with simply making an electric vehicle that can get you from A to B with minimal fuss (and fuel bills), Jaguar has created something desirable, fun to drive and impressively capable when the going gets tough. This car offers Amazon Alexa intergration, smartphone connectivity and a 10in touchscreen on the upper deck. With the I-Pace, Jaguar can happily claim to be the first mainstream brand to really give Tesla something to worry about. Stuff says Fun, fast and practical, the I-Pace is the greatest thing to happen to electric cars in a long time 2 Volvo XC90 T8 from £62,660 / stuff.tv/XC90T8 The latest XC90 is a monster 4x4 that features some of the most impressive interior…

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. HOT BUY 1 Tado Smart Thermostat from £200 + installation / stuff.tv/Tado 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 Google…

HOT BUY 1 Fujifilm X-T3 £1349 / stuff.tv/FujifilmXT3 It’s really hard to find anything bad to say about the X-T3 – it’s just consistently great in so many ways. Fuji has looked at virtually every feature on the X-T2 and upgraded it. With substantial tweaks made to the pro-level video options, the high-res EVF, the super-fast autofocus and the burst shooting, what you’re left with is an all-round beast of a camera in a small, beautiful form. As APS-C shooters go, it’s the best there is. Stuff says An incredible stills shooter with video smarts to match ⚫ NOW ADD THIS Manfrotto 190 Go! Carbon Fibre Tripod You no longer have an excuse for wobbly photos with this carbon-fibre tripod. It weighs just 1.65kg. £235 / manfrotto.co.uk ⚫ TIPS &…

GET THE BEST GADGET DEALS WITH STUFF Ever wondered what’s up with the links in Stuff? We’ve got a team of retail pros who scour the web to find you the best gadget deals – visit any stuff.tv link in this issue and you’ll be taken to the best deal for that product. If you make a purchase, we may get a small commission. It’s that simple, and has no impact on how much you pay. ⚫ In the mag: We pick out the best price for every featured product ⚫ Online: Choose from our roster of great-value retailers…

1 Visionist £free / Android • £1.99 / iOS Prisma kickstarted the idea of apps that Munch your lunch or Picasso your face. But Visionist isn’t about one-tap filters – you refine the art with options for ‘abstractness’ and how the layer interacts with a snap. 2 NanoStudio 2 £28.99 / iPad Before GarageBand, there was NanoStudio. No longer so ‘nano’ (it’s iPad-only for now), this great follow-up offers an end-to-end music production suite… or just a means of making a triumphant din. 3 Overdrop Weather £free / Android Yes, another weather app – but this one’s interesting. Beyond minimalist icons and animated illustrations are a slew of widgets that provide forecasts, but also battery info and search fields. 4 HomeRun £2.99 / watchOS If you’ve wired up your entire…

THE WALKING DEAD: THE FINAL EPISODE Will the Walking Dead TV show ever actually end? That remains to be seen, but we know for certain that the video game is finally wrapping up, just over seven years since the first episode appeared. With original developers Telltale now all but out of the picture, it falls on Skybound to wrap up Clementine’s tale. No pressure. TWIN FREAKS Peele says Us was inspired by a 1960 episode of The Twilight Zone, Mirror Image, in which a woman is dogged by her own double. US How do you follow Get Out? It’s hard to imagine a more emphatic debut than comedian/director Jordan Peele’s satirical horror masterpiece (now coming to Netflix), and follow-up Us looks likely to leave just as much of an impression.…

ECOSYSTEM AMAZON ALEXA Alexa products don’t need to be Amazon-branded. Some have Alexa built in, so she’ll do all your bidding including controlling devices. Others carry a ‘Works with Amazon Alexa’ badge, merely meaning they can be controlled by voice. She can be built into everything – you don’t necessarily need a smart speaker. It’s easy to add new devices on your Wi-Fi network. BEST FOR… The greatest depth of ‘Skills’ for controlling the products in your smart home. COOKING UP A TREAT KITCHENAID SMART DISPLAY With the launch of this 10in Google Assistant smart display, KitchenAid is hoping to take on the likes of the Lenovo Smart Display – with added features for the kitchen. This voice-controlled, call-making, YouTube-watching, hub-controlling screen is IPX5-rated so you don’t have to be…

£166 / stuff.tv/TicWatchS2 The appeal of Mobvoi’s TicWatch series really boils down to one thing: money. The TicWatch S2 has pretty much every feature you could ask for in a smartwatch that costs well under £200: GPS, a heart-rate sensor, better than average battery life and 5ATM water-resistance. But now that Fitbit and Huawei have used their own operating systems to show how good at tracking a fairly low-tech smartwatch can be (with the Ionic and Watch GT respectively), the S2 is a reminder that Wear OS can be hard to live with. And this is, let’s be honest, one of the least refined-looking Wear OS watches around. One of the most important parts of a watch, its design, doesn’t really enter the equation here: the S2 has a sensible,…

FIRST ADD THESE… ONE HPRC 3500 HARDSHELL BACKPACK This watertight hardshell backpack has been specially designed to house the Mavic 2 Pro, so it has snug foam inserts that cradle the flight controller, propellers, additional batteries and much more. The only thing it’s missing is room for a laptop, but that won’t be a biggie for most pilots. £275 / heliguy.com TWO POLARPRO FILTERS The high-quality Cinema Series glass in the popular PolarPro six-pack allows users to get creative with lower apertures thanks to a variety of ND stops, making it is easier to capture longer exposures during those tricky sunrise and sunset moments. Expect the water-repelling, scratch-resistant coatings to ensure longevity too. £150 / amazon.co.uk THREE APPLE iPAD PRO iPad and Mavic make the perfect couple to take out…

Synths Want to make old-skool electro pop music like Depeche Mode and New Order, or challenging ambient soundscapes like Ariana Grande? Put yourself to (Kraft)werk with our pick of the coolest dinky DIY synths and vital add-ons. Strings Guitarists get to pick from Fender’s 10-in-1 Telecaster, Vox’s 11-in-1 amp, a Bluetooth six-string that fits in your backpack, and a bunch of axe-cessories including the secret of Ed Sheeran’s loopy success. Keys Pia pia piano time like the present to learn the keyboard and join a band. Check out the LED keys that light your way to brilliance, the touchpads favoured by Wu-Tang’s RZA, and the Akai mini marvel that can follow you everywhere. Beats Whether you want to drum like Animal from the Muppets or scratch like Mix Master Mike,…

In 1988 fantasy comedy Big there’s a classic scene where Tom Hanks plays Chopsticks with his feet on an oversize piano. The keys light up with each step, and frankly you’d have to be a cold-hearted bastard not to get wrapped up in the feelgood factor of it all. What we’re saying is that playing the piano is undeniably cool… and if the keys happen to light up, it’s Miller time. The One Light Keyboard uses coloured LEDs embedded in the keys, but they’re not just there for fun: they indicate which ones to play, leading your fingers through the tune and building muscle memory. Sounds like cheating, right? Right. But all the red and blue lights are doing is helping you to learn how to tinkle properly with each…

THE BASICS ■ Sign up Feedly is entirely free to use with up to a whopping 100 sources, and works across desktop (including browsers) and mobile. Download the app or head to feedly.com and sign up by clicking/tapping ‘Get started for free’. You can sign in using social accounts, but it’s probably best to use ‘Continue with Feedly’. ■ Find sources On desktop, type topics or website addresses into the search field. On mobile, this is found in the Discover tab (compass icon). For example, type stuff.tv then click/tap ‘Stuff’ to see everything we’ve recently published. You’ll initially get the 10 newest pieces, but Feedly will store up to 30 days of content per source. ■ Create a feed To subscribe to a publication, click/tap Follow. When you do this…

HOT BUY 1 Data Wing £free / Android, iOS This game starts off as if Asteroids had a baby with a top-down racer: your triangular craft blasts around circuits, gaining speed when its bum scrapes neon track edges. Soon you discover you’re part of an OS ruled by a deranged AI. Story and game quickly expand, as you glimpse the world beyond the screen and battle gravity in cavern-based sections that recall 8-bit classic Thrust. Rarely do mobile titles pack in so many hours of clever, thoughtful narrative. Pretty much never are such games free. Stuff says A mobile game we’d happily recommend if it cost a fiver – for nowt, it’s an absurdly generous bargain 2 Euclidean Skies £4.99 / iOS This is a challenging mobile game that pulls…

HOT BUY 1 Apple Watch Series 4 from £399 / stuff.tv/WatchS4 The Apple Watch Series 4 has everything going for it – the larger screen, improved processor and louder speaker mean it’s easier to actually do stuff on it than any previous Watch, and it has a load of health features that just aren’t on other wearables. Whether you’re navigating somewhere using Maps, going for a run without your phone, or just wanting to keep track of your activity during the day, this Apple Watch does a great job of handling all these things and more. Stuff says Best wearable ever: a sleek, sophisticated redesign of the previous generation with some hearty upgrades 2 Samsung Galaxy Watch from £299 / stuff.tv/GalaxyWatch A sturdy and stylish smartwatch with plenty of power…

HOT BUY 1 Sonos One £199 / stuff.tv/SonosOne Making an amazing speaker was an easy job for the multiroom champs, but getting Amazon’s Alexa voice assistant to dance along in time with it… well, that wasn’t such a simple task. But the One is now an altogether 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 by a series of software updates. The only issue? It’s a little hard of hearing compared to Amazon’s Echo. Stuff says Sonos’s Alexa-powered speaker remains a class apart from the competition UPDATE 2 Amazon Echo Dot £30 / stuff.tv/EchoDot The massive price difference means that, for many people, the 3rd-gen Dot is…

HOT BUY 1 Oculus Rift £349 / stuff.tv/OculusTouch The Oculus Rift has been playing catch-up for a while; but now that it’s got the fantastic Touch Controllers, has boosted its room-tracking capabilities to match the Vive and has had a price drop to easily undercut HTC’s standard headset, it finally deserves to top our VR headset rankings. Its library of exclusive games has grown considerably since launch too, with the likes of Robo Recall, Lucky’s Tale and Lone Echo all added. This is now the best VR headset available that doesn’t cost the world. Stuff says Thanks to the price cut and much-needed updates, the Rift is now the best reasonably-priced VR headset 2 HTC Vive £499 / stuff.tv/HTCVive Barring a £100 price difference, there isn’t much difference between the…

HOT BUY 1 SNES Classic Mini £80 / stuff.tv/ClassicMini 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 box, you’ll be able to start the Super Mario Kart action right away. Stuff says With 21 classic games installed, gamers won’t find better value anywhere ⚫ NOW ADD THIS 8Bitdo Bluetooth Retro Receiver Fed up of those short cables? Use this clever device to connect most modern controllers wirelessly. £16.14 / 8bitdo.com ⚫ TIPS & TRICKS ⚫ Chickens…