Innholdsfortegnelse for December 2023 i Stuff UK

Hello! Welcome to our annual trip through Santa’s tech grotto. Once again we’ve compiled our legendary Stuff Gift Guide for you to peruse so you can order all your presents in plenty of time for Christmas – and there are even more guides at Stuff.tv if your thirst for gift ideas still isn’t sated. Mind you, if you aren’t satisfied by the 25 pages on offer here then maybe you’re just missing the Argos catalogue (RIP). Elsewhere in this bumper issue it’s Applegeddon, with reviews of all four new iPhones and both upgraded Apple Watches. We’ve even looked at the USB-C version of the AirPods Pro as part of a roundup of new true wireless earphones (there are some real crackers in that test from Bose and Jabra too). As usual…

Audiophiles take note: this month’s competition sees Bowers & Wilkins offering one lucky Stuff reader a Zeppelin smart speaker AND a pair of Px7 S2e wireless headphones – how about that for a Christmas to remember? With its stunning sculptural design, the Zeppelin (RRP £699) combines 24-bit hi-res stereo sound with a full range of connected features. It has Alexa built in and can stream from AirPlay 2, Bluetooth aptX Adaptive and Spotify Connect, plus the Bowers & Wilkins Music app. The second part of this epic prize is a pair of Bowers & Wilkins Px7 S2e wireless headphones, worth £379. The ‘e’ is for ‘evolved’, and these cans will let you experience your music exactly as the artist intended – thanks to 24-bit processing, custom 40mm drivers and six…

Apple iPhone 15 Pro from £999 / go.stuff.tv/15Pro What’s the story? The iPhone 15 Pro arrives in a bit of a strange place. There are a whole heap of upgrades, sure. The speedier USB-C port is most welcome, for example. But the iPhone 15 and 15 Plus opposite both get a much upgraded main camera, and the 5x optical zoom system is restricted to the bigger Pro Max. So what makes the Pro worth getting? As with the 15 Pro Max, Apple has now fixed the early issue that saw this phone run a little hot, so we won’t be dwelling on that in this review. Is it any good? The titanium frame (1) is probably the most significant change to this phone versus last year’s model: the weight has…

Sure, you could ask a tiny Arctic being to make all your Christmas presents out of wood… but don’t you think they’re busy enough? And whether you’re after ideas for loved ones or compiling your own wishlist, you might find that, when it comes to tech-based products, consulting the annual Stuff Gift Guide yields better results. Well, have you ever seen an elf use a soldering iron? In case you need even more ideas than this, you’ll find extra Gift Guide entries online at Stuff.tv…

NANOLEAF 4D Short of installing an IMAX screen in your living room, the most immersive way to watch movies at home is probably on a Philips Ambilight television. Not got one? Using a camera to detect the on-screen colours and immediately reflect them via a connected LED strip, Nanoleaf’s 4D ‘screen mirror’ kit enables any TV or monitor to deliver an Ambilight-like experience, covering the wall behind it with a dazzling light show for an extra layer of cinematic immersion. It’s available for tellies up to 85in (sorry, IMAX owners), but the lightstrip is also trimmable – so you can cut it down to the size you need and the effects will remap to the new length. from £90 / nanoleaf.me JOE & SEPH’S POPCORN We love salty and sugary…

RAZER WIRELESS CONTROL POD Razer’s control pod might seem unassuming at first glance, but it’ll let you control media playback and volume levels with simple clicks and spins, rather than having to faff around with your mouse or keyboard. £50 / razer.com 8BITDO RETRO RECEIVER FOR PS Anyone still rocking an original PS1 or PS2 is a proper old-school purist. But we bet you could tempt them with this Bluetooth receiver, which plugs directly into the controller port and unlocks the joys of wire-free gaming. It supports everything from arcade sticks to modern equivalents from the likes of PlayStation, Nintendo and Xbox, letting you mix and match. £18 / 8bitdo.com META QUEST 3 The long-awaited Quest 3 has been redesigned inside and out to provide one of the top VR…

NOKIA 2660 FLIP The emergence of flexible screens has brought the clamshell form factor back in recent years, but there’s still something undeniably retro about a phone that folds in the middle like Nokia’s 2660. Not only does it look old-skool with its 2.8in display and big buttons, but its features will take you back to a time when we didn’t all carry a camera, sat-nav, TV and the entire internet in our pockets. It does have a 0.3MP camera for suitably low-res photos, but apart from that it’s just calls, texts, a torch and an FM radio, meaning the battery life can be measured in days rather than hours. So it’ll probably be 2024 before it even needs plugging in to be charged. £65 / nokia.com MARSHALL MOTIF II…

TEENAGE ENGINEERING TP-7 The true definition of luxury is spending much more on something than you really need to – and nothing embodies that better than this wildly over-engineered dictaphone. Anyone with a shred of appreciation for design will be charmed by the chunky buttons, side-mounted rocker control and motorised ‘tape reel’, which you can hold to stop a recording. £1299 / teenage.engineering ASTELL&KERN ACRO CA1000T This compact headphone amp includes a plethora of outputs, from 3.5mm and 6.5mm to RCA and XLR, but it’s much more than just a box full of holes. There’s Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, with a pop-up screen for easy control. £2299 / astellnkern.co.uk COWBOY CRUISER This elevated take on the standard Cowboy e-bike provides a higher vantage point and a wider saddle for a more…

MAC IT UP ◼ Bring back widgets Mac widgets are no longer confined to the Notification Centre, and can now be placed on the desktop like back in the Mac OS X Tiger days. Control-click the desktop and choose ‘Edit widgets’, then drag them into place. If you have a nearby iPhone, widgets from its apps can be added too. Control-click to edit a widget’s settings or click-drag to move it. ◼ Be a better presenter When sharing in FaceTime or Zoom, a purple share button is shown in the menu bar. Click this and select Small from ‘Presenter overlay’. A circle with your head in it will float above the shared content. Go Large and you’ll appear in front of said content, just as if you were on a…

£669 (inc lens)/go.stuff.tv/R100 ■ The EOS R100 is a classic DSLR shape, but thanks to a primarily plastic build it’s surprisingly light. That’s not always a good thing, as you want it to feel balanced and secure with a heavy lens attached, but there are no ergonomic issues with the bundled 18-45mm job. ■ The physical control layout is fairly intuitive but the single dial makes it hard to adjust more than one setting quickly, which will frustrate users who like tweaking ISO, shutter speed, aperture and so on. The video stop/start button is also tiny and fiddly. ■ There’s no in-body image stabilisation but that lens has optical stabilisation. Burst speed of 6.5fps isn’t bad and the fast, accurate hybrid autofocus system is more than adequate for basic everyday…

At a former RAF airfield in Wiltshire, Dyson’s renovated aircraft hangars are something to be seen. Where once Spitfires and Lancasters were parked, it’s now Dyson’s Centre for Robotics – a huge testbed for unspecified future projects. Robot vacuums roam this giant space, including inside a purpose-built ‘house’ furnished to mimic an ordinary UK home. We took a tour of the lab with Mike Aldred, Dyson’s senior principal engineer. It’s pretty clear what we’re here for: the latest-gen Dyson robot vacuum is on a plinth as you walk through the door. Just launched as the Dyson 360 Vis Nav, this cleaner has been many years in development and brings a ground-up rebuild of the company’s robo-vac tech. “This building was designed for collaboration and cooperation,” says Mike. “If you get…

One X 2017 With eight x86 graphics cores and support for native 4K, the One X dethroned the PS4 Pro as the most powerful console of the day. One S 2016 Slimmer than the regular One, the S added upscaling skills, allowing you to play 1080p games at 4K, and had an Ultra HD Blu-ray player. One 2013 With its Kinect camera, this was Microsoft’s attempt to create a sort of hi-def Nintendo Wii. The motion-sensing add-on lacked compelling games. 360 Elite 2007 A stealthy black paint job and 120GB of storage made this the 360 to be seen with – but Microsoft still hadn’t sorted out that pesky Red Ring of Death.…

from £999/go.stuff.tv/Pixel8Pro DAY 01 Google’s last Pro-grade Pixel had some of the most capable cameras you could find on a smartphone. Nothing from Apple, Samsung or anyone else quite managed to beat it – and yet buying one left a smaller dent in your wallet than any of its closest competitors. But things are different this year. The iPhone 15 Pro Max (see p29) and Galaxy S23 Ultra have upped their game with clever zoom lenses and huge pixel counts, while Google seems more interested in AI-assisted image editing. A price hike has also pushed this Pixel firmly into premium territory for the first time. It’s apparent that Google isn’t going to give up its photography crown without a fight: the shots I’ve taken are stunning There is some good…

Straight outta testing and into our rankings. NEW HOT BUY A product of techy genius that’s set our hearts aflame. BARGAIN BUY A proper steal. Worth owning regardless of cashflow. Time changes everything, including Stuff Top Ten entries. UPDATE SMARTPHONES • TIPS & TRICKS • The Dynamic Island makes it easier to control a call: tap it and hang up without switching apps. • AirPods also show up in the Island when connected, and you can see their battery status. • In Apple Maps, you can see turn-by-turn directions overlaid at the top of the phone’s screen. 1 Apple iPhone 14 Pro Max from £1139/go.stuff.tv/14ProMax This is essentially the same phone as the 14 Pro, but with a bigger screen and a bigger battery. So on paper it’s Apple’s best ever…

What’s this horror? The mutant offspring of a Nokia 3310 and a Game Boy Advance? That’s what Nokia was aiming for, perhaps minus the ‘mutant’ part. Loads of people at the time carried around a phone and a GBA; Nokia reasoned it would clean up by combining the two. On paper, the signs were good. The N-Gage had a vibrant backlit display, online multiplayer support, enough face buttons to satisfy a Street Fighter II fan, and the clout to run games that (if you squinted a bit) looked like PlayStation fare. Big publishers lined up to support it too. Actually, that sounds great. Top work, Nokia. What could possibly go wrong? Everything else. Nokia did understand the importance of gaming on mobile, but not how to make a device people…

THIS IS NIKON’S FIRST FULL-FRAME MIRRORLESS TO GO DOWN THE RETRO ROUTE Call the colour cops! Somebody’s made a camera that isn’t black. Well spotted. It won’t be long now before you can name all the colours of the rainbow without having to sing the song. As well as this natty Sunset Orange option there’s also a booze-inspired Bordeaux Red, a classy Indigo Blue, a forest-ready Moss Green, a mushroomy Sepia Brown and an understated Stone Grey… but this is a serious bit of kit, so obviously you can still get it in stealthy black if you want. Made from weather-resistant magnesium alloy, it should feel as good to hold as it does to ogle. But it’s still just another retro camera, right? That’s exactly the kind of thing a…

€2m approx / alfaromeo.co.uk What is this thing of beauty? Everybody loves an Alfa… and the 33 Stradale is a glorious reworking of the 1967 machine of the same name. In a move that may be seen as sacrilege to some, this 207mph supercar is being offered with an all-electric arrangement if buyers want it, along with a multitude of other options depending on how much they want to spend. So what’s underneath? Even though there are only 33 samples being made, you get a choice of powertrains: a 620hp 3L twin-turbo V6, or a decidedly beefy 750hp setup using three electric motors. The 0-60mph time of the petrol car should be in sub-3s territory. It’ll go, then – but will it stop? The 33 Stradale will get on down…

MEDIUM MUGS The beefy brewer Lifeventure TiV Wide Mouth (800ml) With a handle and wide-mouth spout, this flask is short and stout. Tougher than any little teapot, it’s copper-coated to contain heat for up to 8hrs. A second cup inside the lid means you can make it a party for two, while the grabber on the side folds down flat for post-pour packability. £25 / lifeventure.com The winter warrior Sigg Thermo Flask Gemstone IBT 0.75L When it comes to bottling winter warmth, the Swiss do it with utilitarian flair. Packing for a trip to Hoth? With its sci-fi lines, the Gemstone’s full metal jacket is built different: an ultra-thin inner wall saves weight, while those sculpted grooves improve grip and enhance durability. £33 / sigg.com The circular server Yeti Rambler…

SHURE AONIC 50 GEN 2 We were fans of the first-gen Aonic 50s, and now Shure is back with a new version including spatial audio, improved active noise-cancellation and a much-improved 45hrs of battery life. There’s also wide codec support including high-quality LDAC, SBC, AAC and aptX Adaptive… and if you do like cables from time to time, there’s still a headphone port. The spatial audio settings have some presets to try out, while there are custom EQ settings in the ShurePlus Play app that will let you fine-tune every aspect of the sound. Oh, and the app will save settings to the headphones themselves so you can get the same experience with different source devices. £349 / shure.com ROLAND E-X10 An inspiring starter keyboard for those beginning their musical…

MERRELL SPEED ECO This sustainable hiking shoe is Merrell’s greenest to date, with everything from a 100% recycled mesh lining to a 50% recycled EVA footbed. With a waterproof build and grippy sole, it should help keep any keen explorer on their feet in the most disgusting conditions. The Speed Eco comes in five colours, but by the time you take them off chances are they’ll all be brown. £125 / merrell.com ECOFLOW WAVE 2 Gadgets don’t come much more planet-killy than air-conditioners… so here’s the Wave 2, a clever little aircon unit that can have its removable battery hooked up to a solar panel for clean-energy cooling. That also makes it portable. £1499 / ecoflow.com MUCH BETTER ADVENTURES GIFT CARD This company specialises in travelexperiences where more of your…

POLAROID I-2 Instant cameras are like little gift generators, immediately spitting out memories for people to keep forever, but the quality of the pictures hasn’t always been the best. The I-2, however, pairs manual controls (including shutter speed and aperture) with Polaroid’s sharpest lens to date, so you can pack in more crisp detail without losing that vintage feel. There are also auto, shutter priority and aperture priority modes, so you can still just point and shoot if that’s more your style, with a built-in flash to shed some light on gloomy scenes. It comes with a pack of film so you can start snapping on Christmas Day and hand out the results like presents. £600 / polaroid.com CANON EOS R100 It might be the most basic offering in Canon’s…

FITBIT INSPIRE 3 Struggling with festive stress? You could hire a therapy elf. Or, for a soothing assistant that raises fewer ethical questions, you could try this tracking band. Besides heart rate, activity and sleep data, it can monitor your calmness. £85 / fitbit.com NOKIA C12 Right at the top of our price range, the C12 doesn’t quite fall into ‘impulse buy’ territory. It’s still a bargain by smartphone standards, though, with Android 12 (Go Edition), a 6.3in screen, an 8MP rear camera and all-day battery life all making an appearance on the spec sheet. This is an ideal phone for those who aren’t fussed about the fancy stuff, and/or a festival phone that’s not just a basic burner. £100 / nokia.com TWELVE SOUTH AIRFLY PRO Frequent flyers will know…

● Otter Ideas always rock up at the least opportune moments. And even though you’ve always got your phone on you, you’d look pretty stupid walking down the street while frantically using two thumbs to tap out the latest chapter of your bestseller. So dictate your thoughts into Otter instead, and the app will handily transcribe them. In fact, do that even when you don’t need to. Typing’s so last century. £free / Android, iOS ● ChatGPT We’re not going to suggest you ask ChatGPT to write your novel. After all, what it generates makes Jeffrey Archer look like DH Lawrence, and its flagrant disregard for copyright isn’t ideal if you’re a fan of not getting sued. But ChatGPT can help you brainstorm the basics and quickly iterate on sections…

REMINDERS Apple’s to-do app now organises shopping lists into categories and has interactive widgets. But the best bit is how you can group related reminders into a list. It can turn each section into a column, the result of which feels a lot like a stripped-back version of Trello. PHOTOS The People album is now People & Pets, because Photos can finally detect furry friends. Memories have also improved: head into one and you can now add new photos to it and re-order those that are already there. And in a standard photo view, you can simply zoom in to start cropping. NOTES Drop a PDF into Notes and it will no longer stubbornly display only the first page – you can now swipe to others. Select some text, choose…

Astell&Kern UW100MKII What’s the story? If you’re more bothered about DACs and EQs than ANC and IP ratings, these buds are probably already on your radar. The focus here is on sound quality, but it comes at the expense of features that are usually standard at this price. The biggest absence is noise-cancelling but there’s no official waterproofing either, so you need to be careful where you use them. Is the sound quality enough to make up for such major omissions? Are they any good? Whether you’ll get the best audio quality from these A&Ks depends on what device you pair them with. Despite using a 32-bit DAC that wouldn’t break a sweat with high-bitrate tracks, they don’t support LDAC or LC3 codecs, although aptX Adaptive is enough for 24-bit…

£330/go.stuff.tv/Epicboom ■ Ultimate Ears has become well known for its ‘boom’ series of Bluetooth speakers, and this new model elbows its way in towards the top of the range. It isn’t as loud as the over-the-top Hyperboom, but that’s a more static speaker; the Epicboom is designed with portability in mind, while still being way more capable than the dinkier Wonderboom 3 and Boom 3. ■ The 360° audio quality on offer here is exceptional. The bass is particularly impressive – it’s one of those listening experiences where, if you didn’t know what the speaker looked like, you’d expect a far bigger box. ■ As with the Wonderboom, you can dunk this speaker entirely in water for up to half an hour before it starts to have any issues thanks…

£450 / bose.com Having mastered active noise-cancellation, Bose is now moving on to spatial audio in the ongoing battle for your bonce ● Heady player one It’s not enough for headphones to just play music these days. Case in point: these new over-ears from Bose. Sure, they’ll play your tunes, but you want more when you’re spending the best part of £500. That’s why they come with what Bose calls Immersive Audio tech – spatial audio to the rest of us – to make your music sound like it’s all around you rather than being piped directly down your earholes. You don’t need to feed them special files either: it’ll work its magic on standard stereo files. ● Match me if you can There are two Immersive Audio modes to…

DYSON’S NEW ROBOT WILL CLEAN OUT YOUR WALLET Dyson’s latest robot vacuum is finally available to buy – for a seriously hefty price. Originally unveiled in May, the 360 Vis Nav will set you back £1200. Dyson reckons it has six times the suction of any other robot hoover, which is the least you’d expect for that kind of cash. Get the inside story on p76. NANOLEAF WANTS TO SPRUCE UP YOUR SPRUCE Fancy giving the Christmas tree a gift of its own? Nanoleaf’s Smart Holiday String Lights (£120, nanoleaf.me) have 250 LEDs that can be customised in over 16 million colours, with a choice of festive animated patterns available to choose from in the app. You’ll be the talk of the street. Or at least the living room. GOOGLE’S…

Oakley is a passionate place to work for me. I love the history of the brand and the constant problem-solving that we’re doing for consumers and professional athletes. I’m the VP of design for Oakley and I’ve been working here for 11 years, specifically for industrial design. This encompasses all eyewear, helmets and related products, and sometimes packaging. I have a fairly large responsibility for the brand, because a large portion of our identity resides in these products. With over 1000 patents pending and granted worldwide, Oakley takes great pride in its innovation. Jim Jannard’s first invention in 1975, the Oakley Grip, was made for motocross. Jim’s invention would revolutionise the industry with a new material, Unobtainium 49, as well as a new profile that had never been done –…

GIFTS FROM JUST £15.99 OVER 60 TITLES TO CHOOSE FROM VISIT SHOP.KELSEY.CO.UK/XMAS23H OR CALL 01959 543 747 AND QUOTE ‘XMAS23H’ Lines are open Mon-Fri 8.30am to 5.30pm. Calls are charged at your standard network rate. Offers available for UK customers only. Savings are based on the standard cover prices. Offer ends 24/12/2023. The subscription will start with the first available issue after Christmas 2023. Prices correct at time of print and subject to change. For full terms and conditions visit shop.kelsey.co.uk/terms. To see how we use your data view our privacy policy here shop.kelsey.co.uk/privacy-policy.…

FOCUSRITE VOCASTER ONE Creative types who plan to record their travels won’t want to take up precious bag space with an entire studio setup, but this compact audio interface captures studio-quality sound from any connected mic.  £99 / focusrite.com WITHINGS SCANWATCH 2 There’s no point wearing a power-hungry smartwatch if you don’t know when you’re next going to encounter a plug socket, but the hybrid ScanWatch 2 offers a fine compromise. Ditching a full OLED screen for an analogue/digital combo, it covers all the fitness, body temperature, sleep-tracking and phone notification bases, while lasting up to 30 days between charges.  £320 / withings.com LOGITECH CASA Travelling the world doesn’t mean you’re always on holiday. This all-in-one remote working solution turns any flat surface into a productivity zone, combining a laptop…

ULTRAHUMAN RING AIR If you’re worried about developing one outsize Popeye arm from carrying around the weight of a smartwatch on your wrist all day, fitness trackers don’t come much more lightweight than Ultrahuman’s Ring Air. It won’t offer phone notifications, music controls or any of that other fancy business you get with a smartwatch, but it can still track your movement, sleep and temperature, and give you a better idea of how you recover after exercise. The lack of a screen, buttons or any of that jazz means the battery lasts six days, and depending on which size you need it weighs as little as 2.4g, so there’s no chance of ending up with an overly muscular finger. $349 / ultrahuman.com ARC’TERYX ALPHA The Alpha is a versatile lightweight…

NERF PRO GELFIRE MYTHIC BLASTER Are you tired of forever picking up Nerf darts? Does your back need a rest? This blaster fires soft polymer projectiles that leave nothing but a quick-drying trace of non-staining, biodegradable liquid. Not only do they travel further than darts, but there’s zero cleanup required. You will, of course, be asked to order refills within a few hours. £52 / smythstoys.com AMAZON ECHO SHOW 5 KIDS This is the same as the regular Show 5 but with a far cooler paint job. All the regular features are here, including Alexa, plus this model includes a 1yr Amazon Kids+ sub and a 2yr worry-free guarantee. £100 / amazon.co.uk RASPBERRY PI 5 Know a nipper who wants to be the next Steve Jobs? You could buy them…

AMAZON ECHO POP Aside from changing your name by deed poll, Amazon’s Echo Pop is the cheapest way to add Alexa to any room in your house. Sure, it won’t blow anyone away with audiophile-pleasing sound, but it doesn’t have to at this price. Just plonk this dinky smart speaker down in the kitchen, bedroom or anywhere else where background music and a robot butler are required, and you’ve got your own personal newsreader, weather forecaster and DJ at your beck and call 24/7. Available in a rainbow of wild colours (or just black) and made using lots of recycled materials, the Pop is the most accessible way to give the gift of voice assistance this Christmas. £45 / amazon.co.uk PHILIPS HUE SECURE CONTACT SENSOR Nothing says festive cheer like…

01 XBOX 360 After the runaway success of the first Xbox console, expectations were high for its follow-up – and Microsoft delivered. More streamlined than its predecessor, the 360 became an even bigger hit thanks largely to its huge catalogue of brilliant games. Take your pick from Halo 3, Gears of War, Forza Horizon, Project Gotham Racing 4, Mass Effect 2 and Left 4 Dead – and that’s just the exclusives. There was also Red Dead Redemption, Skyrim and Fallout 3, along with the emergence of now-classic franchises such as Call of Duty, Assassin’s Creed and BioShock, not to mention the golden age of Guitar Hero. An upgraded Xbox Live also took online gaming to the next level, enticing subscribers with superb multiplayer titles such as Forza 3 and Titanfall, while…