Innholdsfortegnelse for March 2023 i T3

DRAG STRIP Aptera has cut the Launch Edition’s drag coefficient to just 0.13 – making the Tesla Model 3’s 0.23 look positively brick-like and nipping at the bumpers of the sleekest solar race cars at 0.07 APTERA LAUNCH EDITION Tesla, take note: this is how you create an innovative e-vehicle. While the 400-mile range of Aptera’s first production vehicle is certainly impressive, the real headline is those solar cells. The Launch Edition’s roof-mounted panels drink down enough juice to give you up to 40 miles driving a day – essentially making your daily commute totally free. Got a long journey planned? You don’t need to leave it in the drive for two weeks. Hook it up to a DC fast charger and it’ll gain 400 – 600 miles of range…

PETZL SWIFT RL This premium head torch has a blindingly bright light output (900 lumens, to be precise), with good burn times, light weight and intuitive controls. It’s also reflective to remain visible at night. Truly the gold standard in the world of compact headlamps. £103, petzl.com BIOLITE HEADLAMP 800 PRO Rechargeable, simple to operate and very, very bright, the BioLite HeadLamp 800 Pro does what it says on the tin and does it extremely well. One of the very top head torches you can buy, with a hugely impressive battery life. £100, uk.bioliteenergy.com BLACK DIAMOND STORM 450 With a host of excellent all-rounder features like the big, glove-friendly button, 450 lumen max output and a nice broad head strap, this headlamp from Black Diamond is an excellent choice for…

RUNNING SHOE HOKA CLIFTON 9 Hoka is renowned for producing some of the world’s top running shoes, and the Clifton 9 is no exception. Light on foot, this shoe offers up super smooth heel-to-toe transitions alongside increased protection. With a fun, modern aesthetic, the Clifton 9 is a reliable running shoe for athletes and beginners alike. £130, hoka.com EARBUDS JAYBIRD VISTA 2 The Vista 2 is a super comfortable yet rugged pair of wireless earphones, ideal for keeping the music pumping come rain or shine. What’s more, there’s built-in noise-cancellation tech to block out external sounds. If you’re serious about fuelling your outdoor runs with some top-quality tuneage, the Vista 2 buds are hard to beat. £189.99, jaybirdsport.com WATCH POLAR IGNITE 3 Polar’s latest smartwatch not only sports endless fitness…

Looking for one of the best MacBooks money can buy? You’ve come to the right place. Because the MacBook Pro with M2 Pro is an all-powerful beast of a laptop that will sate the appetite of those creatives in need of serious graphical processing demands. Pricing varies wildly whether you select the 14-inch or 16-inch model, with each coming in three configurations, two with M2 Pro, one with M2 Max. The 14-inch with M2 Pro starts from a ‘modest’ £2,149, but the 16-inch starts from £2,699 and its M2 Max incarnation costs a cool £3,749. Opt for the 16-inch M2 Max with 96GB unified memory and upgraded 8TB SSD and you’re looking at an absurdly expensive £6,749. Will most people need that? Absolutely not. But if you’re a high-end creative…

SPECIFICATION Drivers 5 (32mm tweeter, 2x 44x102mm sideways-facing full-range drivers, 2x 57mm upward-facing fullrange drivers) Audio formats Dolby Atmos Connectivity HDMI eARC, optical input, wired bass module connection, wired IR blaster, Bluetooth 4.2 Dimensions 56.1x694x104mm Weight 3.13kg The dream is to get great big home cinema sound from the smallest, most discreet speaker cabinet possible. Many have tried… and with a very few notable (and subsequently wildly successful) exceptions, the failure rate is through the roof. Of course, these portents aren’t enough to put off a company as serious and successful as Bose. And so here’s the Smart Soundbar 600 – it’s physically small and discreet, it’s configured to serve up spatial audio, and it’s priced to meet its very few realistic best soundbar competitors head-on. So is Bose living…

FLITEBOARD ULTRA L Allowing thrill-seekers to soar above and carve through the surf rather than plough through it, efoils have been around for a while. But it’s possible Fliteboard has perfected them. Crowning its new Series 3 collection, the Ultra L is, in the company’s own words, the ‘world’s lightest performance efoil’, weighing in at a svelte 22.5kg. This is thanks in no small part to an innovative lithium-ion battery that clocks in at just 6.5kg, while providing 45 minutes of foil time. A new, longer 80cm mast both helps counterbalance what little weight it does have and also allows you to tackle more epic waves and cut more extreme turns without wiping out. And not only does its True Glide propeller spin freely when unpowered for a smoother ride…

Tech journalists don’t have their own personal Woodstock. Socially awkward nerds that need their every relationship to be mediated through a Sahara’s worth of silicon tend not to be ones for grooving around in the mud. But if we did, it’s safe to say that it would be Las Vegas’s Consumer Electronics Show, the biggest global launch event for the tech that will be arriving in the coming year. Once you’ve been following CES for a few years, you start to recognise some of the recurring trends. There’s the boundary-transgressing bathroom trackers – I don’t even want my partner to witness my *ahem* ablutions but, sure, I’m perfectly happy to share them with Withings. Or there’s the cuddly toys that let us outsource all the social obligations we find too…

G-SHOCK, GWF-A1000APF-1AER Celebrating the 30th anniversary of the Frogman with an eye-catching design based on a poison dart frog, this model is Bluetooth enabled, solar powered and Radio Controlled for the ultimate in connectivity. £949, g-shock.co.uk BELL & ROSS X ALAIN SILBERSTEIN, BR 03-92 KLUB 22 A pure expression of the collaboration between the two brands, featuring a pure matte black ceramic case and jet-black dial, with hands transformed into massive oversized geometric shapes. $4,400, bellross.com CHRISTOPHER WARD, C65 DUNE Built for the outdoors and styled for the boardroom, CW’s new field watch – named after Aquitaine’s Dune du Pilat, the tallest sand dune in Europe – pairs an elegant ‘light-catcher’ case with the rugged do-anything durability. £695, christopherward.com HAMILTON, JAZZMASTER FACE-2-FACE III Equipped with a round rotating 44mm case,…

HUBLOT CLASSIC FUSION ORIGINAL This year, Hublot has brought back the watch that shook up conventions in 1980. A precious gold case strapped on a simple rubber strap, unthinkable at the time, it sent huge shock waves through the world of fine watchmaking. The new Classic Fusion Original celebrates this timeless simplicity: available in yellow gold, titanium and ceramic, the cases come in 33mm, 38mm and 42mm. Its six famous screws place their hallmark on the bezels, while the sapphire case backs reveal the mechanical parts. Hublot’s iconic details bring the original watch up-to-date, making it a new, timeless classic. From £5,600, hublot.com ZENITH DEFY EXTREME GLACIER Following 2021’s DEFY Extreme Desert, Zenith is going to the opposite kind of landscape for the second edition: meet the DEFY Extreme Glacier,…

CYCLING TOP SHIMANO ELEMENT JACKET The Shimano Element Jacket oozes style and quality. This is a jacket that’s serious about keeping you warm and dry, while also feeling lightweight enough to work in less extreme conditions too. The quality of the Shimano brand is easy to see, and feel, while the healthy range of sizes and two different colour options makes it a practical solution for cyclists of all shapes and sizes. £109.99, bikester.co.uk HIKING SOCKS SEALSKINZ WATERPROOF ALL WEATHER ANKLE LENGTH SOCK If you aren’t afraid of a little inclement weather, a waterproof walking sock should be your go-to. These Sealskinz socks have a triple-layered construction that includes a waterproof hydrophilic membrane, a liner that’s predominantly Merino wool (for warmth and sweat-wicking) and a Polycolon exterior with four-way stretch.…

The Microsoft Surface Pro 9 is one of the best 2-in-1 laptops you can buy. It’s not that different to last year’s device, so if you’re wondering whether to upgrade, it won’t be worth it. But if you’re buying for the first time, go for it. Microsoft hasn’t really changed the design of the Microsoft Surface Pro 9, because if it ain’t broke, why fix it? Measuring 287 x 209 x 9.3mm and weighing 879g, it’s a manageable size for a tablet but it’s slim and lightweight for a laptop, even with a Surface Pro keyboard attached. The display is a 13-inch PixelSense Flow display with a resolution of 2880 x 1920p (267 PPI) and it has a 3:2 aspect ratio. Bright, sharp and vibrant, it looks good across all…

SPECIFICATIONS Screen sizes 55-inch, 65-inch Panel 3840 x 2160, 100Hz QD-OLED HDR Dolby Vision Sound Acoustic Surface Audio+, Dolby Atmos OS Google TV Connectivity HDMI x4 (HDMI 2.1 x2), USB x2, composite video, digital audio out, Wi-Fi 5, Bluetooth 4.2 Dimensions 1225x714x43mm / 1444x837x43mm Weight 21.2kg / 27kg While Samsung used its Quantum Dot OLED (QD-OLED) debutantes as a stick to aggressively beat regular OLED TVs with, Sony has used its A95Ks to offer a new level of refinement and picture quality aimed squarely at the discerning home cinephile. So is the A95K the best QD-OLED TV to buy right now? QD-OLED differs from regular OLED in that it uses a blue phosphor element to produce each individual pixel’s light, which is then passed through green and red Quantum Dot…

1 SAMSUNG GALAXY S23 ULTRA • From £TBC, samsung.com It’s funny. We’d normally be in the mood to excoriate a company that isn’t pushing the boundaries of its hardware hard, but in the case of the new generation Ultra we’re just not that mad. Much of Samsung’s latest feels eerily similar to the S22, and that’s no bad thing: the S22 Ultra remains an excellent phone. The S23 Ultra is class-leading. To throw the baby out with the bathwater wouldn’t be a sensible thing to do. Besides, it’s hard to focus on what’s similar given the big headline change: Samsung has offered the S23 Ultra a ludicrous Adaptive Pixel 200MP sensor. This isn’t the first time Samsung has produced such a camera, nor is it the first time one has…

HOW WE TEST In T3, we feature only the finest gadgets out there, and we believe that you – our loyal reader – deserve only the best tech in your life. We don’t want you to waste time, and money, on inferior products, and that’s exactly why our Tested section exists. In here you’ll find only the latest and hottest tech. Each product has been handpicked and tested by T3’s experts. We only choose people with specialist knowledge for each test, so you know you’re going to get an outcome based on many years of experience in their respective field. As well as our traditional five-star rating system (right), we also give out awards to particularly exceptional gadgets, using the line-up below - so when you spot one of these,…

You can forget concepts of ‘modernity’. If it’s a pair of expensive over-ear headphones you’re after, your Grado option is going to be a throwback - visually, at least. So what exactly can you expect when you put a lot of money Grado’s way? And can it possibly be worth the way you look when you’re wearing them? The way Grado goes about designing its over-ear headphones, you’d think ‘design’ had been outlawed before the first Beatles album was released. That the GS3000x Statement are rigorously engineered, painstakingly constructed and specified without compromise is not up for question. But ‘design’? The more expensive a specific pair of Grado headphones, the more apparent their, ahem, agricultural appearance becomes. But it’s not all bad. Though the headband itself feels quite meanly padded,…

The Instinct franchise has always been a sandbox for Garmin, but the Crossover Solar’s hybrid smartwatch approach is really pushing the boat out. For starters, it’s a rugged multisport watch with analogue hands!? Even with so many Garmin watches out there, it won’t be hard to remember this one, so if it’s the uniqueness you’re after, this is your watch. From a features point of view, the Garmin Instinct Crossover Solar is identical to the Instinct 2 Solar. The main – or, more like, only – differences are the luminescent analogue hands and chapter ring. The analogue hands are overlaid on the Instinct Crossover’s digital display and automatically move out of the way when you interact with the watch via the navigation buttons. Built to MIL-STD-810 standards, this is a…