Innholdsfortegnelse for June 2019 i Stuff UK

When it comes to fitness, tech has been a lifesaver for me. Eight years ago, I entered a competition using the then-nascent Kinect camera and a video game to lose weight and get fit. I lost eight kilos in a month, started cycling to work and even entered the London Marathon. There’s something about being able to measure your progress, analyse the data and then challenge your friends that can make a HIIT workout, dare I say it, fun. OK, that’s a stretch, but seeing your friend heading out for a bike ride can be some motivation to get you out of bed on a Saturday morning rather than marathoning Game of Thrones. Thankfully, the days of strapping a plus-sized phone to your arm to track your running route and…

Acer ConceptD 9 from €4999 / acer.com Professional 3D modellers, video editors, illustrators and photographers don’t have a huge range of choice when it comes to portable PCs, especially if they want something as powerful as a desktop to take out on the road. Acer wants to change all that with its absurdly powerful ConceptD 9. • Watch your tone The star of this particular show is undoubtedly the 17.3in 3840x2160 screen, mounted on a tilting Ezel Aero Hinge accommodating various arrangements. You can lay it flat, bring it forward over the keyboard like an easel or push it back like a regular notebook display. Included is a Wacom EMR stylus allowing illustrators, animators and designers to do their thing with 4096 levels of pressure-sensitivity, while the screen itself is…

£40,000 approx (concept) / genesis.com Phil Collins has given up music and is making cars now? Tragically, no. This Genesis is an upmarket offshoot of Hyundai. It’s already doing big numbers in the US and Asia, but is planning to hit the UK in a year or two – and a quirky compact electric vehicle for the city might be just the ticket to win us Brits over. Wait, city cars – you mean those dinky budget boxes on wheels? Sort of, yeah. Or at least they used to be. But now that EVs are taking over, and manufacturers don’t have to make room for bulky petrol engines, they’re getting a whole lot more exciting. Genesis reckons high-end luxury is what drivers want in 2019, and the Mint Concept was…

Apple has done a fine job pretty much since day one of demonstrating that the iPad is something you can use to create with, rather than merely consume. Apps such as Ulysses, Procreate, Affinity Designer and Korg Gadget subsequently obliterated any notion that it was merely for watching videos and playing the odd game. The iPad Mini, though, remained in that lesser role – mainly because of its diminutive stature. Has that changed with the latest iteration? At first glance, possibly not. After all, it’s no revolution in industrial design. The new iPad Mini echoes its predecessor, using a frame that looked old-hat years ago. The chunky bezels dominate a little too much, especially with a white frame. Next to an iPad Pro, it looks positively archaic. The Mini remains…

WORKOUT WUNDERKIT FIIT HR A home fitness gadget you’ll actually use instead of leaving it as a doorstop, Fiit’s rep-counting heart-rate monitor and interactive video-guided sweat sessions let you induce DOMs wherever and whenever the motivation grabs you. Sessions are recommended for you based on your fitness level and goals, so fret not, beginners. £45 for 3 months, £120/yr including Fiit HR belt / fiit.tv JAXJOX KETTLEBELL CONNECT A boot camp beasting favourite, swinging a bell boosts aerobic capacity while improving core strength and dynamic balance. This spacesaving smart kettlebell uses clever motion sensors to automatically track reps, sets and power, and guides you through video workouts on your smartphone. £330 / jaxjox.co.uk POLAR VANTAGE M The multi-sport Vantage M is a serious fitness-tracking watch. It features Polar’s most advanced…

HOKA ONE ONE SKY ARKALI Price £155 / hokaoneone.eu The Sky Arkali doesn’t look like any other walking boot we’ve ever seen – and we’re not just talking about the not-very-traditional ‘go-faster’ yellow and blue styling. That’s because they riff off Hoka One One’s unique ‘maximalist’ running shoe design, to create a new shape of hiking boot with an oversized heel. And it works, delivering an extra-plush ride. The abundant underfoot cushioning means all-day comfort on the trail, particularly noticeable when you’re donkeying along with a big heavy backpack. The uppers also hug the foot like a sock and a strap around the heel ensures a perfect fit. Although they’re not waterproof – these are summer hikers – the abrasion-resistant uppers handle dew and light rain with ease, while the…

• Easy Voice Recorder Pro Your Android blower might well come with a voice memo app. If not, try this one. It’s simple and reliable, records to a wide range of formats, and supports Android Wear. When you’re done, clips can be trimmed and silences skipped. Also, recordings can be auto-shared to cloud storage. Bit of a skinflint? There’s a free version. £3.49 / Android • Voice Memos When you’re listening back to voice recordings – of yourself or someone else – you want to get to the best bits quickly. That’s the entire point of Voice Memos. During recording, this otherwise sparse app lets you prod a button to add a bookmark. This means you can later jump to relevant points in your audio file with the minimum of…

FIRST ADD THESE… ONE GOPOLE CHOMPS Forget setting up fiddly clamps: there’s an easier way to capture those ad-hoc bursts of extreme sporting excellence. Simply stick this gum shield-cum-handsfree GoPro mount in your cakehole, hit record and go crazy. The unique design allows you to breath through the mouthpiece, meaning water-based activities are totally getting recorded. £20 / hobbymounts.co.uk TWO ANKER POWERCORE 20100 POWERBANK GoPro batteries are tiny, and have a frustratingly stingy running time. Luckily, the Hero7 Black features a USB-C input, which means you can plug it into a powerbank and run off portable energy reserves. This gargantuan Anker PowerCore charges an iPhone 8 almost seven times over. £33 / amazon.co.uk THREE GOPRO FETCH OK, so there are a million and one mounts we could have chosen, but…

Nest Outdoor IQ What’s the story? The standard Nest IQ is a nifty bit of face-recognising kit, but only works indoors. So guess what the IQ Outdoor does? This tamper-resistant HD device with a 4K sensor detects intruders using a 130° view, but you will need to subscribe to the Nest Aware service (from £4/month) for intelligent face recognition and video storage. Is it any good? The IQ also has automatic tracking, black-and-white night vision, a triple mic array and speaker, plus Alexa and Google Assistant smarts. It’s not cheap, but even with a Nest Aware subscription this flagship patio cam is £70 less than the Arlo Ultra. No need for a hub, but the IQ is not wireless: instead a 25ft USB-C lead goes from camera to indoor adaptor.…

LG PK7 Price £99 / lg.com Solidly built and better-looking than the Sony or Kitsound options, the LG PK7 is party-ready thanks to an ‘X’ frame that protects it from bumps, an IPX5 rating for surviving splashes of sloshed sangria, and a 22-hour battery life that’ll keep it going longer than you can. And the impressive design avoids looking garish, despite the built-in pyrotechnics. Yes, built-in lighting is an acquired taste for sure, but the PK7’s coloured LEDs are undeniably fun and bop along happily to the beat. Mind, they’re better-suited to a bedroom or patio party than a hall, and even then the space will need to be pretty dark before the lights hold your attention for more than a fleeting second. While you might be able to ignore…

THE BASICS ▪ Set things up These days, every time you venture near YouTube it demands you buy YouTube Premium. Eventually, you’re going to give in, just to shut the thing up. Sign up in a browser or Android (not in the iOS app), and it’ll set you back £11.99 a month… unless you’re a student, in which case you’re charged £6.99 but presumably get way more videos about instant noodles. Families? £17.99 for up to six, as long as they’re all 13+. ▪ Press a button On mobile, YouTube changes a bit once you go premium. The ads vanish – forever. Given that they take up half the screen in some cases, that’s a good thing. You also get two large buttons towards the top of the screen: Originals…

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. A mobile game we’d happily recommend if it cost a fiver – for nowt, it’s an absurdly generous bargain Euclidean Skies £4.99 / iOS This is a challenging mobile game that pulls off quite the achievement in managing…

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. 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. £15 / 8bitdo.com • TIPS & TRICKS • Chickens killed you in Zelda again?…

Don’t you just hate people who use their phones in the cinema? Amen to that. Have you noticed how they’re usually the same people who eat the noisiest snacks and feel the need to offer their own commentary on everything happening on the screen? Those morons will be first against the wall when Stuff’s in charge. Only thing is, the SoundFi: At The Movies app is only useful in cinemas – so we’ll have to make an exception for those who can prove they’re using it rather than messaging their WhatsApp group about what flavour vape they’re going to try next. Hmm, fizzy cola or green apple, probably. Don’t think you’re safe just because you’re part of an imagined conversation on the last page of a gadget magazine – you’ll…

I LISTENED TO B&W’S WIRELESS LAMPSHADE My ears were treated to a musical banquet when I spent the morning with Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong, St Vincent, Led Zeppelin and Neil Young. At least it felt like they were there, trapped inside B&W’s new Formation speaker range, where the company has finally entered the world of wireless. While there’s no voice control just yet, the sound quality is sublime… and so you should expect it to be when the cheapest model, The Wedge, is £899. Natalya Paul, Online Editor I LOST A WEEK IN A PILE OF CARDBOARD Nintendo’s Labo VR kit (reviewed on page 74) might not be the most high-end virtual reality experience you can get, but it’s the only one that lets you hold a cardboard elephant…

£16,100 / bang-olufsen.com Could someone please get those admittedly handsome wooden slabs out of the way of the telly? Wait just a second. We’re happy to report that B&O’s latest attempt to revolutionise television design doesn’t involve permanently obstructing your view of EastEnders. Rather, what you’re looking at is the Beovision Harmony’s meticulously crafted oak and aluminum fronts as they fan out, forming a kind of consumer electronics Wu-Tang symbol before resting underneath the screen when you want to watch something. Sounds fancy. Oh it is. When you’re not using it, the wafer-thin screen hovers just above floor level, partially covered by the two panels. The idea is that your living room won’t appear quite so dominated by a monolithic black rectangle. Switch it on and the wings open out…

NEXT ISSUE July More slinky new TVs On sale 13/6/19 25th JUDGMENT Anyone intrigued by Sega’s Yakuza series but increasingly confused about what game is best to jump in on might want to check out Judgment. It’s made by the same people, set in the same fictional Tokyo district of Kamurocho, and still has you punching people in the face. But this is a totally standalone tale. You play a private detective investigating a serial murder case. 21st TOY TRIBUTE Recycling of unused voice recordings means the late Don Rickles will still star as Mr Potato Head in the new film. TOY STORY 4 The risky fourth film in Pixar’s most important series follows what is arguably the best trilogy in movie history. No pressure. What do we know? Well,…

ZWIFT CYCLING AND RUNNING Price £12.99/month / zwift.com Two truths all triathletes will recognise: you can’t always (be arsed to) train outdoors, but busting a gut indoors on the turbo trainer can be a special kind of torture. Zwift’s virtual training setup removes some of the monotony, transforming your time in the pain cave into something a whole lot more social, gamified and fun. Setup is mercifully quick and easy – you just hook your bike and turbo up to a TV, tablet or smartphone. The bigger the screen the better the experience, and from there you can follow structured plans, tackle real-time training sessions or just spin your wheels on social rides, all on the virtual roads of Watopia and London. You can also arrange real-time meets with fellow…

TAKE THE SMOOTH WITH THE ROUGH INSTA360 ONE X If you like to take a ‘capture everything, crop later’ approach, the pocket-friendly 155g One X is the camera for you. You get full auto-stitched 360° videos and photos with some clever ultra-slow-mo and time-lapse modes, and you can even add a selfie stick that magically vanishes from your footage. And the image stabilisation is right up there with GoPro’s best. £440 / insta360.com ZHIYUN SMOOTH 4 GIMBAL Want to smooth out bumpy smartphone footage? It’s worth investing in a gimbal to give your adventure flicks a more professional edge. The Zhiyun shoots for 12 hours solid, charges your phone while it’s at it and captures clever shots including time-lapse and moving time-lapse. £109 / zhiyun-tech.com NIKON W300 An all-weather compact…

Samsung QE65Q90R What’s the story? It’s been said that Samsung only pursued quantum-dot TVs because it couldn’t bring itself to use OLED panels made by South Korean rival LG. Battling inferior viewing angles, black depths and screen slimness, it’s stuck to its guns – and with the help of an almighty R&D budget, has unveiled a 2019 line-up of QLED TVs that could prove wrong everyone who ever wrote the tech off. Is it any good? Oh yes. £3799 is an awful lot of dough, but the QE65Q90R might just be the best telly Samsung has ever built. Using backlit LCD tech, the screen was never going to be as slim as a self-lighting OLED, but build quality is exceptional, and the One Connect box takes connections away from the…

URBANEARS RALIS Price from £170 / urbanears.com Available in ‘mist grey’, ‘haute red’ or ‘slate blue’, the latest launch from Urbanears is an absolutely gorgeous piece of Swedish minimalist design that’s both eyecatching and understated. It’s one of those products guaranteed to pop up in music videos and swish interior design magazines, and chimes in perfectly with the brand’s other streaming speakers. Although not bursting at the seams with features, the Ralis has an impressive 20-hour battery life – and you can also siphon its juice to your phone via USB if your battery needs a boost. It has a lovely fabric carry handle and an IPX2 rating, which means the odd spot of rain won’t harm it but you don’t want to be leaving it out overnight. Bluetooth 5.0…

£290 / stuff.tv/EchoLinkAmp ▪ Yep, Amazon really has made an old-school hi-fi amplifier… albeit one with Alexa voice control and multiroom capabilities. It’s a small, black, unbranded box, with just a volume control and 3.5mm headphone socket on its fascia. ▪ On the inside, there’s Class D amplification rated at 60 Watts per channel into a standard 8-ohm speaker load. The onboard DAC is 24-bit/192kHz-capable, so hi-res audio is on the menu, and there’s Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connectivity as well as an array of hardware inputs round the back. ▪ The whole point of this amp is to bring a bit of Alexa-controlled functionality to an elderly concept, so it has to be simple to use… and it is. Using the Alexa app to get the device on your home…

COBRA KAI If you’ve been waiting for more Karate Kid since the 2010 remake (or even the end of the original series, released way back in 1989 – in which case, well done, patient you), this series finds arch rivals Daniel LaRusso and Johnny Lawrence reuniting after more than 30 years. IMPULSE A cheery beginning to this sci-fi series finds 16-year-old Henrietta being assaulted by a jock. Fortunately, she discovers she can teleport – inadvertently crushing him in the process. This is not so much a superhero origins series as a proper character drama. F2 FINDING FOOTBALL This football world tour takes in the ancient game of kemari, a Hollywood shootout, keepy-uppy on a Brazilian beach and a kickabout in Icelandic ice caves. Not quite jumpers for goalposts, then.…

Huawei P30 Pro from £899 / stuff.tv/P30Pro Huawei’s latest superphone sets a stratospheric benchmark for camera power, with no cost to overall performance. Everything about the design is top-notch, with only screen sharpness failing to hit the very highest marks – at least by Huawei’s own giddy standards. But it’s those oh-so-clever rear camera lenses that really set the P30 Pro apart. If you think photography is the most important skill you need from your next phone, this is the one to get. Heaps of power – and the best smartphone camera you can buy • NOW ADD THIS Huawei Smart View Flip Cover This case has a transparent window that will display your P30 Pro’s notifications, time and weather. £16.68 / amazon.co.uk • TIPS & TRICKS •Use Huawei’s OneHop…

Panasonic FZ802B from £1399 / stuff.tv/FZ802B As 4K TV prices continue to tumble, there’s been a mad dash from manufacturers to convince the world their OLED panel looks better than everyone else’s. So which one really does? This Panasonic, showcasing one of the best 4K HDR displays on the market for a pretty affordable price. OK, so the design looks plain and the lack of Dolby Vision might surprise a few, but when the picture looks so detailed and natural, who really gives a damn? You won’t find a better OLED for the money than this talented Panasonic • NOW ADD THIS Sky Q Once you’ve got a 4K TV, you’ll want access to the best 4K content. Sky Q is a good bet for watching and recording all your…

Sky Q from £20 + £22/month / stuff.tv/SkyQ 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 in stunning Ultra HD, along with the new addition of Netflix, 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. You’ll have to cough up for a subscription, but this is the best box for watching both live and recorded shows Amazon Fire TV Stick 4K £50 / stuff.tv/FireStick4K Amazon’s latest streaming stick offers…

Superhot VR from £16 / Oculus Rift, Vive, PSVR Superhot has found its home in VR – just watch those slow-mo bullets skim the tip of your nose. The enemy will only move when you do, so time your attacks to perfection and dodge, duck and dive to survive. There’s something really cool about hiding behind a desk before blitzing your opponents with streams of bullets as if you were starring in your very own Matrix movie. And with Superhot soon arriving on PSVR, more players will be able to experience this wonderfully action-packed title. If you have a VR headset, this 2-in-1 puzzler and shooter should be right at the top of your shopping list Farpoint £16 (£170 with Aim Controller) / PSVR If it weren’t in VR, Farpoint…

ROLANDO: ROYAL EDITION £2.99 / iOS It’s weird to think you can be nostalgic for iPhone games. But just as people hanker after lost C64 and SNES classics, so too are now-missing iOS hits yearned for. GameClub.io is busily resurrecting a handful of relatively ancient iOS hits, but HandCircus has remastered arguably the most fondly remembered: Rolando, the title that convinced people iPhones could do proper games. Despite the odd whiff of LocoRoco, directing selected rotund characters by tilting your device feels as good as ever; and Rolando: Royal Edition adds an eye-popping graphical upgrade to bring everything bang up to date.…

INDIE-GOGO Turtle network solution SPEAKER BACKPACK The clue’s in the name with this combination of speaker and backpack. The backpack bit gives you 12 litres of space – enough for a 15in notebook, a water bottle and various other bits. Hidden compartments keep your gear safe and the firm shell with nylon exterior offers protection, a soft-touch waterproof surface and the means to make you look a bit like a futuristic turtle. As for audio, integrated 5W speakers blast your favourite tunes over Bluetooth, and you can twiddle a power/volume dial with a single finger. It’ll act as a power bank for your phone too. £99 / bit.ly/stealthlabshq KICK-STARTER Buzz flight gear METAFLY Fed up hurling quadcopter drones into the air? MetaFly swaps rotors for wings, coming across like a…

A time-traveller from ancient times would surely be staggered by the sight of people zipping about on electric scooters. In fact, even a time-traveller from last July might find it a little strange – but as every Stuff reader knows, things move quickly in the world of tech. Maybe in another couple of years we’ll all be using e-scooters like the Xiaomi M365 to pick up our protein pills from the local space-pod docking station. If you don’t fancy waiting for that, here’s your chance to get ahead of the gadget game by winning not one but two Xiaomi M365s, worth £399 each, courtesy of Pure Scooters. This month’s competition winner also gets £202 worth of accessories – take your pick from Pure Scooters’ wide range of helmets, lights, locks…

YETI FEVER ZERO SLEEPING BAG Price £350 / yetiworld.com Micro adventures – where you escape the urban sprawl for a night to whatever wilds you can reach rapidly – are a great way for time-poor adventurers to get a quick outdoor fix. But if you’re hitting the wilderness straight from the office, you need to pack compact and light, something most sleeping bags don’t do well. The Fever isn’t most sleeping bags. Made from the world’s lightest down, at just 280g it takes up less space and weight than a stubby of fireside IPA. When you hit the sack, the Next To Nothing 2.0 100% nylon outer shell and lining feel like slipping into a giant silk onesie, but for something so light it offers good insulation and warmth. It…

HEART AND SOLE NIKE VAPORFLY NEXT% The successor to Nike’s fastest ever shoe, the popular 4%, this one comes with 15% more Zoom X foam. A new lighter Vaporweave upper soaks up 10% less water or sweat than Flyknit, saving yet more weight. Offset lacing reduces pressure on the top of the foot and cut-back heel cushioning creates featherlight comfort. £240 / nike.com HOKA ONE ONE TORRENT Designed for long off-road runs, the Torrent trail racers deliver cushioning, stability and agility over tricky terrain. There’s a rocker plate hidden in the midsole that helps propel you forward more efficiently, while aggressive outsole lugs provide great traction even on tricky mountain descents. €96 / hokaoneone.eu ASICS METARIDE Heel strikers listen up: these shoes, with their innovative curved sole made from layers…

HARDY VESSELS The campsite quencher Patagonia Klean Kanteen Topped with renewable bamboo, the KK is so shiny you’re sure to catch your self-righteous expression before anyone else does, giving you a chance to disguise it as a sneeze and refrain from further eye-contact. BPA-free, no paint, no plastic, and 100% leak-proof so no spillages either. £32 / patagonia.com The rugged rider Coloral Original Cycling Bottle Bike nut? Coloral’s durable canteen is designed to slip into your frame cage, and definitely won’t leave you oily around the mouth. Better yet, 10% of profits from each cork-bottomed bottle go to Re-Cycle, a two-wheeled charity that rescues bikes for use in rural Africa. £35 / coloral.cc The Swiss snuggler Sigg Stella The latest flask from Swiss makers Sigg is crafted from 30% recycled…

MIKE DROP To tune our ears we enlisted the help of Mike Kintish, accomplished songwriter, producer, composer and one half of pop duo The Yeah You’s. Mike has worked with the likes of Paloma Faith, Take That, James Arthur, Armin van Buuren and Rudimental. To test each speaker, he chose a playlist of pop, hip-hop and two songs he co-wrote: I Could Get Used to This by Becky Hills and DJ Weiss, and Why Her Not Me by Grace Carter. JBL EXTREME 2 Price £234 / jbl.com Stretching the definition of ‘portable’ to the absolute limit, the Xtreme 2 is roughly the size (and shape) of a rugby ball; but at 2.4kg you won’t want to be going up for it in a line-out. It does, however, come with a…

LOEWE KLANG M1 Price £169/loewe.tv We generally associate high-end German brand Loewe with extremely stylish, extremely expensive TVs, but the Klang M1 is a Bluetooth speaker with a far more attainable price tag. It’s built like a classy compact camera, complete with leather strap and a precision-milled steel casing (choose from silver, graphite grey or rose gold) with elegant buttons to match. It’s also beautifully simple to use, with instant pairing and the ability to skip tracks. There’s also a 3.5mm input for the wired-o-philes and a built-in mic allows for hands-free calling. And if you find someone else with their own M1, you can pair them in stereo mode. Onboard controls might seem a bit needless with smartphone streaming, but given the amount of time you’ll be cradling this…

£599 / stuff.tv/DysonV11 ▪ The birth of the V10 saw the end of the corded vac for Dyson… and the V11 proves there’s no going back. But how do you improve on dust-slurping perfection? By adding what no one thought they needed – an LED screen – plus tech that no one thought possible, allowing it to sense surface textures and adjust power accordingly. ▪ Dyson’s also thrown in a new motor, a cleaner head twice as powerful as its predecessor, and a Boost mode so intense you might swallow up your hamster. ▪ If you loved the V10 for its cool and dynamic design, the V11 will not disappoint. It’s put on a little bit of weight, so it’s just over 3kg, but that’s down to its bigger battery.…

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. Smaller and cheaper than the already excellent Playbar, and packed full of smarts Q Acoustics Media 4 £189 / stuff.tv/Media4 The justifiably multi-award-winning Media 4 combines subtle detail with precise surround effects to be one of the best-sounding and best-value soundbars…

Sony PlayStation 4 Pro £325 / 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. The system for console gamers who have a 4K TV and want the best catalogue of games on offer Nintendo Switch £279 / stuff.tv/NintendoSwitch Nintendo’s console earned a promotion in our list after it impressed us with…

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 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. £249 / manfrotto.co.uk • TIPS & TRICKS • Pre-shot ES mode…

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…