Innholdsfortegnelse for April 2021 i Stuff UK

There is absolutely no way to avoid the fact that most of the stuff in Stuff is made from, well, stuff. And some of that stuff is in some way detrimental to the planet. What can we say? Humans are bad. Steps can be taken now. We must stop throwing everything away if we’re going to keep Earth on the straight and narrow, and so a circular economy with reusable, recyclable and renewable products seems the only plausible way forward – welcome to our latest eco-tech special. The idea is to give you a greater idea of where your stuff comes from, what your stuff is made from, how long your stuff will last, and what to do with your stuff when you’re finished with it. We’ve even picked out…

Sony ZV-1 Pitched at vloggers (there’s no viewfinder and no built-in flash, which limits its photo potential), Sony’s pocketable compact offers superb image quality and laser-accurate face-tracking AF. £699 / sony.co.uk Panasonic Lumix G100 At exactly the same price as the new Canon, this vlogger-baiting camera comes with directional mics and a Video Selfie mode that auto-engages when you flip the screen frontwards. £590 / panasonic.co.uk DJI Pocket 2 The perfect walk-and-vlog tool, this tiny gimbal-mounted cam levels itself automatically. It supports live streaming, 8x slo-mo and face-tracking, and can record 4K at 60fps. £340 / dji.com…

YES, PLAYSTATION VR 2 IS COMING… AT SOME POINT If you’re one of the lucky few who’ve already got hold of a PS5, you might be wondering what Sony’s plans are for its VR platform. Well, PSVR 2 is officially happening, with its maker promising “dramatic leaps in performance” and a single-cable connection to the PS5. Don’t expect it this year, though. DISNEY GOES A LITTLE BIT LESS ‘DISNEY’ Do you find Disney+ too wholesome? Are you craving bad language, scary stuff and sexy times? Check out Star, a new grown-up hub added to the streaming service. Classics like Atlanta, The X-Files and 24 sit alongside original content such as the animated adult sitcom Solar Opposites. LEGO SONIC IMMORTALISES THE SPIKY HEDGEHOG No one’s really made it until they have…

Carrot Weather 5 £free (IAP) / Android, iOS Carrot Weather is both stick and, er, carrot. The stick is a new pricing structure – more on that later – and its sassy attitude. The carrot is everything else. It provides forecasts, but will say clouds “contain trace amounts of your own poop” or that “it sucks to be you” when it’s raining. The snark levels can be tailored, but more importantly, so can everything else thanks to a powerful interface editor, letting you quickly get at useful details. The catch is that new pricing structure. A (very) basic version is free, but lacks the interface designer, home-screen widgets, maps and a bunch of other stuff. If you want those things, it’s now a fiver a month or £19.49 per year.…

● Weather on the Way Knowing it’s raining outside your flat isn’t much use when you’re going on a road trip – hence this app, which combines forecasts and route maps. You can peruse temperatures and weather symbols that sit atop a map showing the line of your journey, or use a timeline view that states how far you’ll get before having to close the sunroof. Go ‘Pro’ to set departure times and choose alternative routes. £free or £2.99/m / iOS ● Good to Stargaze Astronomy apps might provide guidance on whether you’ll spot exciting things in the night sky or gloomily spend your time peering at clouds, but Good to Stargaze takes things further. Its various tabs provide at-a-glance views of important stats and how they’re likely to change…

AIAIAI TMA-2 At the risk of turning into Trigger’s broom from Only Fools and Horses, the TMA-2 headphones are designed so the speaker units, earpads, headband and cables can be continually swapped out to suit your style and sound preference. There’s an online configurator for building your perfect cans from scratch, or you can choose an ‘off the shelf’ pair including those tuned for DJs or hi-res home listening. from £130 / aiaiai.audio Adidas Futurecraft.loop Nike’s Space Hippie series might be made from masses of waste materials, but its arch rival’s forthcoming Futurecraft.loop trainers go one step further by being fully recyclable. The glueless design is set for a wider release this spring/summer. £tbc / adidas.co.uk Linn LP12 House of Marley’s Stir It Up turntable wins on affordability and sustainability,…

Apple has disassembly robots called Daisy and Dave (somehow it’s always Dave) working in a lab in Texas to remove components, rare-earth elements and other materials from old gadgets that it can reuse in new devices. Nice, but is this just an expensive marketing ploy? Well, we told you on p36 that America’s top five most responsible companies were all tech firms – step forward HP, Nvidia, Microsoft, Cisco Systems and Qualcomm. Apple comes 44th on that list, which is a big leap from last year’s score of 259th; but order that list by environmental score and it shoots up to seventh. With Samsung now sticking solar panels on its TV remotes (see p29), it does start to feel like the movement has finally begun.…

Spotify HiFi Arriving later this year, Spotify’s new tier is promising CD-quality audio at last… and at a price that should undercut Tidal HiFi in a big way. £14/m (est) / spotify.com Amazon Music HD Amazon goes cheaper than its rivals? Quelle surprise, although it’s £2 more if you’re not already a Prime member. from £12.99/m / amazon.co.uk Tidal HiFi Tidal uses Master Quality Authenticated (MQA) for its top tier, which compresses files to stream then unfolds them again at your end. £19.99/m / tidal.com…

AMAZON FIRE TV CUBE You could shove a Fire TV Stick 4K into the back of your telly for half the price and get most of the same features; but the premium choice is more powerful and lets you bellow across the room to start playing your favourite show. £110 / amazon.co.uk CHROMECAST WITH GOOGLE TV A solid ‘plug it in and forget about it’ option, Google’s dongle is a great buy. Chromecast combines all your streaming apps on a single screen, and you can control it all via a dinky remote with voice capabilities. £60 / store.google.com ROKU STREAMBAR Clever Roku: sticking its streaming smarts in a soundbar means you’ve got one less box to worry about. HD, 4K and HDR content with pleasingly beefy sound is simply sensational…

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Sony WH-1000XM4 £349 / stuff.tv/XM4 With their perfect balance of wearability, active noise-cancelling prowess and audio performance, there just hasn’t been a better package than the Sony XM3s… until now. The XM4s look and sound almost identical, but a range of new features – including Speak-to-Chat, which stops the music when you start talking – aims to lure you away from your current ’phones. If those are the XM3s, it’s tough to justify the upgrade; but it’s going to take something extraordinary to knock Sony off its perch now. Stuff says Not surprisingly given their heritage, these are the best all-round noise-cancelling headphones you can buy Sony WH-1000XM3 £239 / stuff.tv/XM3 Only just outshone by the new XM4s, Sony’s previous flagship over-ears still offer reliable Bluetooth, great active noise-cancellation and…

Sennheiser Ambeo Soundbar £2199 / stuff.tv/AmbeoSoundbar Utterly convincing Dolby Atmos and DTS:X 3D sound, ample power and lots of inputs mean no other soundbar currently available can perform feats with the solidity and confidence of this Sennheiser. The sheer room-filling scale of this device’s sound is remarkable, and it’s hard to think of any content that wouldn’t benefit from being Ambeo’d. That’s why, as well as being the biggest and the most expensive, it’s the best you can buy. Stuff says The Ambeo Soundbar is a big unit but the sound it makes is bigger still Sonos Arc £799 / stuff.tv/SonosArc Don’t expect this soundbar to do everything a multi-speaker Dolby Atmos setup can do, but its up-firing and side-firing drivers give a real sense of scale for an immersively…

Sony PlayStation 5 £450 / stuff.tv/PS5 The PS5 is not a modest upgrade. Its hulking design means it’ll make a bad first impression on some, but spend time playing it and it’ll soon win you over – and then some. This is essentially a high-spec gaming PC for the living room: stupendously powerful, with greatly reduced loading times compared to the PS4. Most last-gen titles will run fine, many with a boost, and the line-up of new games is strong; we just hope developers make use of that fascinating DualSense pad and its haptic feedback trickery. Stuff says Huge power, clever hardware and a guarantee of great games to come make the PS5 hard to resist Nintendo Switch £280 / stuff.tv/NintendoSwitch Nintendo’s console earned a promotion in our list after…

Half-Life: Alyx from £41 / Oculus, Vive, Valve Index Announcing Alyx as not only a ‘midquel’ but a VR exclusive got some Half-Life diehards riled up… but in classic Valve fashion, the end result is utterly brilliant. Alyx succeeds because its universe just happens to be a perfect fit for the format. It’s also larger and much more robust than most VR games, at a meaty 12-15 hours. And though it unfolds at a different kind of cadence to past Half-Life games, it feels like a fully fledged solo campaign and a key part of the franchise narrative. Stuff says Valve’s beloved series returns… and offers one of the strongest arguments to date for VR gaming Beat Saber from £23 / Oculus, Vive, PSVR Gleefully swing your twin lightsabers to…

Lego Mindstorms Robot Inventor £330 / stuff.tv/Mindstorms It’s clear Lego has prioritised immediacy and fun with its latest build-your-own-bots kit, which lets you and/or your little ones create five different coding-controlled mecha-beings. Yes, the set lacks a proper screen and relies on a separate device for programming; but it offers great clarity and scope, plus an attitude that encourages tinkering… whatever your age. Stuff says A fun, versatile set for Lego electronics newcomers and old hands alike Sphero RVR £250 / stuff.tv/SpheroRVR The RVR pulls off the balance between serious coding and knockabout fun perfectly: it’s an all-terrain vehicle that you can throw around without worrying about it breaking, but also has serious programming chops. Stuff says Enough fun to convert any coding-phobe Lego Boost Creative Toolbox £150 / stuff.tv/LegoCreativeToolbox…

We’re surprised Microsoft didn’t launch its latest gaming headset alongside the new Xboxes at the end of last year; but if it does indeed turn out to be ‘the future of gaming’, it’ll be worth the short wait. Designed to be used with those new consoles and the latest Windows PCs, as well as mobile devices presumably running the Game Pass app, the Xbox Wireless Headset promises low latency, lossless audio and great sound. There’s support for various spatial sound standards, which should help you hear those oncoming enemy footsteps, while dual beamforming microphones and voice-isolation tuning should result in perfectly audible swearing when you get shot in the back. Design-wise it’s unmistakably an Xbox headset, black and green with big earcups that Microsoft says are ultra-soft and evenly distribute…

Ah yes, the great outdoors, which we’ve been largely experiencing from the great indoors for the best part of a year. Whether it’s watching the Countryfile team visit deepest Buckinghamshire, gasping at wildlife documentaries narrated by Sir David Attenborough (or Snoop Dogg for that matter) or taking a VR tour of the Okavango Delta, nothing can quite beat the magical experience of watching the sun set over the African plains, the Swiss Alps and Milton Keynes on a giant 8K telly while munching on a drone-delivered pizza and necking a genetically engineered beer. One day, though – and quite soon if BJ, Chris Whitty and co are to be believed – all this will be over, and we’ll be venturing back out into the big bad world to fend off…

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MUST-HAVE MASKS The portable purifier LG PuriCare LG’s mask might make you look like Bane the Batman villain, but you’ll sound less bunged-up given it’s designed to help you breathe easily. With HEPA filters blocking even the finest particles, built-in fans then push clean air in and reduce resistance when you’re exhaling. £110 / lg.com The colourful cover Casetify Reusable Cloth Mask With a sculpted design and a range of colours, these masks are as good-looking as Casetify’s usual phone cases. They’re fitted with air-purifying PM2.5 filters, and for every purchase you make the manufacturer donates a medical-grade mask to health workers. £12 / casetify.com The facial Fitbit AirPop Active+ Halo Every breath you take, every move you make, this sensor-laden smart mask will be watching you. And unlike Sting,…

Think of the current industrial economy as a straight line that starts by dragging precious materials out of the ground, turning them into something valuable we buy, and ends with us throwing it away. The circular economy bends that line into a continuous loop where products or materials are given a new lease of life. The thing is, building in sustainability from the start of a gadget’s life is really the only way. That forms part of a campaign being led by the Circular Design Guide and the Ellen MacArthur Foundation. As it stands, globally discarded e-waste has a potential annual value of $62.5 billion from its precious materials alone, including gold, silver, copper, platinum, tungsten and indium. Madness, isn’t it?…

from £18 / stuff.tv/NanoleafA19 ■ Aside from Philips Hue, Nanoleaf is the only lighting brand that currently offers compatibility with Apple’s privacy-centric HomeKit platform. It has two distinct advantages over its Dutch rival: there’s no need for a separate hub, and the bulbs are way, way cheaper. ■ A budget price doesn’t mean a budget build. The A19 bulbs have an attractive geometric design, they’re well made, and they feel far more reassuring in the hand than an off-the-shelf LED from the DIY store. Packaging has been kept to a minimum too. After all, it’s just a lightbulb. ■ Setup couldn’t be easier either. Pop a bulb in its fitting, hit the light switch, scan a QR code via the HomeKit, Google Home or Nanoleaf app, and watch the two…

from £180 / stuff.tv/BoldLock ■ There’s something amiss with the Bold Smart Lock – it’s arrived without keys. Rivals like the Brisant-Secure Ultion Smart and August Smart Lock include key-entry options, but not here. It’s either your phone or enter a PIN by rotating the knob. ■ Before installing the cylinder lock you have to connect it to Bold’s app. The company has so far refrained from joining any of the main smart home platforms, instead opting to use its own getaway, although integration is planned for later this year. ■ Swapping cylinders is pretty easy and doesn’t necessitate a locksmith. From there the lock senses when you’re approaching and activates itself. This is an unnerving if smooth process, and perhaps the absence of recognised smart home platforms helps to…

Samsung Galaxy Watch3 from £299 / stuff.tv/GW3 Sneaking into the top berth courtesy of a slightly underwhelming Apple Watch update, Samsung’s gorgeous Watch3 is an easy wearable to love. It’s superbly made and very attractive, and the spinning bezel makes it a joy to use. Samsung’s Tizen OS is slick too, with lots of customisation and shortcut options to keep things feeling fresh – made all the better by a class-leading screen. It also has all the fitness skills you’re ever likely to need, with handy auto-tracking features. Stuff says A beautiful and powerful piece of kit that you’ll be proud to have on your wrist Garmin Fenix 6 £414 / stuff.tv/Fenix6 Anyone who’s truly into their fitness will appreciate the Fenix 6’s endless feature list. This is the finest…

Sky TV from £25/month + setup / stuff.tv/SkyTV Already home to the biggest selection of 4K content, from blockbuster films and original dramas to top-flight sport, Sky has adopted a can’t-beat-’em-join-’em approach to streaming by incorporating the likes of Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, Disney+ and BT Sport in its user-friendly interface. It’s also restructured its packages to make them more affordable, while multiroom and mobile options round off the most comprehensive content system money can buy. Stuff says Sky has come out fighting to move with the times and its selection of shows is unrivalled Amazon Fire TV Cube £110 / stuff.tv/FireTVCube The Fire TV interface is easy to use and all the big catch-up services are available via this tidy box – and best of all, Alexa voice control…

At this point it’s becoming easier to point out companies that haven’t introduced a pair of true wireless earbuds. In fact, where are yours, reader? And after impressing us with a series of Bluetooth speakers and headphones, Marshall is now getting in on the act too. As its debut cord-free buds, the Mode IIs have to be good, and Marshall promises the custom-tuned 6mm drivers will deliver big bass, natural mids and crisp treble. There are lots of ticks on the checklist, including touch controls, IPX4 water-resistance, Bluetooth 5.1 and voice assistant support. But as is usually the way with Marshall gear, the standout feature is design. Looking a bit like they were forged from a classic Marshall amp with their rubberised finish and ‘M’ logo, they’re among the best-looking…

£590 (body only) / canon.co.uk Whether your preferred form of expression is TikTok, Twitch, Instagram or YouTube, Canon’s latest mirrorless camera is here to be your creative partner. • I wanna be your vlog Canon hasn’t always been the most enthusiastic of camera makers when it comes to boarding bandwagons. The company dragged its feet for years before releasing a decent mirrorless model, losing ground to Sony and Panasonic in the process. Thankfully, that timid approach appears to have gone out of the window, because the new Canon EOS M50 Mark II is a 24.1MP APS-C mirrorless camera chasing after the trendiest demographic of all: aspiring content creators. It’s so eager to please that it’ll even record vertical videos, all the better to toss straight into your TikTok account. •…

£4300 / hublot.com Mike Dean called – he wants his watch back. Tell that peacocking prat in black he can whistle for it. Geddit? Look, we know nobody grows up wanting to be Michael Oliver rather than Mo Salah; but if you’ve come to terms with the fact that you’re not likely to get signed by Liverpool any time soon (even if recent form suggests they need all the help they can get), wearing one of Hublot’s limited-edition Big Bang e Premier League smartwatches might just be the closest you’ll ever get to living the top-flight dream. It’s certainly a lot cheaper than buying a Lamborghini and painting it gold. So how’s it different from a normal Hublot Big Bang? This Wear OS watch comes with a special Match Mode…

£185,500 / cars.mclaren.com NEWS DASHBOARD Another new McLaren? Do these people ever get any sleep? The Woking elves have pumped out a new model or variant every year since the MP4-12C went on sale in 2011… but unlike its predecessors, the Artura hybrid really is box-fresh: new platform, new powertrain, new infotainment system, new everything. Even the tyres are smart! Yeah, they look nice enough… No, we’re talking about Pirelli Cyber Tyre tech: a chip embedded in the rubber means real-time data can be fed to the car’s stability control systems to optimise performance. It’s all a bit ‘mad professor’ – but as this is a McLaren, you can let the tech do the hard work and just enjoy the scorching ride. How scorching, exactly? Well, the Artura is McLaren’s…

If there’s one thing likely to survive a pandemic-led ‘death of retail’ it’s Swedish flatpack furniture – so who better to explore the future of urban living than Ikea and its research lab, Space10. Their new book, The Ideal City: Exploring Urban Futures, seeks out projects across the world that are striving to create a sustainable utopia. Naturally it’s all sickeningly positive, but it does cover cool topics such as urban farms, closed-loop energy systems and self-sufficient prisons. It’s out now on hardback, RRP £30.…

1 Know your nose Masks should always cover your nose and mouth and fit snugly, without leaving any gaps. Added fabric layers – and filter inserts especially – offer extra protection. 2 Filter your filters Be careful when buying a mask with a valve, as cheaper models often only filter air coming in and not what you blow out – which goes against the whole not-spreading-bugs point. 3 Splat your flats Think about what you’re going to use your UVC sanitizer on. They work best with flat surfaces like phones and kitchen worktops. Germs will continue to lurk anywhere that has crannies. 4 Love your gloves If you’re thinking of buying disposal gloves but the PlantVibes don’t appeal, the best options are made from latex or rubber. They should be…

Plastic waste makes up 85% of the pollution on beaches around the world, and every year the UK alone throws away 300 million kilos of flexible plastics. That means things like supermarket shopping bags, bubblewrap, food packaging and pallet wrapping that are not accepted by councils for recycling. We recycle just 50% of plastic packaging, so what makes brands like Gomi (see left) so important is that they stop flexible plastics being incinerated and releasing poisonous gases into the air. The company has even gone a step further by making its products repairable and recyclable all over again. Fortunately more and more product designers are starting to take this route, but it needs big business to take note.…

Rotofarm Among the many problems with Tom and Barbara’s dream of suburban self-sufficiency in ’70s British sitcom The Good Life was the fact that they had to quit their day jobs… yet still be able to afford a house with a massive garden, and buy a pig. Millennials, there is another way, and it starts with an indoor garden. Inspired by NASA, the Rotofarm rotates 360° around an LED light tube that mimics sunlight every 46 minutes. Why? Because crops hanging upside-down do away with gravity that can restrict growth. Sorry, incels, it’s unlikely to work for male organ enhancement, but the makers do believe vegetables living in net zero gravity grow faster and more plentifully. The system uses biodegradable seed pods made from coconut fibre to grow everything from…

Apple AirPods Max £549 / stuff.tv/AirPodsMax Apple’s first over-ears are a lavish affair with generous 40mm drivers, but come with a comically bizarre carry-case that’s close to useless. While it’s impossible to remove the price tag from the conversation (a PS5 costs less!), the AirPods Max are unsurprisingly excellent, particularly if you’re an iThing devotee. They sound brilliant, noise-cancel as well as pretty anything out there and are wonderfully easy to pick up and use. But they’re not going to pull in the proper audiophile chin-strokers… and they’re not close to being worth £200 more than the rest of the pack. STUFF SAYS Big, heavy, often brilliant, and far too expensive WANDERING BRA Aluminium earcups, memory-foam cushions, a stainless steel headband and an open-knit mesh canopy: they look and feel…

£226 / stuff.tv/G10 ■ The size of a loaf of bread and attractive in a very Scandi way, the G10 won’t go stale anywhere near as quickly as sliced Hovis. In fact, it looks almost incomplete without some sort of trendy cold-brew coffee apparatus next to it. ■ A full suite of small, shiny metal buttons on the brushed aluminium top allows you to skip and pause tracks, adjust the volume, switch sources, mute the mic and summon Google Assistant using your hands instead of your voice – which is, after all, more convenient if you’re standing next to it. ■ There’s still a distinction to be made between smart speakers and wireless speakers with voice control… and this is the latter. With a 3in long-throw woofer, 1.25in Balanced Mode…

THE BASICS ■ Give your box a box Modern tellies have apps, but don’t buy one on that basis. If you’re not happy with the smart features your TV has, a better bet is to plug in a streaming box. You can revel in its feature set… and in the fact that you’ll later be able to switch or upgrade affordably. See the sidebar opposite for our top picks. ■ Set up profiles Living with someone who has different tastes? In a house with kids who probably shouldn’t be watching The End of the F**king World just yet? Set up profiles for services you subscribe to, so one person’s viewing habits don’t impact on others’. Consider additional ‘adults’ and ‘family’ profiles for viewing together. ■ Track habits Streaming and on-demand…

£379 / stuff.tv/IrisFlow ■ Backed to the tune of £340,000 on Indiegogo, the Iris Flow cans have an algorithm that “splits out and increases the phase information sent to the brain”, which Iris says stimulates “active listening”. Sounds like rampant marketing guff, but it’s backed by a Goldsmiths scientific study. ■ The tech is claimed to give music a “heightened live dimension” so it sounds like it’s being performed rather than just played. They certainly feel luxurious enough, with synthetic leather earcups that are soft and thick, a bit like a golden retriever. ■ Iris has opted for physical volume and play/pause buttons rather than touch controls. Less easy to find is the Iris button, which activates the unique algorithm. Press it and a white glow appears beneath the cups.…

Bose QuietComfort Earbuds £250 / stuff.tv/QCE They’re bulkier than the average in-ears and come with a ridiculously large case, but otherwise the QC Earbuds are difficult to knock. The noise-cancelling doesn’t do a disservice to the esteemed QC name, it’s hugely customisable, and the buds themselves sound great: bassier than you might expect, but in a nicely rounded way that retains lots of detail. They’re at the upper end where price is concerned – but if silence is what you seek, you currently won’t find better. Stuff says A fun listen with excellent noise-cancelling skills, these are the best buds to stick in your ears Sony WF-1000XM3 £165 / stuff.tv/WFXM3 The way Sony’s XM3 buds serve up such spectacular sound quality while being truly wireless, while effectively cancelling background noise…

Mi Smart Band 5 £26 / stuff.tv/MiBand5 With no installable apps, Xiaomi’s dinky wearable can’t stack up to smartwatches or reply to notifications, but it can relay alerts and track everything from sleep to workouts. It’s better than the Mi Smart Band 4, thanks to a bigger and brighter screen, smarter software and a charger that’s much less annoying. The slightly reduced battery life really isn’t an issue – and with the addition of activity, stress and menstrual cycle tracking, this is a sub-£30 gift that keeps giving. Stuff says Fantastic value and decent features make this an easy fitness tracker to recommend Peloton Bike+ £2295 + £39/m / stuff.tv/PelPlus A fitness phenomenon based around a connected bike with a Full HD touchscreen that streams live and on-demand training sessions…

Apple iPad Air (2020) from £579 / stuff.tv/iPadAir The 4th-generation iPad Air ushers in big changes. It looks the spit of an 11in iPad Pro (at least from the front), and supports Apple’s snazzy Magic Keyboard and second-gen Pencil… and the A14 chip makes it blazingly fast, leaving its predecessor in the dust. Sure, there are compromises, but none are critical. So if you were considering an iPad Pro but don’t care about audio apps in portrait, a 12.9in display or more advanced cameras, save yourself a couple of hundred quid and buy the new Air instead. Stuff says Pointing to the iPad’s future rather than its past, this is a meaningful, impressive, powerful Air update Apple iPad Pro from £769 / stuff.tv/iPadPro With its huge and super-slick 120Hz Liquid…

VanMoof S3 £1798 / stuff.tv/VanMoofS3 VanMoof’s second-gen S3 (or X3 if you’re under 5ft 8in) looks like a normal bike, rides like a normal bike and, crucially, doesn’t cost a ridiculous amount of cash. The chunky 50mm tyres, slightly swooped bars and upright riding position all combine to make it super-comfy, and 30 miles with the power assistance set to level three (out of four) left us completely sweat-free with 20% still in the tank. Plus, for such a looker, the S3 has a lot of tech hidden away to make it a less than ideal target for thieves. Stuff says This smart-looking e-bike offers a great ride, great features and some genuinely useful security smarts Cowboy 3 £1990 / stuff.tv/Cowboy3 The 43-mile range, app-controlled lights, smart tracking and anti-theft…