Innholdsfortegnelse for May 2021 i T3

AUDIO PRO ADDON LEMON T3+ Audio Pro’s Addon T3+ speaker certainly took some improving. Snappy name aside, it had great sound for a pretty unbeatable price and looked as cute as a button. However, while its audio quality was exceptional, its colour palette was anything but: your options were the ubiquitous black or an unadventurous grey. Fortunately, for those who prefer a speaker with a bit more pizzaz, Audio Pro has just released the limited edition Lemon T3+, which is coloured a zingy lemon inspired by one of Pantone’s two Colours of the Year for 2021, Illuminating Yellow. It’s perfect for chilling by the pool or catching some rays out in the park – particularly thanks to a battery life of up to 30 hours. The audio brand is only…

MIRAFIT M2 ADJUSTABLE FID WEIGHT BENCH This chunky bench offers gym-worthy build quality for under £100. Despite the reasonable price, it still packs a solid frame and boasts premium extras such as the small wheels at the back and grab handle at the front for easy manoeuvrability. £149.95, mirafit.co.uk BOWFLEX 5.1S STOWABLE WEIGHT BENCH Built to last long with heavy-duty commercial construction, the Bowflex 5.1S Stowable Bench has a very high load capacity (272 kg/600lb) and a one-button ‘click, lift and go’ feature that makes it easy to stow the bench away when not in use. £299, fitness-superstore.co.uk ADIDAS ESSENTIAL UTILITY BENCH For those looking to work on muscle definition, as opposed to bulking up, the Adidas Utility Bench is perfect. The comfortable high-density foam padding and multitude of adjustable…

JURA E8 This bean-to-cup coffee machine is almost certainly better than what’s in your actual office. Everything from espresso to cappuccino at the press of a button, with easy cleaning and maintenance to boot! £1,145, jura.com BLUEAIR HEALTHPROTECT 7770I Looking like something out of Star Trek: Discovery, this removes particles and gases from your home’s air. Not only that, it also kills viruses and bacteria, using something called ‘plasma charging’ – again, very Trekkie. £899, blueair.com AUDIO PRO T3+ Audio Pro’s compact Bluetooth speaker was already excellent, but now this limited edition in the ‘Pantone colour of the year’ also rocks ‘the perfect mid-yellow’ finish. Only 500 have been made – and the name is very cool, as well. £180, audiopro.com…

TODD FORD, CIRENCESTER Q Do I go ultrawide or opt for a pair of monitors? A Guru is staring at his mismatched desk asking much the same question, reader; regular disciples will have spotted his drool-soaked yearning for finer screens in his previous editions of these pages. Realistically he is not prepared to give you a definitive answer, given that his own coin keeps landing on its side. But there are factors to consider. Ultrawides trend towards the expensive, even when compared to buying two traditional monitors, and tend not to offer the same pixel density. It’s very, very rare to find anything above a 1440 pixel vertical, and far more common to find a (spit) 1080 pixel equivalent. They also mean twisting your neck more often. Delineating a primary and…

This month I got a very kind email from Disney+, telling me that my year of complimentary streaming, which they had gifted me was coming to an end. There was only one problem with this: I paid for Disney+ about one year ago, and had absolutely no idea they’d ever given me a free account. That’s what you get for not thoroughly emptying your email inbox. Lesson learned. This was an ironic thing to happen in a month where the cost of streaming has suddenly become highly controversial. Netflix, and my good friends at Disney+ themselves, have attracted a ‘backlash’ from the sort of people who habitually use the word ‘backlash’. In the case of Disney it’s because it charged extra for a film it had originally intended to release…

1 CANNONDALE SUPERSIX EVO CARBON DISC ULTEGRA The SuperSix EVO is an astonishingly fast road bike with a drag-reducing, ultra-light carbon frame, HollowGram 35 carbon wheels, Shimano Ultegra hydraulic disc brakes and integrated Cannondale app connectivity. It’s beautiful too. £3,950, cannondale.com 2 FITBEAST RESISTANCE BANDS This set of resistance bands has five colour-coded bands from 10lb (4.5kg) and rising to 50lb (22.7kg), delivering a maximum combined resistance of 150lb (68kg). Fitbeast promises that they’ll last for at least 30,000 stretches and the pack includes a strong door anchor and soft ankle straps. £31, fitbeastsport.com 3 POWERHOOP DELUXE This is no ordinary hula hoop. It has adjustable weight, starting at 1.6kg and rising to 1.9kg thanks to stainless steel inserts; you can get additional weights to take it up to a whopping 2.2kg. Clever…

1 PHILIPS HUE The Hue range just keeps growing. There’s an HDMI splitter that syncs your lighting with the game you’re playing or the film you’re watching, gradient light strips for interesting effects, lamps for indoor and out and, of course, lots and lots of smart bulbs in a variety of sizes and styles. You’ll be amazed how light can transform your home. £various, philips-hue.com 2 ECOHUMAN CLICK & GROW SMART GARDEN The Ecohuman Click & Grow is a smart planter that enables you to grow fresh herbs, fruits and vegetables indoors with almost no effort thanks to its Smart Soil technology and integrated LED lighting. It comes in sizes ranging from a small herb planter to a large, tiered indoor garden. €99, eu.clickandgrow.com 3 NEST PROTECT Nest Protect is a smoke sensor…

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,…

When the Minisforum EliteMini UM700 landed on T3’s reviews pile, we were intrigued. This is a PC that isn’t just microATX small, but tiny small. The UM700’s official dimensions are 128×127×46mm and the whole thing weighs just 500 grams. So we’re talking crazy small, light and portable. Indeed, while testing we’ve even managed to carry this PC around in our pockets. The design of the Minisforum EliteMini UM700 is basic but effective and, at least to our eyes, aesthetically pleasing. It’s a small square silver box that has a vented black base. On the front of the system is a power button, 3.5mm headphone jack, a pair of USB Type-A ports and a single USB Type-C port. The front is also home to a digital mic and reset hole. Move…

DENTS SILVERSTONE TOUCHSCREEN LEATHER DRIVING GLOVES These gloves from Dent are made from butter-soft black leather and have touchscreen-friendly fingertips. They’re modelled after driving styles and have perforations and elasticated trims for comfort when you grip the wheel. £70, mrporter.com SILHOUETTE SUN LITE 4079 The classic-yet-modern full-rim design sets the tone for the sunglasses in the Sun Lite collection. Svelte rims in SPX+ material fit your face to perfection whilst the slender, tapering titanium temples offer total comfort throughout the day. £260, silhouette.com GUCCI WEBBING-TRIMMED SUEDE LOAFERS Evoke the sophistication of the Riviera lifestyle of the 1950s. The classic loafer shape and rich espresso shade are timeless, while the brand’s signature red and green striped trim is a distinctive finishing touch. £330, mrporter.com…

What would be the result of a collaboration between Klipsch, a tech-driven premium audio company, and McLaren, the world-renowned motor racing team? Maybe a Formula 1 car that plays music as it does laps at Silverstone? No, the real answer is sports earbuds, of course – the Klipsch T5 II True Wireless Sport McLaren Edition Earphones (£259, henleyaudio.co.uk), premium headphones engineered for “extreme performance and designed to stay dry and in place through anything life throws at them”. Key features include dust and water-tight earphones and case (both IP67 rated), with a moisture removal system included in the case to ensure the earphones remain dry all the time. As for sound quality, the T5 II True Wireless Sport’s dynamic driver combines high output, neutral sound and deep bass extension. The…

After decades in development hell, the Hesed Chair has arrived just in time to revolutionise your WFH office. It may look like some kind of sex dungeon prop, but the Hesed Chair – and its close but backless relative, the Hesed Stool – is actually a painstakingly researched and designed solution to back pain. We’re all now all too aware of how sitting in unsuitable chairs for prolonged periods can cause spinal distress. Being sprawled at the kitchen table with your laptop, day after day, is not a recipe for health and wellbeing. The Hesed Chair fits very neatly into the trend for getting serious about our home working spaces. A lot of people have started opting for standing desks, which is not a bad idea – your posture is…

Guru’s internal screaming seems to never cease at the moment, harmonious as it is with the wailing of his children, the howling of his cats (did you know that neutered male cats can suffer from a blocked urethra? Guru is now all too aware) and the skirl of the workman’s drill. The horror surrounding him is black and sticky and will not wash off. He is pursuing as many drastic paths to relaxation as possible, and has his eye firmly fixed on the Teenage Engineering OB4 (£599) as one particular escape route. Not just for the retail therapy that comes from buying such a lovely object or the audio mastery which Teenage Engineering has poured upon it, but for the features: the motorised ‘tape’ wheel lets you twiddle around with…

1 SONY BRAVIA XR A90J Sony’s 4K HDR OLED TV features a new processor, the Cognitive Processor XR. It uses AI to analyse and enhance multiple parts of the picture simultaneously. The Bravia also makes sounds such as vocals emanate from the correct part of the screen, and it can automatically upsample audio to 5.1.2 surround. £2,699, sony.co.uk 2 CLEARAUDIO CONCEPT An extraordinary feat of audio engineering, a turntable that delivers a compelling experience from your favourite vinyl. It’s an incredibly transparent, detailed, spacious turntable that doesn’t smother the most delicate details: it gets out of the way so you can enjoy the music as the artist intended. £1,390, clearaudio.de 3 B&O BEOSOUND STAGE The Beosound Stage delivers a thrilling soundtrack to movies and games, and it makes music sound ace too. Its…

1 PROOFVISION 55-INCH AIRE OUTDOOR TV Domestic TVs aren’t great outside, and not just because they’re not weather-resistant: a display that’s bright enough for the front room may struggle to be visible on a bright day outside. This rugged 55-inch Full HD LED has a bright, anti-reflective 1,500cd/m2 display and waterproofing to IP66. £1,995, proofvision.co.uk 2 SONOS MOVE Sonos is the monarch of multi-room, and now you can take your Sonos sound into the great outdoors too. It does everything you’d expect a Sonos speaker to do with added portability, weatherproofing, drop resistance and long battery life, and its Trueplay tech ingeniously adjusts the sound to suit its surroundings. £399, sonos.com 3 MAAR STEEL FIRE PIT ARPE Studio makes some beautiful fire pits, and we particularly love the way the 80cm Maar develops…

1 ASTROHAUS FREEWRITE TRAVELER The Traveler promises to be the ultimate distraction-free writing environment: all it lets you do is write. The e-ink screen means you can go four weeks between charges, the scissor keyboard is comfortable for even long sessions and at 1.6lb it’s lighter than a typical laptop. $429, getfreewrite.com 2 NIKON D850 With 45.7 megapixels, the equivalent ISO range of 32 to 102,400, full-frame 4K video recording and fast data transfer, the Nikon D850 is a superb camera for serious photography. Everything about the Nikon is pretty much perfect, apart from availability: many retailers have had limited stock in recent months. £2,699, nikon.co.uk 3 LOGITECH BRIO STREAM Fancy being a streaming celebrity? The Brio Stream is as essential as a ring light. It streams up to 4K quality or 60fps…

1 TIDAL HIFI Tidal’s premium subscription not only offers a great user experience and vast CD-quality catalogue but also an extensive collection of hi-res ‘Masters’ streams (which you’ll need a streaming amplifier that supports MQA to take advantage of). £19.99/month, tidal.com 2 REGA PLANAR 1 PLUS TURNTABLE With a phono-preamp built in, this classy plug-and-play turntable can hook up to any one of your streaming amplifier’s RCA analogue inputs. It’ll do right by your vinyl, too, spinning your records clearly, cleanly and with a good dose of fun. £329, rega.co.uk 3 BLUETOOTH RECEIVER By nature, integrated streaming amps are typically well furnished, but in prioritising the wealth of networked features on offer they can sometimes overlook Bluetooth. Thankfully, it’s simple to add to the mix with a Bluetooth receiver, which…

The QN95A range is Samsung’s flagship 4K TV for 2021, and it’s both priced and specified accordingly. Most intriguing is the ‘Neo QLED’ designation, which indicates the QN95A is a Mini-LED design, with all of the gains in black levels, contrast and backlighting control this new technology promises. This isn’t the only Mini-LED TV we’ll see this year (we’re expecting them to make a huge splash), but Samsung is first to get it into our hands. It sets one hell of a benchmark, and only makes us more excited about the other Mini-LED models still to come. But with the best OLED TVs getting more affordable all the time, can Mini-LED (in general) and the Samsung QN95A range (in particular) give OLED a run for its money? We’ll find out…

The Gram 17 range has always been extremely light, and extremely powerful. We named the 2020 version “the best 17-inch laptop out there for non-gamers” and the 2021 version improves on that further. But can a laptop be this big and this light, yet still perform well under pressure? When we took our LG Gram 17 out of the box, there were two things we noticed. Firstly, the weight, or more accurately lack of it. At 1.35kg, it just doesn’t feel like it could be a powerful computer, because despite its imposing size, it’s so amazingly light. Secondly, its flatness. This laptop, which is made from a magnesium alloy used in military aircraft, is so thin, and the top so geometrically rectangular (thanks to a ‘hidden hinge’ that makes it…

It’s no secret that the ID.3 is one of the most significant cars in Volkswagen’s history. It is the first vehicle to utilise a new electric platform and will spearhead a multitude of EVs arriving over the next few years. The brand is hailing it as the third era of Volkswagen (hence the 3 in its name), following the phenomenal success of the Beetle and the Golf. It has been designed with one goal in mind: to bring e-mobility to the masses. No pressure at all then… The ID.3 is intended to be unintimidating and simple to operate. As we approached the car with the key in our pocket it automatically unlocked. Then, as soon as we sat behind the wheel both the infotainment and air conditioning turned on. The…

The Adidas Velosamba (£100, adidas.co.uk) is the German sportswear manufacturer’s first city cycling footwear, featuring a two-bolt clip-in system “designed to meet the needs of a new generation of cyclists and clip more people into bikes”. The shoes also feature a recycled nylon insole board for extra stiffness plus a fully integrated rubber cup outsole with a cut-out window for the two-bolt cleat, which is said to be hard-wearing and delivers a “seamless transition for wearers to explore on-foot”.…

CANYONS Young Gun Silver Fox are like the Eagles if the Eagles were two guys and the Eagles didn’t hate each other’s guts. Guru doesn’t know if Young Gun hates Silver Fox’s guts, mind. LIVING ROOM Lawrence are a brother-sister duo from New York City, and their blend of jazzy, funky soul is just stupendous. This album might be from 2018, but don’t let that stop you listening. ISLES Is there a better electronic music duo than Bicep, now that half of Daft Punk has gone and exploded in the desert? GaGu would be hard pressed to think of one. Dreamy post-club beats.…

1 iPAD AIR The Air delivers Pro-level power for a knock-down price, making it the best iPad for most people. Its A14 Bionic processor – Apple’s most advanced ever – makes light work of even the most demanding apps, the screen is superb and if you add the Apple Pencil it’s a great note-taker too. It comes in five attractive colours. £579, apple.com 2 HERMAN MILLER COSM Herman Miller makes the iconic Aeron chair you see in so many startups, but its lesser known task chairs are also beautifully designed and incredibly comfortable. The Cosm has a breathable seat and back, and you can customise the back height, the arm rests and the colour. From £950, hermanmiller.com 3 PORSCHE DESIGN AOC AGON 27 Monitors are many things, but they’re not usually very pretty…

So you’re ready to revive your ol’ speakers and put them at the helm of a streaming system. Congratulations, you won’t regret it. But which streaming amp would make the best suitor? Here we have four recommendations from some of the biggest streaming players in hi-fi across a range of budgets. Each varies in the streaming platform they support and the types of analogue and digital connections they offer, but universally you can expect built-in access to the main music services, multi-room functionality, as well as AirPlay and/or Bluetooth. And they all have a crucial thing in common: peerless performance-per-pound value. SONOS SOLUTION SONOS AMP With built-in access to music streaming services, multi-room functionality both within the Sonos system and via AirPlay 2, and physical connectivity (analogue and HDMI inputs)…

VIA FERRATA 1 OAKLEY SPLIT SHOT SUNNIES One of the hidden secrets of the mountains, via ferrata (iron way) mean you can get into astonishing scenery in safety. But the sun beating down on a reflective south-facing rock face can easily get taxing on the eyes. Even in less extreme circumstances, the Oakley Split Shot’s polarised lenses will protect and improve your vision in difficult light, as well as looking pretty damn awesome into the bargain. A retaining cable makes them almost impossible to drop from the face… or sit on in the cafe afterwards. £192, oakley.com 2 ARC’TERYX ALPHA SL GLOVE Following the steel safety cables and precarious footholds of via ferrata routes may be less perilous than traditional mountain climbing but you’re only as safe as your gear.…

If you were to judge wireless headphones purely on an ‘enjoyment per pound’ basis, the AKG Y400 would come very near the top of the list. In fact, they have a strong claim to a high up spot if you factor most other things in too. Despite being very affordably priced, it doesn’t feel like corners have been cut on sound, and they even manage to be more than a little stylish while they’re at it. AKG has done its utmost to keep both the weight and the cost of the Y400 down to the minimum, but that doesn’t mean they’re in any way lacking where quality of construction is concerned. The memory foam-filled pleather earcups and the brief padding on the inside of the headband make sure the AKGs…

If you’re looking for the very best tech available today, you’ve definitely come to the right place. Best of the Best is the most useful gadget-buying guide you will ever encounter. To create it, we’ve extensively tested the best tech the world has to offer, to bring you rock-solid recommendations for your home life, daily commute and the tech you use all the time. In 54 different categories, we’ve chosen the top four products, so you can choose one that’s just the right mix of features and budget for what you need. These rankings come from real testing by our team of experts – they’re the products we’d choose for ourselves, and we can’t recommend any higher than that. Look for the links above each category that take you to…