Innholdsfortegnelse for August 2021 i T3

DENIM CAP Uniqlo is a brand that is well-known for its paired-back, relaxed yet elegant designs and this understated cap fits that bill perfectly being light in weight but heavy on the style. £14.90, uniqlo.com NUDIE JEANS STEADY EDDIE II DARK CLASSIC Nudie has nailed it with the Steady Eddie. Designed in a dark, indigo hue, the Eddies have a tapered fit, which gives, says Nudie, a “modern silhouette” and they’re made from soft organic stretch denim too. £120, nudiejeans.com CHUCK TAYLOR ALL STAR 70 DENIM HIGH-TOP SNEAKERS Converse is not adverse to releasing new versions of its iconic Chuck Taylor design and we’re fully in favour of this denim iteration that has all the quintessential markers, including the All Star logo and rubber soles. £80, mrporter.com MEN WASHED DENIM…

With its latest sustainable swimsuit concept, the Fastskin 4.0, Speedo looked at the evolution of current swimsuits and combined them with forecasted technological advancements to create a suit that the brand predicts could lead to an improvement of up to 4% across sprint events by 2040. The Fastskin 4.0 is crafted using 3D scanning, AI prediction and bioengineered printing, featuring customisable compression and adaptive buoyancy cells that ‘push what is possible in the pool to a new limit’. The AI involvement doesn’t end there either: a built-in AI monitors vitals and live-coaches athletes mid-race. The smart yarn used for the suit converts the force of the water into energy, which is used to power the AI system. The swimsuit also features an in-built exoskeleton that ‘flexes for explosive power, snap…

Thera-Sea is a wellness retreat, but not the pampering kind. Founded and run by mental health nurse and ocean-lover Katy Griffin, these retreats are designed to diffuse the stresses of modern life via a mixture of wild living, adventurous activities and lifestyle medicine workshops. I joined a group on one of the two-night stays at 7th Rise, a remote location on the banks of the River Fal in Cornwall, to see if getting back to nature could provide the wellness boost we’re all looking for. With outdoor showers and toilets, limited electricity and even more limited phone signal, this was a strictly back-tobasics trip. While screens are allowed, Griffin’s suggestion that we take a break from them was embraced with almost indecent enthusiasm. Thera-Sea retreats run all year round, and…

W’AIR This new device can deep clean denim, delicates and trainers, as well as refreshing clothing. It’s essentially a tank that you fill with water and W’air’s special detergent, attached to a spray gun that projects a fine mist of cleaning fluid over your soon-to-be-refreshed clothes. £199, justwairit.com LG STYLER If all these handheld solutions seem like pussyfooting around to you, try the Styler. This is essentially a wardrobe that fills with scented steam while special hangers waft your clothes about. The result: your most precious clothes are safely refreshed, while bacteria and creases are slain. £1,500, lg.com FISHER & PAYKEL HEAT PUMP DRYER This advanced tumble dryer has a ‘Steam Freshen’ cycle to deodorise and remove creases, leaving clothes ready to wear again without the need for a standard…

APPLE MUSIC Having recently had a massive upgrade, Apple Music now offers both lossless hi-res and Dolby Atmos spatial audio for no extra cost. Apple employs ALAC (Apple Lossless Audio Codec) for its hi-res streams, with a choice of playback options: 16-bit/44.1kHz CD quality Apple Music Lossless or 24-bit/192kHz Hi-Res Lossless. The service also has a growing catalogue of Spatial Audio with Dolby Atmos. The latter can be used on any headphones, or streamed direct from an Apple TV 4K player into an Atmos soundbar or AV system. £9.99/month, £14.99/month family package, apple.com AMAZON MUSIC HD The most affordable of all the hi-res audio streaming services, Amazon Music HD boasts a huge selection of 16-bit CD quality albums, dubbed HD, and a growing number of 24-bit hi-res cuts too, flagged…

NAIM UNITI STAR Offering premium-quality streaming, Naim’s Uniti Star is an all-in-one designed to offer the highest resolution from streaming music sources. Options are plentiful. It has aptX HD Bluetooth, Chromecast built-in, AirPlay 2 compatibility and UPnP network streaming. Physical connectivity is similarly expansive. There’s HDMI with ARC, two digital optical inputs (which support 24bit/96kHz), plus coaxial audio and BNC (which up the ante to 24bit/192kHz). There are also analogue inputs. Those with an extensive CD collection will also appreciate the built-in disc player. Even better, it’ll rip discs to local storage. Power output is also rated at a healthy 2x70W: all you need do is add speakers and you’re good to go. £3,599, naimaudio.com IFI ZEN STREAM Described as a ‘Wi-Fi audio transport’, the Stream is the latest addition…

THULE TEPUI AYER 2 Pitching a tent is easy, but taking it down after the inevitable rain? Urgh. This pop-up rooftop tent for two designed in Sweden takes a few seconds to both pitch and pack-up, with the ladder sliding into place on the roof, too. Best of all, a foam mattress is built in so you’re good to go minutes after arriving at a campsite. £1,499.95, thule.com TILE MATE A lot can go wrong on a road trip, but what you definitely don’t want to be doing is retracing your steps to gather up the belongings you’ve strewn across the country’s budget hotels. Cue Tile Mate, a simple Bluetooth tracker that buzzes when you call it and can be attached to anything from car keys and cameras to luggage…

LOOK CYCLE E-765 OPTIMUM No, electric bikes are not cheating! Weighing just 13.6kg despite being powered by a meaty FAZUA Evation motor hidden within the carbon fibre frame, this gravel e-bike goes up to 20mph and can take on all kinds of rough surfaces. If you want to go retro you can simply remove the battery. It’s available in gloss black and metallic blue. £5,250, lookcycle.com SNUGPAK TRAVELITE SLEEPING MAT FULL If you want to travel light and sleep tight then forget pumping up an airbed and embrace a self-inflating sleeping mat. Weighing just 660g to minimise the weight you’ll have to carry on an overnight hike and 26x15cm when collapsed into its stuff sack, it’s also got a non-slip base to give you a steady sleep wherever you pitch.…

1 ACER CHROMEBOOK SPIN 311 This isn’t super powerful, but it doesn’t need to be. Chrome OS runs great, allowing children to write up homework using Google Docs and browse the internet. You can flip the screen backwards, turning it into a tablet-like device, which is perfect for watching Netflix or using Android apps. £260, acer.com 2 GOOGLE PIXELBOOK GO Chromebooks are brilliant for kids, as they are affordable and easy to use, while also allowing you to set up parental controls to keep them safe. They also aren’t as susceptible to viruses as Windows laptops. The Pixelbook Go is the pinnacle of Chromebook design with a great keyboard, fast performance and 12 hours of battery life. £629, store.google.com 3 MICROSOFT SURFACE GO 2 This is technically a tablet, but…

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,…

TRX’s new Kevlar home gym equipment range (trxtraining.co.uk, prices from £29.95) includes ab sliders, power bags and an ultratough weighted vest, all using Kevlar, a heat-resistant, strong synthetic fibre with a high tensile strength-to-weight ratio. The TRX Kevlar collection is focused on functional training and it can complement bodyweight training, aka calisthenics, extremely well. Great if you like training.…

1 HAKO COLLECTION The homestyle trend for indulgent gold and brass shades will bring a sprinkle of glamour to your home and a look that’s as inviting as it is classy. Rose And Grey take this trend and up it in the style stakes with its trio of Japanese-inspired pieces that includes a side table, a coffee table and a bar. Elegant and functional, this golden-hued threesome are crafted from ash wood and French bamboo mesh with brass attachments. From £365, roseandgrey.co.uk 2 SARZAY MIRROR We couldn’t not include this French-inspired piece. Louis XIV’s love affair with gold gave the French people the opulent Versailles, after all. This mirror also has regal aspirations as it’s named after Sarzay Castle. Made from iron, this mirror is more of a small nod…

THE SIMPSONS Here’s a show you’ve never heard of, right? New to you? Look: Disney+ is superb value for Seasons 3-10 alone. The rest don’t exist and you cannot prove to Guru otherwise. JCS: CRIMINAL PSYCHOLOGY The YouTube algorithm loves this channel, full of long-form interrogations with the tricks of the detective’s trade laid bare. It’s like real-life Columbo. DARK NIGHTS: DEATH METAL A soundtrack album for a DC comic book series that features the likes of Idles, Mastodon, Rise Against and Health. Moody, heavy, nice.…

We’re all familiar with Dolby Atmos cinema sound, which brings fully immersive audio to movies and TV shows. It’s big and exciting and we love it. But it’s also now finding favour with music studios and artists – and the results can be stunning. Tidal, Amazon Music HD and Apple Music all offer spatial audio, mainly powered by Atmos, either as part of their basic tier or a step-up hi-fi subscription tier. Listening to 3D audio is a completely different experience to conventional two-channel stereo. The Dolby Atmos remix of DnB dance track Universal Language by Metrik (on Tidal) locks its rhythm track to the front soundstage, but allows electronic pulses to fly in every direction. It’s like being on the dance floor of an Ibiza beach club, sans the…

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COLEMAN CASTLE PINES 6L BLACKOUT This isn’t Glastonbury, where waking-up at 5am in a sweat with your feet sticking out of the door constitutes a good night’s sleep. If you’re camping with the family in the UK you’re going to need to kip, which in summer in these northern latitudes isn’t always easy. Cue this award-winning tunnel tent, which has black-out bedrooms that block 99% of sunlight. £770, coleman.eu BIOLITE HEADLAMP 750 Hands-free head torches make a lot of sense, but they can weigh heavy on your forehead and most bounce around during activity. This one puts most of the electronics on the rear and weighs a mere 150g, with the tilting front LED reaching a super-bright 750 lumens. Available in green or grey, it lasts up to 50 hours…

1 APPLE MACBOOK AIR The MacBook Air is one of the most iconic thin and light laptops, and the latest model, with Apple’s own M1 chip powering it, shows it’s still a force to be reckoned with – and you can get it for less than £999, making it great for students who want a very fast Apple laptop without spending a fortune. £898, amazon.co.uk 2 ACER SPIN 5 This is another great thin and light 2-in-1 laptop that’s ideal for students. It comes with a stunning touch screen, includes a stylus (great for jotting down notes during lectures) and offers brilliant battery life, all while running Windows 10. And it also allows you to flip the screen backwards to use it like a tablet. £899, acer.co.uk 3 ACER CHROMEBOOK…

The Surface Laptop 4 covers a lot of bases – you could argue it’s one of the best lightweight laptops, best student laptops, and best laptops full stop, and that’s a mark of just how well made this Microsoft machine is. It’s certainly hard to fault the Surface Laptop 4 in terms of its design and visual appeal – the aesthetics here are top-notch. There are only so many ways to design a laptop of course, but that said we do like what Microsoft has done here: there’s a premium fit and finish all round, and that extends to the display hinge, which feels solid and reliable. Our review unit came with a 13.5-inch, 2,256 x 1,504 pixel IPS LCD screen, which is sharp, bright and vibrant – just about…

When you hear the name Huawei, monitors aren’t the first thing that come to mind. Huawei is trying to change that with its new flagship monitor, offering ultra high definition in a modern, minimalist package. A 28.2-inch IPS monitor with a seriously sleek design, the Huawei MateView will fit in well with modern, minimalist decor. A screen-to-body ratio of 94% means the display is almost bezel-free. The aluminium square stand and base are coated in matte silver, giving it a smart and elegant aesthetic. It’s really good looking. Something that makes it a little bit different is the 3:2 aspect ratio, which you don’t see too often. We like it as it means there’s plenty of screen space for working on – you can see your entire project or document…

1 NINTENDO SWITCH OLED VERSION • £310, nintendo.co.uk Long has the world waited for the fabled Switch Pro, but the world should have known that was not the Nintendo way. Nintendo’s console revisions are about iterative improvements: see the long history of the 3DS, the GBA Micro, even the redesigned NES, released at the end of that console’s life. None messed with the formula even slightly; they just made things better. Few drove any meaningful wedge between the haves and have nots – your old hardware was still good. For this second revision of the main-line Switch hardware (the first of which was a quiet battery upgrade, stealthily pushed out in 2019) Nintendo sticks to those guns. It has a better, bigger screen. It introduces a few minor quality-of-life improvements.…

BOWFLEX SELECTTECH 1090i ADJUSTABLE DUMBBELL A household name in home workouts, Bowflex’s SelectTech 1090i Adjustable Dumbbell is a must-have for anyone who is creating a comprehensive home gym but lacks the required space for a big rack of dumbbells. £538, fitness-superstore.co.uk MUSCLESQUAD 32.5KG ADJUSTABLE DUMBBELL This bad boy delivers a workout experience similar to the Bowflex SelectTech 1090i for less cash. MuscleSquad’s monster dumbbell takes up surprisingly little space yet leaves a lot of room for progression and to ‘go heavy’. £200, musclesquad.com POWERBLOCK SPORT 2.4 ADJUSTABLE DUMBBELL PowerBlock Sport 2.4 Adjustable Dumbbell may look like a basic Bowflex rival but as a matter of fact, it’s a surprisingly neat way to replace eight standard dumbbells. Good if you’re tight on space and cash. £199.99, sweatband.com…

Every now and then, a product comes along that is so clever, you are blown away. Even if you subsequently realise that it may not be all that useful for most people. The Bosch FreshUp (£249.99, bosch-home.co.uk) is one such product. The nearest thing we can compare it to is high-tech Febreze, which is a fabric cleaner designed for sofas and curtains but which some people – skanks, let’s call them – use to freshen up their clothes, by masking the smells emanating from them. Bosch FreshUp removes rather than masks smells, however, and the way it does so is ingenious. This handheld device slightly resembles one of those handheld crumb removers that you occasionally still see used to clean tables in restaurants. When you power it up, it creates…

Q JOHN CULMER, TAMWORTH What’s a good running starter kit? A It’s that time of year again, is it? Where readers beg flat-foot plodder GaGu to reveal his top-secret jogging tech? Fine. Start with the motivation. Ignore those lithe, gorgeous, matte people pounding the pavement: focus instead on the glistening chunky dudes trying their best. If they can do it, so can you. You’ll find adequate coaching in the form of a good Couch to 5K app, or a Garmin Connect-compatible tracker, which can help build you a personalised starter program – the Forerunner 45 (£160) is cheap; the Fenix 6 (£530) will carry you further in the, er, long run. In-ear motivation is important, which means good sweat- and jiggle-resistant headphones. GaGu feels it is imperative, if you’re going…

We live in exciting times right now. Not always in a good way, I grant you. Everyone is doing all manner of things they wouldn’t have dreamed of a few years ago. Or at any rate, if they had dreamed of them, they probably wouldn’t have talked about it in public. The good news is that this attitude of ‘to hell with it, let’s do something crazy’ is now permeating the tech world. The even better news is that it’s doing it in a more positive way, that doesn’t involve flirting with extremism, or abusing strangers on the internet. The world of tech, instead, is embracing a new era of innovation. When I say ‘innovation’ here, I don’t mean squeezing a few more megapixels into a phone camera, or making…

1 NETTA ICE MAKER MACHINE If you’re entertaining all summer long, invest in Netta’s Ice Maker, a large capacity ice maker that can turn that home bar into your very own ice kingdom – or rather produce 2kg of ice in just 10 minutes and up to 12kg of ice in a day. It’s really easy to transfer to your drink, too. No more tedious trips to Tesco just to top up the ice bucket. £146, amazon.co.uk 2 VITINNI PARTY COOLER Experienced hosts know that if you are going to have a cooler at your grown-up event, at least have one that doesn’t look like it’s just been used tailgating. Enter Vitinni’s snazzy Party Cooler, a wheeled, electric-powered, brushed stainless steel cooler that keeps your drinks chilled for ages. The…

1 HP ENVY X360 13 If you’re heading back to the office, still working from home, or working flexibly, then a lightweight laptop is a great choice. This offers top-notch performance, a gorgeous 1080p touchscreen and a stylish aluminium body that can handle knocks and bumps while you commute. It’s a 2-in-1 device, so it can be used as a tablet-like device as well. £720, johnlewis.co.uk 2 ASUS ZENBOOK 13 Asus’ ZenBook laptops are supremely stylish thin and light laptops that back some seriously impressive specs as well. This model features a new 11th generation Intel Core i5 processor, 8GB of RAM and a 512GB SSD. Its 13.3-inch screen makes it ideal for commuting, and can be had for well under £999 at the moment, so it’s well worth considering.…

SAMSUNG HW-Q950T As you’ll see on page 76, the staggering sequel to this soundbar has just arrived. So why opt for 2020’s one? In a word: value. Price cuts have made this 9.1.4-channel system very affordable, offering great Dolby Atmos for under £1,000. £999, samsung.com PHILIPS HUE PLAY GRADIENT LIGHTSTRIP Brightest OLED ever not immersive enough? Strap on one of these and it will bathe your rear wall in Ambilight-style colour. The catch? Also required are the HDMI Sync box and Hue Bridge, adding nearly £280 to the price. £159.99, philips-hue.com XBOX SERIES X Given there’s a Panasonic set that finally offers a panoply of gaming features, you’ll want to pair it with a latest-gen console. And what’s better than the sumptuous graphics and high-octane hardware of the most powerful…

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…