Stuff UKの September 2016 の目次

Die Hard. Pizza. Southampton’s FA Cup-winning team of 1976. Disparate as these things all might seem, they share one common trait: indisputable greatness. And as of this month, you can add the OnePlus 3 to that list. Now I know what you’re thinking, ‘Best phone ever? Really?’ But consider for a moment that it costs just £330, while giving you pretty much all the immense power of a Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge. It’d be a great phone at any price, but at this one it’s unbeatable. Now that’s a gadget worth shouting about. So we’ve done just that, and gathered up 99 more game-changing offerings into one giant compendium called the Lust List – see p39. Trust me, you’re going to want to own each and every one of them.…

As tech-heads, we’ve taken up tools against a sea of objects, including hi-fis, desktop PCs and cars. Some were improved, some overheated dramatically and melted, everyone survived. But that’s ‘modding’, shortened from ‘modifying’. What Lenovo has done here, by introducing several magnetic backpacks for its new Moto Z5 phone and calling them ‘Moto Mods’, is taken from the less sexy concept of ‘modular’. Bah. Marketing jiggery notwithstanding, the Moto Z (and toughened Moto Z Force) look the business: slim, metal, 5.5in Quad HD display and Snapdragon 820 processing. And the attachable, ahem, ‘mods’ instantly add a micro-projector, JBL speakers or battery pack without demanding a reboot like the, ahem, modular LG G5. As hot as… our ‘modded’ Tamiyas £tba / motorola.co.uk…

1 Roku £free / iOS, Android, Windows There’s a new Roku app for Windows 10, so now you can control your TV apps via your laptop or tablet-hybrid thing. You can also stream photos and videos from your own library. 2 Google Fit £free / Android Are you still not fit? We finished getting fit ages ago. Had we not, though, we’d be liking Fit’s new Home view that shows all your stats – steps, calories, distance, active time – in one sorrowful glance. 3 Amazon Kindle £free / iOS, Android Despite E Ink display upgrades and powerful Kindle apps, paper is still better for flicking through a book. Or is it? Yes, it is. But Kindle’s new Page Flip function brings a handy overview capability. 4 Final Fantasy VII…

1 Salomon S-Lab Sense 5 Ultra Lighter than hummingbird tears and no less fragrant, these are designed for chaps who run up mountains in nowt but skimpy shorts and a vest. For fun. £145 / salomon.com 2 Vaude Moab AM Off-road bikers need a slick sole for grippy pedals but a grippy sole for pushing up mud-slicked hills. It’s a dichotomy that Vaude has smashed, while also nailing its pledge on recycled materials. £95 / vaude.com 3 DZR Mechanic Stylish up top but stiff and racy underneath. Does that sound like a ‘mechanic’ to you? The name alludes to the cycling theme of these cleat-packing disco slippers. £100 / alwaysriding.co.uk 4 Saucony Ride 9 Behold the slime-green sass of Saucony’s newest Ride, the selection of savvy sprinters… now with full-length…

FOR ADMIN ADDICTS Human Resource Machine From the team behind Little Inferno comes this strange puzzler set in a drab, dystopian world. For each challenge you use programming concepts to ‘automate’ a worker drone, sorting numbers according to strict sets of rules. Over time, the rules become increasingly complex and your little worker ages, wondering what the point of it all is. There’s heart and smarts at the core, even if the narrative is rather slight. Stuff says £3.99 / iOS FOR MAC MANIACS BitCam We’ve heard people saying they wished their iPhone was more like a Mac, but they probably didn’t mean one from 1984. That’s BitCam’s lot: having your phone see the world through the lens of a Mac Plus, in all its monochrome, lo-fi glory. This app…

Wait. You didn’t think Google would go about this hybrid business the same way as everyone else, did you? The simplest device on test here is essentially a supercharged tablet that you can buy an optional keyboard for. Rather than running on Chrome OS for desktops (the software you’ll find on a Chromebook), the Pixel C runs Android 6.0. You know, the interface every Nexus, Samsung and LG smartphone uses. Why? Apps. Whether you want to catch up on last night’s TV, whizz through a Google Doc on your daily commute or live out your most explosive Goat Simulator fantasies, this hybrid has a wealth of potential downloads available straight out of the box. As you’d expect, Google’s own offerings are particularly slick. This emphasis on ease of use extends…

The Surface Book is a really strange product for Microsoft to make. Why? Well, you won’t want to buy one just out of obligation. In fact, this may even be the best-looking Windows machine ever made. All sleek magnesium casing and resplendent glass, with a full-sized backlit keyboard to boot, it’s a seriously desirable bit of kit. Granted, you’d expect as much for an asking price of well over a grand, but the achievement still stands. Looks alone don’t make the Surface Book worthy of your attention either: this thing is more akin to a laptop than a tablet, and that means it’s got a whole load of power to spare. In addition to an Intel Core processor, the Surface Book also packs in a dedicated graphics card. You still…

If you’re like us, tech already has one hand on your life’s steering wheel. Whether it’s Dark Sky nudging you to bring an umbrella, or your smart thermostat saying “I’ll take it from here” as you reach for the heating dial, gadgets have quietly appointed themselves as our trusty co-pilots. But what happens when you hand over full decision-making control to the robo-helpers? There might not be any HAL 9000s for pre-order on Kickstarter yet, but thanks to location-tracking apps, machine learning and intelligent messaging bots, there are now countless ways to hand over the tiresome responsibility of making life’s little decisions. It’s not just about taking laziness to new heights either. Our poor fleshy minds are prone to all sorts of cognitive fails and knowledge faceplants that tech is…

1 DALI KUBIK ONE The Kubik One has the classic ‘good touch for a big man’. By soundbar standards it’s a bit of a biffer, but that doesn’t matter for three reasons. Firstly, these things never are very stylish. Secondly, it’s available in nine different finishes, so you should have no trouble matching it to your favourite team. Thirdly, and most importantly, the sound it produces has no trouble capturing the size and fervour of a packed stadium, yet is detailed enough to pick out the yelp as a cheating striker hurls himself theatrically to the turf. £800 / dali-speakers.com 2 BOSE QUIETCOMFORT 35 When you make the best noise-cancelling headphones around, as Bose did with the QuietComfort 25s, the temptation must be to leave well alone. But Bose is…

I TRIED TO ESCAPE A CREEPY FACTORY No, not the end of a drunken night out – I stayed in and played Inside, a side-scrolling masterclass in minimalist dread that’s filled with elegantly designed puzzles that’ll make you feel like an idiot for not solving them sooner, but that never feel unfairly pitched against you. You control a boy trying to flee the clutches of the factory’s ruthless employees. It’s short (I finished it in four hours) but beautiful in that industrial, dystopian way that so much of the best sci-fi is. A future classic. Tom Wiggins, Deputy Editor I MADE A TOTAL ART OF MYSELF You’d think we’d all be sick to death of sticking arty filters on top of our photos by now, but Prisma has made them…

September is a dreary month. The summer holidays are over, the kids are packed back off to St Corrective’s and it’s becoming evident that the signings your team made have done toot-all for their prospects. But there is one shining light through the murk, and that is the new season of Strictly Come Dancing. OK, two shining lights, the second being Apple’s annual iPhone release. But actually, hardware schmardware. Smartphone awesomeness is 90% software, and we already know all about iOS 10 because it was announced at WWDC back in June. It’s jam-packed with ace new features, highlights of which are more control over your apps, third-party access to Siri and some great Apple Maps tricks. (Lowlight: maximum emoji integration.) You don’t even need to wait until September shows its…

As any Key Stage scientist knows, evil sinks into the Earth, where it compresses into oil. Later, kind-hearted men dig up the nasty black substance and become instantly evil, turning that oil into products that do nothing of any earthly use, such as plastic, petrol and orange Lycra. And, for the longest time, the neoprene foam used in wetsuits. But if ever there was a bunch of people with the nature-loving strength of character to overcome oil’s nefarious thrall, it’s surfers. Outdoor clothing brand Patagonia has only been making wetsuits for ten years, but for eight of them it’s been pouring money into researching natural alternatives. And it’s finally done it – or as near as possible without sacrificing durability and comfort. For its 2016/2017 range, all of its wetsuits…

Some days you just can’t be bothered to bend down to fill the washer. Aye, chances are you’d just stay down there, curled up on the kitchen floor. Like, we have these amazing washing machines that sip power and stinge water and yet still rely on us to measure out the detergent and fabric softener? As if we’re not going to just lollop an absent-minded half-gallon into all the trays and go back to Ratchet & Clank. It should be like this: grocery delivery to house; up-end entire detergent bottle into machine; machine doses according to washing weight. Dosey-do. Wow, does this thing do that? Nope. Just thinking out loud. Mind you, the Haier Duo (haier.com) is revolutionary in its own way, kicking it like an ’80s hair metal band…

100 CRITTER AND GUITARI ORGANELLE Like a Raspberry Pi for budding musicians, the Organelle lets you load up your choice of ‘patches’ to turn it into a sampler, synth or effects processor. Splendid fun to play with, even if you’re tone deaf. US$495 / critterandguitari.com 99 DELL XPS 13 You need a thin and light laptop, you buy a MacBook Air, right? Hold yer horses: the XPS 13 might just be the ultimate ultraportable. Not just because it’s thin enough to pop through a letterbox, and weighs less than your lunch, but because of a blindingly beautiful QHD+ screen. £880 / dell.com 98 PHILIPS HUE Simple switches are so last century – become a master of the bulbs with Hue, Philips’ system of smart lights. Wake up to natural light…

Stats Zone For number wonks, this app is heaven. You select a match and then immerse yourself in graphs and pitch graphics with arrows drawn all over the place, examining in fine detail every attempt on goal, and how key events unfolded. Many graphs are animated and can also be overlaid and compared until your eyes glaze over. Stuff says £free / Android, iOS New Star Soccer Football Manager on mobile is a bit weighty. For quick sessions NSS is better, marrying basic management with arcade sequences as you forge a footie career. Aggressive IAP and ads are own goals, but otherwise this is a mobile treat, lasting way longer than England’s chances at any tournament. Stuff says £free (IAPs) / Android, iOS, Windows Phone FIFA 16 Ultimate Team The…

To put it politely, the Surface Pro 4’s launch last year was a bit of a palaver. Stymied by a bug-laden edition of Windows 10, we found the fourth edition of Microsoft’s most popular hybrid to be only slightly less prone to crashing than Dick Dastardly and the cast of Wacky Races. The problem? A ‘tablet mode’ that didn’t play nice at all, and could quickly put paid to a round of Lara Croft Go on your lunchbreak. Mercifully, many a software update has rolled through this hybrid since November and the Pro 4 of today is an infinitely superior machine. That’s because Microsoft got the hardware right at the first time of asking. Having set the template for what a hybrid looks like, each new Surface Pro has refined…

Apple may not have invented the tablet, but it helped to ensure everyone owned one within a few years of its iPad launching. Trouble is, convincing your nan to upgrade to a new Mini has proved a tad tricky. So here’s the iPad Pro 9.7, a hybrid for professional sorts that runs on iOS. That means the smaller Pro (a gargantuan 12.9in model is also available) is imperious when used as a traditional tablet. No other device boasts the same breadth of quality apps, especially when it comes to design work with the Apple Pencil (£80). Despite Steve Jobs’ original opposition to styluses, the Pencil easily justifies its existence when you’re swiping away in an app like SketchBook or Photoshop Express. Our greasy fingers alone can’t achieve the same levels…

£620 / geforce.co.uk Do you think high-end graphics cards are for PC gamers who cherish a perfect frame rate above their families? You’re right – who needs love when you can game in glorious 4K? The Nvidia GeForce GTX 1080 is no bargain, but it promises a 30% performance increase over the old Titan X for £300 less. In a head-to-head face-off with the Titan X in the same system, we enjoyed frame rate increases of as much as 37% at 1080p in The Division and 45% at 1440p in Doom. That means beautifully smooth scenery pops out from your monitor. As you’d expect, HD gaming is a breeze for the GTX 1080; it’s with 1440p (aka 2.5K) that things start to get interesting. While the Titan X struggled to…

TWEAK LIKE A PRO GOOGLE NIK COLLECTION £free / google.com/nikcollection Previously a pricey offering from Google, the Nik Collection is now available gratis. It’s a set of seven desktop apps that offer simple-to-use, pro-level photo tweaking options. Each has a particular area of expertise. Dfine and Sharpener Pro are great for reducing noise and enhancing detail. If you want to change the overall look of your photos, Color Efex Pro and Viveza let you tweak colour and tonality, or add filters to specific areas. For a more vintage look, there’s Analog Efex Pro and Silver Efex Pro. HDR Efex Pro, meanwhile, lets you merge several images to create a single HDR (high dynamic range) shot. All of these handy tools can be used as plug-ins for other editing packages, or…

There’s a moment, probably no more than one Earth second, in which your growing anticipation of something is shattered by the inrush of actual sensory experience. It’s the pause before you rip the paper off a present, the heartbeat before the rollercoaster tips over the edge of the first drop… it’s the moment just before your fingers touch Hasselblad’s ‘affordable’ medium-format X1D. For that fraction, all possible outcomes exist equally – it does feel as good as it looks, it feels like cheap junk, all of the in-betweens – but as soon as you’ve touched it, blammo, the spell is broken. As it is for us, ’cos we’ve touched it. But we’re not going to ruin the surprise for you. Whether or not you want a hefty 50MP camera from…

#13 APPLE WATCH’S BREATHE APP Elissa Loi At this year’s WWDC keynote, Apple announced a smorgasbord of new features for the Watch, including an app called Breathe that encourages you to… well, breathe. Like most people, I took a deep gulp of air and loudly scoffed. But while mindfulness, meditation and/or deep breathing may sound like hipster hogwash, there are reported benefits. Here’s Dr Herbert Benson of Boston’s Mind Body Medicine Institute: “Taking a moment every day to do some deep breathing is one way to evoke the body’s relaxation response, which is the opposite reaction to stress.” There are medical conditions related to stress – including depression and high blood pressure – that deep breathing can help alleviate. Mindfulness fan Steve Jobs surely would have approved. Setting up the…

Does you dose? Or dose you don’t? PILLO Well, here’s a conundrum. We want a super-cute, face-recognising robobuddy that says “Good morning” and dumps out our medication for the day. But we don’t take any medication. So, we either need to quickly develop a medical problem that requires regular dosing – any ideas? – or we lie to Pillo: we tell it we need two ‘shamazopam’, three times a day… and fill the dispenser with M&Ms. Oh, but look at his face! We can’t lie to Pillo. So, it’s option three: stop being so self-centred and back Pillo for a friend or relative who does need little white science to stay alive. And we can still be the friend Pillo messages when they forget to dose. So, that’s something. US$600…

US$175 / bleepbleeps.com THIS ORANGEY MAELSTROM PROMISES TO TEACH YOUR CHILDREN BETTER SLEEP ROUTINES That thing is on fire. You know it, bro! Wait. You meant actual fire, not colloquial fire. No, the orangey maelstrom in Suzy’s hat promotes peace and sleep, not panic and disarray. It’s a child sleep trainer, one that promises to teach children auto-shutdown routines. Should I entrust my kids’ wellbeing to a large glowing thing? Why of course! Maker of Internet of Things devices BleepBleeps has employed Oxford University sleep boffins to train your little terrors to sleep when they’re supposed to. The result utilises “soothing sunset light” and ambient sounds from electro bleep-fondler Erol Alkan. Do not be afraid. Doesn’t sound too convincing. Well, we wouldn’t know, not being allowed to have guardianship over…

29th BOND PLAYS THE ODDS 1/3: James Norton 9/2: Tom Hiddleston 10/1: Idris Elba 500/1: Robbie Savage BASTILLE DAY BLU-RAY Probably one of those films you skipped at the cinema because of its middling reviews, but it’s an urban terrorist thriller well worth catching up on on disc or streaming… not least so you can weigh into the Idris Elba #NextBond arguments. He’s CIA in this, but imagine an MI6 bow-tie. Hmmm… 23rd DEUS EX: MANKIND DIVIDED PC, PS4, XBOX ONE Deus Ex games don’t come around very often, which doubles the anticipation but triples the nervousness. The new ‘Breach’ game mode doesn’t sound right at all, but hopefully we can ignore it and get right on with hi-tech sneakery. THEN 35 years ago IBM PC Model 5150 NOW Download…

Anyone who ever got their hands on an original Galaxy Gear smartwatch will know Samsung used to chase tech trends like a puppy bounding after a tennis ball. Mercifully, it’s first proper stab at a hybrid has been years in the making, and boy, does it show. For starters, it runs on Windows rather than Android – so you can squeeze some serious work out of what is quite an expensive piece of kit. An Intel Core M3 processor and 4GB RAM also mean it’s got plenty of power to hand – not as much as you’ll get with a Surface Pro 4, but the trade-off means you can enjoy improved battery life while paying slightly less. Make no mistake, this hybrid is a genuine contender. Setting it up is…

If you’re thinking of buying a hybrid as a like-for-like laptop replacement, then don’t. Like Clark Kent in specs and natty suit, these devices promise one thing and excel at another entirely. That’s why Apple’s iPad Pro 9.7 is our pick of the bunch. This hybrid knows you don’t want to work from home when your Football Manager Mobile season is still hanging in the balance. It’s a sensational entertainment device, first and foremost, because your office PC is already there to tabulate spreadsheets and file expenses with. And if you do want catch up on your emails, sketch out your next web page or even edit a quick YouTube clip? This Pro is more than up to the job. + Now add these Apple Silicone Case Because Apple’s Smart…

£230 / verve.life We’ve seen a few wireless in-ear headphones on Kickstarter, but the Motorola Verve range is the first to hit the mainstream. This isn’t the same Motorola behind the phones, though: Binatone licensed the name and poached most of Motorola’s audio department before Lenovo took over. The Verve Ones+ are completely wireless, connecting to each other over Bluetooth as well as to your phone. Just pop each bud out of the carry case and stick them in your ears. Once they’re sat snugly they’ll automatically pair with each other, then with your phone. Unlike the regular Ones (£200), the Ones+ are IP57 sweat-resistant, so you can safely hit the gym with them. We wore these for a week and only managed to knock one out accidentally once –…

1 ...USE AN XBOX ONE ELITE PAD WITH YOUR PS4 Microsoft’s metal-paddled Elite is the best console controller ever made. Here’s how to use it to level up your Destiny ranking on your PS4: Gather the ingredients. Aside from the £110 Elite controller, you’ll need a CronusMAX Plus (£45, controllermax.co.uk), a 4-port USB 2.0 hub (£6, amazon. co.uk, and a PS4 controller to authenticate the Xbox One Elite. Grab the software. Download the Cronus Pro software (£free, cronusmax.com). Ensure it has the latest firmware and is set up to accept the Xbox One Elite controller. For details go to the setup video at bit.ly/cronuspro Game On. Now install the PS4 Gamepack (from the same website), and plug your Elite pad and PS4 into port one and port four of the…