Innholdsfortegnelse for December 2017 i Stuff UK

Google Pixelbook Google’s next flagship laptop is a ChromeOS 4-in-1, transforming into a tablet when you don’t need the physical keyboard. There’s a 12.3in Quad HD LCD multi-touch display, and it launches with a pressure-sensitive stylus, dubbed the Pixelbook Pen. from £999 Google Home Mini The Google Assistant family (which we hope it calls the ‘G Force’) has launched its fightback against Amazon’s Echo Dot. The Home Mini is a voice assistant, giving you access to Google’s wealth of knowledge and hands-free home control in a charming little button. £49 Google Home Max “Hey Google, could you inflate the Home into a proper audiophile-friendly speaker, please?” That’s what we asked our favourite digital genie and, hey presto, Google produced the Home Max, which is 20 times more powerful than the…

FIRST PLAY SECRET OF MANA (2018) PC, PS4, PS VITA The SNES Classic Mini is packed full of greats including Super Mario World, Donkey Kong Country and Secret of Mana. What, you’ve never heard of the last one? Shame on you. This 1993 game is among the best Japanese RPGs ever made… and you’ll soon have another chance to have a go at it with this 3D remake. But is it the best way to play this masterpiece? The retro 16-bit visuals have been replaced with cartoonish 3D animations: water glistens in the sunlight and your sword leaves a fiery trail as you swing it. Unfortunately, character models aren’t as impressive, especially when they start talking. In a bid to add more immersion to the story Square Enix enlisted the…

WHIRLPOOL FSCR12441 WASHER RRP £899 WHIRLPOOL HSCX10441 DRYER RRP £899 Do you remember what you were doing in 1911? Probably not much, as games consoles hadn’t been invented yet. But Whirlpool remembers exactly what it was up to: developing the first electric-powered wringer washer. No, we don’t know what that means either, but luckily things have moved on a bit since then… which brings us to these Whirlpool Supreme Care marvels. They can be controlled remotely using a simple iOS/Android app – for example, to start or stop a cycle, check its progress and be notified when it’s finished – while the Eco function lets you time a cycle for maximum efficiency. The two will talk to each other using Whirlpool’s 6th Sense Live tech, so the dryer optimises its…

FIRST GET THESE GADGETS… ONE FITBIT IONIC Fitbit’s Alexa Skill is a great way to check up on your night’s sleep, your overall fitness and the stats that are most important to you. You’ll need a decent tracker to get the most of it, though, and Fitbit’s smartwatch fits the bill nicely, especially since its built-in Fitbit Coach off ers great workout advice. Read the review on p71. £300 / fitbit.com TWO PHILIPS HUE BEYOND Kitting your home out with an array of Philips’ Hue bulbs can be a mighty expensive process, especially when you have to start replacing them. So why not dip your toe into smart lighting waters with this dapper lamp instead? It won’t bathe your entire abode in a purple sheen, but it’ll do just fine…

from £66,510 / stuff.tv/AudiQ7etron As you may have noticed from our supertest last month, hybrids aren’t just for hippies and minicab drivers any more. This is the e-tron version of Audi’s flagship SUV, the Q7. It’s a plug-in hybrid, meaning the battery won’t recharge from normal driving, but once topped up at the mains it can give you up to 30 miles of clean, all-electric cruising. Pop a Premier League striker behind the wheel and this wouldn’t look any different to a normal Q7. The battery cells just mean boot capacity is reduced slightly and it can’t be converted to seven seats. The sense of quiet luxury inside the cabin is only enhanced when you start driving. In electric mode it’s smooth, surprisingly quick and virtually silent – and it’s…

£579 / stuff.tv/ReMarkable DAY 01 If you’ve always thought digital doodling never quite felt like the real thing – that the Apple Pencil, Microsoft Surface Pen and Samsung S Pen couldn’t quite hold up to a proper piece of HB graphite – this might be the tablet you’ve been waiting for. The ReMarkable tablet ditches the common-or-garden LCD for a ‘digital paper’ screen, which has a coarse texture that gets much closer to the feel of writing on an actual piece of paper – no more tapping away on cold, soulless glass. Oh, and it pulls double duty as an ebook reader. Of course, digital paper screens are nothing new – Amazon’s Kindle has been rocking one for years. The problem is latency. E Ink touchscreens have about 100ms of…

Forza games have always felt like a celebration of all things automotive, but the addition of dynamic weather makes the latest title a monument to Mother Nature too. Start a race in the early hours and you’ll spot mist pockets dotted around the circuit. Head to Dubai’s desert tracks and you’ll have to contend with sandstorms. Dusk quickly turns into night, leaving you to navigate solely by your own headlights. Turn 10’s racer isn’t just gorgeous on the vanilla Xbox One either – it’s a perfect example of what the Xbox One X is capable of. The fixed tracks and car models have been given the maximum amount of polish, so it all shines in 4K and HDR at 60fps. As much as stunning visuals are the bedrock of the…

HOT BUY 1 Apple iPad Pro 10.5in from £619 / apple.com The 9.7in iPad Pro was already sitting comfortably as our favourite tablet, but that wasn’t good enough for Apple. Rather than giving its flagship tablet a few minor tweaks, it introduced a bigger screen and an immensely potent processor. In fact, this device is so powerful and flashy that it’s even blurring the lines between tablet and laptop. If you only want to browse social media and watch Netflix, the 10.5in iPad Pro is overkill; this is for those more interested in creation than consumption. Stuff says The iPad Pro puts all other tablets to shame – it’s unbeatable as a multimedia machine or creative tool 2 Samsung Galaxy Tab S3 £600 / samsun­.com The Tab S3 is powerful…

TIPS & TRICKS With iPhones and Android devices, you can control your Sonos speakers from your lock screen. Sonos speakers use a feature called Trueplay that tunes the sound to your room’s acoustics. HOT BUY 1 Sonos multiroom system from £199 / sonos.com If you want to pretend your favourite band are playing in your living room, there’s no better option than a Sonos wireless speaker. They look great, work with your smartphone and, most importantly, boom out your tunes with dazzling finesse – from the compact Play:1 (£199) to the flagship Play:5 (£499) and the TV-friendly Playbase (£699). Stuff says Infinite music in every room without the need for custom installers? Sign us up! NOW ADD THIS Spotify Premium Sick of playing your iTunes library on repeat? Sign up…

FOR REAL-TIME ROADS WAZE £free / Android, iOS How many hours have we wasted stuck in traffic? Best not think about it if you’re faced with the stationary backside of a car during every morning commute. And the one day you decide to take that longer, less congested route? g ere’s a minor accident, and major delays. Typical. Waze was made to make your life on the road more tolerable. It gives you alerts about congestion, accidents, roadworks and other hazards. By taking these factors into consideration, Waze can work out your quickest route in the current conditions, ensuring you spend as little time trapped in your wheeled prison as possible. g e true genius of Waze is that it’s essentially social media for cars. g e secret of those…

£500 / gopro.com A FANCY NEW PROCESSOR HAS ENABLED GOPRO TO STEP UP THIS CAM’S IMAGE STABILISATION GoPro’s new 4K cam is the perfect companion for serious action addicts • You’ve been framed Thanks to a custom-built GP1 chip, GoPro’s new flagship crash-cam gets a sizeable performance boost over the Hero5. It can capture 4K at a buttery-smooth 60fps, double the frame-rate of last year’s effort. • Slow… The Hero6 Black can also shoot 1080p footage at an impressive 240fps, making it perfect for your slow-mo highlight reels. On the outside little has changed, but look inside and you’ll find it’s a dramatically improved cam. All you need now is the high-octane lifestyle to match. • …and steady That fancy new processor has also enabled GoPro to step up the…

KICK-STARTER Fold and fly POWERUP DART Paper aeroplanes are great until you actually throw them – all that effort just to see your lovingly folded masterpiece nosedive to the floor. The app-controlled PowerUp 3.0 set out to fix this problem – and now there’s a smaller, more powerful and more aerobatically adept version. The PowerUp Dart conversion kit can be attached to any paper plane you design. Once it’s airborne, you’ll be pulling off wingovers, lazy 8s and loops through a combination of tilt and on-screen controls. A 25-minute charge gives you 10 minutes of flight time, so if you’re committed you can spend most of the day annoying the family. from US$37 / poweruptoys.com INDIE-GOGO Grab and gurn REMOVU K1 Stabilisation in action cams is improving all the time,…

Beauty screen The S8’s Super AMOLED display is pixel-packed at 1440x2960. This helps to make colours really vibrant, especially when playing HDR videos. PHONE OF THE YEAR SAMSUNG GALAXY S8 £689 / samsung.com Let’s hear it for the champ. Such is the Galaxy S8’s brilliance, every other phone this year has been playing catch-up with it. Even now, nothing quite compares to this gorgeous mesh of glass and metal. What makes the S8 such a stunner? It’s staring you right in the face. That 5.8in Infinity Display is just a gorgeous way to Instagram, flit across your inbox, and indulge in Amazon Prime Video’s latest and greatest. Add to this an awesome point-and-shoot camera, all the speed you’ll ever need and an all-round design that’s tempted many an iPhone owner…

(Make you want a cuppa?) Basket case The Tea Pot’s basket is meant to ensure loose leaves don’t escape into your cuppa. Expect a few to slip through anyway. Trouble brewing The Appkettle has its own Alexa skill for remote boiling from the comfort of your sofa. Alas, this didn’t work during our testing. Sage Smart Tea Pot VS Appkettle 1. DESIGN This guesswork-ending gadget heats water to your chosen temperature then brews tea to your chosen strength. Dipping loose tea leaves into the boiled water is a breeze via the stainless steel filter basket. An unspectacular stainless steel number, the Appkettle will slip into the background of your kitchen rather than elevate its overall class. Still, this device isn’t exactly an uggo, and all its important stuff is tucked inside its…

£180 / stuff.tv/SpheroR2D2 It’s not just the Star Wars films that have had a forceful awakening. There’s also been an explosion of new toys both on the high street and online, ranging from naff lightsaber replicas to an enormous Lego Millennium Falcon model. Most exciting of all, though, is 2017’s range of interactive and controllable droids. Sphero’s R2-D2 follows (or trundles) in BB-8’s footsteps, giving you an app-controlled take on the true hero of the Star Wars saga who never gets the credit he deserves. Sure, Luke had a hand in duffing up the Empire, but who got the Death Star schematics where they needed to go? Who took a laser from Vader’s TIE Fighter to keep Luke’s X-wing on track? Who helped the Falcon escape in The Empire Strikes…

You wouldn’t think it was possible for an Orc to be likeable – their love for human flesh isn’t exactly relatable. Yet when you’ve got singing bards and banterous brutes willing to risk their lives for you, it’s hard not to get attached… and then, as soon as you do, these Orcs will betray you. Honestly, to get through this game without developing trust issues would be an achievement in itself. With the majority of Orcs being procedurally generated, each one has its own personality and every relationship you forge feels unique. This is thanks to the upgraded Nemesis system. You can recruit Orcs to your army and then level them up by pitting them against former allies. The grind can be hard, but you’ll need them strong to conquer…

The only way is down Don’t be swayed by price cuts, as they can be manipulated – only focus on the actual price. Open all hours Deals will pop up throughout the day, so don’t give up if you’ve drawn a blank at 10am. PLAN AHEAD 1 Know your retailers Everyone might be bookmarking Amazon for Black Friday, but there are plenty more retailers that will be banging out mega-deals. In terms of gadgets, the best stores besides Amazon to watch out for are Argos, Currys and John Lewis. For video games and consoles, keep your eye on Game. This will be the perfect time to buy a PS4 Pro or Nintendo Switch, which should both come bundled with a load of games. 2 Make a wish(list) It’s too easy…

TIPS & TRICKS Who needs a Touch Bar? You can log into your Mac with your iPhone’s Touch ID using the MacID app. The universal clipboard lets you copy text on your iPhone and paste it directly to your Mac. HOT BUY 1 Apple MacBook Pro from £1249 (13in) / apple.com The MacBook Pro didn’t really need a big update, but we’re not moaning that Apple decided to give it one, especially since it comes at no extra charge. With the new Kaby Lake processor giving the Pro a big boost in power, this is a monster of a laptop – even without the Touch Bar. When you factor in the gorgeous display, fantastic keyboard/touchpad combination and slick design, putting the MacBook Pro at No1 was the easiest decision we’ve…

HOT BUY 1 Fujifilm X-T20 £799 / fujifilm.eu Coming with the same 24.3MP APS-C sensor and processor as the X-T2, plus a touchscreen (which its sibling lacks), the X-T20 will leave you with a lot more spare cash in your account. And for most people, the new model will deliver results that are just as good as its pricier big brother’s. With well laid-out controls, a huge viewfinder, excellent autofocus and access to superb lenses, the X-T20 is just one more fantastic mirrorless camera from Fujifilm. Stuff says The X-T20 nails the sweet spot between price and performance 2 Sony A7R II £2499 / sony.co.uk The A7R II combines impeccable build quality with a class-leading full-frame sensor, 5-axis image stabilisation, a huge ISO range, super-fast autofocus, an excellent viewfinder and…

TYPE ONE-HANDED ON A MASSIVE PHONE Apple’s iOS 11 has lots of  reat new features (see p94), but one of the most useful updates is hidden away: a keyboard desi ned for one-handed typin  on super-sized smartphones: On iOS If you haven’t already, you’ll need to download iOS 11. Then it’s a simple process of opening your keyboard and holding down the globe or emoji symbol next to the 123 button. Now all you need to do is choose between the left and right-handed options. Go into Settings > General > Keyboard to change the default alignment if you don’t want to have to make the change every time you open the keyboard. On Androide Google keyboard has actually had this feature for over a year now. Just long-press the comma…

Hang on, I thought drones were for the great outdoors? Pah! Did that Star Wars interrogator droid teach you nothing? Flying robots are just as happy bobbing about under a roof as they are zooming around the skies. Thankfully, the self-piloting Aire drone comes armed with a camera instead of any instruments of torture. Think of it as a smarter kind of security cam, with the potential to patrol your home then shoo out any intruders. For now this funded Kickstarter project is limited in terms of autonomous smarts, but it does have motion detection when docked. But it looks like a bin… Yep. A bin that can also fly. It might not have the external propellers of a DJI Spark or GoPro Karma, but the Aire absolutely lives up…

Cruel to be Kinda The Pixel 2 XL comes in four colour schemes, officially titled Just Black, Clearly White, Black & White and Kinda Blue. Hideous name aside, we’re leaning towards the blue one. Second bez The smaller Pixel 2 has a pretty much unchanged 5in 1080p AMOLED display, and there’s no bezel-squashing magic here. It does, however, get the same grippy coating as its bigger bro. HOT FOUR #1 GOOGLE ADOPTS THE HUG LIFE GOOGLE PIXEL 2 XL “Hug me!” pleads Google’s second stab at an oversized Pixel smartphone. This is partly because, like all phones, it yearns to be loved – but also because giving the sides of the Pixel 2 XL a firm squeeze will allow you to launch Google Assistant using the ‘Active Edge’ feature. Yes,…

KING OF THE SPINNERS The word ‘Technics’ is the opposite of kryptonite to hi-fi nerds, in that they’ll happily drone on all night about this audio brand. Panasonic killed off the name in the early noughties – but just like Blade Runner and Shania Twain, it’s back in 2017. Aside from being fiendishly handsome, the Technics Reference Class SP-10R claims the world’s best signal-to-noise ratio and rotational stability, a brand new coreless direct-drive motor, and an ultra-low-noise switching power supply. Don’t know what all of that means? Ask a hi-fi nerd. Just don’t say we didn’t warn you. NEWS FEED JAYBIRD GETS A SWEAT ON Who really wants wireless in-ears? Well, gym-goers do. So Jaybird’s Run buds are sweat-resistant and have secure-fit wings to stop them tumbling out of your…

Tiny Nintendo consoles are all very well, but for a true nostalgia hit you really want this dinky 8-bit Commodore 64 remake, which is on its way in early 2018. The pint-sized machine has two USB ports and an HDMI output to make it compatible with your modern telly, and comes with the spit of a classic Competition Pro joystick. You can even add a second for multiplayer action. Most importantly, it’s packed with – suitably enough – precisely 64 games, including bona fide classics Impossible Mission, Speedball II, Spindizzy and Uridium. You can even plug in a keyboard for an authentic PC setup (the one on the unit is for decorative purposes only), although it won’t quite offer the truly realistic ’80s experience of waiting through 15 minutes of…

BEST FOR ANALOGUE LOOKS BEST FOR USEFUL APPS BEST FOR SERIOUS RUNNERS Samsung Gear S3 Classic £299 / samsung.com What’s the story? Some people crave the smarty-pants features of today’s tickers but have their hearts set firmly on traditional watch styling, rather than anything that looks like a Star Trek prop. Samsung’s Gear S3 Classic checks both boxes with modern features hiding inside a discreet shell. Is it any good? This Samsung watch is packed full of clever sensors. With a heart-rate monitor, accelerometer, GPS, gyroscope and plenty more, it has you covered for most fitness workouts… well, except for swimming. It won’t survive a significant splash. It also lacks app support, especially compared to Apple, since it runs on Samsung’s Tizen. But if that’s the price to pay for…

£300 / stuff.tv/BeatsStudio3 Remember the original Beats Studio headphones? Dr Dre and Jimmy Iovine’s first foray into the world of personal audio was an iconic product – and their successors were always going to have a lot to live up to. Luckily, with Apple now on board and helping with the hardware, the tech side of the deal was never going to be a problem. The Studio3 cans arrive on the heels of 2016’s Solo3 Wireless, Beats X and Powerbeats3, the first three pairs of ’phones with Apple’s W1 chip for extended range and battery life. But this time there’s also a new take on active noise-cancelling involved. It’s called Pure ANC, and Beats says it goes a lot further than regular noise-cancelling to keep your music pure. That just…

from £799 / apple.com When the iPhone 8 family launched back in September, there was a noticeable lack of the whooping fanfare and block-long queues that usually accompany a new Apple phone. Two words explain why: iPhone X. Apple’s flashiest ever handset looms large over the 8 Plus, in the same way that a P45 might over a Premier League manager. Given that the 8 Plus looks like a handful of small upgrades with wireless charging chucked in, it’s hardly surprisingly that people haven’t fallen over themselves to grab what now looks like the odd one out of the line-up: a handset that’s significantly more expensive than the 8 but nowhere near as impressive as the X. But, as ever with Apple, there’s much more to the 8 Plus than…

Pro-Ject Essential III What’s the story? Pro-Ject has quite the pedigree when it comes to affordable turntables, and the Essential III is the latest entry in a series that’s received many a five-star Stuff rating. This time around the Essential III’s platter and plinth have been upgraded from chipboard to MDF, while its cartridge is now a superior Ortofon OM10 – so you’re getting more for your money than ever before. Is it any good? As a belt-drive deck, the Essential III isn’t as easy to get up and running as other budget turntables. Adjusting the counterweight to balance the cartridge is especially fiddly. But the sound you’re rewarded with in the end is worth the effort – with good dynamics, exciting treble, and a sonic balance that’s on the…

Part boss rush, part side-scrolling shooter, Cuphead is the Dark Souls of 1930s-animation-inspired 2D platform games. Think Steamboat Willie meets Gunstar Heroes, where every creature has wide eyes and can’t stay in one place without bopping along to a jaunty vaudeville tune – anthropomorphic dinner sets included. After making a dodgy deal with the Devil, the titular Cuphead has to work his way through a torrent of tricky bosses in order to save his soul – and the debtors he’s fighting aren’t about to make things easy. Each boss has its own unique challenges, with more straightforward run-and-gun levels offering some welcome respite between fights. Cuphead feels like he could have walked straight from the screen of an old Hanna-Barbera cartoon, firing bullets by clicking his fingers, beatnik-style. He’s a…

TIPS & TRICKS Don’t like the kickstand? Use a standard VESA mount to Thet it on your wall instead. There are a few modes worth tinkering with; use the THX app to tweak your settings. We suggest turning off the Light Sensor, as it can adversely affect the contrast performance. HOT BUY 1 SONY KD-55A1 £2999 / sony.co.uk LG has been sitting pretty on top of our TV chart for yonks now – its decision to go OLED has proved a mighty successful one. But LG’s dominance is finally over, as Sony blasts away the competition with its very first attempt at an OLED telly. With an outstanding picture and design, packaged with a clever speaker system that vibrates the whole screen, the A1 comes out on top in almost…

BEST FOR MAKING LEARNING FUN Kurzgesagt – In a Nutshell Some science videos can be too complex for our fragile minds; others are just plain boring. Kurzgesagt avoids both traps, breaking down convoluted theories into bite-size explanations with amazing animations. We recommend the ones about genetic engineering and robot rights. Vsauce3 While the original Vsauce series served up a fat portion of science per video, Jake Roper’s Vsauce 3 off ers a more fun experience. € at’s because he meshes science geekery with pop culture nerdery. He’s already applied scientific logic to the likes of Home Alone, Marvel and Pokémon. Minute Physics Your physics teacher had a tough job. How do you make the likes of soundwaves and gravity interesting? Hand-drawn sketches are the answer. Best of all, these videos…

HOT BUY 1 Lego Boost Creative Toolbox £150 / lego.com Building Lego models is already ridiculously good fun, so think what great a time you’ll have when the completed model turns into a functioning robot. With the accompanying tablet app, you can use simple coding to make the robot move, fire projectiles and play various games. And rather than retiring it to the dusty shelf once you’re bored, you can rebuild him into four other programmable models: a harmonica-playing cat, a driveable rover, a working robot-builder and a playable guitar. Stuff says All hail Vernie and friends – for value and sheer fun, it’s hard to beat this programmable Lego kit 2 Propel Star Wars X-Wing Battling Drone £200 / propelsw.com The Star Wars Battling Drone works indoors and outdoors,…

TIPS & TRICKS Mark your map when you find a recognisable landmark. It’s easy to get lost. Hoard your preferred type of weapon, as they will end up breakin. at the worst possible time. It’s worth toyin. with concoctions to find new recipes for health potions and power-ups. HOT BUY 1 The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild £48 / Switch, Wii U Not only is this the best video game available right now, but it’s also probably the best Zelda game ever, which is no small feat. This is the first time Link has had an open world to explore, and it’s full of hidden treasures, delightful puzzles and stunning landscapes. You’ll get lost in the hills of Hyrule for hours upon hours – long enough to justify…