Innholdsfortegnelse for February 2019 i Stuff UK

There’s never a dull moment here at Stuff, but as far as I’m concerned the best week of the year is the Consumer Electronics Show. As I write this from Las Vegas, I’ve just seen a rollable TV from LG, one of the first OLED laptops from HP, and a Matrix smartwatch that doesn’t need to be charged because it uses solar energy and body heat instead. But the most exciting thing about the show is that it’s full of things you’ll actually be able to buy… THIS YEAR! Be warned, though: there’s a lot of dangerously good kit coming out in 2019. We scoured the convention for the best of the best in our Hot Stuff CES Special, which begins on page eight. One of the things I’ve become…

£1000 (approx) / halfords.com Yep, Alexa’s cropping up in basically anything with a battery in 2019 – which includes the forthcoming Cybic Legend, a hybrid road bike with more smarts than the average two-wheeled trundler • Amazon explorer Wherever the bike goes, Alexa is available – whether you have your phone with you or not. That’s because Amazon’s voice assistant is baked into the Legend itself, allowing the rider to access features such as turn-by-turn navigation, traffic and weather updates, ride performance data and an HD music player, without removing their mitts from the handlebars. Alexa can talk to you through Bluetooth headphones, but there’s also a built-in touchscreen just below the handlebars to provide info and physical controls. • Wheely well connected The Cybic Legend comes with a built-in…

I’m new to the whole sleek saloon thing. Is this the place to learn? Pretty much the perfect place, actually. Mercedes has long been a byword for large luxury cruisers, and this new CLA is set to do the same only on a slightly smaller scale. It’s built on the same platform as the A-Class hatchback but borrows its styling from the C-Class saloon. Add on a coupé-like rear end for a hint of sportiness and you get the idea. I bet it’s not old-school inside though, is it? Quite the opposite – which is why it was revealed at this year’s CES instead of a more traditional car show. Merc had already proved it was ahead of the game in terms of tech with the A-Class saloon, ditching analogue…

NOW ADD THIS STEELSERIES NIMBUS Although these games are designed with an eye on the touchscreen, many started life on other platforms, and others have mechanics that prefer you to arm yourself with a gamepad. On iOS, your best bet is the Nimbus, a solid and dependable controller that will happily work with an Apple TV too, so you can finally hurl the Siri Remote into the heart of the sun. Android owners: check out the broadly similar SteelSeries Stratus XL, which will also work with Windows PCs. £49.95 / steelseries.com ODDMAR An oafish beardy Viking must save his chums after gulping down magic mushrooms in this console-like platformer. There are lush visuals aplenty, and loads of fine set-pieces, whether blazing through the forest to escape a furious screen-high troll,…

ZEN STUDIO Give a kid a pack of felt pens, and half are likely to be shoved into nostrils while the rest get used to ‘make some art’ on your previously pristine walls. Far better to calm the little blighters with this chill-out colouring book. Tap to fill triangles and play ambient audio, either by completing templates or going freeform. £free (IAPs) / Android, iOS NOW ADD THIS AMAZON FIRE 7 KIDS EDITION If you’re not keen on handing over a grand’s worth of smartphone to a youngster who’ll probably attack it with a Lego brick, arm Junior with an Amazon Fire 7 Kids Edition tablet instead. It comes in a child-proof case and provides access to buckets of content, including most of the apps on this page. £99.99 /…

TASTY Many cookery apps have barely moved on from paper books, with only a scant few offering step-by-steps with photos to stop you messing up your baked Toblerone. Tasty goes further, getting you drooling with super-efficient videos that show each dish being made. It’s like having a TV chef on fast-forward, but without the ego. £free / Android, iOS SLEEP CYCLE Your phone can’t help you sleep, but Sleep Cycle can help you figure out what’s going on if you’re tossing and turning all night long. By monitoring sound, it tracks your movements, and in the morning you can peruse all manner of wiggly graphs. The app’s alarm also picks the best moment to wake you up. £free (IAPs) / Android, iOS STREAKS Your standard calendar is fine for appointments…

NOW ADD THIS AUDIO-TECHNICA ATH-M50XBT When crafting your next megahit – or a horrible din that you alone consider amazing – your device’s bundled earbuds won’t cut it for monitoring. So, with more and more makers ditching headphone jacks, you need a decent pair of wireless cans. The snappily named ATH-M50xBTs are a good bet, providing vivid, wide-open sound with bags of energy – and 40hr battery life. £179 / amazon.co.uk GARAGEBAND Apple’s free DAW has serious range. Newcomers can muck about with smart instruments and loops, while pros can delve into multi-track and multi-take recording, effects, and the mighty Alchemy synth. This app can become a hub for creating a chart hit – or a nightmarish slice of audio hell. Your choice! £free / iOS BLOOM: 10 WORLDS This…

NOW ADD THIS OLLOCLIP Modern smartphones might come with a slew of lenses and fancy software smarts, but you need traditional camera lenses for certain types of properly interesting photography. Fortunately, thanks to Olloclip, you don’t need a traditional camera. Instead, pick from its range of lenses and attaching clips – there are some tempting box-set options – to get your phone happily snapping fisheye, super-wide, telephoto and macro shots. from £30 / olloclip.com LUMAFUSION Desktop-class video editing on mobile might seem a stretch, but that’s what you get here. Armed with multiple video and audio tracks, and a slew of effects that do everything from subtle colour shifts to making your footage resemble a psychedelic animation, you’ll be all set when away from the office – especially on an…

£180 / stuff.tv/HuaweiWatchGT ■ On paper the Huawei Watch GT looks like just about the best all-purpose techy watch ever. It has genuine tracking chops including full GPS, plus basic notifications. Oh, and it’s half the price of an Apple Watch Series 4. ■ This wearable has a stainless steel case, a ceramic bezel with neat numbering, and a discreet 10.6mm thickness. And as it’s water-resistant to 5ATM, you can even take it for a swim. ■ The screen is similar in quality to an Apple Watch or Samsung Galaxy Watch – it’s true top-dollar smartwatch stuff. However, it’s not perfect. Either the refresh rate of the screen or the frame rate of the system is quite low, which makes scrolling through menus jerkier than on premium rivals. ■ And…

GOOGLE DRIVE If you have a Gmail address, you also have Google Drive. In total – across Gmail, Drive and Photos – you get 15GB for free. Google also has more than 100 Drive apps, revision histories for files, plus scanning to PDF on mobile. from £free / google.com/drive iCLOUD DRIVE If you’re wedded to Apple tech, you’ll have an Apple ID, with 5GB of space for free and access to iCloud Drive. More or less the macOS Finder online, it enables cross-device syncing for Apple kit, enabling macOS Desktop and Documents folders to live in the cloud. from £free / icloud.com BOX Box is a good bet if you want to steer clear of the usual suspects. Although the service is geared more towards business users, there’s a free…

Huawei Mate 20 Pro £899 / stuff.tv/Mate20Pro Huawei bumped its own magnificent P20 Pro off the top spot with another flagship phone that’s left Apple and Samsung scrabbling to catch up. The Mate 20 Pro brings back the triple-lens camera of the P20 Pro, only now it’s got a 20MP ultra-wide-angle camera with a new version of its predecessor’s AI-assisted night mode. It’s the most tech-packed phone in the world, yet battery life is a match for any of its rivals. No contest. Stuff says A stunning smartphone that makes the competition look lazy in comparison ● TIPS & TRICKS ● The phone itself doubles as a wireless charger, so you can share juice with any Qi-enabled device. ● An AI-assisted video trick lets you create colour portraits with black…

Beyerdynamic Byron £34 / stuff.tv/Byron A strong argument for the idea that you don’t really need to spend more than £50 on earphones, the Byrons have a sound we defy you not to like. They’re not like the company’s studio headphones, designed for sound engineers looking for extreme accuracy – they’re for everyday folk – but these humble-looking buds do come with a shot of that special Beyer sauce. They’re some of the truest-sounding in-ears we’ve heard, with great midrange detail and good punch to the bass. Stuff says Seriously classy in-ear headphones with the detail to outdo the competition Sony WF-1000X £135 / stuff.tv/SonyWF Impressive levels of detail and clarity, a decent amount of bass weight to the mix, and active noise-cancelling that works as well as you can…

Moov Now £55 / stuff.tv/MoovNow Slow and steady wins the race, and the Now has gone on to prove that with a marathon-like pace helping it finally make it to the top of this list. We’ve long considered this tracker a bargain, but further reductions have helped it enter the realm of ‘downright steal’. OK, so it doesn’t have a screen or smartphone skills, but with guided voice coaching, a six-month battery and solid waterproofing, it has everything you’d ever want in your perfect fitness tracker. Stuff says A bargain-tastic fitness band that does more than just track your steps Fitbit Alta HR £130 / stuff.tv/AltaHR The Alta HR is one of the most motivational health monitors around. The heart-rate tracking adds some insightful meat to your stats, and it…

Sky Q from £20 + £20/month / stuff.tv/SkyQ Sky Q works flawlessly and could change the way you watch TV – especially now 4K’s arrived. With Sky Movies’ huge range of films and Sky Sports’ frequent doses of football and F1 now all in stunning Ultra HD, there’s something for everyone to treat their eyes with. And 2TB of storage means you can record 350 hours’ worth of entertainment, so you’re unlikely to be sweating over which show needs deleting. Factor in its multiroom skills, and Sky Q is undoubtedly the best TV experience you can get. Stuff says You’ll have to cough up for a subscription, but this is the best box for watching both live and recorded shows Amazon Fire TV Stick 4K £50 / stuff.tv/FireStick4K Amazon’s latest…

Lego Boost Creative Toolbox £150 / stuff.tv/LegoCreativeToolbox 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 Sphero BB-8 with Force Band £130 / stuff.tv/BB8 BB-8 was fun even without the Force Band. Now it will make you feel…

Superhot VR £13 / Oculus Rift, Vive, PSVR Superhot has found its home in VR – just watch those slow-mo bullets skim the tip of your nose. The enemy will only move when you do, so time your attacks to perfection and dodge, duck and dive to survive. There’s something really cool about hiding behind a desk before blitzing your opponents with streams of bullets as if you were starring in your very own Matrix movie. And with Superhot soon arriving on PSVR, more players will be able to experience this wonderfully action-packed title. Stuff says If you have a VR headset, this 2-in-1 puzzler and shooter should be right at the top of your shopping list Farpoint £10 (£55 with Aim Controller) / PSVR If it weren’t in VR,…

I WOWED A GIRAFFE WITH MY PIANO SKILLS Prior to having one of these in my living room, my musical repertoire extended to Chopsticks. Thankfully The One, a surprisingly light and well-built keyboard that connects to an app full of lessons and sheet music (from Chopin to Shakira), has allowed me to indulge in evenings bemoaning the dark nights through melancholic plinking. The notes light up on the keys you need to play and there’s even a sustain button, which is excellent for gloomy oomph. Natalya Paul, Online Editor I PONCED ABOUT ON A HI-TECH YACHT The most ridiculous thing at CES? A $4.5m yacht, built in Turkey and shipped over to Vegas. It was to show off Furrion’s nautical version of Alexa, dubbed ‘Angel’, which allows you to ask…

An oil lamp? That’ll come in handy if Brexit goes a bit wrong. Don’t be silly. All we’ll have left to burn then will be piles of useless old maroon passports, Piers Morgan’s share of the vegan sausage rolls and offcuts of Boris Johnson’s hair. This, however, should still come in useful when the electricity runs out… at least for a while. Sony’s LSPX-S2, or Glass Sound Speaker to its friends, is a wireless noise-maker that doubles as a lamp, with a built-in rechargeable battery offering eight hours of music streaming at maximum illumination – and you can make it last longer than that by switching to a dimmer, more romantic setting. There’s nothing romantic about Brexit, pal. Sorry. Let’s avoid alienating any more Leave-supporting readers and stick to the…

MASSIVE ATTACK It’s 21 years since the release of Massive Attack’s seminal album Mezzanine – yep, you’re older than you thought – and to celebrate there’s a European tour featuring a ‘reimagined’ audiovisual experience that’s said to be mesmerising. Catch them at London’s O2. FLY BEFORE YOU BUY A free Anthem demo will be playable between 1-3 February, ahead of the game’s launch. ANTHEM As with multiplayer sci-fi shooter Destiny, you’ll be popping aliens with pals in a huge shared world. But this being a game from BioWare, the makers of Mass Effect, you can expect an emphasis on story and plenty of chatting between fights. And most importantly, you’ll be doing it all in a jetpack-equipped exosuit. FIRST MAN (BLU-RAY) Even if, for our money, Wallace and Gromit remain…

IFTTT Custom plumbing for the internet, IFTTT has you create recipes (connections) between channels (smart devices, websites, apps). If you can’t be bothered, there are loads of existing recipes for everything from muting your phone when you arrive home, to obsessively saving every Facebook photo you’re tagged in to Dropbox. £free / Android, iOS AUTOMATE If you’re the type of person who can’t stop grinning when messing about with flow charts (it takes all sorts), you’re going to love Automate. This app is designed to change settings and send notifications based on triggered events. Get your head around the system and you can construct some surprisingly complex workflows. from £free / Android DRAFTS 5 The free version of Drafts 5 is an impressive text editor, speeding up smashing out words…

NOW ADD THIS MUJJO TOUCHSCREEN GLOVES Most of these games don’t require more than a digit or two to control them, so you don’t need to connect anything to your phone or tablet beyond said fingers. But if it’s frosty out, that could scupper your gaming plans – unless you have touchscreen gloves. These Mujjos’ fleecy innards will keep your hands warm, while their conductive smarts will let you march up that high-score table in the snow. £44.90 / mujjo.com A WAY TO SLAY Each level of this novel (and bloody) spin on turn-based puzzling starts off like a still from an epic fight scene, your sword-wielding hero surrounded by a gang of stabby foes. It’s down to you to figure out in which order to dispatch everyone – without…

DARK SKY Having had a swanky redesign in 2018, Dark Sky is much improved on mobile. It packs loads of lovely weather data into a smallish area, yet retains clarity and usability. The storm map (with directional arrows) and rainfall prediction graph are especially useful, combining to ensure you’ll never get soaked. £free (IAPs) / Android £3.99 / iOS NOW ADD THIS AUKEY 20000MAH POWER BANK Modern smartphones gulp down power like a baby slurps warm milk. You don’t want to be caught short when travelling, so this Aukey Power Bank will simultaneously charge two devices at full speed, intelligently adjusting its output to match each one’s specific needs. £21.99 / amazon.co.uk GOOGLE MAPS No other mapping app has the power of Google’s. It’ll lead you anywhere, whether you want…

LINGVIST Heading off to Spain, France or Germany, and don’t fancy barking at everyone in English? Then install Lingvist. Its card-based approach aims to quickly infuse vocab and grammar into your brain, tracking your progress all the while. It’s limited without IAP, but not so much that you can’t dip in daily. £free (IAPs) / Android, iOS YOUSICIAN Fed up of picking up plastic guitars for videogame noise sessions? Fancy trying your hand at a real axe, but concerned it’s a bit tricky? Mash the two together with Yousician. It spins Guitar Hero around and has you use a real guitar as the controller, upping the difficulty until you’re the next Hendrix. £free (IAPs) / Android, iOS LRN Tech gurus reckon coding is the most important language to learn. We’ll…

Looks can deceive. Glance at the new Mac Mini and you might think nothing has changed. The form factor echoes the model released a little over four years ago – only decked out in a rather natty shade of space grey. You might also reason that this smallest of Macs finds itself thrust into irrelevance: a relic of a bygone age, adrift in an era of super-powerful smartphones and tablets, and no longer offered at a price point that’s likely to tempt anyone away from their Windows PC. But that was yesterday’s Mac Mini and yesterday’s strategy. Today’s Mini is closer in nature to a Mac Pro in miniature, and has been conceived to fit a wide range of use cases. It’s not a gaming machine, but it’s been designed…

1 Piq Robot This gizmo attaches to your boot to measure motion and analyse every turn and jump, so you can see just how badly you’re skiing. £169 / piq.com 2 Carv Digital Ski Coach Carv’s smart boot insoles connect to your smartphone via Bluetooth to give real-time audio coaching. £229 / getcarv.com 3 Gerbing S7 Battery-Heated Ski Gloves All that white stuff is a bit cold, isn’t it? But you can avoid numb fingers when you have battery-heated gloves. £180 / gerbing.co.uk 4 Ortovox Zoom+ If you’re leaving the safety of the piste, this easy-to-use avalanche transceiver could be a little lifesaver. £180 / snowandrock.com…

£279 / stuff.tv/Zipp2 ■ There are now more wireless speakers with Alexa voice control than there are ants in the world, but this Libratone promises a winning blend of portability and 360° of Danish hi-fi tone. ■ Let’s be clear: the Zipp 2 is a music machine with added Alexa, not an AI butler with added tunes. It doesn’t want to sit in the kitchen giving you weather updates while you grate cheese; it wants to party. ■ Connect to your home Wi-Fi for direct streaming from Spotify Connect, Amazon Music, Tidal or TuneIn internet radio. AirPlay 2 means you can use the Zipp 2 to talk to Siri and control your Apple HomeKit, as well as connecting up to 10 speakers wirelessly for stereo and multiroom music. Or, of…

Darling of the pro photographer and object of desire for anyone venturing into the world stunning visuals, the DSLR has ruled the roost since the demise of 35mm film cameras. Their optical viewfinders, impressive battery life, excellent autofocus abilities and supreme range of lenses have historically been the clear distinction between DSLR and higher-end mirrorless fare, but the gap is rapidly shrinking. With an ever-improving range of lenses, an almost baffling array of advanced features and some clear advantages in size, weight and silent operation, it’s little wonder photographers are ditching the bulkier mechanical mirror in favour of an electric shutter. The question is, which is the one for you?…

FIRST ADD THESE… ONE GARMIN RUNNING DYNAMICS POD This diminutive device is a must-have for anyone serious about obtaining detailed running stats. It weighs just 14g, but measures cadence, ground contact time, stride length, and vertical oscillation and ratio. All of this data is then pumped to the watch and Garmin’s app for you to pore over like a NASA engineer. £60 / garmin.com TWO MYZONE MZ-3 Yes, the wrist-based HRM technology on the Fenix 5 Plus is good at keeping tabs on your ticker, but nothing beats the accuracy of a chest strap. This Myzone number plays nicely via ANT+ and Bluetooth, but can also be used to collect Myzone Experience Points, aka rewards for effort. Now you’ve no excuse not to smash it in the gym. £130 /…

Sony WH-1000XM3 £330 / stuff.tv/SonyXM3 Sony’s WH-1000 series was already a top performer, and the WH-1000XM3s make for an even more compelling package. With Bluetooth wireless and great noise-cancellation, they’re the ultimate public transport stress killer… well, aside from a chauffeur or a lottery win that lets you retire. The leather pads make them incredibly easy to wear, not unlike sitting in one of those ultra-comfy leather chairs, and most importantly of all the sound quality is fantastic. Stuff says Great wireless headphones with effective ANC and a sound that nails just about everything Urbanista Seattle Wireless £70 / stuff.tv/SeattleWireless The Seattles are some of the best-sounding affordable wireless cans around. They’re full and rich-sounding, with the sort of tasteful bass drive that will please the masses without turning off…

Sonos Beam £399 / stuff.tv/SonosBeam Sonos’s home cinema gear has always been a little expensive, but with the Beam it’s created a great-value soundbar. It sounds ace, comes with loads of features and is compact enough to fit into the average living-room AV setup without taking over. If you want the best-sounding system then the Playbar or Playbase are still the products to go for, but they’re a lot more money, they don’t have Alexa, and they don’t control your TV in the same slick way the Beam does. Stuff says Smaller and cheaper than the already excellent Playbar, and packed full of smarts Q Acoustics Media 4 £199 / stuff.tv/Media4 The justifiably multi-award-winning Media 4 combines subtle detail with precise surround effects to be one of the best-sounding and…

Sony PlayStation 4 Pro £350 / stuff.tv/PS4Pro As a gaming platform, PlayStation 4 is the best around – which makes the PS4 Pro the best of the best. Games optimised for the new console look stunning on a 4K HDR TV, and are substantially improved by the extra grunt inside this slightly bigger machine. Sure, it can’t match the Xbox One X for sheer power or resolution, but it makes up for that with an impressive line-up of games – including Uncharted 4, Horizon Zero Dawn and Bloodborne – and virtual reality support. Stuff says The system for console gamers who have a 4K TV and want the best catalogue of games on offer Nintendo Switch £280 / stuff.tv/NintendoSwitch Nintendo’s console earned a promotion in our list after it impressed…

Jaguar I-Pace from £60,995 (with PiCG) / stuff.tv/ipace Not content with simply making an electric vehicle that can get you from A to B with minimal fuss (and fuel bills), Jaguar has created something desirable, fun to drive and impressively capable when the going gets tough. This car offers Amazon Alexa intergration, smartphone connectivity and a 10in touchscreen on the upper deck. With the I-Pace, Jaguar can happily claim to be the first mainstream brand to really give Tesla something to worry about. Stuff says Fun, fast and practical, the I-Pace is the greatest thing to happen to electric cars in a long time Volvo XC90 T8 from £58,092 / stuff.tv/XC90T8 The latest XC90 is a monster 4x4 that features some of the most impressive interior tech seen on any…

I’m not sure we even have 3G manhole covers yet. We most definitely haven’t, but the fact that you don’t know just shows how much we take manhole covers for granted. Imagine all the sewage-soaked trousers we’d have to deal with if our roads were dotted with gaping portals to the smelly underworld. And now, with people demanding better mobile coverage but often going all NIMBY when networks try to put up new masts, Vodafone has found a way to make manhole covers live a double life: by turning them into antennas. Won’t people trip over them? Whatever it is you’re imagining in that brain of yours, flip it round the other way. All the necessary gubbins would be hidden in the space beneath the manhole cover, which means it…

Does this thing want to murder me? No. We need to look past our pop culture conditioning and realise that while, yes, some robots undoubtedly plot bloodshed and rebellion, they’re not all bad. Lovot is a good robot, here only to spread love. Hmm. So what does this admittedly adorable hooded robo-freak do? Lovot has a single mission statement: nurture your capacity to love, if that still exists. A major hit as this year’s CES, the surprisingly tech-loaded bot demands attention, with clever pressure sensors dotted all over its body letting it know you’re providing the required cuddle, and two beady eyes to stare you out with. It’ll behave like a person, giggling when you tickle it, falling asleep when you rock it, and sulking when you’re watching the football.…

INDIEGOGO Let me cam over PICTAR PRO That’s a pretty talented snapper you’re playing Wordscapes on… but a smartphone just doesn’t feel like a real camera. Pictar Pro helps by more or less being a classic camera sawn in half that you shove your phone into. It then communicates with the Pictar app, so you can twiddle the case’s knobs (for exposure and modes) while gripping your phone and ensuring it doesn’t fall into a ravine while you take a selfie. There are tripod and cold shoe connectors, and a Qi battery so your phone doesn’t conk out. You even get a viewfinder, so you’ll never again be sun-blinded by your phone’s screen when trying to nail that perfect shot. $129 / mymiggo.com KICKSTARTER A hole lot better ONDU MkIII…

Were you inspired by the fitness feature in last month’s Stuff? Inspired enough to think seriously about putting together some sort of workout plan, to look into maybe buying some new running shoes, or even to download a motivational app? Inspired enough, in fact, to do pretty much anything short of actual exercise? Allow us to push you over the edge – it’s for your own good, after all. Because this month we’re giving away a Bowflex Max Trainer M7. More compact than most cross trainers, so it won’t take over your living room, the Max Trainer M7 is Bowflex’s flagship machine, with dual-mode LCD/LED displays and 20 electronically adjustable resistance levels. It offers 11 different workouts (a high-intensity workout can take as little as 14 minutes), and syncs over…

SHEPARD FAIREY AR: DAMAGED Pointing at the future of accessible interactive art, this app transports the entirety of US artist Shepard Fairey’s ‘Damaged’ exhibition into your device. As you walk, your viewport updates, a neon sign crackling in the distance. Fairey himself can even narrate, giving lots of extra context. £4.99 / Android, iOS IKEA PLACE This is essentially a catalogue, yes, but it makes paper equivalents look as practical as carved stone tablets. Plonk virtual Ikea goods in your home, and you save building the things and finding they look rubbish or don’t fit. You can also scan your own furniture and the app will suggest something similar you can buy in store. £free / Android, iOS CIVILISATIONS AR The British pinched a whole lot of stuff in the…

SOULVER Why are we still using calculators on our phones that ape desktop ones? Soulver is much better. It’s like scribbling down sums on a scrap of paper, only they’re magically totted up. And when you need something more complex, totals can be added to subsequent lines – making for living, ongoing, multi-level sums. £2.99 / iOS CHAMBERS THESAURUS Yes, we’re recommending a thesaurus; and no, we’re not going to apologise. That’s because this one’s the best. There are free equivalents, but this app’s fast, works offline, doesn’t hurl ads at you, and neatly integrates with its dictionary sibling. Essential if you work with words. £2.99 / Android £4.99 / iOS BEAR FOCUS TIMER We all fiddle with our phones when we really shouldn’t. BFT helps you to focus by…

OILIST It might not be fun watching paint dry, but gawping at a living canvas as it interprets one of your favourite snaps is another matter. Load a pic, choose a style, and Oilist will art it up. Prefer to get your hands dirty? Controls let you fiddle with the current virtual artist, adjusting strokes, shifting styles, or adding ‘chaos’. £2.99 / iOS INFUSE If you’ve amassed a gigantic collection of video files, they won’t all fit on your iPhone. Fortunately, Infuse streams pretty much any format from just about anywhere. The interface is swish, it downloads cover art and show details, and you can add subtitles if a show’s lead mumbles every line in the name of ‘gritty realism’. from £free / iOS WILSON FM With so many podcasts…

INFINITE PAINTER This painting app wins out on Android because of how it feels. You get a range of brushes, from subtle watercolours to chunky slabs of oil; and with judicious use of the smudge tool you can create art you’d hang on a gallery wall. A one-off IAP unlocks more advanced fare, including layers, grids and some bonkers filters. £free (IAPs) / Android, iOS NOW ADD THIS WACOM BAMBOO TIP If you’re armed with a shiny new iPad Pro, you should of course grab the second-gen Apple Pencil for your scribbling needs. But when you’re out and about with a phone, Wacom’s Bamboo Tip gives you a good shot at digital artistry… or at least a touch more precision than your sausagey finger allows. £49.99 / wacom.com LINEA GO…

THE BASICS ■ Get started Sign up at dropbox.com and pick a strong password. We always use ‘Stuff!sDaBe5t’, but don’t tell anyone. Under Security in account settings, consider turning on and using two-step verification. You get 2GB of storage as standard; if you need more space, Plus (£79/yr) gets you 1TB. ■ Start uploading Adding stuff varies by platform. Using the PC/Mac desktop app, just drag things into your Dropbox folder. In a browser, use the Upload files/Upload folder options. On mobile, share/send content to Dropbox using your OS’s standard method. Note: also on mobile, you can create a new named folder by tapping ‘+’ and selecting the relevant option. ■ Share… everything A major benefit of Dropbox is how easy it is to share content. This makes it worth…

£330 / stuff.tv/SurfaceHeadphones • DAY 01 Whatever your feelings about the brand, there’s no denying it’s been pretty fascinating to observe Microsoft’s recent and ongoing reinvention. Going from terminally uncool dad-dancer to hip and sexy dancefloor dominator in just a few moves is no mean feat – and it’s nearly all down to Microsoft’s current range of Surface PCs, laptops and tablets. Now Microsoft is looking to crash a new party: premium, wireless, noise-cancelling headphones. And this is despite having no heritage in this area, and knowing that the existing competition – notably the Bose QC35II and Sony WH-1000XM3 – is about as fierce as it gets. The Surface Headphones are very similarly proportioned to both the Sony and the Bose models; and in terms of the quality of the…

Data Wing £free / Android, iOS This game starts off as if Asteroids had a baby with a top-down racer: your triangular craft blasts around circuits, gaining speed when its bum scrapes neon track edges. Soon you discover you’re part of an OS ruled by a deranged AI. Story and game quickly expand, as you glimpse the world beyond the screen and battle gravity in cavern-based sections that recall 8-bit classic Thrust. Rarely do mobile titles pack in so many hours of clever, thoughtful narrative. Pretty much never are such games free. Stuff says A mobile game we’d happily recommend if it cost a fiver – for nowt, it’s an absurdly generous bargain Euclidean Skies £4.99 / iOS This is a challenging mobile game that pulls off quite the achievement…

Apple Watch Series 4 from £399 / stuff.tv/WatchS4 The Apple Watch Series 4 has everything going for it – the larger screen, improved processor and louder speaker mean it’s easier to actually do stuff on it than any previous Watch, and it has a load of health features that just aren’t on other wearables. Whether you’re navigating somewhere using Maps, going for a run without your phone, or just wanting to keep track of your activity during the day, this Apple Watch does a great job of handling all these things and more. Stuff says Best wearable ever: a sleek, sophisticated redesign of the previous generation with some hearty upgrades Samsung Galaxy Watch from £299 / stuff.tv/GalaxyWatch A sturdy and stylish smartwatch with plenty of power and a truly lovely…

Sonos One £199 / stuff.tv/SonosOne Making an amazing speaker was an easy job for the multiroom champs, but getting Amazon’s Alexa voice assistant to dance along in time with it… well, that wasn’t such a simple task. But the One is now an altogether more well-rounded device than it was at launch, supporting Spotify with voice control as well as Amazon Music and TuneIn Radio, while the early Alexa hiccups seem to have been fixed by a series of software updates. The only issue? It’s a little hard of hearing compared to Amazon’s Echo. Stuff says Sonos’s Alexa-powered speaker remains a class apart from the competition Amazon Echo Dot £40 / stuff.tv/EchoDot The massive price difference means that, for many people, this is a much better bet than the full-size…

Oculus Rift £350 / stuff.tv/OculusTouch The Oculus Rift has been playing catch-up for a while; but now that it’s got the fantastic Touch Controllers, has boosted its room-tracking capabilities to match the Vive and has had a price drop to easily undercut HTC’s standard headset, it finally deserves to top our VR headset rankings. Its library of exclusive games has grown considerably since launch too, with the likes of Robo Recall, Lucky’s Tale and Lone Echo all added. This is now the best VR headset available that doesn’t cost the world. Stuff says Thanks to the price cut and much-needed updates, the Rift is now the best reasonably-priced VR headset HTC Vive £499 / stuff.tv/HTCVive Barring a £100 price difference, there isn’t much difference between the HTC Vice and Oculus…

SNES Classic Mini £80 / stuff.tv/ClassicMini Why bother splashing out over £200 on a games console when you can get the SNES Classic Mini for a fraction of that? Especially when you get 21 classic titles pre-installed on this nostalgia-inducing machine, including the likes of Super Metroid, A Link to the Past, Super Mario World and the never-before-released Star Fox 2. And with two controllers bundled in the box, you’ll be able to start the Super Mario Kart action right away. Stuff says With 21 classic games installed, gamers won’t find better value anywhere ● TIPS & TRICKS ● Chickens killed you in Zelda again? You can rewind up to five minutes and pretend it never happened. ● For full-fat nostalgia you can read the instruction manual for each of…