Table of contents for July 2016 in Stuff UK

CARS ON TEST BMW i3 Volkswagen e-Golf Nissan Leaf Kia Soul EV Tesla Model S P90D Renault Zoe “Acceleration is nippy and smooth, and for a tall car with thin wheels the i3 handles incredibly well” BMW i3 ■ Price from £30,980 / bmw.co.uk ■ Driver Will Dunn, Contributor Driver Insult of choice “Thou creamfaced loon!” Driving song Somewhere Only We Know by Keane Longest traffic jam 19 minutes Last year I drove BMW’s i8 hybrid supercar, and the only problem with it was the constant flashing effect caused by car fans taking pictures. If the i8 is a movie star, the i3 is one of those actors you recognise from a few adverts – noticeably different, better-looking than the crowd, but not to the extent that you’d drop your shopping…

The best demonstration of Ambilight you can get is to turn it off. Seriously. Because it’s only then that you realise just how much of a difference Philips’ TV technology really makes. Ambilight adds another dimension to your viewing by shining light from LEDs on the back of the TV onto the wall behind it. These lights use the TV’s internal processing to replicate the colours you’re seeing on-screen in real time – which makes the picture appear to expand far beyond the bezel. It reduces eye fatigue, immerses you more in the on-screen action and makes the screen appear larger than it really is. And then you turn it off, and you really wish you hadn’t. It’s the sort of thing you only do once in a while, when…

Remember Blizzard? Well, the World Of Warcraft developer now has a firstperson shooter. And it features giant apes in power armour. Imagine Pixar ditched films and you’ve got the gist of Overwatch. Countless hours of my life have been hoovered up by its closed beta, and the full release is set to do the same. This is the most joyful shooter I’ve played in a long time, blending old and new for a mechanically complex experience that’s easy to enjoy. Those seeking ladder-climbing glory may be frustrated by some of the compromises made for the sake of a harmonious community. But if you like to play for 10 minutes of unbridled fun, then this is the unmissable shooter of 2016. It’s a game where notching up kills will guarantee you…

Down Station Simon Morden With a similar beginning to Philip José Farmer’s To Your Scattered Bodies Go, a bunch of Tube workers run from a huge fire and find an underground door leading to a sunlit beach. They pass through, and the door disappears. What follows is magical, violent and thrilling. £8.99 Under the Skin Michel Faber Even if you’ve seen Scarlett Johansson’s turn as an alien predator in the 2013 film, it’s well worth devouring the chilling novel it’s adapted from. More slowburning than the movie, it’s an oddly compelling thriller that’s probably best not combined with a summer barbecue… £5.22 Ancillary Justice/Sword/Mercy Ann Leckie Ambitious and wildly inventive, this trilogy is essential reading for fans of military sci-fi . It follows a sentient spaceship with a hive mind…

1 ...BECOME A SPOTIFY COMPLETIST Want all your old CDs, iTunes downloads and Napster playlists filed neatly next to your Spotify Discover Weeklies? Here’s how to bring it all under one musical roof: Scan your CDs. To save typing in the names of all of your old albums, use CD Scanner For Spotify (£1.49, iOS). Scan the case’s barcode and, as long as it’s in Spotify’s library, the album will appear in your account. Import from iTunes. To make sure all those old iTunes downloads are in your Spotify library, click on ‘local files’ under ‘your music’ and drag the tracks into ‘songs’. Combine your playlists. Got some playlists marooned on the likes of Deezer or Tidal? Soundiiz (soundiiz.com) will convert them to Spotify playlists for you. 2 ...GET FREE…

FOR THE FULL REVIEWS IN EACH CATEGORY AND OUR BUYING GUIDES, VISIT WWW.STUFF.TV/TOP-10S Download the Shop Stuff app Looking for the best deal on an Apple iMac? You can now find it – and buy it – by scanning this page… 1. Download and install the free Shop Stuff app, available on iOS and Android. 2. Open the app, hold your phone 10cm over the page and wait for the swirly vortex. 3. Scroll through the products and pick your options, then hit ‘buy’ or save it for later.…

FOR THE FULL REVIEWS IN EACH CATEGORY AND OUR BUYING GUIDES, VISIT WWW.STUFF.TV/TOP-10S Download the Shop Stuff app Looking for the best deal on the Apple Watch? You can now find it – and buy it – by scanning this page… 1. Download and install the free Shop Stuff app, available on iOS and Android. 2. Open the app, hold your phone 10cm over the page and wait for the swirly vortex. 3. Scroll through the products and pick your options, then hit ‘buy’ or save it for later.…

Five years ago, something amazing happened called the Alienware M11x, and we thought the future of computing was shifting away from the slim-and-light prophecies of the MacBook Air and towards small but awesome laptops with red glowing keyboards and steam coming out of the vents. Sadly, it failed to change history and we’re festooned with MacBook Airs and Microsoft Surfaces and the like – none of which have any chutzpah. But the new Acer kickstand hybrid is a beacon of hope – beneath its silver casing it’s got badass liquid cooling for its proper i3, i5 or i7 processors. We’ve been told, though: no steam. As hot as… being less hot from €700 / acer.co.uk ALSO ACE THIS MONTH… Acer Liquid Zest Plus Battery life is your phone’s greatest daily…

IT’LL STEER ITSELF ■ Tesla Model 3 due 2017 Tesla’s Model 3 is supposed to be the affordable electric car that’ll turn us all into battery-powered movers, but that doesn’t mean it won’t be stuffed with all of Tesla’s greatest gadgets – including the Autopilot mode that once whisked Stuff along the M4 without our hands on the wheel. The 215-mile Model 3 might even have a whole new version of the tech. Tesla CEO Elon Musk says that complete autonomy is only two years away; and while our roads probably aren’t ready for that yet, the relatively bare interior of the Model 3 could signal a concerted push towards letting the car do more of the work for you, potentially with a cool HUD-style dash projected onto the windscreen.…

1 Taking the P An ultra-slim metal phone with curved edges, the P9 feels and looks expensive, and with a 5.2in screen, it’s easy to handle. There are some great hardware extras: the fingerprint scanner is terrific, plus the microSD card slot and extra SIM slot earn nerd points. 2 Neo screen The display goes as bright as you like with good contrast and poppy colours that, while pretty energetic, don’t look overdone. Huawei aimed for a ‘cinemagrade’ colour palette rather than the plain old sRGB one. Viewing angles are just as impressive. 3 Hunting Emus As usual, Huawei’s pasted the latest version of its EmotionUI on to Android. While it does include Now on Tap, it doesn’t have an apps menu. What will grate more is how much extra…

PlayStation 4K £tba / playstation.com It seems mad to suggest that Sony is about to unveil a new console only three years after the launch of the PlayStation 4, but that’s exactly what it seems the Japanese tech giant is doing. At the time of writing, so much has already leaked about the ‘PlayStation 4K’ that it seems a certainty to be announced at the E3 trade show in Los Angeles this month. OK, so technically we’re not actually talking about a next-gen console here – but if the rumours are true, the upcoming PS4K will offer more than just a slimmer build and an all-new price tag. The real meat on this machine’s bones looks set to be its extra power, delivered by a new AMD processor in order…

Every car Jonny Smith owns has a story. His Dodge Charger has bulletholes in the boot (caused, he suspects, by somebody firing from the inside out); his Austin Allegro, a car widely considered to be one of the worst ever made, has been fitted with a 2.7-litre V6 engine; and even the emerald green Insight he picks me up in is the most travelled example of Honda’s first-gen hybrid in Europe. But his little yellow Enfield, aka Jonny’s Flux Capacitor, has the best story of them all. City slicker As we pull up to Jonny’s Lincolnshire home, I notice some clues that suggest there’s more happening on this road than just horse riding and dog walking. Tyre marks scuff the Tarmac directly outside his gravel driveway, evidence of previous rides…

Apple CarPlay OS: in the driving seat? It should come as no surprise that Apple’s gone with a grid of square icons for its in-car homescreen, given that this has been the stylistic approach of its screens since the first iPhone in 2007. Irritatingly, though, you can’t re-order the apps to put your favourite ones first. With just eight icons on each ‘page’, prodding the one you’re after is mighty simple even when doing 70mph on the M25 (should the M25 ever clear up enough to make 70mph possible). You get a notification when a text message comes in, and you can send and receive using dictation via Siri. Fight of the navigators Apple Maps really isn’t that bad. Sure, it was something of a catastrophe in 2012, but it’s…

Such is Naughty Dog’s record, the assumption has always been that Uncharted 4 would be great. A tiny part of me wishes I could tell you it isn’t, despite all the odds and the anticipation. Bad news on that front: it’s ace. That’s not to say everything’s perfect. The basic premise, that Drake is drawn out of retirement for one last job by his long-lost brother, is quite a cliché. Thankfully, the gunplay here is more enjoyable than ever before in the series. Combat feels faster and more fluid. It’s always been possible to creep up and silently take down an enemy, but in the search for a pirate’s treasure, stealThis now given more emphasis. Some firefights can be avoided altogether with a few sneaky takedowns and creative ledge-shuffles. And…

Where To Invade Next_cinema It’s a long old time since Michael Moore last fronted a documentary (2009’s Capitalism: A Love Story) and he seems to have mellowed: Where To Invade Next is far less shouty and sensationalist than much of the work he’s famous for. This doc, though, is contrived and misleadingly titled. Far from being about where the Eye of Sauron (the US military) might focus its gaze next, it’s essentially a jaunt around a bunch of mostly European countries that have laws, policies or social conventions so brilliant that Moore ‘steals’ them to take back to the US. So he steals long lunches from Italy, education from Finland and prisons from Norway. There’s lots of detail around how these work and what the results are: Italians are more…

FOR THE FULL REVIEWS AND OUR SMARTPHONE BUYING GUIDE, VISIT STUFF.TV/TOP-10S/SMARTPHONES Download the Shop Stuff app Looking for the best deal on the Samsung Galaxy S7? You can now find it – and buy it – by scanning this page… 1. Download and install the free Shop Stuff app, available on iOS and Android. 2. Open the app, hold your phone 10cm over the page and wait for the swirly vortex. 3. Scroll through the products and pick your options, then hit ‘buy’ or save it for later.…

FOR THE FULL REVIEWS IN EACH CATEGORY AND OUR BUYING GUIDES, VISIT WWW.STUFF.TV/TOP-10S Download the Shop Stuff app Looking for the best deal on the Fujifilm X-T10? You can now find it – and buy it – by scanning this page… 1. Download and install the free Shop Stuff app, available on iOS and Android. 2. Open the app, hold your phone 10cm over the page and wait for the swirly vortex. 3. Scroll through the products and pick your options, then hit ‘buy’ or save it for later.…

In this world of 24-hour Technicolor tittle and tat, subtlety is to be applauded, or even actively encouraged. Garmin’s latest fitness tracker is the very picture of restraint, quietly measuring your steps and displaying that information as a dynamic daily goal percentage bar. It also has an inactivity bar that slowly fills up with red if you don’t move about. But that’s it: Vivomove won’t vibrate or beep or scream at you. If you do want a little visual reward for your efforts, you can Bluetooth your steps and sleep stats over to Garmin’s Connect app, there to compare your totals over time on its colourful graphs. But the Vivomove itself will just keep on with its dignified daily summing up, for the entirety of its one-year battery life. As…

HOTH RACER We wouldn’t blame you if you were to immediately rip out this page, lie down on the floor with some crayons and draw some AT-AT walkers in the background. (The newsagent might be miffed, though, so maybe buy the mag first?) But you’re right, this does look like it might be a vehicle from the next Star Wars film, Rogue One. It isn’t. The Snoped is a one-off design study by Joey Ruiter, engineer of the outlandish. Inspired by the ‘cafe racer’ style of motorcycles, it has a 90cc engine powering a single snowmobileesque track. It looks as if it would be extremely difficult to ride in the snow, but then it also looks awesome, which is the idea. NEWS FEED LEAF IT AT HOME Nissan is launching…

Technology transforms everything. Once, if you found yourself sitting alone in the living room staring at a wall, that would mean you were desperately bored (assuming you’re not just a big fan of walls). Now, it probably means you’re enjoying a full HD home entertainment experience. Well, it does if you own a Philips Screeneo 2.0 ultra short-throw projector. And if you win this month’s competition, you soon will. Perfect for big sporting events, films and gaming, or even streaming music via Bluetooth from your smartphone or tablet, the new Screeneo 2.0 can turn a blank wall into a 1080p screen of up to 120in from just a few centimetres away. It has an integrated 26W Dolby Digital 2.1 sound system, and the carry handle means you can take it…

Has your best mate suddenly become an expert in Slovakia’s centre-back conundrum? Perhaps they’ve announced themselves as the world’s foremost authority on water polo tactics? Fear not, they won’t be this insufferable for long. Once the Olympics and Euro 2016 are over, you’ll want to own at least one triumphant memento from the ‘summer of sport’. Should Harry Kane, Jess Ennis-Hill and co fail to deliver the goods, then a 4K TV will do the job just fine. There’s never been a better moment to invest in an Ultra High-Def tellybox. Even if the only ‘shock exit’ you’re interested in is the next grizzly death in Game Of Thrones. With every major streaming service now offering its wares in 4K, UHD Blu-rays having finally arrived and a fancy new PlayStation…

from £1050 / apple.co.uk Last year Apple reinvented the laptop with the 12-inch MacBook. Despite its infuriating lack of ports, it was pretty darned brilliant. The most important change to this year’s MacBook can be summed up in one word: pink. Apple now makes a MacBook in rose gold. I think this must be the only pink laptop I’d be happy to own. Like the iPhone and iPad rose gold, it’s a subtle pink, not the day-glo shade that might earn disgusted looks on the train. It almost seems pointless to tell you about how well made the MacBook is. As we’ve said in nearly every review since MacBooks began, it’s a lovely all-aluminium thing. One day there’ll probably be one of these propped up in the Design Museum next…

£290 (body only) / canon.co.uk DAY 01 Can a DSLR ever replace a phone’s camera for sheer immediacy? Canon thinks so, hence the 1300D: a super-cheap lens-swapper aimed squarely at smartphonesavvy Instagram addicts looking to level up. How do I know that’s the target audience? Well, despite a spec that’s so stripped back it might as well be naked, it arrives rocking NFC and Wi-Fi for easy uploading and a dedicated Food mode. QED. It really is cheap, too – at £290 it costs less than any other new DSLR and not much more than plenty of compacts. But at that price, some compromises are inevitable. This super-cheap lens-swapper is aimed squarely at smartphone-savvy Instagram addicts looking to level up For starters, it’s plasticky: you’ll find more metal on an…

The stage is set, the stadium bursting with sound and colour. It’s the opening game in a historic European Championship – the first to feature 24 teams – and as my squad belts out the Belgian anthem, I wonder if it’ll continue to be a tournament of firsts. The first, perhaps, to see Belgium crowned champions? After four games, a Cristiano Ronaldo hattrick and a penalty shootout, I’ll have my answer… This isn’t a premonition about the upcoming Euros, but rather what happened during my first play of Pro Evo’s official Euro 2016 tie-in. If you already own PES 2016, you can download the free Euro content. Or, if you buy the physical version, the main game comes packaged with it. But is it worth your time? For me, the…

THE ALL-ROUNDER GOOGLE TRANSLATE £free / iOS, Android Google Translate has been the go-to pick for desktopbased language translation for a decade now, and it’s showing no signs of slowing down. In fact, Google’s effort has only grown in its abilities and effectiveness over the years, with the free Android and iOS app being the best way to actually put its skills to use when you’re travelling overseas. It currently supports an impressive 103 languages for typed (or finger-drawn) translation, but it’s the other input options that you’ll use even more regularly when on foreign shores. With certain languages, you can use two-way automatic speech translation and carry on a conversation. Its ability to use your phone’s camera to translate signs and menus is now even more magical as it…

FOR THE FULL REVIEWS AND OUR HI-FI BUYING GUIDE, JUMP OVER TO STUFF.TV/TOP-10S/HI-FI Download the Shop Stuff app Looking for the best deal on some Sonos speakers? You can now find it – and buy them – by scanning this page… 1. Download and install the free Shop Stuff app, available on iOS and Android. 2. Open the app, hold your phone 10cm over the page and wait for the swirly vortex. 3. Scroll through the products and pick your options, then hit ‘buy’ or save it for later.…

Something tells me Samsung’s engineers don’t have kids… You mean, they have awesome kids who were born into a VR headset and have already completed EVE: Valkyrie. Sure, ‘responsible’ parents might say that getting a child to bed is hard enough without an ultra-vivid screen jammed into their faces. And even pro-VR parents might be concerned by the premise of over-stimulating young eyes and brains right before sleepy time. But imagine how much better your dreams would have been if you’d just been read The Magic Faraway Tree in VR… So good I’d have had a magic, faraway look in my eyes at school the next day, no doubt. There are worse things to have in your school report. Anyway, the aim of Bedtime VR Stories isn’t to replace books.…