Table of contents for February 2020 in Stuff UK

You might find this hard to believe, but I basically run the good ship Stuff from an iPad Pro. If I had a pound for every time I’ve plugged into an external monitor and tried to swipe the screen like a twonk, I’d be embarrassingly minted by now. Touchscreen confusion aside, one thing that becomes immediately apparent when switching from a laptop to a tablet is a total reliance on apps. Whether it’s creating, banking, uploading, unzipping, listening, writing, travelling, storing or consuming content, if you want full functionality your web browser alone just doesn’t cut the mustard. The problem is your smartphone, tablet or smartwatch only has space for so many downloads, so we’ve compiled a comprehensive list of the greatest apps you’ll find anywhere on the planet to…

SPECIAL SUBSCRIPTION OFFER Receive your first 3 issues for £5 Continue to save 38%* off the cover price Have each issue delivered directly to your door Never miss an issue of the world’s greatest gadget mag SUBSCRIBE TODAY! ONLINE shop.kelsey.co.uk/STU020 CALL US 01959 543747 Please quote STU020 Hours: Mon-Fri 8.30am-5.30pm (calls charged at your standard network rate) Offer ends 29 February 2020 DIGITAL Pay just £37.99 for a 13-issue digital subscription: shop.kelsey.co.uk/stuff Terms and conditions: Offer available for UK direct debit customers only. You will pay £5 for your first 3 issues then continue to pay £19.99 every 6 months. For overseas rates please visit shop.kelsey.co.uk/stuff. Offer closes 29 February 2020. *Full UK subscription rate for 13 issues is £64.87, USA & EU £78, RoW £85. Here at Kelsey Publishing…

OLLOCLIP If you’ve even a reasonably recent iPhone or Android phone, chances are it’s got a decent camera. But by adding Olloclip hardware, it can do much more. This modular system is a breeze to set up, and enables you to quickly boost your blower’s telephoto capabilities, get up close and personal via macro lenses, go oddball with fisheye, grab more of a scene with ultra-wide, and take things to the next level with the high-end Pro Lens series. kits from £105 / olloclip.com PIXELMATOR PHOTO Trained on millions of pro shots, Pixelmator Photo lets you fix your photos with the prod of a button. It beats all rivals, subtly adjusting lighting to make your snaps shine; and if you feel the need, you can then leap into a world…

SKY: CHILDREN OF THE LIGHT You remember Journey? Ambling about in a desert, sliding down hills, solving the odd puzzle? Well, this is that – only more so. And this time it’s gone massively multiplayer, so you can attempt to solve puzzles by making oddball parping gestures at other players. £free / Android, iOS FOOTBALL MANAGER 2020 TOUCH Love repeatedly proving that you’d win every league in the world, given half a chance? Frustrated that you can’t lug your PC with Football Manager everywhere? This mobile take on Sega’s footie title brings across almost everything from the desktop original – but you’ll need hefty hardware to run it. £19.99 / Android, iPad TELLING LIES Her Story made FMV essential, letting you unravel a mystery from fragmented video snippets. Telling Lies…

LINEA SKETCH This app reasons that you need just enough tools for optimum scribbling, rather than too many. Everything is within easy reach on three panels, and further help is at hand from grids, templates and ZipShapes that snap to regular polygons if your attempt at a circle or square goes a bit skew-whiff. £4.99 / iPad APPLE PENCIL (2ND GEN) The original Apple Pencil stylus for iPad was great but flawed, what with its tendency to roll off the desk and the stupid way it was charged. Its successor is better in every way: precise, charging by snapping its flat edge magnetically to the side of an iPad Pro, and with a double-tap area for triggering actions and selecting alternative tools. £119 / apple.com PHOTOSHOP FOR iPAD Photoshop for…

PENNA You could go for any old Bluetooth keyboard, connect it to your device and get into some deep customisation and coding larks… but we’re rather fond of the Penna range. They resemble vintage typewriters, sync with up to three devices simultaneously, and have carriage return levers that are used to record and trigger macros. from $199 / elretron.com 1BLOCKER When you’re browsing on your iPhone or iPad, you don’t want your data or time being eaten by webpage annoyances. With 1Blocker in place, you can hide offending elements for good. But also, if you want to support a site you can whitelist its ads; and if you want to go all-in geeky, it’s possible to write your own custom CSS. £14.99/year / iOS CODEA There’s going to come a…

CARD OF DARKNESS The surprisingly great Apple Arcade platform could have dominated this spread. It hasn’t, but this epic hand-animated card adventure still stands out. Shoving RPG and strategy into a solitaire-shaped box creates a game that thumps your brain yet still fits into odd moments. £4.99/m (Arcade subscription) / iOS KNIGHT BRAWL This game’s creator has form in fashioning oddball side-on sports titles where players appear to have springs for legs and windmill blades for arms. Here, that concept is transferred to a medieval brawler. But there’s depth alongside the madness, with one-on-one battles, mass skirmishes and missions. £free / Android, iOS DIG DOG – TREASURE HUNTER Like a demented Dig Dug, this one finds you blazing through underground mazes to find tasty bones. The game moves at serious…

£900 / stuff.tv/Transparent According to Scandinavian design principles, products should sit in harmony with their environment and be built to last. A noble idea, even if – in a region with some of the world’s highest tax rates – it can make things rather expensive. Take anything ever made by Bang & Olufsen, for example: you might not immediately realise you’ve remortgaged your house for an iconic TV, but 20 years later when it’s still going and still the centrepiece of your living room, it’ll hit home. Swedish company Transparent Sound doesn’t deal in the conventional either, offering Bluetooth speakers made from materials like stoneware and glass that push the boundaries of hi-fi design. Its Transparent Speaker is undeniably striking, with flawless build quality and materials made to last a…

Apple Watch Series 5 from £399 / stuff.tv/WatchS5 There’s no great secret to Apple’s continuing smartwatch domination: it’s all down to a seamless relationship between hardware and software, plus impressive health features that other makers still haven’t been able to match. But while the Series 5 isn’t as significant an upgrade as last year’s model, it does have one key addition: an always-on display. Also new is a compass, while the watchOS 6 update adds a host of new tricks that make the Watch even smarter than it was already. Stuff says This is a minor upgrade on S4, but an always-on display makes the best smartwatch even better Apple Watch Series 4 from £349 / stuff.tv/WatchS4 Series 5 is the new king, but the old model remains a great…

Sky Q from £20 + £22/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 in stunning Ultra HD, along with the new addition of Netflix, 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 Cube £100 / stuff.tv/FireTVCube The Fire TV interface…

Ah, the classic flip phone that everyone owned in 1996. No, hang on, what’s this abomination? The Motorola Razr, with that satisfying ‘SNAP’ when it closed, remains forever lodged in the public consciousness. But it was no pioneer when it rocked up in 2004, eight years behind Motorola’s own StarTAC. And although the older phone might not be a looker to modern eyes, in 1996 it was revolutionary. It was practically wafer-thin (19mm), weighed less than half an iPhone 11, and had the added advantage of looking like a Star Trek communicator. I’m not convinced that is a bonus. So why was the StarTAC so good, then? Now and again, a piece of new tech instantly makes everything that came before it look a bit rubbish – like when Apple…

I WANT TO SEE FOOTBALLERS’ TEARS IN 8K The prospect of watching Cristiano Ronaldo cry in upscaled 8K makes Euro 2020 one of this summer’s must-watch sporting events, and the greatest argument so far for upgrading your TV. And if you’d rather avoid CR7’s temper tantrums, hi-res washboard abs with justified emotional breakdowns can also be seen at the Tokyo Olympics, the Tour de France and Finland’s World Wife-Carrying Championship. There may be trouble (and strife) ahead. James Day, Editor-in-Chief I CAN’T WAIT FOR VIRTUAL REALITY TO IMPROVE ON ACTUAL REALITY I got my kids an Oculus Quest for Christmas. And when I say ‘my kids’, I mean… well, I’ll probably let them have a go eventually. It’s a properly mind-blowing piece of kit, but VR is getting steadily better…

When OnePlus’s boffins decided to create their first ever concept phone, they were clearly too sidetracked with refining the tech to think up a more imaginative name… but frankly, who can blame them when they were working on an ‘invisible camera’? This isn’t some pathetic special effect, like James Bond’s ridiculous vanishing car in Die Another Day – the Concept One uses impressive glass technology to hide the lenses from sight. Under the rainbow Colour-shifting electrochromic glass on the back of the Concept One can change its transparency, so the lenses only become visible when the camera is in use. It’s a trick inspired by the clever sunroof of supercar partner McLaren’s 720S, with organic particles in the glass shifting it from opaque black to entirely clear. The glass also…

Do the hand jive ORBA Proper instruments are hard work when you’ve a banger in your head that just has to come out – so the tiny Orba is a good bet for instant gratification of the musical kind. Looking like half a grapefruit spliced with a drum machine from the future, it allows you to prod, stroke, shake and spin it to smash out beats, lay down head-nodding basslines and silky chords, and then craft riffs that will stick in your head for months. Its strange but deeply portable form works wonders when you want to take your next step to superstardom too: the Orba can connect to music apps via Bluetooth or USB, and has a 3.5mm output as well as an onboard speaker. $89 / artiphon.com Keys…

ANGRY BIRDS AR: ISLE OF PIGS Catapulting birds at egg-stealing pigs in ramshackle houses seems quaint in a mobile gaming universe that features Fortnite. But this AR take has made Angry Birds interesting again: being able to consider shots from any angle results in deeper, more engaging play. £free / Android, iOS SPIGEN ARMOR CASE When you’re faffing about in virtual vistas, it’s easy to blunder into something solid and let your phone tumble to the ground. To avoid subsequently embarking on an expensive repair, buy your phone a decent case first. If you want something properly rugged, Spigen has a wide range of tough cases designed for many modern phones. from £20 / spigen.com WANNA KICKS There’s a point with tech when you might wonder if you’re being a…

SKAGEN FALSTER 3 Skagen’s Danish-inspired smartwatches are full of Scandi minimalism, from their stylish design to the clean deliverance of Wear OS. The Falster 3 promises to be pretty unflappable too, with NFC, GPS, a heart-rate monitor and swim-proofing to 30 metres. New on this latest model is a speaker for taking calls, conversing with Google Assistant, getting audible translations or narking commuters with your music. £279 / skagen.com MINDKEEPER Nobody would be daft enough to try and shove Doom inside an Apple Watch, right? Wrong. Kind of. In this auto-runner you use the Digital Crown to steer, but otherwise you really do barrel through a maze-like 3D environment filled with traps and horrors. And you start with only a torch to defend yourself with. £1.99 / watchOS CHIRP If…

APPY WEATHER Here’s a rarity: a Windows Phone app! Course, we’re only including it because it’s now on Android. But it’s properly good, with bold forecasting blocks set in a scrollable timeline that uses language normal humans can understand. Prefer conventional hourly/daily lists? You can swipe across to those. £free / Android SPACE WEATHER REPORTER If you’ve worked your way through every weather app and still hanker for more, give this one a go and find out what’s going on in space. You’ll get data from the superbly named DONKI (Database Of Notifications, Knowledge and Information), giving you insight into solar flares and such like. £free / Android SNOWFLAKE WEATHER With a background in letting you keep an eye on computers by way of iStat Menus, Bjango now wants to…

LEGO DUPLO WORLD If you’ve had enough of the agony of treading on plastic bricks, stick them all behind a glass screen with this game. All manner of interactive experiences await, such as learning to count, creating a brick snowman and helping pedestrians to cross a road. And no foot injuries. £free (IAPs) / Android, iOS PANGO PAPER COLOR Plenty of colouring apps for kids exist, but never are they as mesmerising as Pango’s. Origami creations are coloured with a tap then magically multiply across the scene. Gradually, the screen comes to life with vibrant papery creations going about their business. Even cynical adults will be dazzled. £2.99 / Android, iOS SAGO MINI VILLAGE Local gnomes need a favour. They’ve nowhere to live, and aren’t big enough to carry blocks…

SUSTAINABLE SLURPERS The fibrous fancy Ecoffee Cup Craft your own mug from organic materials and there’s a high likelihood of leakage. Use this eco cup instead – made from natural fibre, resin and corn starch – and the only drips will be in your percolator. Hygienic by design and sustainable to boot, it trumps any throwaway container. from £9 / ecoffeecup.com The righteous rice Huskup Coffee addicts might adore a pure caffeine hit, but chucking cups is a dirty habit. Get clean with this ethical vessel: aping the classic cafe carrier, it ditches dodgy materials in favour of biodegradable rice husks. Send it to a composting plant and, unlike your cravings, it will simply disappear. from £9 / huskup.com The born-again brew rCup What’s better than a reusable cup? A…

THE BASICS ▪ Start off slowly You might like the idea of going from full couch-spud status to running a marathon this summer, but that’s a good way to do yourself in, perhaps even causing long-term damage. So start small, and gradually build up your routine as your body becomes used to the changes you’re inflicting on it. ▪ Exercise regularly-ish Your Apple Watch will scream at you daily, as will other hardware and apps. Nuts to them. You do need to get into a routine with exercise if it’s to stick, but rest days are important for recovery. Do what works for you, and balance out activity evenly across a week or month, tracking it as appropriate. ▪ Use the great indoors You might like fresh air, but the…

Apple iPhone 11 from £729 / stuff.tv/iPhone11 You’re getting a really neat package with the iPhone 11 – and crucially, it’s not silly-expensive. The new Bionic A13 chip packs some serious power, the cameras are near-faultless for a smartphone and the battery will last all day. The lack of an OLED display could be an issue for some, but if you can bring yourself to get over that, it’s time to say hello to the new everyman iPhone… and start thinking about what colour you might opt for. Stuff says Wow – an affordable Apple handset that doesn’t scrimp on specs NOW ADD THIS Ted Baker Wireless Power Bank A mix of cabled connections and Qi wireless charging means this bank can fuel up two devices at once. £80 /…

Moov Now £47 / 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 Inspire HR £90 / stuff.tv/InspireHR Fitbit’s latest is a great little tracker. As well as step-counting, it’s surprisingly capable for proper run-tracking if you go out with a phone.…

Apple iPad Pro from £769 / stuff.tv/iPadPro The iPad Pro isn’t cheap, but it’s a mobile powerhouse like no other, with a diverse and rich app ecosystem, tons of power, a gorgeous screen, and the kind of focus on creativity and productivity that just doesn’t exist on other tablets. If you just want to faff on Facebook or Netflix it’s massive overkill, so we’d recommend going for the iPad Air (from £479) instead; but even if you don’t actually need the new iPad Pro, you’re going to want one if you have it in your mitts for five minutes. Stuff says Once again Apple blasts ahead of the pack, with a stylish, powerful tablet full of creative potential Microsoft Surface Go from £379 / stuff.tv/SurfaceGo Having this slinky Windows tab…

Crumbs, is… is that a new console? Yes indeed. This windowless black tower is ironically from Microsoft. It’s the Xbox Series X, it arrives this year and absolutely nobody saw it coming… except everyone who knew the PlayStation 5 was on its way and immediately put two and two together. If the design’s giving you vertigo, don’t fret – it’ll work on its side too, although insufferable geeks reckon that’ll make it the same height as the Xbox One X but double the width, so either way the real winner here is Ikea. Will it beat the PS5 for power? Specs are scarce, but AMD is on processor/graphics duty and it will use rapid GDDRG memory. Far more exciting is Microsoft’s claim that the Series X will support 8K gaming…

As a futurist I’m au fait with the fabled ‘singularity’ – the point at which humans and technology merge. This is estimated to happen in or around the year 2045… but I’m fairly certain people aren’t going to be thrilled at having computer chips implanted surgically into their brains so they can plug into the power of AI in the cloud, or have swarms of nanobots racing around their blood carrying out routine body maintenance – even though I’ve already seen both of these things. So before tech is placed inside us, wearables will continue to place tech upon us. And there are plenty of developments on the way. So how do you see the current state of play with wearables, o wise one? Today our wearables are fairly smart…

£200 / stuff.tv/Fire10Kids With its chubby protective case, there’s no mistaking who the Fire HD 10 Kids Edition is aimed at: it’s a big, bold, rubbery affair that looks faintly ridiculous in the hands of anyone over the age of about 12. The padding works brilliantly, though, cushioning the tablet from even a high fall onto a hard kitchen floor. The case has had a couple of updates, the main one being the addition of a kick-stand. This is pretty well implemented: it rotates through 270°, so you can prop up the tablet to watch videos with the screen leaning either slightly forwards or slightly backwards, and it’s big enough to provide plenty of stability in this mode. This slate has a USB-C port on the top for charging, rather…

CLOSER Richie ‘Plastikman’ Hawtin gets you up close and personal at a selection of gigs as he gives a serious kicking to synths, decks and drum machines. You can switch viewpoints, turn channels on and off, and thereby DJ the DJ. Or something. Make sure you’ve loads of space, because the gig downloads are massive. £free / Android, iOS MELODY VR Like concerts? Less enamoured with actually going to concerts? With Melody VR, you can plonk yourself in front of the stage at a range of gigs, or – if you’re feeling cheeky – right on the stage itself. Just don’t forget where you are and start air-guitaring in your shared flat. That’s not a good look for anyone. £free (IAPs) / Android, iOS BRIAN ENO: REFLECTION Ambient music god…

INFUSE PRO 6 This video player continues to excel. It still pulls content from anywhere you point it at, and then seamlessly plays it on your Apple device. But now libraries sit in the cloud for full sync, on-demand subs are fully ad-free, and AirPlay 2 is supported. If the price-tag’s too rich, try the free but limited non-Pro version. £23.99 / iOS MAGINARY Remember those books when you were a kid that clumsily inserted you into the story by adding your name? This is like that, but not rubbish. Through interactions with your device, you feel immersed in events – even the IAP unlock is part of the story. It’s a clever mash-up of narrative and mobile tech. from £free / iOS WE FLIP Google’s been on a mission…

APPLE WATCH SERIES 5 It was a good day when Apple changed tack on the Watch, abandoning pretensions at having created bling jewellery and instead recognising the device’s health smarts. With watchOS 6, this ramped up another notch. Along with keeping tabs on your heart, an Apple Watch Series 5 (or 4) looks after your ears: if loud noises are blaring all around without you realising, you’ll get a nudge so you can quickly bung in some earplugs or head somewhere a bit quieter. from £399 / apple.com 321FIT If you don’t have time for a gym, 321Fit says you can squeeze exercise into odd moments. You choose from pre-set routines or create your own, and then get to do reps alongside a character that appears to have escaped from…

SPOTIFY Annoyingly, Runkeeper recently dumped its pace-match Spotify system for matching songs to your running speed. But you can still connect the two apps and select from playlists with defined BPMs, rather than having to compile your own. £9.99/m / Android, iOS RUNTASTIC Although it’s buried in the settings, Story Running remains part of the Runtastic experience. When setting up a run, tap the music icon, select Story Running, and choose from a range of tales to keep your mind occupied over half an hour or so. £free / Android, iOS POCKET CASTS Really this could be any podcast app – the point is that, while you’re exercising your body, you could be expanding your mind by way of podcasts like the BBC’s Infinite Monkey Cage, with sky-pointer Brian Cox…

Amazon Echo Buds Price £120 / stuff.tv/EchoBuds What’s the story? Amazon’s Alexa voice assistant has been making herself at home in wireless headphones of various shapes and sizes for a while now, so it was only a matter of time before Amazon itself got involved at the hardware end. These true wireless buds come packed with mics to accurately pick up voice commands, meaning you can summon Alexa to control your music, podcast or audiobook, check the weather or depress yourself with the news headlines, all without lifting a finger. Amazon has also teamed up with the ambient noise-banishing wizards at Bose to ensure you can listen on public transport. You are, then, getting a whole lot of functionality for the price – plus sonic ability that, while far from…

Sony WH-1000XM3 £229 / stuff.tv/SonyWHXM3 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 Bowers & Wilkins PX7 £350 / stuff.tv/PX7 B&W’s second ANC headphones place greater emphasis on comfort and are all the better for it, while the noise-killing is as effective as you’ll find anywhere. Oh, and they…

Sennheiser Ambeo Soundbar £2199 / stuff.tv/AmbeoSoundbar Utterly convincing Dolby Atmos and DTS:X 3D sound, ample power and lots of inputs mean no other soundbar currently available can perform feats with the solidity and confidence of this Sennheiser. The sheer room-filling scale of this device’s sound is remarkable, and it’s hard to think of any content that wouldn’t benefit from being Ambeo’d. That’s why, as well as being the biggest and the most expensive, it’s the best you can buy. Stuff says The Ambeo Soundbar is a big unit but the sound it makes is bigger still Sonos Beam £399 / stuff.tv/SonosBeam Sonos’s great-value Alexa-equipped soundbar offers fine audio quality, comes with loads of features and is compact enough to fit into the average living-room AV setup without taking over. Stuff…

Sony PlayStation 4 Pro £269 / 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 £279 / 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 integration, 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 Nissan Leaf from £26,345 / stuff.tv/NissanLeaf Nissan has really got it right with the latest Leaf – an accomplished family car that packs some serious range…