Innholdsfortegnelse for February 2023 i Stuff UK

Do you ever wish you could change the colour of your car as often as you change your pants? BMW’s all-electric i Vision Dee concept (it stands for Digital Emotional Experience, before you ask) is covered in E Ink panels – 240 segments in total – that can be controlled individually. You get a choice of 32 colours for each one, so when you wake up in the morning you can make sure your motor matches your outfit. And if you’re one of those weirdos who stick eyelashes to their car’s headlights, you’ll love the front grille, which can display different facial expressions to reflect the car’s ‘mood’. Presumably that means it frowns if you park it badly or fail to indicate. Which you probably will, being a BMW driver…

They say there’s no such thing as a job for life any more, which is why some people think George Foreman is famous for making kitchen appliances, Dion Dublin is an estate agent and Barry Norman was a pickled onion magnate. Plenty of people already know Fred Perry as a fashion designer rather than one of the greatest tennis players of all time, and now a whole new bunch are going to think he was some sort of chin-stroking audiophile. The Fred Perry x Pro-Ject Record Deck isn’t just an existing turntable with the famous laurel wreath logo slapped on the slipmat (although it does come with one of those) – it’s a whole new design inspired by the Essential III and the Debut Carbon Evo, two of Pro-Ject’s most…

IT’S MADE FROM SWEDISH BIRCH PLYWOOD AND IS DESIGNED FOR EASY REPAIRS That looks like something from 2001: A Bass Odyssey. Are you making a clever reference to Kubrick’s sci-fi classic, or is that the name of a dodgy rave you went to in an abandoned warehouse 20 years ago? This wireless speaker looks like it could have come from either. Weighing in at 12kg and measuring just over half a metre across, it’s not quite as imposing as the alien structures in the film, and probably wouldn’t get a whole warehouse raving all on its own, but it’s certainly got enough oomph to start a party. How much are we talking? A Class-D amplifier provides 150W of music-pushing power – and you can group several Monoliths together if your…

If the X-T4 leaned a little too much towards video for the Fuji faithful, the X-T5 is something of a course correction. Vlogging duties have now been handed to the more modern X-H2, for a stills-first approach here. The internals have also taken a significant step up, with a new 40.2MP sensor and faster X-Processor 5 doing the brain work. The camera’s general layout hasn’t really changed, although its volume has shrunk by about 5%. It keeps all the physical controls, with double-stacked dials putting shooting modes, shutter speed, ISO and exposure compensation all within easy reach. It’ll feel instantly familiar to Fuji owners, with the focus joystick and command dials just where your right thumb and index finger rest naturally. It’s the 3in touchscreen on the back that sees…

ABLETON NOTE The iPhone equivalent of a three-minute single rather than a double album, Note distills Ableton’s desktop app into a musical sketchpad. Its combination of samples and a great interface lets you quickly get ideas down, which you can expand in Ableton Live – and then inflict on the masses at Glasto. £4.99/iOS LUMAFUSION We’ve long been fans of this one on Apple kit, but now the LumaTouch video editor is on Android too. It’s desktop-grade stuff, with a wealth of features and effects – yet based on an interface that’s been smartly considered to the degree that you could feasibly edit your next Hollywood masterpiece right on your phone. £17.99/Android • £25.99/iOS PHOTOLEAP This app has long had form in the AI space. You can swap backgrounds, replace…

WATCH TO 5K When you’ve got a goal of running five whole kilometres, you need to minimise excuses. This Apple Watch app helps by running entirely independently of your iPhone. But now you can also use a companion app on your phone to peruse recent runs, track progress, and beam at how far you’ve already come since that first wheezy shuffle. £3.49/iOS WELLPAPER Screen time systems tend to be invisible until you hit a usage limit. WellPaper is a novel alternative, using live wallpapers to denote the time you’ve spent within certain app categories. When specific doughnuts or planets swell to epic proportions, you know it’s time to cut back on the games and social media. £free/Android BELLY BOI You know when you have a funny feeling in your gut?…

Series fans will know the drill. Unbound lets you loose in a fictional US city filled with exotic rides, a bustling street race scene, and a police force obsessed with dangerous drivers. The rags-to-riches story is a real box-ticker, including a betrayal or two along the way. But it’s the blend of cel-shaded characters and anime-inspired special effects with photorealistic cars and locations that sets it apart. Light glints realistically off your ride’s bodywork, while comicbook smoke billows from the rear tyres with every drift. Think Into the Spider-Verse and you’re halfway there. A day/night divide lets you earn chump change (and police notoriety) during waking hours, then compete for higher stakes under cover of darkness. Here the cops step up their patrols and try harder to take you down;…

1 Sony WF-1000XM4 £199/go.stuff.tv/WFXM4 A worthy successor to the XM3 buds that sat atop this list for what seemed like decades, Sony’s latest true wireless noise-cancelling in-ears are smaller, smarter and better. With the arguable exceptions of call quality and app slickness, the WF-1000XM4s aren’t quite the best at anything; but they’re so close to being the best at everything that their all-round game is untouchable. No other wireless earbuds are so consistently accomplished across the board. Stuff says The finest true wireless noise-cancelling earbuds around – this is the complete package 2 Beats Fit Pro £220/go.stuff.tv/FitPro These Beats are excellent on many levels. Unless you really love the earhook design of the Powerbeats Pro, they’re definitely the best workout ’phones in the Apple/Beats range and rival any others at…

1 Sennheiser Ambeo Soundbar Max £1799/go.stuff.tv/AmbeoMax Utterly convincing Dolby Atmos and DTS:X 3D sound, ample power and lots of inputs mean no other soundbar currently available can perform sonic feats with the solidity and confidence of this Sennheiser. The sheer room-filling scale of its sound is remarkable, and it’s hard to think of any content that wouldn’t benefit from being Maxed out. Stuff says The Ambeo Soundbar Max is a big unit but the sound it makes is bigger still 2 Sonos Arc £899/go.stuff.tv/SonosArc Don’t expect this soundbar to do everything a multi-speaker Dolby Atmos setup can do, but its up-firing and side-firing drivers give a real sense of cinematic scale. See also the much more affordable Ray model. Stuff says Big-screen sound for your big-screen binges 3 Roku Streambar…

1 Sony PlayStation 5 £540/go.stuff.tv/PS5 The PS5 is not a modest upgrade. Its hulking design means it’ll make a bad first impression on some, but spend time playing it and it’ll soon win you over – and then some. This is essentially a high-spec gaming PC for the living room: stupendously powerful, with greatly reduced loading times compared to the PS4. Most last-gen titles will run fine and the lineup of new games is strong, while developers have found increasingly clever ways to use that DualSense pad and its haptic feedback trickery. Stuff says Huge power, clever hardware and a guarantee of great games to come make the PS5 hard to resist 2 Nintendo Switch OLED £310/go.stuff.tv/SwitchOLED While it’s identical to the standard Switch in terms of raw power, the…

1 VanMoof S3 £2248/go.stuff.tv/VanMoofS3 VanMoof’s second-gen S3 (or X3 if you’re under 5ft 8in) looks like a normal bike, rides like a normal bike and, crucially, doesn’t cost a ridiculous amount of cash. The chunky 50mm tyres, slightly swooped bars and upright riding position all combine to make it super-comfy, and 30 miles with the power assistance set to level three (out of four) left us completely sweat-free with 20% still in the tank. Plus, for such a looker, the S3 has a lot of discreet smarts to deter thieves. See also the ultra-techy S5 model. Stuff says This smart-looking e-bike offers a great ride, great features and some genuinely useful security smarts 2 Cowboy 4 £2590/go.stuff.tv/Cowboy4 The Belgian maker’s latest model has 50% more torque than its predecessor, but…

1 Meta Quest 2 £399/go.stuff.tv/Quest2 The original Quest felt almost too good to be true. Its successor lacks the same wow factor, but you can’t argue with a better display and processor – not to mention a lighter, more comfy build – and the fantastic Beat Saber now thrown in. Are there more powerful headsets? Is motion sickness still an issue? Yes to both, but superb tracking and a total absence of wires make this the VR package to get… and with Meta accounts now live, you no longer have to be logged in to Facebook to use it. Stuff says Not a complete reinvention, but our favourite VR headset is now even better… and cheaper! 2 Valve Index £919/go.stuff.tv/ValveIndex While not revolutionary, the Index carries enough subtle upgrades to…

Along with miserable periods of abstinence, doomed attempts to get fit and Red Squirrel Appreciation Day (it’s on the 21st, get it in your diary), January is the month when all the big TV makers show off their new wares – and the spec sheets for Samsung’s latest Neo QLEDs make for much better reading than our bathroom scales. Available with both 4K and 8K screens, all the new models are powered by the rather Skynet-sounding Neural Quantum Processor – although Samsung says this uses Shape Adaptive Light Control and Real Depth Enhancer Pro tech to deliver a more lifelike picture, not threaten the very existence of humanity. There’s also an Auto HDR Remastering mode that uses AI to analyse and improve non-HDR pictures on a scene-by-scene basis. And there’s…

Erik Buell knows a lot more about bikes than he does about spelling. As founder of the Buell Motorcycle Company, which was bought by Harley-Davidson in the ’90s, Erik’s innovative engineering made him a legend of the road and track. So while it might look like a couple of typos slipped through when he was naming his latest project, don’t let that put you off this electric two-wheeler. While Fuell designed the Fllow with short journeys in mind, it still has a range of up to 150 miles, so you won’t have to plug it in every night – and when you do, the 10kWh battery integrated into the bike’s chassis can be charged in as little as half an hour. Its 35kW motor has enough oomph to hit 62mph…

FIRST PLAY NINJA OR DIE PC, Switch Easy to play, hard to master – it’s something you often hear about games that hook you instantly but with a tough challenge that keeps you coming back. And surely games don’t get much easier to play than one that has a one-button control system, whether that’s with a controller or a mouse. With a vibrant 16-bit pixel art style created by a sole developer from Japan, Ninja or Die puts you in control of a fighter traversing deadly maze-like levels… but you don’t control their movement. Instead, with a mouse or control stick, you position the trajectory of where they will jump, while a single button-press will have them leaping off. Being a nimble ninja you can also leap onto walls, although…

This issue we’ve teamed up with Chord Electronics to offer you a chance to win arguably the most advanced DAC/headphone amplifier in the world: the Mojo 2 (RRP £495). And the lucky winner will also bag the Poly (£495), a portable music streamer/player that combines with the Mojo 2 to stream from connected devices and playback from microSD, all with smartphone control. We’re even throwing in an £80 leather case! Handmade in Kent, the Mojo 2 uses proprietary British digital audio tech to offer class-leading sound quality both on the move and at home. It has the power to drive any headphones and deliver music as the artist intended. Its perfect partner is the revolutionary Poly, which enables music streamed from a range of wirelessly connected devices to be enjoyed…

TUSKY Given the lead times in making magazines, Twitter might be on fire by the time you read this. Mastodon provides an alternative for inflicting your bite-sized written morsels on the world at large – and Tusky is an excellent Mastodon client for Android, with a sleek interface and plentiful options a couple of taps away. £free/Android CUISINE If all the other cookery apps were lobbed into a blender, you’d end up with Cuisine. This feature-rich option lets you track groceries, pilfer recipes from books and the web, and crack on with cooking. Or filter thousands of recipes using a single search term when dinner prep looks set to involve 30 minutes and a potato. £free (IAP)/Android, iOS SPARK MAIL Email is awful… but it’s still a thing. Luckily, Spark…

CHANTLINGS This app is for people who like to sing and want to be part of a group – but aren’t keen on involving other humans. As you sing (ideally wearing wired headphones, but wireless will do), you can tap one or more Chantlings. They’ll pick up on your voice and improvise harmonies that complement your own sounds. £2.39/Android • £2.49/iOS PLAY: SAVE VIDEOS Video is everywhere – which makes tracking it a nightmare. This app lets you stash links to videos from YouTube, Vimeo, Twitter and more. Tags and smart searches help you organise and filter a collection, while iCloud sync makes everything ready on your Apple TV when it’s time to watch on the big(ger) screen. £2.49/iOS RADIOMG When your ears fancy something new and the usual suspects…

from £5590/go.stuff.tv/Theatre DAY 01 Some brands have their own specific areas of expertise… and for the longest time, Bang & Olufsen has been giving assorted products the full ‘Scandinavian design house’ treatment. Far more often than not, it’s been a very successful policy. But might the Beosound Theatre be a bridge too far? After all, brilliantly accomplished Dolby Atmos sound from a single speaker (or speaker-plus-sub) can be yours for considerably less money than this. Mind you, it’s certainly a design statement. B&O says the looks were inspired by boats, and given it’s over 1.2m wide we’re guessing the boat in question was a battleship. And yet, it can quite easily be bigger still. Ours arrived fitted with a pair of aluminium end-caps that make it as wide as the…

Developer Firaxis might be best known for the hardcore XCOM reboot, with its infamously harsh hit-rates and character permadeath, but Marvel’s Midnight Suns is no mere re-skin. The story is deep and character-driven, while the combat takes as much inspiration from card games as it does from turn-based tactical ones. Nor is it based on the ubiquitous Marvel Cinematic Universe. A more obscure 1990s comicbook run focused on Marvel’s darker side takes centre stage, where MCU villains Hydra play second fiddle to the all-corrupting Mother of Demons. Your character is a new creation, with a light/dark choice system that affects development and adds tension between team-mates. Missions are a world away from XCOM. Superheroes don’t miss and can’t die, so the randomness comes from which attack or skill cards can…

1 Apple MacBook Air (M2) from £1249/go.stuff.tv/AirM2 With its super-powered M2 processor, the latest version of Apple’s ‘basic’ laptop leaves the M1 model – an excellent machine in its own right – in the dust. This revamp redefines the Air in a meaningful way, instantly renders the 13in MacBook Pro obsolete, and sets a yardstick by which Apple’s entry-level devices will now be judged. Stuff says Shame about the price hike, but this is still the Mac to buy for most users 2 Apple MacBook Pro 14in from £1899/go.stuff.tv/Pro14 If you don’t need this MacBook’s power and ports, going Pro really is overkill. That’s especially true if your software isn’t yet optimised for Apple’s incredible M1 Pro chip: it’ll just mean you’re spending too much for what you’ll get out…

1 Sky Stream from £26/m + setup/go.stuff.tv/SkyStream Functionality-wise, it’s hard to find fault with this little puck. The basic package seems a little pricey compared to a subscription to Sky’s £10/m Now Entertainment deal, which gets you access to most of the same channels via an app that’s available on all sorts of smart TVs and streaming devices. But if you want to watch movies too, and especially if you’re willing to pay to watch Premier League football and can’t have (or don’t want) a satellite dish, this is the ideal solution. Stuff says Making it more affordable and accessible than ever, this is the best way to watch Sky TV 2 Amazon Fire TV Stick 4K £50/go.stuff.tv/FireStick4K This streaming stick offers 4K plus a faster processor than the original…

1 Elden Ring from £38/PS5, PS4, XSX, XB1, PC With From Software’s trademark difficulty and a richly imaginative world that doesn’t hold your hand, this ambitious action RPG is a crowning achievement. There’s so much to lose yourself in here: lore hunters will have a field day combing through the world’s mythology; speedrunners and those who thrive on challenge will relish figuring out the best weapons to use and where to find them. Even for most of us mere mortals, Elden Ring is an event: an invitation to greatness. Stuff says Majestic and daunting, this is like no other open-world action RPG 2 God of War Ragnarok £55/PS5, PS4 It may not break new ground, but with satisfying, expansive and challenging gameplay, as well as deep storytelling and fascinating characters…

1 Kia EV6 from £45,245/go.stuff.tv/EV6 This Korean crossover arrived with a properly head-turning design and a roomy cabin packed with tech features, including dynamic AR navigation graphics that make it virtually impossible to go the wrong way. It’ll manage up to 300 miles on a charge and can handle a heady 350kW when it’s time to plug in, so you’ll only need a 20min pitstop before you can get back out on the road. Everyday driving is a real treat, thanks to a refined ride and light steering, but it also impresses through the twisty bits. Stuff says A fantastic family-focused EV, with so many features you’ll be making excuses to go for a drive on your own 2 BMW i4 from £56,185/go.stuff.tv/i4 The i4 makes a lot of sense…

If you’ve got the money to buy yourself a 97in TV, you can probably also afford to neatly squirrel (don’t forget, 21 January) the cables away in the wall behind it… but with LG’s latest giant OLED, wires are not an issue. The M3 comes with a voice-controlled Zero Connect box, which happily accepts all the wires from your consoles, set-top boxes and such like, and beams the signal wirelessly to the actual telly. That means you can stow all your stuff out of sight and not have to worry about spoiling the look of your new gogglebox by having a load of spaghetti hanging out of the back. Now, picture purists will no doubt be very concerned about the quality and latency of those wireless transmissions, but LG reckons…

£N/A (concept)/lexus.co.uk Wow. What’s the design thinking behind this one? The wild looks of this concept draw on elements of the Lexus LFA, while some of the curves could have been lifted from parent company Toyota’s Supra. The end result is an EV with a low-slung, high-performance edge… and quite possibly a manual gearbox. Eh? But you just said it was an EV. Yes, the company is developing a manual gearbox for electric cars. Seems nuts, but they’ve released a video showing exactly that: someone shifting gears in a Lexus UX 300e. The software-based system could add a neat new dimension if the Electrified Sport goes on sale later in the decade. But what’s the point? Being able to manually select gears in a sports car makes total sense. It’s…

from £330/go.stuff.tv/Scribe If you thought the £230 Kindle Oasis was about as premium as Amazon’s e-reader range was going to get, think again… and say hello to the Scribe. This is a large-screen Kindle in the iPad price bracket – and that’s a seriously challenging place to be for a black and white E Ink reading device. E Ink is still niche tech, although the excellent Remarkable 2 recently showed us there’s life in it yet – and with the iPad Pro making a success out of working with a stylus, it feels like there’s something here for Amazon to grab hold of, even if digital note-taking doesn’t quite have the success its long history might suggest. The Scribe is available in 16, 32 and 64GB storage sizes, starting at…

KNOTWORDS Crosswords without clues, where you’re given the letters? Easy, right? Nope. Because Knotwords crosswords are broken into shapes and the letters within are scrambled. It’s your job to sort everything out, against the clock. You’ll quickly realise just how many words a small set of letters can make – loads. £free (IAP)/Android, iOS OTTERETTO Tetris was always rubbish on devices with slippy screens and no buttons. Otteretto rethinks shape-dropping puzzling for mobile. It’s a smart turn-based effort where you tap out palindromic sequences to rack up the points needed to reach the next level. Colourful, thinky stuff, with great extra modes if you pay a few quid. £free (IAP)/Android, iOS ROCKET LEAGUE SIDESWIPE You know those football matches that feature cars as players? Not nearly mad enough. So, like…

Ever wondered what’s up with the links in Stuff? We’ve got a team of retail pros who scour the web to find you the best gadget deals – visit any go.stuff.tv link in this mag and you’ll be taken to the best deal for that product. If you make a purchase, we may get a small commission. It’s that simple, and has no impact on how much you pay.…

The shadow of sci-fi survival horror classic Dead Space looms heavily over developer Striking Distance’s debut effort – but The Callisto Protocol sure does its damnedest to step out swinging. It bucks the trend for psychological horror, where your character can only run helplessly away from danger, in favour of facing those nightmares in the shadows head-on though a lean, mean, 10hr campaign. The poor sap you’re controlling is Jacob Lee, a space cargo pilot sent to an off-world prison colony in a ‘wrong place, wrong time’ scenario. But before you’ve even had time to settle in, the prison is overrun by an alien virus. Workers and prisoners alike are transformed into monstrous biophages, and the race is on to escape with your innards… well, in. A prison might sound…

1 Sony XR-55A95K £2199/go.stuff.tv/A95K Samsung developed QD-OLED to address the one shortcoming of OLED – a relative lack of brightness – yet it’s Sony that leads the pack now. This QD-OLED set doesn’t come cheap, but its performance makes the price look fair enough. In every respect – colour balance, motion control, detail – it performs impeccably. It’s a brilliantly naturalistic and lifelike watch, with the deep, varied black tones that are one of the real OLED trademarks. Stuff says QD-OLED technology is here, and on this evidence it’s the real deal 2 Philips 55OLED807 £1299/go.stuff.tv/OLED807 Despite its affordability, the 55OLED807 is a nicely designed, well turned-out television that shows no signs of having been built down to a price. Most importantly of all, it offers great picture quality in…

1 Apple iPad Air from £669/go.stuff.tv/iPadAir This tablet has enough power to rival the flagship iPad Pro – and even quite a few current MacBooks. And though you might need to add a keyboard, a stylus and even a gamepad to make the most of it, the latest Air reinforces the growing sense that an iPad really can be a laptop replacement for doing proper work (or play). Slight storage dilemmas aside, this is a top-notch device, supported by an ecosystem that makes it highly versatile for an increasingly wide range of users. Stuff says It’s not perfect, but this latest iPad Air is a top-quality package – not least because of that M1 chip 2 Apple iPad Pro (M2) from £899/go.stuff.tv/ProM2 There’s so much you can do with this…

1 Sonos Move £399/go.stuff.tv/SonosMove The Sonos range of wireless speakers had been crying out for a battery-powered portable model for ages – and finally our favourite multiroom audio specialist caved in. Luckily, the Move was worth the wait. Its adaptability and sound quality mean it’s fine value for money, and a no-brainer for anyone who’s already a fan of the brand. This is the speaker Sonos should have launched years ago – and for even better portability, see the Roam model at No4 on this list. Stuff says Sonos finally gets up to speed with the portable speaker craze, and in style 2 Sonos One £199/go.stuff.tv/SonosOne The Sonos One is now a more well-rounded device than it was at launch, supporting Spotify with Alexa or Google Assistant voice control as…

1 GoPro Hero11 Black £400/go.stuff.tv/Hero11 The Hero11 Black introduces a sensor with an almost square 8:7 aspect ratio, capturing footage that can be losslessly cropped at high quality for YouTube, Instagram, TikTok or whatever other format you want. That aside, the design is practically identical to its predecessor – so it’s still compatible with almost all existing accessories. Most importantly, its lightweight build is just as durable as past GoPros, and with HyperSmooth stabilisation you can expect footage with best-in-class smoothness. Stuff says An innovative and powerful camera that’s good for creators and adventurers alike 2 DJI Air 2S £899/go.stuff.tv/Air2S DJI’s laurels remain assuredly un-rested-upon, and this may be its best drone yet: an almost perfect balance of portability, performance and price, ideal for novices but still able to produce nigh-on…

1 Amazon Echo Dot (5th Gen) from £55/go.stuff.tv/Dot5 The latest Dot offers improved sound quality over the 4th Gen model. Not surprisingly given its size, it still doesn’t have the heft of a full-scale Echo, but this Dot is more than good enough for bedside table or kitchen listening – and light years away from the lame sound of the early models. Be sure to consider the £65 ‘with Clock’ version, which offers a better and much more useful LED display than the previous model. Stuff says The 5th Gen brings a nice upgrade to an already excellent little gadget 2 Microsoft Xbox Wireless Headset £90/go.stuff.tv/XboxHeadset With their chunky earpads, these black cans are unmistakably Xbox. And the sound is impressive for the price, with a low-end response so impactful we had…