Most people use tablets for basic tasks such as streaming and doom-scrolling on social media, and nowadays you don’t have to spend a lot of money on a device to get one that’s perfectly capable of serving those needs. Better yet, many budget tablets receive big discounts during sales – including November’s Black Friday season. Affordable tablets we test come in around or under the £300/$300 mark, but our award-winner is well below that price....

At a Glance Expert’s Rating Our Verdict The Gear Fit2 Pro is a solid choice if you want a slim GPS fitness tracker that works well on Android or iOS. It has more features and a vastly better screen than the similarly built Fitbit Charge 2, but costs £90 more. For less than £209 you could get a Garmin Forerunner 35 with GPS, but the design and screen is not as premium as you’ll find with the Fit2 Pro....

The Galaxy Z Flip 3 was a hit. It wowed at its launch last August, impressed me enough to garner a rare 5-star review , and according to research firm Omdia Samsung shipped more Flip 3 units in just five months than every other foldable phone combined in the whole of 2021. Nobody’s perfect though, and much as I loved last year’s Flip I had to acknowledge its flaws: slow charging, limited battery life, and a pretty basic camera by flagship standards....

At a Glance Expert’s Rating Our Verdict The SilverStone TS10 is a smart and extremely compact enclosure to connect a 7 mm SATA drive to your computer. It also supports the latest UASP high-speed mode of USB 3.0, although this may be limited to certain computer platforms. Best Prices Today: SilverStone Technology TS10 Thanks to the interest in thin-and-light laptops , thinner SATA hard drives and SSDs have become widely available....

At a Glance Expert’s Rating Our Verdict It’s beautiful, and at 700 watts, it’s powerful. It’s also very expensive. It costs twice as much as most of its rivals but that doesn’t necessarily mean that it works twice as well. It’s certainly a great hand blender but what you’re paying for is the design. Best Prices Today: Smeg hand blender Smeg’s hand blender has a 700W motor, with variable speed settings....

Sony has announced the Sony Xperia 1 V exactly a year to the day after the Xperia 1 IV, updating its top-end camera centric smartphone with new lens technology. The Xperia 1 V (that’s ‘one mark five’) has a new image sensor compared to the previous generation that Sony calls its Exmor T for Mobile. The company, which also produces a popular line of cameras, said this sensor has improved low light photography – but it is not the Sony IMX989 1in sensor used in recent camera systems on the Oppo Find X6 Pro and Xiaomi 13 Ultra ....

At a glance Expert’s Rating Pros Very colour accurate display Impressive cameras Good battery life Decent performance Cons Only two rear cameras Not very bright display Uncomfortable to hold Prone to overheating Our Verdict A clear design flaw in the build drags down the score, and you shouldn’t expect too much in terms of performance It’s undoubtedly a quality phone with both a good camera and great media features, but such an orthodox phone is too niche for most people....

After a three-year hiatus, it looks as though Sony might be prepping for the return of its Xperia Compact line in 2021. While the company hasn’t released a compact version of one of its flagship phones since 2018’s Xperia XZ2 (pictured), fans have remained vocal about their love for the concept of a smaller premium smartphone; especially in the Android space, where such options have remained decidedly limited ( at least, until recently )....

At a Glance Our Verdict So overall, the answer to my initial question about whether cheap smartglasses are any good is essentially no. The Spardar Smart Glasses combine some useful tech but I wouldn’t describe them as ‘smart’ and they’re in no way in the same league as the proper smartglasses from Google, Sony and others with heads-up displays. Really, the Spardar Smart Glasses are a Bluetooth headset combined with a mediocre camera and quite dim torch, plus the not very well executed driving safety features....

Here’s how to get the deal. You need to spend £100 in a single transaction (ie one shopping cart) but you don’t need to spend it all in one department. Once your shopping is done, simply apply the code GOOGLETESTJUNE1 at the checkout. You can only use the code once per transaction. To find out more about the Google nest Mini, you can read our review but – spoilers – we think it’s a five-star piece of kit....

Captain Pike and his crew are coming back for another season of Strange New Worlds, one of the newer Star Trek shows in a raft of series in what’s fast becoming a new golden age for the franchise. Strange New Worlds picks up a few key cast members from the second season of Discovery to explore the adventures of the USS Enterprise before Kirk inherited the captain’s chair. Here is everything we know about the next season....

Last Sunday, the Primetime Emmy awards were the talk of the entertainment world. And whilst many were focusing on the yays and nays of the red carpet looks, there was a clear trend regarding the types of shows that swept the awards evening. The takeaway of the night is that broadcast TV is lagging behind streaming services when it comes to critical acclaim. Most of the major categories were won by digital streaming shows, with two shows in particular picking up most of the awards....

Surfshark, one of the best VPN providers in the market, has already launched its highly anticipated Black Friday and Cyber Monday deals for 2024 even though it’s still October. The headline offer is 87% off a 2-year subscription for just £1.49/$1.99 per month, with an extra 4 months free included – totalling just £41.58/$55.72 at checkout. Whether you’re after the best VPN services , best antivirus software , or identity theft alerts, Surfshark has bundled it all into some of the best discounts of the season....

At a glance Expert’s Rating Pros Gentle and quiet More than month-long battery life High quality build Pressure sensor and two brushing modes Cons No customisation options No smart features Our Verdict Apart from its sustainable features, the big selling points of the Suri 2.0 are how beautifully it’s made and how pleasant it is to use. Throw in a battery life of well over a month, USB charging, a slim UV-light cleaning travel case and all the necessary brushing features and you have an electric toothbrush that can rival any model out there for gentle brushing....

At a Glance Expert’s Rating Our Verdict The Swissgear Scansmart SA1900 is a great backpack for carrying and protecting your laptop, tablet and general tech gear. There’s plenty of space for all your other stuff – clothes, books, groceries, whatever you can pack in the generous 31-litre capacity. The fabric and zips are tough, and the shoulder straps adjust easily while on your back. It is also approved by the US TSA (Transportation Security Administration) as meeting its criteria for being airport checkpoint friendly....

At a glance Expert’s Rating Pros Good performance, great price, and neat health benefits Smooth screen is nice for movies and great for reading Fantastic battery life when needed Cons Finnicky cameras with poor video support Speakers lack warmth and detail Plenty of app bloat Our Verdict For an almost budget price, the TCL 50 Pro Nxtpaper is a wonderful phone for avid readers or even those just trying to protect the peepers of themselves or their families....

At a Glance Expert’s Rating Our Verdict A cheap, yet highly effective device that does many of the jobs that a home or SOHO solution needs to perform. It’s easy to install, and in just a few short minutes you can be up and running with a device that can serve up pictures, music and video as easily as being a CRM or database server. Best Prices Today: TerraMaster F2-210 It’s a simplification, but the NAS drive market has stratified into two tiers’ Synology, and everyone else....

Apple is about to release iOS 17 alongside the iPhone 15 and 15 Pro phones, but the best thing about iOS 17 is your iPhone will probably get it, too. New versions of iOS tend to support iPhones from the previous four or five years, meaning if you have an iPhone XR or later you will be able to download iOS 17 and take advantage of all its cool new features – hardware permitting....

The Nintendo Switch is one of the most popular consoles right now, and it’s little wonder why. Being able to play games on the big screen is great, but being able to experience those same high-end games on the go with a portable form factor is even better. Let’s not also forget that there’s a strong line of exclusives including The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, Animal Crossing: New Horizons and countless Mario and Pokémon games that keep the millions of Switch owners entertained....

Relax. We’ll do the hard work. Our team of tech experts (texperts?) are always on the lookout for great discounts (seriously, we have a dedicated Slack channel just to discuss deals). Whether you’re looking for a discount on a new laptop, a Samsung Galaxy S21, the iPhone 12, a new Fitbit, or discounts on consoles like the Nintendo Switch (or where the heck to buy a PS5 !) we’ve got you covered....