At a glance Expert’s Rating Pros Incredible battery life Top-of-the-range audio performance Ultra-stable connection Cons No companion app No wireless charging Our Verdict The 100% wireless Tribit FlyBuds C1 promise top-notch audio performance and excellent battery life for a very affordable price, but they aren’t completely faultless. Best Prices Today: Tribit FlyBuds C1 Since 2017, Tribit has made a habit of creating innovative, high-performance audio devices at prices that challenge competitors....

At a Glance Expert’s Rating Pros Multi-port Lightweight Flexible cable choices Cons HDMI 4K at 30Hz rather than 60Hz Our Verdict It calls itself just a hub but this portable box of ports has enough to go to battle with bigger, more expensive laptop docking stations. Best Prices Today: Twelve South StayGo USB-C Hub The Twelve South StayGo is an unobtrusive portable USB-C Hub that gives you most of the extra ports you need, while also passing power through to you laptop....

At a Glance Expert’s Rating Our Verdict The UMIDIGI C Note is a very well-designed budget smartphone with a premium design. Performance is lacking, but capable, and the camera can produce decent results in good lighting. A good budget buy. Best Prices Today: UMIDIGI C Note UMIDIGI has turned out some great-looking phones of late, and despite its budget price tag the C Note is no different. Also see: Best Chinese phones 2017 and Best budget phones 2017...

Samsung looks to be readying its next major Galaxy Watch OS smartwatch update, One UI 7 Watch based on Wear OS 6, but there are signs that Google Assistant won’t be part of the package. According to an X (formerly Twitter) post from tipster Alfatürk , signs of the first One UI Watch 7.0 beta have appeared on Samsung’s servers under the build number L310XXU1ZYDA. There’s no additional information on what this new version of Samsung’s wearable UI might contain....

A proxy server – proxy for short – is a computer on the internet which acts as a middle-man between your computer and the website or service you’re using. Its whole purpose is to prevent the website or service from knowing where the request originated by hiding your IP address and using a different one. That’s why they’re called proxy servers: they act as a substitute for your computer. If this doesn’t make a whole lot of sense, consider this example....

While it’s true that technology and water make poor bedfellows, having a cup of water or other drink knocked accidentally onto your precious laptop isn’t necessarily as fatal as it might first seem. Here’s what to do if you drench your PC. Don’t panic! Keeping a cool head is important, as there are some things that need to be done quickly to maximise the chance of saving your laptop. Remove any kind of power and turn off the laptop In an ideal world your laptop would have been turned off when you managed to spill water on it....

After months of speculation – and in the case of dBrand, a cease and desist – Sony finally revealed its own range of new colourful console covers for the PlayStation 5 at the back end of 2021. With five new colour options to choose from, it’s finally time to jazz up the look of the black-and-white console – and Sony has also released new DualSense colour options to match. If you want a red, black, blue, purple or pink PS5, we’ve got you covered....

Sci-fi fans are currently gearing up for some timey wimey shenanigans when Doctor Who makes its triumphant return to screens with the 60th Anniversary Specials, with David Tennant once again starring as the Time Lord. But he’s not the only familiar face back – Catherine Tate will be reprising her role as the beloved companion Donna Noble, and showrunner Russell T Davies is back writing the show. He’s the man behind both Chris Eccleston’s and David Tennant’s tenures, and revered shows such as It’s a Sin....

More and more devices rely on WiFi for an internet connection these days, putting a bigger demand on your router. From phones and laptops to smart speakers, security cameras and even kitchen appliances, the average home now has many more internet-connected gadgets than ever before. If your broadband router was supplied your Internet Service Provider (ISP), chances are that it doesn’t support the latest WiFi standards or offer the very best speed or coverage....

Windows 10’s 2004 update was officially released on 27 May 2020, marking the first of two feature updates to arrive last year. Microsoft throttled up availability to manage demand as usual, but that didn’t stop it from being plagued with bugs in the weeks and months following launch. Microsoft did release a series of patches in October 2020, fixing many issues people had been experiencing, but we had to wait until February 2021 until the update was officially marked as ‘cleared for broad deployment’....

At a Glance Expert’s Rating Our Verdict When it comes to design, the Withings Move ECG is so classic and simple that it could pass as an everyday watch. On the fitness tracking side, the companion Health Mate app does almost everything you need it to and more. However, Considering that the ECG doubles the price in comparison to the regular Move, it’s disappointing it doesn’t offer continuous heart rate monitoring....

At a Glance Expert’s Rating Our Verdict The Mi Note 3 is a downgrade on the Mi6 and, arguably, the Mi Note 2, but it appeals with a lower price and an attractive premium design. Though it doesn’t feature a flagship processor, this is is a very capable smartphone with a very decent dual-camera. Provided you can live without 800MHz 4G and are happy to install Google Play Services yourself, it’s difficult not to recommend the Mi Note 3....

At a Glance Expert’s Rating Pros Competitive pricing Quad-lens camera Dual-4G 3.5mm headphone jack Cons Plastic body MediaTek chip sacrifices performance & battery life Camera focus can be soft Our Verdict An excellent budget phone, but unless money is very tight the Redmi Note 9S offers better value still. Best Prices Today: Xiaomi Redmi Note 9 Joining Redmi Note 9S in Xiaomi’s 2020 budget phone range in the UK is this Redmi Note 9 and a higher-spec Note 9 Pro ....

At a Glance Our Verdict Two great smartphones toward the top of the tree, if you are an Apple fanboy or fangirl (fanperson?) you will wish to stay iTunes and the App Store. Fandroids will swear by the Sony on this one. Unusually, Apple is marginally cheaper, but the Xperia Z3 is ahead on almost all quantifiable metrics. That’s where we would put our money, principally because of the expandable storage, better display and more robust build....

It’s possible that another Pixel-exclusive feature will also be available to users of other phone brands. Back in April, all Google Photos users received features previously only available to Pixel phones , and now the Circle to Search feature is on the verge of becoming a major addition to many other Android phones . Until now, only a limited number of devices, specifically Google Pixel phones and certain Samsung Galaxy phones , had access to this functionality....

Staying safe online is one of those things you wish you didn’t have to think about. Much like home insurance, your next check-up at the dentist and other necessities which we’d all rather do without. Convenience is what you want, not hassle. However, the answer (to all these things, in fact) isn’t to ignore them but to deal with them. But like the simple act of installing an antivirus app, a password manager will take care of remembering all your logins so you don’t have to....

If you’ve just come from the latest episode of The Last of Us … my thoughts and prayers are with you. Through the Valley showed off that new season budget to its full potential, with a swarm of Infected raging war on the sanctuary of Jackson, Wyoming. However, you may have been more preoccupied by another explosive plot. Fans of the original game, The Last of Us Part II, knew this was coming… but perhaps not this soon....

Another Game of Thrones spin-off takes viewers back to the world of A Song of Ice and Fire, which we’ll see through the eyes of the would-be knight Dunk and his young squire, Egg. A series tagline, “A Journey Far From the Throne”, suggests a small-scale, ant’s eye view of the universe. Although A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms features proud aristocrats and brutal duels in typical Game of Thrones fashion, it also promises a buddy-comedy storyline....

At a Glance Expert’s Rating Our Verdict The R11 is a decent, if unspectacular device. Having the option to position it in a variety of modes is fun, but the sometimes sluggish performance makes it hard to recommend to anyone who wants to do more than a couple of simultaneous tasks. If your needs are light and you value the flexible hinges though, it’s a nice machine all the same, but we’d still opt to wait for the 4GB alternative....

At a Glance Our Verdict The budget price of the Iconia One 7 is reflected in the quality of its hardware with lackluster cameras and a not very impressive screen. It’s cheap and cheerful so doesn’t look like one we’ll be recommending but check back for the full review soon to find out. Best Prices Today: Acer Iconia One 7 At its event in New York, Acer has announced another budget tablet so here’s our review of the Acer Iconia One 7....