When you install a free app on your phone, especially if it’s from a big brand, you expect it to respect your privacy and not collect personal information and track your activity. But as anyone who has watched The Social Dilemma on Netflix will understand, data is currency for these companies. It’s how they make money from you, while allowing you to use their services for free. Recently, Apple added privacy labels to all apps available on its devices so you can see exactly what information an app collects about you....

Last August, I had the privilege of travelling to southern China for a product launch. I had a wonderful time, but the weather was like nothing I’d ever experienced. It was usually just under 40 ° C with 100% humidity and not the slightest hint of breeze. Going outside was like stepping into the steam room at the gym, and as someone raised in the cloudy Midlands, a five-minute stroll had me drenched in sweat....

Nubia has once again proven itself as a leader in the gaming phone market with the unveiling of its latest innovation, the Redmagic 10 Pro series. Announced globally today, the Redmagic 10 Pro boasts a jaw-dropping feature that has gamers buzzing worldwide: a massive 7,050mAh battery, setting a new standard for battery life in the best gaming phones . However, its dual-cell battery is not just larger than any previous offering but also smarter....

At a glance Expert’s Rating Pros Hands-free neck fan Cools neck area fast and well inside Simple app controls Comfortable Cons Noisy at full blast Less useful outside Pricey Our Verdict The Torras Coolify Cyber is a one-person wearable, wireless cooler that can blow cooled or warmed air around your neck, upper shoulders and lower head. It’s comfortable and does a good job when used inside, although we were less impressed with it during tests on a hot day outside....

At a Glance Our Verdict It’s nice to finally see a 13in option for a Chromebook but basic build quality and screen resolution means the Toshiba doesn’t have any stand out features. It’s a good job it’s cheap then. Best Prices Today: Toshiba Chromebook Toshiba has joined the Chrome OS party with its inventively named Toshiba Chromebook at CES 2014. The device will be available on 16 February for $279 so we expect a price in sterling of £200-250....

At a Glance Expert’s Rating Our Verdict The TP-Link AV1300 Gigabit Powerline Adapter Starter Kits (TL-PA8033P KIT and TL-WPA8631P KIT) match their rival Gigabit Powerline adapter sets in our real-world speed tests. If your home Wi-Fi is patchy in distant rooms, it is probably worth paying the extra for the Wi-Fi-enabled WPA-8631P KIT. Best Prices Today: TP-LINK AV1300 Powerline Adapter Powerline is an incredibly easy way to set-up your own speedy home network....

At a Glance Expert’s Rating Our Verdict The Tronsmart Presto is a good-value power bank with sufficient capacity to charge your phone several times. It places speed of charging above all else, so it’s an ideal portable charger to have to hand (preferably in a bag) when the need arises. With no support for Micro-USB it’s best suited to those with USB-C phones. Best Prices Today: Tronsmart Presto With 12,000mAh of power inside this bank its size comes as no surprise, but its 158mm width is awkward for slipping into a pocket....

While Hollywood and the US in general remain at the top of the film, TV and streaming industries, new data proves that there’s a thirst for shows from other countries – and perhaps this could signal that we’ll see less of the Americanised remakes that are so often commissioned. “A prime example of UK success is Netflix’s Adolescence , a UK scripted show which garnered an impressive 1.5 billion minutes viewed in its first week in the US, and it’s even outperformed the impressive debut of Baby Reindeer and perennial favourite Black Mirror....

The Outsize is a new cordless cleaner but it’s not an entirely new model. It’s essentially a bigger version of the V11 with a wider cleaning head and a more capacious bin, although its other features and specifications seem to be the same. Dyson’s aim is to change the minds of people with larger homes who may have been sceptical about buying a cordless cleaner until now. The company says that the redesign reflected research into what people with bigger places wanted in a cleaner....

At a glance Expert’s Rating Pros Auto-empty charging stand Good suction Swappable batteries Headlights Cons Heavy and not very comfortable to use Limited cleaning accessories Our Verdict This well priced and powerful cordless vacuum does a lot for its price point. Its HEPA filtration system and auto-empty dock mean it’s a great option for people with hay fever. It looks good and it has some handy features but you should note that it feels heavy in use....

At a Glance Expert’s Rating Our Verdict We’re really impressed by the VAVA Baby Monitor. For a relatively unknown brand, this offering is high quality, well priced and includes most of the features you’ll be looking for. For some, the lack of WiFi and phone connectivity will be off-putting, but the 5in screen and panning capabilities may make up for it. Best Prices Today: VAVA Baby Monitor A baby monitor is one of the more expensive purchases you’ll need to make when introducing a new human to the world, so it’s important to spend some time deciding which baby monitor is the right fit for your needs....

At a Glance Expert’s Rating Pros Lightweight design Good gesture controls IP54 water-resistance Cons Weak bass Barebones app Priced too high Our Verdict The Vivo TWS Neo are a decent pair of true wireless earbuds that are probably priced a little high for what they offer. Best Prices Today: Vivo TWS Neo If you haven’t heard of Vivo, fear not. The Chinese tech company only really made itself known in the UK and Europe at the tail end of 2020, when it launch a quartet of Android phones – and alongside them these, the TWS Neo earbuds....

At a Glance Expert’s Rating Our Verdict If you can’t wait for the inevitable PS4/Xbone GTA V release, Watch_Dogs will scratch the itch. It’s a real shame that its hacking abilities, while fun, aren’t much more than gimmicks, and that it feels so short on character, however. This is no herald for a new age, but it’s a decent enough holding pattern for open world action. Best Prices Today: Watch_Dogs The next generation is here – but turns out that, so far, it’s not too different to the last generation....

At a Glance Expert’s Rating Our Verdict The WD Red in its new 6 TB form is self-evidently one huge disk. With the help of improved firmware it is now smiled upon for use in 8-bay NAS units, while its top speed of around 175 MB/s is faster than ever. Only at the level of smallest files do we see a compromise in performance, but providing your NAS is working with larger media files for instance you may be unlikely to notice this shortfall....

In the smartwatch space, Apple and Samsung have long battled over pole position, with their signature wearables running on watchOS and Tizen respectively, while Google’s Wear OS has usually languished in third place. In 2021, however, Samsung teamed up with Google to rework the latter’s long-standing but often maligned wearable operating system, in the process embracing it as its own. With such a significant change in the potential future of the wearable landscape, this feature unpicks everything that the newest iteration of Google’s Wear OS brings to the table and which devices it might influence....

If you regularly read PC or laptop reviews, you’ve probably seen the term ‘CPU’ bandied around relatively often. It stands for central processing unit and is a fundamental part of any computing device. It’s responsible for processing and executing various instructions, hence its nickname as the ‘brains’ of the computer. In this article, we’ll be focusing on the significance of the CPU within PCs and laptops, as well as what to look out for in your next purchase....

eSIMs: In summary A digital version of a traditional SIM card Easily installed and primarily used for data Popular for travel due to no roaming fees, cheap prices and a wide range of plans For years, tiny SIM cards have been a crucial element of connecting our phones to mobile networks. While essential, they’ve often proven awkward and easy to lose. Don’t overspend on international roaming or waste time looking for public Wi-Fi....

For Windows PCs and laptops, there is a lot of confusion over pagefile.sys. We explain what this file is for and whether you can remove it. What is pagefile.sys? Windows uses pagefile.sys for storing the data that would otherwise be in the computer’s random access memory (RAM). Sometimes there simply isn’t enough capacity to hold all the necessary files in RAM, so pagefile.sys sits on your hard drive or SSD (C:pagefile....

If your home working setup is anything like most of the team at Tech Advisor , it will involve a multi-socket extension lead connected to a mains socket in the wall with a PC , monitor, speakers, printer and possibly other devices all plugged into it. And you might well wonder if attaching so many devices to one 13A socket will overload it. Fortunately, it’s easy to work out – or see – if your devices are drawing too much power....

Though text messages will always remain in WhatsApp, many people use voice messaging as it’s quicker to record a short clip of you speaking than typing it, or dictating it and then correcting Siri or Google Assistant’s transcription. Now, several new quality-of-life features have been added to WhatsApp that make voice messaging that much better. They follow other improvements such as the option to change the playback speed of messages and the ability to preview messages you’ve recorded before sending them...