Author: Danielle

Sick of dropping and breaking expensive phones? HMD Global feels your pain, which is why the Finnish company is bringing its first rugged feature phone to Australian market this Thursday, the Nokia 800 Tough.

Both dust and water proof (IP68), the Nokia 800 Tough is said to “withstand drops and extreme temperatures”, boasting “military grade MIL-STD-810G” compliance, allowing it to brave weather conditions as low as -20º or as high as 55º Celsius.

According to HMD Global, the Nokia 800 Tough should be able to shrug off a 1.8m drop onto concrete and continue to function normally, making it ideal for use on worksites.

Practical and affordable

Much like the Nokia 3310 (2017) and Nokia 8110 4G before it, the Nokia 800 Tough is a feature phone with a small screen and physical keypad, meaning it lacks full smartphone functionality on purpose. 

That said, Google Assistant, WhatsApp and Facebook will be preloaded on the 4G LTE device, with the ability to download additional apps from a growing app store.

In terms of utilities, the handset also has a dedicated flashlight on top and a built-in loop at the bottom, making it easy to attach the Nokia 800 Tough to a belt, lanyard, backpack or wristband.

Priced at AU$189, the Nokia 800 Tough will be available for purchase from Harvey Norman (in-store and online) and JB Hi-Fi (online only) from Thursday, October 10, 2019.

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The rise of modern, flexible workplaces and the spread of mobile devices means that today’s office environment is often barely recognisable, even when compared to what was common just 15 years ago.

If you haven’t bought a new office printer in the last couple of years, you’d be forgiven for thinking that the workplace revolution had left these ‘utilitarian’ tools behind, and that they’d evolved little in the past decade. However, these silent achievers that sit in the office and help you organise your work have been quietly levelling-up, too – and perhaps none more so than the new smart printers found in HP’s OfficeJet Pro range. These aim to help relieve the burden of small business owners’ epic workloads by making the inevitable paperwork handling as efficient as possible – even when the documents are entirely digital, and there’s no actual hard-copy printing involved. This leaves both business owners and their employees with more time to focus their efforts on what really matters: getting work done. With that in mind, here are five new things you probably didn’t know that modern office printers could do.

(Image credit: HP)

1. Mobile-based smart workflows

HP understands that the modern office is mobile, so there’s little point in limiting connectivity to the local office network. HP’s Smart printing app is available on both iOS and Android, and offers enhanced functionality which includes scanning documents by taking pictures of them with your smartphone’s camera. From here, you can email and/or scan directly to recipients. You can also set up automated workflows, called Smart Tasks, which greatly streamline activities – such as letting you scan receipts when you’re out and about, then print them later at your convenience via the printer’s touchscreen.

2. Space saving designs

The new, flagship OfficeJet Pro 9020 is a fully-featured, multi-function device with automatic document feeder and sizeable output tray. But while it maintains the core functionality of its predecessors, it now takes up 39% less space. This is great news for any office, but particularly so for those where every square-inch matters. Indeed, its base now has a footprint of just 437 x 397mm, allowing for discrete integration into any workspace.

3. Flexible ink options

HP has also made buying OfficeJet ink simpler and more flexible. Each replacement pack is prominently labelled with the printers it works in, and there’s a broader choice of packs to choose from. If you just need a quick top-up, for example, you can save on up-front costs by buying the standard cartridges individually. However, there are also High Yield “XL” versions which last even longer – and provide better value – for those who print a great deal. These offer more than twice the capacity of the standard size, and for significantly less than double the price. Consequently, you won’t need to worry about running out of ink too soon, or spending too much on consumables.

4. Advanced built-in OCR*

At the pointy-end of the OfficeJet smart printer’s technology complement is optical character recognition (OCR). This enables you to scan a document with either the printer or your smartphone app, then turn the image into a text document which can be further edited before printing or sharing. There’s no need to re-write anything by hand, even if you’re on your iPhone or Android handset.

5. More environmentally friendly

In this day and age, it’s good to know that some thought has been put into the sustainability of this stalwart office purchase and the new OfficeJet Pros are no exception. The new 8000-series models contain up to 15% recycled parts, while the premium 9000 series devices are up to 10% recycled. On top of this, both series’ are more power efficient than ever. With smart power management and low electricity consumption, they’re more kind to the environment and will help to keep your bills down – something that’s always essential when running a business.

HP is also a founding member of Cartridges 4 Planet Ark, an innovative recycling program that provides Australians with a free and easy way to recycle their used cartridges. Over 10 million HP cartridges have been recycled through this program locally with zero waste to landfill. By choosing an HP printer and recycling your Original HP Ink and Toner cartridges, you can help reduce your footprint on the planet, without compromising on quality.

(Image credit: HP)

Level up your entire office

Of course, HP’s flagship OfficeJet Pro 9020 offers more than just bells and whistles. With decades of printing experience, the device offers HP’s legendary dependability when both printing and scanning. The 1,200 x 1,200-pixel resolution print heads and inkjet technology mean that producing brochure-quality output is a breeze. And when HP’s specialised photo papers are used, the enhanced 4,800 x 1,200-pixel resolution means you can create borderless photos that approach lab quality. There’s minimal waiting around too, with prints being efficiently produced at rates up to 39 pages per minute, with a first page out time of just 9 seconds. Additional smarts mean that, for large print jobs, the output tray knows when it’s full – so there’s no danger of returning to an avalanche of paper all over your office floor.

It’s great at scanning and copying too, with the Automatic Document Feeder able to scan both sides of a document at once. These days, not everything needs to be turned into a hard copy either, in which case documents can easily be sent directly to the cloud, and then be shared where needed.

What’s more, these convenient features don’t open the devices up for abuse either. All of the printers in HP’s new OfficeJet Pro range offer best-in-class security features^, including data-level encryption, enterprise-class (self-healing) Wi-Fi security, and secure printing – all of which has been certified by KeyPoint Intelligence.

The new range of 8000-series printers is available now and starts from just $149. If you need more advanced printing options, the 9000-series can be purchased from all of Australia’s leading retailers, with the flagship OfficeJet 9020 model available for a very-agreeable $299.

So, if you need to focus on the work that really counts and don’t want to be distracted by temperamental tech, choose a printer that acts like a partner and not just a tool; a model that’s smart but doesn’t impose itself on your workspace or get in the way. If that’s you, HP’s new OfficeJet Pros are what you’ve been looking for. To find a model that suits your specific needs, click here.

* OCR available on 9010 and above models only.

^ Compared to the majority of competing in-class consumer colour desktop inkjet all-in-ones keypointintelligence.com/HPOfficeJetPro.

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Sonos – the Californian audio company known for its connected hi-fi systems – has just launched a subscription service called Flex that enables customers to rent out its speakers.

At the moment, only 500 homes in the Netherlands have the opportunity to sign up for Flex, but if the trial goes well, it’s likely we’ll see Sonos start rolling out the service globally.

Three choices

Currently, the service comes in three tiers, each offering a different configuration of speakers.

For €15 a month you can rent two Sonos One smart speakers to pair them for stereo use, but for an extra €10 on top of that you can add a Sonos Beam soundbar aimed at providing excellent TV audio with added connectivity options.

For a total of €50 per month, however, you can upgrade to a Sonos Playbar, Subwoofer, and a pair of Sonos One speakers. This could either make for an impressive home cinema array, or can be spread around the house for a connected audio setup.

Subscriptions can be canceled at any time and, during the subscription period, units will be replaced with newer models as they’re released.

Hardware subscription services

This won’t be the first audio hardware subscription service we’ve seen, with the Melbourne-based company Nura offering its flagship Nuraphone headphones for a monthly fee earlier in the year.

Similar to NuraNow, Sonos Flex is aimed at offering a premium audio experience without the need for customers to commit huge sums of money outright. 

The structure of both aforementioned services works well for customers looking to always have the latest iteration of the product, as they won’t have to repeatedly invest full price in the newest version of the hardware as it gets released.

That said, these services might not make sense for those looking to use their speaker or headphones in the long term as they won’t own the unit, even after they’ve paid the equivalent of retail price over the course of their subscription.

Another move Sonos has made to make its line of speakers more accessible was its partnership with Swedish furniture brand Ikea. The Symfonisk line of speakers are the most affordable that Sonos offers, and come integrated with items such as bookshelves and lamps.

If the trial proves successful, we’ll be hearing more about international availability of Flex in the near future, but until then you’ll have to pony up the full prices if you want the Sonos experience.

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Japanese photography giant Sigma first revealed that it was developing a new camera back in September 2018 at Photokina, but it wasn’t until July of this year that the company officially announced it intended to build the world’s smallest and lightest full-frame mirrorless camera.

At the time, pricing and availability was still to be decided, but thanks to new information revealed today, we now have some idea on both those fronts.

Reliable cameras rumors site Nokishita has tweeted that the the Sigma FP will cost ¥220,000 (around $2,060 / £1,670 / AU$3,060) for the body alone, while a 45mm lens kit would carry a price tag of ¥264,000 ($2,470 / £2,005 / AU$3,668). According to the same tweet, the camera will officially begin shipping on October 25.

今週予約開始される「SIGMA fp」の量販店価格はボディ税込220,000円、45mmレンズキット税込264,000円らしい。#噂October 7, 2019

A second source has lent even more credence to those price numbers, with an eagle-eyed Redditor (as first reported by Photo Rumors) uncovering a recommended price of $1,899.99 (about £1,545 / AU$2,829) mentioned within the source code of the little camera’s official webpage. Sigma has since fixed the slip, although another Redditor was able to capture a screenshot while the accidental reveal was still live.

(Image credit: Reddit)

As with all leaks – even those that seemingly come from an official source – it must be noted that the $1899.99 price is in no way definitive, and could change between now and the official release date.

According to Nozomi Tanaka, a well-connected photographer in Japan (via Mirrorless Rumors), the Sigma FP will likely be announced on October 20, with Google translating his tweet to, “The release date of SIGMA fp has been (almost) decided. Around October 20th. It’s fun to see what happens to the price. If it is later than that, it may be due to a problem with the final adjustment of the firmware. I pray that this will not happen. There is no possibility that it will be faster … because it is Sigma anyway.”

Pocket-sized powerhouse

The Sigma FP will be the company’s first camera since the launch of the SD Quattro H in 2017, which was based on Sigma’s Foveon technology featuring a 25.5MP APS-H sensor.

The FP will reportedly feature a 24.6MP full-frame sensor, within a body that measures just 45.3 x 112.6 x 69.9mm and weighs just 370g without a lens. (By comparison, the Sony Alpha A7 III is 650g, the Nikon Z6 is 675g and Canon’s EOS RP is 485g.) The Sigma FP will be almost modular and arrive with nine accessories at launch, allowing users to customize the shooter to their needs – be it for stills or for video.

Sigma is part of the L-mount Alliance, meaning the FP will be able to use any L-mount lens built for (and by) Panasonic or Leica. If the L-mount lens roadmap is anything to go by, the FP could have 42 compatible lenses by the end of 2020. 

If those October 20 announcement predictions are correct, at least we won’t have long to wait to find out more. Stay tuned.

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We’ve been super busy this week adding lots of highlights of the very best cheap TV sales. TV prices on some fantastic Ultra HD 4K TVs have been dropping nicely in recent months in the UK. We’ve got you covered if you’re looking for TV deals in the US too.

We’ve found something for everyone here. So we’ve got you covered for multiple size categories and we’ve looked at both ends of the pricing scale so you can get a cheap TV on a low budget, or you might find a higher quality set for a lower price than you expected – although those super new 8K models aren’t coming down any time soon. Not to worry though, as some of these HDR 4K TV deals will make your jaw drop.

Netflix, Amazon, Sky TV and the like are all increasing their 4K content too so you won’t be short on Ultra HD content to watch. Standard HD content will be upscaled on these TVs too, so you can feel the benefits of 4K straight away.

The best Black Friday TV deals and prices

While you can still find fantastic discounts below, it’s never too early to start thinking about the upcoming November sale event. We’ve collected the best Black Friday TV deals so you can shop all the top discounts in one place. We’ll also tell you everything else you need to know about the sale such as when it starts, what prices you can expect and which retailers are participating.

We keep our eye on the latest TV deals throughout the year, so we’re poised to find you the best price whenever the need to replace your old TV arises. We’re fully behind the 4K TV movement too as a competitive market has seen prices reach affordable levels much quicker than when HD tellies first came around. One look at the prices below and you’ll see what we mean. So much so, we’ve stopped covering the older standard HD TVs now seeing as Ultra HD TV deals are so cheap today.

Finding you the best cheap TV deal

We’ve split our carefully curated 4K TV deals into different size categories immediately after our pick for cheap TV deal of the week. Whatever your budget, we’re sure we can find something for you. 

Note: all of our selected TV sales highlights are for 4K/Ultra HD TVs and include a built-in freeview tuner as standard. Pretty much every deal comes with Smart TV functionality built-in along with HDR technology. If they don’t, we’ll clearly mention it.

(Image credit: Hisense)

TV deal of the week

The best cheap TV deals you can buy today

(Image credit: Hisense)

40-49 inch

50-59 inch

60-85 inch

Not found the right cheap TV for you today? Or maybe you’d prefer to directly browse the offers at your favourite retailers instead of our highlights of the best cheap TV deals? We’re updating this page on a regular basis, so you may have better luck another day. If you want to take a look for yourself now though, here are the direct links to a the full collection of TV sales at multiple stores. 

More large screen 4K TV sales

If you’re after more seriously large TV deals, we should warn you, they don’t come cheap. However, if you want to see some more large screen TV deals -we’re talking about 65 to 85-inch TVs- we’d recommend heading over to AO.com,  John Lewis, Currys and Amazon as they seem to stock more models than most UK retailers.

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When we saw Intel’s NUC Compute Element this summer in Taipei, we thought that Intel’s spin on a modular laptop was interesting, though odd. It turns out that “odd” has an older sibling.

Meet the “Element,” a larger take on the NUC Compute Element we saw earlier. While the NUC Compute Element was about as large as a business card, the Element looks about as big as a…NUC, but still with a slot-based design. (For now, you’ll have to visit Anandtech’s site to see more of what the Element looks like.)

Gordon Mah Ung/IDG

Let’s back up a bit. Because of the relative complexity of opening a PC, removing the processor and heat sink, and replacing it with something new, anything that simplified the ability for a user to buy a new Intel PC would benefit Intel immensely, spurring development of a modular PC design. Intel’s aiding and abetting this opportunity in two ways.

Intel has traditionally manufactured its own chipsets and microprocessors, but has branched out over the past few years to introduce its own small, compact-form-factor PC known as a NUC (Next Unit of Computing). These small external PCs, which come in many versions, have traditionally paired an Intel CPU with some memory, allowing users to add storage and peripherals as they see fit. The ”Hades Canyon” NUC, for example, used the Intel-AMD Kaby Lake-G processor and was well received. 

Adam Patrick Murray / IDG

Alongside the NUC’s development, however, were plans for smaller cards that could be placed inside PCs. The first was 2017’s Compute Card initiative, which never achieved any traction. While the Compute Card incorporated relatively anemic 5-watt CPUs, the next-generation Compute Element bumped that up to a more powerful 15-watt CPU.

Gordon Mah Ung/IDG

As Gordon Mah Ung explained in his description of the NUC Compute Element, the Compute Element brought the NUC inside the PC. “In a way, you can almost think of the NUC Compute Elements as the guts of a motherboard in a module that can be put into a slot,” he wrote. “Intel believes this new take will allow computer makers to use a single uniform chassis for multiple configurations.”

Both the Compute Element and the “Element” essentially do the same thing: turn the CPU/chipset/memory portion into a module that can easily be replaced. As AnandTech reports, the Element’s far larger chassis hides a Xeon inside, together with Thunderbolt, ethernet, Wi-Fi, and USB connectors. The use of a Xeon processor implies this would be used in servers, of course, but there’s nothing saying that this couldn’t be adapted for a desktop PC.

The Element itself is a dual-slot PCIe card that’s designed to sit on a passive backplane—just a chassis whose other slots could be used to house external GPUs, storage, or other peripherals. The Element is still the PC (or in this case, the server), serving as the host controller for all of these other functions and powering the operating system.

Hulu has finally introduced offline viewing for its users… well, some of them at least.

In a blog post today Hulu announced that it would enable offline viewing of some of its most popular shows, specifically citing both Hulu Originals like The Handmaid’s Tale and partner content like Family Guy, How I Met Your Mother and ER. 

According to the post, users can download up to 25 titles across 5 different devices and will have up to 30 days to watch their downloaded content. Once you start watching it, that content will then expire in two days and will need to be renewed.

To put those numbers in perspective, Hulu’s plan is a bit more stringent than Netflix’s, which allows you to download up to 100 titles on one, two or four devices depending on which plan you use, but similar to Amazon who also allows you to keep videos for around 30 days.

The catch here is that Hulu’s offline viewing mode is only available to the folks who subscribe to the $11.99 ad-free version of the service, and only on iOS devices. Both those requirements are likely to change in the coming months when Android support arrives, but for now consider this a slightly limited release.

Take The Handmaid’s Tale with you

According to Hulu, thousands of titles – both shows and movies – will be available starting today to watch and download, presumably with more to added soon. 

To find something to download, press search for any title on Hulu and if it’s available for download, you’ll see a download icon on the details page. That sounds pretty similar to Netflix’s system, and should make distinguishing between non-downloadable content and downloadable content pretty easy.

While Hulu’s offline viewing mode is a bit late to the party so to speak, it is arriving a month ahead of Apple TV Plus and Disney Plus, two big streaming services that could swoop in and steal Hulu’s number-three spot on the streaming service podium. 

To enable downloads on your iOS device, head on over to the App Store to grab the latest version of the Hulu app – available to download starting today.

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