Following the smashing success of Sony’s flagship noise-cancelling cans – the WH-1000XM3 – the Japanese tech giant is adding another member to the family in the form of true wireless headphones.
The similarly named Sony WF-1000XM3 brings much of the over-ear variant’s prowess and appeal to a more portable form factor.
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(Image credit: Sony)
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One of the most impressive aspects of the WH-1000XM3, and a big factor in making it one of the best wireless headphones available today, is their noise-cancelling capabilities, and with these new truly wireless in-ears, Sony is promising the same quality.
A pair of external microphones on each bud feed external noise to the dedicated QN1e noise-cancelling chip (an improvement on the WH-1000XM3’s QN1 chip), where it intelligently blocks out background noise and ambience.
This same advanced chip is responsible for 24-bit digital-to-audio conversion, as was the case in the WH-1000XM3. Combine this with Sony’s Digital Sound Enhancement Engine HX – a feature that upscales audio in a compressed format to bring back some lost fidelity – and these in-ears are set to sound as rich as their over-ear counterparts.
Image credit: Sony
(Image credit: Sony)
A common complaint among true wireless buds is their penchant toward connectivity issues, often caused by one earbud needing to pair with the other via Bluetooth. Apple’s AirPods manage to avoid this by using a dedicated chip to connect both directly to the device, and Sony is employing a similar strategy with the WF-1000XM3, promising increased stability.
The WF-1000XM3 have a reported battery life of 6 hours and, as is the situation with most true wireless earbuds, these Sony offerings come with a charging case, capable of recharging them thrice more for a total of 24 hours listening time. A quick charge function should give you 90 minutes mileage out of a snappy 10 minute charge too.
Image credit: Sony
(Image credit: Sony)
Another winning feature borrowed from the flagship over-ear cans is Sony’s Quick Attention mode, which allows you to place a finger over the left earbud’s touch control to momentarily lower the volume of your audio and let in ambient sound, so you can hear what’s happening around you.
The Sony WF-1000XM3 will be available in black and platinum silver, arriving in Australia in July for AU$399.95. Pricing and availability in other regions is yet to be announced.
If you’re looking for a cheap laptop or a mammoth saving on a premium portable computer, you’ve come to the right place. We’ve scoured the web for savings – from the usual suspects to the niche deal sites – and rounded up all the genuine and worthwhile specials in one neat place. We’ve covered everything from budget browsing machines to high-performance powerhouses, so you’ll no doubt find something to match your needs.
Up the top, we’ve highlighted a selection of the latest deals that we’ve sniffed out, so you can reap the rewards of having your finger on the pulse. Below that we’ve covered some of the more popular laptops that often come up on special, and then included a quick list of the best prices on TechRadar’s pick of the latest best laptops.
If you’re from the US or the UK, check out our selections of the top laptop deals in the US or in the UK.
There aren’t too many Chromebooks available in Australia, but JB Hi-Fi is offering a saving of almost $150 on this 14-inch option from HP. Featuring a FHD resolution display, B&O dual speakers and a microSD card reader, there’s just about enough grunt under the hood for general tasks.View Deal
The Aspire 5 laptop is out of stock on Acer’s online storefront, but JB Hi-Fi not only has a decently configured option, it’s also going rather cheap. For just $679 you get a Core i5 CPU with 20GB of system memory. While it might have only an SSD for storage, this is great value for money.View Deal
With plenty of ports for connectivity, a goodly amount of grunt under the hood and a 15-inch FHD screen, the Legion Y530 was designed to keep you on top of your game. With a GeForce GTX 1060 card to take care of your graphics needs, this is not a bad buy for under the $2K mark.View Deal
Shipping with a built-in rechargeable pen, this sleek convertible features a keyboard that recesses when you don’t need it and offers up to 15 hours of battery on a single charge, with quick charge capabilities that adds 80% juice in an hour. With great specs to boost performance, this machine is a bargain at 33% off.View Deal
A 13-inch display makes this laptop portable and its high-end specs means there’s plenty of power for all your work. But what makes this a great buy is the 40% off that Dell is currently offering on this machine. That saves you $760 on this laptop.View Deal
If you prefer a convertible to a clamshell laptop, and require more screen real estate than what a 13-inch laptop can offer, opt for a powerful 15-inch 2-in-1 like this Inspiron model. There’s 40% off on the RRP, saving you $760 in the bargain.View Deal
While the above two Dell Inspiron laptops are older models, this is the latest in the Inspiron range. With powerful innards and excellent performance, this 15-incher will save you 40% on the RRP as well. That’s $800 in your pocket.
If you need more storage, then the New Inspiron 15 7000 comes with the same CPU and system memory, but ups the storage to 512GB, also for 40% off, bringing the price down to $1,439 from $2,399.View Deal
We’ll keep on updating the list of deals as and when we find them. Below, you’ll find up to date prices on TechRadar’s favourite laptop, so keep an eye out for those savings.
The best deals on our favourite laptops
Over the years we’ve reviewed plenty of laptops and, as a result, we’ve seen what to avoid and what to jump on when there’s savings to be had. We’ll keep track of the prices of some of the best we’ve seen so that you can snatch up a bargain when they do show up. Check out the prices below and see if anything has dropped enough to tickle your fancy.
1. Dell XPS 13
Dell’s latest Ultrabook is simply the best laptop in the world
Saying that we’re very happy with Dell’s XPS 13 is a huge understatement. The slim profile, revolutionary design and small frame bely its powerful performance and gorgeous 13-inch screen. Typically you’d have to weigh up portability and performance, but the XPS 13 has managed to strike a fine balance between the two. With Intel’s latest Kaby Lake processors plus lighting, quick storage and memory, the XPS 13’s starting price is certainly an impressive one. We’re so chuffed with it that it’s still one of our favourite Ultrabook, and has taken the top spot as the best Windows laptop and the best overall laptop.
Asus has nailed it with the overhauled ZenBook Flip S 2-in-1. Adding top of the line processing power, plenty of memory and a speedy PCle solid state drive available in some of the models, this laptop shows off a beautiful new design to perfection, giving you the ability to use it as a laptop or a tablet. While it costs a pretty penny as compared to some of the competition out there, it would be our top recommendation if money isn’t a factor.
While this may not be a great leap from the previous generation of MacBook Pros with Touch Bar, the 2018 model is definitely the best Apple has produced to date. The Cupertino firm has ramped up performance for the 13-inch MacBook Pro 2018, more so than the bigger 15-inch model as well. A thin OLED display at the top end of the keyboard can be customised to for various functions, and also offer Touch ID for secure logins. And although it retains Apple’s signature design, it doesn’t come cheap, but you can argue with the choice if you’re a diehard Apple fan.
Our earlier choice of gaming laptop, the Asus ROG Zephyrus GX501 has been knocked off its perch by MSI’s GS65 Stealth. With cutting edge components, including an 8th-gen Intel Core i7-8750H processor and an Nvidia GeForce GTX 1070 GPU, it makes the top spot in gaming laptops. It’s also cheaper than the ROG Zephyrus GX501. And it doesn’t look like a hunky gaming laptop either; with subtle design tweaks, the GS65 Stealth can pass off as a work or study laptop without anyone being none the wiser.
Dell’s XPS 15 laptops were already some of the best you could buy, but this beautifully redesigned 15-inch 2-in-1 competes with the Dell XPS 13 in every respect, with the convenience of becoming a tablet when needed. It’s one of the most aesthetically pleasing devices in its category and also boast plenty of power. Under the hood is a new Intel Kaby Lake G-series processor featuring ‘discreet-class’ Radeon graphics – meaning with the power comes a bit more noise.
The NBN is pushing to make 50Mbps download speeds (and 20Mbps upload) the norm in Australia, but many customers are opting for the 100Mbps speed tier when they sign up for a new connection. However, if you find you aren’t able to get those speeds, it may be the fault of your broadband modem.
A new study commissioned by the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) has revealed that several ISP-supplied modems are incapable of handling 100Mbps speeds on a fibre-to-the-node/building (FTTN/FTTB) connection.
The study has also found that several of these modems have poor Wi-Fi performance, further lowering the average download speeds the end user can expect.
If you can’t speed it up…
43 modems from 11 manufacturers and 10 ISPs were tested in laboratory conditions during December and January as part of the study – conducted by commercial testing firm Enex TestLab – and not one was able to deliver 100Mbps download speeds over a 450m copper stretch (the average length of copper on an FTTN connection).
Most devices could only deliver 80% of the advertised speed.
In terms of Wi-Fi performance, 30% of the modems were unable to achieve 100Mbps on 2.4GHz over a range of 5m, which is unexpected as 2.4GHz is touted as the better option for long-range communication. Instead, tests showed that 5GHz Wi-Fi outperformed 2.4GHz.
With walls coming in the way of Wi-Fi signals, the study found that 26% of the modems tested could achieve 10Mbps download speeds on the 2.4GHz Wi-Fi band, while 40% hit 80Mbps when using 5GHz Wi-Fi.
So if you find your Wi-Fi connection isn’t delivering the speeds you’re paying for, and you’re using a modem supplied by your ISP, you may want to switch bands to 5GHz.
Not enough advice
Only one modem out of the 43 was outright rejected for use on any NBN connection – that was the Linksys X6200 AC750.
Commenting on the results of the study, ACMA’s chair Nerida O’Loughlin said, “Telcos and modem suppliers need to provide good advice to consumers about the features and performance of individual modems, especially Wi-Fi performance.”
She advised consumers to question their chosen ISPs about “the performance they can expect from the modem supplied” before signing up for a new connection.
This week is the 1,000th episode of BBC Click. To mark the anniversary, the team has created a special show that gives its audience complete control of what they watch.
Welcome to what might be the future of television.
By choosing the route of their choice through the programme, viewers can see just what they’re interested in. And as the show learns about what they like and don’t like – it will change to suit their preferences.
It took a year to make and was a huge challenge. Not even Click is sure how many different ways there are to watch the show – it could well be in the trillions.
“I’ve never worked on something so complicated,” said presenter Spencer Kelly of the experience.
“Normally I just have to make one story make sense, now it has to make sense in a gazillion combinations.”
To create the show, Click teamed up with the BBC’s research and development wing – BBC R&D. Think James Bond’s Q branch but with cheaper coffee, no guns and a fascination with broadcast specifications.
A big part of their work is figuring out what tech the BBC might need in the future and then trying to actually build it. One buzzword that’s getting R&D boffins hot under the collar is something called object based media (OBM).
The big idea is that in the future all forms of videos, audio and even articles like this will be automatically created by algorithms, just for you.
So, you might be watching Match of the Day and because the show knows you’re a huge fan of Crystal Palace FC for example, it will make sure highlights about them are right at the start and are extra long.
While that future is a long way off, Click’s 1,000th episode is the BBC’s first major experiment on that journey.
Keeping balance
If you explore the deepest dungeons of Click 1,000, you might find yourself in Ian Livingstone’s house – an exciting place to be for fans of role playing and choose-your-own-adventure type books.
The idea of branching narrative stories has been around for decades, and Livingstone, the co-founder of Games Workshop and an award-winning author, was instrumental in defining what was a new genre in the 1980s.
Video games were next – turning branching storytelling into a subtle art.
Finally, 40 years later, Charlie Brooker brought the idea back into the public consciousness with his Netflix Black Mirror special Bandersnatch. It was a head-hurting web of tale, as haunting as it was meta.
Click 1,000 puts a new and different spin on these ideas. As a factual programme, viewers get to choose what level of explanation they hear, how much detail they want and whether they are more interested in the tech or the people behind the tech.
It covers self-driving cars in Arizona, tech entrepreneurs in Malawi and the dark power of your data.
In a world of echo chambers and mass data collection, the prospect of personalisation on an even larger scale might not be welcomed.
But in making this episode, Click wanted to make sure that viewers still left each story with a sense of balance – having had at least a taste of both sides of any debate.
If the “OBM future” does become a reality – and even more BBC content is created and curated by algorithms – the real challenge might be making sure audiences see what they want, but not too much of what they want.
Final Fantasy’s legacy
By Ian Livingstone
I co-founded Games Workshop in 1975, launching Dungeons & Dragons in Europe. After playing D&D for six years, my business partner Steve Jackson and I came up with the idea of an interactive book, one in which you, the reader, are the hero and “play” through a branching narrative story making choices and using dice to determine the outcome of fighting monsters encountered on the adventure.
The Warlock of Firetop Mountain was first published in 1982 and Fighting Fantasy game books became an international craze – selling more than 20 million copies.
Giving the reader control was incredibly empowering and also stimulated the imagination in multiple ways. It encouraged decision-making, algorithmic thinking, computational thinking and problem-solving.
It was subsequently found that Fighting Fantasy increased literacy levels by 17% because of readers’ engagement and empowerment.
Yet because they were “gamebooks” they were somehow regarded as trivial or worse – a view held by a lot of people today about video games, the interactive entertainment format for the digital age.
Play is natural and video games resonate with Generation Z, the connected generation, who live in an age of high-tech communications, technology-driven lifestyles and prolific use of social media. Games give the player continuous assessment and allow failure in a safe environment.
Why not let children enjoy the learning experience through a medium they understand and enjoy?
The games industry is the largest entertainment industry in the world and corporations are taking note. Interactivity creates content “stickiness” and it’s no surprise that brands and companies are actively seeking gamification of their products and services.
Life is all about choice and more than just turning left or right down a dungeon corridor. But I like to think that the current interest in Bandersnatch and other interactive media started inside Firetop Mountain.
Click 1,000 is just a first step in discovering what “television” might be like in this new world. We’d love to know what you thought – did you enjoy the power, or do you prefer your Click without a mouse?
Follow Click on Twitter @BBCClick or email click@bbc.co.uk
The MacBook butterfly keyboard issues feel like part of a never ending story, even after multiple attempts to improve the MacBook keyboards. Now, it appears the company may be close to putting the problems behind it entirely, as a report from Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo obtained by MacRumors suggests the company will use a new keyboard design in 2020.
The new keyboard design will use a more traditional scissor switch mechanism, according to Kuo. He says, “there have been successful developments in the new scissor keyboard. The new keyboard could improve the typing experience by offering longer key travel and durability by adopting glass fiber to reinforce the keys’ structure.”
The longer key travel would likely means a higher-profile design than the existing butterfly keyboards, but Kuo believes “most users can’t tell the difference.” Kuo expects the newly designed keyboards to appear in MacBook Pro models in 2020, which means any new MacBooks in the works that come out before then could still be stuck with the butterfly keyboard.
Butterfly history becoming history
Apple’s butterfly keyboard key switches have been plagued with problems since their introduction in 2016, more or less forcing Apple to apologize for the issue and even go so far as to offer a worldwide repair program. Over multiple generations of MacBook, MacBook Air, and MacBook Pro laptops, the keyboards have been an issue. Even as the company has revised the design, problems have persisted.
The result for some MacBook owners has been unreliable typing experiences, as some keys would stop working while others could repeat keystrokes. That’s not the kind of experience anyone would want to get from an expensive laptop.
For both Apple’s and consumers’ sake, a switch to a new keyboard design on MacBook models could be a very good thing.
One of the biggest enemies of smartphone batteries are the phones’ displays. They keep getting bigger, as demonstrated by the OnePlus 7 Pro’s 6.67-inch display, and they need to be bright to be useful outdoors. That means even more energy use. But, a new OLED (organic light-emitting diode) technology could increase brightness and energy efficiency, Phys Orgreports.
The new OLED technology is being developed by a team at the Departments of Physics and Chemistry at the Imperial College London. They’re using a special development process that results in OLEDs that give off a polarized light.
So, what’s that all mean? Displays often include filters to help reduce glare from outside light sources (like the sun). These make it easier to see the light coming from your device’s display, but they also can keep a lot of the display’s light from coming through. Any light that doesn’t make it to your eyes is essentially wasted energy.
By creating OLEDs that emit polarized light, the team at the Imperial College London can get the light from the OLEDs to pass through a polarized filter while external light sources will still get filtered by it.
What it means for you
For now, this won’t mean much for the phones we have in our hands. Since it’s still being researched, it’s not likely to find its way into upcoming phones very soon. But, it could eventually reach consumer devices from phones and TVs to smartwatches and more.
When it does, it would result in brighter displays and improved energy efficiency. Displays would not need to use the same amount of energy to produce bright light since none of it would be filtered out. The new technology could almost double the efficiency of displays. And, that would mean much longer-lasting batteries for smartphones.
Plenty of phones already get a full day of life, but that could go further. This technology has promise in more areas as well. Smartwatches don’t have the freedom to pack large batteries, so any efficiency improvements would have a strong benefit. And, while OLED TV screens offer impressive contrast ratios, they don’t always keep up with peak brightness of their LCD counterparts. The ability to have none of the light intensity lost to a polarized filter could give OLEDd displays a huge step forward in catching up.
The world has become mobile. No longer are we expected to work only from clumsy desktops – now we can work from wherever we are, using cell phones, tablets, and other mobile devices.
Software has developed with the hardware. Mobile apps have given rise to a profusion of services run from the cloud. These are simple and easy to download, install, and update.
The user has become empowered with the ability to work wherever they are, wherever they like, and this is made all the more clear by the range of office software available that now runs from the cloud.
Whether it’s for home or business use, you can now create, edit, even collaborate, on documents, spreadsheets, and presentations, on the go if needed. Even better, not only are the documents you work on saved in the cloud, as a safe backup option, but older versions of the same documents are also commonly saved, making it easier to recover previous notes as required.
Here we list some of the biggest and best, and most powerful, cloud office suites that are currently available. There are familiar names listed, such as Microsoft and Apple, as you would expect, but also other feature-rich products that are also worth considering as you move to working in the cloud.
Want your company or services to be added to this buyer’s guide? Please email your request to desire.athow@futurenet.com with the URL of the buying guide in the subject line.
Microsoft has a huge amount of productivity software for users who can afford it
Multiple productivity tools
OneDrive integration
Relatively expensive
Microsoft Office 365 is a line of subscription services offered by Microsoft. It was launched in 2011.
It is comprised of Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote and OneDrive amongst others.
Subscribers receive 1TB of storage through OneDrive. Users can share files with others. You can control who edits each file and how long they have access to it.
OneDrive includes multi-party video sharing, content sharing, shared calendars and team chat.
Subscribers also have access to Word, Excel and Powerpoint. Users do not need to download these applications. They are readily accessible online through a subscription.
Microsoft Office for Home is priced at $9.99 per month and includes up to five computers.
‘Office 365 Business’ is $10 per month per user. The ‘Premium’ tier is $15 per month and includes Exchange, SharePoint, Skype for Business and Microsoft Teams.
Place your faith in the giants of Google for a comprehensive suite, calendar and email
All-in-one productivity suite
Team collaboration
Some functionality issues
G Suite is a brand of cloud computing, productivity and collaboration tools developed by Google. It was first launched in 2006.
The software is made up of Docs, Sheets and Slides as part of Google’s cloud office suite. It also includes Gmail, calendar and hangouts.
Users can upload their own documents, spreadsheets and presentations for customizing their own office templates.
Users can create documents in your browser with Google Docs. It allows multiple users to work at the same time. Users can view other users edits as they type. You can also communicate through built-in chat and insert comments. Users can export in most formats such as .docx, .pdf, .odt, .rtf, .html and .txt. All changes are saved. Previous versions of your documents are kept indefinitely at no extra cost.
Google Sheets enables users to view their spreadsheets through charts and pivot tables. Users can work on Sheets even when they are offline. Sheets is compatible with other formats such as Microsoft Excel.
Users can work and collaborate on presentations with multiple users using Slides. Admins get to control who can edit, view or add comments. There are multiple presentations to choose form or users can create their own presentations from scratch.
The ‘Basic’ package is $5 per user per month and includes 30GB of storage.
The ‘Business’ package is $10 per month per user and comes with unlimited storage and archiving.
The ‘Enterprise’ plan is $25 per month per user and offers advanced controls and capabilities.
Online users have complained that the functionality of Sheets and Docs is not as broad as online versions of Word and Excel.
Zoho offers excellent range of tools and apps, some of which are free
Lots of integrated apps
Free pricing tier
Cheap paid plans
Zoho Workplace is an online suite of office tools, with a large variety of different applications for different and specific tasks. Like Microsoft Office, many of these can also run individually as standalone apps on a mobile device.
Workplace provides the core office suite you’d expect, with Writer, Sheet, and Show, respectively covering documents, spreadsheets and presentations.
There is also a set of specific collaboration tools, not least for documents, as well as training and conferencing options for text, voice, or video.
On top of that there are also tools for email, communications, and project management through Zoho Mail, Cliq, and Connect.
If that wasn’t enough, there are also individual apps available for each of these tools through the Apple AppStore and Google Play store.
The best news of all is that Zoho Workplace is free to use for up to 5 users, with 5GB of storage space available for each user.
Paid-for plans are available for larger teams. The Standard plan costs $3 per user per month, when prepaid for a year, which offers 30GB of space.
The Professional plans adds more space and more advanced tools from $6 per month when paid for annually.
OnlyOffice community edition is both cost free and has excellent additional features
Free and open source
Excellent free tier
Support issues
OnlyOffice is an open source office suite developed by Ascensio Systems SIA who are based in Riga, Latvia. It is available in over 22 languages and boasts Oracle as one of their leading clients.
The free tier, known as the ‘Community Edition’ is most suited for small business and allows up to 20 connections at once. This suite does not just offer the usual features such as word processing or spreadsheets but is very useful for order fulfilment and for documenting sales.
The handy calendar feature allows users to keep up to date with personal and work-related tasks as well as keeping an eye on deadlines. Third party integration is also supported. You can create your own Mailboxes with the ‘Mail’ tool.
As with other office suites you can create and edit documents, spreadsheets and presentations. Users can collaborate on projects and make comments in files where necessary.
Users have reported that support can be hard to find and that the online chat forum community that is used to provide help can be tricky to navigate.
Apple delivers an excellent, free and easy to use office suite
Beautiful Interface
Powerful presentation software
Supports MS Office formats
iWork is Apple’s own office suite. It consists of Pages, Keynote and Numbers. The suite is eclusive to macOS but there are versions on the cloud that can be enjoyed by users of other platforms.
There are three separate apps, each for word processing, preparing presentations and for creating spreadsheets. Numbers, Apple’s spreadsheet software, shows a blank canvas on launch, rather than a daunting grid view. It’s very easy to add images, tables and charts as you go.
The word processor, Pages, is very simple and is perfect for straight forward documents. It is not inundated with layers of options that exist within MS Word. Pages also allows users to collaborate on their work and has now added a feature that supports EPUB which can be created and shared to iBooks.
The presentation app, Keynote, has been referred to as the better alternative to PowerPoint by online users as it is straight forward and easy to use. It creates beautiful presentations without the hassle that can be associated with PowerPoint.
MS Office may not be able to open iWork created documents but all iWork applications can export formats that are compatible with other suites.
