You’ve gone big on your data plan, you’re ready to stream, game and social your way through your data cap and then…you come nowhere near touching it. That’s an annoying place to be when you’ve spent a lot on a new SIM only deal, wouldn’t it be great to simply pay for what you’ve used?
Well, when you sign up with Smarty – one of the many underdogs of the SIM only deals world – you can do exactly that. Keeping your spending under control, Smarty Mobile offers money off your bills for any leftover data you don’t use.
That makes Smarty perfect for those who can’t quite bring themselves to Netflix binge all day and night to hit their monthly data quota. But Smarty isn’t a one-trick pony. Below we’ve listed all of the features it has to offer.
Why go for a Smarty SIM only deal?
1. Money back on your unused data
Like we’ve said above, Smarty Mobile offers money off its plans for unused data. However, trying to wrap your head around how this works can take some examining.
All of Smarty’s offers start with a base price of £5 per month, any costs above that are simply for data. That means if you go for Smarty’s Medium Plan, you’re paying £10 a month to get 4GB of data.
Effectively, half of that cost is your base price and the other half is for your data. When it comes to getting money off your bills, Smarty will cut your monthly price by £1.25 for every GB you don’t use. Got 3GB in the bank at the end of the month? Smarty will knock off £3.75 from your next month’s bill.
There are only two exceptions to Smarty’s money saving technique – the and the . With both of these offers you can use no data or as much as your limit allows but you won’t get any money back.
2. Flexibility with your contract
So you’re saving money with Smarty, that’s great but even better is the flexibility on offer. No matter which SIM only deal you pick from Smarty, you’ll only be tied in to a 1-month rolling contract. That means you can use Smarty as a stop-over or a life-long plan.
And, while the data may differ between contracts, all of Smarty’s plans offer both unlimited calls and texts so you can be flexible with how you communicate with your friends and family.
3. A little bit of variety in your life
Offering five different plans, differing in costs and data, Smarty Mobile offers up some variety in terms of what you can get. Want to stream non-stop? You can with unlimited. Want to save your hard-earned cash? You can with Smarty’s mini plan! Below you’ll see a full list of Smarty’s plans:
If you’ve been following the Huawei saga or even just the launch of the Huawei Mate 30 and Huawei Mate 30 Pro, then you’ll know they don’t have official access to Google apps and services. There was briefly a way to overcome this, but not anymore.
On October 1, John Wu (a security researcher) posted a method to add Google services to the phones, but in the 24 hours since then the method has been blocked according to Bloomberg, via a change that apparently only Google could have made.
That most significantly means no access to the Google Play Store and its vast library of apps, but it also locks you off from the likes of Google Maps and Gmail.
Not surprising
It’s a change that isn’t terribly surprising given that the Huawei Mate 30 range was never meant to have access to these things anyway, but it’s still unfortunate, especially as the workaround sounded quite simple, so a large number of people may have taken advantage of it.
It seems then that unless the US removes its ban on Huawei’s access to the country’s products and services, the Huawei Mate 30 range – and likely any future handsets – will have no access to much of what makes Android good, even for those who have the technical know-how to use workarounds.
It’s a situation that’s all the more unfortunate as based on our first impressions the Huawei Mate 30 Pro in particular is a very impressive phone in most ways, but we can’t see there being much market for it in the west without full Android support.
However, Amazon has just slashed 25% off the price of the Sony cans, which top our roundups of the best headphones, best wireless headphones, and best noise-cancelling headphones.
Today’s best noise-cancelling headphones deal
(Image credit: Sony)
Why should I buy the Sony WH-1000XM3?
For the last three years, the Sony 1000X series of headphones have been our favorite wireless headphones on the market. They sound great thanks to a combination of superb wireless codecs – aptX and Sony’s proprietary LDAC tech – and keep outside noise at bay thanks to Sony’s ever-improving noise-cancellation algorithms.
This brilliant headphones deal means that you can get your hands on the XM3s for just £249, which represents a saving of over £80 – this is the kind of deal we’d expect to see on Black Friday or Cyber Monday.
Whether that price will drop lower during November’s massive sales event remains to be seen, but there’s no doubt that this is a great deal nonetheless.
Looking for the best Sony headphones? Read our round up of the best Sony headphones we’ve reviewed so far
If you fancy a pair of wireless earbuds then there are some very good bargains to be had if you’re willing to track down some Chinese brands rather than the quite expensive offerings from Apple, Samsung and Amazon.
One of the newest to make its way onto the market is the Bilikay HBQ-Q7, which offer not only Bluetooth connections to your smartphone, tablet or PC but a rather funky charging case too. We plug them in to see if the sounds match the stylings.
Price & Availability
Bilikay doesn’t have a UK or USA distributor as such, so you won’t find these earbuds in the shops, but they are still available if you’re happy to buy online and wait for them to arrive from China.
We used to acquire our review sample, where you can pick them up for just £17.26/$20.99. They are also available from sellers on eBay with prices at the time of writing around £17/$20.
Obviously, as these would be coming from China, you’ll need to take into consideration any customs charges or postage fees.
Design & Build
We’ve grown accustomed to wireless earbuds arriving in cases that also double as power banks for the devices, but Bilikay has taken a novel approach in terms of design. Rather than a small, curved box, the case for the HBQ-Q67 is a cylinder around 150mm high (about same as a Samsung Galaxy S9). Not only that, the top slides up to reveal a chamber holding the two earbuds inside.
It’s reminiscent of the device used by the Men in Black to remove your memories, although you won’t find a red light on the outer edge to stare into, instead there’s a digital readout that lets you know the percentage of charge left in the case.
We have to admit that it all looks pretty fun, but you’ll want to keep it in a bag rather than your trouser pocket as it might get you some strange looks when out and about.
Removing the earbuds can be a little finicky, with the smooth edges of the buds giving little purchase and the edges of the case too high to allow easy access. Once you pry them free, they reveal themselves to be very lightweight, with smooth plastic, pill-shaped chassis and the ear stalks sticking out at a 45-degree angle, much like many other buds of this type including Sony’s WF-1000XM3.
The outer surfaces have u-shaped LED strips that flash blue or red, the former to let you know they are connected and the latter when they’re not. When in the case, red is used to show that the buds have yet to reach full charge.
Each bud also houses a microphone for telephone calls and clickable buttons under the surface. We could find no mention of a waterproof rating, so it’s best to assume that the Bilikay are only safe in gentle rain rather than the shower.
Sound Quality & Features
Connecting the HBQ-Q67 to our devices proved simple. When taking them out of the charging case they immediately go into pairing mode and our smartphone located them quickly. The good thing is that once a device is paired, the earbuds will automatically search for them and connect when turned on.
Our PC also played nicely with the earbuds, displaying no delay or sync issues with video we streamed from YouTube and other services. It wasn’t quite a plain sailing with our TV, as the delay become evident straight away. This isn’t just a problem for the Bilikay buds though, as we’ve experienced the same problem with other Bluetooth headphones in this category.
Sound quality is impressive for such light buds, with decent bass and a good separation for the mid and treble frequencies resulting in a balanced mix. As these are in-ear buds, they cut out quite a bit of noise naturally, making them a good option in busy environments, but they’ll never be quite as dampened as a proper pair of over ear models.
The built-in buttons allow you to control playback and phone calls. Click the button once to start or stop a track, twice to skip forward to the next one or three times to go back. When someone is calling you it’s a single click to answer or a double click to reject the call.
Due to the positioning of the buttons, and the force needed to click them, we found that simply popping one out and using it as a remote control was the best option, otherwise you’re essentially jamming them into your ears whenever you want skip songs on an album.
Call reception was a little disappointing, as while we were able to hear the recipient clearly, they reported that the microphones were muffled and indistinct. Still, when you consider the price on the box, there have to be some corners cut somewhere.
Battery life is respectable, as we managed to get a little over four hours from the HBQ-Q67 buds before they switched off. Returning them to the charging case saw them get back up to full power in a little over an hour.
One thing to note is that the case has a normal USB port as well as a micro-USB slot, so you can actually top up your phone in an emergency. The case has a 1500mAh battery inside, so is be good for several charges of the earbuds before needing to be plugged in.
Verdict
Those looking for a good pair of budget wireless earbuds have a wide range of options now.
These Bilikay HBQ-Q67 buds offer simple connectivity, good quality sounds, and a novel case all for a frankly silly price.
They don’t quite have the aesthetics or microphone standards of the Redmi Airdots we recently reviewed, but for a little less money you get a pair of very useable and comfortable earbuds with no strings attached.
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If you feel like your office is lacking a certain mobility when it comes to collaboration, then Microsoft’s new Surface Hub 2S could be the answer.
First revealed back in April, the super-sized smart monitor is now available in the UK, and we got a chance to go hands-on at the recent Microsoft Future Decoded event in London.
What’s so striking about the new Surface Hub 2S though is that unlike its predecessors, the new device is built for portability – which seems odd to say for a 50-inch screen, but the device comes with the option of a rolling mount, giving you the option to wheel it wherever you please.
Mobile
(Image credit: Future)
“We’re thinking about the modern workplace, and how do we bring that software alive?” Ben Highfield, Surface product manager, told TechRadar Pro during our session at Future Decoded.
“We’ve talked about devices with touch and inking, making you feel engaged wherever you’re working – but Hub is really our way to enable teams to do that wherever they are.”
The ability to wheel the Surface Hub 2S anywhere you like makes it the ideal workplace collaboration tool. You could start with it by your desk, then wheel it into a private, small room to kick-start a project individually, before transferring to a large meeting room with a wider team to thrash out all the details.
(Image credit: Future)
Like its predecessors, the Surface Hub 2S allows for wide-scale collaboration, letting remote workers dial in, wherever they are in the world. Colleagues aren’t just passive bystanders to what’s being done on the device though, as those with the right software can make their own edits and suggestions in real-time, allowing your team unparallelled co-operation.
The Surface Hub 2S can be joined with a detachable, mobile webcam, the Surface Hub 2 Camera, which clips onto all sides of the device, and also comes with the Surface Hub 2 Pen, which lets you just pick up and start writing.
On the included Whiteboard app, ideas can be scribbled out quickly, edited, highlighted and much more – we saw a demo where a rough box drawn by the Surface Hub 2 Pen snapped into a table, allowing for actions and deliverables to be divided out.
With eight hyper-sensitive microphones, dual speakers and a dedicated subwoofer all built in, the Surface Hub 2S looks to get everyone involved in getting work done, and allowing people to work in a way they do best.
The Surface Hub 2S is available to buy now in the UK from £8,499.99, with the Steelcase Roam Mobile Stand costing an extra £1,350.
Vodafone has become the first UK mobile operator to take advantage of new spectrum sharing regulations to help improve rural coverage.
As part of a three-year agreement, the operator will give StrattoOpencell permission to use the 2.6GHz band in some rural areas. This will allow StrattoOpencell to offer 4G-powered high speed mobile broadband services with speeds of up to 120Mbps in parts of the country that are not connected to fibre. A holiday park in Devon will be the first location to benefit from the service.
The 2.6GHz band is prized for its high capacity and Vodafone will continue to use the frequencies in densely populated areas like cities and public venues.
Vodafone spectrum sharing
“We are delighted to become the first mobile company in the UK to share some of our spectrum to extend rural coverage,” said Vodafone UK CEO Nick Jeffrey. “By offering some of our 4G spectrum to StrattoOpencell, we are helping to extend fast and reliable mobile network access for people in rural communities. Mobile connectivity in rural areas is just as important as it is for those in towns and cities, which is why we continue to work with others to help improve rural connectivity for all.”
The agreement is possible because of changes made by Ofcom earlier this year. Although mobile operators hold licenses to some of these airwaves, they do not make use of them in parts of the country. Where an operator is not making use of the spectrum, Ofcom wants to see the potential realised.
Any party wanting to take advantage of the new regulations needs to submit an application to the regulator with details of the band, location, bandwidth and power required. Ofcom will then assess the potential for interference with other users of the spectrum and grant a licence based on a per-area or per-base station basis.
“Our new sharing approach aims to help more people access the airwaves they need to create local networks around the UK, including improving connections in rural areas,” added Philip Marnick, group director of Specturm at Ofcom. “Vodafone and StrattoOpencell are the first to take advantage of this. We look forward to seeing how others use our new spectrum access approach to support innovation and enable local communities to have better connections.”
Samsung’s latest smartwatch is now on sale in various markets around the world, but until today it has had it’s best feature turned off by default.
Now a software update to the Galaxy Watch Active 2 has turned the touch bezel feature on by default.
That means it will be ready to go straight out of the box and you won’t need to manually turn the feature on within the settings.
The touch bezel is a big selling point of the company’s smartwatch as it allows for a speedy way to navigate the watch without making it bigger like the physical rotating bezel on the original Galaxy Watch.
Samsung has yet to confirm why the feature was originally off by default, but it’s clear the company has made the decision to change that for those buying the device soon.
While it’s this that’s the big change in the update, you’ll also get bug fixes, along with improvements to GPS and a more accurate battery indicator.
