Author: Press Room

I’m always fixing bits of tech for friends and family, and I had a real noodle-scratcher recently. Despite plugging their smartphone into their TV using a USB-C port, nothing happened, despite having a USB-C port, cable, and input on the TV. It turns out that the port on their smartphone was actually running USB 2.0, even though it was bought in 2023, and that comes with a whole host of problems: no video output, no DisplayPort Alt Mode, and no fun. Related I finally learned why my TV needs HDMI while my PC needs DisplayPort DisplayPort is the go-to standard…

Dolby Atmos adapts to the devices and audio gear you have, and this can be a blessing and a curse. You might fire up Apple Music on your phone and hear Dolby Atmos start playing out of your device’s stereo speakers. It’s a different experience on every platform. The important thing to remember is that every piece of the chain needs to support Dolby Atmos for it to work. The fewer hardware and software points in the mix, the simpler unlocking Dolby Atmos becomes. This explains why experiencing spatial audio on your TV or home theater setup is so difficult.…

Over the past few decades, HBO has produced an embarassingly large number of classic TV series. Shows like The Sopranos, Game of Thrones, and Sex and the City all became cultural phenomena, and the network is still pulling it off with more recent series like Succession and The White Lotus. There’s something about HBO’s willingness to take chances combined with its consisently high level of polish that consistly produces fantastic work. That said, not every gem HBO turns out ends up getting found. The network has produced plenty of shows over the years that can stand up to the greats…

Introduction I was blown away by the Mercedes-Benz CLA when I drove it at the tail-end of last year. It drove like a dream, was super-efficient and the base level 250+ Sport trim wasn’t short on kit. Now that I’ve spent some time behind the wheel of the Shooting Brake version, though, it’s absolutely the estate that gets my vote. Yes, CLA 250+ AMG Line Premium Plus Shooting Brake is a ridiculously long name, but it clues you in as to the abundance of extra features and functions to expect in the cabin – as well as a more generous…

Pairing your TV with a streaming stick, soundbar, Blu-ray player, and gaming console sounds great until you realize that you now have four remotes and no one in the house knows which one does what anymore. I had this exact problem until I realized my devices had a solution the entire time. It’s called HDMI-CEC, and now that I’ve enabled it, I no longer need to juggle between all those different remotes. Related Smart TV Remote Lost Again? Try These Brilliant Solutions If you’ve lost your TV remote, it’s not the end of the world. HDMI-CEC can simplify your entire…

I was standing in a big-box store recently, watching a salesperson guide a couple toward a massive TV. They kept pointing at the spec tag, and the number doing most of the persuasion was not contrast ratio, HDR brightness, refresh rate, or HDMI ports. It was 8K. I get why that works. 8K sounds futuristic in the cleanest possible way. It means 7,680 by 4,320 pixels, which is four times the pixel count of 4K. That is impressive. It is also one of the least useful numbers to obsess over when buying a TV today. Related Don’t buy a TV…

Spy shows never really go out of style. One of the most popular on the air at the moment is The Night Agent, an action-oriented romp over on Netflix. Paramount+ has The Agency, which just started up a new season. Jack Ryan wrapped up on Amazon Prime Video not long ago, and on and on. However, the best spy show of the past decade is tucked away on Apple TV+, easily the most under-appreciated combatant in the current streaming wars. Slow Horses brings you everything you’d expect from a great spy drama And a lot of things you wouldn’t Slow…

Meta’s latest smart glasses, announced this week, are cheaper and ditch Ray-Ban branding and the Wayfarer design. Otherwise, they do exactly what you’d expect Meta smart glasses to do. Which is why much of the conversation around them – and smart glasses as a whole – inevitably ended up as a row about privacy. That focus isn’t wrong. But in some ways it’s a shame, because smart glasses have the potential to change people’s lives for the better, in truly meaningful ways. For example, when paired with machine learning and AI, they can be powerful accessibility aids to the partially…

I love a road trip. Living in Devon, heading further down south into Cornwall for some surfing and wild swimming is my go-to, primarily because I think the turquoise waters and reliable swell at Tolcarne Beach is hard to beat and it doesn’t end up costing too much, either. When Dacia asked me to plan a road trip and said they’d foot the bill, courtesy of their Bucket List Fund, it felt like a dream. I started to think of things I’d talked about doing with my 8-year-old but hadn’t gotten round to yet – planning our ultimate half-term adventure…

Gaming handheld buyers gravitate toward the Steam Deck, and the PC hardware inside isn’t the reason. Both the Steam Deck and Steam Deck OLED are powered by years-old hardware, and handhelds from Lenovo, MSI, and Asus offer newer chips. To use something like the Asus ROG Ally or Lenovo Legion Go instead, you need to use Windows 11, and that’s the hang-up for most people. Valve nailed Steam Deck software with SteamOS, but Windows-based gaming handheld software doesn’t have to be terrible. I switch between a Steam Deck, Asus ROG Ally, and Lenovo Legion Go — and I finally found…