Author: Press Room

Two new pairs of distinctive over-ear headphones have recently launched: the Bose QuietComfort (2nd Gen), $359/£300, and the Skullcandy Crusher 1080 ANC, $280/£200. Which will provide you with the best listening experience? We put them head-to-head… Design & Comfort Lightweight at just 230g, the 2nd Gen QuietComfort have a more streamlined look than the OG noise-cancellers. Excellent button placement allows power on/off, play/pause, control volume, mode change and call answering all from the comfy pill-shaped earcups, complete with handy L/R labelling inside. The Black, white, mauve, mint, green colourways are fun and I rate the adjustable sliding headband too –…

Luxury and smartwatches used to be an oxymoron. A gadget that needs charging every night and is outdated within a few years isn’t really a natural fit with the centuries of craftsmanship and artistry that come with mechanical watches. For a long time, the watch world treated smartwatches as public enemy number one. Over the years, however, watch brands and fashion houses started to dabble, and began releasing smartwatches of their own. To differentiate themselves from tech brands, they use premium materials such as titanium, sapphire crystal and ceramic, and charge double, triple, or quadruple the price.  In this guide…

Yesterday I put the most extreme G-Shock ever made on my wrist, and the setting was a dimly lit sushi bar. That’s hardly the muddy trail or rock face you’d expect from a G-Shock launch, but it turned out to be a pretty good place to try on a watch that is part tool watch, part most-expensive G-Shock ever made. The MRG-D5000 is a new addition to Casio’s flagship MR-G line, announced today, and it is priced at $80,000. Casio is making just 20 of them worldwide. What is so special about it? The case is made of blue sapphire…

Apple’s CarPlay is one of those features you probably take for granted these days. There was a time, though, when it wasn’t standard on most cars (I distinctly remember asking whether it was included in a car I was buying six years ago). Now, though, most new cars offer it, and once you’ve set it up, you probably don’t think about it much again. You plug in your phone (or connect it wirelessly), the car’s native software gets shoved aside, and Apple Maps and Spotify appear on the dash. Job done. Except it isn’t. With every iOS update, CarPlay is…

Your Mac is waggling an upgrade to macOS Golden Gate in front of your face. Should you click Upgrade? Maybe. But should you click the magic button before taking a backup of all your precious data? Absolutely not. Upgrades can go horribly wrong, turning your Mac into the digital equivalent of a shiny brick. Or maybe your Mac will restart but stare blankly back when you enquire as to the whereabouts of your data. So don’t let that happen. Do one or more of the things below instead. The Stuff essential guide to Apple’s latest software updates 1. Just say no No one is forcing…

Unlike your iPhone, I’m not planning on becoming obsolete within the next, say, five years or so. And while I’m not expecting a magical scroll to bestow immortality upon me (or a moisturiser to return me to my twenties), I’d at least like to know if I’m making any grooming mistakes that are prematurely ageing my look. Some of the culprits are easy to overlook – saving sunscreen for holidays, for example, or assuming that more products must mean better skincare. Others are simply worth reconsidering, like whether the beard you’ve grown actually gives you the look you wanted. Thankfully,…

Recovery boots are having a moment with athletes from multiple disciplines raving about them. Footballers Earling Haaland and Paul Pogba have been pictured using them, along with basketballers LeBron James and Kevin Durant, not forgetting tennis star Venus Williams. Outside of the sports sphere people are raving about them too, even rapper Drake has called his Normatec boots a lifesaver after his shows. Could they benefit me? I put the new Urevo AI-Powered Wireless Recovery Boots, $779.99/£779.99, to the test to find out… What are Urevo’s World’s first AI-Powered Wireless Recovery Boots? These Urevo AI-Powered Wireless Recovery Boots, have been…

Every September, like clockwork (fitting, really), Apple rolls out new Apple Watches, and every September I’m asked whether the Ultra is worth buying over the regular model. It’s a fair question. The Ultra used to be the obvious choice for people who climb things for fun, but the gap has narrowed with each generation, and plenty of people I know who’ve never ventured further off-grid than a National Trust car park wear one simply because they like how it looks. This year’s Apple Watch Ultra 4 and Apple Watch Series 12 share more similarities than ever – the same new…

Serious about swimming? A set of smart swim goggles can seriously help improve your performance in the water, projecting real-time performance metrics including pace, distance, stroke rate, and, importantly, your heart rate directly into your field of vision, via an AR display. Here we put two brilliant new sets, the Form Smart Swim 2 LT, $150 / £130, and Speedo IQ Vanquisher, $190/£149, head-to-head.  Design and fit The Smart Swim 2 LT, which weigh 68g, aren’t as sleek as regular goggles yet still pull off packing in the sensor and battery without feeling hulking to wear in the water. The…

The best tablets might let you tote around a collection of tomes, but backlit pixels aren’t the best for bookworms. If you want a portable library without any eye strain, then the best e-readers go easy on your eyes by impersonating paper. With E Ink displays that imitate printed words, e-readers offer a more natural reading experience and many are lighter than a paperback, too. Some e-readers are even waterproof for summer beach reads, and some even feature built-in backlights for gentle illumination – so you won’t need a torch if book club runs past bedtime. Tempted to digitise your…