Author: CraigWilson

Earlier this week we brought you rumours doing the rounds that Samsung would bring two new mid-range smartphones to market, one with three rear cameras, another with four. We were only expecting the devices to drop in October… but the first of them, the Galaxy A7, has been announced today, along with pricing and availability. It’ll arrive in November, with a recommended retail price of R8,500. Which makes it the cheapest triple (rear) shooter we’ve seen yet, and an unexpected rival to Huawei’s excellent P20 Pro. Sharp shooter The A7 packs a decent array of specs, but it’s the cameras…

Hot on the heels (or wheels) of Jaguar announcing its plans to roll out more than 80 electric vehicle (EV) charging stations around South Africa by the end of November, Audi has taken the wraps off its first all-electric car, the E-tron SUV, at a press event in San Francisco. The E-tron is powered by a pair of electrical motors producing over 300kW of power that’ll send it from 0-100km/h in a totally respectable 5.5 seconds. The range per charge is expected to be between 360km and 470km, presumably depending how heavy footed you are… or how heavy your passengers are.…

Next week your days of playing Nintendo Switch games online for free come to an end — well, you can eke out another week with the free trial — but Nintendo’s trying to soften the blow of charging an online subscription by releasing a couple of special offers to coincide with it. Our favourite? The new wireless Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) controllers you can buy to use to play the 20 NES games you’ll get with your online subscription. The controllers come in pairs and will set you back $60. You can order them now, but they’ll only ship in…

South Africa’s first Comic Con event kicked off at Kyalami Race Track and Convention Centre this morning, and there were plenty of punters waiting as the gates opened at 9am. We braved the traffic and got there early so we could snap a few pics of proceedings and get you excited… in the unlikely event you aren’t already. As we mentioned yesterday, the event is completely sold out, so if you haven’t got a ticket, showing up is only going to see you turned away. For those of you planning to come, we’re sure we don’t need to tell you all…

South Africans wanting the new iPhone Xs and its bigger sibling, the Xs Max, will be able to get them from iStore on 28 September. Impressively, that’s only a week after the devices launch in ‘Tier 1’ markets like the US, UK and Australia. Look at us, eh? We’re ‘Tier 2’ kids now, baby. At the same time, iStore has updated its get-a-new-iPhone-every-year plan, with a new payment option that’ll allow customers to receive 50% trade-in value on their year-old device (assuming it’s in reasonable condition, of course, which the iStore says includes allowances for “light surface scratches and fair…

Anyone who’s been watching the local tech news in recent weeks will know there’s been a rapid uptick in the number of mobile payment solutions available to South Africans. The latest is Garmin Pay, a contactless or tap-and-go payment solution that lets owners of specific Garmin wearable devices who bank with FNB make payments with a tap of the wrist at any retailers with the right point-of-sale (POS) device. We mentioned Garmin Pay when we covered the launch of Fitbit Pay (and the same week Samsung Pay launched), but now we’ve had word from Garmin Southern Africa that it’s all systems…

There’s a new addition to the BlackBerry lineup, and while it still means business, it’s got a playful edge with it’s selection of three colours (and their names): Slate, Champagne and Atomic (aka, red). The BlackBerry Key2 LE is a modern-looking device, assuming you don’t find the physical keyboard deeply anachronistic. And it’s got a solid selection of specs and a some welcome additions to its software. “Hey Google” So, what’s new? For starters, there’s a customisable “Speed Key” for one-button shortcuts, and BlackBerry’s snuggling up even closer to Google, whose Android operating system the company uses, by integrating Google…

Lenovo’s taken the wrappers off a huge selection of kit at IFA 2018 in Berlin, but the one that’ll get power users most excited is the update to its ThinkPad X1 flagship, called the ThinkPad X1 Extreme. Intended for the most demanding of business users who also want to watch Netflix in 4K HDR after they knock off, or play the latest PC games without having to dial down the frame rates, the X1 Extreme takes no prisoners. X Factor Fans of the ThinkPad range will know what to expect in terms of build quality — in short, it’s excellent,…

Alongside the monstrous ThinkPad X1 Extreme, Lenovo’s announced a handful of new Yoga products, from a non-convertible laptop (the first Yoga of its sort) to one packing a miniature Dolby Atmos-supporting sound bar, and our new favourite ultraportable, a Yoga Book with a regular display and an E-Ink one that serves as an e-reader, keyboard and sketchpad, call the Yoga Book C930. Not by the book Lenovo’s tried a few iterations of the Yoga Book, including one where you can scribble on real paper pads made to fit the device and have your doodles digitised, and the very early versions…

This year’s IFA event in Berlin is underway, and Acer was one of the first companies out the gate with announcements of new products. These include a super light-weight pair of Swift 5 laptops (a 15in and a 14in), the inclusion of 4G/LTE in the Swift 3 range, updates to the Aspire series, and a complete set of new ‘Nitro’ gaming accessories. Get Swifty Acer’s big news is a big laptop, with the big brag that it’s the lightest 15in laptop on the market. Tipping the scales at just under 1kg (990g, to be precise), the 15.6in Swift 5 is powered…