Author: Duncan Pike

Huawei today has unveiled its latest foldable device, the Pura X, at a launch event in China. The company’s new smartphone might look a little familiar to other brands’ clamshell folding devices, like the Galaxy Z Flip 6, but its form factor hides a slightly different 16:10 aspect ratio. Most of the specs have been confirmed on Huawei’s official Chinese site, except for the chipset it uses. The odds are high that the Pura X houses one of the Kirin chips we’ve seen in other recent Huawei devices, perhaps the Kirin 9020 as seen in the Mate X6 released in…

OG smartwatch fans rejoice, the Pebble smartwatch is making a comeback this year. With his new company Core Devices, the creator of the original modern smartwatch, Eric Migicovsky, has announced the imminent launch of the Core Time 2 and Core 2 Duo. They might have new names but these are still very much Pebble watches at their core. They will run on the newly liberated PebbleOS and will feature all the best bits from the original watches, with a few new tricks too. Bag a new Pebble The Core 2 Duo is the cheaper of the new devices (so far) with…

Danish audio company Bang & Olufsen has been in the business for a whole century, so you could say they have a good amount of experience crafting high-end audio equipment. The brand’s latest flagship wireless headphones, the Beoplay H100, are exactly that. They are far from what one might call ‘affordable’ — at R37,000 that’s not a word in this company’s mantra. Its cheapest product is a R7,000 60W portable speaker. Instead, the company focuses on delivering finely crafted, high-quality products with longevity in mind. That’s evident by their five-year warranty and modular design. As with other B&O products, these…

MultiChoice recently announced price increases for its South African customers for nearly all of its DStv and Showmax packages. This shouldn’t come as a shock, considering DStv instituted similar price hikes this time last year, although those were announced sooner in 2024. If you remember 2024’s price hikes, you might also recall that MultiChoice implemented a ‘price lock’ for customers who signed up for its 24-month contract before 1 April 2024. If that is you, you should dodge this year’s increase as well as last year’s. Enjoy that while it lasts. For the rest of you, here’s how much more…

It seems Sonos’ new interim CEO Tom Conrad has a new path in mind for the company. That new path doesn’t involve the company’s almost-complete video streaming device, codenamed Pinewood, that it has been working on for the past few years. That’s according to a report from The Verge’s Chris Welch and his sources at Sonos. Those sources were party to an all-hands call yesterday when Sonos leadership announced its plan to scrap the video streamer, which was already in the beta testing phase. The team working on Pinewood will reportedly be reassigned to other projects as Conrad told employees…

Diesel and petrol price predictions did the up-and-down dance last month, ending with a highly agreeable (albeit small) decrease. We’re sure everyone would’ve liked to see an even bigger decrease, but we’ll take what we can get. Luckily, the latest predictions for March continue the downward trend. These predictions are handed to us hot off the proverbial press from the Central Energy Fund (CEF). Today, the latest fuel snapshot from CEF indicates a decrease for all petroleum-based fuels for April. ‘I’ll have another decrease, please’ Before we get to the important petrol price numbers, it’s worth remembering that these predictions…

Asus Republic of Gamers has just announced its new ROG Flow Z13 for South Africa, for the deep-pocketed gamers who don’t want to sacrifice too much power for portability. This 2-in-1 gaming tablet receives the latest and greatest mobile SoC from AMD and offers a 180Hz ‘2.5K’ touchscreen display, a large 70Wh battery, and enough ports for all your peripherals. And it comes with a Stylus for all the doodlers out there. Take the ROG Flow Z13 with you everywhere The AMD Ryzen AI Max+ 395 (yes, that’s its real name) is supposedly one of the most performant mobile SoCs…

Eskom halts load shedding (again) Much of the country groaned when Eskom announced on Friday that Stage 3 load shedding had returned for the weekend. At the time, the country’s power utility expected the power cuts to last until the morning of Monday, 10 March (today) as a result of the sudden loss of 2,700MW of generating capacity (thanks Kusile). Luckily for, well, everyone, Eskom managed to recover enough generating capacity come Sunday, 9 March by successfully bringing Kusile back online. “Coal operations at Kusile Power Station are at optimal levels. All units that were offline as of Friday are…

If you have fun plans for this weekend, you’ll have to have your fun in the dark. Eskom has just announced the return of Stage 3 load shedding from 14h00 today, Friday 7 March. The beleaguered state-owned power utility ‘anticipates’ Stage 3 to last until 05h00 on Monday, 10 March. Time to get those backup power stations out again. Wherefore art thou, electricity? #PowerAlert1 Eskom implements Stage 3 loadshedding from 14:00 today and anticipates to be in this mode until Monday at 05:00, following 98% availability of power supply, due to loss of 2700MW over the past 14 hours. To…

It’s been a busy week for Apple. The Fruit Company’s recently updated Mac Studio follows updates to the iPad Air and MacBook Air. Except here, raw performance is the main focus. This time, that performance comes in two possible flavours – M4 Max and M3 Ultra. As is customary, Apple says that the M3 Ultra is the “highest-performing chip it has ever created.” Until the next one comes along, anyway. Size continues not to matter The exterior of the ‘new’ Mac Studio has no discernable changes. There’s no new Sky Blue colourway, and the I/O options and layout are visually…