Author: Duncan Pike

The second Comic Con Africa for 2025 has come and gone, but this year, beyond the fond memories, photos, and purchases (whether planned or otherwise), there’s something else that’s been left behind. Acer Africa took the opportunity over the weekend to launch a new product in South Africa before anywhere else in the world. That’s not something that happens often. Acer’s AiTV box, or ‘Acer 4K UHD Google TV Box’, although technically launched, isn’t yet readily available. While eager buyers can sign up for pre-orders exclusively from Incredible Connection for the “exclusive launch price” of R1,500, its local availability follows…

If you’re only just hearing that Comic Con Africa 2025 is underway, you’ve already missed a whole day. As the pinnacle of pop culture and geekdom in South Africa, this year’s Comic Con Africa has, as always, something cool for everyone to gape and marvel at. A lot of the cool stuff is up for grabs, either as a prize for a giveaway or as a discounted sale. Some, however, are not for sale. Unless you have the kind of money that is tough to say no to. If you’re trying to limit the damage to your wallet, there’s plenty…

If it seemed like only yesterday that Oppo launched its last round of smartphones in South Africa, you wouldn’t be far off. The Oppo Reno 14, which officially launched last night, arrives just six months after the Reno 13 and 13 F landed in February. Not that we’re complaining, the more capably-specced premium mid-range devices on offer, the better. Last night’s launch also doubled as a celebration to mark Oppo’s fifth anniversary in South Africa. Oppo’s Reno 14 makes a flash “The Reno14 5G reflects OPPO’s focus on relevance for South African consumers,” says Bradley Young, Head of Retail at…

Framework, the American company pioneering modular laptops, has finally achieved “the holy grail for gamers” – an upgradeable GPU expansion card. The Framework Laptop 16 supports the AMD Radeon RX 7700S (2nd Gen), a refreshed version of the optional model available when the laptop launched in 2024, and a mobile version of the RTX 5070 from Nvidia. Swapping them out is almost as simple as swapping between game cartridges from back in the day. This is a big deal for a few reasons. For starters, Framework is the first company to successfully do this, and second, it means you won’t…

After a week of +25°C days, we reckon it’s safe to say winter is behind us. Technically, there are only a handful of winter days remaining before Spring officially drops on 1 September. So, what’s with the heater review, you might ask. As we said in the last one, now is a great time to go heater shopping, especially when they’re a) this good, and b) on special, as heaters generally are towards the end of winter. In contrast to the Aeno Premium Eco Smart Heater we reviewed two winters ago, the Mill Invisible WiFi Panel Heater doesn’t make audacious…

We’ve had the Huawei Watch Fit 4 Pro on our wrist to see just how much Huawei has managed to blur the line between fitness bands and smartwatches with its latest addition to the Watch Fit range. This is the first time Huawei has included a ‘Pro’ model in the range. It comes with a few notable improvements over the previous generation, including the company’s TruSense sensor suite previously reserved for pricier models, and other features befitting the ‘Pro’ in its name. That’s on top of the great battery life we’ve come to expect from Huawei wearables. Light as a…

After doing a spot of manual cleaning with the Dreame R20 Cordless stick vacuum, we were keen to see how the company’s robotic vacuums stacked up. We enjoyed our time with the Xiaomi X20+, and considering how similar they look, we expected the same from the L10S Ultra Gen 2. On paper, it shares many similarities (not just its design) with its Xiaomi counterpart, yet costs a few thousand rand more – R16,000 compared to R12,000 for the X20+. What does the extra money get you? Cleaner floors? Longer-lasting consumables? Automatic beverage-making capabilities? After living with it for the last…

With the start of Gamescom yesterday, Asus unveiled what could be the coolest graphics card it’s made to date — the ROG Matrix RTX 5090 Anniversary Limited Edition. We don’t mean that literally, this is an aircooled card after all so the water-cooled ROG Matrix RTX 4090 from last year probably runs cooler. While that is also a good-looking GPU, it can’t hold a candle to ROG’s latest. There’s always a catch Asus says the card was inspired by its ROG Matrix 9800 GT from 2008 but where that card had a TDP (thermal design power) of 125W, this behemoth…

As of today, we are 56 days away from Windows 10’s end-of-support date — 14 October 2025. The writing’s been on the wall for the last few years, not to mention the same fate befell previous versions of Windows in Microsoft’s predictable ten-year support lifecycle. If you’re one of the millions still trucking along with Windows 10, it isn’t time to panic yet. You still have time to weigh up options on how you’d like to proceed. If you’re one of the few still hobbling along with anything older than Windows 10, we commend your commitment and wish you the…

Local PC modder and gaming content creator Lelani “Locked Elf” Orffer has launched a new initiative this Women’s Month called Ctrl+HER, aimed at providing more women in South Africa with hands-on experience in building a gaming PC. The project is set to debut at Comic Con Africa 2025 in partnership with Asus Republic of Gamers (ROG). Orffer, who has been building and modifying PCs since the age of eleven, says she noticed that while many of her female friends enjoy gaming and content creation, few have had the opportunity to work directly with the hardware involved. Ctrl+HER seeks to bridge this…