Author: Brett Venter

Samsung makes great TV sets, even if they’re a little stand-offish about OLED because they’d probably have to get those panels from LG. One of Samsung’s sets is the monster known as The Wall, a 146in 4K television that’ll occupy… well, a wall. But, at almost four metres across, it’s a little hard to install into your home. Well, it’s about to get a little easier. Getting over The Wall The Wall’s big deal wasn’t just its humongous size — it also used MicroLED, a technology similar to OLED in that its inorganic pixels can turn on and off independently,…

Lenovo has been working on the X1 Fold, its first folding PC (yes, we know that a regular laptop also folds) for some time now. The device first pitched up in 2019 (when it was called the X1 Family) before launching earlier this year. And, now, it’s coming to South Africa. In 2021. Counting the cost of the X1 Fold We’ve gone over Lenovo’s first folding PC quite extensively since its announcement but if you need a refresher course, the device looks an awful lot like the folding smartphones that have been so popular of late. Except when it is…

MTN has launched new Combo Bundles for South Africa’s pre-paid users, combining data and airtime in a single payment. What’s more, Combo Bundles can be purchased in monthly, weekly, or daily packages. MTN your wallet If you want to go big, you can snag yourself 90GB of data and 800 minutes of talk time from the network for R999 — that’ll be valid for a month. That’s split up into 30GB Anytime, 30GB Night, 30GB Video and 800 all-network minutes. If you’ve got anything left over and you happen to buy another, smaller package, the leftover data will roll over…

Google knows an awful lot about what the world is doing, thinking and feeling. It’s given us insights into matters as diverse as which of the newest consoles are the most popular or just how much we all battled to sleep during lockdown. And then there’s the company’s Year in Search. Year in Search is Google’s annual recap of what the most popular searches were for every country on the planet, and the search giant has shared what South Africa has been up to in 2020. Besides staying at home. We all know that was thing. Searching for a Year…

Samsung’s Galaxy S21 series of smartphones is expected to turn up any day now — not this year but very early in 2021 — which means it’s time for use to get a closer look at the phone. As luck would have it, a series of short promotional clips for the Galaxy S21, the S21 Plus and the S21 Ultra have leaked. And, while they don’t spill too many beans, they do give us a decent idea what the new smartphones will look like. Samsung’s taken some pains to make the camera bump a little more… manageable for next year.…

So it seems the rumours had just about everything, barring the title, correct. Apple’s announced a new set of over-ear headphones, called the AirPods Max, in what is (probably) its last hardware announcement for 2020. Rumour also suggested that Apple had just one more thing to add to 2020, and that it would turn up… round about now. Rumour is two-for-two, at this point. AirPods Max by name, and by price The new over-ear cans will arrive in several different shades — Silver, Space Grey, Sky Blue, Pink and Green — which is a little strange for Apple but it’s…

On MTN’s network? Want 1GB of data free? For doing essentially nothing? Yeah, we thought that might be the case. The yellow mobile service provider is offering each of its users 1GB of free data until 31 December this year, and all you have to do is download its app. Well, download the updated app and then register yourself on the service. We don’t reckon the app is smart enough to a) identify who download it and b) automatically send 1GB of data to that phone. We’re not there. Yet. MTN the data pool The company’s new app has been…

LG, formerly one of the stars of the smartphone world, has taken to outsourcing the design and production of its lower-end and mid-range smartphones. The South Korean company previously outsourced some of its handsets but has opted to increase the number of phones that will be created at arm’s length. Outsourcing your inventory The reasoning behind the move? LG’s reorganisation will, hopefully, let the company compete with the Chinese companies churning out smartphones while cutting internal costs. Outsourcing its budget lineup means that other companies will design and manufacture smartphones and LG will just put its branding on them. The…

Apple obviously plans to blow a few minds with its Apple Silicon. We were already blown away with the unveiling of the company’s M1 processor, which includes substantial boosts to performance as well as battery life. And then there was talk of an improved M1X chip hitting the market soon. But, apparently, this is no place to stop. According to a report from Bloomberg, Apple’s roadmap for processors stretches beyond ‘just’ a twelve-core M1X chipset. Oh no, the company has far bigger ideas in mind. Is this enough Apple for you? Apple is reportedly planning to transition away from Intel’s…

We get our shopping and our takeaways delivered, so why not acquire petrol and diesel the same way? That’s the thinking behind Refuel, a locally-developed app and service that wants to convince you that having your fuel delivered is the way to go. And, on the surface, it seems like a cool idea. Whip out an app, and await a custom-built refuelling truck that’ll top your car up for R20… plus the price of the petrol you put in. Refuel, which operates in Johannesburg for the moment, uses trucks that “[meet and exceed]  all safety regulations and requirements and exceeds…