Author: Brett Venter

Imagine taking the Nokia 3310 build (the original one), scaling it up to laptop size, and then sticking modern internals inside it? That’s more or less what current brand owner HMD Global wants you to have in mind when it reveals the Nokia Booklet X15 Enterprise. If the company reveals it. See, the Booklet X15 Enterprise isn’t an official device yet. It surfaced via leaks from an X account, which also detailed the company’s similarly rugged Mission-Safe Phone 2. The product shown by leaker @smashX_60 isn’t remarkable as laptops go. The Finnish brand’s involvement makes it notable. Built Nokia tough?…

Pokémon has, since its inception, featured the Pokédex. A little handheld device capable of identifying the little ball-based monsters, it has appeared in the anime series and Nintendo’s never-ending games. Now? It’s a real thing, and it works just the way it does in fiction. The non-fiction version of the Pokédex is, sadly, a custom-built item. You’re unlikely to encounter one at retail unless Nintendo likes the concept and grabs the plans from YouTuber Mr. Volt. Honestly? The company probably should. It would make a hell of a Switch 2 bundle edition. Pokédexter’s lab https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k5cQ_2DNEOU Toy versions of the Pokémon…

The writing has been on the wall for months. It’s just gotten a little larger. Microsoft has suddenly inflated the pricing for its Surface range overseas, with increases possible for the range in South Africa (which is currently on a deep discount — just saying). The affected range includes current Surface Pro and Surface Laptop 7 devices, some of which are on sale in this country. The jump, as spotted by WindowsCentral, isn’t insubstantial either. The only good news for locals is that these pricing changes are, for the moment, on the Microsoft.com store as opposed to regular retail. Microsoft…

Google launched its AI Mode in South Africa in the second half of last year. Now, the company has added an additional feature for the country. It’s aimed at the sort of people who find other humans dreary (or who struggle to pick up a phone). AI Mode hopes to upskill (and dehumanise) your dinner plans, letting users “go from planning to booking in just a few steps,” according to the company’s blog post. The impression the post gives is that the feature is aimed more at visitors hoping to indulge in “South Africa’s world-class dining scene” than at locals.…

It sounds a bit like a joke, but Meta is reportedly working on digitising its head and founder, Mark Zuckerberg. The company isn’t planning to release the Zuckerbot onto the wider internet, according to the report. Instead, it’s being used internally. If the report had come from any source other than the Financial Times, we’d question just how real the apparent development is. Specifically, the AI-powered chatbot will communicate with Meta’s staff in Mark Zuckerberg’s style, using his mannerisms and thought processes. That’s very Meta It won’t simply be a chatbot, either. The new function will make use of a 3D…

The PocketTerm35 is the latest cyberdeck-like device we’ve seen in the past few months, and it looks like this one is ready for retail. More or less. Unlike Rabbit’s possibly ill-fated Project Cyberdeck and the completely home-made CyberPlug, you can buy one of these right now. In theory, anyway. A website called WaveShare has these up for sale, but we’re unable to get one through to the checkout screen so shipping data becomes available. It might be a regional issue, or perhaps something else, but that hasn’t stopped us from wanting one. Serving your PocketTerm35 There are two versions of…

Both Samsung and Apple are expected to field wide-format foldable smartphones soon, but Huawei’s Pura X Max could beat them both to market. There’s no doubt that the Chinese brand’s phone exists, since Huawei unveiled its design itself. Whether anyone here will be able to afford it is another matter. The new-format foldable is expected to go official at a Huawei event in China next week. It won’t be alone at the 20 April unveiling, either. The company is expected to debut its Pura 90 series devices at the same time. There will doubtless be a few accessory announcements tucked…

It took time for Motorola’s Razr 60 smartphone to launch in South Africa. Hopefully, the wait for the Razr 70, newly seen in leaked renders, won’t be quite as long. Even if it takes its time, however, we’ve already got much of the 70 on sale here at home. The folks at YtechB have seen what look to be official renders of Motorola’s upcoming foldable, combining it with a series of leaked information for a comprehensive overview of the unreleased handset. The images show all three colour options — Sporting Green, Hematite, and Violet Ice — while the other details…

YouTube Premium is about to get more expensive. It’s not happening in South Africa, or at least not right away. But pricing increases in the US are almost always followed by cost upgrades in other territories. South Africa may already have had its turn, back in 2025, when the price escalated to R82/month. But American pricing is set to rise between R17 and R67 per subscription, and it’s not unreasonable to expect that Google might attempt similar customer-milking tactics elsewhere. Paying a YouTube Premium There doesn’t, at present, seem to be any specific reason for YouTube’s subscription fee to rise.…

You may have missed it, but cassette tapes appear to be heading the same way vinyl LPs did during the hipster years. Companies like GadHouse are hopping onto the trend, with the company’s new Miko portable cassette player having just launched. Of course, GadHouse isn’t the only one that has noticed the trend. Other tech has begun including the older audio format in its lineup, from oversized audio to something more retro-futuristic. The Miko is a lot more traditional, to the point where it’ll still work with a pair of AA batteries. Miko has it taped? It doesn’t have to,…