Author: Brett Venter

Stuff reviews a ton of headphones and earbuds every year. Okay, not a literal ton, because they tend to be lightweight. Few take the stance the Epos Adapt E1 buds do, that they’re optimised for the average office environment.  Okay, what office? The noisy one? The quiet one? The one with customers constantly wanting your attention? Turns out it’s the one that habitually holds online meetings, which is why these are rated for a variety of conferencing apps. Elsewhere, they do okay. The Adapt E1 buds feature a comfortable enough fit and sufficient battery life, but fall behind when it…

BYD’s Dolphin Surf EV just launched in South Africa, but the dinky (and affordable) electric car looks positively adorable compared to what the Chinese brand is doing overseas. The company’s YangWang U9 Extreme electric hypercar has set a new speed record at the Automotive Testing Papenburg facility in Germany. The previous record, set by Bugatti’s Chiron Super Sport 300+, wasn’t entirely blasted past, but it was put in the rear mirror. The Chiron Super Sport 300+ managed 490.5km/h on the track in 2019. BYD’s new contender has squeaked by with a similarly sphincter-puckering 496.22km/h. It was only set in one…

Montblanc has a reputation for high-end writing instruments (and equally snooty product placement. The company’s new Digital Paper writing tablet wouldn’t look out of place in a modern Bond flick, or perhaps in a Wes Anderson film, but it would look even better on your desk. Provided you can meet the luxury company’s price tag. The Digital Paper and its accompanying Digital Pen, which is based on Montblanc’s Meisterstück designs, will set technologically savvy users back roughly R16,000. The $905 price tag covers purchases from America, so expect some sales tax before it is shipped over. Montblanc slate Unlike Roger…

DJI’s Mini lineup has a long history of creating drones that don’t require a license, and the new Mini Pro 5 is no different. Okay, it’s slightly different. That ‘Pro’ appended to the end means something. That something is an enhanced camera sensor, the first of its kind on a teeny tiny drone from the company. The Mini Pro 5 sports a 1in camera sensor, the same size as is found in the company’s Air 3S drone. That one’s a larger unit intended for travel photography. The newest small drone from the Chinese company attempts to compete with its larger…

The biggest problem with Uber Eats, aside from being the person whose food is last in the drop-off queue (you can pay to avoid that), is having to wait for delivery. Traffic, outages, a restaurant that doesn’t actually exist (this really happened) — all of that can impact how quickly your tasty noms are delivered. The transport app’s food delivery arm can’t (or won’t, in some cases) do much about the latter two, but a new partnership between Uber Eats and a company called Flytrex might address the whole traffic scenario. Following a previous flirtation with drone delivery, the company…

If a Garmin kids’ smartwatch that probably won’t land at retail in SA doesn’t excite you, perhaps the Garmin Venu 4 will. An update to (obviously) the Venu 3, the newest in the product lineup brings new features to the table along with its performance upgrades. The immediately obvious ones — i.e., the ones that required fresh hardware — are new accessibility features and a new LED flashlight. The latter is something Garmin has jammed into a few of its more premium devices, so it’s not all that surprising to see here. The former gives the Venu 4 the ability to…

You might think that R5,500 is a bit much for a kids’ smartwatch, but Garmin reckons you’ll part with that much for its new Bounce 2 wearable. Looking at the distance between this and the company’s Vivofit Jr. range, they could well have a point. The Bounce 2’s design puts it in a similar camp to Garmin’s Forerunner running watches. There’s similar DNA there, meaning this actually looks like a smartwatch. There’s no cheap, chunky plastic. Instead, there’s premium plastic, and a rugged, kid-friendly appearance that parents (and perhaps the kids) will appreciate. You won’t drop $300 — the current…

Meta’s leaky ship has finally reached port, just in time to disgorge three new sets of smart glasses. Two are made by Ray-Ban, including the leaked-early Ray-Ban Display, while a new Oakley set has turned up to make life interesting for cyclists and other sporting types. One of the three new sets of wearable tech is a familiar face. The surprisingly popular standard version of its Ray-Ban smart glasses has received a hardware upgrade. It’ll still shoot video and perform AI-bolstered tasks, including translation (now in German and Portuguese), but it’ll do so with an improved 3K camera and up…

Canon’s done one, Nikon’s done one, now it’s Fujifilm’s turn. The Japanese camera brand is bringing its new GFX Eterna 55 filmmaking camera to market, with one of its landing locations situated in South Africa. Unlike Canon’s EOS C50, which favours a compact design, Fuji’s newest accessory for amateur auteurs looks like it means business. That’s because it’s not strictly for amateurs, having been designed with professional filmmaking in mind. The company will still sell it to newbies and TikTok wannabes, because a sale is a sale, but the new GFX 102MP CMOS II HS image sensor almost demands some…

Electronic pets are surprisingly popular and not just because they can’t be killed (only stunned) by neglect. Casio’s Moflin, previously launched in Japan and now coming to other regions around the world, hopes to impress owners (or horrify them) by developing its personality from scratch until it achieves “a one-of-a-kind emotional bond with [its] owner.” It’ll do this via the mundane magic of artificial intelligence, which is supposed to help “express Moflin’s emotions in real time, creating authentic and evolving interactions.” It’s not immediately clear whether it’ll evolve unique movements to accompany its verbal responses, but that would be kinda…