Author: Brett Venter

As surely as one number follows another, Jabra was bound to release another contender in its Elite Active range. The Elite 8 Active is the direct successor to the company’s Elite 7 Active (told you). The new ‘buds keep the overall design of its immediate predecessor but have made improvements both inside and out. We’re not going to call them unkillable but Jabra goes to great lengths to punt their durability. We’ve spent a couple of weeks with these R3,500 in-ears and the brand might well make Samsung and Sony nervous with its combination of (relative) affordability, features, and audio…

The Realme C51 smartphone has just landed in South Africa and is yet another Chinese smartphone out for our lucrative (and crowded) budget smartphone market. This one starts at R4,000 and hopes to justify the expense with a substantial camera, battery, and a fair crop of other specs. Don’t be too worried if you haven’t heard much about Realme. You can think of it as a brand like Redmi or Honor (or Poco). It started life as a subdivision of Oppo but has since gone on to do its own thing (while still being owned by Oppo). This is the…

At Apple’s ‘Scary Fast’ year-end event, the company took the wraps off a bunch of new processor hardware. Plus, the MacBook Pro and iMac lineup that will make use of them. Obviously, we don’t have local details for you yet but you can expect that the refreshed 14in and 16in MacBook Pros (plus one new entry-level model) and the upgraded 24in iMac to make landfall here soon. Before they arrive, it’s worth taking a look at the various models including one that you’ll almost certainly not be able to buy here. The fully-loaded 16in M3 MacBook Pro uses the M3…

Last night’s ‘Scary Fast’ Apple event took place in the dead of night here in South Africa but there was still excitement to be had. It was Halloween, after all.  Apple’s M3 processor roster made its debut, with three fresh chipsets due in very short order. As is usual with Apple, the new M3 lineup claims to be even faster than its predecessors, with the Pro and Max versions of the chips being correspondingly speedier. How speedy? Well, these are the first 3nm chips on the market, which should give you an idea of the bragging rights Apple is claiming…

It’s not exactly unexpected but X, formerly Twitter, has gone and launched a couple more subscription tiers for users to choose from. In addition to X Premium, formerly Twitter Blue, there are now two more plans — Basic and Premium+. The existence of these new pricing tiers was suspected at the beginning of the month but it was only once the service posted about it on X that it became official. As you might expect, there are some benefits to giving Elon’s company some (or more) money. Something to Twitter about? X Basic and X Premium+ are both live and you…

That was quick. The newly-announced Xiaomi 14 and 14 Pro handsets will be the first to land with Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 processors – which was only announced earlier this week. The handsets, revealed for the Chinese market at an event in that country, are already up for pre-order but we won’t get to see them for a while. Nor will anyone else. This is fine. But we’ll all want to at least give them a look. The Xiaomi 14 Pro is the obvious headliner, with a special titanium edition of the device being the standout but no matter…

Amazon is due to launch in South Africa (finally) in the next few months but, in the meantime, it’s rolling out innovations that will benefit advertisers on its platform. Less impressed, perhaps, will be photographers and graphic designers who used to do this sort of work. The new feature from Amazon is intended to spice up those product images you might be used to seeing on the online storefront’s ads. You know the ones. A basic product shot on a white background with nothing to distract from what you’re buying. Amazon’s new discovery https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=89OubJGcUx0 Only, once you’ve looked at your…

Leave it to DStv to use its near-monopoly on the 2023 Rugby World Cup to drive its subscriber numbers. The company is offering a hectic special for its DStv Stream service that expires just before this weekend’s World Cup final between South Africa and New Zealand kicks off. The price? Twenty bucks. The catch? You’re signing up for Multichoice’s Stream Access tier, which is usually billed at R100/m and requires an internet connection. This R20 special is just the first month’s pricing. Honestly, though? Even if you don’t watch anything else on the service, twenty bucks for access to the…

There’s a vague theory that Sega’s Sonic franchise is cursed. It was, with the first three games (plus Sonic and Knuckles), an absolute gaming darling. After that… nothing seems to have gone as planned. Early efforts to go 3D were hated. Heading back to 2D flopped. There was that Werehog incident that nobody likes to talk about and then there’s Sonic Frontiers, which was okay but… eh. Sonic Superstars hopes to right these wrongs and, perhaps, put an end to Sonic’s cursed half-life beyond the Mega Drive. Sonic Superstars is an updated take on the original trilogy of games (plus…

Human exploration of the solar system will be greatly assisted by machines like NASA’s Dragonfly. It’s not the first time we’ve heard its name, nor is it the first time we’ve been made aware of its mission. Dragonfly is intended to travel to Saturn’s moon, Titan, to explore the surface of the moon, the methane cycle there, and maybe to locate some alien life. That last point isn’t the main point but even Arthur C. Clarke was of the opinion that Titan was a great candidate for alien life. The satellite hosts water, weather, and methane, otherwise known as rocket…