Author: Brett Venter

Oppo, a new smartphone brand that launched in SA last month, has been clamouring for your attention — though they’ve only launched one smartphone here so far. That’s about to change, as the company’s A15 and A53s smartphones are set to launch this coming weekend. 7 November, to be precise, which is a bit of an odd launch date. Who launches a smartphone on a Saturday?  Oppo in sight We’ve already seen the Oppo A72 in action, now it’s time for the other handsets to get a look in. The Oppo A53s is a 6.5in smartphone that sports a 90Hz…

Skyworth is one of the bigger TV brands in the world but you wouldn’t guess it if you were just checking out the brand’s TVs on the shelf. They don’t have the visibility afforded to the Korean giants but the Chinese tech-maker is hoping to change that. There are three new TV models headed to South Africa, with the first turning up next month. Also headed to market is the brand’s first soundbar, the Skyworth SS330. The Skyworth is the limit There are three TV variants on the cards — the Skyworth SUC9300, the SUC9300 Pro and then the SXC9800…

It’s been quite some time since we got our hand on a literal TV from Skyworth. We’ve seen them recently but haven’t really had all that much time to play with them, beyond a couple of hours at events with all sorts of other people pawing at the controls — ah, good times. Those days are done. To get back to the point, we recently got some extended face-time with the Skyworth UB7500, a 55in 4K LED (also available in a 65in size) from the same brand that makes some of the cheapest sets in the country. That’d be Sinotec,…

Porsche Design is all over the tech world — usually in the smartphone arena but it’s made the odd foray into computer tech. This time it’s a full-on expedition, as the Acer Book RS is the child of a new partnership between Acer and Porsche Design. If you guessed that the Acer Book RS is a notebook, congratulations — you pay attention to header images. Acer Book RS, dissected Acer’s new notebook has a few things going for it. As is usual with collaborations like this, it looks more streamlined than usual and, also typically, sports high-end materials. The cover…

Sony’s really trying to get the hype train rolling for its upcoming PlayStation 5 console, by showing off what the console looks like inside and how the interface looks. Now there’s another feature incoming that might just make the PlayStation 5 the one to buy (assuming you haven’t made your choice already) — that would be game-specific cooling profiles for the PS5. The PlayStation 5 just got cooler You see, the console will monitor heat using several internal sensors (one hosted by the APU, or Accelerated Processing Unit, and another three in the motherboard). The highest detected temperature is used…

We’ve been seriously keen on LG’s OLED R rollable television sets since they first turned up at CES in 2018. We were expecting them to launch to market in 2019, which they obviously didn’t (even though LG promised that they’d be available). But that’s not the case for this year — LG’s Signature OLED R has finally gone on sale. In South Korea. The whole thing OLED R-ight here For those that need a little refresher course, the LG OLED R (also known as the OLED RX) is a rollable TV — this means that the entire 4K 65in OLED…

DStv really wants you to like its new, rebranded streaming offering, also known as DStv. So much so that the service has announced some free access to DStv Premiership via the streaming app, from 24 to 25 October. There is, of course, a catch. DStv is being a good sport? Rather than making the offering open to absolutely everyone, you’ve got to be a DStv subscriber. If you are, on any package, then you can watch local football on the company’s streaming platforms without paying any additional feel. It’s got a little something to do with the company sponsoring the…

Nokia, back in the early days (which is around 2000 to 2003, for the real youngsters out there), was the acknowledged cellphone master. If you had a Nokia handset, you were kitted. They were functional, stylish (yeah, we know — people used to wear bell-bottoms too, once upon a time) and nigh indestructible. We’re willing to bet there are more than a few working Nokia stalwarts out there today. This trip down memory lane has a point, obviously. Nokia, they of old glory and tough hardware, are in line to make the world’s… wait, the moon’s first LTE network. NASA,…

This issue of Stuff isn’t just for your eyes only… but it’s pretty close As we approach the end of 2020, the year is looking… well, shorter, for one. There are reasons to stay home, there are reasons to go out and, in this issue of Stuff Magazine, we’ve got options for you no matter which one of those two choices you’re keen on making. Want to put down deeper roots in your lounge? Then you have to check out our TV and entertainment special. Feel the need to breathe the free air? (‘remaining nameless’ is optional). Then you want…

So much futuristic stuff has taken placed in recent years that the concept of a technology that isn’t fully ripe yet is a little hard to imagine. Especially when more and more tech is ripening and falling off the tree — like Sony’s new Spatial Reality Display, which aims to bring working holograms to the home and the workplace. It’s nice to see the company’s working on more than just TV sets. Spatial Reality Display is hard to use in a subheading https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KrLMnQM0_Ps&feature=emb_logo So what is a Spatial Reality Display? It’s actually a rather old (technically-speaking) idea, where an image…