Author: Brett Venter

It might seem that this review of the HP Elitebook x360 1040 G10 (to give it its full title — we’ll stop that now) is a little late. It launched in various markets in mid-to-late 2023 but Stuff has only had it since about halfway through 2024. So yes, it’s late but not as late as its launch date suggests. Better late than never, right? As it happens, the delay is advantageous. The Elitebook x360’s price has dropped a touch since launch, which works in its favour since it was somewhat overpriced when it first showed up. It might even…

Everybody, right about now (okay, fine, sometime after New Year’s Eve), will be considering a new fitness tracker to go with their resolutions of health and discipline. But won’t somebody please think of the children? Seriously, smartwatches are for kids too. They have a range of functions, from helping Mom and Dad keep an eye on Junior from a distance to… well, doing the same thing that wearables do for adults. That means movement and sleep tracking, health metrics, and others, but with a fun-filled focus that grownups aren’t allowed to have. Exercise, after a certain age, is serious business.…

Headphones made specifically for kids is a niche that works. The little critters, as anyone who has kids will tell you, don’t always make choices in their best interests. Plonking something like the iClever BHT20 cans onto their heads means you won’t add hearing damage to the litany of injuries they seem determined to acquire at any given moment. Like their light-wielding counterparts, the BHT20 over-ears (if you’re a little ‘un) are limited to a specific decibel level. Unlike the BHT18s, they include an additional feature — noise cancelling. That’s not bad for R1,500, though you’ll have to venture over…

It’s almost the time when you’re supposed to put down the festive cheer, avoid looking at the scale, and start shopping around for a basic notebook for the kids to take to school. Acer’s Aspire Lite 14 would like to have a word, especially if you’re all about sticking to the schoolwork. Okay, and maybe a few episodes of whatever is currently trending among the younger set. Plastic rectangle Picture a laptop emoji in your head. No, not on an iPhone. Android. A mid-range phone with a 720p screen. Got it? That’s exactly what the Acer Aspire Lite 14 looks…

Some folks have all the money. Correspondingly, they have no need for gifts. That’s why the luxury gift category was created. If they’ve already got everything, then it’s time to think outside the box and hand over something that makes no sense in a household that occasionally rules out certain meals because they’re “too expensive”. If you’re one of the luxury types, we’re not mad at you. We are, however, somewhat envious, if only because you can seriously consider handing over one (or more) of the items on this list to your loved ones. And if this handful of premium…

It’s often difficult to determine what constitutes ‘budget’ technology. Tech is, by its very nature, pricey to purchase unless you’re buying older stuff. Even then, go too far back and suddenly it’s “vintage” and “expensive”. That’s the explanation for why vinyl LPs cost as much as they do. Bloody hipsters, always mucking things up for the rest of us. Ahem. We’ve chosen to define budget, in this case, as ‘under R2,000’. More specifically, budget means ‘under or as close to R1,000 as possible while remaining awesome. You’ll find the options in Stuff’s print Gift Guide a little pricier than this…

Can you smell that? The tang of salt in the air, the scent of freedom over the horizon, the glorious odour of fresh ink directly from the printers? That smells like Stuff’s annual Wish List issue, now in stores everywhere. For many of you, that’ll be at or close to your holiday destinations this year. For us… it’s pretty much the same thing. We’re not physically writing this from a beach getaway but mentally we’re there already.  Why? Because we took the tips we offered everyone else in our Wish List spectacular seriously and finished all of our Festive Season…

NASA’s Artemis missions will mark the space agency’s first manned return to the lunar surface since 1972 but that return will have to wait. The American space agency’s most recent update provided new dates for both the Artemis II and III missions that were supposed to put boots on lunar regolith. It shouldn’t be surprising that the news included a delay. There has never been an update that moved a space launch forward because things were going too well. Issues arising from the first mission in the series have pushed the whole timeline back. Artemissed the launch The Orion spacecraft,…

It’s relatively rare that Stuff gets to talk about the pope. Generally, we avoid religion unless artificial intelligence and Balenciaga are involved (apparently), but this also applies when the leader of the Catholic faith upgrades his vehicle to an EV. Mercedes Benz has revamped Pope Francis’ popemobile (its unofficial title) to be a little more eco-friendly. The German automaker has supplied vehicles to the papacy for almost 100 years. For 45 of those, the car chosen to ferry the pontiff was a modified G-Class. Well, His Holiness is about to experience instant torque. To the Popemobile! The Mercedes G-Class Popemobile…

Chinese brand Honor makes some excellent products but there’s one we have yet to lay hands on — its MagicBook laptop lineup. The company announced new 300-series smartphones this week but it also unveiled two new contenders in its laptop lineup. These are only confirmed for China right now but we’re hopeful (perhaps in vain) that we’ll eventually see them on this side of the planet. Why? Huawei, formerly Honor’s parent company, has also launched laptops in South Africa and the MagicBook Art 14 saw a global release earlier this year. This is a MagicBook There are two new MagicBook…