Author: Marcé

While South African utilities struggle to keep the lights on and do so in a sustainable way, local private entities are working to join the effort against global warming. This week, Toyota South Africa announced its first locally-made hybrid-engine vehicle called the Corolla Cross.  The development of the new Corolla Cross in South Africa will allow for an investment of R2.6 billion locally. The car, destined for export to 401 countries in Africa, is manufactured at Toyota’s Prospection plant in Durban, KwaZulu-Natal.  We reckon there’s a reason South Africa hasn’t been a primary focus when it comes to global EV…

Stuff just about stopped covering Sony Xperia device launch news when the brand decided to pull out of South Africa. Still, it’s a little nice to know what we’re missing out on every once in a while. Like the newly-announced Xperia Pro-I pro-grade smartphone, complete with a 1in camera sensor straight out of a point-and-shoot.  A one-inch sensor rather large for a smartphone — and this one hasn’t been commercially available ever. It’s become evident that Sony is focusing its mobile efforts on niche products — specifically at the film industry.  Xperia’s back, kinda Engadget details what the large sensor…

This week, a combination of events lead to Elon Musk’s electric vehicle company, Tesla, making it into the trillion-dollar market cap club. This makes it the fifth US company to close on over $1 trillion, following the likes of Apple, Amazon, Microsoft and Google.  The rental car company, Hertz, placed an order for 100,000 Model 3s because it plans to electrify its fleet. Hertz just recently made its way out of bankruptcy, so this is a bold move.  Rent-a-Tesla So this latest deal banked the car-maker a whopping $4,2 billion in revenue, pushing up its share price and growing that…

South Africans have, for years, only really had a set number of smartphone manufacturers to choose from. That number’s quickly increasing, with a few Chinese phone makers bringing their devices into our market. A noteworthy brand, Xiaomi, just launched the 11T Pro device in South Africa, complete with admirable specs and a decent price.  It’s hard to call this phone a flagship based only on specs and price — but it’s clear that the 11T Pro offers immense value. It’s fitted with the Qualcomm Snapdragon 888 chipset — that’s the one you get in Samsung’s latest devices, including the S21…

Apple has realised its errors, and will bring ports back to its MacBook lineup soon. But if you bought a notebook in the past few years, there’s a good possibility you’re missing a port that you really actually need. There’s also a good possibility you’re running low on space, because who isn’t? Enter Satechi’s new USB-C Hybrid Multiport Adapter. It’s a hub that’ll quickly convert your portless, storage-less notebook into a beefy production workhorse.  It’s more than a port The hub connects via USB-C and adds a fairly robust lineup of holes. This includes an HDMI (4K-output), two USB-C ones…

About a year ago, Twitter unleashed a new feature called Spaces onto its platform. Based on the wildly successful Clubhouse audio-room format, Spaces was initially only available to a handful of users.  Only Twitter users with 600 followers or more have since been able to host Spaces — which are essentially audio-based chatrooms. Now, it’s rolling out the ability to make an audio room to all its users — no matter the follower count.  “[T]he time has arrived — we’re now rolling out the ability for everyone on iOS and Android to host one. [I]f this is your first time…

South African Netflix users will now be paying a bit more to stream some of the best television content available.  While it’s more expensive, Netflix’s subscription costs could very well still be more affordable than the alternatives. Depending on how greedy you are with your money or the content you’d like to access.  For the sake of fairness, we’re not including DStv subscription options in this comparison between streaming services.  All you have to know is that it’s far more expensive to pay for DStv, internet service and streaming services on top of that.  DStv Premium currently costs R830p/m –…

When a ‘good news’ Facebook story pops up, we tend to take it with a pinch of salt. The US-based social media platform (and holding company) has faced a fair amount of criticism for how it handles misinformation on its platform in recent years. This is especially true during election times — no matter the country.  Now that South Africans are getting ready to cast their municipal votes on 1 November 2021, policymakers and the general public are taking to platforms like Facebook to entice votes for their particular political party. This opens more than a few opportunities for false…

Probably one of the most common requests we receive at Stuff, is recommendations for affordable headphones that feature active noise cancellation (ANC). It’s almost like finding a penguin in the scorching South African dessert — it doesn’t happen often, but it can happen.  Enter the Soundcore Life Q30 headset. Our Life Q20 review makes it clear that we didn’t necessarily have high expectations this time around. But a few factors quickly made this pair of cans a real contender to be an African penguin.  They come in at R1,800 and are locally available (no import needed), feature ANC, Bluetooth 5.0,…

Less than a week ago, the Multichoice-owned DStv mobile and smart TV apps received a few long-overdue user interface updates. Ever since then, users have complained about the app’s functionality on a variety of platforms. It seems the update came with a few extensive and app-bricking bugs that have users… pretty gatvol.  Do better, DStv https://twitter.com/AbraFNdabra/status/1450254056035913728 The recent update featured a few major redesigns like shifting menus, redesigned navigation for both live TV and on-demand content, and a “better watching experience overall” according to the company’s update notes. It’s become clear that the last part was a lie.  “The new…