Author: Trent Meikle

In a bit of a comedown from the absurdly expensive R40,000 X200 Pro, Vivo is back with the release of the Y19s, a smartphone sitting firmly on the other end of the price spectrum. Vivo has ditched the fanfare and skipped straight to release day with a solid budget device we’re keen to get our hands on. “We’re excited to unveil another captivating product in the rapidly evolving smartphone market. Vivo has always been an advocate for style and innovation, continuously pushing the boundaries to make top-tier performance accessible and affordable. Vivo Y19s is an exemplary embodiment of this philosophy,…

DStv is finally feeling the sting of streaming. How else do you explain the numerous promotions and price decreases that have come our way? We’re not complaining. The Multichoice-owned broadcaster has thrown us another gift, announcing a new promotion that’ll have DStv Access and Compact customers living like kings. Easy access It’ll cost you, first, of course. R100, to be specific, on top of whatever deal you’ve struck up with DStv in the past. DStv Access customers on the decoder package, for instance, will pay the usual R140/m price – plus an extra R100 that’ll see them upgraded to the…

Sitting down to watch Brady Corbet’s The Brutalist should not be approached lightly. We’re not talking about the 3h35m runtime (which includes a hard-coded and very appreciated fifteen-minute intermission) but instead of the dour subject matter. Set in post-war America, The Brutalist follows the life of László Toth, a fictional architect played by the brilliant Adrien Brody, as he attempts to start a new life for himself. That’s the gist of it. We’ll be the first to admit that it doesn’t make for very nice reading, especially while the rest of the family scoures the various streaming services in search of a…

After months of setbacks, Amazon finally seems set to debut its long-awaited Alexa revamp, complete with artificial intelligence (AI) to make the disembodied voice just a little smarter than it was before. Amazon hasn’t said as much – at least not directly – but it has unveiled the invites for a press event taking place on 26 February. It’s there, in New York City, that Amazon is expected to unveil the upgrade. Although the invites don’t immediately give the game away, sticking with simple phrases like “Join us,” “Save the date,” and “You’re invited” – a couple of clever folks…

After what was truly a rough 2024 for Sonos, the audio specialists have something big planned for 2025, and it isn’t what you might think. According to a report from The Verge, Sonos is gearing up to release its very own TV box in 2025. One that won’t just slap the Sonos logo on something from Skyworth’s catalogue and call it a day. Putting Sonos on TV Codenamed Pinewood, Sonos’ big ideas involve a streaming device that could cost customers between $200-$400 (R3,700-7,400) a pop, blowing every single other product in this category out of the water. If the rumours…

There are few things better in life than sitting down to a 13h00 bout featuring your favourite English football team going up against its bitterest rivals. We can picture it now: a cold beverage in hand (with more stashed nearby), a large-screen TV blaring, and some food on its way. Throw in one of your team’s defenders scoring a last-minute header to give you the edge over your mates in Fantasy Premier League and you’ve got yourself a perfect Saturday. We can’t exactly help out with that last bit (other than to tell you not to triple-captain Jan Bednarek), but…

Smartwatches are fast becoming the norm, so it was almost inevitable that someone would eventually kit out their wrist with a wearable console. Whether the idea is a good one is debatable, but a Reddit user by the name of u/ZenonDesingk has gone ahead and done it anyway, claiming a stable 60fps in games like GTA: Vice City and Clash of Clans, even managing to get Forza Horizon 4 up and running. What about Crysis? This is just a regular smartwatch? No. byu/ZenonDesingk inGalaxyWatch It’s an incredible, somewhat useless achievement that commits the cardinal sin of not booting up Doom on…

Anyone hoping for even a slight reprieve at South Africa’s fuel pumps this February will want to shut their eyes immediately and head to the nearest petrol station as soon as physically possible (with your eyes open, we hope). The Department of Mineral Resources and Energy (DMRE) has published the official fuel price adjustments for February 2025 and, as expected, they’re not what we’d call pretty. As is tradition, the new prices won’t hit South Africa’s pumps until the first Wednesday of the new month, falling on 5 February. That leaves South Africans plenty of time to get their affairs…

Excellent news for load-shedding The rather short nightmare is officially over. In the early hours of Sunday morning, Eskom suspended load shedding, a day earlier than was initially predicted. The energy company announced the departure in a post on X, noting that it had managed to restore its emergency reserves following ten load-shedding-free months. Eskom first announced the return to rolling blackouts on Friday, 31 January, stating that several breakdowns – requiring full repairs – forced the company to rely on its energy reserves. With repairs on five coal-fired generation units now complete (adding 2,930MW back to the grid) and…

UPDATE (31/01/2025): Only a few hours after Eskom issued this warning, it was confirmed that the energy company will bring back load shedding to South Africa, ten months after it was suspended. Stage 3 will come into effect at 17h00 on Friday, 31 January 2025. Eskom has not yet confirmed how long load shedding will stick around for just yet. ORIGINAL STORY: The day that South Africans have dreaded for nearly a year is finally upon us. Kinda. Eskom (now that’s a name we haven’t for a long time) just issued the first load shedding warning since March 2024. Let’s first…