The Stuff Hot Five
What do we really care about? And what should you really care about?
Each week, we'll be counting down the five most important things in our world right now. The new gadgets that we're excited about - and that you should be excited about too. The games and apps we're desperate to play - and that we want you to enjoy too. The best phones and tablets and cameras and laptops and smartwatches and all the rest that we've reviewed that week - and that you should go out and buy.
Think of it as a condensed version of the whole site. But don't forget to read the rest of it too, eh?
5) The UE Wonderboom corners the market in fruity underwear
The undergarments-for-fruit market is pretty small. You can get socks for bananas and bras for mangoes, but that’s about it. The undergarments-for-fruit-which-also-double-as-Bluetooth-speakers market was even smaller - in fact non-existent - until the arrival of the UE Wonderboom this week.
In the unlikely event that you have absolutely no clue where we’re going with this, let us explain: the Wonderboom is a Bluetooth speaker which very closely resembles a grapefruit wearing a corset.
That is in itself a good thing, obviously, but the fact that it also sounds great is probably more important. What’s more, it’s fully waterproof - you can even immerse it fully for up to 30 minutes - and has a handy cord so you can hang it in the shower.
Coming soon: a Bluetooth speaker which looks like a papaya in Y-fronts.
4) Samsung’s DeX turns your phone into a PC
One day, there’ll be no such thing as computers, or tablets, or smartphones. Instead, you’ll have a little postage stamp-sized tattoo on your hand through which you’ll download yourself into ‘Cyberspace’. We know, because we read it in Snow Crash or Neuromancer 20 years ago.
Anyway, we’ve not reached that stage yet but we are getting close - and the Samsung DeX Station may well mark the next stage in the journey: it’s a dock into which you plonk your phone, provided your phone is a Samsung Galaxy S8, and which then makes said phone do a passable impression of a PC.
Hook it up to a monitor or TV via HDMI and it’ll display an Android-based, Windows-style desktop environment complete with apps, launch bar and all the rest. You get two USB ports on the DeX Station itself, can wirelessly connect a mouse and keyboard, and even access mobile versions of Office and Adobe creative apps. It’ll launch soon and is expected to cost around £150.
3) Google Home arrives to give Alexa some competition
Alexa’s had a pretty easy ride of it thus far - when it comes to running your home, there’s really nothing else as well-equipped as Amazon’s smart assistant. But that may be about to change. Google Home, which launched in the US last year, finally reaches Blighty next week (6 April) and looks set to get Amazon’s Echo devices some serious competition.
It’s pretty much a direct rival: Home is roughly the same shape, although a bit smaller and more attractive, roughly the same price (£129 to the Echo’s £149) and can do roughly the same things. For instance you can ask it questions, which it’ll sometimes fail to understand in hilarious fashion, play music through it, and entrust it with control of your smart home thingies.
Right now it’s not quite as full-featured as an Echo, but expect that to change in the coming months.
2) Ikea lights up your smart home
There can be few more satisfying afternoons than the one you spend assembling a piece of Ikea furniture. The joy of laying out all the pieces in little ordered piles! The thrill of ticking off the stages as you work through the instructions! The pleasure of seeing your finished bookcase/wardrobe/guinea pig hutch! The aching fingers from repeatedly turning an Allen key for 6 hours straight!
You’ll get none of that with Ikea’s latest product, though - because it’s a light bulb. Not just any old light bulb, but a smart one - and one that comes with a load of accessories too.
Yes, the Ikea Smart Lighting system is Ikea’s answer to Philips Hue. Plug in one of the Trådfri bulbs (£15) and you’ll be able to control it via a remote. Add a hub (£69 with two bulbs) and you’ll get smartphone-based app control too. You can also beef up the system with sensors which turn on the lights when you enter a room, LED door panels for Ikea cupboards and more.
And no Allen keys required anywhere.
The Galaxy S8 launches with a bang (sorry)
We swore we wouldn’t make any Note 7-inspired jokes about the S8’s launch, so we won’t.
What we will say is that it was an explosive event (sorry) which introduced us to a blazing-hot new smartphone (sorry) that should set alight (sorry) imaginations and keep the rivalry with Apple burning bright (sorry).
But enough of all that. What we really, truly want to say is that the S8 is one of the most gorgeous smartphones we’ve ever clapped eyes on, thanks in no small part to the artfully curved ‘infinity display’ which appears to make the screen trail off into nothingness.
That screen is also bigger than most - 5.8 inches on the standard model and 6.2in on the S8+, but with a taller-rather-than-wider 18.5:9 aspect ratio that keeps it usable in one hand. Elsewhere it’s business as usual: the same great camera as the S7, but with a few new tricks; plenty of power thanks to a beefy Exynos processor and 4GB of RAM; face and eye-scanning tech that means you can unlock it without a fingerprint. Which may well be useful, as the fingerprint scanner has been moved to the back of the phone.
It already looks like the phone to beat this year and we’re happy to state for the record that the Samsung Galaxy S8 is truly Hot Stuff (we’re really, really sorry).
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