Stuff UK November 2021

Music is like therapy: at times a companion in grief, at other times a way to get up offa that thing. So if you head to p37 to read this month’s cover feature, you’ll find yourself sifting through the latest top offerings in all the great sonic delivery mediums, from in-ear buds to smart speakers. There’s sure to be something in there that’ll help you hear music the way it was intended: loud and clear. After that, let’s go fly a… drone, as a modern-day Mary Poppins might sing while her Fimi X8 Mini (reviewed on p71) shoots some stable footage of her mate popping out of a chimney. Then she might perhaps settle down for a cuppa and fire up a podcast on decluttering handbags via Spotify, straight from her…

Triskaidekaphobia is the fear of the number 13. Some suffer so badly from it they’ll refuse to sit in row 13 on a plane, skip the 13th step on staircases, or lock themselves indoors on the 13th of the month in case some terrible accident befalls them… but even the most extreme triskaidekaphobe will find it difficult to resist the lure of the latest iPhones. This year’s iPhone 13 Pro – and its slightly larger brother the Pro Max – have the same A15 Bionic chip as the regular iPhone 13, but they also get a five-core GPU to boost performance in games, video apps and the new camera features. Speaking of which, the 12MP cameras here are the most advanced found in any iPhone yet. The wide camera has a…

This time last month, the iPad Mini was a dinky take on the standard iPad. Yawn. But Apple’s 2021 version rethinks the device as a teeny iPad Air – because the Air is a winner and a lot of people prefer their tablets to be small packages. The all-new iPad Mini gets a price-hike, but then you do get a lot for the extra 80 quid. There’s a blazing-fast A15 chip (the same one that powers the dizzyingly powerful iPhone 13 Pro Max) that obliterates the competition, while the new enclosure minimises bezels and eradicates the Home button once and for all. Touch ID heads to the power button and the enlarged 8.3in Liquid Retina display makes everything look fantastic with 500-nit brightness, True Tone and P3 wide colour. You also get…

WATCH SERIES 7 Given Apple’s ongoing merciless dominance of the smartwatch market, it’s not hard to imagine it getting lazy. But while the Apple Watch Series 7 isn’t a radical reinvention, it’s not an insignificant update either. The display is 20% bigger than that of the Series 6, and Apple has designed new faces that make the most of the extra real estate; plus it’s 70% brighter than the S6. Apple says the screen is more crack-resistant than ever, while an IP6X rating should make it nearly invincible to dust. £tba iPHONE 13 We loved the iPhone 12, so much so that it’s been our No1-ranked phone for months. It’s too early to say if this year’s ‘basic’ iPhone is the one to go for again, but we know it has the same A15…

Extreme sports are all about pushing yourself. Can you pedal faster, skate harder, break more bones? For nearly 20 years now GoPro has been on a similar mission to always go one better – and the Hero10 Black wants to push everything further again. With LCD screens front and back to make things easier to frame, it looks pretty much identical to the Hero9, but the speedy new GP2 chip inside takes its shooting prowess to the next level: you can now capture video at up to 5.3K at 60fps or 4K at 120fps, or 8x slow-mo at 2.7K, while stills top out at 23MP. HyperSmooth 4.0 stabilisation should keep the gnarliest footage steady, with the horizon-levelling limit increased from 27º to 45º . Low-light performance has also been improved, so you’ll…

What’s the first name that comes into your head when someone mentions cereal? Weetabix, probably, despite their dreariness. What about vacuum cleaners? That’s got to be ol’ Henry, no? And when the conversation turns to noise-cancelling headphones – regardless of how many now flood the market – surely none are more iconic than the QuietComfort 35s. It’s surprising, then, that it’s taken Bose this long to make a sequel. The new cans feature two modes: Quiet is obviously the noise-cancelling setting, and we’re going to stick our necks out and predict that Bose’s ANC wizardry is still leading the way; while Aware mode switches to full transparency. It looks like the usual plastic build, but if the QC45s are as comfy as their predecessors then we’re fine with that. With 24 hours…