Stuff UK July 2022

Hello and welcome to this holiday-themed issue of Stuff! The summer is here, promising over-rouged necklines, inappropriate shorts and sand you’ll be finding for months. And with millions of us looking forward to a proper getaway, we’ve rounded up some top holiday tech for various types of vacay – including tech to entertain kids, ideal gear for camping and, of course, a speaker you can use on the beach before you get told to turn it down by the people in the Panama hats with the striped windbreak. As part of our main feature we’ve also brought you a full review of the Sony WH-1000XM5 headphones. These have serious pedigree, with their predecessors having sat atop our Top Ten list for some time. Can they keep the plane-friendly noise-cancelling crown? Talking of…

Try as they might (and a few have got pretty close), we’re yet to meet a pair of active noise-cancellers that can bump Sony’s WH-1000XM4s from the summit of our Top Ten headphones list… or indeed from our noggins. But we give their new successors a pretty good chance. The XM5s’ fresh look includes a slimmer synthetic leather headband and a stepless slider to make sure they sit snugly on your bonce. And they’ve been improved on the inside too, with new 30mm carbon-fibre composite drivers and twice as many microphones to boost their noise-banishing prowess. Sony’s Adaptive Sound Control adjusts the ANC depending on whether they’re battling a howling northwesterly, the constant drone of a plane cabin or the inane chatter in an office. You can now summon your voice assistant…

If you’re the kind of person who can never have too much of a good thing – whether that’s spuds with your roast, Soleros on a summer’s day or rotten eggs to throw at that new statue of Thatcher – Asus has got just the laptop for you. As well as a 14.5in 2880x1800 main display, the Zenbook Pro 14 Duo OLED has an ultrawide 12.7in touchscreen that sits above the keyboard. You can drag an app or browser window down there, so you’ll always have at-a-glance access to Spotify or Slack, or use it to house your most-used toolbars from Adobe’s Creative Suite. And here’s the crucial bit: the second screen rises up by 20mm and tilts by 12º when the laptop is open, allowing a whopping 38% more airflow…

Sometimes, if you want something done properly you really do have to do it yourself. So after a decade of watching LG, Samsung, Huawei and others let Apple run away with the smartwatch crown, Google has finally decided to take matters into its own hands. The result? The Pixel Watch – the first Wear OS device made entirely by Google. Its gloriously minimalist design is certainly eye-catching, with a physical crown, customisable bands à la Apple and a case made of recycled stainless steel. Google hasn’t revealed the full spec sheet yet but we know it’ll do continuous heart-rate monitoring and sleep tracking with full Fitbit integration, so there’s a good chance you’ll get things like stress management and full health metrics. Google has also promised an improved interface with more fluid…

Big, expensive floorstanding speakers aren’t usually the kind of thing we’d honour with a place in the hallowed Hot Five… but it’s impossible not to make an exception for KEF’s LS60 Wireless. While most floorstanders are part of a system of separates, these metre-tall towers need nothing more than a power cable to get up and running, which makes this about the most minimalist hi-fi setup ever. The 1400W pairing requires no external amplification and there’s Bluetooth and Wi-Fi on board, with support for Spotify Connect, Tidal Connect, AirPlay 2 and Google Chromecast, so all you need to do is connect your phone and fire up your streaming app of choice. Of course, the old-fashioned inputs are still there if you want them: there’s RCA, coaxial, optical and even HDMI eARC for…

Not many people realise that electric cars have been around since the end of the 19th century – but it wasn’t until Tesla revealed the Roadster in 2006 that battery-powered motors started to get sexy. Sorry, nobody fancies someone who drives a Prius. But while Elon Musk is too busy buying Twitter and generally being a total berk to turn his hand to any other modes of transport, Candela has beaten him to it. At lower speeds the all-electric C-8 cuts through the waves like a regular boat, but as it gets faster a retractable hydrofoil underneath lifts the carbon-fibre hull above the water, so it looks like it’s flying. This reduces drag by up to 80%, enabling the Swedish-made vessel to travel up to 58 miles at a cruising speed…