Stuff UK January 2023

Hello and welcome to this end-of-the-year issue of Stuff! This one is all about our annual awards. We’ve spent months compiling the list of this year’s hottest tech and have come up with an absolutely cracking array of the best gadgets of 2022. We don’t think you’ll be disappointed by our choices, although we surprised ourselves with our pick for ultimate gadget of the year. It’s a deserved win – and the ‘highly commended’ gear isn’t bad either. Also do check out our brilliant competition on p25, where you could win some superb Bowers & Wilkins audio tech: the fanastic Zeppelin home speaker and PX7 S2 headphones. It really is a top-class bundle, worth over a grand. Naturally we’re not short of a few reviews: we’ve played the latest Pokemon and Sonic…

HOT FIVE #1 MO’ TIME TO SPY Omega Seamaster Diver 300M James Bond 60th Anniversary Whether it’s the Rolex Submariner he strapped on for 1962’s Dr No, the Gruen Precision 510 from You Only Live Twice or the Seiko H357 Duo Display seen in For Your Eyes Only, James Bond has worn many watches since he first appeared on screen… but he’s been an Omega man since the Pierce Brosnan era. To mark 60 years of henchman-bashing, Aston-driving and martini-drinking, Omega has launched a special version of its Seamaster Diver 300M. There’s no built-in laser, you can’t fire a high-tensile wire from it, and it doesn’t emit an electromagnetic pulse, but turn this Seamaster over and a moiré animation powered by the watch’s Master Chronometer Calibre 8806 movement replicates the series’ iconic gun-toting opening…

THINGS CALZONE GET BETTER Honor Magic Vs £tba / hihonor.com Honor’s second folding smartphone gets some tasty improvements Thinner city blues Honor only released its first folding phone earlier in 2022, but it’s already back with an upgraded follow-up. The new Magic Vs uses the same inward-folding design, but a redesigned hinge has helped slim down the dimensions slightly, with no gap between the two halves when it’s shut. The 6.45in OLED cover screen and 7.9in folding OLED main display inside are also the same, but its Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 CPU is more efficient and there’s a 5000mAh battery that charges at 66W over USB-C, so it’ll go from flat to full in under an hour. Lots going on The biggest changes are on the photography front, with the 50MP main sensor found in the Magic…

White Noise There have been several abortive attempts to bring Don DeLillo’s cult novel about academia, ecological disaster and mortality to the screen, but Noah Baumbach has finally pulled it off. A black comedy starring Adam Driver, Greta Gerwig and Don Cheadle, White Noise has already wowed critics. Hooray for the Airborne Toxic Event! Film / Netflix, 30 Dec Servant Apple’s psychological chiller draws to a conclusion with this fourth and final season, which promises to answer all our questions about creepy nanny Leanne Grayson, even creepier reanimated baby doll Jericho, and the mysteries surrounding all the apparently supernatural goings-on in the Turner family’s Philadelphia home. S4 / Apple TV+, 13 Jan Wildcat This inspiring doc follows a young British ex-soldier struggling with PTSD and seemingly attempting to disappear by going somewhere impossibly remote: the Amazon (as…

from £6499 / loewe.tv Ah, going for a bit of nominative determinism there… It’s not quite up there with the chef called Tom Kitchin, or four-time world tree-climbing champion Scott Forest, but there is something quite apt about this month’s Stuff Icon being called the Iconic. It’s not just here because of the name, though. Loewe has made this eye-catching telly, which comes in either grey or white, out of ‘Syno-Stone’. You won’t find that on the periodic table but it looks like concrete and is formed from recycled materials that can be recycled again, although probably not in your normal wheelie bin. Would it even fit? Good point – the Iconic comes in 55in or 65in screen sizes, so you’d struggle to squeeze it in with your tuna cans and plastic bottles. But…

PS5, PS4, XSX, XB1, PC It’s a little ironic that, just as the once-niche Yakuza series has finally become more of a global brand, Sega has decided to start over and ditch the name. Yet Like A Dragon is actually much closer to the literal translation of its Japanese title Ryu Ga Gotoku (also the name of the studio behind the series) – and it’s a good time for it, as the latest instalment goes back to its roots: this is a spin-off set in 19th-century Japan. Ishin is an ideal entry point for newcomers as there’s no baggage from the series’ history, but longtime fans will get a kick out of seeing their favourite characters recast in a costume drama. It does, however, make learning names a bit tricky, especially as…