T3 March 2019

MAKE YOUR MOVE Fancy a round of chess on the go? Square Off’s rechargeable battery should be good for around 30 games. The board even comes with a neat stand for your smartphone, so you can easily keep an eye on the app SQUARE OFF The internet has revolutionised how we engage in our favourite board games, enabling us to play Scrabble, Carcassonne and so on with loved ones halfway across the globe, even while sat on the toilet. But online chess has never quite cut it, lacking the thrill that comes from brooding over a real-life chequerboard like Field Marshal Montgomery planning his next battle strategy. Recognising this, a company called InfiVention has developed a gadget called Square Off. Pairing with your smart device, it lets you lock horns with absent pals…

MATT BOLTON Editor Matt scoured the halls of CES, leaving no giant stand unturned, hunting down the coolest tech coming in 2019 (p37). Not much stands up to the rollable TV on our cover, but the Alexa toilet was close. MICHELLE MCLAREN Art Editor The new long-range Nissan Leaf (p10) is top of Michelle’s wishlist. The 239-mile range is now enough to get through an entire Saturday of ferrying the kids everywhere they demand to go. Revolutionary. PAUL DOUGLAS Global Editor-in-Chief Boss man Paul needs the best internet connection all the time for all the bossing he has to fit in. Our feature on the arrival of 5G (p73) shows how he’ll be bossing more efficiently than ever soon. ROB JONES Tech & Gaming Editor Rob took on the job of testing the Honor View 20 for our review (p82). As…

It’s quite thoughtful that the biggest gadget trade show is right at the start of January, because it really sets the pace for the year ahead, and gives us a chance to look at what’s worth digging into. The three big things you’re going to hear tons about in 2019 are 8K TVs, 5G, and basically every appliance in the world being controllable from Alexa and Google Assistant. The last of those is no surprise – one of 2018’s big trends was building Alexa and Assistant into pretty much anything, so now it’s only logical to make everything from taps to slow cookers controllable via them. 8K TVs are going to be more of a slow burn – it looks like Samsung has the field to itself until the second half…

Our mission is to bring you the clearest recommendations we can – and that means a great deal of hard work happens before a product even reaches our pages! Because we only feature products the T3 team would happily use ourselves, we end up discarding a significant number of options in each category before settling on a final shortlist to review. We select only the best of the best for our Tested section; the gear we know you’ll want to seriously consider purchasing. And that should mean an end to you having to undertake hours of painstaking research and product comparisons. You won’t see any duff products, but you will come away with clarity on which one is the best in its category or for a specific task: our awards badges (see…

1 NISSAN LEAF E+3. ZERO • From £35,000, nissan.co.uk According to reports, a Nissan Leaf was sold every ten minutes in Europe last year, making it the continent’s best-selling electric vehicle. Without wishing to rub it in, those people might’ve been better off waiting a few months, because the company has already trumped 2018’s second-gen model with two brand-new editions, the 3.ZERO and the e+ 3.ZERO. Okay, so the cheaper 3.ZERO doesn’t differ too much from last year’s car: the main developments include a larger, eight-inch infotainment screen that offers Tesla-esque door-to-door navigation, plus some new colour choices including two-tone options. The higher-end e+ 3.ZERO represents a sizeable upgrade, primarily because it contains a 62kWh battery, as opposed to the 2018 Leaf’s and the standard 3.ZERO’s 40kWh units. That equates to around 40% more…

THE READER Olivia Aarens After a long break from cycling, Olivia is dusting off her drophandlebar road bike for commuting and weekend rides, but she needs a little help to make the ride easier. THE EXPERT Nick Odantzis T3’s two wheeled know-it-all, Nick commutes by bike, is a regular club rider and is obsessive about the latest cycling gear. His mindset: there’s no bad ride, just a bad setup. 1 EXPOSURE LIGHTS The best way to keep yourself seen by other road users at night, and indeed in the day, is a smart set of front and rear lights. Exposure’s party piece in its lighting range is the Blaze Mk3 with ReAKT and Peleton rear light, which automatically adjusts its brightness according to its surroundings, flaring like a brake light when you slow down or dimming when…