T3 October 2016

SENA SMART HELMET Wearing earplugs while you ride a motorbike is de rigueur, unless you want to go partially deaf before you hit retirement. But they’re probably the most lo-tech thing ever – squidgy, waxy bits of foam that you stuff in your ears. Well, hopefully, Sena, an established manufacturer of comms systems for motorbike helmets, is about to bring this antiquated noise-cancelling era to an end with its Smart Helmet. While it doesn’t have the obvious smarts of the Kickstarter-infamous (and now sadly defunct) Skully Lid – like a heads-up display – the Smart Helmet does address one crucial area: noise. Sena’s solution is Intelligent Noise Control; the helmet is, essentially, outfitted with a pair of noise-cancelling cans, the likes of which you’d normally find gracing many a bonce on a…

Rob Carney Editor Rob has just had a Ford Mustang delivered. Five litres of pure American power. He also got a speeding ticket, so will obviously be obeying all limits from now on. Nick Odantzis DEPUTY Editor Nick is still testing the awesome Volkswagen Golf GTE. He particularly enjoys the smoothness of the hybrid drive – more to come on this in next issue’s Our Gadgets. Claire Davies Assistant Editor Retro gaming consoles, mood-manipulating wearables and slippers that help you lose weight. Claire’s spent the month researching 101 Gadgets You Can’t Live Without – read it on p46. Paul Dimery PRODUCTION EDITOR It’s BBQ season and Paul has been taking advantage of the warmer weather, cooking delicious pizzas in the awesome Verycook Verypizz, and grilling steaks on the Weber Q1200 Luke O’Neill ART EDITOR Luke has spent this month doing what comes naturally to…

*OK, that’s a bit of a fabrication – I didn’t have all of these immense gadgets in my house. Though I wish I did. Imagine it – a gadget for every occasion. Every life event. Everything you do. Well, that’s exactly the list we’ve put together in this month’s positively rammed edition of everyone’s favourite gadget magazine. From tech to help you relax, through the latest in connected home and fitness kit, to the gear you need to earn more cash, it’s all here. Flick to p46 now and start upgrading your existence. In our regular Man Vs Tech feature, our mobiletech editor Spencer jumps into a Range Rover and goes head-to-head with contributor Luke Edwards – who’s on foot, kitted out with the latest in running tech. Who’ll win the…

Samsung Galaxy Note 7 T3 goes hands-on with the latest Galaxy handset. Is this the phablet we’ve been waiting for? £700, www.samsung.com The Samsung Galaxy Note 7 is a phone that’s designed for a very specific user base: those who want a larger screen but are craving a stylus, too. It feels like an incremental improvement over the S7 Edge, taking in some updates to the S Pen and making the new phablet feel more business-like and, well, grown-up. One thing we love about the Galaxy S7 and S7 Edge is the always-on display, which shows a static clock, calendar or image, so you don’t need to keep switching on the phone to simply see routine updates. And with the S Pen, you can now write directly onto the almost-blank screen – it’s like…

£4,490, loewe.tv Hey T3, my mate’s been banging on about this TV for ages… Every bugger’s banging on about it, and for good reason. The Loewe bild 7, an Ultra HD OLED TV with a built-in soundbar, is packing exciting technology called VantaVision. You know VantaBlack, right? The darkest substance created by man? Well, VantaVision is inspired by that, and the result is that the bild 7’s blacks are the deepest you can get on TV right now, making contrasting colours pop like mad. Woah. This sounds like a fancy telly. It’s the fanciest. The screen has a gorgeous aluminium bezel finished in matt graphite grey, and apparently we’ll have a choice of dark grey or light grey acoustic fabric for the soundbar. Tell me more about that soundbar. It’s a hider. When switched off, the…

Get ready to interact with your music in a new way, thanks to Lofelt’s The Basslet, a wearable subwoofer for your body… €139 (£119), lofelt.com 01 FEEL THE MUSIC The wrist-worn Basslet enables you to feel the sounds you’re listening to via your smartphone, laptop, console, VR headset… basically any device that conveys sound. It comes with a ‘sender’ that plugs between your headphones and any device with an audio jack socket. Don’t worry about the audio signal being altered, as the sender (also a charger) has a straight-through audio path. 02 DEEP SOUND Lofelt has fitted The Basslet with its patent-pending LoSound engine, which recreates bass frequencies down to 10Hz and to a max of 250Hz. Delivering a wide dynamic range to handle low-end peaks with ease, the LoSound engine creates a…