Stuff UK February 2022

Hello! This issue is all about apps – those that help you improve yourself, those that enable you to get more done and those that just mean you can have more fun. We’ve got a list of the 100 essential apps to download across every mobile device: iOS or Android, watchOS or Wear OS. But before that, we take a look at some of the new gear from the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas, including the fantastic new OnePlus 10 Pro, which lays down the gauntlet for all of 2022’s upcoming smartphones. We’ve also taken a close-up look at Sony’s incoming QD-OLED tellies, said to deliver even more consistent colour and better brightness than current OLEDs – which should be something to behold. Elsewhere we’ve continued our recent look at…

Being first isn’t everything. The first smartphone, IBM’s Simon Personal Communicator, had a battery that lasted just an hour… and Kyocera’s VP-210, generally considered to be the original camera phone, could only store 20 teeny photos. But while the OnePlus 10 Pro is among the first phones to be powered by Qualcomm’s new Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 hardware, that’s far from the only thing it’s got going for it. Underneath the 120hz Fluid AMOLED display, which uses a variable refresh rate to make the most of the 5000mAh battery, you get top-end LPDDR5 memory and UFS 3.1 storage – and while that all sounds tasty, it’s the rear camera module that’s got us twitching. This Hasselblad unit combines 48MP, 50MP and 8MP snappers with the ability to shoot in RAW+ format, which…

Reading about new TVs can often feel like playing Scrabble: all you’re trying to do is make sense of a seemingly random collection of letters. Whether it’s LCD, UHD, ULED or GBBO, there’s always a new acronym to be deciphered. The latest one is QD-OLED: a mash-up of two existing techs that’s meant to combine the best bits of both OLED and quantum-dot tellies… and the Google-powered Sony A95K is the first to get it. The idea is that, combined with Sony’s XR OLED Contrast Pro and XR Triluminos Max trickery, you get the infinite contrast of OLED and the boost to colour brightness offered by quantum dots, without having to fork out remortgage money for one of Samsung’s Micro LED jobs. And that’s not the only swanky smartness you get with…

It’s now nearly three years since Samsung released its first folding phone, and it’s fair to say the world has changed since then. Admittedly that’s more down to a certain health issue than the impact of a phone that you can fold in half, but the Find N proves the concept is here to stay. Oppo says it’s taken four years to develop the Snapdragon 888-powered Find N, which uses a ‘water-drop’ hinge to widen the angle of the fold when opened and reduce the crease in the 7.1in, 1792x1920 AMOLED display inside. ColorOS has been taught some new multitasking skills to make the most of the extra space: you can swipe down with two fingers in the middle of the device to split the screen in half, or turn a…

Where do you keep your TV when you’re not watching it? On the wall? How very old-fashioned. LG’s battery-powered StanbyME comes on a height-adjustable pedestal, so you can plonk it at the end of your bed/sunlounger/treadmill and swivel, tilt and rotate the 27in screen until it’s just so, before stashing it away to recharge when you’re done. Of course, that means it’s not exactly suited to plugging in a Sky Q box, so while you do get an HDMI socket it’s designed to be used more like a tablet than a traditional TV. You navigate using the touchscreen rather than a remote, with onboard Wi-Fi offering access to Netflix, Amazon Prime, YouTube and so on. There’s also NFC for mirroring from your phone. The screen can even be removed from the stand,…

If you ask Stuff, there’s no worse time to stop drinking than January. It’s already a dreadful slog of a month – why make it worse by depriving yourself of one of the few things that’ll help you get through it? But if you have committed to going dry for 31 days, you’re probably seriously flagging by now, desperate for something to take your mind off the demon drink. Well, what could be better than a 1920-piece, 1:5-scale Lego motorbike? When fully built, the BMW M 1000 RR is 45cm long and 27cm tall – making it the largest Technic bike set ever made – with a functional three-speed gearbox, front and rear suspension and an inline four-piston engine. There’s also a gold chain (for the drivetrain, not wearing round your…