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Digital Life

This Month

Google TV Streamer.

This beige box will transform your TV

If sky-high mortgage repayments have you thinking you might skip Christmas this year, think again.

  • Updated
  • John Davidson

November

Meet our new favourite laptop

Apple’s new M4 MacBook Pro has some advantages over the Air that make it worth considering, even for mere mortals like you and me.

  • John Davidson

Hot is cold and strong is weak with this new espresso maker

We made a mistake testing the KitchenAid KF8 fully automatic coffee machine. We failed to test our assumptions about what words mean.

  • John Davidson

Meet the cargo bike that other riders will envy

When it comes to storage capacity, Tern’s Orox is more like a small car than an electric bicycle.

  • John Davidson

This new tablet is perfect for Netflix and so much more

The Galaxy Tab S10 has a tonne of new AI features – and they’re not all as useless as you might expect.

  • John Davidson
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  • Gadgets With John Davidson
  • Review
The Mac mini.

Apple launches our favourite gadget of 2024

The new Mac mini is tiny, fast, cheap and brilliant. What more could you ask for, after a year of underwhelming AI?

  • John Davidson

Can technology actually improve your sleep?

We’ve just spent 11 weeks testing the Eight Sleep’s Pod 4 mattress cover to find out. Sleeping on the job has never been so cool.

  • John Davidson

Ignore the AI ‘bloatware’. This HP laptop is flipping good

HP’s latest ultraportable laptop has a lot of things going for it. AI isn’t yet one of them. 

  • John Davidson

October

Cheap at half the price: these security cameras shine bright

Uniden’s Wi-Fi cameras punch well above their weight, thanks to their separate solar-power panels, clear video, bright spotlights and low cost.

  • John Davidson

These Tiles help you find things before you lose your mind

Life360’s latest Tile trackers still have some advantages compared with the Apple and Samsung copycat versions.

  • John Davidson

We haven’t even taken it outside, and we already love this battery

This portable power station doesn’t just let you take your electrical appliances on the road with you. It also works for you between holidays, at home.

  • John Davidson
  • Gadgets With John Davidson
  • Review
Galaxy Ring

Wear this new Samsung Ring, but whatever you do, don’t look at it

What’s true of all health trackers is true of Samsung’s new Galaxy Ring: their utility decreases the closer you examine them.

  • John Davidson

This robot will do battle with your lawn, no matter the cost

Dreame’s Roboticmower A1 will bravely go where no one has gone before: into the snake-infested jungle that is our backyard.

  • John Davidson
  • Gadgets With John Davidson
  • Review

How the Google TV Streamer changed my life (but not my channel)

Google’s new internet TV box can bring fresh technology to a stale old TV.

  • John Davidson

The Vitruvian Trainer+ is a lot like the Peloton – but for weights

You connect handles to ropes and pull on them, in a sort of human-versus-machine tug of war.

  • John Davidson
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Why the Series 10 is now Apple’s best watch

The Watch Ultra 2 is still Apple’s most expensive watch, but the new Series 10 betters it in some (but not all) ways that matter.

  • John Davidson

Ocean cruising too slow for you? Speed things up with this action cam

DJI’s Osmo Action 5 Pro has features that will turn even the most sedate sojourn into a white-knuckle adventure.

  • John Davidson

September

The global IT crisis was the result of a software update provided by CrowdStrike,

Why competition laws could increase the risk of blue screen attacks

We should beware of one-size-fits-all technology policies that could open smart devices to the third-party vulnerabilities that caused the CrowdStrike outage.

  • Michael Rogers and Jane M. Hardy

Can a robot be too human? This one can

Ecovacs’ latest robovac cleans more like a human does than anything we’ve ever seen. But that’s not always a good thing.

  • John Davidson
iPhone 16

Choosing an iPhone 16 is enough to keep you up at night

With the basic iPhone models gaining so much ground on Pro models, picking which one to buy isn’t as simple as it once was. What do you get for your extra money?

  • John Davidson

Original URL: https://www.afr.com/topic/digital-life-6ga0