Tech spend-fest looks set to defy cost of living crunch
Harvey Norman is aiming to woo shoppers with a range of Black Friday deals on popular items, from headphones and laptops to home audio and security systems.
Special Report
Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales are set to reach a new record this year, with Australian shoppers planning to spend $6.7bn in defiance of a cost of living crunch.
The sales, which are a tradition in the US coinciding with the Thanksgiving holiday, have also been gaining traction in Australia during the past decade. This year local shoppers are set to spend an extra 5.5 per cent compared with 2023, according to Roy Morgan.
The spending spree sets the mood for the six-week peak Christmas season, which the Australian Retailers Association expects will inject $69.7bn overall into the economy – a 2.2 per cent gain on last year.
“Shoppers are being savvier than ever with their dollars,” the association’s chief executive Paul Zahra said. “They’re looking for the best value when it comes to buying presents for their loved ones, which is why sales events like Black Friday/Cyber Monday weekend are consistently growing in popularity. We are also seeing a continued trend towards spending on little luxuries.”
Harvey Norman is aiming to woo shoppers with a range of deals on popular items, from head-phones and laptops to home audio and security systems. We take a look at what’s on offer and put the products through their paces.
Google Pixel 9 Pro Fold
Google’s new folding phone may be just about the perfect device for your grandma.
Though the US tech giant probably won’t appreciate its most advanced smartphone to date being likened to a toy for grandparents, I do have a theory.
Remember the iPad gener-ation? No, not toddlers playing games in the pram but the middle-aged folk you’d see at a tourist attraction whipping out a device the size of a dinner plate to snap a picture. Those people now have a new friend.
It’s an incredibly smart device that not only allows them to play Wordle, Solitaire or Words with Friends at a size that’s easy to see, it can also make calls and send text messages outside Apple’s ecosystem. It takes much better pictures, folds up to a reasonable size for carrying in a pocket, and has a few cool AI-powered features. If we were to compare it with the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold5, we’d be leaning towards Google due to the phone’s size, shape and weight. But there’s something about Google smartphones being so simple to use that means I can’t get past thinking they’re an older person’s phone. That and the fact I’ve met only one person under the age of 30, also a journalist (sorry Gary) with a folding phone.
Let’s jump into the specs. Its size is one of the highlights – the Pro Fold arrives much wider than the Z Fold5, so much so it seems like a regular phone when folded, even 1mm shorter and wider alongside the iPhone 15 Pro Max.
It weighs just 257g, which is heavier than its Samsung counterpart, but the size difference and weight distribution mean you won’t feel it. And in the pocket you wouldn’t know the difference between Google’s Pixel 9 Pro XL and the 9 Pro Fold. When it’s unfolded, you’re getting an 8-inch tablet that is quite nice in the hand.
You know those times when you strain your eyes looking at a smartphone, wishing things were slightly bigger? They’re all but gone with this device.
Like any good folding phone it has split-screen functionality, allowing multi-taskers to use several apps at once. The Fold packs a 4650mAh battery –slightly smaller than the Pro XL’s 5060mAh – and promises up to 72 hours’ use in extreme battery saver mode. While the battery is slightly smaller than what you’d get in most premium smartphones, that’s to be expected given the limitations of a folding device.
But the device is kind of limited. There’s no stylus option and limited accessories compared with competitors. The camera system is pretty cool, with a 48-megapixel wide lens, a 10.5-megapixel ultra-wide lens, and a 10.8-megapixel telephoto lens on the rear and a 10-megapixel selfie lens on the front.
The new range comes with some features from Google’s AI product Gemini, such as the ability to pull information from screen-shots. The verdict? We like it, a lot even. I can’t say I’m ready to jump from the iPhone, but I’ve had fun playing around with this one.
Product code: 11901324996
Price: $2397, save $500, bonus $100 Harvey Norman gift card
End date: December 2
Link: harveynorman.com.au/google-pixel-9-pro-fold-512gb-obsidian.html
Sony WH1000XM4 noise-cancelling headphones
A friend recently told me that headphones have become his new sunglasses. Confused? I was. He explained he had a collection of sunglasses when he was younger and now that collection has shifted to headphones.
And it’s easy to see why. The premium end of the market is becoming increasingly crowded. Sonos entered the space this year, with its pair of Ace headphones, which retail at $699. Dyson is also new to the game, releasing its $799 OnTrac headphones in August. Then there’s Apple’s AirPods Max, refreshed in September with a USB-C port and new colours but largely unchanged from when they were launched four years ago.
In the US, market research firm Circana estimates that about $US2.2bn worth of headphones were sold last year – almost 50 per cent more than wi-fi audio speakers – and manufacturers are pouncing to gain market share.
The good news is you don’t have to shell out the best part of $1000 for a nice pair. And Sony has form when it comes to making affordable yet high quality products. Like AirPods Max, the XM4s are now four years old, but they also prove the original Walkman maker hasn’t lost its touch. The headphones typically retail at $345 and offer great sound, noise cancelling and battery life. This is all the kit most people need. And they come in a proper case, unlike Apple’s and Dyson’s.
XM4 features a Bluetooth Audio SoC (system on chip) that senses and adjusts to music at more than 700 times a second. This compares with Dyson sampling external sounds about 384,000 times a second but most people wouldn’t notice this gap in most settings. Unlike the Dyson, however, Sony’s offering comes with 360 Reality Audio – its virtual surround-sound offering designed to project audio into a spherical sound field rather than it emanating from two separate speakers. This isn’t as good as Sonos’ spatial audio offering – but then it has Giles Martin on staff. That’s not to say Sony’s is bad and it’s still capable of creating a sonic world you can lose yourself in.
The XM4 is also equipped with adaptive sound control, a function designed to sense where you are and what you’re doing and adjust the ambient sound settings for the ideal listening experience. Sony says over time adaptive sound control will “learn” to recognise locations you visit often “such as your workplace, gym or favourite cafe” and adjust the sound automatically. I didn’t try a pair long enough to see how effectively this function worked but thought the sound was pleasing enough in most settings.
I was impressed by the battery life – up to 30 hours – which matched the Sonos Ace and exceeded AirPods Max by 10 hours. But it fell short of Dyson OnTrac’s 55 hours. Looking at price versus value, they’re a no brainer and worth considering.
Product code: WH1000XM4B
Price: $325 with bonus $50 gift card
End date: December 2
Link: harveynorman.com.au/sony-wh-1000xm4-premium-noise-cancelling-wireless-headphones-black.html
Lenovo Yoga Slim 7x
If you’re looking for a no-nonsense Windows-based laptop, then the Lenovo Yoga Slim 7x, pictured below, is worth a look. Launched in May, the Yoga Slim 7 – as the name suggests – is designed for portability while featuring enough firepower to be branded as one of the first laptops to be built for the artificial intelligence era.
It has an attractive and robust design – I feel as if I can throw this into my backpack with no issues. Of course, testing durability takes time, but if it’s like its ThinkPad siblings, which I have used extensively in the past as work computers, there should be no issues. The design is also more streamlined than the ThinkPads I used in the mid 2010s.
The keyboard feels nice under my fingers, with long key travel. And it’s 12.9mm thin, weighing 1.28kg – making it a bit heftier than the 13-inch Macbook Air, which is 11.3mm thick and weighs 1.24kg
Under the hood is a Snapdragon X Elite 12-core CPU – meaning it can lay claim to being one of the first computers built for the artificial intelligence era. It bears the Copilot+ PC label, which Microsoft unveiled in May.
Lenovo says the neural processing unit performs up to 45 trillion operations per second, letting users access large language capabilities “even when offline, offering seamless productivity and creativity”. And it comes with two months’ complementary Adobe Creative Cloud membership.
Microsoft believes these computers – which use efficient ARM processors, similar to the chips inside smartphones – will set it up for the next decade and change the way we interact with PCs. In the next year alone, it expects to sell 50 million of them.
“If you think about it, even going all the way back to the beginning of modern computing – let’s say 70 years ago – there have been two real dreams we’ve had,” Microsoft chief executive Satya Nadella said.
“The first is, can computers understand us instead of us having to understand computers?
“The second is, as you digitise more artefacts on peoples, places and things, and you have more information, can computers help us reason, plan and act more effectively on all that information?
“And here we are. I think that we’ve had real breakthroughs on both fronts.”
But if AI isn’t your bag, the chip’s efficiency also leads to longer battery life – up to 22 hours. In reality, it depends on what you’re using the computer for as to how long the battery will last between charges.
The 14.5-inch displace features 1000 nits of brightness and 2944 x 1840 resolution, supporting Dolby Vision. It also has four built-in Dolby Atmos speakers to support spatial audio and “crystal clear speech”. A letdown is the absence of an audio jack – for those who still like to listen to music via audiofile-grade wired headphones.
But for people who are looking for a light Windows-based laptop with a battery than can last all day and deliver fast performance, it’s worth considering.
Product code: 83ED000BAU
Price: $1998, save $800
End date: December 4
Link: harveynorman.com.au/lenovo-yoga-slim-7x-14-5-inch-snapdragon-x-elite-32gb-1tb-ssd-next-gen-ai-copilot-pc-laptop-cosmic-blue.html
Eufy Security Indoor/Outdoor Complete Security Kit
Home security has become a flooded market, with Amazon and Google jostling for dominance with their smart doorbells and myriad cameras that can easily be accessed on a smartphone with the swipe of a finger.
But Amazon Ring and Google Nest – while intuitive – can get expensive.
Enter Eufy, owned by Chinese electronics maker Anker, which doesn’t charge any fees and the system is ready to go right out of the box.
Of course, you can still use Amazon and Google cameras without a subscription – you just can’t record, and that can be frustrating when you want to check whether a parcel has been delivered, or worse, are trying to retrieve a burglar’s image after a break-in.
The Eufy complete security kit aims to make protecting your home as painless as possible, particularly in the lead-up to the busy Christmas period, when criminals are casing homes to pounce on unsuspecting owners’ possessions when they’re away for festive drinks and events.
In the box there are four eufyCam 3 cameras, which record in 4K, with the company saying it can record licence plates from 10m away. It is also solar powered and can stay fully charged with two hours of sunlight a day.
There‘s an indoor camera as well that can zoom and has a 360-degree pan function.
Four security entry sensors are included in the kit. They sound a siren if forced entry
is detected at a window, door or any location in your house you choose to monitor.
Rounding it off is a HomeBase 3, which has 16GB of built-in local storage and up to 16TB expandable with a hard drive. It also has a BionicMind TM function that provides
facial recognition that can distinguish between family members and strangers.
A downside of the Eufy setup is that no monthly subscriptions mean there’s no professional monitoring.
But for those who are willing to spend the time to be hands-on about their home security, it’s worth considering.
Product code: EUFYBNDL003
Price: $1598, save $400
End date: December 8
Link: harveynorman.com.au/eufy-security-indoor-outdoor-complete-security-kit.html
DJI Mini 4 Pro Fly More Combo
I recently spent some time with a content creator who somewhat changed my opinion on drones. Normally I groan when I see them hovering over a packed beach, or outside my kitchen window when a real estate agent is trying to get good aerial shots to sell a home in my neighbourhood. They can be intrusive.
But they can also produce great art. The content creator showed me footage of him flying to the top of a volcano in the South Pacific and then zooming down the slopes. Itwas breathtaking.
And if you’re not flying over a neighbour’s backyard or me when I’m in my budgies at the beach, I’m fine with the fun that can be had with drones.
DJI has been making great drones for years, from the semi-professional Phantom to
a range of mini ones that pack a punch with cameras that deliver excellent resolution.
DJI creative director Ferdinand Wolf says the Mini Pro 4 “perfectly marries professional-grade capabilities while keeping its hallmark lightweight design, offering unmatched freedom and adaptability”. That’s a sales pitch.
It’s not the cheapest drone, but that’s the price of quality materials and what will allow you to fly to the top of a volcano – and back.
The Mini Pro 4 weighs 249g, allowing it to be placed easily in a backpack without eating into your carry-on luggage. Under the hood there’s a 1/1.31 CMOS sensor, which has 48MP resolution and can shoot in 4K at 60 frames a second, creating that smooth cinematic wow factor.
Wolf says it can also achieve professional-grade post-production control with 10-bit D-Log M recording, granting access to more than a billion colours.
The Mini Pro 4 is also designed for safety, with “omni-directional obstacle sensing”. It uses a multiple wide-angle and a pair of downward vision sensors to detect obstructions from
all directions.
DJI says that this is complemented by an Advanced Pilot Assistance System, with the drone featuring automatic braking and obstacle bypass, “elevating in-flight security”.
Despite the small package, it delivers up to 34 minutes of flight time, with the option to extend up to 45 minutes using DJI’s Intelligent Flight Battery Plus.
The Fly More Combo comes with a remote controller, two-way charging hub and
two additional batteries.
Product code: 5910878
Price: $1698, save $100
End date: December 2
Link: harveynorman.com.au/dji-mini-4-pro-fly-more-combo-plus-rc2.html
All prices correct at time of publication
This Special Report was sponsored by Harvey Norman.
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