T3 India

IFA

Samsung’s new wearables focus on ‘wellness’

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At IFA 2017, Samsung announced three new wearables, the Gear Sport, a fitness-focused smartwatch that is water resistant, Gear Fit2 Pro, a GPS sports band, and Gear IconX, second generation cord-free earbuds.

First up, let’s take a look at the Gear Sport. To us, it looks like a sporty Omega Bullhead, it’s quite a distinctive thing.

The focus here is on fitness, it’ll help you achieve health and wellness goals, provide nutrition management alerts, and help you to be generally more active.

It features a circular bezel (like the Gear S3) and AMOLED 1.2-inch display.

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It’s designed with military-level durability, it can handle a wide-range of environments.

It also features easily changeable 20mm straps, so can easily transition from the gym to the board room to dinner.

It’ll be able to control your smart home devices, and it also features NFC and Samsung Pay.

Next up is the Gear Fit2 Pro, a GPS-packing fitness band. Samsung’s band now features heart rate monitoring and well as swim tracking (powered by Speedo).

The Gear Fit2 Pro uses the Super AMOLED 1.5-inch display to provide real-time updates and smartphone notifications.

There are also apps, like Spotify and Under Armour, to make this a bit more powerful, and potentially more useful than a Fitbit.

It’s available in black and red.

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And finally, we’ve got the IconX, the second generation of Samsung’s cord-free earbuds.

Not only do they play music, they’ll track your work out too, working completely independently from your smartphone.

These new buds come with Bixby built right in, allowing you to talk with Samsung’s virtual assistant with a simple tap of the button.

The IconX come in black, pink, and white.

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Technics’ iconic SL-1200 turntable is making a vinyl comeback

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Technics, now a subsidiary of Panasonic, has revealed that it is set to bring its iconic SL-1200 turntable out of retirement and update it for one more spin.

At Panasonic’s IFA 2015 conference, with T3 in attendance, a bevy of new Technics devices were revealed but the biggest applause was for a prototype of a new SL-1200. There wasn’t too much information about the device but it will be a direct-drive turntable with an aluminium chassis.

The SL-1200 has been around since the Seventies and since then there have been 10 variants of the turntable. Pretty much any radio station in the world will have one of them on their desks, even if it is now gathering dust because of digital.

The new SL-1200 is expected in 2016, so you have plenty of time to start buying up overpriced vinyl reissues. 

Sony announces three Xperia Z5 smartphones – including the world’s first 4K phone

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The “regular” – though we imagine Sony would hate us using that word – Xperia Z5 comes with what the Japanese electronics giant is calling the “best camera in a leading smartphone”, with a brand news Exmor RS 23 megapixel sensor and F2.0 G Lens – the biggest overhaul of the Xperia’s camera tech since the Xperia Z1.

The autofocus is also the fastest you’ll find in a smartphone’s camera, managing an incredible speed of just 0.03 seconds – which is faster than you can blink your eyes.

This should make taking photos in the midst of the action better than ever, with almost no motion blur when you’re snapping fast moving people and objects, as the image below – which was taken by an Xperia Z5 – demonstrates.

The Xperia Z5 also comes with a 5.2-inch 1080p screen and a slim and stylish design that manages to be waterproof to boot and comes with a new fingerprint sensor to easy and securing unlocking.

Compact class

One of the things we loved the most about the Xperia Z3 Compact was that Sony managed to fit in most of the powerful tech of the Xperia Z3 into a smaller body without too much compromise, and with the newly announced Xperia Z5 Compact, it looks like Sony has once again repeated that impressive feat.

So although the Xperia Z5 Compact has a smaller design and a 720p 4.6-inch display, it still features the brilliant camera technology found in the Xperia Z5.

Both handsets also come with a top-of-the-range octa-core Snapdragon 810 processor, though the Z5 Compact comes with 2GB of RAM compared to 3GB in the Xperia Z5.

World's first 4K phone

Perhaps the biggest surprise of Sony’s launch event was the unveiling of the Xperia Z5 Premium. Although we’d heard whispers about the possibility of a third handset, nothing was confirmed until Sony lifted the lid on its ambitious new superphone.

It’s the first ever smartphone with a 4K resolution screen – and the 5.5-inch display is capable of four times the resolution of the standard Xperia Z5.

Any native 4K footage you watch (such as the videos you’ve filmed on the same 4K-capable camera that's also present in the Xperia Z5 and Z5 Compact) will look amazing, but the Z5 Premium will also upscale any high definition footage to 4K resolution – so videos from Netflix and YouTube will also look jaw-droppingly gorgeous.

Along with 32GB of internal memory, the Z5 Premium can also handle 200GB microSD memory cards, so you’ll have plenty of space to store your ultra high definition content.

The Xperia Z5 and Z5 compact will launch across the world from October 2015. If you’re after some 4K goodness you’ll have to wait a little longer, with the Xperia Z5 Premium set to release in November 2015.

Panasonic goes 4K crazy with an OLED TV that makes Hollywood happy

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Panasonic has announced that it is finally ready to dip into the 4K OLED market, with the arrival of the TX-65CZ950.

The CZ950 is a 65-inch OLED stunner, offering up the high picture quality you expect with OLED, but also screen quality that has been given the seal of approval by Hollywood.

The TV is the first OLED to be given THX certification. This is the quality control certificate first introduced by George Lucas in the Seventies.

If that wasn’t enough ‘star’ power, Panasonic has made good use of its Hollywood laboratory and offered up its OLED TV lineup to people in the industry to make sure the panel in reference ready. 

Colour corrected

One of these was on the stage at IFA – Mike Sowa, who worked on Tom Cruise’s Oblivion as a colourist.

“We always translate our colour grade movie on to a reference television, to make sure that we perfectly match what is going on in the cinema,” said Sowa. 

“That is where Panasonic stepped in with its new OLED TV. This TV is what I have been looking for. The detail is better than I am used to seeing in the theatrical version.

“We can now enjoy the visual product in the home as the cinematographer and director intended.” 

Panasonic’s picture quality is the way it is because of the company’s 4K Pro technology, which promises high contrast and rich colour expression that should stop you pining for the Panasonic plasma TVs of yore.

The CZ950 will be available from October. Pricing is to be announced but, hey, you’ve probably good two kidneys, so it might be worth pricing one of them up.