Author: Brett Venter

Some things work better when moist. Cake. Towelettes, other… stuff. Smartphones are not one of those things. UAG, or Urban Armor Gear, has a new solution for damp tech for folks who don’t realise that bags of rice still exist. It’s called the Phone Recovery Pouch. It promises to live up to its name by helping inadvertently soggy smartphones shed their excess moisture and, hopefully, resume normal operations. And the company’s only asking about R600 to do this for you. UAG, does this really work? Unlike a R40 bag of rice, the Phone Recovery Pouch is supposed to be infinitely…

Huawei and Leica parted ways some time ago, following a team-up that helped build the Chinese brand’s Xmage camera tech. Rumours now suggest that DJI could step into the void left by the German company. Exactly what that will look like remains a mystery, but it’s not the first time the pair were rumoured to be in cahoots. Previously, DJI and Huawei were thought to be working on an actual camera. A DSLR, specifically, with the drone/camera-maker providing much of the expertise needed by Huawei. That never got off the ground, but it seems the two Chinese companies have remained…

We’ve historically been dismissive of air fryers as an alternate to actually frying something, but the Swan 11l dual-basket air fryer has gone some way towards changing that. Not all the way, mind you. Some (most) food tastes better fried in some sort of fat or oil. Even if your physical heart objects, there’s a part of every person that knows this is true. That said, cooking vast quantities of excellent red meat in short order was enough to make us look upon Swan’s air fryer more fondly than we’ve regarded others. Part of this is convenience. Preparing food in…

Caviar is back with a bunch of new faces stuck to the back of a Galaxy Fold 8 smartphone. Instead of famous footballers (one of whom is better than the other), we’ve got the luxury company’s take on ‘Cinema Legends’. As long as you like mobster movies or Christopher Nolan, you should be just fine. That’s because featured are Marlon Brando’s Godfather, Al Pacino’s Tony Montana, and Heath Ledger’s Joker. One of these things is not like the others, but they’re all bad guys in their way. Even if Ledger’s portrait looks a bit like he was yanked from Geoff…

Honor’s budget X7 smartphone lineup has, inevitably, resulted in the X7e making landfall in South Africa. As you might expect in 2026, it’s a touch more expensive than last year’s model. It’s also quite an attractive-looking phone. Honor’s offering, via Vodacom at any rate, makes itself more attractive by supplying some wristwear and earbuds. Bought alone, the price increase is a little more obvious. Whether there’s much benefit beyond the visual overhaul remains to be seen. You’ll see before you get to the bottom of this page. Or you could cheat and read the summary before deciding to buy/not buy…

Companies are finally finding alternative uses for paper-like displays. reTerminal’s Sticky is just the latest to step away from the whole e-reader design and off to… something else. In this case, the compact portable display is designed to stick to a wall and tell you things. We used to solve this problem with little adhesive-backed papers called Sticky Notes. This is obviously where reTerminal has nabbed its title from. But while those little papers were single-use only (unless you were incredibly cheap), this one should last far longer. Sticky problem? The Sticky might be “a shared low-distraction device” capable of…

If you’ve been making money selling old stuff on Facebook Marketplace, then Seller, a new app from Meta, is for you. Or, rather, it will be once it gets this side of the planet. The platform is expanding to allow users to create full storefronts, potentially setting it up as a competitor to eBay and similar websites. It’s not certain how much demand there is for this sort of thing from Meta, but the company is going to try anyway. As with Storykit, Seller looks like another experimental avenue for the company to flex its artificial intelligence muscles. Into the…

Running conditions change with the seasons, but up till now, you couldn’t account for everything without manual calculation. Runna’s new update, currently live for users in the UK, intends to take some of the math out of your pavement pounding. The latest update for the run coaching app adds a feature called Adapt for Heat. The feature is likely to be welcome in the UK right now, but it’ll be even more so in South Africa in a few months. Basically? It’ll let you plan your runs around weather conditions. Do a Runna Not just ‘hot, cold, or wet’ conditions,…

Details of Samsung’s Galaxy S26 FE have been floating around for some time. Now, with the launch date approaching, more are turning up. As with the previous reports, the update appears more incremental than revolutionary. That’s to be expected, if not desired. The South Korean company isn’t likely to go harder with its budget flagship alternative than with the flagship itself. As for the launch date, rumour suggests that it’s not far off. The Galaxy S26 FE could show up on 1 September, according to a recent leak. The same leak provided details of the phone’s internals, which make earlier…

You might not have heard of Panpan, but that’ll likely change by the end of this year. The product is a physical button that can be mounted around a home to summon help in the event of a disaster. Or just because you want a family meeting. Like most panic button options, pressing the button gets your desired response. Unlike most, there’s also a voice command option. Some problems leave users unable to reach a physical button. Being able to literally call for help would prove a handy feature. Panpan can Panpan is used to create what the company behind…