Technology

It’s been a while since I wrote a review where I was heavily critical of a pair headphones, much less a pair of Razer headphones. But the time has come once more to be a bit hard on a pair of well-meaning earbuds.

We’ve covered a few of Edifier’s range of bookshelf speakers on The Iris before, so taking the S880DB twin set for a spin made sense. In keeping with the company tradition of quality sound in a compact package with a price point that may make you wince on first inspection, the S880DB represents the perfect speaker…

You review enough gadgets and speakers and eventually you get a sense for The Order of Things. You can tell a lot about a device just from looking at the promo images — you get an idea of their size, the design philosophy and where their predicted strengths and weaknesses will lie. And sometimes they…

For a company like Sony to release a soundbar isn’t terribly surprising — every electronics maker and their Google Assistant speaker’s got one these days. What is surprising is the amount of forethought, of user consideration that has gone into Sony’s HT-MT300 soundbar. It’s thought about space, its thought about features, its thought about potential…

You know you’re in for a bit of a ride when the courier delivering the television you’ve been sent to review complains about the weight of the box. His complaint was fair — Sony’s A1 OLED, contrary to most modern panels, weighs an absolute ton. But is it worth its weight in picture quality?

For the longest time, I railed against gaming headphones across the board. As an audiophile, there was no part of them anyone did right. They were all huge, heavy and ugly with huge bass that blew the sound to hell. In the last couple of years however, I’ve found myself finally coming around on gaming…

If Amazon has an ace up their sleeve in the race to produce smart speakers for the home, its that they currently boast a larger model line-up than any of their competitors. While having plenty of options is great, this may only complicate things for consumers that aren’t especially savvy when it comes to the…

Huawei’s MediaPad T3 is an 8 inch Android tablet that is lightweight and surprisingly nimble for its entry-level spec. For those looking for an every day tablet that can be easily thrown in a bag while travelling, you may have found the one you want.

When it comes to gaming headphones, Razer’s cans have never been my favourites. They’ve always been clunky, heavy things with sound that rarely came close to meeting my expectations. I wanted to put all that on front street because, if the Electra V2 is any indication, Razer’s headset efforts might have finally found their groove…

Logitech have made a name for themselves in the world of simple, workman-like office PC peripherals. Their keyboards are often no-frills affairs, designed to be slotted into a business environment without a fuss. It’s not that they’re pedestrian by any stretch, just that they tend to focus on practicality over flashiness. Their newest high-end wireless…

I come from a generation of tech nerds for whom dunking on Microsoft was simply the done thing. Apple was nowhere to be seen when I was a teenager and we grew up using Windows machines. To this day, whenever I see the House of M’s name attached to anything, I must fight an old,…

You wouldn’t think there’s much difference between Google Assistant speakers, but there is. Some are better at interpreting your commands than others. Some have better overall sound. The JBL Link 20, and its little brother the Link 10, are great examples of simply aiming for the happy spot in between.

I might be too old for portable speakers. The market is aimed rather squarely at beautiful young 20-somethings that do things like beach trips or Sunday sessions and require tunes 24/7. I am not this market. But I am a writer who moves from spot-to-spot in the house throughout the day and I do like…

When I was a kid, third party controllers were to be scoffed at. There was always one janky unofficial controller in the set that no-one wanted to use on Multiplayer Night. Times have changed though and the third-party peripheral market has never been quite this robust. Razer’s latest tilt at a high quality controller  is…

Is there anything Razer can’t do? Any demographic of gamer for whom they can’t accommodate? One of the peripheral giant’s latest pushes has been into the still-rapidly growing broadcaster market. People looking to get started on  Twitch are always in search of the right gear and Razer are ready with an array of toys purpose-built…

Sony’s RX10 IV was released back in October 2017, but even nearly six months later it remains the reigning King of Bridge Cameras with its 24-600mm zoom range, lightning-fast autofocus and 20.1 megapixel sensor.

I can be prickly when reviewing headphones. I try not to be, but as the son of a musician I was raised in a home where good quality sound was considered very important and its an expectation I’ve never been able to shake in adulthood. I expect a lot from my headphones, even the cheap…

I frequently argue in my headphone reviews that the look, the exterior design of a particular kit is rarely terribly important to me. If a pair of headphones sound great, I’m usually happy to wear them  no matter how hideous they may be. Sony’s WI-1000X Wireless Noise Cancelling Headphones have broken my resolve. They do…

How often do you jump onto Spotify looking for something to listen to and find yourself staring at the screen, unable to make a decision? Like scrolling endlessly through Netflix for something to watch, music streaming platforms are so content rich that users may find themselves paralysed by indecision. They know what they like the…

With voice assistant speakers now creating a stir in the market with Amazon’s Alexa, Apple’s Home Pod and more, it was only a matter of time before the Google Assistant wave arrived. Arrive it has, and Sony is leading the charge with their LF-S50G Wireless Speaker.

Typically deployed as its flagship model, Huawei’s Mate series has improved again in 2018 with their newest devices, the Mate 10 and the Mate 10 Pro. We’ll be focusing on the Mate 10 for this review, and how it compares to earlier models like its cousins Mate 9 and P10.

“In search of incredible,” reads Asus’ current company tagline. Incredible isn’t really the word one reaches for when pulling the Asus Zenbook Flip 14 from its box — its the same brushed metal shell Asus have come to favour among the laptops that make up their professional kit. Where the Flip 14 really excels is…

I’ve spent a lot of time reviewing gaming headphones on this site. They are rarely paragons of the form — gaming headsets are heavy, often lean into bass to the point where it obliterates higher end sound and have a cheap build quality that doesn’t align with their purpose as long-term audio solutions. I say…

Among consitituents of the PC master race, one of the most contentious hardware purchases remains the wireless gaming mouse. The pitch is attractive — super precise aiming and high report rates without the need to drag a heavy cable around — but often clashes with what a battery can actually offer. A regular daily gaming…

If you’re a bit of an iOS apologist like me, the only Android devices you’ll find even halfway agreeable are the ones that closely ape the iPhone. This more or less describes Oppo’s R11s, the newest and midrange smartphone handset from a manufacturer who’ve made an art of cloning Apple’s phone for the Chinese market.

One of the rarer finds in PC gaming peripherals has always been the combination of mechanical keys and a wireless keyboard. The two schools haven’t played well together historically and a lot manufacturers stopped trying to blend them into a single board years ago. Too much input lag, not enough flash, not enough clack. Gamers…

A new review of this camera will not be a timely one. The Logitech C922 Pro Stream has been one of the company’s flagship webcams since it refreshed the older C920 in 2016 and is the weapon of choice for a lot of streamers looking to get their Twitch channels off the ground.

Motorola is one of those phone manufacturers that is perhaps better represented in the mid-range than it is in the higher-range. Their upper-tier offerings are solid, more than capable of holding their own against the likes of Samsung and HTC. For whatever reason, luxury handsets have become the bread-and-butter of the larger makers rather than…

Logitech have made a name for themselves in the tech accessories market for dependable, well-built but ultimately pretty safe devices. There’s rarely any going out on a limb for Logitech, and its a strategy that’s worked out quite well for them. Their G433 gaming headset is no exception.

I spent three weeks away in Singapore and Malaysia recently, and the folks at Panasonic very kindly sent their feature-packed compact DMC-TZ110 camera along with me – winner of Camera Magazine Australia’s “Digital Fixed Lens Camera of the Year” at their 2017 Imaging Awards. I still took my D-SLR and two prime lenses along, because…