Hands-on troubleshooting guides for Virgin Media, Sky, BT, EE and more, written and tested by Graeme Messina.
Microsoft sells two current Xbox consoles in the UK, and the gap between them is bigger than one letter suggests. The Xbox Series X aims at native 4K and comes with or without a disc drive; the Xbox S...
Samsung UK's phone store splits the Galaxy range into three families: the Galaxy A series for everyday budgets, the Galaxy S series of flagships and the folding Galaxy Z series. The names move on ever...
Apple sells seven iPhones in the UK, and the names make the choice harder than it should be. The iPhone 17e, iPhone 16, iPhone 17, iPhone Air, iPhone 18 Pro, iPhone 18 Pro Max and the folding iPhone D...
A thermostatic radiator valve, the numbered dial at the end of most UK radiators, sets how warm one room gets. A smart radiator valve swaps that dial for a motorised head you can schedule from an app,...
A record player can be a suitcase with the speakers built in, or a turntable that feeds powered speakers, a hi-fi or a Bluetooth speaker. The right one depends on where the phono preamp sits, which sp...
A mini PC is a Windows desktop small enough to sit behind a monitor or on a shelf under the TV. The right one depends on the job: quiet office work, media, light gaming or a home server that runs all ...
An instant camera, or instant print camera, prints the photo on the spot, but the film decides almost everything else. Fujifilm's instax range uses three film sizes, mini, SQUARE and WIDE, and each ca...
A graphics card draws everything a PC puts on screen, and for games it sets the limit on resolution and frame rate. Before buying a new one, it pays to know what is fitted now and whether the PC can t...
A gaming laptop squeezes a graphics chip, a fast screen and enough cooling for modern games into something that fits in a bag, and the sticker on the palm rest tells only part of the story. Two laptop...
Most home printers fall into three camps: an inkjet that takes cartridges, an ink tank refilled from bottles, or a laser that uses toner. Each suits a different amount of printing, and the running cos...
A wireless charger looks simple, but the speed it delivers depends on three things: the phone, the charging standard and the plug behind the charger. Apple, Samsung and Google each publish the wireles...
Samsung sells more Galaxy Tabs in the UK than the names make clear, from the 8.7-inch Tab A11 to the 14.6-inch Tab S12 Ultra. The models differ on screen, chip, S Pen, water resistance, Galaxy AI feat...
Amazon's tablet range looks different in 2026. The Fire HD 10 is still on sale, but the comparison chart on Amazon's own listing shows the Fire HD 8 and Fire Max 11 as not available, and Amazon now se...
Meta's UK comparison page lines up two Quest headsets, the Quest 3 and the Quest 3S, and both run the same processor, so the choice comes down to lenses, screen, storage and battery. Sony's PS VR2 is ...
Memory stick, USB stick, pen drive or USB flash drive: the names change, but the packet rarely says the things that decide whether one suits the job. The big speed figure is often a read speed, USB 3....
A TV wall bracket looks like a simple steel plate, but three numbers decide whether it is safe: the hole pattern on the back of the TV, the TV's weight and what the wall is made of. This guide takes e...
Smoke alarms are simple devices, but the rules around them now differ across Great Britain. Scotland requires interlinked smoke and heat alarms in every home, while England and Wales set their legal r...
A smartwatch leans on the phone in your pocket more than almost any other gadget. Apple's compatibility table pairs every Apple Watch with an iPhone, while Samsung and Google both say their current wa...
Robot vacuum listings lead with suction figures, yet the things that decide whether a robot hoover copes in a UK home are less glamorous: how it finds its way round, whether its mop stays off the rug,...
A NAS, short for network attached storage, is a small box of hard drives that sits on the home network and keeps backups, family photos and films in one place that every device can reach. Choosing one...
A student laptop has to last a whole course, run whatever software that course demands and survive a daily trip across campus. A cheap Windows laptop, a Chromebook and a MacBook can look alike on a sh...
Label makers and label printers sound like the same thing, but they suit different jobs. A handheld labeller with its own keyboard tidies cables, jars and folders, while a desktop printer wired to a c...
Valve says supporting PlayStation controllers on a PC is more complicated than supporting Xbox controllers, and that fewer games support them as a result. That is why an Xbox pad usually just works, w...
A gaming chair is the piece of desk kit you sit in for hours, and the right one depends more on your height and weight than on the badge. Makers publish recommended user ranges, lumbar systems, armres...
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