Until decent sound cards arrived in PCs and Macs, there was no point having quality speakers because they’d only amplify the awfulness.

What constitutes a ‘compact’ digital camera has been changing over the past few years.  After digital usurped film two significant categories emerged: basic point-and-shoot snappers and digital SLRs; pretty much a mirror image of what had been the case with film cameras. Then superzooms came along; cameras with powerful, non-interchangeable zoom lenses that were larger […]

Freeview, Freesat, Sky, Virgin and all that black box mallarkey… Even though we still refer to external plug-in TV tuners as ‘set-top boxes’ today’s TVs are so thin as to make such balancing acts impossible. Pedantic semantics aside, there’s still plenty of room for confusion when it comes to getting a decent choice of channels […]

Not too many of us trust satellite navigation.  Apparently.  Some study or other reckoned seven out of eight directional dimbos thought they might be being sent the wrong way – or at least not the best way – by their insistent little dashboard chum. TF can see why you might be glad of sat-nav in a foreign […]

An overview of the smartphoneOpposite of dumbphone. Device with which which to do pretty much anything except make telephone calls. The best smartphone handsets, such as the AppleFruit, record label, world dominator in the slick boy's toys department iPhoneCostly but beautiful smartphone made by Apple. The standard by which all other smartphones are judged. and Samsung Galaxy, are expensive (the iPhone 5 starts at £529) and to get a 'free' phone you have to commit to a 2 year contract. As we know, new phones come crashing onto the market all the time, so today's state-of-the-art handset will be seriously old hat long before that contract expires. market. Do you really need all that funcitonality? Do ‘new’ developments create phones that are that much better than what’s come before? Should you commit to a 24-month contract to get a top handset or pay nearly £500 and be able to upgrade whenever you like?

What’s going on with superzooms.

There’s a lot going on in DAB digital radio. Such as whether the technology will prevail, whether enough of us will take the DAB plunge and whether there’s a future for FM.

Digital SLRA single-lens reflex (SLR) camera is a camera that typically uses a semi-automatic moving mirror system that permits the photographer to see exactly what will be captured by the film or digital imaging system (after a very small delay), as opposed to pre-SLR cameras where the view through the viewfinder could be significantly different from what was captured on film. cameras are becoming more capable and more affordable. No longer the preserve of the photo-pro, or even the committed amateur, now anyone can get their hands on a state-of-the-art snapper. Whether owning a great camera means you’ll take great photos is another matter altogether…

Blu-rayHigh definition format for pre-recorded discs that play at 1080p resolution - the best there is. If you own a Full HD TV set, the only way (at least in the UK) you can get Full HD/1080p content to show on it is with a Blu-ray player and Blu-ray discs. Naturally they are more expensive than standard defintion DVDs, which typically display at 576 horizontal lines - the screen resolution of an analogue cathode ray tube TV. (CRTV).: proper high definition content for your HD TV. None of your 720p720p is the lowest definition which qualifies as High Definition. An HD Ready TV will show at least 720 horizontal lines. The 'p' stands for 'progressive' and refers to how the images are scanned. bollocks, Blu-ray is 1080p1080p is the best high definition picture currently available and is also referred to as 'Full HD'. If your TV is Full HD and can, therefore, show them, there will be 1080 horizontal lines. The 'p' stands for 'progressive' and refers to how the images are scanned. Blu-ray discs are reproduced at 1080p resolution.
Full HD and right now it’s the best quality sound a vision experience going.

Back when Brylcreem ruled the waves, personal audio devices were necessarily limited in scope. They played sound. Vision was a peripheral pipedream, and in any case, who’s going to squint at a teensy screen? How Fogies yearn for such innocent times.