ALL THE BIGGEST STORIES FROM PLANET TECH
Don’t worry, be wrappy
While the WH-1000XM4s come in a choice of four colours, their successors are only available in two: black and silver. They do come with their own carry case, though.
A groovy kind of shove
You can expect 30hrs of listening time on a full tank, with USB Power Delivery (PD) pumping in three hours’ worth of juice with just a three-minute charge.
Get outta my streams
In case you like your tunes hi-res, Sony’s LDAC tech transmits three times more data than standard Bluetooth, plus the XM5s support DSEE Extreme upscaling.
Read the full review p36
HOT FIVE #1
Sony WH-1000XM5
Try as they might (and a few have got pretty close), we’re yet to meet a pair of active noise-cancellers that can bump Sony’s WH-1000XM4s from the summit of our Top Ten headphones list… or indeed from our noggins. But we give their new successors a pretty good chance.
The XM5s’ fresh look includes a slimmer synthetic leather headband and a stepless slider to make sure they sit snugly on your bonce. And they’ve been improved on the inside too, with new 30mm carbon-fibre composite drivers and twice as many microphones to boost their noise-banishing prowess.
Sony’s Adaptive Sound Control adjusts the ANC depending on whether they’re battling a howling northwesterly, the constant drone of a plane cabin or the inane chatter in an office. You can now summon your voice assistant of choice without having to press a button (Google Assistant and Alexa are supported), and Speak-to-Chat automatically pauses your music and lets in the sound of the outside world as soon as you open your mouth. Read our full verdict on p36, but here’s a mini-spoiler: they’re quite good.
As hot as… the greatest hits of 1988 £379 / sony.co.uk
I fought the flaw
The old Zenbook Duo’s secondary screen only tilted by 7º, so the extra 5º here should put it at a better viewing angle. The QWERTY still looks cramped, mind.
HOT FIVE #2
Asus Zenbook Pro 14 Duo OLED
If you’re the kind of person who can never have too much of a good thing – whether that’s spuds with your roast, Soleros on a summer’s day or rotten eggs to throw at that new statue of Thatcher – Asus has got just the laptop for you.
As well as a 14.5in 2880x1800 main display, the Zenbook Pro 14 Duo OLED has an ultrawide 12.7in touchscreen that sits above the keyboard. You can drag an app or browser window down there, so you’ll always have at-a-glance access to Spotify or Slack, or use it to house your most-used toolbars from Adobe’s Creative Suite. And here’s the crucial bit: the second screen rises up by 20mm and tilts by 12º when the laptop is open, allowing a whopping 38% more airflow than the old Duo.
That’s just as well, because inside Asus has taken
