ALL THE BIGGEST STORIES FROM PLANET TECH
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HOT FIVE #1
Apple MacBook Pro (M3)
The only people who usually get excited about the M3 are fans of Fleet Services. And who can blame them? How many motorway rest stops do you know with a Pizza Express that’s been described as “romantic”? (Not our words, the words of Bart Kon Trip Advisor.) For everybody else, though, the most exciting M3 is the rip-snorting new processor generation you’ll find inside Apple’s latest 14in and 16in MacBook Pros.
Both laptops are faster and more efficient than before, but how much depends on which chip you choose. The most powerful of all is the M3 Max, which can be paired with up to 128GB of RAM and 8TB of storage. But that spec would set you back £7299, so you might be more tempted by the M3 Pro, which gets up to 36GB of memory and 4TB of storage, while even the basic M3 (14in only) can be bolstered by 24GB of RAM and a 2TB drive. Whichever one you pick, there’s a brighter Liquid Retina XDR display and a battery that’ll last up to 22hrs –which should be plenty of time for a trip to Hampshire’s most romantic layby.
As hot as… a date with Bart K at Pizza Express, Fleet Services from £1699 / apple.com
HOT FIVE #2
Transparent Turntable
Close your eyes and imagine a vinyl record. You’re probably seeing a big black circle with a hole in the middle, right? In actual fact, the stuff that records are made of is naturally colourless –they only turn black when carbon is added to reduce static. So that should make your collection feel right at home when you spin it on this see-through turntable.
Some parts of it are coloured too –you can choose between black and white –but the base is totally transparent, so it’ll match the Swedish firm’s other kit. You can hook it up to pretty much any active speaker thanks to aBluetooth 5.0 module, but you can also turn off the built-in phono stage if you’d prefer to connect it to a pair of passive ones via a separate amp.
Either way, it should sound pretty sweet thanks in part to the pre-mounted Ortofon OM5E cartridge, which has a stylus made from elliptical diamonds. The individual parts are all replaceable too, so you can upgrade bits later on if you fancy taking your listening to the next level… although you might be limited somewhat by what’s available in white.
As hot as… a glass blower’s lips after accidentally sucking £1100 / transpa.rent
HOT FIVE #3
Leica M11-P
When it’s easy to find pictures online of the Pope in a puffer jacket or Banjo the Belfast riot elephant, it’s hard to tell exactly what’s real or fake these days –but Leica’s new camera will at least help you to identify genuine snaps.
This 60MP full-frame rangefinder, which comes in either matt blac
