ICON
PRODDING AWAY AT LITTLE ICONS ON A SCREEN IS STARTING TO LOOK OLD-FASHIONED
£160 / rabbit.tech
Pah, that looks nothing like a rabbit. Its ears are all square.
Remember the name, though, because the people behind the R1 have got big plans for this little orange box. You see, for the past 15 years the way we’ve used our smartphones has revolved around apps… but in a world of increasingly clever AI, prodding away at little icons on a screen whenever you want to play a song or book a cab is starting to look ever so slightly old-fashioned. So the R1 doesn’t run apps itself –its built-in AI bot uses them for you.
So it’s just Alexa in a gaudy box?
That’s not actually too far off. The R1 has two mics on the top, so you just have to hold the button on the side and ask it to do something, with the response relayed to you via its speaker and 2.88in touchscreen. There’s also a rotating 8MP camera, but that’s designed more for visual searches than snapping pics of your dinner. Underneath that is an analogue scroll wheel –and if the general design vibe looks familiar, that’s probably because those Teenage Engineering scamps had a hand in how it looks and works.
Is it going to replace my phone?
Rabbit says that isn’t the plan, but not because it can’t make calls or send texts: the R1 has a 4G SIM card slot. Specs-wise it’s only on a par with a budget phone, with a MediaTek MT6765 processor, 4GB of RAM and 128GB of storage, but the price reflects that: just £160 (plus £12 to send one over from the States). It’s also not really competing with the handset in your pocket, purely because it operates in such a different way. So revolution might not be the plan, but we’re still ready to welcome our new leporid overlords.
Keys keys keys let me get what Iwant
CLICKS
Back in 2010, when happiness wasadouble rainbow all the way across the sky and Insane Clown Posse had everybody wondering how magnets work, BlackBerry was alegitimate iPhone rival. These days it’s hard to imagine Tim Cook lying awake at night worrying about his Canadian competitor; but if you’ve ever wished your iPhone 14 Pro, 15 Pro or 15 Pro Max could be more BlackBerry, this case adds afull QWERTY keyboard to it. As well as freeing up screen space, it also unlocks the shortcuts that are baked into iOS, supports wireless charging, and even has abacklight. Just don’t forget to takeabreak for the occasional game of Angry Birds. It wouldn’t feel like 2010 without it.
from $139 /clicks.tech
Dang, the blessed DJ
ALPHATHETA OMNIS-DUO
AlphaTheta and Omnis-Duo sound like apair of competing ancient Greek nightclubs –but if DJ Apollo arrived for his next set at the Gorgon
