This week on The Wrap, we look at some really big screens coming to living rooms and charging desks, plus we look at new noise-canceling headphones, PlayStation price increases, Apple rumors and whatnot they will be offering Telstra phone booths for free. All in five.
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Transcription
It’s late August and almost spring, and you’re tuned in to The Wrap, Australia’s fastest growing tech roundup, and with August out of the way, it’s time to consider September, also known to many as the start of the spring Or as we like to call it in the tech world, the time when Apple seems ready to release products.
Next week, that’s exactly what you can expect as Apple confirms rumors of a September 7 US launch for a new iPhone 14 range, and it’ll likely be accompanied by other bits and pieces too.
We can more or less trust the idea of a new Apple Watch or two or three – there’s a rumor of an “extreme” model in the works – but rumors are also hot for a new generation of iPads and iPads Pro, plus maybe some new noise-canceling AirPods Pro, since they’re about three years old now.
Bottom line, if you’re thinking of buying Apple gear, maybe wait until the middle of next week, and be sure to check our site at pickr dot com dot au or wrap dot com dot au for details when it happens .
There’s more, of course, so this show isn’t just about the iPhone.
But there is phone news, with payphones in the spotlight as Telstra finds a use for its twelve thousand pay network. These phone booths may not be as used as they once were, but they’re still important to some, and if you happen upon one, you might even find free Wi-Fi, thanks to an initiative Telstra has turned on.
Telstra phone booths already offered free calls, and now they’re waking up to free Wi-Fi too, with three thousand turning on free Wi-Fi last week, and the nine thousand or so set to offer free wireless internet for next year or so. .
Something for nothing is great, but something for more money, a little less so.
That’s what’s going on with Sony’s PlayStation 5, if you can even find it. It doesn’t matter that the console is rare enough in stores, but Sony has also upped the cost of the PS5 in Australia and much of the rest of the world this week, costing fifty bucks more for each edition, now to $650 for the ‘digital edition. and $800 for the model with a Blu-ray drive.
They’ll still be less expensive than some new rigs on the way, with LG preparing a massive 45-inch UltraGear OLED monitor for gamers at IFA, and Samsung also preparing a 55-inch Odyssey Ark Mini LED monitor for gamers.
Neither have an Australian price, but you can most likely file them under the “if you have to ask” category, and you can fill in the rest.
They’re not the only big screens either. LG has a positively massive TV on the way in another gadget to be shown at IFA, arriving at the 97-inch OLED TV.
It will be part of LG’s G-series OLED TVs, which means it will likely be a 4K OLED display, just one that will measure 2.46 meters diagonally. It’s definitely a huge TV and we’re sure the price tag will be just as huge.
LG Australia hasn’t talked about price yet, but with the 83-inch version costing 13 grand locally, we’re guessing this new model will come in between 20-30 grand. Bottom line, if you want to see this screen, find some rich friends.
For everyone else, we’re looking for headphones at a more wallet-friendly price.
A new model is arriving in Australia this week as Anker’s Soundcore brand makes an appearance locally, getting a $130 pair of noise-cancelling headphones with the Space A40, a pair we can’t wait for to prove.
Before that, we have a review of Google’s latest, the Pixel Buds Pro, and they’re finally the Pixel phone maker’s attempt at noise cancellation in addition to the Pixel Buds.
These are just three hundred dollars in Australia, and they’re headphones that slip on nicely and sit in your ears, blocking out the world while you tune in to your tunes, or even podcasts like this one.
They offer touch controls and a very small amount of water resistance, and they sound pretty good too. You’ll find fairly balanced audio, a good transparency mode, and decent noise cancellation, plus nearly 30 hours of battery life.
What you won’t find is an app that lets you customize the Pixel Buds Pro on anything other than Android, a bit like the problem Apple’s AirPods Pro have on Android. Both work on each other’s phones, but neither offers customization or an app to the other. It’s frustrating.
There’s also nothing particularly special about the Pixel Buds Pro. They do a good job, and at three hundred bucks, they’re basically Google’s AirPods Pro for Android, but there are so many better pairs of noise-cancelling headphones out there that it’s hard to say “get them” over any another great pair.
These compete with some excellent options from Beats, Jabra, Sennheiser and Sony, and so while they’re good, we think you can probably do better.
For now, you’ve been listening to The Wrap, Australia’s fastest growing tech roundup. A new episode can be found every week on Spotify, Apple Podcasts and wherever you get podcasts. For now, have a great week and see you next time on The Wrap. Stay safe, stay healthy and take care.