16 T 3 JULY 2021
Horizon
Top 10COOLNESS
INNOVATION
FEATURESTECH-O-METERCOOLNESS
INNOVATION
FEATURESTECH-O-METERCOOLNESS
INNOVATION
FEATURESTECH-O-METERthese screens see Sharp adopting the
excellent Android TV smart platform,
providing the full range of apps as
well as built-in Chromecast and
Google Assistant support via a mic in
the remote. That just makes sense –
and adds a lot of value.T 3 SAYS: The high end will have to
work hard to differentiate itself again.SHARP 3 KA FRAMELESS TVS
From £530, sharp.co.ukSharp’s affordable Aquous displays
essentially join its entire current-day
lineup in trimming every spare
micron of fat from the edges of the
panel. Now virtually frameless, with
only a small chin and a relatively thin
profile, the 3 KA series – which
spreads itself from the £ 530
50DL3KA up to the £ 750 6 5DN3KA
- consists of UHD LED panels
supporting HDR10 and HLG (with the
slightly pricier DN-branded panels
also certified for Dolby Vision and
Atmos), Harman Kardon 2 .1 speaker
setups, and plenty of inputs. And the
hardware isn’t the only upgrade:
NVIDIA GEFORCE RTX 3070 TI
From £529, nvidia.comGraphics cards, even viewed through
the depressing lens of the current
electronics shortage, are pretty rare
beasts. Nvidia doesn’t seem to have
heard the news, though, because
here it is releasing yet another card
that we won’t be able to get, not only
because of production issues but
because stock will inevitably be
swallowed up by cryptominers
looking to do pointless sums in order
to earn imaginary coins. We’re not
complaining, of course; performance
improvements over the stock 3070
are, say early testers, very minimal in
this Ti version, but the stock 3070 isbrilliant and a huge leap over
20-series cards. And if Nvidia’s
promise to make its cards mining-
proof actually bears fruit this time,
keep an eye on the second-hand
market – there may be a few garage
crypto rigs parted out to claw at
least a little of that money back.T 3 SAYS: This or a console? Hmm...HUAWEI MATEPAD PRO 12. 6
Around £700, huawei.comHuawei is a massive and currently
much maligned company, one which
was never going to let a small thing
like a ban on accessing US
technologies stop it in its tracks.
Thus, with the Google-based portion
of Android out of its reach, it has
now launched its own HarmonyOS
operating system, one which aims to
link all manner of devices together
seamlessly. It’s not a straight Android
clone (in fact, it borrows heavily
from iOS’ design language) though
sideloaded Android apps do seem to
work. We can’t fault Huawei’s moxie
- and the MatePad Pro 1 2.6 does look
like one seriously strong tablet, with a
Kirin 9 000E chipset powering it, the
second generation of the company’s
M-Pencil stylus on board, and a 1 2.
inch 2560 x 1600 OLED with some
very minimal bezels. Let’s hope it can
thrive without the Play Store for apps.T 3 SAYS: Could HarmonyOS be a
viable alternative to Android?IMAGESOURCE:SHARPIMAGESOURCE:NVIDIAIMAGESOURCE:HUAWEI