Hands-on reviews of phones, games, handhelds, laptops, and audio gear.https://lytyear.co.za/en-ZAhttps://lytyear.co.za/reviews/macbook-air-m4-review/https://lytyear.co.za/reviews/macbook-air-m4-review/Fast, silent, all-day battery, and a webcam that finally doesn’t embarrass you on calls. The M4 Air is the laptop most people should buy, full stop. It does the work without the fan, the battery lasts a flight, and the only real complaint is the notch and the port count.Mon, 15 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMTThe MacBook Air used to be the laptop you bought because you didn’t want to think about laptops. The M4 version is the laptop you buy because it’s genuinely the best one, and it’s not close. ## The chip The M4 in the Air is the same family that powers the iPad Pro and the base Mac. In a fanless chassis it does what the M2 did with a heatsink, only quieter. I edited a 4K timeline in Final Cut without the machine breaking a sweat or making a sound. That used to require a Pro. For the work most people actually do — writing, browsing, a Slack, a video call, maybe a Lightroom export — this is overkill in the best way. It will stay fast for years. ## Battery Apple claims 18 hours. In real use (browsing, writing, a couple of calls, brightness around 60%), I got through a full travel day and into the next morning. That’s the honest version of the claim. For a flight, this is a laptop you don’t need to charge. ## The webcam The 12MP Center Stage camera is the upgrade nobody talks about and everyone notices on the other end of the call. It keeps you framed. It looks like a webcam and not a 2010s potato. If you’re on video calls all day, this matters more than the chip. ## The compromises Two ports. Still. On a machine this capable, two USB-C ports is the one place Apple is being cheap. If you use an external display and a peripheral, you’re buying a dongle. The notch. It’s less offensive than it was, but on the 13-inch it eats menu bar real estate and you learn to live with it. 16GB RAM is now the base, which is good — 8GB was a lie at this price — but it raised the floor. The Air is no longer the cheap Mac. ## Should you buy it If you want a laptop that does everything most people need, silently, for a full day, with a keyboard and trackpad that embarrass the competition, this is it. The only reason to look elsewhere is if you need more than two ports or you’re allergic to macOS.TechlaptopsapplemacbookultrabookLytyearhttps://lytyear.co.za/reviews/steam-deck-oled-review/https://lytyear.co.za/reviews/steam-deck-oled-review/The best handheld for anyone who already owns a Steam library. The OLED screen is the upgrade that matters. Battery is better, blacks are true, and the Steam library just works. It’s still heavy, and it still won’t run everything at 60.Fri, 12 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMTI didn’t expect the OLED Steam Deck to make me stop reaching for my Switch. It did. The screen is the reason, but the story is bigger than that. ## The OLED This is the upgrade that actually changes how you play. True blacks, saturated colors, and 1000 nits in HDR make every game look like a different generation. The original Deck looked fine. This one looks *good*. The 90Hz panel matters less than you’d think for heavy games (most can’t hit 90) and more than you’d think for indies and UI, which scroll and animate like butter. ## The library The single biggest reason to buy a Deck: you probably already own 200 games for it. Steam’s proton compatibility layer means most of your library just runs. You click install, you play. The friction that used to define PC gaming on a TV is gone. The trackpads are the unsung hero. They make games that have no business on a controller — strategy, CRPGs, point-and-click — genuinely playable. You can play *Into the Breach* on a plane. That shouldn’t work, and it does. ## What it won’t do It will not run new AAA games at 60fps at high settings. You’re choosing between 30fps with fidelity or 40-50 with compromises. There’s no VRR, so a frame rate that wanders can tear or feel uneven. It’s heavy. 670g doesn’t sound like much until you’re 45 minutes into a boss fight with your wrists cocked. A stand or a pillow changes this. The weight is the cost of the battery and the trackpads. ## Battery 3 to 12 hours is a wide range, and it’s honest. Indie games and tuned settings give you a flight. A new AAA at default settings gives you a commute. The 50Wh battery is a real upgrade over the LCD. ## Should you buy it If you have a Steam library, yes. This is the handheld that turns games you already own into portable games. If you’re starting from nothing and want a console, the Switch or a PS5 makes more financial sense. But for the person with a backlog, the OLED Deck is the best handheld ever made.GaminghandheldssteamportableoledLytyearhttps://lytyear.co.za/reviews/pixel-9-pro-review/https://lytyear.co.za/reviews/pixel-9-pro-review/The best point-and-shoot camera on a phone, now without the lag tax. Google fixed the one thing that kept the Pixel from being the default recommendation. The 9 Pro is fast, the camera is relentless, and the battery survives a real day.Mon, 08 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMTFor three generations the Pixel had the best camera and the most annoying lag. You’d tap the shutter, and a beat later it would fire. You’d swipe, and the phone would think about it. The 9 Pro is the first Pixel where I stopped noticing. ## The camera, again It’s still the best point-and-shoot on a phone. Where Samsung and Apple optimize for *impressive*, the Pixel optimizes for *true*. Skin tones look like the person. Motion that other phones smear into watercolor stays sharp. The 5x telephoto is the quietly important upgrade. It’s the reach that actually changes how you shoot — kids on a field, a speaker on stage, food you can’t lean into. ## Speed, finally Tensor G4 isn’t winning benchmarks. It doesn’t need to. What it does is close the gap between intent and action. The shutter fires when you press it. The app switcher keeps up. The keyboard doesn’t hitch. This was the only thing standing between the Pixel and a clean recommendation. It’s fixed. ## Battery and charging A real day, comfortably, with 30% left on moderate use. The overnight adaptive charging that holds at 80% until an hour before your alarm is the kind of feature that sounds like marketing until you’ve used it for a year and your battery health still reads new. The problem is the wired speed. 30W was fine in 2022. In a phone at this price, it’s the one place Google is visibly behind. ## The modem Still the Pixel’s weak spot. I dropped signal twice in a week where an iPhone next to me held on. It’s not constant, but it’s the thing that’ll catch you in an airport or a basement. If you live somewhere with marginal coverage, factor it in. ## Should you buy it If the camera is the reason you buy a phone, this is the phone. It’s fast now, it’s supported for seven years, and the only real concessions are charging speed and the modem. For most people, that’s a clean yes.MobilephonesandroidcameraflagshipLytyearhttps://lytyear.co.za/reviews/elden-ring-dlc-review/https://lytyear.co.za/reviews/elden-ring-dlc-review/A victory lap for players who finished the base game and wanted more, harder. The Shadow of the Erdtree expansion is enormous, gorgeous, and unapologetically punishing. If you bounced off Elden Ring, this won’t bring you back. If you loved it, it’s essential.Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMTShadow of the Erdtree isn’t a victory lap for FromSoftware — it’s a victory lap for the player who beat the game. If you didn’t, this expansion is not for you, and it isn’t sorry about it. ## The land of shadow The new map is huge and it’s the best-looking thing From has shipped. The Land of Shadow has a verticality and a density the base game’s open fields sometimes lacked. You peer over a cliff and see three places you’ll want to go. Then you spend two hours trying to get to one of them. Navigation is deliberately, almost cruelly opaque. Paths are hidden behind illusions, down wells, across ledges you didn’t realize were walkable. This is part of the charm if you’re in the mood. It’s a wall if you’re not. ## The fights The bosses are the headline and they deliver. Multi-phase, cinematic, and — once you’ve learned them — fair. The new weapon classes give you fresh ways to approach them, and a new build will feel like a new game. The catch: the difficulty is balanced around endgame power. The Scadutree fragment system lets you scale, but it’s easy to walk into a fight under-leveled and get dismantled in ten seconds. Some late bosses tip from “hard and fair” into “hard and I’m tired,” which is a feeling even fans know. ## Performance On PC and PS5 Pro it’s smooth. On base last-gen consoles it hitches in busy areas. If you’re playing on older hardware, expect compromises. ## The verdict It’s essential if you’re the audience. It’s not an on-ramp if you aren’t. FromSoftware made an expansion for the people who finished their game, and they didn’t apologize for it. That’s honest, and the result is one of the best RPG expansions in years — for the maybe 30% of players it’s aimed at.GaminggamesrpgfromsoftwaredlcLytyearhttps://lytyear.co.za/reviews/ipad-air-m3-review/https://lytyear.co.za/reviews/ipad-air-m3-review/A gorgeous screen and a chip with nothing to do. Apple won’t let it. The hardware is excellent. The software still treats it like a big iPhone. If you want a media slab, save your money. If you want a laptop, buy a laptop.Fri, 22 May 2026 00:00:00 GMTThe M3 in this tablet is the same chip that ships in MacBooks. It is, on paper, wildly overqualified. And that’s the whole problem with the iPad Air in 2026: Apple sold you a sports car and built the roads for a golf cart. ## The good part The screen is lovely — color-accurate, bright enough for a coffee shop, plenty sharp for reading and drawing. Battery runs all day. The M3 doesn’t break a sweat on anything you’d actually do, which means it’ll stay fast for years. Apple Pencil Pro is the best stylus on any tablet. The barrel roll, the haptic click, the squeeze palette — it’s input done by people who care about input. If you draw or take handwritten notes, it’s worth the price of admission. ## The wall iPadOS. It’s the same story and it’s getting harder to be patient about. The file system is gated. External drives work, but awkwardly. Stage Manager wants to be windowed multitasking and it is, sort of, if you squint and plug in a monitor. Pro apps exist, but the OS keeps reminding you you’re on a phone OS stretched out. The M3 is fast enough to edit 4K video. The software makes that edit feel like workarounds. ## The value question The Air is the “reasonable” iPad — until you add the keyboard and the Pencil and suddenly you’re at MacBook money for a device that does less. If you want a laptop, the MacBook Air is cheaper and freer. ## The verdict As a media slab and a notebook, it’s excellent. As the computer Apple keeps implying it could be, it’s stuck. Buy it for what it is, not what the keynote suggested.MobiletabletsipadappleaccessoriesLytyearhttps://lytyear.co.za/reviews/sony-wh-1000xm6-review/https://lytyear.co.za/reviews/sony-wh-1000xm6-review/Sony fixed the fit and kept the crown. The best ANC headphones you can buy. The XM6 is a small but meaningful update: better ANC, a foldable hinge again, and a sound profile that’s less muddy out of the box. The price went up. So did the gap to everything else.Mon, 18 May 2026 00:00:00 GMTSony’s WH-1000X line has been the ANC reference for years, and the XM6 is the version where they stopped iterating and started fixing. The result is a small update that’s a big improvement in use. ## Noise cancellation Sony is, again, ahead. The XM6 closes the gap to silence that the XM5 opened back up against Bose. On a plane, the engine is a memory. In an open office, the keyboard two desks over is gone. Bose’s QC Ultra is close; this is a step further. The adaptive part actually adapts now. It notices when you’re on a train versus a café and shifts the profile. You don’t have to think about it. ## The hinge Sony removed the folding hinge on the XM5 and everyone hated it. It’s back. The XM6 folds into a case that fits in a bag instead of dangling off the side. This alone makes it a better travel headphone than its predecessor. ## Sound Out of the box, the XM6 is cleaner than the XM5. The XM5 had a low-mid warmth that read as mud on some tracks. The XM6 is more neutral, with better separation. If you want the old sound, the EQ in the app can get you there. But the default is now closer to right. LDAC is here for Android users with supported devices. iPhone users get AAC. Neither is the lossless dream, but Bluetooth headphones aren’t that, and these are the best of what’s available. ## Battery and the rest 30 hours with ANC on is honest in my testing. Three minutes on the charger gives three hours of playback — the kind of feature that saves you on a delayed flight. Touch controls remain the one annoyance. Volume works. Skipping works. The squeeze-to-pause is fine. The edge-swipe for ANC level is the gesture I still get wrong. Sony: add a button next time. ## Should you buy it If you want the best noise-cancelling headphones made, this is them. The price is high and there’s no way around that. But if silence and sound matter to your day, the XM6 is the pair that delivers both, and the foldable hinge means you’ll actually carry them.TechaudioheadphonesancsonyLytyearhttps://lytyear.co.za/reviews/anker-prime-100w-charger-review/https://lytyear.co.za/reviews/anker-prime-100w-charger-review/The charger that lets you leave the rest of the bricks at home. 100W across four ports in something smaller than a soap. It charges a laptop and two phones at once without complaint. The only thing it’s missing is a longer cable in the box.Tue, 05 May 2026 00:00:00 GMTI used to travel with a laptop charger, a phone charger, and a watch charger. Now I travel with one. That’s the whole review, but let me justify it. ## Real 100W Anker’s wattage numbers have historically been honest, and this one is. With a single USB-C device pulling hard, I measured 97W on a Mac — close enough to the claim. Split across a laptop and two phones, the laptop got 65W and the phones shared the rest. Nothing complained. The thing that matters: it didn’t throttle off heat. Older GaN bricks at full load turn into hand-warmers and drop output. This one stayed cool and consistent over a 40-minute top-up. ## Ports and practicality Two USB-C, two USB-A. That covers a modern laptop, a phone, earbuds, and a watch with a legacy cable. The foldable prongs mean it doesn’t jab everything else in your bag. The miss: no cable in the box. For the price, a 6-foot USB-C cable wouldn’t have killed them. ## Worth it? It’s expensive for a charger. It’s cheap for replacing three chargers. If you move around with a laptop and a phone, this is the one brick to own.MobileaccessorieschargersgantravelLytyearhttps://lytyear.co.za/reviews/davinci-resolve-review/https://lytyear.co.za/reviews/davinci-resolve-review/Hollywood-grade color and editing, free. Pay only when you need the pro codecs. Resolve does what Premiere does, does color better than anything short of a dedicated suite, and costs nothing for the cut most people need. The learning curve is real. The value is absurd.Wed, 29 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMTDaVinci Resolve is the software argument against subscription everything. It is a professional editing, color, audio, and effects suite that is free, and the free version is the version most people should use. ## What you get for nothing The free Resolve includes the Cut page (a streamlined iMovie-on-steroids editor), the Edit page (a full Premiere-style timeline), the Color page (the industry-standard color grading tools), Fairlight (a real audio mixer), and a cut-down Fusion. That is not a demo. That is the product. For a YouTube channel, a short film, a client video, this is more than enough. You cut, you grade, you mix, you export. You never see a paywall. ## Color This is why Resolve exists. The Color page is the tool the film industry uses to grade features, and it’s in the free version. Primary wheels, qualifiers, power windows, tracking — it’s all here. If you’ve ever tried to match shots in Premiere and given up, Resolve is the answer. The cost is the learning curve. Resolve’s color workflow is a discipline. There are great tutorials. Expect a week of feeling lost before it clicks. ## The paywall The Studio version ($295, one-time, not a subscription) unlocks the pro codecs (HEVC, AV1, some RAW formats), the neural-engine features (magic mask, voice isolation, scene detection), and stereo 3D tools most people will never touch. The honest read: if you’re a hobbyist, you probably don’t need it. If you’re making money editing, the codecs alone pay for it inside a project or two, and you never pay again. ## Hardware Resolve is heavy. It wants a real GPU. On a MacBook Air M4 it edits 4K fine and grades it with some compromises. On an older integrated-graphics laptop, playback will stutter and you’ll be rendering a lot. Premiere is gentler on weak hardware. Resolve is not. ## Should you use it If you edit video and you’re not already locked into a Premiere or Final Cut subscription, try Resolve. The free version will cover the work, the color tools are the best in any editor, and the paid version is a one-time fee. The catch is the learning curve and the hardware. If you’re willing to invest a week and you have a machine that can run it, there’s no better value in creator software.Techsoftwarevideocreator-toolsfreeLytyearhttps://lytyear.co.za/reviews/8bitdo-ultimate-2c-review/https://lytyear.co.za/reviews/8bitdo-ultimate-2c-review/Hall effect sticks, extra paddles, and a price that makes you check it twice. For less than half the price of a first-party controller, 8BitDo gives you drift-free sticks, back paddles, and a solid d-pad. The build isn’t premium, but the value is unreal.Sat, 18 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMTThe premise sounds too good: a controller with Hall effect sticks, two back paddles, and a good d-pad for $40. I bought one expecting a catch. The catch is minor. ## The sticks Hall effect sticks use magnets instead of potentiometers, which means the physical mechanism that causes stick drift doesn’t exist here. You will not get drift. That alone, at this price, is wild — first-party pads still ship with drift-prone sticks and cost nearly twice as much. In feel, they’re good. Not Xbox-tier precise on the very smallest movements, but close, and with a reassuring center return. For 95% of players, indistinguishable. ## The paddles and d-pad Two back paddles, mappable via the 8BitDo Ultimate Software. They’re positioned well — I never hit them by accident, and they’re easy to reach intentionally. Mapping jump or dodge to a paddle changes how you play action games. The d-pad is the real surprise. It’s clicky, decisive, and great for 2D platformers and fighters. Better than the Xbox pad’s, easily. ## What you give up No HD haptics — you get basic rumble, not the DualSense’s fancy triggers. No gyro, so Switch games that need motion won’t work. The plastics feel good in the hand but not premium. None of these are fatal at $40. ## The verdict If you play on PC or Switch and you’re tired of buying a new controller every time the sticks drift, this is the obvious buy. It’s not the best controller made. It’s the best controller per dollar, and it’s not close.Gamingcontrollers8bitdoaccessorieshall-effectLytyearhttps://lytyear.co.za/reviews/logic-pro-review/https://lytyear.co.za/reviews/logic-pro-review/A one-time purchase that beats the subscription DAWs for most musicians. Logic Pro on Mac is a complete studio — recording, mixing, mastering, and a sound library that rivals paid packs. For the price of two months of a subscription competitor, you own it forever.Tue, 24 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMTLogic Pro is the case study for why one-time software pricing still works. You pay once, you own a professional DAW, and it keeps getting updates. In a market that has moved almost entirely to subscriptions, that alone is worth talking about. ## The deal $199.99, one time. Avid’s Pro Tools is a subscription. Ableton Live is a one-time purchase but more expensive at the Suite tier. Logic is the cheapest serious DAW on the Mac, and it’s not a cut-down version — it’s the full thing. ## What’s inside Logic ships with a sound library that rivals paid sample packs. The drum kits, the synths (especially Alchemy, which is genuinely excellent), the sampled instruments — for a producer starting out, you don’t need to buy anything else for a long time. The plugins are real tools, not toys. The compressor models, the EQ, Space Designer (convolution reverb) — these are plugins you’d pay for in another ecosystem. ## The smart features Smart Tempo analyzes an audio performance and maps the project tempo to it. Record a drummer without a click and Logic sorts out the tempo map. Flex Pitch lets you correct melody notes by hand, graphically, without the robotic autotune sound if you’re careful. These are the features that solve the problems you actually have. ## The learning curve Logic assumes you know what a DAW is. The interface is dense — the mixer alone is a wall of controls. If you’ve never used a DAW, expect a few weeks of tutorials. GarageBand (free, made by Apple) is the on-ramp, and projects move between the two. ## The Mac catch Logic is Mac only. If you’re on Windows, this isn’t for you — look at Ableton or Cubase. If you’re already in the Apple ecosystem, Logic is the obvious choice: it’s cheap, it’s complete, it’s optimized for Apple Silicon, and it’s yours. ## Should you buy it If you make music on a Mac and you don’t already own a DAW you love, Logic is the answer. The one-time price, the included library, and the depth of the tools make it the best value in music software. The only reason to pass is if you need cross-platform collaboration with a Windows studio.Techsoftwareaudiocreator-toolsmacLytyear