It's been hard to remember a more busy time in tech than that which we've seen in the past fortnight. From the PS5 pre-orders to new Apple Watches, Nvidia GPUs and much, much more, the TechRadar team has had its hands full.
Is that easing up? Nope, not any time soon. The end of last week saw a whole raft of new Amazon devices launched, we're expecting a Google showcase at some time this week, and we've finally got the Amazon Prime 2020 dates officially confirmed. It's a marathon, not a sprint, and 2020 seems to be stretching that analogy as far as it can go.
So there's a nice range of stuff to talk bout this week, from new Echo speakers to new remakes of old shows. Get reading – or, if your eyes are still recovering from a weekend in bed, scroll down to the end of this article to find the latest episode of the TechRadar Noise Cancelling Podcast for straight-to-your-ears chat about the latest and greatest in tech.
Everything Amazon: new Echo speakers, new game streaming services and scary drones
Amazon's annual hardware device showcase is a notoriously busy one, with the company putting out new products and refreshes to all its major hardware lines. This year was no exception.
First up, new Echo speakers and Echo Dots. They've now got spherical shapes instead of cylindrical ones to better produce their sound (or, more cynically, to better distinguish them from last year's model). As for the new Echo Show 10, it is even weirder, with a screen and camera sat on a swivelling base that can follow you around a room for video calls.
The highlight of the event was a new cloud gaming service called Luna that Amazon will be hoping can take on the likes of Google Stadia and Nvidia GeForce Now. Learn how to sign up for Luna here. But the real eye-opener? The truly dystopian indoor Ring camera security drone for your home...
The essential albums every music lover should hear
Like almost everything else in this strangest of years, Record Store Day , the annual retail festival for the lover of all things vinyl, was interrupted and changed due to the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic. But perhaps for the better – rather than forcing record fans to queue in the cold for limited releases, it was a mostly online affair, split over two weekends, letting us revel in the mysteries of vinyl for the second time this year.
To mark the occassion we put together a load of guides and features...
- Record Store Day 2020: the best headphone, speaker, and turntable deals
- The history of the turntable: how vinyl survived the CD, the iPod, and Spotify
- Do you have any of these rare records at home? They could make you filthy rich
...but my favorite was this big round up of the essential records every self-respecting music fan should have listened to at least once. Pulling in suggestions from not only the TechRadar staff but also our friends in the audio and music industries, it's a great list, expertly curated, and with some unusual choices thrown in, too.
How to choose a personal trainer
We're all feeling a little bit softer around the middle I'd imagine right now, what with our day-to-day routines disrupted and our bedrooms (and by extension, our beds) becoming our work places. So it's natural we'd all want to get a bit fitter.
But even if you're rocking one of the best fitness trackers, getting motivated to actually use it is no easy task. That's where a personal trainer comes in.
We spoke to Tommy Owen, head of personal training at Starks Fitness, to find out how you should go about finding a personal trainer, and the questions you should ask to find the right one for you.
How you can use your PC to help scientists develop a treatment for the coronavirus
We can all do our part to help stop the spread of coronavirus, whether that's by wearing a face mask, limiting unnecessary trips to social spaces, or using local track and trace apps to help document the spread of the infection.
But if you're a PC user, you can go one further thanks the folks at Folding@Home. They are asking for people to run the F@H client in order to help scientists develop a treatment for coronavirus, leveraging your idle PC power to help run complicated, virus-battling calculations. We encourage you to read the blog post, as it goes into far more detail than simple tech journalists like us feel comfortable doing, but we can help you get set up and make sure you're offering the most computing horsepower.
Nvidia GeForce RTX 3090 review: king of the cards
Ooof! And you thought the Nvidia RTX 3080 was a fast card! Wait until you get a load of what the big daddy GPU, the RTX 3090 is capable of.
Finally, you've got a GPU that not only can smash through 4K gaming at the highest settings, but you've got one that can approach enjoyable experiences at 8K resolution, too. Take THAT, Xbox Series X and PS5.
Having said that, it's not a huge leap in performance over the 3080, and that's despite its gargantuan size and price tag to match. Read on for the nitty gritty details.
Crysis Remastered review
... and if you're looking for a game to put those new cards through their paces, there's still no challenge for them like Crysis. The newly remastered version of the game once again sits at the forefront of gaming's technological boundaries, and will push your GPU to its absolute limits (even if the gameplay itself hasn't aged quite so well).
Utopia: how the US remake could be the most prescient TV show of 2020
I'm not usually that keen on seeing remakes of beloved shows – especially one like Utopia, currently getting a fresh lick of paint over at Amazon Prime, where the original felt like such a uniquely British thriller. As you'd expect, the remake under Amazon's guidance is a more US-centric affair.
But it's kind of creepy how a show from this century's teenage years can feel so relevant today: with its geeky heroes, global plagues and shadowy megacorps, it feels like it could have been written for this very day.
We had a great catch up with the new cast and crew, including showrunner Gillian Flynn of Gone Girl fame, and Rainn 'Dwight from The Office' Wilson.
Samsung S20 FE review, PS5 and Xbox pre-order troubles: Noise Cancelling podcast episode 31
Tech news, coming straight in your ears! We have you covered with the Noise Cancelling podcast, which is brought to you by TechRadar and our sister sites Laptop Mag and Tom's Guide.
The show is presented by Gareth Beavis, Global Editor in Chief of TechRadar, and features Sherri L. Smith, Editor in Chief of Laptop Mag.
Catch up on all the latest tech gossip, from console pre-order woes to the latest in Samsung smartphonery.
