Hardware News

We have been fortunate to review a ton of tech over the past year, and wanted to highlight our favourite items in this years Top Tech guide for 2020! All of the times on this list have been personally used by our staff, and come with our highest recommendations. We have everything from TVs, to mobile phones, to vacuum cleaners, so lets get started!

Television units are becoming shockingly expensive again, after nearly a decade of prices slowly decreasing. Brand new technology, including brand new consoles such as the PlayStation 5 and the Xbox Series X, are so powerful, they are demanding more from television sets than ever before. With the introduction of HDMI 2.1 - which will allow gamers to play games at 4K resolution at 120 frames per second - might be the single biggest contributor to increased prices. So what's a person to do if they want a 4K experience, but not shell out north of $1500? Look for ...

We have had the ability to test drive a wide variety of headsets this year, and we wanted to highlight our favourites as part of our holiday guide set for 2020! All of the times on this list have been personally used by our staff, and come with our highest recommendations. There are a lot of great audio accessories here to look at, so let's dive right in!

A next generation system isn't all it can be without a whack of additional next generation accessories to go along with it. We previously reviewed the Sony PS5 Media Remote and, for the most part, really enjoyed that product. Now it's time to look at yet another next generation accessory from Sony - the Pulse 3D Wireless Headset. In a market with so many amazing headset products, is Sony able to push through with this one? Let's take a look.

We have had the opportunity to take a look at many wonderful PDP products in 2020, and wanted to highlight our favourite items as part of our holiday guide set for 2020! All of the times on this list have been personally used by our staff, and come with our highest recommendations. There are a lot of cool things to look at, so let's dive right in!

Over the past few weeks, we have been testing the iRobot Roomba i7+ in our home. While we have published a few articles, we felt that full review wouldn't happen until we had spent ample time with our Roomba. With 3 young kids, our house gets dirty a lot, and even I was skeptical with how well the Roomba would perform, given our cramped living space and overly messy children. Exactly how well did this iRobot product perform? Let's take a look.

Late last week, PlayStation Canada sent over the brand new PlayStation 5 media remote, and we instantly put it to the test on family movie night! While relatively inexpensive compared to other video game console accessories, is the PS5 media remote worth the investment? Read on below why we say both yes, and no!

While 2020 begins a brand new decade, it also ushers in a new philosophy at Google when it comes to their lineup of Pixel phones. While rumored for most of the year, Google did in fact launch a Google Pixel 5, but did not include an XL model as in previous years. Google also opted to aim for a brand new price point with the Pixel 5, one that detangles them from the high end market and places them more appropriately in that mid-tier level. But with a number of downgrades to the device over the Google Pixel 4 XL, is there a reason to upgrade to the Pixel 5? 

Add me to the group of folks that thought Mario Kart Live: Home Circuit was going to be a gimmicky mess when it launched, but with just a weekend of play under my belt, and a Mario Kart that has been charged 7-8 times, add me to the new group of folks admitting to being wrong. Mario Kart Live is an absolute blast - I initially thought this would just be fun for my kids, but my wife and I are enjoying it as well.

The Roffel home has been a Google home for long before I began reviewing Google products. We had the Google Home, the Nest Hub, and even a Google Chromecast. We loved all our Google products, except one - that darn Chromecast. No matter how much we tried to work with that product, it never seemed to suit are needs. Without a remote, we either had to provide voice commands to get things to load, or have a cell phone handy. You'd be shocked how many times we went to watch TV without our phones, and when voice commands just wouldn't work how you hoped.