Garmin Vivosmart HR Plus

Since the Apple Watch arrived, it seems that every company in the wearables market has been hell bent on making a device that can handle it all – from fitness tracking to Twitter notifications – while also looking like a high-end fashion item.
The result has seen some slightly odd hybrid fitness trackers, such as the Fitbit Blaze and Moto 360 Sport, which look nice enough, but don’t quite cut the mustard for hardcore fitness fanatics.
Enter the Garmin Vivosmart HR+, a device that puts substance over style. Featuring built-in GPS, a waterproof design and week-long battery life, the Garmin Vivosmart HR+ is a fitness-focused tracker designed for hardcore runners, swimmers and cyclists.

Key Features

0.42-inch E Ink touchscreen

5ATM water resistance

5-day battery life

GPS

Heart rate monitor

iOS and Android apps

Manufacturer: Garmin

Review Price: £170.00

Mad Catz L.Y.N.X. 9

Mad Catz has always done things a little differently. The Rat gaming mouse looked like nothing before it when first launched 5 years ago, but has proven its staying power with a new version, the Rat Pro X, announced at CES 2015.
PC and console gaming is all well and good, but those markets aren’t growing; they’re flatlining. Mobile gaming on the other hand is going from strength to strength and it’s more than just casual gaming that’s fuelling the growth. Games such as BioShock and FIFA look and play great on phones and tablets – that is, if you have the right controller.

So it’s not quite such a surprise that Mad Catz has announced an incredible new mobile controller for those wanting the very best experience across mobile, tablet and even smart TVs. It’s called the Mad Catz L.Y.N.X. 9 and it’s part Swiss Army knife, part transformer, part Lego Technic and entirely bonkers. But bonkers in a good way.
Let’s leave the hefty £250/$300 price tag to one side for a moment and have a look at everything (and there’s a lot) that the L.Y.N.X. 9 has to offer.

Mad Catz L.Y.N.X. 3

The L.Y.N.X. 9, Mad Catz' insane $300 mobile controller launched at CES 2015, just got a little brother – the L.Y.N.X. 3. It was announced at MWC 2015 together with the SURFr mobile keyboard controller.
Mad Catz is a realistic company – it doesn’t expect everyone to fork out the cost of a new console on a mobile controller. That’s why the L.Y.N.X. 3 is much cheaper than the 9 at $79 as opposed to $299. Although even at that price it’s not exactly cheap.
The L.Y.N.X. 3 mirrors the design of its bigger brother. The handgrips and analogue sticks fold in to make the controller a small bundle that's easily pocketable. Rubberised wings can be attached to provide a more console controller feel without adding too much weight.

TomTom Curfer

TomTom's Curfer is a hardware and app combination that allows you to track your vehicle dynamics as you drive. One half is a hardware dongle called the LINK 100, which fits in your car. The other part is a smartphone app for Android and iOS that records information from this dongle and displays it in a number of useful ways.
The primary aim here is to let you track your driving, so you can see whether you're a smooth driver or too erratic, and which areas of your driving define your style. In theory, you can then improve the way you operate your car for a more economical performance.

The LINK 100 hardware uses an interface called OBD-II to communicate with your car. This is a system that's been standard across the globe for more than a decade. The OBD acronym stands for on-board diagnostics, and this is the port service engineers use to read information from the many computer systems that now control the operation of a modern car.
The OBD-II port can register a host of data about how the engine is operating, about the electrical and braking systems, and information regarding temperature from various sensors. It can also be used to change settings, cancel error messages, and even tune the car's performance. However, the Curfer system doesn't involve itself with any of this; it merely reads the information it can, and then passes this to the smartphone app for analysis.

Key Features

LINK 100 OBD II hardware

Curfer app for Android and iOS

Bluetooth connection between hardware and smartphone

Comprehensive view of diagnostic data from car

Socially shareable driving-style scores

Manufacturer: TomTom

Review Price: £79.00

Obi Worldphone MV1

It’s not uncommon to see companies introducing new phone ranges. But when Apple’s ex-CEO John Sculley burst onto the scene last year, launching two phones, pretty much the whole tech industry paid attention to him.
He’s the pioneer of the Obi Worldphone brand, which aims to create attractive but affordable smartphones targeted at younger buyers in developing regions across Asia, Africa and Middle East – as opposed to the US and Europe. Now, that’s quite a feat.
The company’s first phones, the SF1 and SJ1.5, were received well by techies right around the world and seen as viable alternatives to more known handsets like the Moto G and Honor 7. But that wasn’t enough for Obi.
Looking to achieve maximum impact on a global scale and to take advantage of the growing number of people wanting cheap phones, it decided it had to release another handset. Enter the MV1, an unlocked, dual-sim phone capable of running Android Lollipop or Cyanogen OS, and it’s available in the UK for a penny-pinching £119.

Key Features

5-inch, 720x1280 display

16GB of internal storage

Expandable memory up to 64GB via MicroSD

Android Lollipop 5.1/Cyanogen OS 12.1.1

Quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 212 CPU

8-megapixel rear and 2-megapixel front cameras

Manufacturer: Obi Worldphone

Review Price: £119.00

Honor 5C

Honor phones are an interesting bunch. The brand basically exists so that Huawei can continue targeting the affordable end of the market, without hindering its push to rebrand as a premium phone maker.
That's why past Honor handsets such as the Honor 7 and Honor 5X have featured the strengths and weaknesses of Huawei phones – great hardware held back by the firm’s Emotion UI.
When I first picked up the Honor 5C at the phone’s London launch, I got a strong feeling history was repeating itself. But after a couple of hours with the device, I found myself warming to it, and left the event feeling the Honor 5C has the potential to be a worthy rival to the insanely good-value Moto G4.

The Honor 5C is undeniably excellent value for money as a piece of hardware. It has internal specs that match, if not beat, the Moto G4's. But its use of Huawei’s Emotion skin will be a sticking point for many buyers. I can’t help but feel Honor should follow Motorola’s example and load its handsets with an unskinned version of Android.