Steve Litchfield

It's another case round-up, this time for the Samsung Galaxy S8+ - Mobile Fun have again come up with the goods and again I try and pick winners and losers. The S8+, like many modern all-glass phones, simply can't be used naked, so a case is downright essential. Here are six of the best: Olixar X-Trex Rugged Hard Case The toughest case in this bunch, this follows the usual tough case mantra of inner and outer shells, though the inner one isn't as rubbery as you usually encounter and rather hard - not very impact absorbent. There's a kickstand folded away into the back, as shown here - it works well enough, though is very plasticky and it's tough to click back into place afterwards. More worryingly, there are design issues, like the aperture for the USB Type C, which wasn't quite large enough for my test cables and so the phone wouldn't charge. Finally, the volume button covers are poorly made and I found it hard to change volume. Overall

I fell asleep several times... After 'the most glamorous race of the F1 season', I think I've had it with Formula 1 - Monaco may be the most glitzy circuit, but it's totally artificial and even a much faster car, with the aid of DRS, still can't get past a slower car because the city track if just too narrow. What IS the point? If you can't actually race properly, then what IS the point? Race after race, in fact, you hear the commentators saying 'Of course, it's hard to overtake on this track'. The whole DRS (Drag Reduction System) technology was designed to make passing easier, and it works on most tracks, but it's not exactly a racing overtake is it? I mean, the number of times car A passes car B, which then is 'within the 1s window' and has DRS to enable it to pass car A again. I can count the number of genuine overtaking moves between the top cars in each season on the fingers of one hand. And that's not enough for 9 mon

The story of our laptops and Wifi is a long, tortuous one. As our Dell and HP laptops have got older (3 and 5 years respectively), their built-in Wifi circuits seem to die. Not completely, but just enough that they lose connection every few hours and have to be power cycled (or the laptop turned on and off). A right pain. So I bought a couple of cheap USB Wifi adapters and these seemed to sort the problem out, in that connections were far more stable - but limited to the 2.4GHz band. Which was a bit annoying since every other device in the house ran on the 5GHz band - faster and more reliable (away from Microwave and other interference). So I bought a 5GHz-compliant adapter and... it died after a couple of days and was returned for a refund. All was then quiet until I was sent the AUKEY AC600 here for review - a newer, hopefully more robust dual band (2.4/5GHz) adapter. So we've been giving it a go - and it has been rock solid . Even on the older laptops. It's tough

Mobile Fun kindly sent over a bunch of LG G6 cases to review and, on the whole, I was impressed. Here are my assessments: Zizo Bolt Cover I picture this case being used while hiking up the mountains - the belt clip included is super-tough and heavy duty in grippy black neoprene-covered polycarbonate, while the case itself is a two piece design, in super-textured red plastic outside of a slightly softer (impact-absorbing) black inner shell. A kick stand is included in the back, giving this case an extra string to its bow. My only complaint here, other than the obvious increase to the phone's thickness, is that the volume buttons are hard to press through all the plastic. Maybe you'd get used to this, plus if you're manly (or womanly) enough to be out in all weathers in the first place then your fingers would have more strength than mine! The G6 slips in easily and isn't too bad to take out, even without separating the two parts of the case, i.e. it can b

I thought these were too cool to stay down forever - Heelys - the trainer with skate shoes in the soles - are making a comeback, at least according to the kids I'm seeing out and about in Spring 2017. So I went back to my 10 years old (All About) Heelys web site and had a revamping pass over it. Wow. The videos I embedded predated YouTube itself and were 'WMV' downloads. Sign of the times, eh? So I fixed those. And enlarged the 800 pixel wide layout to 1000 pixels because screens are a lot larger these days! And fixed some broken links. Loads still to do of course, but hey.... Heelys in 2017! Who'd have thought it?