GADGET GURU’S MAGIC BOX

Guru is befuddled. The palatial kitchen of Guru Towers has been transformed into a land of dust and tears, the master bathroom into a chaotic hellhole, and GaGu’s poor bank account into a mix of both. Renovation chaos is not fun. It did give GaGu the opportunity to convince Mrs Guru that the current living room TV better belonged in the new kitchen, and release some precious funds for a fancy new lounge screen. In the end he opted for the 2020 Sony Bravia XH9055 (around £900), which has proven a glorious upgrade. It’s vivid, quick, and quite delightful, with its Android TV OS almost convincing Guru that built-in smart TV functionality is now good enough to sack off external smart sticks. Almost. Mrs Guru’s insistence on watching obscure Eurovision song selection programming from countries like Lithuania and Norway necessitated firing up a web browser, and everything available natively on the TV was frankly abysmal. The Silk browser on Guru’s Fire TV Stick 4K (£50), on the other hand? Er, silky.

The work around the house has seen Guru locked in his office as much as possible, mainly so as to not affect his accidental talking-to-the-builders accent (where every tiny characteristic of one’s local drawl becomes as thick as custard), but this has had him thinking about other screens. Most notably, the mismatched pair of monitors he’s had for the past five years. Were budget not something he had to fight tooth and nail for, the super ultrawide Samsung Odyssey G9 (£1,099) would be top of the list. Maybe a pair of side-by-side 4K panels would work, but GaGu will forever be pining for what might have been.