gangzoom

Up until recently I wouldn't have ever considered mirror-less cameras but the latest batch Sony mirror less camera offer all the benefits of DSLRs (good focus speed/image quality) but are much smaller and easier to use. They're aren't that expensive either, and unless your dad is going to be investing £1000+ in professional lens the Sony kit lenses will be more than good enough. http://www.sony.co.uk/electronics/interchangeable-lens-cameras/ilce-6000-body-kit http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/sony-alpha-a6000/13 I was also set to replace my Canon 550D with a £1500 7D Mark II, but the Sony A6000 and A7 have really caught my eye. I'm waiting to see if Sony start releasing some high end fast zoom lens for the A6000 before changing camera systems. Canon and Nikon have been really slow with developing their mirrorless system. The only thing stopping me from ditching my Canon 550D for a Sony is because I love the 17-55mm f 2.8 Canon lens.

I might have gone mad recently by swapping a 380bhp twin-turbo car for a 108bhp electric Leaf, but I like to think I still have an interest in cars…. We took delivery of our Lexus IS300H recently, and I love it, but before we bought it I did half think about waiting to see what the Jag XE would be like, however the press images of the Jag just didn’t excite us so we ordered the Lexus. Yesterday whilst out shopping I saw a Jaguar XE in the flesh been displayed....Under-whelmed and dull is the best way I can describe it. It's not even made into full production and to me the design already looks dated, even in the 'R sport' trim that was on display. From the rear ¾ view it looks even less interesting than my old E90 BMW. I really have no idea how Jaguar can make something as beautiful as the XJ and new XF, but produce something so dull looking for potentially their biggest seller… The display XE was so un-interesting to look at I couldn’t even be bothered to pull out the iPhone for a quick snap. My wife didn’t even notice it as she was rushing to some shoe shop…I’m glad we didn't put-off ordering the IS300H to wait and see what the XE looked like. I hope these things sell well for Jag, but the Audi A5 that was parked up 100 meter future down just looked so much better….and I never thought I would say an Audi looked more interesting than a Jag… What does other people think of the XE? Or have I just totally lost it??

Have some how managed to do 90 miles in 24hr by just driving around Leicester ...Also tried out a 'Free (for now)' rapid charger (60-80% in under 10 minutes) at services near my wifes work, so have probably spent about £1.00 in electric costs in total so far. Shouldn't need charging now till after the Easter holidays...Just need to stop driving the thing. Will do a proper write up in a few days/week, but so far, I'm loving it (minus man-card ofcourse)

There's load of room....unless you choose to drive into the kerb

Yeaph I've gone from 380bhp+, 0-60 < 5.0, lots of noise to 109bhp, 0-60..Something over 10 I thinks, and no noise at all But I have a plan, and not gone totally mad...Though even my wife agrees with most of you guys There's a saying "frugality is the mother of prosperity" and I need a lot of prosperity to get into one of these....

So it's here!!! First thing first, try the home charger Not everyones idea of motoring, but I'm loving it so far....Once I've gotten over the excitement of having an EV I'll do little write up and do my best to convert the lot of you

Collecting it in 3hrs

So after spending 46 months throwing money at a German machine (Sold at the Weekend), I'm about to comeback to the familiar Nissan family Picking up the new car tomorrow from Nissan Leicester.....It's actually the third cheapest car I've ever bought (cheapest been a £500 Micra, followed by a £1200 Peug 106), despite it been brand new, also cannot remember been this excited about picking up a new car...Not even for the Z It'll need one of these.

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E46 M3 have bottomed out interms of price, the E92 M3 have a way to go. Also remember petrol prices are 'cheapish' at the moment, when they go back up to 130/liter not many people are going to want a 4liter V8. My modified 335 will hopefully sell today. As a every day car is it much much better than the Z, as a sports car, with the modifications I did, it's much much better than the Z. I haven't owned a E92 M3, but the aim of my modifications on my 335i was to turn it into a M3 of sorts...So I cannot imagine you not liking the real thing!! But be warned about their running costs, one of my mates is a fully qualified GP (so not short on cash), one of the reason sold his E90 M3 after 12 months because of running costs, I think he was getting 14mpg average!!

Thanks for the comments....Have you tried the autobox on a 335i Just waiting for my number plate transfer to come through, have already got half a decent offer from a specialist garage, so the car will be gone as soon I get the reg plate transfer back

Cheers for the comments Deal signed on the new car on Friday, now transferring number plate off the 335i. Will be sad to see it go ....Wasted lots of £££ on the 335, but don't regret it for one second!! Just hope it goes to someone who'll look after it

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You do realise the it's the exactly the same surgeon operating on you in NHS as in the private sector?? In addition, in a private hospital they cannot deal with any major complications (Trust me I get regular calls from our local private hospital to take patients over because things have gone wrong and they cannot sort it). The problem is knee pain/joint problems is relatively low down on the NHS priority list, because a delay a 1 months in a knee operation isn't very nice at all, but your not going to die as a result, whilst even a 1 hr delay in operating in some other situations literally means life or death, and the NHS sadly only has finite pot of money. If you can afford private health care, for things like knee operations it will be quicker service, and truth be told if I needed an elective procedure I'll probably consider private insurance purely for speed... But in terms of emergency/urgent care the NHS offers by far the best/most cost efficient system anywhere in world, despite the lowest overall cost to the economy, so rest assured your NI money is very good value http://www.independe...st-9542833.html

I really do think hybrid/EV cars are the going to take over. But I still rather take the 335i on a lovely Sunday morning for a B road blast.... So the only affordable hybrids that offer similar power to the BMW is the Lexus GS450h or the Infiniti Q50 Hybrid. The GS450h is a older design than the IS300h, and just didn't appeal, but the Q50 hybrid is very interesting.... It's got rubbish reviews from the press, mainly for its fly-by-wire steering but looking at AutoTrader there's a about 12 014 plate cars with 5k on the clock for sale, presumably all demo cars and on for £30-35k. That's £10-15k less than list price, add in the fact according to howmanyleft.com, Infiniti sold less than 30 Q50 hybrids, dealers must be desperate to get rid....so I see more discounts So potentially I reckon I could sell my BMW 335i for £12k?...and easily get another 10-15% off the marked price on the demo Q50s, meaning cost to change from my 7 year old car to a brand new £45k machine would be under £20k...... Humm I feel a test drive in a Q50 hybrid coming up

Have to agree with this comment, maybe it’s just me getting old, but I’m loving the noise or more specific (lack of noise). Really loving this car, me and the wife are fighting for the keys….Feel sorry for the BMW, it's pretty much a static object on the drive these days So just did a 100 mile trip down to London today to see the parents. Despite it only been 7 degrees outside, and engine still new getting decent mpg even on M way runs... After 90 miles on the motorway Than came 5 miles of been stuck in standstill traffic in North London, and the IS300H’s party trick (Full EV mode) saw the mpg IMPROVE Overall mpg is improving with every trip…come the summer, and the engine loosened up I wouldn’t be surprised if it’ll hit 60mpg Also found the most unless feature…Google Street view on the sat nav screen, I thought it was cool, my wife said ‘what’s wrong with just looking out of the window'

My wife is using a 6 year Apple MacBook Air to do most of her PHD work...The topic is analysing Cardiac MRI data in patients with heart disease...So she's not exactly using it to just browse the web ....I think the theme for this thread is Apple Fanboys are crazy/sad/stupid...But we'll come with an argument about how great Apple stuff is no matter than facts/fiction/comment you present to us

So you cannot see the potential of a product that will let you pay without your wallet, let you do fitness tracking without having to wear stupid looking chest strap, send you notifications without you having to pull your phone out, and I suspect in the next few versions, will be GPS enabled?? Before the iPhone came out, I had a phone, a iPod, a palm pilot, the iPhone didn't do anything else those things couldn't do, but it did all better and in 1 device. I can see the iWatch replacing my wallet, fitness tracker, keys (if you can pay with a Apple Watch, why cannot you un-lock your house/car with one?), and eventually as battery technology evolves it will replace your phone for GPS navigation.....and these are all applications I can think of even before the thing is release. Who knows what developers will do with it.....The thing about great ideas is that someone clever has to come up with it first, just because I cannot think a new application because I'm too stupid to think of one doesn't mean someone else wouldn't come up with a new application for the product But all the doubter can carry on moaning.....As one of the biggest and most profitable electronic companies ever, if anyone can make this concept work its Apple ...I very much doubt your be able to get hold one even if you tried come 10th April!!

You guys are 100% right.... Before the PowerBook 100, other laptops existed... Before the iMac, other computers had built in USB... Before the iPod, MP3 players were around... Before the iPhone, other 'smart' phones were around... Before the iPad, other tablets were around... The thing I love about Apple is they will release a product 90% of the public will not see the potential of, and go against any market research.....Sometimes it flops (Apple Games console, Apple Newton, Apple QuickTake camera), but more often than not they succeed by demonstrating good design is more about the user interface than pure hardware.... But your guys aren't alone in doubting Apple... Steve Ballmer, CEO of Microsoft said the iPhone was.. “That is the most expensive phone in the world. And it doesn’t appeal to business customers because it doesn’t have a keyboard, which makes it not a very good email machine.†Internet forum users 'loved' the idea of the iPod...Sounds familiar to some comments here "Looks like the markets aren’t looking too favorably on Apple’s new forays into the digital device market. Of course the iPod is cool, neat, whatever. You wouldn’t expect anything less from Apple. But I agree with most on this forum. $400 is simply too much in the present economic climate. One other thing. I’d like to know what their margins for the iPod are…†“Keep in mind it’s $400 right now becuase the Apple Fanatics will have to have one. They’ll pay anything for the latest cool toy from Apple. In 6 months, hopefully the rest of us will be buying the 20GB version for $200.†....and let's not forget all the people that called the iPad 'Just a big iPod touch' I could go on...I'm clearly an Apple fanboy, but given how influential Apple products have been in the consumer electronics market, why wouldn't I be a fan of Apple products... I had some doubts that the vision Apple had under Steve Jobs might have died with him, but the past 6 months has seen Apple back at their best.... Aside from the iWatch news, they also releases a 12 inch Latop with a 9ht batter life and wait for it...Just 'ONE' USB C connector (not even a power socket)....WTF, how are you going to plug other stuff into it....It's almost as crazy as introducing the original iMac with only USB ports and no floppy disc drive back in 1998....Idiots, clearly the designers at Apple have lost it....again. I wouldn't be buying the first gen Apple watch, but will be getting the second gen one (as I did with the iPod/iPhone/iPad)...PersonallyI cannot wait to see how developers go with this...BMW have already announced an iWatch app....Can you imagine how cool it would be to just hold your wrist up, say to the watch 'Get car' and your car just magically appears

So had a morning free today, and the sun was out, so had a little ‘play’ with my SJ4000 camera and the IS300H Did a quick video of the IS300H, in Sport mode, 0-60mph. Not the most accurate test, but it’s around 8 seconds in the real world, given how easy it is to launch, it’s pretty much the same as a BMW 320D, which is the standard setting car in this class. What surprised me was the ‘in-gear’ performance, 50-70mph is pretty rapid, and certainly meets if not beat ‘quoted’ times for the 320D… I also did a quick blast around the local B roads, and as you can see the road handling of the IS300H is fab, slightly short on steering feel, but leagues better than the Civic. Though the engine noise isn’t great, and the ‘fake’ engine noise generator is even worse, but you can tell the chassis of the IS has been set-up well. And dare I say it, comparing unmodified to unmodified, the IS300H's handling/ride is more fun and more compliant than my E90 BMW 335i!! It's just a shame Lexus haven't don't sell the IS350 here in the UK, because when paired up to a proper power train, I think the IS will be very hard to beat... Also gave the car a little wash...Scrubs up well. Worked out how to display nav info on the dash...Not quite a HUD or Audi TT style digital dash, still not too bad Engine still needs loosening up, but cannot complain about MPG reading so far

Must try that one.... The tech in this watch is pretty fancy including the heart rate monitor using LED+infra red....a bit like a medical pulse oximeter. When I go cycling/running these days, I use a Polar heart rate monitor, which for those who don't know makes you look like a irresistible sexy beast a bit like this guy (but I tend to keep my T shirt on) :lol: Now £300 on an watch to stop me from looking a dork is surely with worth it....oh and the whole 'happiness is priceless' stuff

I think Apple are on to a winner...Again!! Even wife how have no interest in Apple stuff wanted to have a closer look at 'Rose Gold' edition....than she saw the price Apple must have engineered some kind of way to replace the inside of the watch for the 'edition' models. Unlike a phone, I cannot see Apple changing the case design that much, after all theres only so many ways you can design a watch. I think I'll wait for the next generation device though....A waterproof case I think is essential, especially if Apple want people to wear it whilst running/cycling etc. £300 is actuality not that much to spend on even a 'sports' watch. The top of the range Garmin GPS watches are more expensive, and look hideous in comparison..

Maybe it was the fact by the point we got to John'O groats my arse was #### from spending about 500 mile on a pedal bike. But my memory of anything North of Inverness was 'wind' 'rain' 'rubbish road surface' and more 'wind'....Wind was a big issue on the pedal bike The high lands and Inverness was pretty, but to be honest when you could be in the Swiss Alps after 7-8hrs of driving from Calais, driving the same distance/time to be in Scotland just doesn't quite do it for me.... Did I mention that North of Scotland is windy Been there, got the photo (It looks nice and sunny, but it was definitely windy!!), no plans to head that North again, ever....

Oh what's with the clock hate...Personally I love it, even took a picture of it especially