HP Colour Laser 150nw Review UK 2026: Do Not Buy

Last updated: 24 May 2026

By Stiv · Design, technology and personal finance

This is an opinion piece. Views expressed are the author's own and do not constitute professional advice.

Tech / PrintersDo Not Buy

HP Colour Laser 150nw review: the printer that died at eleven months

We bought an HP Colour Laser 150nw for about £130 thirteen months ago. It is now sitting in a recycling pile. This HP Colour Laser 150nw review explains exactly why, because the power button broke, HP's support website was impenetrable, and returning it to Currys was not worth the trip.

Cool Factor

★☆☆☆☆

1 out of 5 — Do Not Buy

So here is the short version. The print quality was genuinely fine. Everything else was not. We are writing this review so that you do not waste your money the way we wasted ours. Below, we walk through everything that went wrong, why the fault is baked into the design, and exactly what to buy instead.

The HP Colour Laser 150nw. Compact, tidy, and now destined for the recycling centre.

Published by Stiv in Buying Guides, Consumer Tech, Reviews, Tech News

Tags: Brother, home office, HP, laser printer, printers, reviews, Tech reviews

May 23, 2026 — No Comments

Best Father’s Day Tech Gifts UK 2026: The Beyond-Obvious Edit

Father's Day Tech Gifts2026 Edit

The tech gifts he doesn't know he wants yet.

Last updated: 23 May 2026

By Stiv · Design, technology and personal finance

Father's Day tech gifts tend to arrive in two flavours: the painfully obvious and the quietly disappointing. After all, your dad already owns an iPhone, a pair of AirPods, and a smart speaker he shouts at across the kitchen. So this year, skip every one of those. Instead, this edit of Father's Day tech gifts is for the dad who has the obvious stuff already, and who secretly wants the interesting stuff he has not discovered yet.

Father's Day 2026 falls on Sunday 21 June, which gives you roughly a month to order. Moreover, every pick below sits in that sweet spot between "I did not know this existed" and "I cannot believe I lived without it." Some we own. Some we have tested. Some we have researched obsessively and quietly added to our own wish lists. All of them passed the same test: is it well designed, does it solve a real problem, and would we be genuinely excited to unwrap it?

Some links in this guide are affiliate or referral links. This costs you nothing extra and helps support the site.

Best under £100AncestryDNA Kit£79

Best under £150Fairphone Fairbuds£129

Best splurgereMarkable Paper Pro£699

Most unexpectedBird Buddy Pro£199

For the audiophile dadTeenage Engineering OB-4around £599

For the tinkering dadBambu Lab A1 Minifrom £149

Published by Stiv in Consumer Tech, Gift Guides, Technology lover

Tags: Analogue Pocket, fathers day, fathers day gifts, gadgets, gift guides, gifts for dad, Nothing, smart home, tech gifts, Teenage Engineering

May 15, 2026 — Comments are off for this post.

Best Home Printer UK 2026: Laser Beats Ink, Every Time

Last updated: 15 May 2026

By Stiv · Design, technology and personal finance

Affiliate disclosure: this post contains affiliate links. If you buy through them we earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. We only recommend kit we would put on our own desks.

Printers are the one piece of tech that has somehow got worse over the past 20 years. They jam, they run out of ink the moment you need them, and they cost more per millilitre than vintage champagne. So when we set out to find the best home printer UK buyers can actually live with in 2026, we started from a position of mild rage and worked outwards.

Here is the short version. For most homes the best home printer UK answer is a small Brother mono laser. It is boring, reliable, cheap to run, and the toner never dries out. If you genuinely need colour at home, skip ink cartridges entirely and buy a refillable ink tank such as an Epson EcoTank or a Canon PIXMA MegaTank. That is the whole guide in two sentences. The rest is the working.

Published by Stiv in Buying Guides, Consumer Tech, Home office, Smart Home, Tech News, Technology lover

Tags: AirPrint, best printer 2026, Brother printer, Canon PIXMA, Epson EcoTank, home office, home printer, laser printer, refillable ink, UK printer guide

May 2, 2026 — Comments are off for this post.

Best Wireless Earbuds UK 2026: Honest Buying Guide

Last updated: 2 May 2026

By Stiv · Design, technology and personal finance

The best wireless earbuds UK shoppers can buy in 2026 are better than ever, and the gap between cheap and flagship has narrowed dramatically. Truly wireless earbuds are the one gadget almost everyone owns and almost everyone settles for. You buy whichever pair is on offer, they're fine for six months, then one bud dies and you start the cycle again. This guide is about breaking that pattern: buy the right pair once and enjoy them for years.

We've split our picks by budget and use case, from the £49 bargains that punch absurdly above their weight to the £250 flagships that earn every penny. Plus a few honest words about durability, ecosystems and whether you actually need ANC.

This guide contains affiliate links. If you buy through our links, we earn a small commission at no extra cost to you.

Published by Stiv in Audiophiles, Buying Guides, Consumer Tech, Reviews

Tags: AirPods Pro 3, ANC earbuds, Beats, best wireless earbuds, Bose QuietComfort Ultra, consumer tech, earbuds UK, gym earbuds, noise cancelling earbuds, Nothing Ear, Pixel Buds Pro, Powerbeats Pro 2, Samsung Galaxy Buds 4 Pro, Sony WF-1000XM6, Soundcore, wireless earbuds

May 2, 2026 — Comments are off for this post.

Best Refurbished MacBooks UK 2026: Models, Prices, Tips

Last updated: 2 May 2026

By Stiv · Design, technology and personal finance

A new MacBook Air starts at over £1,000. A refurbished M2 Air with the same performance costs under £700. Same laptop, same build quality, same Apple silicon. The only difference is that someone opened the box before you. Here is our hands-on guide to the best refurbished MacBooks UK buyers can actually trust in 2026, which models are worth your money, and where to get the best deal.

Some links in this guide are affiliate or referral links. This costs you nothing extra and helps support the site.

Published by Stiv in Buying Guides, Consumer Tech, Technology lover

Tags: Apple Refurbished Store, Back Market, MacBook Air, MacBook M1, MacBook M2, MacBook M3, MacBook Pro, refurbished laptops UK, refurbished MacBooks, refurbished tech uk

May 1, 2026 — Comments are off for this post.

Best Noise-Cancelling Headphones UK 2026: Honest Picks

Last updated: 1 May 2026

By Stiv · Design, technology and personal finance

Noise-cancelling headphones are one of those purchases where the difference between "good" and "life-changing" is roughly £100. Fortunately, even budget options in 2026 are genuinely impressive. More importantly, between us we've worn every pair below for long enough to know which ones are worth your money, and which ones will start hurting your ears after an hour. This is our honest guide to the best noise-cancelling headphones UK shoppers can buy right now.

This guide contains affiliate links to Amazon. If you buy through our links, we earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. All picks are based on genuine use and independent assessment.

Published by Stiv in Audiophiles, Consumer Tech, Reviews, Tech News, Technology lover

Tags: AirPods Max 2, AirPods Pro 3, ANC, best headphones, Bose QuietComfort Ultra, headphones review, noise cancelling headphones, Nothing Ear, Samsung Galaxy Buds 4 Pro, Sennheiser Momentum 4, Sonos Ace, Sony WF-1000XM6, Sony WH-1000XM6, Soundcore Space One