Average Joes

As summer hots up, it’s time to gather the summer holiday staples and dig out the suitcase. If you have a limited luggage allowance for your summer break, then selecting the right multi-purpose summerwear is a must. Here are some of our top summer style picks for his and her suitcases this season. New for summer 2026, this geo-print shirt, made from 100% Eco Viscose, will be a valuable addition to your summer style wardrobe.

Gardening is not my favourite chore, so if there’s a tool that can help to make the task easier, I’m always going to be on board. When gardening supremo Webb launched the Eco X Series earlier this year, I had to give them a try. But will 40V battery power cut it for our overgrown lawn?

For breastfeeding mothers, a good breast pump can be a much-needed lifeline. Being able to effectively and efficiently express milk to share night-time feeds, or in preparation for returning to work, makes the pump an important tool in a parent’s arsenal. The latest addition to Eufy’s parenting line-up, the S2 Pro Wearable breast pump, promises great comfort and convenience, so we tried it out to see if the benefits match up to the premium price tag.

There’s a very obvious idea at the heart of the Kia EV5. Take everything that makes the Sportage such a strong seller in the UK — the sensible size, the family-friendly cabin, the straightforward controls, the easygoing nature — and turn it into an electric car. ​And that’s exactly what Kia has done. The EV5 is a mid-sized SUV that feels designed to make life easy for people to live with, and just happens to be electric. It’s roomy, comfortable, well equipped and simple to get on with.

JCB’s hydrogen-powered land speed record car has hit 177mph during testing, as the British engineering giant prepares to take the JCB Hydromax to the hallowed Bonneville Salt Flats in search of a new world speed record. The almost 10-metre-long JCB Hydromax is powered by two hydrogen combustion engines based on the same technology now being used in JCB diggers.

With the weather and the barbecue hotting up, it’s time to chill down some wine to enjoy with family and friends. Here are some of the barbecue-friendly summer wine options that we’ll be sipping this season. This highly quaffable red, made from a blend of Tempranillo and Bobal grapes, is a great budget-conscious choice for pairing with burgers and steaks straight from the barbecue.

I expected the Road Angel Pure Sync to annoy me. We already have Google Maps and Waze, running on Apple CarPlay or Android Auto, or on a phone attached to a cradle on your windscreen. The idea of adding another screen to the dashboard felt a bit unnecessary. Then, within three miles of my first test drive, it warned me about a mobile speed camera van that Google Maps knew nothing about. That rather changed my expectations.

For coffee lovers, a good bean-to-cup machine means that the first cup of the day is going to be just as good as the last. The drawback is often that to get all the great functionality you want, you need plenty of worktop space. Melitta believes it has the perfect solution – the Avanza – which it describes as one of the’smallest fully automatic coffee machines on the market.’ We put it to the test to see if it really is small and mighty.

Picking out Father’s Day gifts can be challenging, with different budgets, hobbies and interests to consider. Here are a few of our top picks for 2026, with ideas to suit all pockets. Inspired by the PlayStation character Astro Bot, this guy is guaranteed to make a gaming-fan dad smile this Father’s Day. Standing at around 20cm tall, this colourful character can stand next to dad’s games console holding his controller, or near a PC or on a coffee table with his phone while each is charging.

The Ford Escort XR3i was one of those cars that looked absolutely heroic when you were young enough not to care too much about whether it was actually any good. It had the looks. It had the badge. It had the spoiler, the wheels, the stripes and the deeply important sense that whoever owned one was probably doing better than you. Now Tolman has revealed a one-off Escort XR3i that keeps all of that glorious 1980s energy, but quietly fixes quite a lot of what we complained about at the time.