Samsung folds, Apple's gold and the greatest console story ever told

If you haven't read our round-up of the best tablets in the world yet, we'd advise you do it now, because we're about to spoil the ending.

For the first time in history, we've given the full five stars to a tablet. And no, it wasn't the Argos MyTablet. Of course the recipient was Apple's spanking new iPad Air.

As Gareth Beavis explains, it's a lovely and very powerful thing, and his review was so persuasive that we promptly spent money we didn't really have on an iPad we really didn't need. It's that good.

Put it this way: when was the last time you read a device review that talked about "joy"?

The iPad Air wasn't the only thing we lusted over this week, though. We're pretty keen on the new Nikon Df too. Angela Nicholson reckons it's "superbly retro" while boasting state of the art technology, and while it's pricey at £2,649.99 (about US$4,650, AU$4,500) - Nikon used the 99p because £2,650 would have looked expensive, ho ho - the "considerable excitement" appears to be entirely justified.

Camera dealers say that if it's as good as it looks, it will "fly off the shelves".

The greatest console story ever told

With the launch of the next generation games consoles mere days away, it's time to ask the big question: who won this generation's console wars? Was it the PS3? The Xbox 360? Or, um, the Wii? Phil Iwaniuk reckons it's the Sony console, and he's certainly convincing.

"Any fool can see PlayStation 3 ends the era victorious," he says. While Microsoft had "an open goal" in the early days, "PlayStation 3 cunningly built a wall of fantastic first-party titles in front of that goal in the six years that followed."

Not so fast, says Jon Hicks: the winner has to be the Xbox 360. The Xbox 360 is "the most influential console on the market", "king of the hill" and the bestest console ever.

Hugh Langley reckons they're both wrong. There can only be one winner, and it's the Wii. "Did it have the graphical might to stand shoulder to shoulder with the PS3 and Xbox 360? Hell no. Did it have the hardcore library of the GameCube? Nope. Did it have a stupid name? Yeah, we sniggered. And guys, it couldn't even play DVDs."

Wait, everyone! There's a twist!

The Wii did "something much, much bigger: it got the whole world playing videogames." The Wii wasn't just a souped-up version of an existing console: it was new, and different, and amazing, and it had Super Mario Galaxy. Game over!

Samsung folds

Sadly the Wii is no more, and it looks as though BlackBerry's going the same way after yet more bad news - so let's cheer ourselves up with something positive to look forward to. Say hello to Samsung and its amazing bend-o-phone.

The phone doesn't actually exist yet, but it will - and soon. As James Rogerson reports, Samsung has been showing off prototypes of devices with folding screens - so your phone could become a tablet, and maybe an aeroplane or a beautiful origami swan - and they could be on sale as soon as 2015.

We're with Rogerson, who says "it's an exciting prospect… it could also remove the need to have both a phone and a tablet if it can effectively combine the two."

It would also mean phones could be phone-sized and tablets tablet-y, heralding the end of the worst word technology has ever seen. That's right, Samsung appears to have announced the imminent death of the phablet.

Now that's something that deserves the five-star treatment.

• Catch up on previous weeks in tech