Apple : The best graphics cards 2019: all the top GPUs for gaming

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• The best graphics cards 2019: all the top GPUs for gaming
• Brother adds document translation to its devices
• CES 2020: Here's what you can expect to see at the world’s biggest tech event
• Best wireless mouse 2019: the best wireless mice on the market today
• All things database: Q&A with DataStax's Jonathan Ellis
• Project Cortex is Microsoft's push to conquer your workload
• Photoshop Camera app auto-edits your smartphone snaps so you don't have to
• Cyber threats set to increase in 2020
• Best Nikon lenses 2019: 20 top lenses for Nikon DSLRs
• Best earbuds 2019: the best earbuds, earphones and in-ear headphones for any budget
• Microsoft extends OneNote 2016 support until 2025 – and adds dark mode
• Firefox will put an end to those annoying notifications... about notifications
• Best phones under Rs 15,000 in India for November 2019
• Best wireless earbuds: the best Bluetooth earbuds and earphones in 2019
• Disney Plus streaming service launch date, app, channels, and exclusive shows
• Top budget smartphones with big batteries in India
• The cheapest Nintendo Switch bundle deals and prices in the November sales 2019
• Xiaomi Redmi K30: release date, specifications, leaks and rumors
• Best Sony cameras 2019: find the right Sony camera for you
• The best Android apps to download in 2019

The best graphics cards 2019: all the top GPUs for gaming Posted: 04 Nov 2019 02:19 PM PST There has never been a better time to be on the market for the best graphics cards. Whether you’re updating an older PC or researching the upgradable options on that new PC you're about to buy, you’re going to be looking at options like the RTX 2080 Ti and RTX 2060, powered by Nvidia Turing architecture or AMD’s recently unveiled next generation of AMD Navi GPUs or even the new Super RTX cards. However, the best graphics cards for some people might not be the best for you. Do you want to drop the equivalent of a new PC on just the GPU, like top-of-the-line flagships, or do you want a budget card that will just get the job done, like the Nvidia GeForce GTX 1660? It all depends on what your priorities are. Whatever that might be, the best graphics cards will still handle the best PC games from Rage 2 to Sekiro Die Twice. And yes, finding that perfect GPU available right now can be a confusing process so let us make it a bit easier. Each of the best graphics cards we’ve listed has been thoroughly tested here at TechRadar. So take a look at our recommendations for the best graphics cards before you break open that piggy bank. This absolute behemoth of a graphics card is still basically brand new, and it’s already topping our list of the best graphics cards, booting former reigning champion and its direct rival, the Nvidia GeForce RTX 2060, off the top spot. At $349, this powerful mid-range card brings 1440p gaming at Ultra or Max settings to the masses, making it affordable and accessible to everyone. At that price point, it doesn’t need to be perfect – those looking for ray tracing will have to wait. But, for what it offers and how much it costs, it’s well-deserving of its title as the best graphics card of 2019 for most people. Read the full review: AMD Radeon RX 5700 We just tested the Nvidia GeForce RTX 2060 Super If you need the best graphics card, and you don’t want to settle, the Nvidia GeForce RTX 2080 Ti may be one of the best graphics cards for you. This is the most formidable graphics card you can buy without jumping for a professional graphics solution. And, now that games like Battlefield V, Metro Exodus and Shadow of the Tomb Raider actually implement the RTX features, there’s never been a better time to jump on the ray tracing bandwagon. Just prepare yourself for that sky-high price. Read the full review: Nvidia GeForce RTX 2080 Ti  The souped up Nvidia GeForce RTX 2070 Super isn’t just remarkable because it’s a supercharged version of the very popular RTX 2070, offering exceptional 1440p gaming. It’s also striking because it offers all that power at a very reasonable price, making it a compelling buy for most users, even for those on a budget. Plus, if you’re wondering about ray tracing, here’s the best card to jump in – you don’t have to break open that piggy bank for the RTX 2080 or RTX 2080 Ti anymore. Read the full review: Nvidia GeForce RTX 2070 Super We've gone hands-on with the Nvidia GeForce RTX 2070 Super When Nvidia put out the GTX 1660 and the GTX 1660 Ti, they excelled at Full HD gaming at a price that wouldn't make you wince. And, now that the Nvidia GeForce GTX 1660 Super is here, both of those cards are practically irrelevant. This new graphics card is just a bit faster than the GTX 1660, but is only ten bucks or quid more, while it reaches the same level as the GTX 1660 Ti while being significantly cheaper. If you're looking for a graphics card for Full HD gameplay, you really should take a look at the Nvidia GeForce GTX 1660 Super – it really is one of the best graphics cards out there.  Read the full review: Nvidia GeForce GTX 1660 Super Image credit: TechRadar We’ve been longing for a new top-of-the-line graphics card from AMD since 2017’s Radeon Vega 64, but things have drastically changed in the graphics market since then – most notably Nvidia Turing. With the AMD Radeon VII from the Vega II lineup, Team Red has attempted to reclaim a piece of the high-end graphics market, and it largely triumphed. The AMD Radeon VII holds its own in 4K gaming, but it particularly excels in content creation. Packed with 16GB of HBM2 memory, the AMD Radeon VII can keep up with much more expensive creative-focused competitors, making it one of the best graphics cards 2019 has on offer. Read the full review: AMD Radeon VII  If you’re all about the best VR games, you’re going to need the best graphics cards to do that job. And, nowadays, that honor goes to the Nvidia GeForce RTX 2080 Super. VR-ready and filled with the latest Turing architecture, you won’t have to worry about a rough VR experience that will make you sick. Outside of VR, it should also be able to handle all your favorite PC games at 1440p and 4K without any issue. The best part might just be that it’s a lot cheaper than the RTX 2080, offering a much better value. Read the full review: Nvidia GeForce RTX 2080 Super Image credit: Zotac Looking to put together a microATX or a mini-ITX gaming PC? You shouldn’t need to settle for a low-end GPU. Take a look at mini graphics cards like the Zotac GeForce GTX 1080 Ti Mini instead. It’s not the latest and greatest GPU out there now, but the 1080 Ti still has a lot of juice, and it’s among the best graphics cards to power your microATX. And, when you can get that power in a card that’s only 211 x 125 x 41mm, the tiny loss in performance is absolutely worth the beautiful mini PC you’ll get. Image credit: Gigabyte With all those fancy (read: expensive) graphics cards cornering the market, the budget-friendlier ones sometimes fly under the radar. That’s unfortunate, particularly since cards like the Nvidia GeForce GTX 1660 deserve a spot in the limelight for delivering excellent 1080p performance at a very affordable price. With the Gigabyte GeForce GTX 1660 OC 6G, you’re also getting a healthy factory overclock and all the outputs you’ll ever need, so you can play all your favorite games with several monitors attached. We’d call that a bargain, maybe even the best we’ve ever had, and it certainly warrants a spot in our best graphics cards list. Read the full review: Gigabyte GeForce GTX 1660 OC 6G When Nvidia first revealed its Turing lineup, it was hard to find a model that didn’t cost an arm and a leg. Nonetheless, with the launch of the Nvidia GeForce GTX 1660 Ti – especially the PNY XLR8 Gaming OC model – next-generation performance became accessible to everyone. You won’t have access to 4K 60 fps gaming with this card, but it’s one of the best graphics cards for anyone still using a 1080p display, and it can handle most esports games well above 60fps. At that resolution, you’ll have trouble running into any title that it can’t handle. Read the full review: PNY GeForce GTX 1660 Ti XLR8 Gaming OC Welcome to TechRadar's PC Gaming Week 2019. We're celebrating the most powerful gaming platform on Earth with in-depth articles, exclusive interviews and essential buying guides that showcase everything PC gaming has to offer. Visit our PC Gaming Week 2019 page to see all our coverage in one place. Michelle Rae Uy has also contributed to this article. This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now

Brother adds document translation to its devices Posted: 04 Nov 2019 02:09 PM PST Brother International has announced that it will include document translations into over 90 languages directly from select multifunction printers and standalone devices. The move is an industry first and it will give the company's customers access to free machine translations 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year using a simple, user-friendly sign-up process. There are no sign-up fees, service fees or any other costs to use Brother's new document translation services which only require 30 minutes of turnaround time for up to 2,000 word documents. Why printer security should be a priority for your organization These are the best printers of 2019 Firefox will soon be able to translate web pages live Additionally, electronic files can even be translated through the service. These translations are also Secure Document Translations and Transmission ISO 27001 compliant. Brother's translations are powered by the global language company, 'thebigword', which has more than 600 staff in its global offices. Translation made easy Brother's unique device-based translations are ideal for a wide range of industries including retail, education, healthcare and government. Language localization is often the biggest hurdle when expanding into new markets and 56 percent of consumers say the ability to obtain information in their own language is eve more important than price. Brother will also offer different tiers of translations to meet the needs of every business and the company's new services can be upgraded by two levels. In addition to free machine translations, businesses can select human post-edit translations for only 14 cents per word or choose enterprise translations done by highly trained professionals with industry-specific expertise for just 19 cents per word. The enterprise tier also offers advanced file encryption to protect sensitive content throughout every stage of the translation process. Direct of product planning and B2B SMB at Brother International, Bob Burnett explained how the company's new services can help businesses overcome language barriers, saying: “Brother is proud to continue our industry leadership by including machine translation services gratis for our customers. Put simply, no one else in the market has an offering like this, and it is more proof of our commitment to customers’ digital transformation. In today’s digital age, connectivity is the key to staying competitive. But truly global connectivity often encounters language barriers. With Brother’s new translation services, however, that barrier becomes a bridge.”  We've also highlighted the best translation software of 2019 This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now

CES 2020: Here's what you can expect to see at the world’s biggest tech event Posted: 04 Nov 2019 11:53 AM PST It no longer goes by its Consumer Electronics Show monicker, but CES is still the place to see the latest and greatest tech companies have to offer, whether that’s a 5G phone, a transparent Ultra-HD TV, a personal drone that can fly you around or something completely unexpected like a robot dog. That said, while this year’s show - CES 2020 - won’t be too different from shows past, it will have a greater focus on travel and tourism, data analytics and improving customer experiences, plus the usual slew of TVs, speakers, headphones, laptops and phones - many of which will be optimized for the 5G/8K revolution. After facing blowback last year for its exclusion and revocation of an award from a sex toy company, CES 2020 will broaden the scope of its Health and Wellness sector to include sex toys 'on a one-year trial basis' and will be partnering with the Female Quotient to ensure that more diverse voices are heard at the show. Beyond the cavalcade of products, we're expecting to see a lot of conversations happening about digital health and the commoditization of personal data, two big problem areas for the industry.  Whatever kind of tech you're into, however, CES will offer something new and interesting for everyone, whether you’re deep into enterprise, stuck into future trends or just keen to see what comes next. Here's what you can expect. When is CES 2020?   If you’re going by the official dates, CES 2020 runs from Tuesday, January 7 through Friday, January 10, 2020.  That said, however, journalists will pour into the city a few days before that to cover the news conferences that kick off on Sunday, January 5 at 12 pm PST and continue through Monday and Tuesday. It’s during that time we’ll hear from Sony, Samsung, LG and several other electronics makers as they introduce us to new products at their on-stage keynotes.  Traditionally, the biggest of these keynotes happen on Monday as that’s when LG, Samsung and Sony all hold their events, but some CES-related announcements will arrive starting on Sunday night as news begins to trickle out of the conference. How do you get tickets for CES 2020?  Registration for CES 2020 is available now on the CES 2020 website, and are free for qualifying members of the media. For non-media folk, Early Bird tickets are available for just $100 if you just want access to the show floor from January 7 - 10 and the keynotes, though that price will shoot up to $300 starting on December 18, 2019.  If you want a bit more than the basic pass, you can buy the CES 2020 Starter Conference Pass that includes a curated list of events around the show’s biggest trends for $700 or the Deluxe Conference Pass that includes 14+ partner sessions for $1,400. How big is CES and where does it take place?  CES is massive and takes over the vast majority of the Las Vegas Strip and the surrounding streets. In fact, in terms of square footage, there’s 2.75 million net square feet of exhibit space between the Las Vegas Convention Center, The Sands, Mandalay Bay and The Venetian, nearly all of which plays host to the convention and its exhibitors.   Fun fact: There are around 160,000 hotel rooms in Vegas and around 180,000 attendees each year. As you’d expect given those numbers, hotels fill up fast and the roads leading to the convention center get pretty crowded that week. Thankfully, the CTA (the company that puts on the show) offers free shuttles to almost all of the major hotels on the strip from the Convention Center, and has buses running to and from the Sands between 9 and 6 pm.  All that said, be prepared to walk. The convention center itself is massive and so is The Sands. Walking either can easily take between one and two hours, and you’ll easily rack up three to four miles on your pedometer along the way. Which companies are attending CES 2020?  Pretty much every major tech company will be there, minus Apple. (You can find a complete list on the CES 2020 website.)  Confirmed exhibitors include Amazon, Canon, Facebook, Intel, LG, Lenovo, Microsoft, MSI, Nikon, Samsung, Sony and many, many more.  Now, admittedly, not everyone is there to show off new products. A fair majority of companies are there for business, while others are there to collect feedback and have a presence, rather than debut something new. That said, there will still be hundreds of new products making their debut this year in nearly every category.  CES 2020 trends and company-specific predictions  In a meeting with TechRadar, the CTA outlined a number of trends that would take center stage at this year’s show. The list included transportation and tourism (Delta Airlines have a keynote this year for the first time in the show’s history), data analytics and privacy, digital health, the global race for 5G, the consumerization of AI and, of course, 8K displays. These are rather dense, multifaceted topics and will surely be the topic of many presentations during the show. If you want hard product news, that will come from many of the same suspects as last year, all of whom are listed below.  AMD at CES 2020 We're fully expecting AMD to come out with a line of high-end GPUs next year - maybe even as early as CES 2020. In past years, AMD has taken to the stage on Monday to deliver a keynote, and could potentially do the same this year. Last year AMD showed off its first ever 7-nanometer GPU, the Radeon VII, at CES 2019, so expect big things this year. LG at CES 2020 Like Samsung, LG’s plans are easy to predict - it’s probably going to show off a new series of OLED TVs, plus give an updated release date for last year’s rollable OLED.  Speaking of far-flung TVs we can't afford, CES 2020 will probably be the place LG officially debuts its transparent OLED prototype that it was showing behind closed doors at last year's show... though it will likely only be for businesses at first. LG also uses CES to debut its new line of appliances including smart washers and dryers and nifty household gadgets like air purifiers and robot vacuums. Last year we saw a home brewing system and a smart cupboard that steams your clothes. Featuring a mirrored door with integrated display, automatically moving hangers, and a smart steaming system, it was a wildly different product than we were expecting to see at a tech trade show.  CES is also the time LG debuts its mid-range mobile phones. Last year we saw the LG V40 ThinQ, while back in 2017 LG brought the Stylus 3. Don't expect any flagship phones at this year's event,but it's Android phone fans should expect something. Nvidia at CES 2020 Now that it's been unveiled to the public, the new Nvidia Shield is all but guaranteed to make an appearance at CES this year.  Last year Nvidia revealed its GeForce RTX Mobility graphics cards at CES 2019, alongside the RTX 2080 and other cards for gaming laptops. Will CES 2020 bring more of the same? We’ll just have to wait to find out. Samsung at CES 2020 CES is always a big show for Samsung. It’s the place the company picks to roll out its latest QLED TVs, concept screens and monstrous custom-installs. Last year, the company debuted a new 219-inch TV called The Wall and gave us an updated look at its Tizen operating system that included Apple TV. This year, our money is on new QLED TVs with zero bezel - a rumor that has recently been corroborated by a patent filed with the European Union Intellectual Property Office.  On the computing side of things, Samsung debuted the Notebook Flash and Notebook 9 Pro, and could offer updates on those this year.  Samsung has also been doing a lot more with its monitors and solid-state drive categories, so be sure to keep an eye out for those at the show, too. Sony at CES 2020 Sony didn’t have a ton of new products to show off last year, but did bring its new Master Series Z9G TV to the show and debuted its new 360 Reality Audio format. We’ll likely see more of the latter this year as well as a few new TVs in the 950, 850, Z- and A-Series lineups plus some new 2.1 soundbars with Dolby Atmos.  Outside of the AV space, Sony will probably tease some PS5 news ahead of its official debut and talk up its gaming peripherals like the PlayStation VR. A full debut of the new console seems unlikely, especially considering the rough history Sony consoles have with CES, but we wouldn’t be surprised if it at least gets a mention during Sony’s Monday evening keynote.  Here's a complete recap of everything that happened at CES 2019 This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now

Best wireless mouse 2019: the best wireless mice on the market today Posted: 04 Nov 2019 11:31 AM PST The best wireless mouse can just be as reliable, accurate and responsive as any wired mouse on the market. These wireless mice on this list get our vote for the best 2019 has to offer. We’re sure you’ve got specific reasons to opt for a wireless mouse, instead of a wired one. The best wireless mice are more portable and travel-friendly, thanks to the lack of a pesky cable. A wireless mouse can also reduce clutter on your desk or on the table at the coffee shop. They even offer more flexibility and range, as you’re not limited by a pesky cable, so you don’t need to be sitting next to your laptop or computer to use your pointing device. These days, the best part about having a wireless mouse in your setup is that they are no longer limited in reliability and responsiveness. The best wireless mice on the market are just as accurate and efficient as their wired counterparts, which means that whether you’re working or gaming, they won’t fail you. If you’re shopping around for the best wireless mouse in 2019, you’ve come to the right place. And, while we haven’t tested every mouse on this list, we fashion ourselves as wireless mouse experts, and we’ve picked out five of the best wireless mice on the market right now. We’ve also included our exclusive price comparison tool, so we can help you find the best wireless mouse deal.   The best wireless mice at a glance Logitech MX Master 3 Corsair Harpoon Wireless RGB Apple Magic Mouse 2 Microsoft Bluetooth Mobile Mouse 3600 Logitech Wireless Trackball Mouse M750 The follow-up to the Logitech MX Master 2S takes the best things about the mouse and improves on them. If you’ve got the older model and have had it for a couple of years, an upgrade will serve you well. If you don’t and you do a lot of creative and productivity work on your computer, then this might just be the best wireless mouse for you. The Logitech MX Master 3 will help make your workflow more seamless, whether your work entails having several browser tabs and applications open or involves Photoshop and Lightroom for photo editing. It’s a tad pricey, but also totally worth it considering the overabundance of features – from the 7 buttons and dials to its 70-day battery life at full charge, connectivity to 3 devices, MagSpeed Smartshift Wheel and Darkfield Tracking. Plus, the Logitech MX Master 3 is also 5x more precise than your typical mouse.  The Corsair Harpoon RGB Wireless isn’t just the best wireless mouse on the market for gaming, but it’s also one of the best gaming mice out there, period. That’s mighty impressive considering that accuracy and responsiveness is key when it comes to gaming mice. It’s thanks to a hyper-fast, sub-1ms Slipstream Corsair wireless technology. It also features low-latency Bluetooth, a 10,000 DPI optical sensor and six highly customizable buttons, giving you an excellent gaming experience. On top of that, the Corsair Harpoon RGB Wireless also touts up to 60 hours of battery life on a single charge, Omron switches that will last you a lifetime with about 50 million clicks and an ergonomic design to prevent fatigue. Of course, when it comes to gaming, immersion is also just as important. Luckily, it also features dynamic RGB lighting so you can customize it with lighting presets, colors and effects. Read the full review: Corsair Harpoon Wireless  Apple’s Magic Mouse 2 might not be perfect – as you cannot charge and use at the same time – but it’s still an excellent wireless mouse, with a clean, buttonless, multi-touch design and sleek aesthetic – coming in Space Gray and Silver. In fact, that multi-touch feature alone makes it worth the investment, as it lets you perform trackpad-like functions like swiping and scrolling. If you’re invested in the macOS ecosystem, this is the best wireless mouse for you. Plus, it’s thin and light like Apple’s MacBooks, so if you’re on the go, it’s easy to slip this in the small pocket of your backpack or laptop bag. It’s not exactly cheap, but it’s worth it. Though not feature-rich – unsurprising with that low price tag – the Microsoft Bluetooth Mobile Mouse 3600 is the perfect wireless alternative to your Windows laptop trackpad, especially if you’re on a budget. It’s a reliable small mouse that skips the cable and offers up to 12 months of battery life. But beyond that, it’s also very comfortable to use thanks to its ergonomic and ambidextrous design. Its BlueTrack Technology feature allows you to use it on virtually any surface, and features a 4-way scroll wheel so you can effortlessly navigate not just up and down, but left and right as well. Of course, because it’s so small, it’s easy to stuff in your laptop bag pocket to take with you when you’re traveling or commuting. And, if that black shade is too ordinary for you, it also comes in blue and red. The Logitech Wireless Trackball M570 has its set of quirks – it’s not always easy to connect and it runs on one AA instead of a rechargeable battery – but at that affordable price, the pros outweigh the cons. Most notably, its ergonomic shape and design is constructed for users who are suffering wrist discomfort or worse, Carpal Tunnel Syndrome. On top of that key feature, you’re also getting a trackball that makes it more comfortable for all-day use and minimizes your mouse footprint (great if you’ve got a small desk). Logitech’s advanced 2.4 GHZ wireless provides a more reliable connection, and up to 18 months of battery life. The buttons are programmable as well, which helps to make your workflow more seamless.  This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now

All things database: Q&A with DataStax's Jonathan Ellis Posted: 04 Nov 2019 11:00 AM PST The Cassandra project doesn’t have a Benevolent Dictator For Life, but if it did that title would surely go to Jonathan Ellis. The co-founder of DataStax, Jonathan Ellis has been involved with Cassandra since the time it was open-sourced by Facebook. Once the project graduated from the incubator at the Apache Software Foundation (ASF), he served as its first Project Chair for the next six years.  It was difficult to tear Jonathan from his fans at DataStax’s Accelerate conference in Washington, but Mayank Sharma lured him by disguising himself as one as well. DataStax: no longer just a database company Multi-database and multi-cloud deployments are the new norm Also check out the best database design software Linux Format: You’ve always been a database guy… How did you find your way to Apache Cassandra? Jonathan Ellis: It’s true that I’ve always been interested in database technology, but I initially thought that the database space was just making incremental improvements on well-understood solutions until I joined a cloud backup company called Mozy in 2005. I built an object store there that scaled to petabytes of data and gigabits per second of throughput, and one of its features was single-instance storage. That is, no matter how many users uploaded the same video or the same binary, we’d only store one copy in the backup storage. This in turn meant that we needed a way to track which users had copies of which files – scaling to millions of users and billions of files. That’s when I realised that we needed new database architectures to deal with the challenges of web and mobile applications. Existing databases were optimised for applications that dealt with a single company’s worth of users, but now we needed to scale to an entire country. It was a very different problem that required different trade-offs.  Just a few months after Facebook open-sourced the Cassandra project, Rackspace hired me to work on the challenge of scalable databases. I got to dig deep into Cassandra and the alternatives that were starting to grow in this space, and I was really attracted to its marriage of a rich, tabular data model with a fully distributed, masterless approach to scalability and fault tolerance. As a result, I started working on the code and on building the community, and when Cassandra graduated from the ASF incubator, I became the first project chair. Getting involved with Cassandra is one of the best decisions I have ever made. LXF: I heard you once broke Facebook… is that true? JE: Actually, I’m probably one of the only people who doesn’t work for Facebook that has broken Facebook. It happened after I was made committer on the Apache project; I think the feature [which was changed] was adding support for deleting rows, which didn’t exist when Facebook open-sourced it – that’s how raw it was. So I committed that on, I think, a Friday afternoon, and over the weekend I’m getting frantic instant messages from Avinash [Lakshman, co-author of Cassandra] at Facebook: “What happened? We deployed the latest version and everything broke.” That’s how we learned how you don’t deploy from trunk, and also that CI/CD is an important part of your development chain. LXF: And you probably stopped being so cavalier about pushing changes. JE: Well, almost literally they were the only people using Cassandra at the time, and I didn’t realise that they were running from trunk. It was probably about another six months or so before we even had non-Facebook people using it. LXF: Twitter? JE: Twitter would have been, and the timeline’s fuzzy, but Twitter was one of the early ones. Digg also. Actually Digg was before Twitter, and then Twitter hired a bunch of the Digg engineers and that’s how Twitter started using it. So they were early users. LXF: When did you realise you could spin a profitable company around the database itself? JE: A venture capitalist named John Vrionis tracked me down in the spring of 2009, just a couple of months after Cassandra joined the ASF. He was looking for early-stage projects in the big data space, and we had a good talk about NoSQL databases in general and Cassandra in particular.  In retrospect, I wish I had been less timid, but I told him that I thought it was too early to start a company around Cassandra. What gave me the extra push was when an early Cassandra user went with a different, worse technology because the alternative had commercial support available. So about a year after first talking to John, I started DataStax, and John and Lightspeed Venture Partners decided to lead our series A investment round. LXF: I talked to Robin Schumacher about the kind of symbiotic relationship between DataStax and the open source Cassandra community and the positives of such a relationship. But this relationship has also created some issues right? With Twitter, for instance, back in 2010? JE: There are going to be times when the needs of the community and a business are the same, and there will also be times where what the community sees as its goals are not aligned with what the business wants to achieve. One of those times was when I stepped back from leading the Apache Cassandra Committee (PMC) in 2016 to give members of the community more scope to lead on what they wanted to create. However, we are keen to stress how committed we are to the community. At DataStax, we’re increasing our support for Cassandra, continuing to invest in improved drivers and contributing support to get Cassandra 4.0 production-ready through testing and bug fixes. Alongside the code and drivers we contribute, we want to make it easier for more developers to get started with Cassandra, so that means maintaining our documentation and hosting more events to expose people to what Cassandra can achieve and what’s new in the latest version. We believe this approach lets the community set the goals for where they want Cassandra to go in the future, while we help the community achieve those goals for more people. I think of this not as being the hand on the steering wheel but the fuel in the tank: we are not directing or leading the community where we think things should go, but helping the community get to its desired destination. LXF: In that respect, one of the themes of the conference is DataStax re-engaging with the Cassandra community. But what does that actually mean in quantifiable terms? JE: Well, I would say the most quantifiable piece is that we have a distribution of Apache Cassandra now, and so we’ve always contributed bug fixes from DataStax Enterprise back to Apache Cassandra. But it’s been on kind of a “We’ll do that when it’s convenient” kind of basis, but our incentives are a lot more aligned, now that we actually have a product that supported open source, to contribute those back in a more immediate fashion. So internally we have been setting up the processes to make that happen and make sure we’re not lagging behind in either direction. LXF: In your keynote you mentioned that eradicating complexities when rolling out a Cassandra cluster was one of the main motivations behind the announcements at the conference. But there’s more to operating a Cassandra cluster. What’s the next problem that you want to solve? JE: We could talk about Kubernetes, Kafka integration, or DataStax’s new Graph release, but the theme that ties these together is making DataStax and Cassandra easier to operate and easier to develop against. When I talk to our customers, almost none of them complain that we’re not powerful enough or fast enough or anything along those lines. Where we sometimes struggle is making that power available, understandable and consumable. The next frontier is really about making things easier, and all of those things fall into that category. LXF: You’ve been kind of firefighting since forever. People used to say that you were in the right place at the right time, that you had clients from the get-go. But you’ve also had detractors. I remember in early discussions on Slashdot people were quick to point out that Twitter doesn’t use Cassandra to save tweets. And then Facebook tried its best to say it doesn’t use Cassandra. JE: There’s kind of a nerd-politics, right? Like when you have an architect at a company that wants to do things one way, there’s like political capital there. It’s not “What’s the right technical decision”, there are egos on the line. But I think the bigger factor with Facebook or Twitter is that both of these companies have some seriously extensive tools that they’ve built and they have to manage tens of thousands of MySQL servers. So it’s a solid engineering principle. Facebook likes to say “Move fast and break things”. But if you go down to the data lair, there are some crusty greybeards there saying “No, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. You stay the f*** away from this.” The engineer in me respects that; I am not looking to go to someone and say, take what you have and throw it away and build on Cassandra because it’s new and it’s shinier or it’s cooler. If I’m not solving a problem for you then I’m fine with that: use whatever you want, use what works for you. I want to go to people for whom MySQL replication is a real pain point and solve their problems, because I can do that easier than a MySQL consulting shop. If you look at some of Facebook’s subsidiaries, Instagram is a big Cassandra user. I believe it’s their main datastore at Instagram. Netflix is another example where they went from Oracle on premises, and they said “We’re going to move to the cloud and we’re going to adopt a better database technology as we are doing that”, so they went with Cassandra. The database tent is big enough for lots of families to live in. LXF: Some Sylla marketing people stood at the shoe shine and were giving out their fluffy soft toys after asking if any of the people passing were here for the database conference. I have never seen that – it’s a big enough tent, like you said. But they’ve been doing that since 2015, right? JE: Yeah, they actually launched their product at our Cassandra Summit in 2015. They submitted a talk “How we accelerated Cassandra”, and we said “Oh, that sounds interesting, come and speak”. And they said, “Oh, we actually rewrote Cassandra”. LXF: You’ve been doing conferences based around Cassandra for almost a decade now, since the Cassandra Summit in 2010. Who is your audience this year? JE: To quote former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, for us it’s about “developers, developers, developers.” The community that exists around Cassandra is great, and we want to bring that awareness to a much bigger audience. We are excited about supporting ApacheCon this year, about the new features we’re contributing to the Cassandra drivers, and about what will happen when Cassandra 4.0 launches. We launched our inaugural DataStax Accelerate conference this year to bring the community together and evangelise about what Cassandra can do, and we’ll be expanding our range of developer events so that more people can share their experiences and learn more. You mentioned our Database as a Service in passing earlier. We’re very excited at how dramatically easy this makes it to run Cassandra. Cassandra is unquestionably a great database, but it is fair to say that you needed experience in order to make the most out of it.  In response, we’ve automated the hard parts as part of our Constellation cloud platform that’s launching this year, and we’re confident a lot of people will find this resource valuable. The growth of the cloud over the past few years has been massive, but people don’t want to be stuck with one single provider. They want to take advantage of their investments in their own infrastructure, as well as the strengths of the cloud, and get the best of both worlds. Cassandra is unique in being able to run across multiple cloud services, or across internal IT and external services, as one seamless database. As more people think about the cloud and how to make it work for them, Cassandra will play a big role in running those services at scale. LXF: Do you think it’ll be every year? JE: I think so, yeah. I think the community needs the event, and DataStax needs the event, so there’s a good alignment there to make that happen on a yearly basis. LXF: You’ve resolved the issues you had with the community? JE: Ah, I mean the issues were never really between the PMC (Project Management Committee) and DataStax, it was more the Apache Board of Directors. The short version is that we are on good terms with the PMC, and we’ll leave it at that. LXF: You’re like the Linus Torvalds of databases. JE: I’ll take that as a compliment… This interview was first published in Linux Format issue 256 We've also highlighted the best database software of 2019 This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now

Project Cortex is Microsoft's push to conquer your workload Posted: 04 Nov 2019 10:57 AM PST During its annual Ignite conference, Microsoft previewed a new Office 365 service which uses advanced AI to deliver greater insights and expertise to businesses using data gleaned from their own content. The software giant's new knowledge-management service is codenamed 'Project Cortex” and it is also the first new service in Microsoft 365 since the launch of Microsoft Teams in 2017. The goal of Project Cortex is to help organize businesses' content that is accessible in SharePoint and make it available to users in a proactive way. According to Microsoft, Project Cortex can turn customers' content into “an interactive knowledge repository”. The service is able to ingest content in a number of ways including analyzing documents and contacts but subject-matter experts can also teach the system how to better understand less structured content including information gathered from conversations, meetings and videos. Microsoft looks to secure the IoT with Azure Sphere The future of work in the age of AI Satya Nadella teases potential Microsoft 365 consumer launch New topic pages and knowledge centers will be created and updated by Project Cortex and these will essentially act like wikis for organizations. Topic cards will be available to Microsoft users in Outlook, Teams and in Office. Project Cortex An updated Managed Metadata Service lies at the heart of Project Cortex and allows for tagging across Microsoft 365. The service can also connect to third-party repositories using the new Microsoft Search connectors which are already available for Windows File Share, ServiceNow, SQL Database, Intranet Websites, MediaWiki, Azure Data Lake Gen2, Salesforce and more. Back in 2017, officials from Microsoft said that they were planning to use a personalized People search in SharePoint, powered by the Microsoft Graph programming interface, to bring the knowledge management capabilities the company had planned for its canceled Infopedia portal to the service. While Infopedia may have been canceled, Microsoft's vision to deliver a knowledge-management capability in SharePoint appears to have transferred over to Project Cortex. The service is currently in private preview but the company has announced that it will add some new customers who apply directly via the Project Cortex Resource Center. Also check out the best free software for SMBs Via ZDNet This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now

Photoshop Camera app auto-edits your smartphone snaps so you don't have to Posted: 04 Nov 2019 10:01 AM PST You might now be able to get full-fat Photoshop for your iPad, but Adobe hasn't stopped there with its software announcements – a new AI-powered smartphone app called Photoshop Camera will soon automatically edit your snaps for you. While it isn’t available to download yet, Adobe says Photoshop Camera will be free to download for iOS and Android phones in early 2020. The app uses Adobe's Sensei tech, which has already powered Photoshop features like 'Select Subject', to automatically recognize subjects in your photo and apply suitable edits. The idea is to help people who don't necessarily want to learn the intricacies of software like Photoshop, benefit from its editing powers. Photoshop Camera lets you shoot, edit and share photos all in the same app, using what Adobe calls "real-time Photoshop-grade magic right from the viewfinder". Best beginner mirrorless camera: 10 budget options for new users Best iPhone lenses: transform your smartphone photos Sony Cyber-shot RX100 VII review Hands-free editing While it doesn’t offer the depth of standalone apps like Adobe Photoshop Express, the new Photoshop Camera app does claim to offer pretty powerful, automatic editing features. These include the ability to recognize the type of photo you're taking – for example, portraits, landscapes or selfies – before applying relevant edits at the moment of capture. Like the full version of Photoshop, the app can also detect the technical qualities of your photos, including dynamic range, tonality and face regions, before applying precise adjustments. Of course, you may not always agree with the changes Photoshop Camera makes, so it'll always preserve your original shot. If you fancy taking your edits a step further, there'll also be the option of applying lenses created by artists like Billie Eilish. The full version of the app won't be available until early 2020, but if you'd like to try out a limited version and create your own lenses, you can sign up for Adobe's Photoshop Camera preview now. Adobe PhotoShop for iPad available ahead of launch This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now

Cyber threats set to increase in 2020 Posted: 04 Nov 2019 09:42 AM PST The cybersecurity firm FireEye has released its inaugural FireEye Cyber Trendscape Report, revealing that the majority (56%) of organizations believe that the risk of cyber threats will increase in 2020. To compile its report, the firm surveyed over 800 CISOs and other senior executives across North America, Europe and Asia to better understand their attitudes towards some of the most prevalent topics in cybersecurity today. Of those surveyed, half of global respondents (50%) said that their organization is not covered by cyber insurance. Germany had the second highest level of respondents without cyber insurance at 60 percent which is quite higher than in the UK (32%) and France (43%). Closing the cybersecurity skills gap Adopting AI: the new cybersecurity playbook Digital transformation is putting security at risk Fines stemming from compliance regulations such as GDPR were the second least chosen by respondents from a list of nine potential concerns and FireEye's survey found that 24 percent of global respondents identified these fines as a worry. In the UK, 39 percent of respondents said these fines were a worry, followed by 22 percent in Germany and 19 percent in France. However, the loss of sensitive data was the biggest concern globally as well as in three of the European countries that were surveyed. Cyber threats FireEye also found that lack of cybersecurity training remains an issue with one in five (21%) of German respondents admitting that their organizations lack any cybersecurity training at all. This figure is far higher than the global average of 11 percent as well as in France (1%) and the UK (10%). According to the report, one in ten UK organizations (11%) said that they don't have any cyberattack or breach response plans. This was the third highest of all countries behind Canada (19%) and Japan (15%). However, at the same time, the German response was five percent and just two percent of respondents in France said they have no plans for a cyberattack or breach response while the global average was eight percent. When it comes to emerging technologies, 86 percent of global respondents reported they had set up blockchain initiatives. However, 21 percent of German respondents said that they had not researched blockchain and do not consider it a priority. This is compared to 10 percent in France and 14 percent in the UK. In each of the three countries though, 40 percent of respondents said they had started an initiative to better understand AI and AI security. Global security strategist at FireEye, Eric Ouellet provided further insight on the report's findings, saying: “An interesting aspect of this new research is that it shines a light on the different attitudes that influence how individuals and organisations approach cybersecurity across the world. One attitude that emerged which people should reconsider is letting compliance dictate security standards when actually they should be aiming for a higher level of protection. For example, the report found that 29 percent of organisations had informal training programs on an ‘as needed’ basis that are focused on meeting core compliance requirements. It’s likely that the organisations which are taking a more comprehensive approach in this area and others are better equipped to deal with security threats.” We've also rounded up the best antivirus software of 2019 This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now

Best Nikon lenses 2019: 20 top lenses for Nikon DSLRs Posted: 04 Nov 2019 09:22 AM PST Whether you've just bought your first Nikon DSLR or you want to add something new to your kit bag, the wealth of choice available can be a little bit daunting. Fear not though, as we're here to help ensure you find the very best Nikon lens for your DSLR. The guide has been split into two different sections. First off, there's the best Nikon lenses for DX (APS-C) format DSLRs. These are lenses which are well suited - and in some cases specifically designed for - crop sensor DSLRs like the D3500, D5600 and D7500. After that, we'll be looking at lenses which are best for Nikon FX format (full-frame) DSLRs, such as the D850. You'll usually find that Nikon DX format DSLRs are typically sold as part of a kit which comes complete with a standard zoom lens. These will often provide sufficient to get you started with, but you might soon find that you outgrow them if you want to do something a little bit more specialized.  For example, you don't get a super wide angle for landscape and interior shots, while creating those super shallow depth of field effects can only really be achieved with a lens which has a very wide aperture. Macro lenses are very helpful for close-up shooting too.  While there are dedicated DX format lenses designed to be used with APS-C sensor cameras, sometimes FX format lenses are actually a better option, especially if you're thinking of upgrading to full-frame at a later date.  Independently manufactured lenses from the likes of Sigma and Tamron often give similar or even better performance than own-brand Nikon lenses You'd be forgiven for thinking that it makes most sense to use Nikon lenses if you have a Nikon DSLR. But, think twice about independently manufactured lenses from companies such as Sigma and Tamron - they often have similar, or even better, performance than proprietary optics - but usually at cheaper prices. After some rigorous testing - both in the lab and out in the real world, here you'll find the best DX lenses you'll find for your Nikon APS-C camera. We've included both our favourite picks, as well as close-contenders which suit those on a tighter budget. Best Nikon lenses for DX format DSLRs in 2019 This 'VC HLD' lens includes optical stabilization alongside a new autofocus system which is quick and quiet. Handling is great, while the high-quality build includes weather sealing and a fluorine coating for the front element. Image quality is beautifully sharp, while contrast is high. Distortions are kept under control, while there's also fairly minimal color fringing. Great-value option: Sigma 10-20mm f/3.5 EX DC HSM For about the same cash outlay as Nikon’s budget AF-P DX 10-20mm f/4.5-5.6G VR lens, this Sigma is a more refined option. It's got better build quality and delivers greater image quality, but on the downside, lacks stabilization - something which is not too problematic at this focal length. When you're pretty much reliant on autofocus, stepping back to manual focus can feel like going backwards. However, lenses like this which promise a huge depth of field thanks to a short focal length make accurate focusing less of a critical issue. To help you out, you also get a handy distance scale to try traditional focus methods for landscape and street photography - you can try setting the hyperfocal distance and 'zone focusing'. There's also high-quality glass which helps ensure the best possible image quality, with minimal ghosting and flare. Great-value option: N/A Wide-angle prime lenses for DX format cameras are practically non-existent. That means that the Samyang 10mm is not only the best choice, it’s also the best value. Typically bundled with higher-end cameras, such as the Nikon D500, this is the best DX format standard zoom lens. It's a great walkaround option with a flexible range and a wide maximum aperture that sees it well suited to a lot of different subjects. It's also beautifully built, with no less than four ED (Extra-low Dispersion) elements, plus nano-structure coatings along with fluorine coatings on the front and rear elements. Focusing is swift and accurate thanks to ring-type ultrasonic autofocusing, while the VR (Vibration Reduction) stabilization system is very effective. Sharpness drops off a little at the long end of the zoom range, while you can see some barrel distortion at the short end of the lens, but otherwise it's a great option. Great-value option: Sigma 17-70mm f/2.8-4 DC Macro OS HSM | C Relatively compact and lightweight, this Sigma has a variable yet fairly fast aperture rating and delivers impressive image quality, all at a bargain price. Take into account the 1.5x multiplier (or 'crop factor') of Nikon's APS-C models and with this lens you get an effective focal length of 52.5mm, which makes it pretty much perfect as a standard prime. This lens is also FX (full-frame) compatible, so should you find you upgrade later down the line, you can use it as a wide-angle prime, without being limited only to 'crop mode'. As for usability and image quality, you've got fast ultrasonic autofocusing system, plus a Tamron's VC optical stabilization system which is highly effective.  Great-value option: Nikon AF-S DX 35mm f/1.8G It’s less expensive to buy than the Tamron, matches it for aperture rating and delivers very pleasing image quality, but it’s not as well built and lacks stabilization. Available at a competitive price when compared with Nikon's own brand superzoom lens, this Tamron starts at 16mm, rather than the usual 18mm at the short end of its range. It might not sound like a lot, but that extra-wide-angle potential is actually very noticeable in practice. At the other end of the range, there's 300mm, which will get you nice and close to the action, too. Of course there's a compromise to be made here - that comes in the form of a little softness at the long end of the zoom range, while you'll notice some obvious barrel distortion at the short end too. Great-value option: Tamron 18-200mm f/3.5-6.3 Di II VC Remarkably compact and lightweight for a superzoom, Tamron 18-200mm makes an excellent ‘travel lens’ and is unbeatable value at the price. This lens is a tad (a lot) more expensive than cheap options like the Nikon AF-S 50mm f/1.8G. However, it is extremely nicely made and boasts an optical stabilizer that you won't always find in standard fast prime lenses. It's full-frame compatible, but on your DX format camera, it gives a focal length of 67.5mm, which makes it well-suited for portraiture. Bokeh (out of focus areas) is nicely rendered, being deliciously smooth and creamy while also keeping the subject nice and sharp. Great-value option: Nikon AF-S 50mm f/1.8G If you’re willing to sacrifice a little in terms of build and image quality, and can do without optical stabilization, this budget Nikon lens only costs about a third of the price of the Tamron. This 90mm macro lens provides a number of excellent specifications, including high-grade glass, nano-structure coating and high-quality weather sealing and fluorine coatings. The autofocus system has been optimized for close-up shooting, while the 'hybrid' optical stabilizer counteracts for axial shift (up-down or side-to-side movement) as well as the usual angular vibration (wobble). All that means that this is the best lens in its class for consistently sharp close-ups - you'll want to use a tripod though. Great-value option: Sigma 105mm f/2.8 EX DG OS HSM Macro It lacks the Tamron’s hybrid stabilization system and weather seals, but offers refined handling and delivers superb image quality. This Tamron option offers better build quality than Nikon's own DX format 70-200mm lens, while being much cheaper than Nikon's FX format 70-300mm lens - it hits the sweet spot. Here, the ring-type ultrasonic autofocus system is fast and quiet, while sharpness and contrast are well rendered throughout the zoom range. Sharpness is a little softer at the full reach of the lens, but Tamron's own optical stabilization system works well to keep your handheld shots free of blur. Great-value option: Nikon AF-S DX 55-200mm f/4-5.6G ED VR II This DX format lens is significantly cheaper to buy than the FX format Tamron, and, while it doesn’t offer as much telephoto reach, its retractable design makes it remarkably compact for stowing away. This is a lens that makes a heck of a lot of sense with DX format cameras. Try pairing a 70-200mm f/2.8 lens with even something like the Nikon D7500 and you'll end up with something bulky and unbalanced. By contrast, the 70-200mm f/4 option is about half the weight (and half the price) for much more comfortable shooting. This is still an FX format lens, so you'll be able to use it on either kind of body, which is good news for potential upgraders. Image quality is stunning, with excellent sharpness helped along by very effective stabilization.  Great-value option: Sigma 70-200mm f/2.8 EX DG OS HSM A great bargain buy, the Sigma has the faster, often favored f/2.8 aperture rating and is a very good performer, although it lacks weather seals. If you're a wildlife, sports or action photographer - this is one of the most versatile lenses you can pick up. It's fairly unusual in that it has a constant aperture throughout the range, which at f/5.6 is not too bad for the type of lens. On your DX body, the far end of the lens will give you 750mm, which may not be quite as much as using either a Sigma or Tamron 150-600mm zoom, but it's not too far behind. Another fantastic benefit is a 'Sport' mode, which makes it easier to track fast and erratically moving subjects through the viewfinder. Great-value option: Sigma 100-400mm f/5-6.3 DG OS HSM | C The maximum focal length is comparatively modest, but Sigma’s Contemporary class super-telephoto zoom is wonderfully compact and lightweight, making prolonged handheld shooting less of a strain. Best Nikon camera Best wide-angle lenses for Nikon DSLRs Best telephoto lenses for Nikon DSLRs Best super-telephoto lenses for Nikon DSLRs Best macro lenses for Nikon DSLRs Best portrait lenses for Nikon DSLRs You'll often hear it said that a camera is only as good as the glass attached to it. FX (full-frame) format Nikon bodies like the D810 and D850 certainly set the bar high, with high-pixel-count sensors that draw attention to any shortfall in sharpness. But it's also true that there’s more to a good lens than just its ability to resolve fine detail. In the real world, you'll find that handling is a key factor to consider. You'll also need accurate and fast autofocus to help you get those shots that others might miss. Effective optical stabilization can also make the difference between images that win awards, versus those that are only fit for the trash.  It's certainly not always the case that own-brand Nikon lenses outperform competitors from independent manufacturers like Sigma and Tamron It's not just about sharpness either. You also want high contrast, even when shooting wide-open at the largest available aperture. We're also keen to look for minimal distortion, color fringing as well as resistance to ghosting and flare. Reasonably low vignetting (where the corners of the image are dark) is also something to look out for. Such shortfalls can often be corrected in-camera, or in post-production software such as Photoshop - but it's always better to get it right in the first place if you can. Don't be fooled into thinking that own-brand Nikon lenses are the go-to options for best performance. Independent manufacturers like Sigma and Tamron have produced some corkers, while they generally offer much more of a bargain.  Based on our extensive lab tests and ‘real-world’ testing, we’re proud to present our top 10 lenses in a wide range of popular categories, as well as great-value alternatives to suit tighter budgets. Let’s take a closer look at all the winners. Best Nikon lenses for FX format DSLRs in 2019 This spectacular lens has a class-leading maximum viewing angle, while the 'Art' designation means that its optics are the sharpest and finest possible. In terms of design, you've got an extra-large-diameter aspherical elements at the front, alongside five top-notch FLD (Fluorite-equivalent Low Dispersion) elements. There's fluorine coatings on the front and rear elements, while weather-sealing is also included. Autofocusing is swift and accurate, while a constant aperture throughout the zoom range is another bonus. Sharpness and distortion-control are both excellent, too. Great-value option: Tamron SP 15-30mm f/2.8 Di VC USD It’s not quite as ultra-wide as the Sigma, but this Tamron undercuts it for cost, while adding optical stabilization and a faster f/2.8 aperture rating. You can trust your creative potential to Sigma's 'Art' range, which has been designed to be as sharp as possible, while also producing beautiful blurred backgrounds. The company has a large selection of f/1.4 primes to choose from, but this is the widest available (there is also a 14mm f/1.8 lens). Image quality is superb, while build quality - although on the chunky side - is nothing short of spectacular.  Great-value option: Irix 15mm f/2.4 Firefly It lacks autofocus, but this is a fabulous manual-focus lens that’s beautifully built and a real joy to use. The ‘Blackstone’ edition adds a couple of extra luxuries, but the Firefly is unbeatable value. Here's a lens which towers over most standard zoom lens - but it has the benefit of remaining the same physical length no matter where in the zoom or focus range you are. There's also Vibration Reduction, while build quality is fantastic. Lens design includes four EF elements, Nano Crystal coatings, as well as fluorine coatings on the front and back elements. Image quality is great throughout the range, but you might notice some color fringing and vignetting - both things which can be easily corrected. Great-value option: Tamron SP 24-70mm f/2.8 Di VC USD G2 The G2 (Generation 2) edition of Tamron’s 24-70mm lens combines excellent image quality with a tough build and great handling. The original edition is still on sale as well, and rather less expensive to buy. This lens is a great choice for portrait shooters working with a DX format DSLR, but it is also our favored standard prime lens for full-frame models too. You lose out a little on the maximum aperture setting, but this lens is a very manageable size and weight, while also having the benefit of optical stabilization, too. Great-value option: Nikon AF-S 50mm f/1.4G Compared with the ‘budget’ Nikon AF-S 50mm f/1.8G, this f/1.4 lens is about twice the price, but still rather less expensive than the Tamron. It’s nice and sharp, but you do forego stabilization. Travel photographers are often drawn towards superzoom lenses as it means you only have to carry one optic with you. However, when a lens like this tips the scales at 800g, it kind of loses its appeal for that purpose. That said, if you're an event or wedding photographer who finds they need to quickly - and often - switch between wide-angle and telephoto shooting, a lens like this can be a godsend. You'll have to compromise on image quality - this is a lens which is 'good' rather than 'great', but in terms of flexibility, nothing beats it. Great-value option: Tamron 28-300mm f/3.5-6.3 Di VC PZD It’s a cheaper option than Nikon’s FX-format superzoom and delivers similar image quality, but the autofocus system is comparatively basic and build quality doesn’t feel quite as good. While there are some great 85mm f/1.4 lenses on the market for portrait photographers, including Nikon’s own AF-S 85mm f/1.4G and Sigma’s 85mm f/1.4 DG HSM | A, this Tamron version offers optical stabilization (and it's also a better bargain too). With a slightly narrower aperture than its rivals, it might not have the edge when it comes to blurring backgrounds, the bokeh it does produce is beautifully smooth, while the subject remains impressively sharp. If you're somebody that shoots indoors without a flash, or in low light, that stabilizer comes in especially handy - especially if you need to shoot at narrower apertures for environmental portraits. Great-value option: Nikon AF-S 85mm f/1.8G This Nikon lens is a bargain if you’re willing to stick with f/1.8 rather than stretching to an f/1.4 aperture, although it doesn’t feature stabilization. This lens isn't cheap, but it's still a chunk cheaper than Nikon's popular AF-S 105mm f/2.8 G IF ED VR Micro lens. It also gives you a hybrid optical stabilization system which counteracts the shift in vertical and horizontal axes, as well as correcting for vibration and wobble. What that means is that sharpness is seriously impressive, especially for close-up shots. This lens proved to be a little sharper in our tests for extreme close-ups, with defocused areas being just a touch smoother, too. Great-value option: Sigma 105mm f/2.8 EX DG OS HSM Macro It lacks the Tamron’s hybrid stabilization system and weather seals, but has refined handling and delivers superb image quality. Back in the day, the 70-300mm ED lens for film SLRs which hugely popular. The later VR edition was also a big hit among DSLR shooters. This is the replacement fro those lenses, and includes newer technology, such as an AF-P (pulse) autofocus system which is based on a stepping motor. That means you get super fast performance for shooting stills, as well as smooth and virtually silent transitions for movie shooting. It also features an electromagnetically controlled diaphragm, for more consistent apertures in rapid-fire shooting using fast continuous drive mode. On top of that, you get Nikon’s Sport VR mode, which makes it easier to track erratically moving subjects in the viewfinder. However, the AF-P autofocus and electromagnetic diaphragm control make the lens incompatible with some older DSLRs, and the relatively expensive price tag stretches the notion of a ‘budget telephoto zoom’. Read our in-depth Nikon AF-P 70-300mm f/4.5-5.6E ED VR review Great-value option: Tamron SP 70-300mm f/4-5.6 Di VC USD As well as being our top pick for DX-format cameras, thanks to its good performance and relatively inexpensive price, this Tamron is also a smart budget buy for FX bodies. If you're a professional photographer, this is the lens that will be your go-to option for sports and action shots. The f/2.8 constant aperture is what many will crave, while it still retains a respectable f/5.6 aperture rating if you use it with a 2x teleconverter. Other top tricks include auto and manual priority autofocus options, a Sport VR mode, and an electronically controlled diaphragm, all of which are also featured in Nikon’s 70-300mm ‘budget’ telephoto zoom. This top-flight lens is supremely well built, however, which makes it a lot more suited to professional use. The autofocus system is super-fast and image quality is stunning, with incredible contrast and sharpness. Great-value option: Tamron SP 70-200mm f/2.8 Di VC USD G2 This directly competing second-generation Tamron’s 70-200mm f/2.8 lens is very nearly as good as the own-brand Nikon, but costs about half the price. Reasonably unusually for a Sigma lens, this offering gives you a full set of weather-seals, while there's a whole range of other high-tech specs. Auto and manual priority autofocus modes are available, and the clever zoom lock mechanism enables you to lock the position at any marked focal length, rather than just at the short end of the zoom range. Image quality is fantastic with superb sharpness and excellent contrast all the way to the maximum telephoto reach, while distortion and color fringing is kept to a minimum. Fast-moving subjects won't be beat by the ring-type autofocus system either, making this a smart choice for action shooters.  Great-value option: Sigma 150-600mm f/5-6.3 DG OS HSM | C Nearly a kilogram lighter in weight, this Contemporary lens retains many of the advanced features of the Sport edition, but is cheaper to buy and less of a strain in handheld shooting. Best Nikon camera Best wide-angle lenses for Nikon DSLRs Best telephoto lenses for Nikon DSLRs Best super-telephoto lenses for Nikon DSLRs Best macro lenses for Nikon DSLRs Best portrait lenses for Nikon DSLRs This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now

Best earbuds 2019: the best earbuds, earphones and in-ear headphones for any budget Posted: 04 Nov 2019 09:18 AM PST Best Earbuds and In-Ear Headphones Buying Guide: Welcome to TechRadar's round-up of the best earbuds, in-ear headphones and earphones you can buy in 2019. Earbuds. Earphones. In-ear headphones. Whatever you call them, they're undoubtably one of the most convenient ways to listen to your music, whether you opt for wired, wireless, or true wireless earbuds.  They used to have a reputation for sub-par audio quality, but today's best earphones, the most high quality earbuds, can stand shoulder-to-shoulder with even the greatest over-ear headphones.  True wireless earbuds have really come into their own recently, with the Sony WF-1000XM3s and the Cambridge Audio Melomania 1s joining our roundup of the best earbuds.  If you've got some money burning a hole in your pocket, you might want to check out some of the other top earbuds like Audeze's latest earphones, which cost a staggering $899 / £849 (around AU$1300 – there are plenty of cheap earphones on the market, though. Keep an eye out this Black Friday and Cyber Monday too for any last-minute sales. Of course, there are plenty of big brands making some of the best in-ear headphones, and with Apple rumored to drop its second generation true wireless AirPods 2 in 2020, there could soon be even more to choose from.  If those names don't sound familiar, don't worry - we've got information on all of the best buds and their manufacturers.  To that end, not only are the best pairs of in-ear headphones ultra-comfortable to wear for extended periods of time, but newer models can be completely wire-free and support Hi-Res Audio codecs like LDAC and aptX HD.  Our current favorite true wireless earbuds, the Sony WF-1000XM3 go one step further, combining truly wireless sound with high quality noise cancelation tech. While you won't find any discount-bin earbuds on our list, you can rest easy knowing that the 'buds you see below are durable, long-lasting and sound (for the most part) out-of-this-world. As we review more models this list will change, which means you can expect that you're getting the best headphones on the market at any point and any time you buy them.  The best earbud and in-ear headphones FAQ: quick questions answered Which brand's earphones is the best? That totally depends on what you're looking for – but we're careful with our lists. That means all of the earbud and in-ear headphones below come from brands we trust – you can't go wrong with our picks below. What are the best cheap earbuds? At least half of the buds in this list are below the $80 / $80 mark, which makes them ideal for those who need a new set of headphones but can't justify a splurge. We recommend taking a good look at the RHA MA390 Wireless, as well as the 1More Triple Drive In-Ear Headphones. If they're still too pricey for your current budget, then check out our guide to the best cheap headphones of 2019. Which is better, earbuds or headphones? It's up to you. Some people love the feel and immersive sound experience of over-ear headphones, others prefer the freedom and compact size of in-ear headphones and earbuds. It all depends on what your priorities are.  How do I keep my earbuds from falling out? Although most of the high-end in-ear buds and headphones are designed to stay put, everyone's ears are different. Which means there's still a chance they'll fall out – especially if you're running or moving. If this keeps happening, we recommend opting for a pair built with sports in mind, these tend to have better support and even a different design that anchors them into your ear better. Should I buy wireless earphones? Wireless and true wireless earbuds are a great option for those who want to listen to music on the go without the hassle of tangled cables getting in their way. However, some audio purists think that the sound quality afforded by Bluetooth connections still doesn't compete with traditional wired models. Best earbuds 2019, at a glance: 1More Triple Driver In-Ear Headphone Sony WF-1000XM3 True Wireless Earbuds RHA MA390 Wireless Cambridge Audio Melomania 1 RHA T20i Optoma NuForce BE Sport4 OnePlus Bullets Wireless 2 Jabra Elite 65t True Wireless Sennheiser CX Sports Wireless 1More Quad Driver In-Ear Headphones What are the best in-ear headphones? After spending a few weeks with both the 1MORE Triple Driver in-ear headphones and the 1MORE Quad Driver in-ear headphones we were blown away at just how much value each one gave in their prospective price ranges.  For $100 / £100 (around AU$168), it’s hard to think of a better sounding and built headphone than the 1MORE Triple Driver. That said, if you want just that little extra refinement and luxury materials, the 1MORE Quad Drivers are still a bargain at twice the price.  There’s very little we can fault the Triple Drivers for. Their rubber cable is annoying and its remote control feels cheap but these are just nitpicks. But, for their price, it’s impossible to do better than 1MORE's Triple Driver in-ear headphones.  Read the full review: 1More Triple Driver In-Ear Headphone review Considering it's still rare to get noise-cancellation in wired earbuds at all, the fact that Sony has managed to pack it into a pair that are not only wireless, but true wireless is very impressive indeed.  The Sony WF-1000X manage to offer a level of noise-cancellation that's very good for a pair of earbuds – it won't offer the same isolation as a pair of over-ear cans, but if you're after a sleek form factor then the compromise is worth it.  That being said, in spite of a few minor problems we feel that Sony has knocked the ball out of the park with the WF-1000XM3: Not only are these hands down the best-looking True Wireless headphones out there, but they combine serious noise cancelling tech with fist-pumping musicality. If you don’t want the inconvenience of carrying full-size cans, they’re a persuasive alternative. Battery life is above average, and that compact charging case is pretty slick too. On-ear volume controls similar to the PowerBeats Pro would've been nice, but again, that's really not a deal-breaker in our books. Read the full review: Sony WF-1000XM3 review While truly wireless earbuds are undoubtedly the future of portable audio, they still present compromises in battery life and wireless reliability. Plus, they’re easy to lose if you’re not careful. Neckbuds, or earbuds that are worn around the neck, are a great alternative to true wireless earbuds as they offer longer battery life for continuous listening and stronger wireless performance.  That being said, if you're interested in picking up a pair, it's hard to do better than the RHA MA390 Wireless, which easily stands as one of the best neckbuds on the market. After spending several weeks with them, we came away impressed with the package RHA has come up with: The headphones are built extremely well, have a fun sound signature, can take a beating and still remain relatively affordable.  It’s main rival, the OnePlus Bullets Wireless (featured below), are also excellent, however the RHA MA390 offer more dynamic sound and better build quality.   Read the full review: RHA MA390 Wireless review Cambridge Audio is known for its high-end audio equipment, but until now, hasn’t ventured into the world of true wireless earbuds. Enter the Cambridge Audio Melomania 1s: with an outstanding 45 hours of battery life, they combine the brand’s award-winning engineering with the convenience of truly wireless listening.  For a pair of true wireless earbuds, the sound quality offered by the Cambridge Audio Melomania 1s is sensational. In fact, it rivals some of the best over-ear headphones, which is all but unheard of for buds of this size.  They may not have the noise cancelation technology offered by the Sony WF-1000XM3 Wireless Earbuds, but they are $100 (around £80) cheaper – and have a superior battery life.  Read the full review: Cambridge Audio Melomania 1 review Good sound is subjective, yes, but there are things that we can all agree on that make a headphone sound good: Bass should be tight and impactful, highs detailed but not harsh, and mids that are smooth like honey.  Most headphone manufacturers shoot for these specs, but what if you want a little more bass or want to increase the energy of the highs? For most headphones, your only option is to mess with equalization. But RHA has a different idea.  The RHA T20i is an excellent sounding pair of in-ear headphones with a neat party trick: customizable filters. These filters thread into the headphone housings and let you choose from Bass, Treble, and Reference. Each filter makes an audible impact and are easy to swap out on the go.  As a package, the build quality, sound, and customizable filters make the RHA T20i a must-have for audiophiles on the go. In fact, they sound so good, they made us want to give up our wireless headphones. Read the full review: RHA T20i review The NuForce BE Sport4 wireless earbuds are that rare find: earbuds that are good for basically all situations. While they're specifically designed for use in the gym and on the track, the BE Sport4 do an awesome job isolating audio in a crowded city environment and are even good enough for home listening.   The BE Sport4 earbuds have claimed 10-hour battery life, which we found to be pretty close to the mark in our time with them, and from empty you can get two hours of use from just a 15-minute charge – ideal for those needing a quick top-up while they put on their trainers and pack a gym kit.  Consider this a warning shot fellow audio manufacturers: build and audio quality do not need to be sacrificed in order to keep earbuds affordable.  Read the full review: Optoma NuForce BE Sport4 review OnePlus is most known for its “flagship killer” phones like the OnePlus 7 and OnePlus 7 Pro,, but the company also makes headphones – the best example of which are the company’s excellent Bullets Wireless 2, which offer an incredible value in the neck-bud headphone category.  In terms of audio quality, they boast a lively sonic presentation and an accurate-feeling soundstage, although bass-heads may want to look elsewhere for headphones that pack a bassier punch.  They're comfortable to wear too, but it's just a shame that they don't have a waterproof rating and the inline remote is so fiddly, because otherwise they could make a decent pair of running headphones.  They may be $30 more expensive than their predecessors, but the improved battery life and sound quality makes up for that; it also makes it worth upgrading if you have the originals and are due a new pair of wireless earbuds.  Read the full review: OnePlus Bullets Wireless 2 review If you want a pair of high quality truly wireless earbuds that aren’t the Apple AirPods, then the Jabra Elite 65t should be at the top of your list.  After spending over a month with them, we came away impressed with the well-rounded package that Jabra managed to create: The earbuds offer a subtle, mature look and a reliable wireless connection, which isn’t always the case with truly wireless earbuds. Plus, they sound great compared to the competition.  While the Jabra Elite 65t are easily one of the highest scoring true wireless headphones we've reviewed, there are a few others on the market worth considering: If you want a pair of exercise earbuds, there’s the Jabra Elite Sport which has a higher water resistance and handy sports-oriented features. For audiophiles who don’t mind stretching the budget, the active noise cancelling Sony WF-1000X are an excellent choice. Bassheads will want to try the SOL Republic Amps Air.   If you only have the budget for one of these, though, go for the Elite 65t. Read the full review: Jabra Elite 65t review If the most important aspect of running earphones for you is the audio quality, these wireless earbuds from Sennheiser could be a fantastic choice.  With a lively, bass-heavy presentation, and a comfortable fit, the Sennheiser CX Sport wireless earphones can really bolster your running performance through sound quality alone.  They don't come with a heart rate monitor, but the inclusion of ear fins and sporty neon color scheme makes them ideal for casual workouts.  With a battery life of six hours, they're great for your average running session, or even your daily commute – but marathon runners will want to look elsewhere.   Read the full review: Sennheiser CX Sport Wireless earphones review They're expensive, but the 1MORE Quad Driver in-ear headphones are worth every penny. 1MORE hit it out of the park with this flagship pair of in-ear headphones with its balanced sound build quality, smartphone compatibility and price. These in-ear headphones will make mobile audiophiles very happy.  The only reservation that we have is that the Quad Drivers face tough competition from 1MORE’s own cheaper Triple Driver sibling which costs half the price (which sit pretty at the number one spot on our list).  In terms of value, the 1MORE Triple Driver headphones are the winner but for those who want just a bit better build and more detailed sound, the 1MORE Quad Driver headphones are worth the extra money.  Read the full review: 1More Quad Driver In-Ear Headphones This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now

Microsoft extends OneNote 2016 support until 2025 – and adds dark mode Posted: 04 Nov 2019 09:05 AM PST Microsoft has announced a change of heart when it comes to supporting the desktop OneNote 2016 app. Support was due to end in October 2020, but now the company says that this is being extend by at least three years. For most people, support will continue until October 10, 2023, and for anyone paying for extended support, the cut-off date is October 14, 2025. How to enable dark mode for Google Chrome The best free office software The best free alternatives to Evernote This bring OneNote 2016 in line with Office 2019, Microsoft says that the change of plan means that "You can continue using the version of OneNote that works best for you." New features incoming The good news for OneNote 2016 users doesn't end there. As The Verge reports, in addition to extending support beyond 2020, Microsoft is also going be continuing to add new features and options. Kicking things off is the arrival of dark mode, and this is rolling out to users right now. The company says: "Using OneNote in this mode can improve readability in low light environments, increase legibility of the user interface as well as your notes, provide better contrast, and reduce eye strain. You might also use OneNote in Dark Mode simply as a personal preference". For now, Microsoft isn't giving any hints about what other new additions might be making their way into OneNote 2016, but it says that "we'll keep listening to your feedback to make your OneNote better and better". Another change worth noting is how OneNote 2016 will be made available. Starting in March 2020, the OneNote desktop app will be installed along with the likes of Word and Excel for anyone with a Office 365 subscription that includes the Office desktop apps. In the meantime, you can download OneNote 2016 here. Dark mode for WhatsApp: everything you need to know This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now

Firefox will put an end to those annoying notifications... about notifications Posted: 04 Nov 2019 08:49 AM PST Firefox 72 will block push notification request popups by default. This means you'll no longer see messages asking 'Will you allow xyz.com to send notifications?' Mozilla ran an experiment to determine how people interacted with such popups, find that 97% of users either dismissed them, or opted to block future notifications. ZDNet learned from a Mozilla engineer that the plan is to roll the block-by-default option to all users. Check out our guide to the best browsers Firefox dark mode explained How to activate dark mode for Google Chrome This will be welcome news to anyone who prefers browsing uninterrupted, and is frustrated by having to dismiss popups every time they visit a new site. How it'll work While there are many legitimate reasons for sites wanting to display notifications to people – such as letting them know about new content or changes to their accounts or keep them abreast of breaking news – it is also something that is open to abuse, hence the move by Mozilla. The change doesn't mean an end to site notifications, though. From version 72 onward, instead of the current popup that is displayed, the browser will instead show an icon in the address bar, which will show the notification request if clicked. The stable version of Firefox 72 is due for release in January 2020, but the feature can already be found in Firefox Nightly. Protect your privacy online with the best free VPN This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now

Best phones under Rs 15,000 in India for November 2019 Posted: 04 Nov 2019 08:45 AM PST The Indian smartphone market has been extremely competitive, especially the segment from ₹10,000 to ₹20,000. There are so many options in the market that often it can be a bit of a challenge to choose the best smartphone for your needs. In this guide, we're looking at the sweet spot -- the best phones under ₹15,000. In 2019, most of these phones come with big batteries, notched displays and multiple cameras. Some brands have also started offering improved fast charging capabilities, just like flagships. While Xiaomi has dominated the ₹15,000 smartphone segment for a long time, players like Realme, Asus and even Samsung are giving it a tough fight now. Without wasting any more time, let's take a look at the best smartphones under ₹15,000 in India in November 2019. Amazon Great Indian Festival sale 2019: Here are the best deals and offers on smartphones The two new budget favorites compared: Realme 3 Pro vs Xiaomi Redmi Note 7 Pro Xiaomi has been delivering blockbusters upon blockbusters with its Redmi Note line up in India, and that seems to be true with the Redmi Note 8 Pro as well. After delivering massive improvements in terms of imaging with the Redmi Note 7 Pro earlier this year, Xiaomi has turned its focus to improving the gaming performance with the Redmi Note 8 Pro. Powered by the MediaTek Helio G90T chipset, the Redmi Note 8 Pro lives up to the hype and offers fluid performance. The liquid cooling tech, a massive 4,500mAh battery, 18W fast charging and the 64MP quad cameras on the back seal the deal rather well. Check out our Redmi Note 8 Pro hands-on experience Xiaomi's smartphones have been a hit in the budget segment and that trend has continued for years. However, not everyone is a fan of MIUI and Xiaomi has acknowledged that with the launch of its Android One series of smartphones. The Mi A3 is the latest in this line of smartphones. It runs on clean, stock Android and should get updates faster than other phones. It also offers a decent camera experience, an in-display fingerprint sensor and a big battery at very aggressive prices, making it a great option if you want all these features. Read our review: Xiaomi Mi A3 Realme has been gunning for the market share that Redmi smartphones currently enjoy. To this end, the company launched the Realme 5 Pro with the Snapdragon 712 chipset. The Realme 5 Pro is aimed at users who like gaming and want a good option in the budget segment. In addition to the Snapdragon 712 chipset, the Realme 5 Pro brings an interesting quad-camera setup. The device, launched just few months after the Realme 3 Pro is a good option in the budget segment. The processor is good for tasks such as gaming and the performance is very consistent too. The device, powered by a 4,035 mAh battery with fast charge support is a good option, however, ColorOS might be a issue for some. Read the full review: Realme 5 Pro After losing substantial market share to Chinese smartphone companies, Samsung is back with new devices in the Galaxy M series. The company's latest offering, the Galaxy M30s is the successor of the Galaxy M30 and comes with several upgrades over its predecessor. The main talking point is the gigantic 6,000mAh battery with support for 15W fast charging along with a USB Type-C port. Other Samsung staples such as a Super AMOLED display, an Exynos processor, triple cameras consisting of a primary sensor, an ultra-wide and a depth sensor, and OneUI all make the cut. If you are looking for a feature packed budget device that will last you a whole day, the Galaxy M30s is worth considering. Xiaomi has been dominating the budget and entry-level smartphone segments in India for a long time now. This is no different this year either - the launch of the Redmi Note 7 Pro changed the market dynamics yet again. Offering a high-resolution, premium-grade 48MP camera at budget prices was the primary clincher for the Redmi Note 7 Pro. As for selfies, the 20MP front camera grabs a decent amount of detail, and you can use the screen as a fill flash to brighten things up and even things out. Read the full review: Xiaomi Redmi Note 7 Pro Vivo, known for its camera centric device has been working on improving other aspects of its devices, such as using better chipsets and bigger batteries for its devices. The Vivo Z1 Pro, is one such device that offers an all-round device in the budget segment. The Vivo Z1 Pro is powered by a Snapdragon 712 chipset, coupled with up to 6GB RAM and 128GB of internal storage. It features a triple camera setup at the back and a 32MP selfie camera at the front. It is powered by a huge 5,000mAh battery that should easily last you a whole day. The Poco F1, which was launched as the most affordable Snapdragon 845 device in India has received several price cuts since its launch. Recently, the device received another price cut, due to the company's own Redmi K20. The Poco F1 is a powerful device and the only smartphone in the sub-Rs 15,000 segment to be powered by a flagship chipset. It must be noted that the device features a plastic build, however, this is not a big issue at its current price level. If you are looking at a powerful device with a good battery life, the Poco F1 with its Snapdragon 845 chipset and the 4,000mAh battery is worth considering. Low on budget? Consider these value-for-money phones under 12K This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now

Best wireless earbuds: the best Bluetooth earbuds and earphones in 2019 Posted: 04 Nov 2019 08:26 AM PST Wireless earbuds are one of the best ways to listen to your music on the go, whether your commuting, heading to the gym, or relaxing poolside on a sunny day the right pair of earphones will stay put and bring you quality sound. You'd be forgiven for thinking wireless earbuds aren't as good as the best headphones – that's because a few short years ago, Bluetooth wasn't the best way listen to your favorite music.  Back in the day, Bluetooth earphones didn't sound as good as their wired counterparts, suffered connectivity issues and became known for having short battery lives. Luckily, times have changed. Thanks to improvements in wireless transmission standards, such as aptX and innovations in battery technology, Bluetooth earbuds are quickly becoming the most popular way to listen to music, and many of the best earbuds feature wireless connectivity. When it comes to wireless earphones the big question is: which brands have emerged as the best when it comes to big Bluetooth improvements and the future of audio innovation?  Audio companies like Jaybird, Plantronics, Nuforce, RHA and Jabra all are great options, as they've all committed a great deal deal of time and money to improving audio quality without sacrificing battery life – and there are some good options from big players like Sony, Apple and Bose, too. Wireless vs true wireless: what's the difference? Wireless earbuds – the focus of this guide – have existed for a while now, basically since Bluetooth was invented. Though battery-powered and not physically connected to your phone, they have a cord connecting both buds – and sometimes a band around the neck too. True wireless earbuds have no cord whatsoever. While wireless allows us to wear headphones a few feet away from our music players, True Wireless cuts the cord between the earbuds, giving us true freedom. If you're looking to go full wireless, we also have a round-up of the best true wireless headphones. Read on for our top wireless Bluetooth earbuds picks.  Wireless headphones vs true wireless earbuds: which design is best for you? Best wireless earbuds, at a glance: Optoma NuForce BE Sport4 RHA MA390 Wireless OnePlus Bullets Wireless Jaybird Tarah Pro Beats X Bose QuietControl 30 ... and these are our true wireless picks: Sony WF-1000XM3 True Wireless Earbuds Cambridge Audio Melomania 1 Klipsch T5 True Wireless RHA TrueConnect Jabra Elite 65t Audio-Technica ATH-CKS5TW Beats PowerBeats Pro Samsung Galaxy Buds Apple AirPods (2019) What are the best wireless earbuds? The NuForce BE Sport4 wireless earbuds are that rare find: earbuds that are good for basically all situations, whether you're looking to take them out on a run or just wear them around town. They're ideal for exercise, although any urbanite will also find their lightweight functionality and impressive sound isolation highly appealing. If you want proof that wireless headphones can now compete with the best of them, look no further. Read the full review: Optoma NuForce BE Sport4 While they're not the kind of earbuds you'd want to bring with you to the gym, the RHA MA390 Wireless are the perfect companion for anyone looking for a home listening pair of wireless earbuds. The headphones are built extremely well, have a fun sound signature, and come at an affordable price.  Its main rival, the OnePlus Bullets Wireless, are also excellent, however we give the nod to the RHA MA390 for its more dynamic sound and better build quality.  Read the full review: RHA MA390 Wireless OnePlus is most known for its “flagship killer” phones like the OnePlus 7 and OnePlus 7 Pro,, but the company also makes headphones – the best example of which are the company’s excellent Bullets Wireless 2, which offer an incredible value in the neck-bud headphone category.  In terms of audio quality, they boast a lively sonic presentation and an accurate-feeling soundstage, although bass-heads may want to look elsewhere for headphones that pack a bassier punch.  They're comfortable to wear too, but it's just a shame that they don't have a waterproof rating and the inline remote is so fiddly, because otherwise they could make a decent pair of running headphones.  They may be $30 more expensive than their predecessors, but the improved battery life and sound quality makes up for that; it also makes it worth upgrading if you have the originals and are due a new pair of wireless earbuds.  Read the full review: OnePlus Bullets Wireless 2 The Jaybird Tarah Pro headphones are wireless sport headphones for the endurance runners, athletes and fitness nuts out there. With a neck cable to keep the earbuds together, they aren’t quite ‘true wireless’, but will be practical for those concerned about dropping and losing a costly earbud in the heat of a race or training session. As the first in Jaybird’s new ‘Pro’ range of earbuds and aimed at offering higher quality audio and materials, the Tarah Pro will suit anyone not willing to sacrifice audio quality in harsher outdoor conditions or indoor workouts and who don't mind spending a bit more to get a premium product.   Read the full review: Jaybird Tarah Pro Image Credit: Beats Beats haven't always gotten the best rap when it comes to audio performance, but the Beats X is trying to set the record straight. The Beats X hence make up for their slightly bassy, confined sound with a rock solid connection and a pairing process that, on iOS devices at least, is as painless as it's possible to be.  If you’re shopping for a no-fuss pair of earbuds that charge in 5 minutes, work well with iOS and don’t mind spending a little extra money on them, the Beats X are for you. Read the full review: Beats X Life is full of compromises, and it's no different with the Bose QuietControl 30. On the positive side you get a level of noise cancellation that comes close to what's offered by the brand's over-ear headphones, but the concession here is on sound fidelity, which just isn’t on the same level as that of other in-ear or over-ear headphones we’ve tested.  There's also that neckband which adds an unfortunate level of bulk to what should otherwise be a slimline pair of headphones.  Read the full review: Bose QuietControl 30 Or, cut the cord with these true wireless models Considering it's still rare to get noise-cancellation in wired earbuds at all, the fact that Sony has managed to pack it into a pair that are not only wireless, but true wireless is very impressive indeed.  The Sony WF-1000X manage to offer a level of noise-cancellation that's very good for a pair of earbuds – it won't offer the same isolation as a pair of over-ear cans, but if you're after a sleek form factor then the compromise is well worth it.  There may be a few minor problems with these wireless earbuds, but we think Sony has knocked the ball out of the park with the WF-1000XM3; not only are these hands down the best-looking True Wireless headphones out there, but they combine serious noise cancelling tech with fist-pumping musicality.  Read the full review: Sony WF-1000XM3 Cambridge Audio is known for its high-end audio equipment, but until now, hasn’t ventured into the world of true wireless earbuds. Enter the Cambridge Audio Melomania 1s: with an outstanding 45 hours of battery life, they combine the brand’s award-winning engineering with the convenience of truly wireless listening.  For a pair of true wireless earbuds, the sound quality offered by the Cambridge Audio Melomania 1s is sensational. In fact, it rivals some of the best over-ear headphones, which is all but unheard of for buds of this size.  They may not have the noise cancelation technology offered by the Sony WF-1000XM3 Wireless Earbuds, but they are $100 (around £80) cheaper – and have a superior battery life.  They certainly outperform the Apple AirPods, in all respects apart from the lack of wireless charging case. This is a small price to pay for that exceptional audio quality, though, and we think they represent much better value for money, too. Read the full review: Cambridge Audio Melomania 1 With their stellar sound and build quality, long-lasting battery life and what may be one of the coolest cases we've ever seen, we'd argue that the Klipsch T5s are of the best models on the market right now.. Of course, you're buying a Klipsch product because it features the signature Klipsch sound, which is warm, detailed, and never harsh. Acoustic music is lush and detailed, and the detail extends to the highs as well, allowing the headphones to sing in the higher registers without ever being sibilant.  Battery life is rated at 8 hours per charge with the case giving an additional 24 hours – that means these true wireless in-ear headphones will last you for a long haul flight, no problem.  Read the full review: Klipsch T5 True Wireless  Although the TrueConnect is RHA's first true wireless headphone, the company showed they did their research and development by making it one of the best true wireless headphones on the market today. The combination of sound quality, battery life, and wireless reliability means these are a pair of headphones you can rely on everyday.  The Jabra Elite 65t set the standard for what true wireless headphones should be and, regardless of what RHA has done here with the TrueConnect, they’re still great headphones. Compared to the RHA TrueConnect, the Jabra has more features with its useful ambient noise mode to help with situational awareness and an app that lets you tailor sound.  The RHA doesn’t have either of those features but we didn’t miss them, thanks to better sound quality and wireless reliability. The RHA also feels more like a premium product than the all-plastic Jabra.  All said, if you’re shopping for a pair of true wireless headphones, the $170 (£150, about AU$265) RHA TrueConnect should be at the very top of your list.   Read the full review: RHA TrueConnect If you want a pair of high quality truly wireless earbuds that aren’t the Apple AirPods, then the Jabra Elite 65t should be at the top of your list.  After spending over a month with them, we came away impressed with the well-rounded package that Jabra managed to create: The earbuds offer a subtle, mature look and a reliable wireless connection, which isn’t always the case with truly wireless earbuds. Plus, they sound great compared to the competition.  If you want an alternative for the RHA TrueConnect, go for the Elite 65t.  Read the full review: Jabra Elite 65t With a promising battery life and well-managed bass enhancement over Audio-Technica’s usual neutral sound, the Audio-Technica ATH-CKS5TW true wireless earbuds have a lot going for them.  They've one of the most complete and well-rounded sound profiles we've seen from true-wireless earbuds, and that's despite the claimed bass enhancement. It's a very enjoyable sound that they make. However, they are let down a bit by their fit – mileage will vary of course depending on your preferred bud style and the size of your ears, but all will find the fiddly case fit will annoy over time. Still, the quality audio here may be a worthy trade-off. Read the full review: Audio-Technica ATH-CKS5TW review The new PowerBeats Pro true wireless Beats headphones aren't exactly the earbuds analysts have been predicting, sure, but they are something special – they’re supremely comfortable, sound decent and seem to never, ever fall out.  That said, they are – in our opinion – Apple’s best true wireless earbuds to date thanks to small additions like the pressure-reducing micro-laser barometric venting hole, their longer battery life and their superior sound quality. If we had to choose between wearing these and the AirPods around the house or office, these are what we’d wear.    Read the full review: Beats PowerBeats Pro It feels as though Samsung has finally got it right with the Galaxy Buds, and they represent serious competition for the Apple AirPods in terms of design, sound, and ease of use. We loved the pearlescent effect on the buds outer housing and the sleek design of the case, and we found they felt comfortable and secure.  The sound quality offered by these true wireless buds is also very good indeed, with deep bass, and a wide open soundstage. The downside here is that other features that are available on the app like ambient noise and the equalizer presets are useful to have, but didn’t always work as effectively as we hoped. Worse, these features are also pretty much out of bounds for iOS users, as you can only download the app on devices running Android 5.0 or later.  That said, if you have a Samsung phone, the Galaxy Buds are a fantastic pair of true wireless earbuds, with a few quality-of-life features that make them stand up confidently the competition. If not, you may miss out on these additional features but the high sound quality, comfortable fit, and attractive design means that these buds could be a smart purchase, even for the iOS crowd. Read the full review: Samsung Galaxy Buds Want more cord-cutting buds? Check out the best true wireless earbuds in 2019 This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now

Disney Plus streaming service launch date, app, channels, and exclusive shows Posted: 04 Nov 2019 08:26 AM PST The Disney Plus streaming service – or "Disney+", as the platform is styling it – is set to shake up the TV streaming market for good. But in a landscape already populated with the likes of Netflix, Amazon Prime, Hulu, or the incoming Apple TV Plus, what is Disney Plus going to bring to the table? The answer is... quite a lot. Disney Plus will be an all-in-one video destination for movies, TV series, and cartoons from Disney, Pixar, Star Wars, and Marvel – packing plenty of existing movies and TV shows along with a stack of brand-new content. With Disney's acquisition of Fox now complete, we'll also be seeing the likes of The Simpsons, and even X-Men titles, come along to the service. UPDATE: What's new for Disney Plus? We've now heard that James Cameron's 2009 epic Avatar will come to the platform, filling some space in the catalogue before all these new Star Wars TV shows come out. But if even Disney CEO Bob Iger thinks too many Star Wars spin-offs are being rolled out, could those plans be changing? Netflix vs Disney Plus: which service will you choose? Still no sign of a Disney Plus UK launch How much will it cost? Explore and compare Disney Plus price and bundles While the Disney Plus streaming service has only gone live in the Netherlands – giving residents a free trial as Disney tests out its platform, before a global launch in November – we've got a good look at what Disney Plus offers so far (see our hands on Disney Plus review for more on the interface and feel of the platform). We've also been given a massive three-hour-long trailer to give us a sneak peak at the animation through the ages coming to the much-hyped streaming service. It doesn't include every launch title – the video is named "Basically Everything Coming to Disney+ in the US" – but it does demonstrate the sheer breadth of content that's going to be on offer. That content is going to be available in perpetuity as well; according to CEO Bob Iger, when you download a movie from Disney Plus, it'll continue to work even if it gets cut from the service. Read on for all the latest news on Disney Plus pricing, subscriptions, and what movies and shows will be available on the service when it launches later this year – and which lucky territories will be able to get started on Disney Plus in November. Disney Plus FAQ: quick questions answered What is Disney Plus? An online streaming platform for Disney-owned movies and shows. Yes, it's like Netflix. When will Disney Plus launch? November 12, 2019 in the US and Canada (November 19, 2019 in Australia and New Zealand). It's already live in the Netherlands. What will Disney Plus cost? $6.99/month in the US, $8.99 in Australia and Canada, $9.99 in New Zealand, and €6.99 in the Netherlands. No UK pricing announced. Where can I find it? Disney Plus will launch on iOS, Android, Apple TV, PS4, Xbox One, browsers, and Android TV. Will Disney Plus win over Netflix? It's likely both services will co-exist, given the different content offerings, but viewers may feel pressure to pick one service over the other. Here's how Disney Plus could pull ahead of Netflix – or fall behind. What Disney Plus channels are there? Disney Plus is an OTT streaming service, so doesn't have channels in the traditional sense, though it will be organized through five central verticals for Disney, Pixar, Star Wars, Marvel, and National Geographic. Our first look at the Disney Plus interface Disney Plus release date The Disney Plus streaming service will launch on November 12, 2019 in the US, Canada and The Netherlands, with launches in New Zealand and Australia on November 19. There's no UK launch date confirmed, though we expect / hope it will be following soon after.  Disney will be looking to bring the Disney Plus platform to "all major markets within the first two years", so it does look like the rollout will go wider over time (via ScreenRant). Disney Plus cost Though Disney Plus only put out its US pricing at first, we now have details about a lot more territories. Disney Plus will cost $6.99/m (around £6 / AU$10) in the US, $8.99 in Australia and Canada, $9.99 in New Zealand, and €6.99 in the Netherlands. No UK pricing has yet been announced. In fact, we have a dedicated guide talking about Disney Plus price and bundles and comparisons to other major streaming services. In the US, this means it looks like Disney has kept its promise about undercutting Netflix – at least for now. "I can say that our plan on the Disney side is to price this substantially below where Netflix is. That is in part reflective of the fact that it will have substantially less volume," said Robert Iger, The Walt Disney Company's chairman and CEO. "It'll have a lot of high quality [content], because of the brands and the franchises that will be on it that we've talked about. But it'll simply launch with less volume, and the price will reflect that." Iger also suggested that the price could rise gradually over time as the service expands, which is hardly surprising—Netflix's prices have risen alongside its pivot towards original content. Check out these Disney Plus prices and bundles However, Disney then turned heads with its plans for subscription bundle that will certainly rival Netflix in terms of cost – while possibly offering closer to the site's volume of content. The US-focused bundle will include Hulu (with ads), ESPN+ and Disney Plus for $12.99 per month – the same price as Netflix's Standard subscription. It's a good deal if you want all three services or if you live in a home with multiple age ranges who could enjoy the full range of content on offer. If you're in the UK, journalist Tom Butler pointed out on Twitter that you can already get some of the content that's planned for Disney Plus on the Disney Life app for £5 (around $6 / AU$9). But that doesn't include some of the biggest draws of the new streaming platform, like Marvel and Star Wars properties – although it does currently have past seasons of The Clone Wars. The Clone Wars is still on the Disney Life app, but will it stay there? Disney Plus app: where can you find it? Where will you be able to find the Disney Plus app? Disney has announced the list of platforms that will support Disney Plus at launch, including Apple TV, Roku streaming devices, Google Chromecast, iOS and Android, PS4 and Xbox One – as well as the Android TV platform that supports Nvidia Shield TV, Sony TVs, and Hisense TVs.  There's no sign of Amazon's Fire TV Stick on that list, but we're hopeful it will come either at launch or soon after – especially since Amazon Prime will be carrying Disney Plus shows in at least territory from launch. We caught wind of a planned Disney Plus app for Nintendo Switch – despite the trouble other streaming services aside from YouTube and Hulu have had getting onto the Nintendo Switch console – though all signs suggest that won't be happening in 2019. Will Disney Plus have 4K HDR streams? So what kind of quality can we expect from Disney Plus video streams? Apparently, Disney Plus will stream to up to four devices simultaneously in 4K resolution and HDR (high dynamic range) at no extra cost – with up to seven user profiles on the platform. Not all content is available in 4K / HDR, of course, and you'll still need a 4K TV to watch the content that is. Netflix, by comparison, requires a premium plan to get 4K / HDR streams. Even better, according to Dolby, the service will support both Dolby Vision and Dolby Atmos, making it great for cinephiles out there. Disney Plus: Marvel TV shows and films Marvel fans, rejoice: not only will you get a huge back catalogue of MCU movies on Disney Plus, but you'll also get a number of original TV series and spin-offs with some of your favorite characters. The first will be Falcon and The Winter Soldier (starring Anthony Mackie), coming in Q3 / Fall 2020, around a year after the platform goes live – so we'll have some time to wait before exclusive content really gets going.  Hiddleston-lovers will be happy to hear that next in the new Marvel line-up will be the Loki TV show, a six-episode miniseries featuring the iconic trickster and landing in early 2021 (via MTV News). We also know from San Diego Comic-Con that the series will kick off after Loki's sudden escape in Avengers: Endgame, via the Tesseract. Who knows what japes he'll get up to after that? 2021 will also see WandaVision, a spin-off following Scarlet Witch (Elizabeth Olsen) and Vision (Paul Bettany) that will tie into the events of the Doctor Strange sequel – and a Hawkeye TV show, with Jeremy Renner reprising the role. The Defenders ended too soon, but Marvel is looking to bring more "street-level heroes" to the Disney Plus platform Marvel's head of television, Jeph Loeb, has said there'll be more "street-level heroes" coming to the Disney Plus service too, with Marvel TV shows set to replace or expand on the likes of Luke Cage, Jessica Jones, Daredevil, Iron Fist, and The Defenders – all of which were axed from their home on Netflix (via Deadline). Interestingly, there's also going to be a Marvel TV show that puts a different spin on the MCU. Called Marvel's What If...?, the animated series is based on a comics series and will give fans a glimpse into what might have happened if some of the universe's biggest stories went a little differently. Like how would Agent Peggy Carter have fared if she'd taken the super soldier serum instead of Steve Rogers? At Disney's D23 Expo in late August, Marvel President Kevin Feige announced three new series – She-Hulk, Moon Knight and Ms. Marvel – that would all debut on the service, too. But there are plenty of Marvel TV shows we still want to see make the jump to the small screen. When it comes to old Marvel movie properties, we can expect those to be pulled from Netflix as soon as contracts run out before being moved across to Disney Plus when it launches. In an earnings call with investors, Disney CEO Bob Iger clarified that 2019's Captain Marvel would be the first Disney movie exclusive to the service – and we know Endgame will follow the month after launch. Disney Plus: Star Wars TV shows and films Yes, Disney owns Star Wars, with the rights to stream a large back catalogue of films, shows, and programming set within George Lucas' universe. But one of most exciting original announcement so far is that of a brand new live-action Star Wars TV series from Jon Favreau (Iron Man, The Jungle Book) who will both write and executive produce the show, called The Mandalorian.  It's not the only new Star Wars episodic content that'll be on the service early on, either. Rogue One's Cassian Andor (played by Diego Luna) will also get his own prequel TV series exploring his life before the events of the 2016 film. Even if Disney's CEO thinks there are too many Star Wars movies coming out, the TV schedule doesn't seem to be slowing down. We also now have word of an Obi-Wan Kenobi TV series, with Ewan McGregor to reprise his role from the prequel movies (The Phantom Menace, Attack of the Clones, Revenge of the Sith), and a seventh season of Star Wars: The Clone Wars animated series. But you can check out exactly what films and TV series are hitting the service in our Disney Plus Star Wars guide. Disney and Fox join forces Disney Plus: 21st Century Fox Disney's acquisition of Fox was a very, very big deal – especially for Disney Plus. Fox own the rights to a huge amount of classic television, including The Simpsons, which will see every episode in its 30-year history come to the Disney Plus streaming service. Fox also oversees the X-Men IP, which was made for some very strict stipends about what can and can't be shown in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (such as the word 'mutant' never being used onscreen). The merger could pave the way for mutants appearing in the MCU, or at the very least having some form of reboot for the Disney Plus service. Given the disappointing box office returns of the last couple of X-Men movies, it may be just what the franchise needs. We will also be getting a bunch of animated 90s cartoons of X-Men, Fantastic Four, Spider-Man, and others (via HypeBeast). Keep in mind that Sony still owns the rights to Spider-Man and a number of associated characters like Venom and Black Cat (with some of the above being somewhat lent to Marvel). What you waiting for, Disney? It's not all good news, though, as Disney has reportedly been pulling classic Fox-owned movies like The Omen, The Fly, and Alien from movie theaters in order to create more scarcity around the movies on the Disney Plus platform – and seems to be punishing people who still prefer to watch on the big screen. DIsney's live-action remake of Mulan (2020) will be coming to Disney Plus too Other Disney Plus movies, shows, and exclusives It won't all be superhero and space flicks, though. Many additional new shows and TV series have also been announced, including a new Monsters Inc. project called Monsters at Work, and a fresh take on the once-popular High School Musical franchise that, no joke, is called High School Musical: The Musical: The Series. For classic Disney lovers there'll be a live-action remake of Lady and the Tramp (landing on launch day), while '90s kids will get a new live-action Mulan that will likely come to both theaters and the streaming service. Deadline suggests that projects based on Don Quixote, Sword and the Stone, and 3 Men and a Baby are in the works, along with other projects titled The Paper Magician, Togo, and Timmy Failure. If you want to rewind the clock all the way, however, Disney says it will include every movie that's ever been locked away in the Vault, and could possibly include some of the first, harder-to-find Mickey Mouse flicks.  For younger kids there'll also be plenty of television programming from the Disney Channel, Disney Junior and Disney XD. Disney Plus will also be a home for DisneyNature documentaries, including Dolphin Reef – which will be narrated by none other than actress Natalie Portman (Jackie, Black Swan). Disney Nature works both in documentary films and animation, and will also be bringing animated feature Penguins to the Disney Plus service. All told, you can expect "thousands of hours" of Disney TV shows and films on the service, including existing content, and that new Disney, Marvel, and Star Wars films will be available to stream at some point following their theatrical releases. We recently heard that Avatar is going to be available on the service at launch, too. Will Disney Plus have classic Disney movies? Oh yes. We have word that every Disney film ever made will be coming to the service, so everything from the original Lion King to... er... the new CGI Lion King should be available on the service soon after launch. What will Disney Plus be missing? The Disney streaming service won't have content from outside of the Disney ecosystem, as far as we know. That might seem obvious enough, but services like Netflix and Hulu have such diverse offerings because of their wide partnerships and licensing deals. But, of course, Disney has plenty of content to draw from, especially if all Fox content comes onboard as well, but this will still be a very Disney-centric offering. On top of that, there won't be any R-rated or adult-oriented content on the service. That stuff will go to Hulu instead, according to a report from Deadline. Though Disney has now closed its acquisition of Fox, it's unlikely then that the R-rated Deadpool will come to Disney Plus. There's talk however of a PG-13 take on Deadpool 2's X-Force for the platform (via ComicBook). R-rated titles like Deadpool should head to Hulu rather than Disney Plus, which will be somewhat family friendly Also, the Marvel TV original series on Netflix won't be crossing over to the new Disney Plus service – as far as we know. That means the likes of Daredevil, Luke Cage, and Jessica Jones won't be rebooted on Disney Plus in their current iterations. They've all been cancelled from further seasons, but we're assuming previous seasons will continue to stay on the Netflix platform.  That's not to say Hulu might not pick up these series and run with them, or maybe they'll get a more family-friendly re-imagining for Disney Plus?  Should I subscribe to Disney Plus? We haven't tried the platform ourselves yet, so even though more information is revealed every day, it's hard to make a solid recommendation. But now details have been revealed about pricing, the early signs are certainly promising.  Disney plans to tap into its estimable vault of franchises to create exclusive and potentially compelling new content, along with creating a single streaming service for watching all of the latest and greatest movies and TV shows from across the Disney creative ecosystem. Disney Plus will have less content than Netflix, but the price is lower – and Disney Plus may prove more appealing as an add-on to your current subscriptions, rather than a full-on replacement for Netflix or Hulu. The Disney streaming service won't be as comprehensive or wide-ranging as some rivals, but Disney, Star Wars, and Marvel fans might have trouble resisting some of the original shows and movies coming down the pipeline. We're certainly excited to see what Disney Plus has in mind for the live-action Star Wars series, above all, but other projects sound compelling as well. Best TV streaming service: Netflix, Hulu and more compared Or just check out the best anime streaming service for some animated action Original reporting by Andrew Hayward. This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now

Top budget smartphones with big batteries in India Posted: 04 Nov 2019 08:07 AM PST Smartphones have come a long way from needing to be charged halfway through the day to lasting more than a day. Improvements in the battery charging technology that lets you charge your smartphone really fast are an added boon, too. However, nothing beats a smartphone that can last through a hectic day at work. Quite a few phones that go all out with their features forget to back it up with a sizeable battery. Still, there are several options in the market that fall within the mid-range or budget segment and are powered by massive batteries. Here are some of the big-battery devices available in the market. Samsung has more or less made itself relevant again in the highly competitive budget segment with the launch of the Galaxy M series earlier this year. The Galaxy M30s takes this forward with refreshed design and updated hardware. The biggest takeaway from the Galaxy M30s is its massive 6,000mAh battery that should easily last you an entire day's worth of usage. For some users, it should be possible to extend the Galaxy M30s' battery life to two days of usage. Coupled with the vibrant Super AMOLED display, ample storage and a triple camera setup on the back, Samsung might have another winner in the M30s. Image credit: TechRadar Xiaomi recently launched the Redmi 8A, the company's latest budget offering in India. Like most of its other devices, the Redmi 8A is also packed with a huge battery.   It is an entry level device and as such, does not feature fancy hardware. It is powered by a huge 5,000mAh battery and comes with 18W fast charging support, which is extremely rare for this budget. In addition to this, the device is equipped with a USB Type-C port. The Xiaomi Redmi 8A is powered by a Snapdragon 439 chipset coupled with up to 3GB RAM and 32GB of internal storage. It is equipped with a single 12MP primary camera and an 8MP selfie camera. The Xiaomi Redmi 8A is priced starting at Rs 6,499 in India and is available from Flipkart and Mi.com. The Oppo A9 2020 is a refreshed version of the Oppo A9 launched earlier this year. It offers a tweaked design with updated specifications and imaging capabilities. The primary highlight of the Oppo A9 2020 is its quad camera setup on the back. But beyond that, the A9 2020 also offers ample storage and a massive battery. If you are someone who is on the move constantly and do not want to stream a lot of content, the A9 2020 could be what you need. The ample storage allows you to save plenty of content for offline consumption, and the big 5,000mAh battery means it should last you long enough. Vivo has upped its game in the budget and mid-range segments over the last few months in India. While a few other smartphones are aimed specifically at a slightly younger audience, Vivo has tried to offer a slightly more rounded package with the Z1 Pro. The Z1 Pro is also one of the few smartphones in this price range to sport a punch hole notch. If you are looking for a smartphone that offers really long battery life, the Z1 Pro won't let you down with its massive 5,000mAh battery. The display, camera and the glossy design round off the remaining important aspects. Samsung has been trying to reinvent itself in the budget segment for a while now, and the Galaxy M series is a good testament of the company's efforts. The Galaxy M20 offers a good balance between power, performance and battery life. The Galaxy M20’s understated, minimalist design coupled with the waterdrop notch, a bright display and the massive battery help it get into this list. As far as budget smartphones with big batteries are concerned, the Galaxy M20 is right up there with the best ones. You can read our full Samsung Galaxy M20 review here Vivo is evolving. While it was known for its pricey smartphones that didn’t offer as much of a value for money as Xiaomi did, the company’s recent launches like the Z1 Pro and now the S1 mean that customers are in for a good time. The Vivo S1 features a stunning gradient design on the back, giving it a rich, premium look. Aimed at the imaging enthusiasts, the Vivo S1 also includes an in-display fingerprint sensor that adds to its advantages. Topping it off is a massive battery that should last more than a day’s usage. This, coupled with fast charging should mean you can bid goodbye to battery life woes. Xiaomi has been delivering blockbusters upon blockbusters with its Redmi Note line up in India, and that seems to be true with the Redmi Note 8 Pro as well. After delivering massive improvements in terms of imaging with the Redmi Note 7 Pro earlier this year, Xiaomi has turned its focus to improving the gaming performance with the Redmi Note 8 Pro. Powered by the MediaTek Helio G90T chipset, the Redmi Note 8 Pro lives up to the hype and offers fluid performance. The liquid cooling tech, a massive 4,500mAh battery, 18W fast charging and the 64MP quad cameras on the back seal the deal rather well. Check out our Redmi Note 8 Pro hands-on experience Samsung has been trying to reinvent itself in the budget segment for a while now, and the Galaxy M series is a good testament of the company's efforts. The Galaxy M30 offers a good balance between power, performance and battery life. Add to it, Samsung's excellent Super AMOLED display, a massive battery that can last for a couple of days on a single charge and a wide-angle camera, you have a recipe for a great phone that has a competitive advantage over its competitors. Read our review of the Samsung Galaxy M30 Xiaomi has dominated the budget and entry-level smartphone segments for a long time now. This is no different this year either - the launch of the Redmi Note 7 Pro changed the market dynamics yet again. Apart from its imaging capabilities, the Redmi Note 7 Pro offers a great bang for your buck thanks to the great display, a well-balanced chipset and battery life that we've all grown to expect from Xiaomi's Redmi Note series. Read our full review of the Redmi Note 7 Pro The Redmi Note 7S replaces the Redmi Note 7 and offers 48MP camera under Rs 10,000. It features the same gradient glass back design, waterdrop notch and a bright high-quality display at the same time. When you also consider the massive 4,000mAh battery and the updated MIUI skin, the Redmi Note 7S sounds like a very good proposition. Xiaomi's smartphones have been a hit in the budget segment and that trend has continued for years. However, not everyone is a fan of MIUI and Xiaomi has acknowledged that with the launch of its Android One series of smartphones. The Mi A3 is the latest in this line of smartphones. It runs on clean, stock Android and should get updates faster than other phones. It also offers a decent camera experience, an in-display fingerprint sensor and a big battery at very aggressive prices, making it a great option if you want all these features. Read our review: Xiaomi Mi A3 The Galaxy M10s is a noteworthy option in the sub-Rs 10,000 price segment, especially if you are looking at alternatives for Redmi smartphones. It offers a big display and an adequate battery to go with it, while still costing fairly low. While the Galaxy M10s may not offer the premium design that some other smartphones offer, the One UI and other Samsung features make up for it to some extent. The 4,000mAh battery and 15W fast charging support also add substance to this option. Realme has been gunning for the market share that Redmi smartphones currently enjoy. To this end, the company launched the Realme 5 Pro with the Snapdragon 712 chipset. The Realme 5 Pro is aimed at users who like gaming and want a good option in the budget segment. In addition to the Snapdragon 712 chipset, the Realme 5 Pro brings an interesting quad-camera setup. The device, launched just few months after the Realme 3 Pro is a good option in the budget segment. The processor is good for tasks such as gaming and the performance is very consistent too. The device, powered by a 4,035 mAh battery with fast charge support is a good option, however, ColorOS might be a issue for some. Read the full review: Realme 5 Pro The camera on your smartphone matters more than the battery? Then maybe you should be looking at our list of the best camera phones on a budget! Some people just a need a bigger screen because it make productivity tasks so much easier to execute. Here are the best 4G tablets in the market right now.  Don't care about the battery or the camera? If you're looking for a holistic phone that covers all the bases and doesn't compromise on any part of the smartphone experience, then you should be looking at our list of the top 10 smartphones that we've tested. This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now

The cheapest Nintendo Switch bundle deals and prices in the November sales 2019 Posted: 04 Nov 2019 08:04 AM PST Nintendo Switch bundles are the most in-demand console deals on the planet right now and we're here to help find the best ones for you. So if you want the console with a game or two, or maybe just on its own so you can shop for them yourself, you'll find all the best Nintendo Switch deals in this guide. Nintendo also has a new version of the console out now with the Nintendo Switch Lite. This cheaper model doesn't come with a dock or removable controllers and can only be played in handheld mode. We'll show you where to get your Nintendo Switch Lite orders below. There's also an updated version of the original Switch being rolled out nowadays too with an improved battery. That's the only change, but prices are generally the same as the older model. The old version model number was HAC-001 and the box featured a lifestyle image with a hand grabbing the console. While the new model number is HAC-001(-01) and the box has an all-red background and no hand. We're listing all of the best Nintendo Switch sales right here and we're always on the the lookout for the best bundles with extra games, controllers and other accessories so we can share them with you while they're hot. Scroll past the bundles on this page and we'll show you prices on extra Joy-Con and Pro controllers and Nintendo Switch memory cards too. If you want to play online multiplayer and get other benefits like free games you'll want to pick up a Nintendo Switch Online subscription deal too. US Nintendo Switch bundles are a bit thin on the ground at the moment, but as we get closer to Black Friday we expect that to change. In the UK this week there's more variety, but there's certainly a calm before the deals storm too. You'll find all the cheapest Nintendo Switch bundles from reliable retailers below. If you're looking for another dose of Nintendo's handheld happiness then maybe you want to consider a cheap 3DS deal too. We have a dedicated page of Nintendo Switch prices for our Australian readers too. The best Black Friday Nintendo Switch bundle deals While you can shop current offers below, you can also look forward to discounts during the Black Friday 2019 sale event. Whether you're looking for a flagship Nintendo Switch console or the slightly more budget-friendly Switch Lite, there's sure to be bundles available for you to grab your favourite games in the same package! Check back with the ultimate guide to the best Black Friday Nintendo Switch deals to be the first to know on the big day!  The Nintendo Switch Lite was recently released at just $199.99/£199.99. That's $100/£80 less than the original Switch console. If you want to play games on the TV as well, you should go for the standard Nintendo Switch instead as the Lite is only playable in handheld mode. The Nintendo Switch Lite comes in multiple colour options. You can pick one up now in turquoise, gray and yellow. There will also be a special edition Zacian & Zamazenta Edition released on November 8 to celebrate the release of Pokémon Sword and Shield. It doesn't come with the game, but doesn't cost anything extra either. If you want to learn more about the console, check out our Nintendo Switch Lite prices and deals guide. The latest cheap Nintendo Switch deals Want to know where to buy a Nintendo Switch? Check out our comparison charts and the latest bundle highlights with extra games and accessories below for the best deals. On its own, the MSRP/RRP Nintendo Switch price is $299 in the USA and £279 in the UK, so you don't want to pay more than that unless you're getting some extras. We've highlighted our picks of the best and cheapest Nintendo Switch bundles below. Just be aware that many game bundles at quieter times of the year don't really offer much of a discount over buying the items separately. We'll steer you clear of console bundles that actively charge you more than the regular combined MSRP (not cool, guys!). More retailers: Walmart | Best Buy | Amazon | Jet For the best gaming features and reviews check out a cheap Edge magazine subscription The UK scene for discounted Nintendo Switch deals is quite competitive thanks to the large number of retailers trying to get your business. We usually find a strong selection of bundles every week nowadays, even in those quieter times of year not particularly known for sales. So take a look below for discounts on packages with games, hardware and accessories. More retailers: John Lewis | ebuyer | Amazon | Currys | Argos As with any new console we imagine you're wanting to know a bit more about the console before you put any money down. So in addition to finding the best Nintendo Switch bundle deals, we're going to help bring in answers to the burning questions. What are the Joy-Con controllers? The Joy-Con controller is actually a pair of controllers that attach to the sides the the Nintendo Switch when not in use or when playing in tablet form away from the TV. When playing the Nintendo Switch on the TV, you can remove them and play with one in each hand. The left hand gets a controller with an analogue stick and d-pad, the right hand handles the one with a second analogue and the usual A, B, X and Y face buttons. Or you and a friend can use one each in multiplayer games with the d-pad doubling up as impromptu face buttons.  You get a pair with the console, but you might want to buy more to allow extra players to get involved in games like Mario Kart 8, FIFA 19 and many more. Or maybe you just fancy some different colors for your own use. Back to the top ^ What's the Joy-Con Grip controller? The Joy-Con Grip is an additional accessory that joins the two Joy-Con controllers together, forming something something a bit more solid for you to hold thanks to the extended handles and plastic block between the two sides. The square dimension form-factor may remind older gamers of the Dreamcast controller, while everyone else will mainly be thinking how it resembles an odd-looking dog face. Nintendo is providing one in the box with the Nintendo Switch, so you won't have to buy one separately. This won't charge your controller though and doesn't have a battery pack. You won't actually need a Nintendo Switch Pro controller to play any games, so don't feel pressured in to buying one. The Nintendo Switch Pro controller is a more traditional-style pad and launched alongside the Nintendo Switch. Prices aren't cheap though, starting around $69.99/£64.99. There's no sign of a Nintendo Switch Premium Edition console with one included either. Back to the top ^ Do I need to buy extra controllers for multiplayer on Nintendo Switch? Possibly not! Remember how the Joy-Con controller splits in two? Turn them sideways and you get two basic controllers, each with their own analogue stick and face buttons - the d-pad acts as face functions on the left controller. We've seen 2K's NBA series, Snipper Clips, FIFA 19, and Mario Kart being used this way for local multiplayer in both docked and tablet modes. So you get multiplayer functionality straight out of the box with no additional purchase required. However, if you want to play four-player games, then you're going to need to invest in an extra pair of Joy-Con controllers or some Pro controllers. We'd buy the Joy-Cons as a pair (see our comparison chart above) as you'll save a bit of cash over buying them separately. Better yet, if your friends own a Switch, ask them to bring their controllers to the party! Super Mario Odyssey deals This has been one of the best games on the Nintendo Switch so far and an absolute must for Mario and platforming fans. Like Zelda below though, this being a first-party Nintendo title, it's taking forever to go down in price. It's slowly happening though, so we've rounded up the cheapest Super Mario Odyssey prices for you below. If you're not getting this game in a bundle, we'd strongly advise picking it up separately as soon as possible. The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild deals The reviews have heaped huge praise upon this eagerly awaited launch title, making it an essential purchase for any Nintendo Switch buyer. As with any new console, the prices of the big games can be more expensive than usual. We've shopped around for you though and have found the best prices for The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild on the Nintendo Switch. Take a look below. Back to the top ^ With only 32GB of internal storage, you'll be wanting to pick up a cheap memory card or two for your new Nintendo Switch for any digital purchases or the inevitable game-fixing patches. Don't fret though, they're actually surprisingly cheap, with even 64GB ones coming in at under £20/$25. What memory cards does the Nintendo Switch need? Those will be Micro SD cards also known as, depending on their size, as MicroSDHC (up to 32GB) or MicroSDXC (up to a huge 2TB soon). Nintendo also has their own branded cards, but you'll be paying more just for a label. So for now, we'd take a look at this range of cheap MicroSDXC Nintendo Switch-friendly cards. Back to the top ^ This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now

Xiaomi Redmi K30: release date, specifications, leaks and rumors Posted: 04 Nov 2019 07:51 AM PST The Xiaomi Redmi K20 was a unique device that brought a lot of firsts to the market. Not only did it bring high-end specifications to a new, lower price point, but it was also Xiaomi’s first affordable flagship under Redmi. Flagships from other brands weren’t getting any cheaper, and Redmi’s entry to this space shook things up, while also starting a price war. In the post-launch press conference, Manu Kumar Jain, the VP of Xiaomi India, said that there was nothing more they could’ve added to the Redmi K20 series at that price. That’s a statement most people would agree with, considering that it shipped with the then industry-leading Snapdragon 855 chipset, brought an AMOLED display with no notch, a big battery with fast charging, a premium glass design, triple cameras on the back and a headphone jack! All of that for a starting price of under Rs 30,000. But as it is with smartphones and tech in general, making the right product is only half the story; succeeding it with an even better product in the time that follows is what shows a brand’s commitment to a product line and the market. With the bar set high, Xiaomi will need to bring another killer flagship to the ruthless sub 30K segment. Let’s evaluate how well the Redmi K30 is poised to do that. Back in October, during the Redmi 8 press conference in China, Xiaomi’s GM Lu Weibing went on to confirm that the Redmi K30 was already in development, and shared a few specifics about what to expect from their next flagship. Cut to the Chase What is it? The successor to the Redmi K20 Pro When is it out? Early 2020 What will it cost? Should start at under Rs 30K in India Redmi K30 release date in India The Redmi K30 is said to debut sometime in early 2020 and will be one of the first flagships of the year. It will eventually make it to India in the following months. A clear launch timeframe is yet to be confirmed, so we’ll have to wait for more clarity on this. The Redmi K20 series had a 6-week difference between its Chinese and Indian launch dates, and that could continue with the K30 as well. Design Not much is known about what the Redmi K30 will look like, but a teaser shared during the press conference combined with the lineup’s past gives us an idea of what to expect. The slide shows the phone to have fairly slim bezels on the sides as well as the top. While the Redmi K20 had no notch, it seems like the Redmi K30 will do away with the pop-up selfie camera mechanism in favor of a punch-hole notch with two selfie cameras. It will be Xiaomi’s first device with a punch-hole display.  The AMOLED construction and in-display fingerprint scanner should make a return. The bezel over the display also seems to house the earpiece. No renders of the back are shared, but we expect it to continue offering a curved glass panel with multiple cameras. Processor and performance The Redmi K20 Pro was the cheapest phone with the Snapdragon 855 chipset, while the Redmi K20 was the first to be powered by the Snapdragon 730. Earlier rumors suggested that Xiaomi will opt for the Snapdragon 865, but a new leak mentions that Xiaomi will opt for a MediaTek chipset this time. If the leak is to be believed, this will be the second major device by Xiaomi to be powered by a MediaTek chipset instead of a Snapdragon one, with the first one being the Redmi Note 8 Pro. The chipset’s name has not yet revealed, but it will be manufactured using a 7nm node. MediaTek has a flagship chipset in development that will be even more powerful than the Helio G90T and is expected to go into mass production later this year. Considering that the Snapdragon 865 platform is yet to be officially unveiled, it might not be ready in time for the Redmi K30, or might be too expensive in the beginning. 5G connectivity The other reason to go for the upcoming MediaTek chipset is 5G compatibility. The yet-to-be-named chipset is said to be significantly cheaper than the competition’s 5G offering, and the Redmi K30 could thus be one of the more affordable 5G flagships to come out in 2020. The phone will support Dual 5G, making it compliant with both SA (Standalone) and NSA (Non-Standalone) modes for theoretically better connectivity relying on existing LTE infrastructure where 5G deployment might not be up to the mark. The same chipset will also be available in a non-5G flavor for markets such as India where 5G could take a few more years to be mainstream, to keep the costs down. MediaTek has confirmed that the SoC will debut in European and Chinese markets in the first phase, before coming to India. Camera Redmi K20 cameras For the first half of 2018, including the Redmi K20 series, most Xiaomi phones had a 48MP primary, implementing the Sony IMX 586 image sensor. However, the following months saw them bring 64MP image sensors to the budget segment and even 108MP sensors with phones such as the Mi Note 10/Mi CC9 Pro. We wouldn’t be surprised to see Xiaomi bring one of these to its upcoming flagship.  The Redmi K20 was also the cheapest phone of its time to bring a triple camera setup consisting of a wide, an ultra-wide and a telephoto lens, completing the focal length trifecta. The Redmi K30 should logically build upon this with a telephoto lens with a higher optical zoom.  A fourth camera in the form of a depth sensor or a macro shooter could also make an appearance, as most of Xiaomi’s new phones have also pivoted to that.  As for the dual selfie cameras, expect a 32MP primary shooter alongside an ultrawide camera for groufies. Redmi K30 price in India With the Redmi K30, Xiaomi might once again move to a single smartphone, not launching a ‘Pro’ variant with better internal specifications. The only difference we might see would be a 5G variant and an LTE variant for the other markets.  The Redmi K20 Pro was launched at Rs 27,999 for the 6GB + 128GB variant and went up from that. Considering that the competition has since crowded the Rs 35K segment, the Redmi K30 is once again expected to start at under Rs 30,000 for the non-5G variant in India. Pocophone Poco F2 release date, specifications, price and leaks Xiaomi Redmi K30 to be powered by a MediaTek chipset Best gaming phones in India  This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now

Best Sony cameras 2019: find the right Sony camera for you Posted: 04 Nov 2019 07:49 AM PST Sony has a huge range of cameras of available - there's everything from affordable compact cameras to high-end professional models. Whatever you have your heart set on - we're here to help you find the best Sony camera for you. As well as its own range of cameras, Sony makes many of the imaging sensors found in fellow manufacturer's digital cameras. In its recent history, it has been the first to market with several innovations, including the first full-frame mirrorless cameras which are now very well respected and features several different lines. In an attempt to counter the success of Sony, its rivals have now followed suit. Canon and Nikon introduced its own full-frame mirrorless options last year, but with several generations worth of experience, it's Sony that continues to win acclaim among enthusiasts and professional users.  More enticing still, the fact that this mirrorless range has been around a lot longer than many of its competitors means that there are a greater number of directly compatible lenses and accessories currently available. That’s another sensible reason to specifically buy into the Sony brand. Away from the mirrorless options, Sony has also seen considerable success by placing physically larger sensors in conveniently portable design. We've got the premium RX family of compacts, which twin big-for-their-class one-inch sensors with Zeiss optics.  Throw the by-now traditional likes of travel zoom compacts and bridge cameras/superzooms into the Sony product mix, and it quickly becomes clear the brand has a camera to suit most photographic disciplines, experience levels and budgets. With such a broad range on offer, we’re offering a helping hand in your purchase decision by selecting and recommending the 10 best Sony cameras you can buy right now… Image Credit: Sony While compact cameras face increasingly stiff competition from premium smartphones, one area that compact cameras such as the WX220 still have them beat is with zoom range. This camera marries a useful 18.2 megapixel resolution with a 1/2.3-inch sensor and a 10x optical zoom. The screen is small - and isn't touch sensitive - but for a pocket - and budget - friendly camera, it's good for chucking in a bag for family vacations and trips. Video here is Full HD, rather than 4K, which is another compromise, but if cost and portability is your main concern, it remains a good choice. Read our in-depth Sony Cyber-shot WX220 review Image Credit: TechRadar It's crazy to think that we're now on the seventh iteration of Sony RX100 series, but when you consider just how popular the line has been over the years it's perhaps not hard to see why. These models are traditionally very expensive but give you the best image quality that it's possible to stuff in a pocket. The last two versions of the RX100 have seen a longer lens than ever before - and it's the same for the RX100 VII, with a 24-200mm optic reappearing from the RX100 VI. We've also got a tilt-up touch-sensitive screen, plus an electronic viewfinder that can be pushed into the camera's body for sleekness when you don't need it. Sony likes to show off exactly what it can do with its latest technology, and to that end we've got a frankly ridiculous 90fps burst speed (a much more reasonable 20fps gives you full AF/AE tracking). Other improvements come in the form of tweaks to video performance - including adding a mic input socket. If you don't need the absolute latest technology, it's worth looking back through the previous models to find an RX100 which matches your budget - such as last year's RX100 VI.  Read our in-depth Sony Cyber-shot RX100 VII review Image Credit: TechRadar The HX400V is a pretty old model now, but if your budget is on the low side and you want a super zoom option, it's worth considering. Alongside its 50x optical zoom lens, there's a 1/2.3-inch sensor, a 3-inch tilting rear-screen and a 0.2-inch eye-level viewfinder. There are some compromises to think about - for example, fairly mediocre battery life, no 4K video shooting and no touch-sensitivity, but you won't find many better options if you need a bridge camera at this price point. Read our in-depth Sony Cyber-shot HX400V Image Credit: TechRadar If your budget can stretch to it, the RX10 IV is without-a-doubt the best bridge camera on the market right now - and not just within the Sony brand. You get a 24-600mm equivalent zoom which is coupled with a large and very capable one-inch sensor. The setup is fairly bulky, but compared to carting around a camera and a slew of lenses, it's a decent option for travelling photographers who need something for all kinds of situations. As well as fantastic stills quality, you also get superb video recording too. On top of that, you get a touch-sensitive screen, plus an excellent EVF and generally very good handling. 5-axis image stabilisation comes in handy when using that long lens, but there is a slight hint of vignetting at the far egess of the frame. You can shoot both raw files and JPEGs, while a full complement of shooting options are available for enthusiast-level photographers. Bulky and expensive - yes - but sometimes you get what you pay for. Read our in-depth Sony Cyber-shot RX10 IV review Image Credit: Sony With the claim of being the world's smallest and lightest premium camera, this diminutive second-generation one-inch sensor based model now boasts the ability to shoot 4K video. As well as being super small, it's also waterproof and crushproof - putting it squarely in action camera territory. Alongside the 15.3-megapixel Exmor RS CMOS sensor, you get a Zeiss Tessar T* 24mm f/4 fixed wide-angle lens, plus a 1/32000 second shutter speed and 16fps shooting. Other useful features include Eye AF, a tiltable LCD screen and a Soft Skin Effect Mode. Finally, the fact that the kit version comes complete with a nifty VCT-SGR1 shooting grip for extra stabilisation is something we really like. Sony's A6000 was a hugely popular model for entry-level users. We had to wait for a while, but finally we were treated to an upgrade in August 2019 in the shape of the A6100. As several years had elapsed between the A6000 and the A6100, there's been quite a hefty evolution, with 24.2 megapixel sensor, a Bionz X processor and a nicely swift 11fps option. There's also a three-inch tilting LCD screen, and a very usable electronic viewfinder. We get 4K video, as well as some impressive features from elsewhere in Sony's range, such as Eye-AF. If you don't need the latest tech, it's worth considering the still-available a6000, but if you want a great all-rounder for a wide range of different subjects, the a6100 is a great choice for newbies. Read our in-depth Sony Alpha A6400 review Image Credit: TechRadar Cameras like the A6600 prove that Sony very much still cares about its APS-C models, putting some class-leading specifications inside it. You get a 24.2 megapixel sensor which is paired with an A9-level BIONZ X processor, which helps to facilitate useful features such as 11fps shooting and 4K video recording. There's a very nifty 425-point phase-detect AF system, with help from Real-time Tracking, Real-time Eye AF and Animal Eye AF. Where the a6600 diverts from the cheaper models in the Sony APS-C line-up is the inclusion of five-axis, sensor-based image stabilization, a headphone jack (along with a microphone port) as well we HDR video and Real Time AF for movies. There's also a better viewfinder, and a high capacity battery which delivers (at least) 720 frames according to CIPA rating. You do of course pay the price for all this exciting technology - the a6600 doesn't come cheap - so if you're struggling to match the budget, take a look at the a6400 instead. Read our in-depth Sony Alpha A6500 review Image Credit: TechRadar Although it could easily be described as an "entry-level" model, the Sony A7 III holds a lot of appeal for all kinds of users. It features a lot of features borrowed from elsewhere in Sony's range, including the Sony A9, so if you're looking for something which is great at a variety of different subjects but just don't to lay out a huge wad of cash - it could be the one for you, no matter your level. Specifications include a 24.2 megapixel back-illuminated sensor, as well as built-in 5-axis image stabilisation plus 4K video capture that is uncropped. The tilting rear LCD screen is touch-sensitive, working together with the range of buttons for great handling. A high resolution viewfinder is very nice to use in practice, while two SD card slots rounds out the physical specifications nicely - especially as one of them supports the faster UHS-II variety. Impressively for something considered beginner friendly, the Sony A7 III has a very speedy and advanced 693-point AF system. Put simply, this is a camera which ticks an incredible amount of boxes - especially for the price. Read our in-depth Sony Alpha A7 III review Image Credit: TechRadar Sony certainly isn't one to do things by halves when it comes to new camera technology. Jumping to a huge 63 megapixels, there's no other full-frame model currently on the market (mirrorless or otherwise) that boasts this kind of resolution. Images are output at a still-bonkers 61 megapixels, while Sony claims that the camera can deliver up to 15EV stops of dynamic range from the sensor. You also get useful functions such as image stabilization incorporated into the body, which gives you 5.5EV stops of compensation along with Pixel Shift Multi Shooting to create even higher resolution images. Rounding out the spec sheet we have 4K video recording, and superb electronic viewfinder and a useful tilting touch-sensitive screen. Ultimately, if you want the best of the best - this is the one to go for. If the budget is tighter but you still crave high resolution, keep an eye on the Sony A7R III, which still gives you 42.2 megapixels. Read our in-depth Sony A7R IV review Image Credit: TechRadar This is a camera which puts paid to the idea that only DSLRs can handle fast action. With its killer 20fps silent shooting ability - all blackout free - it's all but impossible to miss a moment with the A9. You also get a built-in 5-axis anti-shake system, and a speedy AF system that keeps up with all the action. One area that it doesn't have DSLRs beat is battery life - with an official rating of 480 shots being on the modest side, but packing an extra battery or two shouldn't be too much of a deal breaker. Other things we like include 4K video recording, a super high resolution electronic viewfinder and excellent handling. The A9 has recently been replaced by the A9 II. More of a refinement than an out-and-out refresh, we're keeping the A9 on the list for now due to its better pricing. Read our in-depth Sony Alpha A9 review Best Sony lenses Best camera Best compact camera Best mirrorless camera Best full-frame camera This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now

The best Android apps to download in 2019 Posted: 04 Nov 2019 07:48 AM PST There's never been a better time to get into Android apps, as the Google Play store has exploded in recent years, with a proliferation of titles that can cater to your every need. The problem is: there are just too many of them, even with Editors' Choice, Featured and Best Selling, Top Paid and Top Free categories there to help. You can filter, see Google's lists or read the reviews - but the easiest (and best) way to find top quality apps is to have someone else do the searching for you. That's where we come in. Like you, we want the best apps for our Android phones. The apps that are going to revolutionize functionality or, at the very least, offer something so great that it becomes one of the must-have apps that has to be downloaded whenever you get a new handset. The following apps will be constantly updated and are a mixture of paid and free ones that have been chosen by our Android experts. So, even if you do dip into actual cash for one of these apps, you can be safe in the knowledge it's a worthwhile purchase. We’ve also sorted them into categories, so you can find what you’re looking for more easily. Click through to the following pages for those or check out the best Android app of the week below. Best Android app of the week This is the latest app we've chosen to highlight, refreshed every two weeks. Our choices are usually new apps or apps that have recently received a major update, but occasionally hidden gems and other essentials will also be highlighted. Brightmind Free + $94.99/£87.99 yearly subscription Meditation apps have flourished on mobile. At this point there’s quite a large number of high quality ones, but whether you’re looking for a change or haven’t quite found one that’s the right fit yet, Brightmind could be worth a look. This Android app aims to tailor the experience to your needs more than some other meditation apps, as you can pick whether you want a male or female voice guiding you, and tell the app what your main goal with meditating is, be it to relieve stress, communicate better, or a number of other things. Doing this lets the app highlight meditation courses that it thinks are most relevant to you. Once you actually get down to meditating, you can also choose the duration of the meditation, and if you don’t want a guided experience there’s also a self-guided meditation mode, which lets you pick a duration and optionally add interval bells. Brightmind contains hundreds of meditations, but most of them require a subscription. This costs $94.99/£87.99 per year. The app supposedly also offers a monthly subscription, but we can’t work out how to access it. It does at least give you a seven-day free trial before charging you for the year though. The best Android camera apps and photo editors Our favorite Android apps for shooting, sorting and editing photos and videos. Glitch Lab Free + $6.49/£5.99 IAP Glitch Lab is a photo editor packed full of digital glitch effects. You’ve probably seen apps like this before, and the style of effects offered won’t appeal to everyone, but if you like making your pictures look a bit glitchy or retro, this is one of the most capable and versatile ways to do it. There are over 100 effects here, and many of them are customizable, ensuring that your glitches won’t look like anyone else’s. As if to demonstrate the power, it’s even possible to generate an image from scratch, building it up through a number of effects and tweaks. There’s plenty here even for free, but to get the absolute most out of Glitch Lab you’ll need to grab the Pro IAP for $6.49/£5.99. This at the time of writing adds 42 extra effects, 37 new parameters for the free effects, increases the output quality, and more. DoodleLens $1.99/£1.89 DoodleLens is perhaps a bit of a gimmick, but it’s a fun one. Simply doodle something, then point your phone’s camera at the doodle from within the app, and you can copy it and paste it on top of the world around you in augmented reality. You can also change the color of the doodle and even make very basic animations by copying multiple doodles and having the app cycle through them. You can then record and save the results. DoodleLens probably isn’t an app you’ll use often, and we found it a bit hit and miss at recognizing our doodles, but when it works it raises a smile, which is all you can really ask for at $1.99/£1.89. Pixtica Free + various subscriptions Pixtica is one of many tools hoping to replace your phone’s default camera app. Camera apps vary a lot, and their success largely depends on your phone make and model, but Pixtica is a decent option if you’re looking for something new. It’s packed full of features, including numerous filters, a GIF recorder, panorama, hyperlapse, manual controls, and oddities such as a ‘Planet’ mode, which warps images into a sphere-like shape using Pixtica’s “advanced stereographic projection algorithm”. There are all sorts of other modes too, whether you’re taking photos or shooting video, and the app is laid out intuitively. However, while many of the functions are free, you have to pay to unlock higher resolutions and to remove watermarks when using filters. The payment gets you other things too, but those are the main things that make the purchase close to essential if you plan to use Pixtica. And that would be fine, except the app opts for a subscription fee (of $1.25/£1.25 for one month with discounts for six months or a year) rather than being available as a one-off purchase. We’re not fans of paying a subscription for a camera app, but if any such app is worth it, it’s Pixtica. Scribbl Free + $5.49/£5.49 Scribbl is a photo editor that lets you add animations to your pictures. By ‘animations’ we mean basically light trails, but there are various different ways they can be animated, numerous colors you can choose, and you can pick exactly where they appear on images and how large they are. Essentially, it’s an app that does one thing but does it quite well. Once you’ve added an animation you can save the result to your phone’s gallery, ready for sharing. The basic app is free, but for either a one-off fee or a monthly subscription you can remove adverts and unlock additional customization options, as well as unlocking the ability to remove the Scribbl watermark from your creations. If you like the app this is worth paying for, but you can get a good taste of it without spending anything. Photo Watermark Free + $0.99/£0.89 monthly subscription Photo Watermark does exactly what the name suggests – it lets you add watermarks to photos – but the types of watermarks you can add are quite varied. Not only can you add custom text as a watermark (including changing the font, size and color), you can also use your signature (or any other hand-written text) as a watermark by writing on the screen. You can also apply stickers, a timestamp, a location, a mosaic effect, or ‘graffiti’ (which basically just lets you go wild on your images with a digital paintbrush). Whether you want to protect your photo or just log when and where it was taken, there should be a tool here to suit. Photo Watermark is free, but it’s quite heavy on adverts. For $0.99/£0.89 per month you can get rid of them, but unless you’re adding watermarks to a ton of images it’s probably not worth it. StoryZ Photo Motion & Cinemagraph Free + $1.99/£1.79 monthly subscription StoryZ Photo Motion & Cinemagraph is a photo editing app in two parts. The first of these is ‘Ripple’, a mode which lets you add motion to a static image by drawing the area and direction that you want the motion to happen. This can be an effective way to make it look like water or smoke is moving for example, or simply to add a slightly trippy effect to things that you might expect to be static. The ‘Motion’ mode, which lets you blend a video with a photo, leaves you with an ‘image’ that’s partially static and partially in motion. In both cases it can be hard to make the effect look convincing, but it’s doable, as evidenced by all the impressive public submissions shared on the app. StoryZ also holds contests with specific themes, such as ‘stairs’ or ‘sand’, which you can enter by submitting a relevant creation. The best ones will be featured on the home page and competition page of the app. You can use StoryZ for free, but if you find that you have more of a talent for it than we do then there’s also StoryZ Premium, which for a monthly subscription removes adverts and watermarks, increases the allowable length of videos in Motion mode, improves the toolset in Ripple mode and lets you save and share in high resolution. KineMaster Free + £2.91 (roughly $3.70) monthly subscription KineMaster is probably one of the most powerful video editors on Android, but it’s also intuitive enough that anyone could enjoy using it. The app lets you add audio and visual filters to footage, add text, stickers and other overlays, alter and trim videos frame-by-frame, adjust the speed, add transition effects and a whole lot more. You can also record videos straight from the KineMaster app. It can feel a little cramped on a phone screen, but otherwise everything works well. You can use KineMaster for free, but all your videos will have a KineMaster watermark and you can’t use them commercially. To remove the watermarks, allow commercial use and unlock additional assets (such as effects and overlays) you have to pay a subscription, but at £2.91 (roughly $3.70) per month it remains affordable. Moment – Pro Camera $1.99/£1.79 A truly great camera app arguably needs to both avoid clutter and be packed full of manual controls, so you can capture an image exactly as you want it, but that’s a tough balance to strike, and few manage. Moment – Pro Cameraarguably does though. It gives you full manual control, including RAW shooting, shutter speed, ISO, white balance, exposure compensation and focus. There’s also tap to focus, a timer, a grid and several different lenses. It’s an impressive toolkit, with the app focusing more on powerful utilities than gimmicky filters, but it all has a very clean, minimalist look. And it’s designed with ease of use in mind. You can double tap any setting to return it to auto or double tap the viewfinder to turn everything back to auto and all the controls are within easy reach. The main downside of Moment is that it can’t currently shoot videos, but for photos there’s a good chance you’ll want to replace your current camera app with this, and video is apparently in the works. PhotoDirector Free + optional subscription Your phone might have a powerful camera, but chances are it doesn’t come with much in the way of photo editing tools. Fortunately, PhotoDirector can fill in the gaps. This app lets you adjust the tone, saturation, white balance and colors of photos you’ve previously taken, as well as adding filters and effects, which you can adjust the strength of and apply to all or just part of an image. You can also add text, stickers, frames, change the perspective, mirror the image, cut sections and a whole lot more. There are lots of tools, but PhotoDirector is easy to navigate and you can always undo your changes, so you’re safe to experiment. And that’s just the editing part of the app. There’s also a built-in camera, which lets you shoot new photos with various effects and see live through the viewfinder how they will affect the image. PhotoDirector is largely free, but if you want to direct to your best there’s a premium version that costs £2.59 (around US$3.70) per month, with discounts if you commit for three months or a year. This unlocks additional tools, boosts the output quality and removes adverts. LightX Photo Editor Free + $3.69/£3.49 IAP If you want an all-in-one photo editor for Android then LightX Photo Editor is a good choice, not least because most of the features are free. You can merge photos, add effects and filters, selectively apply colors to regions of an image, adjust the color balance, smooth and sharpen images, crop them, rotate them, draw on them, add frames and stickers, add text, create collages and a whole lot more. That’s all handled through an intuitive interface; bring up the main menu with a tap, select the category of edits you want to make (filters or frames, for example) and you’ll be taken to a menu with all the relevant options. Most of it is fairly self-explanatory, but there are also tutorial videos for if you get stuck, and for a one-off $3.69/£3.49 IAP you can get rid of adverts, unlock additional stickers and frames, and add the ability to save images in PNG format. SKRWT $1.49/£1.39 There are plenty of photo editing apps, but while most offer filters and effects few allow you to alter the perspective of a photo in the way SKRWT does. There are no stickers here, no makeup modes and no real effects. Instead there are tools to shift the perspective, change the ratio and correct lens distortion. You can also flip, rotate, mirror and crop images, but SKRWT isn't interested so much in modifying photos in unnatural ways, as in making them look exactly as you envisioned when you took them. It's a professional tool, but it's easy to use and you can always undo your changes if you don't like them. Our favorite Android apps for painting, drawing, sketching, design and animation. Tattoodo Free + $5.99/£4.59 per month Tattoodo at its heart is a tattoo search engine, letting you search through millions of tattoo images, images that you can filter based on style, motifs or artist. As well as searching and browsing you can also follow artists, so their latest work will pop up in your feed, and you can save images to boards, so you can build up a library of designs that you like. If you have tattoos already and feel like sharing them with the world then images of them can be added to the app, and you can even book tattoo appointments and get free consultations through the app. If you’re a tattoo artist then you can add your store and designs and potentially find new customers through the app too. It’s completely free if you’re looking for or at tattoos, but if you’re an artist and want to get bookings through the app you’ll need to pay for a $5.99/£4.59 monthly subscription. Houzz Free Houzz is a one-stop app for decorating and furnishing your home. The app has numerous different sections, including a database of over 19 million photos to give you decor ideas, which can be filtered based on style, room and other things. These images can also be sketched on and shared. Houzz lets you buy millions of products (such as furniture) and materials from within the app, and there’s a tool that lets you use augmented reality to see how a product would look in your home. There are articles and videos related to remodelling and improving your home, too. You can find and hire interior decorators, architects and other professionals within the app, and there’s a community where users can ask and answer questions. Houzz isn’t an app that everyone needs on their phone, but it is one that’s definitely worth looking at if you’re considering redecorating or making other home improvements. Over Free + $59.99/£54.99 per year Over is designed primarily for adding text to images, which you might want to do if you’re making a poster or Instagram post, for example. The app lets you select from a wide range of canvas sizes, including some created specifically for different social media purposes, such as Facebook cover photos. Then you can add images, text and graphics. For images you can adjust the exposure, contrast and various other things; for text you can choose from a range of fonts, alignments and colors; and for graphics you can select from a range of pre-made designs, then adjust color, position and the like. Projects can have multiple layers, and when you’re done you can save the result as a JPG or PNG, or share it. It’s a handy app and everything that we’ve described so far is free, but for an admittedly hefty $59.99/£54.99 per year you get access to an ever-growing library of templates, hundreds of extra fonts, far more graphics and the promise of additional features in future. For the average user this probably isn’t necessary, but if you’re using it for work or need to combine images and text regularly then it could be worth the outlay. Draw.ai Free + various IAP Digital devices seem an ideal fit for drawing tutorials, yet few drawing apps seem to take advantage of them. Instead they often assume you already know what you’re doing or will learn outside the app, while many of the ones that do teach you rely on static images and text, but Draw.ai is more interactive. While not a comprehensive guide to drawing, it offers a large assortment of images and guides you towards recreating each one step by step, one line at a time. By which we mean the app will draw a line or two from the image, then make it appear faint so you can draw the same thing over it. This continues until the image is complete, after which you’re free to color it (without a guide). Once you’re finished, Draw.ai will show a short video of the entire process you went through. The actual drawing tools are more limited than some apps, but there is at least a handy undo button that erases the last line you drew or change you made – something beginners will be making use of a lot. Many of the images are free and more are added all the time, but to access everything you’ll have to pay a $5.99/£5.49 weekly subscription (with big discounts available if you pay monthly or yearly instead – you can get a full year for $59.99/£52.99). Sketch - Draw & Paint Free + various IAP Sketch – Draw & Paint is a photo editor, sketching app and art community all in one, and while it’s not the deepest option for any of those things, it’s fun and easy to use. On the sketching side you get a variety of different pen and brush types of different sizes and colors, along with the ability to add text and stickers and some basic tools, such as a ruler and layers. You can either start with a blank canvas or take or import a photo, which brings us to the photo editing aspect of Sketch, an aspect which relies on the same set of tools. As for the community, Sketch lets you upload your creations and share them with other Sketch users, as you can also browse through people’s artworks. There are categories for this, including ‘trending’ and ‘newcomers’, or you can just search for something specific. You can comment on or like any of the shared artworks, and follow their creator so you can more easily keep track of any other work they produce. The actual quality of work in the community is varied, but that means it should be less intimidating to share your own. Sketch – Draw & Paint is mostly free, but you can buy extra sticker packs or for £0.99 (around US$1.30) per month subscribe to Sketch Premium to unlock all the stickers, remove adverts, get a transparent background and be able to use a custom canvas size. Desygner Free + $7.49/£5.99 subscription Desygner lets you unleash your inner graphic designer on your phone or tablet, but with an intuitive interface and thousands of templates it’s simple enough for beginners to use. You can combine text, shapes, images, stickers, backgrounds and more to create logos, posters, adverts, PowerPoint-like presentations, postcards or any number of other things where images and typography are important. Each component of your design can be moved, resized, rotated, flipped, duplicated or have its color changed, and you can work with multiple layers. Results can then be saved to your device to be used wherever you want. We suspect it might be a bit limited for professional graphic designers, who may want more freedom to completely create designs from scratch, but for everyone else Desygner is a great way to make something that looks professional. The basic app is free but certain features, as well as the majority of the templates, require a monthly subscription which costs $7.49/£5.99. That’s probably worth it if you’re going to use the app semi-regularly, but if you just want to design something as a one-off you might find the free version good enough. Infinite Painter $7.99/£6.99 There’s no shortage of apps for digital artists, but Infinite Painter is one of the most feature-packed, with dozens of brush presets and the ability to create your own, along with layers, blending, editing tools and more, plus the option to export your images as JPEG, PNG, PSD or ZIP. But as well as being packed full of features, Infinite Painter also takes the time to show you how they all work, with detailed tutorials and guides, although the interface is so simple that you should be able to muddle your way through most things anyway. A lot of the features are hidden behind a paywall, with it costing $7.99/£6.99 to unlock everything, but the app includes a free seven-day trial, letting you try everything out before you decide whether you want to put money down, which if you’re a fan of digital art you probably will, because you get a lot for your money. Our favorite Android apps for learning new things, from history to music to coding and beyond. Time Immersive Free Smartphones have the potential to give us new, more engaging and immersive ways to interact with journalism, and with Time Immersive, Time is exploring that potential. The app contains Time stories that are engagingly narrated and instead of looking at flat photos or videos, you can view the subject of the story in full augmented reality (AR) or virtual reality (VR). For the former, all you need is a compatible phone (which many are) and a flat surface, which you can then project – for example – a section of the Amazon rainforest onto. Viewing it from above, you can rotate your phone and move it closer or further to get a different perspective while listening to the Time story. Then, tap on points of interest for additional spoken content alongside a relevant photo or video. If you have a Cardboard VR viewer then you can get even more immersed, viewing the area almost as if you were there. At the time of writing the only available content is focused on the Amazon rainforest and the moon landing, but it’s well made, and more is promised. Elements of Photography Free + various IAP Thanks to smartphones, most of us now have a fairly capable and versatile digital camera in our pockets at all times, but many of us won’t know how to get the most out of it. That’s not necessarily a huge problem – phone cameras are typically designed to work well when you just point and shoot, but if you do want to take your photography to the next level then something like Elements of Photography can help. This app contains a number of tutorials that guide you through the various principles of photography, from basics like shutter speed and composition to more advanced lessons. Elements of Photography keeps things bite-sized and engaging by using small chunks of text and plenty of images rather than walls of explanation or time-consuming videos. You also get tips, tools (such as a depth of field calculator) and a quiz, though these, along with many of the tutorials, are hidden behind IAP. Still, unlocking everything only costs $7.99/£5.49, and there’s enough free content that you should be able to decide whether the rest is worth the money. Fluent Forever £8.99/$9.99 per month Fluent Forever is one of a growing number of language apps, but whereas most aim to gamify the learning process, Fluent Forever is rather more serious in its approach. That might make it feel a bit less accessible, but if you’re serious about learning a language then it could also work better, especially if the likes of Duolingo aren’t doing the trick for you. There are numerous different exercises in the app, along with explainer videos, but one of its core features is personalized flash cards, which let you select a card with an image of your choice for each word you’re trying to learn. That, along with pronunciation lessons, and a focus on only the words and grammar that are important to you, could be the trick to making you fluent forever. At the time of writing, the app supports French, German, Italian, Korean, Portuguese, Russian and Spanish. It costs £8.99/$9.99 per month, but there’s a two-week free trial. SmartPlant Free + $3.99/£3.99 per month There’s more to looking after many plants than putting them in the sun and giving them the occasional sip of water. Some need watering more often than others, some have different temperature or lighting requirements, some even require pruning or other care and attention. Knowing exactly what any given plant needs isn’t always easy though and we’re sure we’re not alone in wondering why plants we thought we’d looked after well had died. But with SmartPlant you don’t need to wonder any more, and you’re more likely to keep your plants alive in the first place. The app lets you build a database of any and all plants you own and it will automatically create a calendar for each of them, advising you on what to do at specific points of the year – for example telling you where to place it, when to re-pot it and how much to water it. And if you’re not sure what a plant is called then you can snap a picture of it to have SmartPlant identify it. The app also has general information on a wide range of plants, such as the type of soil they like and when they bloom. If you need more, then an optional subscription lets you talk to experts in-app. They can give you advice on general plant care, solving problems or any other plant-related query. Flowkey Free + $19.99/£17.99 monthly subscription Flowkey aims to teach you piano, and it can give you feedback on your playing just by listening through your phone’s microphone – no cables are required. As well as real feedback, Flowkey also offers a large number of video tutorials covering things like ‘Note Value and Rhythm’ and ‘Mastering Key Jumps’, plus a selection of over 1,000 songs that you can learn. These songs cover a range of genres, including classical, pop, jazz and more, and include famous pieces, such as Hallelujah by Leonard Cohen, and Perfect by Ed Sheeran. The selection also includes songs suited for various different skill levels. There’s a lot here, but most of it isn’t free. There are a handful of free songs and tutorials to get you started, but to get much out of Flowkey you’ll have to invest in a monthly subscription. That’s not cheap, coming in at $19.99/£17.99 per month (albeit with big discounts if you commit for six months or a year). That could be a tough sell since you’ll probably still want proper lessons too, but you certainly get a lot of content for your money. Learn Java Pro $3/£3 Learn Java Pro is one of many apps focused on teaching you to code – in this case in Java, but where most take you through bite-sized exercises, this has both a coding area (where you can practice your Java skills) and an extensive library of tutorials taking you through basic and advanced aspects of Java. These tutorials aren’t interactive as such; they’re more like a textbook, which is the part of learning that’s missing from many other coding apps. But there’s a shortcut to the coding area at the top right corner of each tutorial, so you’re never more than a tap away from practicing what you’ve learnt. There’s also a library of practice programs, plus various questions and answers related to all things Java. Learn Java Pro works offline so you can read and practice anywhere, and all of the content is available for the one low price listed above, so while it’s not free it’s still rather generous and a great learning tool. Learn Spanish with Lirica Free + $9.99/£8.99 monthly subscription Learn Spanish with Lirica takes a novel approach to language learning, as it attempts to teach you Spanish through songs. The app lets you listen to a number of Spanish-language songs (many of which are famous) and has you learn the words that are used in them. You can watch the music video with the words appearing underneath, with or without an English translation, and then you can go through a song verse by verse, answering questions about what you’ve heard. There are a few different exercises, such as rearranging lyrics so that they’re in the right order or selecting the word that was used in the song, and as you go you can earn points and achievements. Lirica is more than just a gimmick. Songs are often catchy and memorable, so they make sense as a way to learn a language. There are two downsides to the app though. The first is that it only teaches you Spanish, and the second is that much of the content is hidden behind a fairly pricey subscription. But there’s enough free stuff to be getting started with it and if you like what you hear then a subscription could be worthwhile. Mobile Observatory 3 Pro – Astronomy $5.49/£4.99 Mobile Observatory 3 Pro – Astronomy is a comprehensive astronomy tool, letting you see details of the sky as it appears from your location. You can use it to check names and descriptions of celestial bodies that should be visible at the current time, or you can change to a different time or day. You can also get notifications warning you of celestial events that you should be able to see, and there are all sorts of other tools, such as a 3D view of the solar system, and the ability to see the sky in augmented reality with the details of what you’re looking at overlaid. There are tens of thousands of stars and planets included, along with information on moon phases, eclipses and plenty more besides. Although this isn’t a free app, given how much content there is it still feels very generous given that you get the whole app for one $5.49/£4.99 payment. Shepard Fairey AR – DAMAGED $4.99/£4.59 We’ve not always been entirely convinced by digital versions of real-world exhibits, but Shepard Fairey AR – DAMAGED does it right. The app is a digital version of Shepard Fairey’s DAMAGED exhibit and it’s a great option for anyone who can’t make it to the real show in Los Angeles. The app lets you walk around the exhibit with taps and swipes, or you can set it so that rotating your phone also changes your view in the exhibit. Or go even further and use an augmented reality mode that lets you physically walk around the exhibit, using your phone as a window into it. It’s not just the exhibit, either – you also get over 100 minutes of narration from Fairey explaining the various artworks, which combined show that the world – and especially the US – is in a state of crisis, but that much of the damage can be repaired.  MasterClass From $89.99/£84.99 MasterClass gives you lessons in various skills, from cookery to acting to creative writing and a whole lot more, but how it really stands out is that these lessons are all taught by some of the best in the business. You can learn cookery from Gordon Ramsay for example, filmmaking from Martin Scorsese, tennis from Serena Williams or photography from Annie Leibovitz. Of course, this is an app, not a face to face lesson, so you’re not interacting with these people, but they’ve created video lessons and various other materials – such as workbooks – for MasterClass. This content isn’t free; in fact it’s quite expensive, coming in at $89.99/£84.99 for a single course or $179.99/£169.99 for an ‘all access pass’, letting you access every course for a year. That’s steep, but it could be worth it if you’re serious about learning and want some top-class tuition. You can also explore the app and see video previews of any of the courses before paying. Drops Free + $10/£8.99 monthly subscription Apps have revolutionized language learning, but there’s more than one way to learn from an app, and while some focus on typing and speaking, Drops leans into the strengths of a smartphone by making all interactions swipe- and tap-based. Drops gives you a series of exercises to carry out each time you use it, taking various forms. One asks you to swipe a word to its corresponding picture, another asks you to tap pairs of words and pictures, and one breaks up a word or phrase into several parts and has you tap them in the correct order. There are others too, and Drops has a lot of content covering all sorts of categories from food to plants and even politics in a variety of languages. Impressively, it also feels as slick and polished as Duolingo, without imitating it. Drops gives you five minutes of language learning each day for free, but the app is designed to be bite-sized and the makers claim this is enough to make progress. If you do want more though you can pay for unlimited access at a price of $10/£8.99, with discounts available if you pay for a year upfront. Guitar Lessons by Fender Play $9.99/£8.99 monthly subscription While taking guitar lessons is probably advisable if you want to learn, it’s perfectly possible to teach yourself, and Guitar Lessons by Fender Play is probably one of the strongest tools for that. Starting with the absolute basics, the app lets you choose the style of music you want to focus on and whether you’re playing electric or acoustic guitar, then it takes you through a series of video lessons, teaching you chords, riffs and songs. Many of the videos are short, so you can learn in bite-sized chunks, and information is often also written out for you below the video. You can also jump ahead to later lessons if you’re more advanced or just not interested in certain tutorials, and there are hundreds of different songs and lessons in total, so there’s plenty to sink your teeth into. Guitar Lessons by Fender Play costs US$9.99/£8.99 every month, but that’s still a lot less than you’d spend on a weekly lesson, and you get the first month free. Our favorite Android apps for having fun on your phone or tablet, through watching videos, reading, socializing and more. YouTube Kids Free YouTube is packed full of great content for kids, but there’s also a lot of unsuitable stuff. The solution – assuming you don’t want to completely micromanage their viewing – is YouTube Kids, an app that’s been around for a while and has only got better with time. The app lets you select an age range for your child and will only show them age-appropriate content, though you can further filter what they can and can’t access if you want. YouTube Kids also lets you set up multiple profiles, so if you have more than one kid they can each have their own tailored safe space. You can also set timers to limit how long they can watch for, see the history of what they’ve watched, choose whether to let them search for videos manually (or be limited to channels that have been verified by YouTube Kids), and more.  You have a lot of control, your kids get access to a lot of content, and it’s all wrapped up in a slick, colorful app that’s a joy to use. Trill Project Free Trill Project is an anonymous social network that lets you follow topics of your choice, post related content, reply to other people’s posts, and message them in private. You don’t get a profile picture or custom username, so anonymity is easy to maintain, but while in some apps and services that can lead to abusive behavior, here content is heavily moderated, and there’s a real focus on users being supportive. A lot of the topics on Trill Project deal with potentially heavy subjects like mental health, loneliness and sexuality, but there’s plenty of lighter content too, so whatever you want to say, this could be the place – as long as it’s in the spirit of the app and its community. Image credit: Goodreads / TechRadar Goodreads Free Goodreads is all about finding, logging and reviewing books, and it’s pretty much essential for any avid reader. If you see a book that you think looks interesting, you can search for it on Goodreads and see the average user rating, along with often hundreds of user reviews. Still interested in it? Then you can add it to your ‘want to read’ list, so you won’t lose track of the books you like the look of. Goodreads will also show you other books by that author and other books that readers of the one you’re looking at enjoyed, making it easy to find similar content you might like. There are also lists of books across a range of categories, helping you explore further and dig up books you might never have found otherwise. When you’ve read a book, you can give it a star rating and leave a review if you want, and you can also join groups, and add friends, making Goodreads a bit like a book-focused social network at times. With all that, plus reading challenges, personalized recommendations and a whole lot more, it really is a book-lover’s dream. Unrd Free + various IAP Smartphones have helped unlock new ways to experience stories and one great example of that is Unrd. Falling somewhere between an app and a game, Unrd lets you “live someone else’s life” by overlaying a fake phone interface on your screen, belonging to a character in a story. You can access their messages – including photos, videos and audio – and piece together a story from them. But you don’t get the whole story in one go – new messages arrive in real time over a number of days, making the experience feel more immersive and ‘real’. There are numerous stories here, so you’re not limited to just one, and more are being added over time across a number of genres. It’s worth noting that Unrd is different to something like A Normal Lost Phone, as while they’re conceptually similar, the latter allows for more interaction, having you do things like figure out passwords to access locked off parts of the phone. It’s more of a game then, where Unrd is more of a story. The core app is free but there are various IAP to unlock additional content in stories or get to it faster. It looks like some future stories may be totally locked behind IAP too, but at the time of writing all the available ones seem to be free. Depop Free Depop is a bit like eBay, but with a real focus on second-hand and vintage clothing, which is a refreshing change in a world where fashion is often seen as disposable despite the clothing industry’s massive negative impact on the environment. There’s a large selection of items often at low prices and while clothing is the focus that’s not all you’ll find. There’s also tech, books, jewelry, music, art, films, magazines, sports equipment and a few other categories. As with eBay, you can sell as well as buy, and the app allows you to set up and manage your own store, as well as browsing other people’s. If you’ve got some clothes to clear out or just want to shop a bargain – while doing your bit for the environment – then Depop is a good place to start. VLC for Android Free You’ve probably come across VLC before, but if not you really, really should, because it’s one of the very best video player apps on Android. Even if you have tried it before, it could be worth revisiting, as it’s received several recent updates. This completely free app has almost everything you might want from a video player, including extensive file support (such as MKV, MP4, AVI, MOV, Ogg, FLAC, TS, M2TS, Wv and AAC), support for DVD ISOs, network streams and network shares, the ability to add and display subtitles, adjust the aspect ratio, and alter the look and sound with an equalizer and filters. And those are just the headline features. There’s plenty more to dig into beyond this. We’re not the biggest fans of VLC’s distinctive orange color scheme, but that’s about the only thing we can find to complain about, and it can be partially hidden if you switch to the black theme. Soon Free Soon is an app for keeping track of all the movies and shows you want to watch, the music you want to listen to, the bars and restaurants you want to visit, the books you want to read, and various other things. Simply tap on the relevant category (‘books’ for example) then type the name of the thing you want to remember. Soon will populate the entry with relevant details if it can find any. These might include the address if it’s a place, or the cast and crew if it’s a film, for example. In this way you can build up lists and have them all in one place, so you’ll never lose track of them. If you’re planning a trip you can also create a list of the things you want to do on it, and even collaborate on the list with other people. Each of the list categories also has a second screen where anything that you’ve marked as ‘done’ appears, so it doesn’t clutter up the main list, but so you can still easily check if you have watched, read or visited the thing, in case you can’t remember for sure. You also get a chance to rate the thing when you mark it as done, so you’ll have a record of what you thought of everything too. RAM and Game Booster $0.99/£0.59 Some smartphone makers have put a big focus on gaming modes, such as Huawei with its GPU Turbo feature, but if you don’t have a handset with these sorts of features there are still things that can help, such as RAM and Game Booster. It helps by freeing up RAM, which it can do on-demand or when specific games are launched. You can also set RAM and Game Booster to free up RAM when RAM usage reaches a set percentage, after a set period, or when the app judges that the device requires it. This isn’t the first time we’ve seen an app aimed at freeing up RAM, but the various settings for when it happens are more comprehensive here than on most rival apps. This still won’t turn a low-end phone into a gaming powerhouse, but it could make a small difference to performance. Pocket Free + $4.99/£4.49 monthly subscription Pocket isn’t a new app, but it does have some new features and a new look. For those who don’t already know, Pocket is an app that lets you save articles so that you can read them later. That both means you can read them offline and allows you to keep a list of content you plan to read so you won’t forget about it. And as Pocket works on a variety of devices, including Android and iOS phones and tablets as well as PCs, you can read what you’ve saved anywhere. Thanks to a recent update you can also now listen to saved articles, with Pocket reading them out to you, so you can devour them even when you’re busy doing something else. The company is also planning to add Alexa integration, meaning you’ll be able to listen to articles through any device that has Alexa built in. And the interface now has multiple themes, as well as a general overhaul designed to make reading for long periods more comfortable. It’s good stuff, and it’s mostly free, but subscribing to Pocket Premium for $4.99/£4.49 per month gets rid of adverts, unlocks a powerful search tool, and ensures your saved articles won’t be lost even if they’re taken off the web. Readly $9.99/£7.99 per month In the age of the web, magazines can feel like a dated concept, but Readly does a decent job of bringing them up to date by offering a Netflix-like subscription service. We say Netflix-like, but while most of the content on there is far from brand new, you have access to the latest issues of thousands of magazines on Readly, all in digital form and with unlimited access for $9.99/£7.99 per month. You can read content from not just your own country but various others too and the selection is strong, with plenty of big names on offer, along with more niche magazines. Readly is accessible on phone, tablet and computer, so you can access your magazines almost anywhere with a screen, and even download them for offline reading. You also have access to back issues, and navigation is a breeze, handled by intuitive swipes and taps. Readly even supports crosswords and other puzzle content, so you can do just about everything you could with a paper version. Our favorite Android apps for working out, reducing stress and crafting meals. FibriCheck Starts at €3.99 (around $4.50 / £3.50 / AU$6.50) per month Recent Apple Watches and the Samsung Galaxy Watch Active 2 have an ECG (electrocardiogram) built in, but phones so far are left out. FibriCheck though promises to be just as good, and it works on Android handsets with no special hardware. By placing your finger on your phone’s camera, the FibriCheck app can measure your heart’s rhythm and detect any abnormalities – which could be signs of atrial fibrillation, among other things. The app generates an instant report that you can download and – if you wish – share with your doctor, and optionally you can also get your measurements reviewed in-app by medical experts (though this costs more). After a 1-day free trial, which is worth doing just to get a one-off reading, you’ll have to pay a monthly subscription to keep using Fibricheck. The basic subscription starts at €3.99 (around $4.50 / £3.50 / AU$6.50) per month, while getting a review of each reading by medical experts along with a more detailed report starts at €10.99 (roughly $12 / £10 / AU$18). In both cases that’s if you commit to a year upfront. The prices go up if you pay monthly. It’s not cheap then, but it is a remarkable feature to have access to on your smartphone. And if you’re skeptical of the accuracy it might reassure you to know that FibriCheck has been CE-certified and FDA-approved. Mission Adventure Free + various IAP Mission Adventure aims to turn any walk into a mission, or, er, an adventure. Aimed primarily at young children, it allows a route setter (that’s you) to create a walking route on a map of the area around you. The route will have a number of markers on it, and at each marker part of a story will unfold. For free you get access to a swashbuckling tale, where players will interact with pirates and explore the seas by walking (or sometimes running) from one marker to another, and by answering nautical questions. The story has three chapters, with each walk forming one chapter. There are then two additional stories that can be purchased for $2.99/£2.99 at the time of writing. So there’s not a ton of content, but stories can play out differently based on the decisions you make and whether you get questions right or wrong. The developers also have more story packs in the works. In fact, by the time you read this, some might be available. And while it lasts, Mission Adventure has the potential to be a lot of fun for youngsters, and a useful tool for getting them out of the house – if not away from screens. Wisdo Free Many of us have struggles in our lives, but you don’t need to struggle alone. With Wisdo, you can join one or more groups focused on an issue you might be facing, such as anxiety, depression, or eating disorders. Though there are also groups for things like learning to meditate and becoming an activist, so it’s not all directly tied to health. You can optionally share more details of what you’ve been through on your profile, while within groups you can post messages, and read and reply to other people’s posts, offering support and guidance. You can also have private conversations with people in the app, with the idea being that people who have been through the things you’re struggling with can help guide you, or vice versa. It’s an app that’s clearly connected with a lot of people – so much so that it’s a ‘2019 Google Play Award Winner’ for ‘Social Impact’, so if you think you could use a friendly ear – or offer one – then it’s definitely worth downloading. Bedtime Creatures Free + various IAP Bedtime Creatures is an app that plays relaxing music and nature sounds to help you chill out, sleep, or to drown out background noise. Lots of other apps have a similar goal, but Bedtime Creatures is unusually cute and colorful. Each sound has a related animated scene with a cartoon animal, including a raccoon by a campfire, a panda in a bamboo forest and several others. Each scene has its own music and background audio, and you can unlock additional sounds to add to the mix using gems. You’ll also need gems to unlock additional scenes. These gems can be bought, but you start off with enough for a few scenes or a bunch of additional sounds and simply launching the app sometimes rewards you with gems. You can also customize the appearance of the animals with clothes, which can be bought with a second currency earned over time through simply using the app. Though this currency can also be gained by watching adverts (which are never forced on you) or swapping gems for it. Having two currencies in what’s ultimately quite a simple app seems excessive, but since everything ultimately can be obtained with gems and nothing is vastly expensive at the moment, you can just buy a pack of gems, unlock everything you’re interested in and ignore the rest. FreeMind Meditations Free + $10.99/£9.99 monthly subscription FreeMind Meditations is one of many meditation apps on Google Play, but it aims to stand out through its use of music. The meditations include bespoke ‘MetaMusic’ created by film composers and professional musicians, and beyond being enjoyable to listen to while meditating, this music includes trigger sounds that supposedly evoke specific states of mind and help you engage more deeply and easily with the meditations. We can’t say with any certainty how well this worked for us, but it definitely doesn’t detract from the experience and if you struggle to get into meditations usually, FreeMind might be the solution. That aside, this has most of what you’d expect from a mediation app, including a large library of meditations covering various topics. There are more than 250 in all, but only 14 are free – the rest require a subscription. Breeze Free + £4.79 (around $6.35) monthly subscription Breeze is a relaxation app that packs in so many features, it can easily replace several others on your phone. It offers various guided meditations and relaxation exercises, as well as soothing audio of numerous kinds, including ASMR and nature sounds, all of which can be set to play for a duration of your choice. There are even bedtime stories here, which will probably mostly be of interest to younger listeners, given that the books chosen are things like The Little Prince and Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. You can also have Breeze automatically wake you up to soothing sounds and set it to remind you to take a break during the day. There’s a lot here and much of it is free, but for the full selection of sounds, meditations and stories, and to remove adverts, you’ll have to pay a monthly subscription. This usually costs £4.79 (around $6.35), but the first month is half price. We’d say that if you’re mostly interested in just one particular part of Breeze – say the meditations or soothing sounds, then you can find better or cheaper options elsewhere, but if you like the bulk of what Breeze has to offer then the subscription should be worthwhile. Shine – Self-Care & Meditation Free or $9.99/£9.49 per month / $53.99/£50.99 per year Shine is a self-care app that combines a number of things other apps specialize in. You can start by ‘checking in’ every day, saying something that you’re grateful for and something that you’re doing to make yourself happy. This is a small thing, but by thinking about what’s good in our lives we really can feel better about them. Shine will also send you a motivational text every week day, but the bulk of the app is a selection of articles and audio tracks covering a variety of topics. Some of these are meditations, but there’s also content on everything from improving sleep to avoiding burn out. As with many self-help apps, much of this is hidden behind a paywall, with Shine costing $9.99/£9.49 per month or $53.99/£50.99 per year to unlock everything. That’s not cheap, but there’s quite a lot of content, including seven-day audio challenges that provide a deep dive on a specific topic. QuitNow! Free + $3.95/£3.95 Quitting smoking is always going to be hard, but there are tools to help, including QuitNow!. The app first asks you how many cigarettes you smoke a day, how long ago you had your last one, how long you’ve been smoking, and a few other things. It then shows you a dashboard, complete with the amount of time since your last cigarette, which constantly counts up in seconds. You can also see how many cigarettes you’ve avoided and how much money you’ve saved based on that. A second screen shows how close you are to achieving certain health milestones, such as a lowered risk of sudden death and improved physical condition (all of which is based on World Health Organization data). There are also achievements to unlock, such as one for going without a cigarette for two days, and a community page, where you can post your progress and encourage others. That’s all free, but for a one-off fee of $3.95/£3.95 you can access 55 more achievements, a better community chat screen, custom achievements and more, as well as getting rid of adverts. If you’re serious about quitting and the app is helping, then that’s probably a price worth paying. Cocktail Flow Free + $5/£4.49 per month Most drinks you simply pour, but cocktails you craft, and if you want a little aid and inspiration then Cocktail Flow is a good place to start. The app has a large library of cocktails, complete with ingredient lists, equipment lists and instructions, plus the ability to choose what measurement units you want to use and how many servings you want to make. You can browse cocktails based on the type, base spirit or country of origin and you can favorite the ones you like so they’re easy to return to later. There’s also a small library of tips to help you get better at making them. These include things like how to layer drinks and how to dry shake. Much of the content is free, but for $5/£4.49 per month you can upgrade to premium, which unlocks hundreds of additional recipes with new ones added each week. It also lets you add your own cocktail recipes to the app and save notes, detailing tweaks that you like to make to cocktails. These are genuinely useful features, but we’d be much happier with a one-off payment than a subscription to access them. Still, if you’re a mixologist in the making it should be worthwhile. Endomondo Free + £9.99 (roughly $13) monthly subscription If you run, cycle or even like to track your walks then there’s a good chance you’ve come across Endomondo before. As one of the oldest, biggest and best apps in the business - it stays that way thanks to regular updates; at the time of writing the app was updated less than two weeks ago. Even if you don’t run or cycle you might still want to check out Endomondo, as - despite its GPS-tracking specialities - it can also track more than 60 other sports, such as golf, climbing and ice skating. Alongside route and distance tracking, Endomondo can also track your speed, pace, calories and more. Ff you’re doing a sport that can’t be tracked with GPS then you can manually enter your workout, so you’ve still got a log of your achievements. Additionally, you can link Endomondo to heart rate monitors and cadence sensors to incorporate their data into your records. The app can also be connected to auxiliary fitness accounts such as Google Fit, Garmin Connect and Polar Flow, so all your health and fitness data will be in sync. Endomondo also lets you create goals for individual workouts or for your week, so you have targets to hit - the app will even alert you when you achieve a personal best. Plus, you can create and participate in challenges against friends and other users of the app. And if all that isn’t enough then you can also subscribe to Endomondo Premium, which adds heart rate zone analysis, interval training, personal training plans, access to advanced statistics (such as how far you’ve run in total each month), and more. SnoreLab Free + $6.99/£5.99 IAP Ever wondered how much you really snore or want to get your snoring under control? SnoreLab can help. Simply set the app to run while you sleep and it will record snippets of your snoring throughout the night, telling you how loud you snore and giving you a ‘snore score’. You can also play back the recordings, compare your snoring over multiple nights and log any factors that might be making it worse (such as alcohol) or any remedies you’re trying (such as nasal spray) to see how much difference they really make. Doing this you can both see first hand how bad your snoring really is and more effectively work out what makes it better or worse. The core app is free, but there’s a one-off IAP to access your full history and additional features, such as soothing sounds to help you get to sleep. Simple Habit Free + $9.99/£9.99 monthly subscription  Meditation apps are meant, among other things, to relax and de-stress us, but if you’re anything like us they run the risk of doing the opposite, becoming chores that we feel guilty for neglecting. Simple Habit doesn’t completely solve that problem, but it gets some way there, by offering short 5-minute meditations, that you can easily fit in at any point during your day. Other meditation apps have short sessions too, but there are usually only a few of them, mixed in with longer meditations, while they’re all short in Simple Habit (though we do have to point out some stretch beyond 5 minutes to cater for those that do want a bit more relaxation). Simple Habit also has a variety of different teachers to guide you, so if you don’t get on with one (or just get bored of their voice) there are plenty of others to choose from. The rest of the app is as you’d expect, with meditations designed around specific life circumstances, goals or moods, and a simple interface that doesn’t get in the way. Like Headspace, most of the meditations are locked behind a subscription, but you can listen to a handful for free to see if Simple Habit is for you. Our favorite Android apps for making music, listening to music, finding podcasts and everything else to do with audio. Volume Panel Pro $0.99 / £0.59 Volume Panel Pro is a replacement for your smartphone’s standard volume controls. Hit the volume key on your phone and you’ll see this instead, which in many cases will be an upgrade. It can display volumes for calls, media and alarms all in one go, so you don’t need to dig into menus to change individual settings. You can also choose which side of the phone screen to display the volume controls on and how far from the top, change the colors of both the panel and the sliders, choose which volume gets altered by default, choose how long the volume panel stays visible after you hit a volume key, and more. It’s not a game-changing feature, but it’s a well thought out and customizable improvement on most standard Android volume controls, and it’s easily worth the low asking price. Pocket Casts Free + $1.19 / £0.99 monthly subscription We’ve covered Pocket Casts before, but it’s worth highlighting again because it’s now free. That doesn’t mean you’ll be bombarded with adverts or have your data sold; this Android app is truly free with no strings attached. Those who want more or want to support the developers can subscribe to the new Pocket Casts Plus service (for $1.19 / £0.99 per month or $11.99 / £9.99 per year), which unlocks extras like desktop players, additional themes and the ability to upload and play non-podcast files on Pocket Casts. But for everyone else, it’s the same app that so many have known and loved for years, complete with a slick interface and all sorts of handy tools, such as a volume boost for speech, the ability to change the playback speed and trim silence, Chromecast support, and a whole lot more. The developers promise that the free version won’t be neglected either – this is still their core product and will continue to get updated and have new free features added. So if you’ve not already tried Pocket Casts there’s never been a better time. Image credit: TechRadar / Luminary Media Luminary Free + $7.99/£6.99 per month Luminary is a podcast app that, as well as packing in access to most of the podcasts you know and love, also has its own exclusive content that you won’t find anywhere else. Access to those exclusive shows – over 40 of which are either out or in the works at the time of writing – is the main reason to choose Luminary over other podcast players, but to get that access you will have to subscribe at a cost of $7.99/£6.99 per month (following one free month). These exclusives are ad-free and in many cases come from big names like Lena Dunham and Trevor Noah, but even if you’re not up for paying, Luminary could still be worth considering. Stick to the free content and this is basically like any other podcast app, but it’s a polished one, with an attractive interface and loads of features, including the ability to cast podcasts to speakers, download podcasts for offline listening, get new podcast suggestions based on what you like, change the play speed, activate a sleep timer, and more. The only real downside to Luminary at the moment is that while it offers exclusive content, it also lacks a few big-name shows that you’ll find on other platforms, such as Reply All and The Daily, so if any of your favorites are missing, you’re best off podcasting elsewhere. Image credit: TechRadar / Audm Audm $7.99/£6.49 per month Audm essentially turns articles into podcasts, by having them read aloud. But unlike some apps this isn’t a robot doing the talking, it’s a real person, making it far more engaging to listen to. In fact, it uses “celebrated audiobook narrators”, so it’s professionally done, and there’s a lot of content, with articles from dozens of popular sources such as Wired, The New Yorker, Rolling Stone, The Atlantic, and many more, with new stories added every week. The Audm app lets you browse all the content, or filter based on source or narrator. You can also read the articles, or read along with the narration, having it scroll in time with the spoken words. And you can change the narration speed, and have articles downloaded for offline listening. It’s a good app, good enough to justify a subscription, which Audm charges at $7.99/£6.49 per month after a three-day free trial. Laughable Free Laughable is another podcast app, but it’s not just any other podcast app as it takes a quite different approach to most. It’s mostly focused on comedy, as you’ve probably guessed from the name, but really what it’s focused on is people, as not only can you subscribe to specific podcasts but also the people behind them, ensuring you’ll be alerted whenever they turn up as a host or guest on any podcast. And while most of these people are comedians, Laughable also has politicians, actors, musicians and all sorts of other public figures. Its focus on people also goes beyond highlighting the podcasts that they’re in, as Laughable will also give you links to their websites and social media handles, and – where relevant – links to their tour dates, so you can truly keep up with them. The app’s focus on people over podcasts might mean this doesn’t become your main podcast app, especially if you’re not into comedy, but as a secondary app to sit alongside your main one it comes highly recommended. Pocket Casts $3.99/£3.99 Pocket Casts has long been our podcast player of choice, but it’s a very different beast today to what it once was, thanks to a major update bringing it to version 7. It’s an update that’s mostly for the better in our opinion, but not without its critics. Love it or hate it though, it’s a big enough overhaul to warrant highlighting Pocket Casts again. It also makes the app worth revisiting if you tried it before but didn’t get on with the old version. The changes include a whole new look and a wealth of new features, such as up-next syncing, listening history, the ability to play podcasts without subscribing, improved recommendations, the ability to search for specific episodes, new swipe controls, a draggable player and a whole lot more. If you’re used to the old version of the app then version 7 will take some getting used to, but we reckon most people will come to love it. Poweramp Music Player $3.99/£3.39 Poweramp is an old favorite in the world of music player apps, but a massive overhaul has brought it to version three, complete with a new audio engine which supports hi-res output and additional file formats, including opus, tak, mka, dsd, and dsf/dff. The overhaul also added tempo controls and a reverb effect, updated the UI to make it a whole lot more modern (complete with light and dark themes) and made navigation more intuitive. That’s all building on top of an already brilliant app that has a 10-band graphic equalizer, support for most audio file formats, and all sorts of tools and options, such as gapless playback and crossfade. The app can display lyrics and download missing album artwork, and there are widgets, a tag editor, and numerous additional themes available to download. Few apps match Poweramp for features, and as of V3 it’s one of the best-looking music players on Android too. It’s well worth the price tag if you play much local audio, but it comes with a 15-day free trial, so you can try it out before paying. YouTube Music Free + optional $9.99/£9.99 monthly subscription YouTube Music is a YouTube app that puts the shows and shorts to one side and is all about the music. It’s all here, presented with personalized recommendations and a constantly updated ‘hotlist’ of trending tracks. There are also numerous playlists, and you can create your own. That’s all free, but to get the most out of YouTube Music you need to pay for YouTube Music Premium, which costs US$9.99/£9.99 per month and lets you listen offline, with your screen off, or while using other apps. It also gets rid of the adverts. However, if that sounds appealing you’re probably best off paying for YouTube Premium. This subscription costs slightly more at US$11.99/£11.99 per month, but also gives you access to the main YouTube site and apps ad-free, lets you watch YouTube originals, enables you to play videos in the background, and more besides. TaoMix 2 Free + various IAP TaoMix 2 is an ambient noise app designed to drown out the outside world and help you relax, sleep or focus. There are lots of sounds to choose from, such as birds chirping, rain, waves, wind, a fireplace, a thunderstorm and many more. But you’re not limited to one sound – you can build a soundscape by selecting several at once. Each of these sounds appears as a circle on your screen and there’s another circle which can be made to move around the screen, and which makes each sound more prominent when it overlaps with them, so the soundscapes vary over time based on the movements of this circle. You can save any soundscape you make to easily return to it later and you can set a timer, so the soundscape will automatically turn off after a set period of time. You can even record your own sounds. The core app is free, but to get the most out of TaoMix 2 you’ll want to invest in some of the sound packs to bulk up the available selection. These start at £0.69/US$0.99. Our favorite Android apps for taking notes, writing and editing documents and generally working on the move. Fleksy Free + various IAP Are you bored of using the same old keyboard? If so, then you might want to give Fleksy a try, as it’s stylish and near endlessly customizable through dozens of themes. Of course, it also does the actual job of being a keyboard admirably. In our experience you can type on it quite fast with minimal mistakes, and the autocorrect works well. It also has extras such as GIFs, handwriting support, gesture controls, and even a whole ‘Fleksyapps’ section, which lets you access a number of apps from within the keyboard. Say, for example, you’re mid-conversation with a friend, trying to decide where to go for lunch. Usually if you want to look places up, you’d have to switch to another app, but with Fleksy you can just access Yelp from within the keyboard and keep on typing. You can also access the likes of YouTube and Skyscanner, and we expect other apps will be added over time. For the most part Fleksy is free, but certain themes cost ‘Fleksycoins’, which can be obtained through doing things like watching adverts (which are never forced on you) and earning badges from your use of the app, or purchased with real money. Email TypeApp Free + various IAP With the death of Inbox by Gmail, there’s a good chance you’re looking for a new email app, and the clunkily-named Email TypeApp might fit the bill. It’s absolutely packed full of features, such as a unified inbox for multiple email accounts, Android Wear support, a customizable look, account color-coding, configurable menus, read receipts, the ability to unsend emails, and more. It also has customizable Do Not Disturb days and hours – a feature that’s sadly missing from some alternative apps. Email TypeApp is also mostly free. A few extra features such as send later and VIP notifications are chargeable, but you can unlock everything for $6.99/£5.99 and chances are you’ll be happy with the free content anyway. JotterPad Free + various IAP If you have an Android tablet with a keyboard you might be considering doing some serious writing, and if you’re considering that then you should definitely consider using JotterPad. This isn’t a new app; rather, it’s an old favorite of many that’s regularly updated, ensuring it remains one of the best options for writing on Android. The core of the app is a distraction-free text editor, but dig into the menus and there are all sorts of tools and options. There’s Markdown support for example, a word count, cloud storage, a phrase search, a built-in dictionary, a dark theme, a rhyming dictionary, numerous fonts, and more. Some of this stuff is hidden behind IAP, the main one being ‘Pro’, which costs $14.99/£12.99. That might seem steep, but it’s a one-off payment and if you’re writing an essay or novel on JotterPad then you should easily get your money’s worth. Writer Tools Free + $4.99/£4.99 monthly subscription Writer Tools is a set of tools for anyone who’s setting out to write a novel. The app makes this daunting task a bit more manageable by letting you create characters and locations. These sections store these details so they’re always readily available, and help you flesh them out. For example, the character creator lets you fill out all sorts of optional details such as their greatest fear and best memory. Writer Tools also has a built-in thesaurus, lets you jot down ideas and notes, create timelines, set quarterly writing goals, and more. You can also back-up your work to the cloud, so you’ll never lose it. This is all free, but for a monthly subscription you can get rid of adverts, access all your historic backups, add images to your characters and locations, switch to a night mode, and more. There’s a lot there, which goes some way to justifying the price, but many users will be fine with the free version. OfficeSuite Free + £8.49 (around $11.10) IAP If you’re looking for office software on Android there are really only a handful of options, and OfficeSuite is one of the best, thanks largely to how feature-packed it is. You can create documents, spreadsheets, presentations or PDFs, and you can start from scratch or use one of numerous templates as a jumping off point. You can share documents and message contributors, save work to the cloud, open two documents and work on them both at once in split-screen, cast presentations across multiple devices, and a whole lot more. Most of the features in OfficeSuite are totally free, but if you’re using it a lot it’s probably worth upgrading to OfficeSuite Premium, which, among other things, lets you save files in more formats and unlocks more PDF tools, such as the ability to convert PDFs to Word or Excel format, and create and use digital signatures. Microsoft Word Free + $6.99/£5.99 monthly subscription Microsoft Word probably needs no introduction, but if you do much word processing on your tablet (or even your phone) and haven’t tried the Android app then you really should. You essentially get the full version, allowing you to view, create and edit documents of various styles, including newsletters, brochures and more. You can change the font, text color, margins, add bullet points and most other things possible from the desktop version of Word, via a slick, polished interface that’s pleasingly minimal most of the time. You can also save your documents to OneDrive, so they’re accessible from other devices. Many of the features are free, but you’ll need an Office 365 subscription (which starts at US$6.99/£5.99 per month) to unlock the likes of page and section breaks, columns, different page orientations, and the ability to track and review changes. Otter Voice Notes Free + optional subscription Sometimes you don’t have time to take notes. Recording audio can come in handy, but often means spending time transcribing it later. Not so with Otter Voice Notes. The app will automatically transcribe what’s spoken using AI, and you can teach it to recognize your voice so it can differentiate between speakers. Once the audio is transcribed you can read it and correct any mistakes manually. The audio is also recorded, so you can listen back to the recording as well. The really clever bit though is that Otter will detect keywords automatically, so you can search for a word and the app will find where it appears in any of your recordings. It’s a great feature that makes it easy to find specific information, even if you’ve recorded hours of audio. You can also create groups, allowing you to share recordings with others, and all of your recordings are stored in the cloud so you can access them on any device and they won’t take up space on your phone. The only two problems we’ve found so far is that longer recordings can take a while to be transcribed, and the transcription isn’t always perfect. It’s usually good enough that you can tell what it means though, and you can correct any errors so it’s not a big deal. Chambers Thesaurus $4.99/£2.99 There are a number of thesaurus apps on Google Play and some are free, but if you’re regularly writing – or looking words up – on your Android device, then Chambers Thesaurus is one of the best options, and worth the outlay. It has entries for almost 40,000 words, along with around 400,000 synonyms and antonyms, and they’re browsable alphabetically so you can read through the thesaurus if you want, rather than simply searching for a word. When you do search, you’ll get results as soon as you start typing, and not just for words that fit the spelling, but also similarly spelt words, those that sound similar, and those that are often confused for one another. You can also bookmark entries and cross reference with the Chambers Dictionary or WordWeb apps (if you have them), or look the words up on Wikipedia, Wiktionary or Google, all with a tap from Chambers Thesaurus. Data is stored locally, so you don’t need an internet connection to use the Chambers Thesaurus app itself, and there are all sorts of customization options, letting you change the color scheme, font size and more. Our favorite Android apps for improving productivity, whether through to-do lists, focus timers or other tools. Twobird Free Twobird is a new email app but it goes beyond email by also offering a space for notes, complete with a simple built-in to-do list feature and the ability to easily create tables. You can collaborate on notes too, nest them inside emails, and leave comments for other participants – best of all, those participants don’t even need Twobird. The email bit is still the focus of Twobird though and it does a good job of that too, with a minimalist interface but various tools tucked away if you need them, such as the ability to set a ‘reminder’ to respond to an email, by having it pop back up in your inbox at a time that suits you. So it looks good, works well and has more features than you might expect at first glance. It also supports multiple email addresses, though it’s limited to Gmail, which is its one main issue right now. If you use Gmail though, and like the idea of having your emails and notes all in one place, then Twobird is an app worth getting. Yahoo Mail Free + monthly or yearly subscription You probably don’t use Yahoo for your email, but that doesn’t mean you should ignore the Yahoo Mail app, as it works with other email services and is impressively powerful. Highlights include the ability to see every file you’ve ever received all in a single place, as well as being able to view all the mailing lists you’re subscribed to in one place – and easily unsubscribe from any you don’t want with a single tap. You can also view receipts, or see mail just from people (rather than companies and robots), and there are a number of customization options too, so you can for example change the theme (for each linked email account individually), and customize what swiping left or right over a message will do. This is all free, but for $0.99/£0.89 per month or $9.99/£8.99 per year you can get rid of adverts. Microsoft To Do Free Microsoft To Do has progressed slowly, but it has reached the point now where it’s genuinely one of the best list-making apps on Android. It’s now much prettier than it once was, for a start, with full-color customizable backgrounds and the sort of polished overall appearance you’d expect from an app by a company as big as Microsoft. The list-making part is good too. You can group lists, decide whether completed entries should be hidden or simply struck through, and star important tasks, all of which will then also appear on a separate ‘Important’ list. There’s also a ‘My Day’ section, helping you focus just on the tasks that you want to get done in the next 24 hours. Within each list you can choose to sort by importance, due date, creation date, or alphabetically. You can create collaborative lists or share a copy of a list. And if you’re currently using Wunderlist you can import all of your content from that (as Microsoft owns that too). Expenses: Simple Tracker Free Expenses: Simple Tracker is a simple, speedy way to track expenses. Simply tap the ‘Add Expense’ button to add an expense, including the amount, the currency (though you can separately choose a default currency, so you’ll only have to change this when using another), and the date that the expense occurred – with the current date selected by default. You can also add optional notes and tags, the latter of which you create yourself. You may want to do this to separate your expenses into different categories, such as ‘bills’ and ‘groceries’. You can attach multiple tags to an expense if it fits into more than one category. The main screen of Expenses: Simple Tracker will then give an overview of your expenses. It initially shows your all-time expenses total, with a list of these expenses below, sorted by date. However, you can also choose just to see expenses from the current day, the week or the month. And you can filter by tags. So if you only want to see what you’ve spent on socializing, you can do that – as long as you tagged the expenses in the first place. You can’t connect a bank account to the app, which is both a blessing and a curse. It keeps it simple, but means you have to manually enter every expense. Still, it’s slick and it’s free – so downloading the app won’t be something you have to add to your expenses. Checketry Free + $2.99 (around £2.45) monthly subscription Checketry is a file and download manager that lets you keep tabs on and manage downloads that are happening on your PC, from your phone. It can access downloads from Chrome and Firefox (with the appropriate browser plugins installed), manage torrents and even control your Steam downloads. The free version mostly just lets you view current, queued and finished downloads, but upgrade for a monthly or yearly subscription and you can also pause or cancel downloads and even access some remote desktop tools, such as the ability to shut down your PC from afar. It’s a great tool if you ever leave downloads running on your PC while you’re not at your desk, and is worth a download even if you stick with the free version. Crono Free If you use Chrome on your computer then with the help of Crono you can very easily get all of your smartphone notifications on your desktop, and even reply to messages. Simply install the app on your phone and the Chrome extension on your computer, then scan a QR code, similar to how you log in to WhatsApp Web, and from there – like WhatsApp Web – your messages will pop up in your browser. You won’t be limited to WhatsApp messages, though – emails, SMS messages and other chat apps are all supported, as is replying to the messages. You can view calendar notifications, any timers you have running, and pretty much anything else happening on your phone as well. Crono also lets you reject calls from your browser and ring your phone, which is handy if you’ve misplaced it. And all of the notifications sent through Crono sport end-to-end encryption, so it’s secure too. MyScript Calculator 2 $2.99 / £2.69 At times, MyScript Calculator 2 feels a bit like magic. It lets you write out a calculation by hand, so you’re not reliant on calculator buttons, then its turns it into neat text and solves it for you. In our tests – with our exceedingly messy handwriting – it knew what we were writing every time. It goes way beyond the basics too, with support for brackets, logarithms, constants, roots, trigonometry, and more. It also lets you write calculations over multiple lines, scribble out mistakes (or hit the undo button), and drag and drop elements of the calculation to move them around, updating the answer as you do so.It saves previous calculations so you can always return to them, and lets you share your sums with other apps. The only problem our maths-muddled brain faced was remembering how to write complex sums in the first place, but if you know how to write them, MyScript Calculator 2 is sure to know how to solve them. Newton Mail $49.99/£47.99 per year Newton Mail was for a long time one of the best email apps available, but then for some reason it was discontinued. Thankfully, that decision has now been reversed, and Newton Mail is now back and just as good as ever. It works with most email accounts and is packed full of features, such as read receipts, the ability to schedule and snooze emails, undo sent emails, save attachments to common cloud storage services, get push notifications and a whole lot more. Newton Mail also works across most devices, including phones, tablets, Wear OS, PCs and Macs, and it has got a slick, intuitive interface. It’s one of the most powerful email apps around but it comes at a cost – after a 14-day free trial you’ll have to pay $49.99/£47.99 per year. That’s too steep for us to recommend it to everyone, but if you live in your email then it’s definitely worth the outlay. Our favorite Android apps for customizing your device and improving its security. Vivaldi Browser Beta Free Don’t let the ‘beta’ in the name put you off – this one’s worth getting excited about. Vivaldi Browser Beta is an Android version of the Vivaldi desktop browser, a browser which is enormously customizable and full of thoughtful features. The Android version has things like Speed Dial, giving you quick access to your favorite sites whenever you open a new tab, a built in notepad, and the ability to switch search engines from the search bar itself, just by typing the first letter of their name before your query. Vivaldi Browser Beta also lets you sync your bookmarks, notes, passwords and more across devices (using end-to-end encryption), use private browsing, add searchable descriptions to bookmarks, screenshot entire web pages, switch to a dark mode, and more. If you’re used to Chrome then the layout might take a little getting used to, but this Android app is well worth the effort. Image credit: The Tor Project Tor Browser Free Tor is probably the most secure and privacy-focused web browser available on desktop, and now you can get Tor Browser for Android. The app uses multi-layered encryption, with your web traffic relayed and encrypted three times. It also blocks trackers, prevents surveillance and resists fingerprinting. It is, if anything, probably overkill for most people, but the interface – based on Firefox v60 – is fairly slick, so there aren’t too many downsides to using it. And as well as making your online activity more secure, Tor can also bypass many regional restrictions on websites, so it achieves many of the same things as a VPN. It’s also completely free to use. Image credit: Tom Bayley / TechRadar MIUI-ify Notification Shade Free + $2.49/£1.99 IAP Phones are getting bigger, but hands aren’t, which can sometimes pose a problem when it comes to accessing the notification shade, as this typically sits all the way at the top of the screen. With MIUI-ify Notification Shade you can move it to the bottom, but this is more than just a simple switch of positions. The app also lets you customize the colors and overall look, the size and position of the area you have to swipe over to bring it up, and to pick exactly what shortcuts appear on the shade, among other things. It works well too, and looks good doing it; the name might be clunky, but in practice MIUI-ify Notification Shade is anything but. The core app is free but many of the customization options require a one-off $2.49/£1.99 IAP, which should be worth it if you plan to use this app. Betta Fish Live Wallpaper Free + $0.99/£0.69 IAP While live wallpapers can be a little harsher on battery than their static siblings, there’s no denying that they often look great, and Betta Fish Live Wallpaper is one of the best examples. It allows a betta fish (aka a Siamese fighting fish) to swim around your home screen, with beautiful animations and lots of detail. It’s even slightly interactive, as you can block the fish’s path with a tap or swipe on the screen. That much you get for free, but for a $0.99/£0.69 IAP you unlock the ability to change the colors of both the fish and the background, change the fish’s movement path, turn the bubbles off, and more. We’d say it’s cheap enough that it’s worth the outlay if you like what you see, but either way you can turn your phone into an eye-catching digital fish tank. Abstruct – Wallpapers in 4K Free + $1.99/£1.99 IAP Abstruct is the official wallpaper app of the man behind the wallpapers used by OnePlus phones, and it includes both those wallpapers and many others created by him. At the time of writing there are over 300 in all and they’re all available in 4K resolution. They’re also absolutely gorgeous. As the name suggests, they’re mostly abstract, but they’re split into galleries that are each distinct from one another. There’s one that shows real-world landscapes made to look alien for example, and another where all the designs are made up of polygons. Many of these galleries are free but to access everything requires a one-off payment of $1.99/£1.99. Paying for wallpapers might seem odd when the internet is packed full of them, but these are good enough that if you like their style it’s worth the outlay – this is one of very few wallpaper apps that we’ve spent money on. App Tiles Free If there are any apps that you pretty much live inside then App Tiles could be for you, as it makes accessing them even quicker and easier. It does this by letting you add a shortcut to them on your notifications screen, just like you probably have shortcuts to various settings up there now. App Tiles lets you assign up to six such shortcuts for any apps on your phone, so rather than returning to the home screen to launch one of them you can do so with a swipe and a tap. This won’t always be faster, especially if you’re already on the relevant home screen, but it gives you one more way to get into them and is sure to save time on some occasions. We wouldn’t say this is essential for everyone, but it works perfectly in our tests and it’s totally free, so it’s well worth checking out if the idea appeals. Resplash Free Resplash is a wallpaper app that uses content from Unsplash – a site full of stock photography that you can use for free, for anything. As it’s using content from such a well-established site, Resplash has a massive library, with over 100,000 images, but it’s still easy to find specific styles of photo by searching or browsing by category. As well as downloading images or setting them straight to your wallpaper, you can also favorite them, so you’ll always be able to find them again, even from a different device. Resplash offers a surprising amount of personalization too, letting you change the theme and the way images are displayed (as a list or a grid, for example). You can also choose the quality of images when you download them or set them as a wallpaper, with options ranging from ‘thumb’ to ‘raw’. Best of all, it’s completely free, though if you do feel like supporting the makers of the app there is an option to donate. SAFE Free SAFE is an app that’s designed to, well, help you ensure your phone is safe. It guards against intrusion - whether it’s from hackers, viruses or nosy eyes. It does this by giving your device four scores. One for its configuration, one for connectivity, one for apps and one for the operating system. Each of these scores is out of five, with higher being better and suggesting a greater level of security. But you get more than just a number. You also get a breakdown of everything that affected the score, with positives in green and negatives in red. If you tap on any of these you can get additional information, complete with help in solving the problem if it’s a red thing. Bear in mind that you might disagree with SAFE as to what is and isn’t a problem. For example, it will flag having Bluetooth or NFC on as security issues, which technically they are, but they’re also useful (and essential in some circumstances). You probably won’t want to fix everything, but SAFE could end up highlighting some issues you didn’t know about and making your device safer in the process. Widget Drawer $0.99/£0.89 Widgets are a potentially great feature of Android phones, but they can take up a lot of space and leave your home screens feeling cluttered. So, what if you could hide them, but in a place where they’re never more than a swipe away? That’s the concept of Widget Drawer. The app places a ‘handle’ on your screen, which is basically just a narrow colored line running part way down one edge, and if you swipe it you can see a screen full of widgets. You can choose which widgets to put on that screen, resize them and move them around. The handle itself is accessible just about everywhere other than your lock screen, so you can even access your widgets when inside other apps. You can customize the size and color of the handle, and when in the Widget Drawer you can return to the screen underneath either by hitting the cross at the bottom or just tapping any empty space. It’s the sort of useful app that you might end up wondering how you ever lived without. Or at least it will be with a bit more polish. At the moment resizing widgets feels a bit more clunky than it needs to be and we can’t find a way to remove widgets from the drawer without reinstalling the app. There might be one, but it’s either not obvious or not working for us. However, that’s not such a surprise, as Widget Drawer is still in early access, so we’d expect it will improve over time. Blur Free + $39.99 (around £24) per year Blur is essentially a one stop app for privacy and security online. As you might expect then, it has a number of different features, but the most interesting is perhaps Masked Cards, which lets you shop online without ever entering or exposing your real credit card information. This works through the creation of disposable virtual credit cards through Blur, so essentially you give retailers a temporary card number that will only work for that one transaction. You can mask your phone number and email in similar ways. Blur also includes a password manager, so you can create and store passwords in the app and have them auto-filled when you go to a login page for other apps or sites. Masked emails are free, but most of the other features require a subscription, costing $39.99 (around £24) per year, with discounts available if you commit for two or three years. Note also that the card masking element only works in the US, but Blur is working on making it more widely available. Google Family Link Free Google Family Link is an app aimed at helping you keep an eye on your child’s smartphone or tablet use. The service, which actually requires two apps – one (Google Family Link for Parents) installed on your device, and the other (Google Family Link for Children and Teenagers) installed on your child’s – gives you all sorts of tools. For one thing, you can choose which apps your child can access and install, either blocking specific ones or just preventing them from installing anything that you haven’t authorized. You can also see what apps they’re using at any given time, set screen time limits and lock the device when you don’t want them using it. There’s also a feature that’s more about safety than monitoring, as you can also use Family Link to locate your child’s device at any time, so as long as they’re with it you’ll also have located them. There are other apps and services with a similar set of tools but few if any that are free while also being as feature-packed and polished as this. Malwarebytes Security Free + $1.49/£1.19 monthly subscription While there are various security features already built into Android, you can’t be too careful, so it’s well worth considering adding Malwarebytes Security to your app arsenal. Malwarebytes can scan your device for viruses, adware and malware, but it also offers proactive protection, with real-time ransomware shields, protection from phishing URLs when using Chrome, alerts when there’s a malicious link in a text message, and the ability to block unwanted calls. Malwarebytes can also conduct a privacy audit on your phone, showing you at a glance what privileges your apps have. Most of these features are only available in the premium version, which costs $1.49/£1.19 per month or $11.99/£10.99 for a year, but you get a 30-day free trial and if you don’t want to pay you can still scan and clean your phone with the free version. Our favorite Android apps for planning a holiday, checking the weather and getting around without getting lost. Image credit: TechRadar Appy Weather Free + $3.99/£3.99 yearly subscription It’s not easy to get excited about weather apps, and we can’t claim that Appy Weather changes that, but most of us probably do use one or more of them regularly, and Appy Weather is well worth consideration. Once a Windows Phone app, it’s finally made its way to Android, where it stands out through an attractive, minimalist and easy to navigate interface that has a look unlike most other weather apps. Whether you like the style will be subjective, but feature-wise it has got everything most users need, including forecasts for the current day and the next seven days, complete with the temperature, what it ‘feels like’, precipitation, cloud cover, visibility and a whole lot of other details. Information is largely presented on easy to read graphs and with large, clear text, and the forecasts come from Dark Sky, which is generally accurate in our experience. A sticking point might be the cost – the free version only lets you search for a forecast 5 times per day. To remove that limit, get rid of adverts, and unlock widgets, you’ll need to subscribe for $3.99/£3.99 per year. Subscribing to a weather app might seem unappealing, but most users probably won’t need to. After all, how many times a day do you really check the weather? Plus, the app’s author does a good job of justifying the price, as not only is it a great app, they explain that the service used to retrieve the weather isn’t free, so for the app to be sustainable a subscription model is currently necessary. Culture Trip Free Whether you’re heading abroad or just want to get more out of the city you live in, Culture Trip could help. Search for a place or just use your current location and the app will serve up a selection of articles, covering things to see and do, and tips and tricks relevant to the location. Some of these articles also include videos, and Culture Trip doesn’t stick just with the obvious stuff (for example, a search for New York turned up articles such as The Enchanting Witches of New York City), but there’s plenty of more conventional content too, like lists of the top 20 sights you need to see. You can bookmark things you’re interested in and download content so you can access it offline – ideal if you’re going to be roaming abroad. There are also links to book hotels and the like straight from the app, and with images everywhere and a nice layout, it’s a pleasure to use and get inspired by. Atmosphere Weather Free + $3.99/£3.69 annual subscription Atmosphere Weather aims to stand out from the weather-watching crowd by presenting the forecast like a 24-hour clock. Each hour of weather is presented by a segment on the clock face, giving you a clear way to instantly see the hour-by-hour weather for the next day at a glance. As well as seeing written temperatures on each hour, there’s also color-coding to represent the different temperatures and how clear the sky is. You can even get calendar events displayed on the weather clock, and away from that screen there’s also a radar view, complete with wind speeds and directions. The clock is the main feature though and it’s a genuinely useful and different twist on weather forecasts. The only downside is that after a two-week free trial you have to either put up with ads or pay a subscription, which will cost you $3.99/£3.69 per year. We'd have preferred to see a one-off payment option, but if you use the app regularly it should be worth the outlay. Fog of World $4.99/£4.49 Fog of World is a new, fun take on mapping apps, as it’s inspired by the ‘fog of war’ that you get in some video games (that being fog that obscures areas of a map that you’ve not been to yet) but applies it to the real world. The app gives you a detailed world map, but applies fog to it. Unlike most games the fog doesn’t actually hide the map, it just dulls it a bit. When you’ve been somewhere the fog is removed, so over time you can see all the places you’ve been on a single world map, based on which bits don’t have fog. To make it more interesting you can level up as you make progress and unlock various achievements, such as for visiting a certain number of countries or crossing the equator. You can also sync your data so it’s available on other devices. Fog of World isn’t going to replace Google Maps for your navigation needs, but it’s a fun, visual way to see where you’ve been, covering everything from a trip to the local store to your various holidays. CARROT Weather Free + optional $3.99/£3.39 yearly subscription After a long stint on iOS, CARROT Weather has finally come to Android, and if you like a dose of snark with your forecast it’s worth getting excited about. Because as well as providing accurate forecasts powered by Dark Sky, CARROT Weather is home to an ‘AI’ that insults you and revels in your weather-related misery. This takes the form of more than 6,000 lines of dialogue, each of which can optionally be spoken aloud by its synthetic voice. With cute illustrations as well and even a game that sees you following clues to hunt down secret locations, CARROT Weather has more personality than any rival app. It’s also good for the important matter of telling you the forecast, as you can see hourly and daily forecasts, complete with humidity, UV Index, wind speed and more. The core app is free, but for US$3.99/£3.39 per year (or US$0.99/£0.89 per month) you can unlock a customizable widget, animated satellite maps, and get rid of adverts. Moovit Free Moovit isn’t new, but if you ever use public transport it’s well worth knowing about. Simply type a destination and Moovit will give you a selection of ways to get there, using all the public transport routes available. Tap on a route to get full directions or even a map with live navigation (complete with alerts telling you when to get off the transport you’re on), or further filter your results to minimize walking, use the least number of transfers or cut out certain transport types entirely. There are also handy features like the ability to save regular destinations and favorite the bus and train lines you use a lot, so you can quickly see their timetables. Transport timings are real-time where available, so you’ll know if the train or bus is running late, and you can download various maps for offline use. You can also use Moovit all over the world, with transport details for new cities regularly added. All in all, it’s one of the slickest, most feature-packed public transport navigation apps you can get. Zomato Free Ever need some inspiration for where to eat? If so, Zomato has you covered. The app can show you nearby restaurants in a list or on a map, and you can filter results in numerous ways. Only want to see Chinese restaurants? No problem. Need somewhere that accepts bookings? You can do that. After outdoor seating? That’s fine too. And those are just a few examples of the many filters on offer. There are also ‘collections’, which highlight restaurants that fit a specific theme, such as ‘great breakfasts’ or ‘celebrity chefs’, and when you’ve found somewhere of interest you can get loads more information by tapping on it. You can see the opening times, pictures, reviews and ratings from other users of Zomato, menus, average costs, recommended dishes, contact details and a list of pros and cons. From here you can also add your own review, rating or photos, call the restaurant or bookmark it so you don’t forget about it. There’s also a social side to Zomato; you can follow other users, allowing you to see when they review a restaurant or say that they’ve visited it. Zomato has a lot to offer, and it could help you get out of your culinary comfort zone. Climendo $3.99/£3.49  The problem with weather apps is that, for the most part, they only use one source for their data, but Climendo uses lots, and then works out what the most likely weather at any given time is. The complete selection of weather providers that it uses includes AccuWeather, Weather Underground, NOAA, Met Office, Foreca, Dark Sky, SMHI, YR and World Weather Online – though only the most accurate ones for your location will be used. You can see hourly or ten day forecasts, complete with the likelihood of each being accurate, or you can dig down to the individual forecasts from each weather provider, to see how they vary. Climendo lacks some of the more detailed information found in other apps – such as humidity and UV index -  but if you just want accurate information on whether or not you need an umbrella then this app is up there with the best. This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now

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